Quintin Jardine's blog

My first library event of the year last night, in the new Loch Leven community library, Kinross. My thanks to Alastair for his excellent organisation, to Kelman, for his invitation to the rugby club which regrettably I couldn’t accept as I was on a curfew, to Ailsa Smith, for her kind message afterwards, to Mr and Mrs Garden, (Gullane’s great loss is Kinross’s gain) and to everyone else who came out on a dodgy evening to give me such an enjoyable time. Hope yours was too.

A fifteen year old Amish boy and his father were in a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and then slide back together again. The boy asked, ‘What is this, Father?’ The father (never having seen an elevator) responded, ‘Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don’t know what it is.’ While the boy and his father were watching with amazement, a fat old lady in a wheel chair moved up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened, and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched the small numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until it reached the last number… and then the numbers began to light in the reverse order. Finally the walls opened up again and a gorgeous 24-year-old blond stepped out. The father, not taking his eyes off the young woman, said quietly to his son….. ‘Go get your Mother’

A 21-year-old Glasgow girl tells her Mammy that she has missed her period for 2 months. Very worried, the mother goes to SemiChem and buys a pregnancy kit. The test result shows that the girl is pregnant.

Shouting and crying, the mother says, “Who was the effin’ pig that did this to you?  I want tae know!”  Without answering, the girl picks up the phone and makes a call.  Half an hour later, a Bentley stops in front of their house.  A mature and distinguished man with gray hair and wearing a Crombie coat and a Rolex steps out and comes inside.

He sits in the living room with the father, mother, and the girl and tells them, “Your daughter has informed me of the problem. I can’t marry her because of my personal family situation but I’ll take charge. I will pay all costs and provide for your daughter for the rest of her life.

“Additionally, if a girl is born, I will bequeath two retail furniture stores, a deli, a condo in Miami, and a $1,000,000 bank account.”

“If a boy is born, my legacy will be a chain of jewelry stores and a $25,000,000 bank account.”

“However, if there is a miscarriage, I’m not sure what to do.  What do you suggest?”

All silent at this point, the mother, places a hand firmly on the man’s shoulder and tells him, “Yis’ll try again.”

Okay, it’s published. Dangerous Pursuits, the expanded, reworked, improved, darker version of Blackstone’s Pursuits is now available on the Amazon US Kindle store. In theory, that is, because Amazon seems to have managed to screw up international access to its Kindle outputs. I understand why this should be, since publishers’ territorial rights may differ from book to book, but there are anomalies. For example, I’m still trying to determine whether or not all my other titles are available in Kindle form in the US. Amazon say they are, but a couple of people have told me recently that’s no longer the case. Additional guidance from the US would be welcome. And from the rest of the world, for that matter; for example, where do Australians and New Zealanders Kindle-shop, in the UK or US store?

My first gig of the year this evening. We’re off to Kinross Library, to entertain however many people brave what the forecasters say is likely to be a lousy night. Thanks in advance to those who do, and my understanding to those who don’t. (Please note also: it’s a Champions’ League night and Man U are playing.)

With another couple of million viewers, I made it all the way to the end of Outcasts on BBC1 last night. It kept me watching so it couldn’t have been that bad, but I can’t recall a drama production that was so riddled with anomalies and unanswered questions. We don’t know who was in the space-ship that was coming in to land as the series ended. (Captain Jack Harkness?)We still don’t know whether Stella and Lily forged a renewed mother-daughter bond. We still don’t know how mankind managed to achieve  capability of interstellar flight and full-scale genetically engineered human cloning all within a period of twenty years from now, as the rule of law fell apart all around it. We still don’t know where the ACs shopped for clothes, or whether any of them other than Rudi the leader could actually speak. We still don’t know what the **** the evil Julius was constantly smiling about.

And yet . . . call me perverse, but I still find myself hoping that there will be a second series, if only to annoy the dick-head, smart-arse TV columnist in this morning’s on-line Guardian who managed to  post a trite, sarcastic review of the final episode five minutes before it ended. By the way, if any of the idiots who have so far commented on his blog switch their attention to mine, I will send Jack and his XPs to hunt them down and kill them.

No, Dangerous Pursuits won’t/can’t be available anywhere other than the Amazon US Kindle Store, and maybe on other American ebook outlets, until Headline get around to publishing it. As I said, it’s a reworking . . . call it ‘director’s cut’ . . . of Blackstone’s Pursuits, which is still in print. I could argue that it’s now a completely different work, but I don’t plan to do so. Thanks for the tip about Kobo readers in Oz. I’m glad to hear that.

