richard pierce

Framheim, 1912

2012-01-27T00:10:00.001Z

It is here we kept the whales at bay,
Here we built a home not a hut,
Hung and painted and decorated it
With memory and a little hope.

Around it we dug a warren
Into the moving ice, a maze of
Practicalities to guard our spirits,
To appease the gods of lethargy.

We grew up with the cold in our
Icy cities, in the mountains, each
Year more winter than summer,
Lives lived with the seasons.

Here we were happy, mostly,
In our home from home, our
Norwegian haven, the scent of
Coffee and baking always in the air.

This was our light in the storms
Of darkness, a sanctuary never to
be invaded by melancholy or grief,
Somewhere to return to at the very end.

We left it twice; once to conquer, and
Then never to see it again. It is
In our nature to be practical and
Sentimental in the same breath.

The sea took it and we never grieved.

Richard Pierce
From K175 - Antarctic Fragments

Dead Men, my debut novel about Scott and Amundsen is published by Duckworth on 19th March 2012. I will be giving a lecture on the book at the Natural History Museum on 15th March 2012 at 14:30, followed by a book signing.

For more information, check out www.tettig.com

Scott At The Pole, 17th January 1912

2012-01-17T02:48:00.002Z

We plant our flag into the frozen
Tip of the planet, a failed gesture
Because someone else was here first.

We try to seem hopeful not weary,
Successful not beaten, but the pictures
Won’t lie. We are broken.

I never dreamed of anything like this,
Cannot stop the tears in secret,
Beneath our poor slighted banner.

We left it too late, too late leaving,
Too late arriving, and too late for
Turning home. All is emptiness.

We are so mortal, so pervious
To the final cold, loss frozen
Forever into our barren faces.

Richard Pierce

A shorty award interview

2012-01-14T19:22:00.000Z

Several of my fb and twitter friends were kind enough last week to nominate me for a shorty award in the author category. Naturally, I entered into the full spirit of the thing, and filled in an interview form. It says quite a lot about me, so I thought I might as well post it here.

What's your best tweet?

That's an impossible question to answer. I hope it wouldn't be something trite.

What are six things you could never do without?
Family, writing, reading, music, sex, cigarettes.

How do you use Twitter in your professional life?
I tweet about subject matter related to my soon-to-be-released book. I also tweet very occasionally about my charitable work.

What's your favorite Twitter app?
Any one I manage to use. Showing my twitter feed on my web site and blog is the most recent one I've used.

Twitter or Facebook?
Twitter gives me a broader constituency than facebook and is quicker to update.

What was the funniest trend you've seen?
No idea. Many trends aren't actually that memorable.

What feature should Twitter add?
Can't think of any, because the retweet button is the same as a like button. Ah, an easier way to follow conversations between people.

Who do you wish had a Twitter feed but doesn't?
People still living - I can't imagine. Dead people - Audrey Hepburn and my father.

What are some words or phrases you refuse to shorten for brevity?
None. Although I do shorten words occassionally, I try to construct my tweets in such a way that I can say what I want in complete words. R

Is there someone you want to follow you who doesn't already? If so, who?
I'm not really into celebrity or reflected glory, so not really. @johnprescott would be nice, because I admire him.

Have you ever unfollowed someone? Who and why?
I've unfollowed inactive accounts, the names of which I can't remember. If some1 says something I disagree with, I won't unfollow, but argue.

Why should we vote for you?
Because you want to, not because you think you have to. It would be nice to win an award, but it's better to be respected.

Terms you wish would start trending on Twitter right now?
Global taxation, global currency, global peace, global respect. And, selfishly, #deadmenDW

What's the most interesting connection you've made through Twitter?
They're all interesting, because twitter is so multi-faceted. As a writer, connecting with readers is the most stimulating aspect.

Hashtag you created that you wish everyone used?
I didn't create it, but my publisher did - #deadmenDW

How do you make your tweets unique?
I'm not sure my tweets are unique, but I never tweet anything I might regret, & I always respond to direct tweets & always will.

What inspires you to tweet?
Never the need to vent, but always the desire to share and communicate.

Ever get called out for tweeting too much?
Once on fb when doing my radio show, tweeting every track I played, which cluttered some folks' fb feeds. Sorry, that's the way I broadcast.

140 characters of advice for a new user?
Lurk, pick those you follow with care. Choose interesting people to follow rather than celebrities. Tweet about thoughts not bowel movements.

How long can you go without a tweet?
As long as I have to.

What question are we not asking here that we should?
I haven't come across what's your favourite colour or what's your favourite music yet.

How do you imagine Twitter changing?
Greater capacity and less crashes. Connecting even more people. Becoming an everyday tool rather than a toy for geeks and youngsters.

Who do you admire most for his or her use of Twitter?
@onlygeek A local activist bringing local issues to national and international attention, a supporter of civil rights & libraries.

Who is the funniest person on Twitter that you follow?
@mock_ing_bird. She has a wicked sense of humour, and is not afraid to make fun of herself. R

What is one of the biggest misconceptions of Twitter?
That it's a waste of time.

Why should people follow you?
Because they want to. Because I don't tweet so much as to get irritating. Because I can occasionally produce a well-turned phrase.

Can you name some one-of-a-kind Twitter accounts that you follow?
@jensstoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, tweets surprisingly openly and honestly compared to other politicians & follows many ppl back.

How do you decide what to tweet?
Tempered impulse and things I think will be of interest not just to my followers but to everyone. R

Why'd you start tweeting?
I wanted to see what it was all about, and I wanted to find new ways of interacting with ppl I'd met online, & with potential readers.

Has Twitter changed your life? If yes, how?
Yes. It's brought me closer to many people, has broadened my horizons, and made me look at myself in a different light.

What do you wish people would do more of on Twitter?
Praise each other rather than themselves.

How will the world change in the next year?
The economic climate will worsen; there will be more civil unrest; more ppl will be digitally connected, tho not sure if that's a gd thing.

What are some big Twitter faux pas?
Being rude, being racist, being sexist, spamming, tweeting without thinking.

What will the world be like 10 years from now?
10 years older, and still a long way away from peaceful and prosperous, unfortunately, and too

Running Away

2012-01-10T08:58:00.000Z

Had we done things differently then
Would now have changed?
A word in another place,
A transposition of a scowl for a smile,
A hand up instead of a push away?

Time drags and festers
In the open wound of memory.
Each junction becomes a dead end,
And every road leads to the same place,
Alone in front of a mirror

Where we cannot hide from ourselves,
And all truths are shown.
No faith, no philosophy nor ideology,
No dogma,
Saves us from us.

Being Father II

2012-01-08T20:22:00.000Z

This has been a difficult week. When considering this post, I realised how easy it is to write certain things into fiction rather than baring all as real people. Because when we put our experiences into fiction we can hide behind our imaginary characters, because we know that you, our readers, know that we know you think everything in our books is autobiographical, when it actually isn't. Or is it?

My son had his heart set on going to a particular university. He didn't get in. It stopped us in our tracks, tears were shed, black holes of future contemplated. If I had wanted him to succeed for my sake, it would have been easy for me to put this disappointment to one side. But because I wanted it for him, for the amazing man he is growing into, it has cut me deeply, and I have been paralysed into inaction in almost everything I do, because I keep going back to the dream we both had for him, of all the things he wanted to achieve at that particular place. And now the dream's done, and we find moving on really difficult.

The point is - there are always new, seemingly insurmountable, obstacles in parenting, each challenge a new one we haven't encountered before, one we've received no training for. Even those of us who have been parents for nearly twenty years aren't experienced enough to deal with these problems easily, completely, perfectly. I feel I've let him down. I feel like I should be healing his damaged heart, but I can't find the medicine anywhere, but I haven't got the skill to. All I can say to him is that there are other good universities out there, that he shouldn't jack everything in now, that we've got to look forward instead of regretting the choices we made. But it hurts, because he hurts, because I see the pain in every difficult movement of his body, hear it in each scuffing step on the stairs and each sigh behind his closed door.

