God bless and keep Eddie Cobb, bon viveur, Hearts adherent, pillar of every community to which he belonged, and the best of companions.
God bless and keep Brian Baxter, my son-in-law’s dad, quiet man, loved his family, and the epitome of self-effacing niceness.
God bless and keep Joaquim Alay, the central figure of St Marti d’Empuries, without whom the village will be a little less beautiful. Gone fishing.
Wow indeed. I never saw it coming either, Martin, when it happened to me. It’s fixable, though.
Yes, go on George, thank me. I will say nothing about Tenerife, other than that it’s a box I’ve ticked a couple of times in the past, but I won’t be going for the hat-trick.
Short answer, John. Fatal Last Words is already available in ebook format. CampbellReadbooks.com doesn’t stock that format (yet) but if you dig into the Waterstones website you’ll find it.
Your presumption is correct. You may be assured that Oz is not going to regenerate like a Time Lord. However, he does have a nephew called Jonny, who’s a grown man now, and who looks remarkably like his uncle. Best wishes to you too, Martyn. (We had our first Christmas card a couple of days ago. Here’s a business idea for Royal Mail: discounts for cards posted in November.)
It really does, honest. It’s a wee cliff-hanger. Is Wilding serious, or is he winding Sammy up? Who knows? (I don’t.)
I don’t have a great track record as a compiler of air-miles, but over the last couple of years I’ve been building up a balance. Yesterday I decided to spend some, so I logged into British Airways Executive Club. I wasn’t after much, just a couple of one-ways from Edinburgh to Barcelona, and I had the miles to cover it, so no problem. When I hit the select button I found that my ‘reward flights’ were going to cost me £143, for that’s the catch, folks, air-miles only cover the fare itself, not the various add-ons.
So what did I do? I logged on to Ryanair and booked from Edinburgh to Girona, which is around an hour closer to our ultimate destination. Saved myself £30.
Now I’m left wondering whether British Airways management actually understand the meaning of the phrase ‘customer loyalty. Is it any wonder that while Ryanair, unlikable as it may be in many ways, continues to expand, the major flag-carriers are swirling inexorably down the pan. (If you imagine that the BA take-over of Iberia . . . that’s what it is, not a merger, but the Spanish government wouldn’t want it described thus . . . will make any long-term difference, forget it.)
Not a lot as it happens, other than turn up the volume, and catch up with DVDs I might not watch if she was home. Her overnight trip to South Shields yesterday gave me a chance to view Perfect Square, a live REM concert recorded in Germany in 2003.
On the old-fashioned website I did an occasional review section, until I became handicapped by my reluctance to slag anything off. It’s my belief that anyone who sits down to do anything creative is giving of their absolute best. Only the individuals know if that’s true, but I’m usually prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. I told an audience in Toronto that I don’t read reviews of my own work. That’s true, because the good ones are bad for my ego, and the others are bad for my blood pressure, but it’s also the case that I have a problem with the whole industry. Every review you read in a newspaper, or worse on Amazon where any idiot can post his prejudices, is no more than that reader’s opinion of the work, and trust me, his or hers is irrelevant, set aside your own.
On that same Toronto platform I found myself discussing a quote by Saul Bellow which contained the phrase ‘an undeniably good book’. The theme puzzled all five of my fellow panelists as much as it did me, but what I found more remarkable was the notion that a Nobel prizewinner could write or say something so fundamentally stupid. Quality or its absence is entirely subjective; a book, a piece of music, a work of art, each one is what you make of it, personally.
All of that brings me back to REM and Perfect Square. In my eyes and to my ears it’s the best piece of recorded work that one of my favourite bands has ever done, and much as I missed my lovely wife last night I’d like to thank her and her friend Bet for giving me the opportunity to enjoy it on my big screen telly with my big sound system, as it’s meant to be played. She’s back now; I think I’ll go and play it again, to see if I can convert her.
I’m glad you’re getting into Primavera, even if you’re upset that she felt sorry for wee Frank, and extended him a little comfort in the night. Go on, cut her some slack; the truth is that she’s a one-man woman and she’ll never really get over Oz, so it’s tough for her. You’ll find her altogether more chaste in Blood Red. By the way, ‘boak’ is not a word that’s used in polite society, and I’ve never seen it in a text-book, but that’s how I was taught up to spell it. (And it’s just been passed as OK by my current soft-ware.)
News from the book sales front. After a promising beginning, www.campbellreadbooks.com, the only official source of signed Quintin Jardine novels, is expanding. Within the next few days, all of the Skinner titles will be listed on the site, signed by me, postage free in the UK, and subsided for overseas customers.
Look out too for Blood Red, the second Primavera Blackstone mystery. It’s scheduled for publication in hard-back and trade paperback on January 7, but it can be pre-ordered through CRB.
You can find the site by going back to the QJ homepage, or by clicking the link on the right.