Further to the Amazon problem, I’m trying something just to test it out. I’m in the process of publishing privately a book called Dangerous Pursuits. It’s an expanded and reworked version of the first Oz mystery Blackstone’s Pursuits, and in its new form it’s an even more satisfying read, IMHO. Thing is, I hold US rights to my titles, so I can do this without infringing any existing contracts. In the listing I’ve put up I’ve specified US market only, so in theory it should be accessible to American readers, but not in the UK Kindle store. Look for it to be up in the next 24 hours.

Meantime, I’d be grateful for any further feedback my friends can give me on the issue. If it’s a problem for me, it could be a problem for others.

I’ve been advised by two American readers that they’re having difficulty accessing Amazon Kindle versions of my work. I’m being told that when they try to make a purchase they’re being re-routed to the Kindle UK store, and that Amazon.co.uk will not accept American registered credit cards. If that’s the case, and my own investigations make it seem likely, that’s a major annoyance to me as well as to potential readers. My own records indicate that the titles I’ve published privately on the Kindle platform are still selling, but I’ve asked my publisher to investigate the rest. When I know more I’ll post what I’m told.

A few days ago, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard anything of Kate Bush for a while. So I bought a CD called Aerial and now I know why.

Things you never imagined. Over the last three years, police forces in the UK have paid out £770,000 to people bitten by their dogs. There’s never been a dog in a Skinner book, but if there is, he’ll be well behaved, I promise.

Excellent lunch yesterday with a group of chums in Edinburgh. Only one of us was under sixty, but I thought he stayed the course pretty well, all things considered.

Shocking news this morning from Japan, the land of my daughter-in-law’s birth; an offshore earthquake so big it’s having repercussions throughout the region. Christchurch and now this; is the planet trying to tell us something?

Nice evening with the ever youthful Jack and Brenda to see them off on their latest adventure; a trip to meet up with their globe-trotting daughter in Cambodia. God speed.

How about that? Mario Balotelli, of Man City, the man who, according to Jose Mourinho, is still trying to find his second brain cell, is allergic to grass. Fifty grand a week or whatever and he’s allergic to grass.

This is a quote from Massimo Busacca, the referee in the Arsenal game on Tuesday.

“I have my limits and God is at my side.”

In which case, mate, you should have a word with him about the difference between genuine commitment and time-wasting, and about fairness in general. And by the way, since clearly God didn’t tell you that when Messi was tripped in the first half it was a stone-wall penalty, you should consider leaving him in the dressing room next time.

An elderly man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favourite scones wafting up the stairs.

He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed.  Leaning on the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs.

With laboured breath, he leaned against the door-frame, gazing into the kitchen.  Were it not for death’s agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, spread out upon the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favourite scones.

Was it heaven?  Or was it one final act of love from his devoted Scottish wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in rumpled posture. His aged and withered hand trembled towards a scone at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked by his wife with a wooden spoon…….

‘Fuck off’ she said, ‘they’re for the funeral.’

Oz didn’t die in any book, Linda. His death was reported somewhere between For the Death of Me and Inhuman Remains, and announced in the latter.

Staying on football, or rather on the Old Firm, for there is a difference, a so-called summit was held yesterday to discuss issues arising from recent confrontations (for that’s what they are) between Glasgow’s top two clubs. The media are outraged, and the public are told to be, by the fact that there were 34 arrests inside the ground at the last game, and by reports that domestic violence increases in the aftermath of these events. I’m sorry; I thought the press were meant to report news, and anyone who doesn’t know about the link between wife-bashing an an Old Firm outcome has been walking around with his head up his arse, because that’s been happening for longer than I’ve been alive. As for the arrest total, just one is regrettable, but go back thirty years, to the time when the cops wore overcoats on the very hottest of days, knowing the fondness of the jollier punters for pissing in beer cans and emptying them down their backs as they walked past,  and you’ll find that 34 would probably have been regarded by the police as a quiet day at the office.

My newspaper this morning is filled with threats of draconian action against players and officials who misbehave, with on-field arrests of players not being ruled out. But nowhere do I see any sanctions proposed against the Scottish football authorities, who have managed to arrange circumstances in which the two sides will have faced each other seven times before this season is over. If the violence engendered by Old Firm matches is a matter of public concern, and it seems that it is, then the number of these clashes should be minimised, not least for the sake of battered spouses in wilder Glasgow, rather than made commonplace for the basest of reasons: money.