But this will happen over and over again in our children's lives, that they will have their hearts broken - in education, in work, in love, in family life, in friendships. And we, as parents trying to be good parents against all the odds, we won't be able to help them every time, we won't even be able to help them once, because they have to get through these things on their own. Because we aren't them. We can't lead their lives for them, can't lead our lives through them or let them lead theirs through us. That doesn't make it any easier, any more painless, but I guess it's the way it has to be.

I wonder how much pain I caused my parents, how much they longed for me to get the things I wanted, and how bitterly they wept into their dark bedroom when I didn't succeed. I wonder how often they worried about me when I'd finally moved away from home, when I was living it up somewhere and they were sitting at home, in front of the telly, Mum in her comfy chair, Dad in his rocking chair, holding hands, waiting for the clock to move forwards to the next day when they could reasonably hope for me to call them, or for the postman to stick a letter from me through the letter box. And were probably disappointed and doubly concerned.

The thing is - it doesn't end. Once we have children, that's it. We are tied to them for life, committed to our emotional vulnerability. We will always bleed when our children do.

Being Father

2012-01-03T12:26:00.000Z

I started writing this post in Marmalades in Norwich yesterday, but my Android phone let me get no further than the title, for some odd reason. I wanted to write something while I was with my youngest daughter, and while my second-youngest was swanning around the town with a couple of her mates (and me on alert with my mobile in case she needed me).

There is so little time nowadays for us to be real parents. What I mean is that we have our hands so full with providing, with caring, with all those everyday things which wear us down, that we have no time to be humans with our children, no time to smile and hug and grasp at some cold empty time to fill it with the warmth of just being, of giving something special to those who are special to us.

I have tried, this Christmas holiday, to make up for those failings of the modern father I am, the man with a day job and that second job as a writer that pulls me away from the dinner table too soon and back into the study with the one light on and the strange worlds I create and populate and live in. I've tried not to have much screen time, tried not to compulsively check my emails, tried to log out of twitter and fb, and not think of the characters stranded in the narrative of my latest book, but just to sit and talk and play and be Dad. I hope I have succeeded, even just a little.

On New Year's Eve, I did play the waiter to the four women in my home (wife and three daughters) while my son was out pubbing. I set out trays of nibbles, poured orange fizzy into champagne glasses for the girls and Cava for Marianne. Two sets of women in two separate rooms watching different films, and me flitting between the rooms, topping up glasses and bowls of dip. I loved it, and, when the New Year came and all five of us sipped proper, cold champagne, it was special and real and not routine.

So, back to yesterday. I love shopping, and I love shopping with my daughters, so I quite happily spent lots of time in Lush, and Alex quite happily spent lots of time with me in record shops. For elevenses, we had hot chocolate and shared a fruit scone (and went back to the same place for sausage rolls and water at lunch), and she was all wide-eyed and smiley at being a grown-up with Dad, and being treated with respect by the lovely people in Marmalades, and being able to watch the people go by outside, and talking about them in descriptive language, and characterising them, and memorising them. That impressed me.

All my children impress me, because they are growing into independent individuals, making ideas of their own, and not remaking themselves in my image or Marianne's image, or the image of the world. Although, at times, of course, at their early ages, it can be difficult and frightening for them to do that.

This is, by its very nature, by the very nature of the relationships I'm writing about, the people I'm writing about, a very fragmented narrative of a post. I always think we're a dysfunctional family, always rant about setting our own standards and not being guided by others, often disappear in a grump or in a fog of Black Dog depression, into my study and scribble bleak verse. But then I sit at the dinner table, breath steady, mouth full of wonderful food, and listen to them, all the other five in my family, and the tales they spin, and the debates they have, and see their eyes shining with mirth or consideration or inspiration, and I think, oh, yes, this is what it's about; this is what it's all about, being Father. Because it's all about them, not me.

Amundsen at the Pole, 14th December 1911

2011-12-14T18:27:00.000Z

This is not what I had dreamt of.
My childhood’s goal is half a world
Away, at the top of the globe, north.
But it was stolen from me, and
I needed to succeed.

We need to pace it out, need to
Encircle this rounded patch of earth,
To make sure of our claim. Our
Instruments are too fallible to be
Certain exactly of where we are.

We shall be here for one night only,
For the time it takes us to fix position,
To pitch our tent and rest, to make a
Pole home, to write our letters, to
Leave for the next what we don’t need.

And then away, away from this
Awful place, back across the trodden
Ground before the English arrive,
Before I have to see into their broken
Faces to understand what I have stolen.

Richard Pierce
From K175 - Antarctic Fragments

Dead Men, my debut novel about Scott and Amundsen is published by Duckworth on 19th March 2012. I will be giving a lecture on the book at the Natural History Museum on 15th March 2012 at 14:30, followed by a book signing.

Of heroes (including Sir David Attenborough)

2011-11-22T23:26:00.000Z

Last week, last Thursday to be precise, I had one of those days which will remain in the memory for a long time. A day to evoke a variety of emotions it would take longer than a simplistic blog post to explain.

Most of the day I spent at a conference on children's palliative care, organised by Together for Short Lives. The conference, called the National Square Table Event, was the culmination of a series of local Square Table events, at which service users (ie parents and children), politicians, clinicians, children's hospices, and palliative care providers came together to discuss the state of children's palliative care, and how it could be improved, what the road forwards is. I was there with a trustee of one of the charities I administer (and please note I write this post in a private capacity, not in a work capacity).

The story, of course, is always the same; there isn't enough money to provide interlinking services, where GPs talk effectively with parents and specialist providers, where parents aren't pushed from pillar to post, where they don't have to fight to get the best for their life-limited children. What many don't realise is that children with life-limiting conditions live for much longer than they did ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and that service provision for such children is underdeveloped, compared to the (albeit still struggling) provision for adults. Whilst one might expect such an event to be sad and depressing, it wasn't, except for the intransigence and flag-waving of politicians with party-political axes to grind). I met with many people, from service providers through to parents, who were unrelentingly optimistic and cheerful in the face of the gale of spending cuts blasting down from the North Face of government and recession. It was, for me, an uplifting experience (and educational, and vital for my job). The most telling comment came from a large Irishman, Frank, who lost his son last year, after looking after him for almost twenty years, who said - paraphrased from memory - 'I'm frustrated that I'm no longer a parent who can fight for better things.' The first thing I did when the formal part of the conference was over was to go down into the forum and shake this man's hand. He, and the other parents (including Karla Turner) are the real heroes of this difficult time we live in.

After the conference, I was lucky enough to have been invited to a book launch by someone who has become, contrary to expectations, a really good friend of mine. He is David Wilson, the great nephew of Edward Wilson, one of the men who died in the same tent as Scott on his way back from the South Pole in 1912, which is the subject matter of my forthcoming debut novel, Dead Men. David has been somewhat opposed to the restoration of Scott's Hut at Cape Evans, and, when I was due to meet him for the first time, I expected to be faced by an aggressive man determined to impose his view on others. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and I am very lucky to have seen yet another deep friendship come from my obsession with the Antarctic.

David was launching Edward Wilson's Antarctic Notebooks, co-authored with his brother Christopher, at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Barnes, with a special guest, Sir David Attenborough. I have admired Sir David for over half my life, so to be invited to the launch was naturally something I was very excited about. But before then, I was lucky enough to meet lots of people who are obsessed with the Antarctic, including a young gentleman called Henry Evans, who will be going to the Antarctic for a couple of months in November 2012.

Being a writer (prerequisite - have a personality disorder), I spent the first part of the evening hanging around in the vicinity of the food and wine, staring impressively into vacant space, giving the impression that I was absorbing the atmosphere and observing the assembled masses to include them as bit parts in my next book (working title A Fear of Heights. Fortunately, Henry took pity on me, just as Sir David was due to come out and be interviewed and make a speech, and suggested that if we pretended to be joined at the hip, we might stand a greater chance of getting to meet the great man. Never one to be forward in coming forward, I accpted this suggestion with good grace.

Getting anywhere near the front, with at least 4 TV crews in attendance was somewhat of a trial (which I'm sure prepared Henry well for his Antarctic travails), and the number of blurry shots on my camera easily outnumber those in focus. But, hearing that familiar Sir David voice (I'm glued to Frozen Planet every week), and watching those wonderfully exaggerated English gesticulations was more than reward enough. And then, after the speeches were finished and Sir David met the people, Henry and I did manage to manoeuvre our way to the lectern, second in the queue after a young, dumbstruck gentleman from Ireland being filmned by his local TV and hardly able to get a word out. Of course, he asked the Sir for an autograph. Disaster! No pen. I had, in my pocket, the Spacepen which travelled all the way to the Antarctic band back with me, so I handed it over - it was used to sign autographs for the rest of the brief session. I managed to press a copy of my self-published Antarctic poetry into Sir David's sweaty palm ('you want me to sign this?' 'no, it's for you' 'thank you' *stuffs slim volume into voluminous jacket pocket*).

Now, I'm never one to bask in reflected glory - I am me, after all, not the image of someone else, - but in this case I have to make an exception. Sir David is an old man, a legend of my life-time, so I pressed my phone into someone's hand as he was on his way out and asked them to take a picture, which, very fortunately, turned out, and was on facebook five minutes later, a photo of me with another one of my heroes, a very different kind of hero to the ones I had encountered earlier in the day.

Charlotte's birthday poem 2011

2011-10-19T08:01:00.000+01:00

A New Language

I tried to think of a new language
In my old age
To tell you I love you
But to build it
Would leave you unbelieving
Not able to understand.

So I have to use used words.

There was a little girl once
Who used to bite and scratch
With a storm of anger
When I held her ready for bed
And she didn’t want to sleep
Who fell asleep in my arms
And smiled while I bled.

So I have to use the old language.

There is a young woman at my table
Who argues with me, who storms away
When I can’t say what she wants to hear,
Who makes my soul bleed
Because I love her so much
And there is more to say.

So I have to use the ancient signs.

I walk into your room after dark,
Listen to you breathing, and speak
To your sleeping shadow.
I’ll be here when I’m gone.
I’ll be here forever.
Don’t be afraid.

R, 19 October 2011

Serendipity

2011-10-03T23:50:00.000+01:00

I've been meaning to write this post for ages, ever since just after Easter, in fact, but real life just keeps intruding and dragging my mind and hands away from what I really want to be doing. At least the heavy lifting's over (we've just moved and did it all ourselves with the help of some friends, he says in explanation).

Those of you reading this who are writers can probably empathise with what I'm going to say. Writers are a shy bunch, often afraid of being criticised publicly, often convinced that what they write is awful, too easily persuaded that someone else could do a much better job with much better words, and much better plots, too. And we hate the sound of our own voices.

So this is my story, severely shortened. As a kid, wanted to be a journalist and writer, and my father duly indulged me by buying me an Olivetti portable typewriter (remember those, kids?) for my seventh birthday, a machine I dragged round Europe with me till I was in my late twenties. When at home, I used Dad's heavy-duty Adler. Then, almost thirty, I got an IBM electric typewriter, one of those with the golfball typehead. I wrote over 500 poems on that one. And then my first PC with five and a quarter inch floppy disks, MS-DOS and WordStar.

On my second novel by now (and courting), I still refused to show anyone I didn't know any of my words. And so it goes on, until 6 years ago, when I wrote 76,000 words in 23 days as part of nanowrimo while living in Norway, a book (Bee Bones) which ended up as Number One on authonomy in October 2008, two years after we'd moved back to England. Slowly, I began to believe that maybe I could actually write, and write well, so started sending out queries to agents, without much luck (although I still think the book's almost perfect women's fiction, and it will get a publisher one of these days). I should mention that none of my books are on there anymore.

In the meantime, I'd been lucky enough to go to the Antarctic with work, a trip which (along with the encouragement of new writer friends on fb and authonomy) spurred me on to write a book about the mystery of Robert Falcon Scott's last ten days alive. Dead Men took 8 months to write (108k words), and then some more months to edit. And I did get an agent, a very good one, the first one I approached, who helped me edit Dead Men down to 88k words. I still cannot believe how lucky that was. And then the waiting began, because publishers aren't exactly throwing money at writers.

For some odd reason, the lovely people at Radio Stradbroke had given me my own shows by now, which seemed to be quite popular around the world (Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, the US, even England), and, on Good Friday this year, I decided I'd read live from Dead Men as part of my show (podcast to be up later this month - late, I know, but real life ... - refer to openening paragraph). This is where SJ comes in, the wonderful SJ Heckscher-Marquis, one of the best friend I made on authonomy. SJ listens to me regularly (again, I don't know why), and donates money to the charities Radio Stradbroke raises money for. On Good Friday, she decides to call Mel Hagopian, and asks her to listen to me reading. Well, Mel does, and an hour after I finish my broadcast, there's an email in my inbox asking for an interview to be turned into a blogpost. Me, gobsmacked and flattered.

One week's emails later, and Mel has completed a blogpost that still makes me come out in goosebumps - because it makes me sound like a writer, makes me look at myself from the outside and reckon this bloke knows what he's talking about, what he's writing about, and he writes good words, all in the right order, with proper commas in the right place, and all that. She posted the article on 10th May. On 12th May, I got an email from my agent telling me that Duckworth had picked up the book, and would be publishing it in 2012.

I don't believe in coincidence. I believe in serendipitous circumstance, series of fortuitous events, brought about by decisions we make of our own free will, and I believe in the power of friends' prayers and faith. So, thank you, SJ and Mel, for believing in me.

Mel and SJ are co-writers on My Ink Project. It's more than a blog, it's a way of life. Go check it out at myinkproject.com.

Twentieth Wedding Anniversary

2011-05-25T08:04:00.000+01:00

I wrote this the evening after our first date.

A Better Song

This is a fragment.
This is only a piece of it.
Nothing more than
a glimpse of the darkness,
a flash of the light,
one thunder of the storm,
a solitary single second of a million life times,
some restless continuation of the dream,
one motif amongst a thousand themes,
and
one tune from a scattered multitude of songs.

Maybe this is all there is.
A dream,
an imagined illusion of peace,
a sentimental depiction of desire,
a solitary imprint in the snow.

And yet;
I have seen her,
held her,
loved her.
For just one second.

Oh yes, this is one of the better songs.

And this I wrote this morning, on our twentieth wedding anniversary.

Twenty Better Songs

There are times when life changes,
Just like that, and nothing is the same
As it was before,

Almond eyes.

Have we counted the years since then?
Once a year, maybe. The living of them
Takes all we have, because

This all there is.

And yet, what was a fragment
Has become a whole. Those moments,
Those births, those frightening hours

When all we held

Were hopes against death,
And prayers for everything to be fine,
When we could have lost

What we made.

This is not a dream, not imagination,
Not sentimental desire, even if we
Are solitary, in the end,

At the reckoning.

That first song became one of many,
So many themes, so many stories
To be told, and they are

Only all for you.

There are times when life changes.
That day, that time, that breath,
Changed mine, and made me write

Twenty better songs.

Thank you, Marianne. R

From my Antarctic Diary - entry dated 6th January 2008

2011-04-17T19:51:00.000+01:00

13:20
Sitting on Cape Evans shore about 500 m northeast of Hut. The other two have gone on to the Hut. I can still hear their voices. Sounds travel far here. On the way here (where the Greenpeace camp was years ago), got dive-bombed by skuas. I can see across to an ice cave in the Barne Glacier.

13:35
Back at Hut. Look in Ponting's darkroom, and find a painting (Wilson?) Ross Island from Cape Roberts Granite Habour. It's not signed or dated. Also find crucifix-shaped hole down by the floor in the darkroom. Did Spencer-Smith put it there when he used the darkroom as a chapel? Was there any reference to it in his diary? There is so much stuff in the darkroom. WE also find some cocaine for the relief of snow blindness in the medical supplies.

2 years, good friend on Trygve Gran's bunk in red paint, dated 19th January 1913.

15:25
Back at camp site for lunch. Cup of tea for me. Still amazed at how much there is in the Hut. The sun's shining, but the weather looks like it's closing in.

16:30
Back to hut. Help dig out about 3 metres of trench on eastern side of Hut. That takes about 2 hours.

23:00
Sitting in my smoker's place, sun still half-out. Snow forecast for tomorrow.

The Emperor, the Practitioner and I - Chapter 1

2011-04-08T23:24:00.000+01:00

I was at home when he died. It was one of those dank March afternoons, with no sign of spring, and darkness peering in through the window too soon. The music in my room was new, unreleased, carried an undertone of sadness and melancholy. I didn’t know then that he was dead. I went out in the evening, unaware. Later, back from badminton, tired and sweaty, I was checking my emails and drinking beer when the phone rang.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘You sitting down?’ It was Mark, from the cricket club.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘It’s Jim. He got killed this afternoon.’

‘What?’

‘At about half past three.’

‘How?’

‘One of those hidden bombs.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘No.’

‘Shit.’ I shuddered. Unwanted images formed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Can you get hold of some of the boys and tell them? I’ve not managed to call everyone yet.’

‘What’re we going to do? The season starts in four weeks.’

‘We’ll just have to go on. Nothing else we can do. He wouldn’t have wanted us to pack in playing.’

‘It doesn’t feel right, though.’

I could hear his shrug. ‘No. … Call me tomorrow to let me know how you got on.’

‘Might text you later.’

‘Fair enough.’ He sounded tired and distraught.

I put the phone down, stared at my computer. The house seemed even more empty now, the silence cold and no longer comfortable. I didn’t sleep that night.

The funeral was four weeks later, almost to the day Jim should have come home after his first tour of Afghanistan. A terrible day. Afterwards, we all got blind drunk and wandered through the streets of our tiny village not knowing what to do. He’d always led our drinking bouts, and now there was no-one to follow.

Before the season was over, before summer ended, the inquest was completed. And with it came a truth too graphic for us to handle.

Autumn comes. The bleary-eyed wind crashes into my body. Damn the damp. This always happens. Every year my back decides I carry too much weight, too little weight, too much energy, too little tiredness, and bends me double. This year it’s worse than ever, and I spend my empty weekends snapping at the pain which tries to defeat me.

My usual bone cruncher doesn’t have the desired effect. Osteopathy comes to a grinding halt against the rigid wall of my uncooperative and leaking vertebrae. Desperate, I look for alternatives. Homeopathy isn’t physical enough. I search the net, and find an acupuncturist who lives about ten minutes’ drive away. I’ve never thought of acupuncture before. Its healing properties seem too intangible, too tied up with some spiritual world I can’t believe in. And I’ve always had a fear of needles. That’s why I’ve never given blood. But the pain’s so bad I have to give it a try. I can’t concentrate, can’t work, can’t live. My spine carries my soul, is the centre of my being.

Although I know the acupuncturist is a woman, I’m surprised at her voice when I call to make an appointment. She tells me she lives opposite the church, that there’s somewhere to park, that I should just open the gate, and walk down the drive to the barn behind the house. She’ll be there.

I jam myself behind the wheel of the car, drive along the darkening lanes, and pull up where she told me to. I unlatch the heavy oak gate, walk through, remember to close it behind me as she told me to, walk past the old thatched house, along the noiseless gravel drive, round to the side of the barn in the garden. There’s a light on in there, shining out through the tall French windows. I can see her sitting on a swivel chair, feet under her, typing. I knock on the door.

She gets up and opens up for me. ‘Come in,’ she says. ‘It’s gone cold, hasn’t it?’

‘Sure has,’ I say. ‘Should I take my shoes off?’

‘Yes, please,’ she says. ‘Then follow me.’ Her bare feet make small sounds on the warm, tiled floor. ‘Under-floor heating,’ she says. ‘My luxury.’ She leads me to another door, which creaks as she opens it and holds it open for me.

The room’s much smaller than the other one, Chinese paintings and etchings on the wall, and the scent of joss sticks. It feels comfortable, safe, hidden. The windows are curtained shut with semi-transparent, silk drapes. On the floor, books line the wall.

She sits down at an ebony desk. The patina of age has taken the edges off it. ‘Sit down,’ she says, and points at an old, dark chair.

I lower myself into it.

‘So, how can I help?’ She’s tiny, black hair down past her narrow shoulders, much too delicate.

‘My back,’ I say.

‘Very bad?’

‘Insufferable.’

‘Tell me about you.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Start at the beginning.’ She scribbles something onto a sheet of paper on the desk in front of her.

‘When I was born?’

‘If you think that’s important.’

‘I didn’t realise you were a psychiatrist.’

‘I’m not, but I need to know you if I’m going to treat you.’

‘But … I’m not very good at monologues. … Ask me questions.’

She smiles, not at me, but to herself. She rubs her nose. ‘Have you got a history of back pain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Since when?’

‘I was seventeen when it first happened.’

‘How?’ she says.

‘Playing hockey.’

‘Play much sport still?’

‘A bit.’

‘And then?’

‘Lots.’

‘What?’ She’s as monosyllabic as me.

‘Hockey, like I said. Football. Both as goalie.’

‘Ouch,’ she says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘High impact sport. Not good.’

‘What about cricket?’

‘Let me guess … You kept wicket.’

I nod. ‘Still do, sometimes.’

‘Another ouch, I’m afraid.’

‘Running?’ I know what she’s going to say.

‘All these bads don’t make a good. I thought you said you only did a bit of sport now.’

‘So I should just be totally inactive?’

‘No. But you need to look after yourself.’

‘I do.’

‘Of course you do. That’s why you’re here.’ She looks at me. Her eyes are as dark as her hair.

I shrug.

‘What about work?’ she says. ‘Very active?’

‘No. I sit on my bum all day.’

‘Like we all do.’

‘I’m lazy.’

‘I’m sure you are. … Are you happy?’

'I haven't thought about it.'

‘Why not? Doesn’t it matter to you?’

I notice the wedding ring on her finger. ‘I’ve never thought about that either.’

‘What matters to you then?’ She opens the door to an emptiness I’ve never noticed before.

‘Beauty?’

‘Is that an answer or a question?’ Her voice is as pale as her skin.’

‘Both, I suppose.’

‘It’s not what I’d have expected,’ she says.

‘What did you expect?’

‘Most of my patients talk about their families, or their dreams, or their failures.’

‘I have none of those.’

‘How odd.’ She scribbles some more. ‘What drives you then?’

‘The shape of the world, I guess.’

Her look is a question.

‘I love photography,’ I say. ‘If I see something beautiful, I take a picture of it. It’s so easy now, with a digital camera, to grab a shape and keep it.’

‘Hence the beauty, I suppose.’

‘Yes, I think so. … Is that the right answer?’ I blush at feeling I have to justify myself.

‘I’m not judging,’ she says. ‘I just need to try to understand you so I can treat the cause of your pain, not just the symptoms.’

‘And you do this for every patient of yours?’

She nods. ‘Treatment is impossible without it.’ She gets up and leans towards me. Comfy cotton trousers and a T-shirt. ‘Show me your tongue.’

I stick out my tongue.

‘Mmm.’ She makes a note. ‘Again.’

‘Aaah.’

‘Good. Thanks.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I need you to relax now.’

‘I am relaxed.’

‘You’re not, actually. … Lean back. Close your eyes. I’m going to take your pulses. I need you to let your arm go limp when I take hold of it. Otherwise I won’t be able to feel anything. I sense you’re someone who doesn’t like to let go.’

‘Fine.’ I lean back, close my eyes, and take a deep breath.

She takes hold of my left wrist. Her hand’s temperature is such that I almost can’t feel it, as if my wrist is being held up by an intangible, invisible force. I let my arm go limp so that she is bearing its weight. She breathes loudly, deeply; in through her nose, out through her mouth. Her fingers press down on my veins as if they were playing a flute. But it’s a nothing touch, a wisp of skin. Then she lets go of my arm, slowly. She says nothing, walks round to my other side, and does the same with my right arm.

Back at her desk, at right angles to me, she writes something down. Quick, jagged, small movements. ‘You’re out of energy,’ she says, and puts down her pen. ‘Your fire needs stoking up again.’

‘And how will you do that?’

‘That’s for me to know and you to feel. I need you to take off your socks, your shirt and your trousers.’

I hesitate. My osteopath was a man.

‘Don’t be shy.’ Her smile mocks me. ‘I’ve seen it all before.’ She points at the treatment table in the middle of the room. ‘Lie down on your stomach when you’re ready, please.’

I stand there in just my pants, still fearful. It’s dark outside by now. I can see the street lights through the curtains.

‘Pillow or hole?’ she says.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Do you want a pillow for your head, or do you want to stick your face through a hole in the table?’

‘Pillow, please.’ I’ve always loved the touch of cool cotton.

‘I’ll give you a gentle massage to begin with,' she says. ‘Just to loosen you up a little. If it’s too hard, you must tell me. This isn’t about being brave.’

I’ve never been brave. It’s easier to hide than stand up for something. Jim was the brave one.

She runs her fingers from my heels up along the back of my legs until she reaches the small of my back. ‘Here?’ she says, her hands right over the pain.

‘Yes. … How … ?’

‘Shh. relax.’

‘I am.’

‘Not enough,’ she says. ‘Let your body breathe for you, right down into your stomach, like babies do. Don’t hold it back. Don’t hinder it with your consciousness.’

So I let go. I feel myself sink into the table’s padding, my head into the soft, white pillow.

Her hands slide into my flesh without touching me. She parts my skin and touches the pain inside. She pulls my spine apart and caresses each single bone she finds, holds the sharp shards of me in the palms of her hands, and rolls them into smoothness.

‘Is that ok?’ Her voice is muffled by my trance.

‘Mmm.’

‘Good.’ She puts me back together again, each fragment of my body returned to where it belongs, until I am whole again. The pain has already lessened. ‘The needles now.’

She stands next to me, her belly in line with my eyes, a needle in her hand. ‘They’re very bendy, so they can’t actually do any damage.’ She breathes that deep breath again. ‘Ancient needles were made from stones or bones, and they could quite easily have poked someone’s eye out.’ She bends the needle backwards and forwards to show me. It’s no thicker than a thin wire. Then she opens her other hand.

‘This is an old one,’ she says, and lets the thick needle roll across her palm. ‘That could do some serious damage if you used it in anger.’ She puts it back into a small box on her desk, under the picture of an old Chinese face. She sees me staring. ‘That’s Huang Di,’ she says. ‘The Yellow Emperor. They say he invented acupuncture.’

I say nothing, put my head back down onto the pillow.

‘I would love to have met him’ she says. ‘The books say he was a very wise man.’

‘If he taught you how to do this, he must have been.’

‘Now you know not to worry about my modern needles, I’ll start,’ she says, like she hasn’t heard me speak. ‘You’ll hear me tap them into you. You must tell me when you feel pain. I’ll feel resistance if there is pain, but you still have to tell me, so I can be absolutely sure.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I’ll have found where your energy is blocked. And then I’ll free it.’

‘That simple?’

‘Not that simple at all,’ she says. ‘Specially not with you.’

‘Why?’

‘You talk too much.’

No-one’s ever accused me of that before.

The first needle boils into me like a coil of poison. I buck and jump, nearly fall from the table.

She catches me. ‘I’ve got you,’ she says. ‘The others will all be easier.’

I grunt. How can she be so strong? She’s only half my size.

She runs her hand down my back. ‘Shh, shh.’

As the needles pierce me, warmth spreads from where the pain was, out into every extremity, fills me entirely. I feel heavy and tired. I can’t move, don’t want to move.

‘I’ll leave you for ten minutes or so,’ she says when she’s put the last of the needles in. ‘You won’t fall off the table if you go to sleep. Just relax and heal yourself.’ She touches the soles of my feet and is gone.

I can’t open my eyes, and yet they are open. I see into myself, have to face the emptiness behind the door she opened, and stare into the abyss I forgot about. No voices, no dreams, no anything. Where is my soul? There’s not even an echo.

One year on - thinking of an absent friend

2011-03-16T23:34:00.000Z

A year ago today, a friend and fellow cricketer, James Grigg, was killed in action in Afghanistan. I wrote the poem below when I heard the news, and was honoured to be asked to read it at his funeral.

I have been thinking about James all day, and about his family. I thought it appropriate to share the poem again, against the backdrop of what's happening in Japan and New Zealand. Our private grief is our strongest.

One of us (in memory of James Grigg)

He walks among us,
The twelfth man on our team,
With that invisible loping gait,
That dangerous mouth.

Low to the ground,
His hands ready,
A predator, an undefined haze
In the afternoon sun.

He chases from one to the other,
Whispers encouragement,
Barks at the opposition,
A smiled challenge.

Always in white,
Always in whites,
He claps us in,
Dares us to begin again.

Alexandra's 10th birthday poem

2011-02-25T12:34:00.000Z

Alive

Today, I met a travelling man, and walked
With him through one of the world’s largest
Cities. His home town lies in ruins, and his
Family have fled to the mountains, to live
From rain water and the power of the sun.

We spoke of our lives, and our need to
Always move on, and of the understanding
That comes with age, of what matters most.

The answer, he said, is with those we love,
And I agreed. The answer, we said, is at home,
With our families, our children, our loves.
We watched the sun make a circle and
Fall below the horizon of high buildings

And I came back to you, for you,
To celebrate your ten years of living,
As he will fly back to his,
To celebrate being alive.

Save Stradbroke Library

2011-02-04T20:30:00.000Z

As part of the National Day of Action to Save Libraries, there will be a read-in at Stradbroke Library tomorrow, 5th February, at 10 a.m.. This is one of the things I'll be reading, adapted from a 2007 poem of mine called why i love poetry.

why i love libraries

because words bound and wrapped
on pages of many colours
sing new voices

because one borrowed book
can be better than thousands
of bought ones

because reading beats hearing
when the words make
their own meaning inside me

because small words can change big things

because the wind and the rain
and love and hate and fear
and tragedy and joy

because the world outside
is so huge and round

because inside each story
there is true greatness
and great truth

because words are the warmth of life

because these sanctuaries
are gateways to the gods
our one chance at wisdom

because faith is a promise
regardless of belief

because each book is
a life-time on its own
a summary of all we can

Cape Evans Centenary

2011-02-04T09:53:00.000Z

Robert Falcon Scott and his party of thirty landed at Cape Evans on Ross Island on the 4th of January 1911. To mark this centenary, I am posting a poem from my poetry collection K175 - Antarctic Fragments, which will be published on 29th March 2012, the centenary of Scott's death.

Campsite at Cape Evans

The bushman and I drop down onto the scoria,
in the lee of the wind, dig a hole with our hands
for the metal bowl, and light our cigarettes.
We look out across the ice, eyes shaded against
the hue and sun of the Antarctic night, and
shout our swapped stories into the gale that grabs
at us despite our shelter; talk of home and family.

His hands are brown, coloured by toil and climate,
sinuous as the wood he works. For many years
he has been rescuing history from the strife of time,
rebuilding travellers’ huts around the edges of this
continent. Each one different, he says, for each has
its own spirits, its restless ghosts, its faithful souls;
a presence shaped by suffering and sacrifice.

Human courage and determination has left its sweat
in each grain of wood, its grime on every particle
that dances on the sun’s music inside these places,
an exuberance beyond the achievement of construction,
over and above the intricacies of engineering, the
carpenter tells me, his face alight with reverence.
We are the servants of history, lucky to be here.

The bushman and I take a drink while we smoke
our next. The Transantarctic Mountains watch our
conversation from across the sea ice, see our breath
rise above the tops of our tents, wash away towards
the mainland and scatter. Behind us, Erebus smokes,
too, his plume rising to meet the clouds that gather
around his crown to create the coming blizzard.

We fall silent, awed by nature’s brutal scale. This
is now no place for voices. Seals scatter from some
unseen tremor they mistake for a hunting orca. The
penguins race for the safety of the icy bluff. And
then nothing. The seals burrow back down into the
snow and the penguins dive into the pool exposed
in the breaking ice. Cape Evans is at peace again.

Save our Suffolk libraries - and libraries everywhere

2011-01-19T18:34:00.000Z

Suffolk County Council is threatening to close 29 libraries (the council calls it divesting) in an effort to save money as instructed by central government. Ever heard of standing up and being counted?

A consultation period on these proposals started on 18th January and runs through 30 April 2011 at www.suffolk.gov.uk/librariesconsultation2011.

What follows below is what I have put into the consultation response I sent them earlier today:

Please explain your idea or expression of interest below.

You may want to refer to the consultation document 'Have your say on the future of Suffolk’s libraries' for criteria and suggestions about different approaches to running libraries in Suffolk and elsewhere.

Also, please include in your answer:

• Whether you can personally contribute, or if your suggestion is made on behalf of a local organisation, company or individual(s)

• Who might provide the service and how?

Suffolk currently pay their CEO, Andrea Hill, £220,000 per year, which could pay for several of the libraries you are threatening to close. I would therefor like to suggest that her post is "divested", just as the Council is divesting other, more core, services.

Her post could be filled as follows:

(a) Suffolk and a neighbouring County could share a CEO. This is a real possibility and Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District do this already. They could also share several senior Director posts saving even more money for frontline services. This is precisely the model the County are suggesting for a schools who are pressed to share Headteachers and create partnerships.

(b) I am happy to volunteer together with others with senior management experience to help out and undertake the CEOs post in a voluntary capacity, ie free of charge. There will undoubtedly be many people in Suffolk who would each give some of their time on a rota basis, much much as they are volunteering their time for libraries.

If Mrs Hill thinks voluntary community services are such a wonderful thing (and I agree with her that volunteering is indeed a great way to contribute to our communities), I am quite sure she will stand aside without hesitation in the interest of adding value to Suffolk's communities and society as a whole.

I can provide you with my CV, and am also already proactively engaging with a number of friends, colleagues and service users to create a core group which can carry forward this proposal.

How will your idea or interest generate changes or significant efficiencies in the way the library operates to reduce what the county council pays by a minimum of 30%?

The above suggestion re the divestment of Andrea Hill also applies to other senior staff posts at Suffolk County Council, some of whom provide their services to the council on a freelance basis and on significant dayrates. These senior posts would be filled from the group I am now assembling, of volunteerswith senior management experience and the desire to make Suffolk County Council work for the benefit of the people of Suffolk.

If you have already sought support or interest from individuals or organisations in your community, please give details below (eg. meetings attended, level of support)

It would at this point be inappropriate to reveal the details of my negotiations with interested parties.

We have categorised libraries into county libraries and community libraries. (See Appendix 1 of the main consultation document, 'Have your say on the future of Suffolk's libraries'). What do you think about the criteria we have used and allocation of libraries to each category?

I believe your categorisation of libraries, and the criteria used, are inappropriate, and smack of cultural fascism.

The minimum distance between county libraries, as defined by you, is too small, which reduces the reach of libraries, effectively providing urban areas with services whilst ignoring rural areas. This is discrimination against those who live and work in the rural areas of Suffolk.

The claim that most community libraries are in areas of "relative affluence" is imprecise (relative affluence to what?), offensive (many rural areas such as Stradbroke are defined as deprived), and smacks of spin of the worst kind against libraries in villages and small towns. In fact, it makes it appear as if you have already decided to close these libraries.

What do you think about our overall proposals for the library service?

The proposals are poorly thought out, and do not take into account the crass overpayment of your senior staff, nor the importance of providing library and other core cultural services free of charge across the county. Whilst our libraries burn, the county's elected and non-elected members burn our money on expenses and overblown salaries.

I have set up a facebook page supporting the divestment of Mrs Hill's job. You can join it here.

R

orion's belt

2010-12-31T20:33:00.000Z

holy orion’s belt
the ancients’ wind chime
suspended
to illuminate their sky
drags its buckle
across late evening
a million years ago

slow light to travel
bears down on dawn’s red eye
before night ends

miles between fingers
hiding the light
when dusk eases

watch the stars change
in the grass
on your back
wide open eyes
never sleeping
focus on the black
its pinpricks an echo of passing

Time

2010-12-21T00:04:00.000Z

Time to set aside the thoughts of greatness,
To cast away the dreams of acclaim, wisdom,
And knowledge, to let the mundane take me
Away from the open skies, and tie me down
In its boredom, worry and lies.

Time to run from the words in my head,
From the delusion of making a difference,
Of thinking my voice would be heard and
Heeded, to give up correcting the mis-spelled,
Stop righting the wrongs committed.

Time, there was a time, when all was clear,
The capacity for happiness endless, when
A smile was the beginning, not the end,
And purpose was selfless and kind and meek,
Breathing without effort.

Time to put down the tired pen, clear away
The crumb-filled keyboard, extinguish the screen,
Delete the files full of visions and never-to-be-got
Illusions, to settle by the fire, pull on the slippers,
Wait for the scytheman to release me.

Time, there comes a time in every man’s life,
When he has to turn and see where he’s been,
Realise that time’s wasted and gone, that
Nothing will change; bitterness the only fruit
From the withered tree.

125

2010-12-02T22:34:00.000Z

Bed-time.
I stroke my children’s backs, arms, legs
to help them sleep, in multiples
of onehundredandtwentyfive,
each multiple to be complete
even if they’ve fallen asleep while I count.

I’ve always done this,
don’t know why,
since the first of the four changed my life.
My parents never comforted me with caress.

The youngest has woken.
She wants more milk, and while I listen
to her hungry gurgles, I think

Upstairs there are sheaves of untouched paper
waiting for me to fill them,
and a computer with words to be assembled;
uneaten food whirring with wasps.

She’s asleep, finally. They all are.
I’ve lost count
of the words, caresses, thoughts,
bottles of milk, wasps.

I forget the night.

Just dawn, and I’ve slept for three hours.
The house is still.
Another hour before it stirs.
I grab a piece of paper and begin to write.

A complete life

2010-11-28T00:07:00.000Z

I’ve locked myself away now.
Finally.
Being on the outside was too much to bear.
All the wind and noise,
All the confusion of living,
Of loving and being loved.

That’s over.
The pain is ended.
The glistening torture
Of dreaming shadows into being
Has gone.

A single room.
A single bed.
A single light.
A desk.
A chair.
A book.
A pen.

This is where I live now.
This is where I die
When the last page is turned.

streets

2010-11-24T08:23:00.000Z

streets
scratch the surface
of history

streets on sand
shift
with regiments of memory

this was my street
i kissed him there
made my love in that dark corner
before i was born

layers of life
have built what’s here now
dig down below

another time
we walked arm in arm
past the crumbled walls

the past is my companion
rises from the foundations
the damp soil breathing
above the hidden

streets on land
fields
that fed our people

streets
angry stretchmarks
of our progress

why i love poetry

2010-11-22T23:19:00.000Z

because verses bound and wrapped
on a page of many colours
sing new voices

because one word
is better than thousands

because reading beats hearing
when the letters make
their own meaning

because small words can change big things

because the wind and the rain
and love and hate and fear
and tragedy and joy

because the world outside
is so huge and round

because inside each song
there is true greatness
and great truth

because words are the warmth of life

because brevity is our breath
in the scheme of all the gods
and we their scribes

because faith is a promise
regardless of belief

because each poem is
a life-time on its own
a summary of all we can

This day, of all days

2010-11-11T16:12:00.000Z

Rain, outside, leaks
in, with the wind,
grey, too much alive,
while we remember
the dead.

Sudden light, a hole
in the sky, exploded,
restless cloud, too
much brightness for
today.

Nothing new, in
the cold, all old
and trapped in the
past, the grief,
the lost.

Some celebrate, some
mourn, amongst thatch,
tiles, clay lump,
tradition, and bile.
For what?

What we remembered, we
forget. What we learnt,
we unlearn. Humankind
is a greedy beast, for war,
for sacrifice.

From father to son, from son to father

2010-10-30T10:49:00.000+01:00

What shall we do as we grow older?
Cantankerous – and son;
Cantankerous – and father?
Shall we laugh together again?

Love is always muted between father and son,
By the smallest things,
The most unimportant of arguments,
The largest of all questions.

Will there be that embrace,
That hug to say what’s never said?
Will there be an emptiness when either of us
Travel to opposite sides of the earth?

What shall we do, when the leaves grow pale
And memories paler, when we are both men
Of unequal strength? Will you hold my hand
When I am weak?

Richard, 30th October 2010. For Oscar, on his 18th birthday.

Charlotte's 14th birthday poem

2010-10-26T09:39:00.000+01:00

For You

Look, I have a rock
In the palm of my hand.
I carved it for you.

Look, its shape is not usual,
Nor its colour one we have grown
Used to, in this time.

It is warm, shaped to our heat,
Comfortable, and smooth.
It is.

No-one else can see it.
You know that, and
Reach out to touch.

Feel its weight, grasp
Its perfection. It is yours
Alone, always.

It is the most precious
Of things, a diamond
Of the soul.

Richard - 19th October 2010

Kara's birthday poem

2010-04-05T13:32:00.000+01:00

Today

Tomorrow is a wall we cannot climb,
A field we cannot cross until today.
Time is a hiding beast,
Beyond us before we know,
And gone.

We watch days and waste them,
Pick hours and taste them,
And throw them all away,
Unspent.

There is nothing past that wall,
No soil on that field to till.
They don’t exist, those dreams,
Until we make them real.

Grab today. Make it yours.
Hold it to yourself and let it last.
Share your wisdom with everyone.
Don’t let this day pass
Without your mark.

Richard - 30th March 2010

One of us (in memory of James Grigg)

2010-03-17T08:41:00.000Z

James Grigg died in action in Afghanistan on 16th March 2010. He played cricket with me, and was a good friend to me, and to many others in Stradbroke Cricket Club. This poem is for him, and of him.

One of us

He walks among us,
The twelfth man on our team,
With that invisible loping gait,
That dangerous mouth.

Low to the ground,
His hands ready,
A predator, an undefined haze
In the afternoon sun.

He chases from one to the other,
Whispers encouragement,
Barks at the opposition,
A smiled challenge.

Always in white,
Always in whites,
He claps us in,
Dares us to begin again.

On passing the buck - the BBC and the banks

2010-03-02T20:50:00.000Z

I had intended to blog about this last week, but now I'm glad I didn't, as the BBC's announcement today of swingeing cuts puts what I have to say into even better perspective.

Let me start with the banks, though. It is no secret to those who know me that I was let down very badly, at the last moment, to a mortgage lender owned by a bank. All the complaint letters I sent to senior management of that bank were pushed down the food chain to flunkeys to answer. I didn't receive one single letter of acknowledgement signed by a senior executive. That's passing the buck - and the matter is now with the Financial Ombudsman, so I can say no more about it, except that it stinks. Men on bonuses paid by tax payers regarding themselves as above normal people like me.

So let me move, seamlessly almost, on to the BBC. When I heard that Jonathan Ross was not going to negotiate a renewal of his double-digit million contract with the BBC for making three shows (two TV, one radio show), I thought I would write to Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC (who has today personally announced the cuts which will affect the amount of new music played on BBC Radio, and which will reduce the amount of ethnic music played on the BBC), to offer my services as a replacement for Jonathan Ross on the Saturday morning radio show. Here's a copy of that letter:

Dear Mr Thompson,

Following Jonathan Ross’s decision not to renew his contract with you, which expires in July, you will be looking for a replacement for his Saturday morning show on Radio 2.

I would like to suggest myself, for a number of reasons:

• I think the public is tired of celebrity nepotism, and would like new talent to appear on the radio and television.
• I think the public wants mainly music, not inane chat and call-ins, on national music radio at the weekend.
• I have a distinctive voice and a catholic taste in music, always favouring the new and innovative, whilst embracing the past.
• I would be much cheaper than Mr Ross, and much less likely to cause public offence; I’d probably be more popular, too.

I am a regular presenter with Radio Stradbroke, and I believe hiring me to do the Saturday show which Mr Ross currently presents, would significantly combat current negative attitudes to the BBC, especially viz exorbitant presenters’ salaries and quality of output.

I have enclosed a CD with an mp3 file of me presenting an August bank holiday special on Radio Stradbroke. If you wish to find out more about me, my web site is www.tettig.com, and you can follow me on twitter @tettig.

I would like to make it clear, for the avoidance of doubt, that I am not looking for full-time employment with the BBC. I am very happily employed at the moment, and would not change my current job for love nor money. I am offering my services, as a private person, to the BBC for the purposes of presenting the above-mentioned radio show for an annual fee of £30,000.

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

I sent that on 4th Feb, and on 24th Feb, I got the following letter (and I quote it verbatim):

Dear Richard

Thanks for your letter regarding BBC Radio 2.

I understand you are keen to become a BBC presenter and feel that the position that Jonathan Ross will soon be leaving on BBC Radio 2, would be ideal.

I would like to advise you to call the BBC Career Information on: 0870...

I wish you all the best with your presenting career and thanks again for taking an interest in the BBC and for taking the time to write.

Yours sincerely

Cxxxxx Sxxxxx
BBC Information

Now, apart from the grammatical and punctuation errors in the letter, and the fact that the number supplied doesn't work, what irritates me about this? Doesn't Mark Thompson have a secretary who can get his signature on letters? Should a man earning almost a million a year have time to at least be seen to be personally responding to letters? Should a man who is contemplating and implementing massive cuts at the BBC, and who is about to state that one of the BBC's priorities is "inspiring knowledge, music and culture, consider directly an offer to present, at a miniscule fraction of current expense, a prime-time Saturday morning show, and respond to it after having listened to the CD sent to him? Or should such a highly-paid operative (paid, by the way, by tax-payers money, a bit like the bank mentioned at the beginning), just pass the buck to a flunkey with an uncertain grasp of the English language? You tell me.

By the way, you can listen to the CD I sent to Thompson on www.tettig.com/player.html

And I've started a group on facebook, if you want to become a member, which, simply put, says I ought to replace Ross.

The desolation of words

2010-02-08T23:26:00.001Z

The last four months have been difficult, to say the least. Not difficult in the struggling to make a living sense of the term, but in the where is this life leading me sense. I have lived through a period of constant doubt and almost despair, rewriting one book, thinking of another, and plagued by a dearth of words.

Although many people mock those of us who have pets, the death of a pet strikes at the very heart of us. Just after Christmas, just after we had all spent all our emotions on making a nest of an already cold home, Zebedee, our 3 and a half year-old rescue cat, died of kidney failure. I had just bought one of my daughters an illustrated copy of T. S. Eliot's Book of Magical Cats because she got on with Z so well. What can you say or feel or do when life deviates from its course so suddenly abruptly? Nothing. The grief of others is often more striking than your own. I am very grateful to Steve (you know who you are) for providing us with a beautiful spot in your pet cemetery for Zeb's final bed, and for consoling my daughters where I could not. Zeb's sister, Florence, still roams the house, confused.

Rewriting Bee Bones has been a trial in many ways. The original was flawed if the reader could not suspend disbelief, if events more believable than any episode of CSI didn't ring true. These weaknesses were ones I myself had thought of, but which I had ignored because of the emotional strength of the piece. I believe both versions are valid, although I do believe that the second, most current (completed on 4th February) versionm is more rounded, more mature. And caters to those who are addicts for an absolute reality. I am on tenterhooks to see how agents will react to it.

My thanks to all my friends from authonomy and facebook who have kept me going with encouragement, bullying and taunting over these past months. It would have been impossible to complete this journey without you.

The cold has not helped, this invidious East of England cold. The house I live in has no protection against the damp this land produces, and the only time I have been warm has been when it's been minus 7 outside and there has been a foot of snow on the ground. Working and writing when you're shivering within walls is not pleasant.

This inarticulate, incoherent, fragmented post has to conclude with how bereft and desolate I feel now, after deciding to take two weeks off from writing, before I start on rewriting the first draft of Too Far For Dead Men To Walk. The writer is incomplete without the characters he has created, and, who, after their creation, talk back to him.

That is the desolation of words the title of this post refers to. The desolation of the writer when he denies himself his craft.

Charlotte's birthday poem

2009-10-19T19:00:00.000+01:00

October

A cloudless sky,
One month, almost, into autumn,
Colding nights,
The scent of burning leaves;
Crisp shadows
Under the fullest moon.

Birth,
The holiest miracle,
Brought us you,
One more treasure
Of our lives.

A beautiful note,
One chord, almost, into the song,
Clear crystal,
The scent of new perfume;
Voices dancing,
Flower in fullest bloom.

Football poetry

2009-10-16T19:31:00.000+01:00

This poem is being read tonight (16th October 2009) at a poetry reading preceding the Kicking & Screening Soccer Film Festival in Washington, D.C.

And it's being read by Josh Wicks, a keeper himself for DC United.

Lev Yashin

He dreamed he was in goal again last night,
watched the ball in flight,
caught the star with an outstretched arm
against the gleaming night, the golden night.

He dreamed he was out on the green last night,
heard the crowd call him,
flew through the heavy air like breath,
black against the shining light, the silver night.

He dreamed he was whole again last night…

(c) RPS

On theatre

2009-10-01T18:24:00.000+01:00

What makes good theatre? Is it supposed to make us feel happy, feel good about ourselves, or is it meant to challenge us, make us feel uncomfortable? Is it meant to lull us into suspending our disbelief, or should it shock us our of our everyday complacency? Answers on an electronic postcard to me...

I first virtually met Sabina England on authonomy, a writer's web site (or online game, depending on how you look at it), over a year ago. She was a brash newbie in that community and shocked many of the writers there by using the c word as a term of affection. An interesting addition, you might say.

Sabina has been entirely deaf since the age of 14. She's a Muslim, a punk, a woman, a novelist and a playwright. She's now 26, and has probably lived more lives in those years than I have in my almost 50.

I went to see Sabina's play How The Rapist Was Born earlier this week. It's on at the Tristan Bates Theatre at 1A Tower Street, London, WC1 (near Covent Garden) until 17th October 2009 until 17th October (but not on Sundays).

Having read some of Sabina's ten-minute plays on her blog, and having read chunks of her novel, I knew she could write, but what I saw in London exceeded even my expectations.

How The Rapist Was Born is an outstanding play which challenges men and women to look at how they deal with provocative sexuality. Performed entirely by women, it's a blinding storm of words and lights and music, an uncomfortable piece of theatre which would not be out of place in Bertolt Brecht's portfolio. At 1 hour 10 minutes, it's not particularly long, but even that time flies by. It's a prose poem, a whirling dervish of a piece. Language, memory, pain.

I liked the repetition of the opening lines throughout – it created act changes, which I thought was really effective. Brecht is one of my favourite playwrights, and the impact of having the "manga" girls hanging around the theatre before the beginning of the play (and of having Charley, the main lead, pass the rapist's cock to the audience and shaking the hand of the audience during the play) made me think of his alienation effect – drawing the audience into the play at the same time as making them understand it was a play.

The sexually provocative schoolgirl outfits create a conflict for men watching the play, because making the girls “attractive” immediately created guilt/self-examination in male watchers – let’s face it, men always check out girls, consciously or subconsciously, and one of the central themes of the play, as I saw it, was digging down into the rapists’ self-justification (“she deserved it because of the way she was dressed” – ie denying women the right of self-expression and choice).

What really interested me was the choice of music, bearing in mind that Sabina can’t hear music. The soundtrack which accompanied the words and pauses fitted perfectly.

And, of course, the play adhered to Aristotelian principles. The claustrophobia of the hospital room in which the action takes place was emphasised by the increasingly agitated behaviour of Charley and her gang.

The ending of the play was totally unexpected for me, but I'm not about to give it away here.

If any of you reading have time to go and see it, do. It's on a double bill with another play, so you get 2 hours of theatre for twelve quid. Can't say fairer than that, guv.

Die Angst des Torwarts beim Elfmeter

2009-09-25T07:04:00.000+01:00

The title of Peter Handke's book translates as The Fear of the Goalkeeper at the Penalty Kick. The title sprung to mind when I was thinking about editing one of my novels. Why? Is there such a thing as The Novelist's Fear Of Editing?

We sit, separate from our families, for months on end, in dark rooms, lonely rooms, silent rooms, tapping out words which well up from the very core of us. And then we’re finished. We surface again. We spend time with our families. We live normal lives again. Or as normal as we can. And then? And then there’s a new torrent of words, another idea. But the last project is possibly not as perfect as it should be. But it’s still our baby. We fear changing it – or at least I do – because we’re afraid of destroying something we have created, something we love.

Or is it boredom with one project which drives us on to the next, instills in us a resistance to going back and tinkering and manipulating our words into different shapes? Boredom rather than fear? And yet those words lie there, long-hand in notebooks, or digitally on our hard disks and back-ups, goading us with their imperfection.

The new idea or the old one? So easy to create, so difficult to change. So impossible to read objectively, with one eye on our art and one eye on the market. Editing can be a nightmare, not just because we’re not word surgeons but wordsmiths. Because when we write our first drafts, we’re gods creating new worlds. When we edit, we become bureaucrats of form and shape and plot. Such a comedown. If the butterflies of our beginnings change the shape of their wingbeats, something somewhere down the line changes, too. A logistical nightmare. We have to make up rules and laws and regulations. Have to make sure everything fits, everything. We were anarchists of creation, and now we’re dictators.

I have not yet discovered the secret of how to overcome this fear, of how to overcome the boredom. I have a new idea in my head, but it has to stay there for the moment. I have to pull up the manuscript of at least one of my books and rip it apart and start it all over. Because real life demands it. Because I need to be pragmatic, not impulsive. Because I need to fashion my voice into one which will be heard and recognised.

An Unpublished Writer's View of the London Book Fair 2009

2009-04-21T23:00:00.001+01:00

My background is such that I've been to a great many industry exhibitions, mainly in the information business, and have become quite blasé about them. For some odd reason, as an unpublished writer I suppose, I had anticipated the London Book Fair to be different. I guess that comes from not being involved in the publishing business, and from the naivety which comes from that, regardless of age or background.

I must admit that I was off on one of my blue sky endeavours here, especially knowing that I'm not the most forceful or resourceful of men when it comes to cold selling. And that's what walking into the London Book Fair with a combat jacket full of promotional postcards is, let's face it. The hope being, of course, that someone would take mercy on me and talk to me. Because I can talk the hind legs of a warmed-up prospect.

Anyway, let me just go through the way I perceived the general setup. At all exhibitions I've been to, the picture is one of a load of exhibitor badges talking to another load of exhibitor badges about how good or bad business is, and frowning on the folks collecting lots of freebies or seeking appointments not previously arranged - time-wasters, we used to call them when I was a stand-shark. Their perceived value to the exhibitor badges is nil. So they generally get ignored. Same here, unfortunately.

The fronts of the stands here are manned by, more often than not, very beautiful, thin young women who are obviously impeccably house-trained. Very decorative, and actually very clever, all of them. However, one of their greatest skills is reading badges very quickly, and, as soon as they see author on your badge, a great look of pity comes over them, and they greet you, not with hello, but with we don't take unsolicited submissions; best to go through an agent. A great shame, and, unfortunately, a beautiful stonewall is nevertheless a stone wall. But if you're not married and are looking for eye candy and a potential wife, the I suppose the London Book Fair is the place to come.

I did manage to coral a couple of commissioning editors who took my Bee Bones card, made kind noises about checking out my web site, and shook my hand very strongly and sincerely. And I was engaged in very pleasant 10-minute conversation with a lovely front-of-stand lady called Jennifer who hails from New Zealand and who promised to pass my details on to her commissioning editor. I live in hope, but I won*t be holding my breath.

You see, past the lovely ladies, there's an outer circle of sales & marketing people who are all trying to sell to each other and outsell each other. Then there are the rights managers who are really sales managers with an extra bit of intellectual property rights know-how built in. And then, right at the back of the stands, there are the conclaves of the real power brokers, the movers and shakers, the people who you really need to know to get anywhere. And getting to them, especially for shy and retiring people like me, is nigh on impossible.

Interestingly enough, all the agents seem to be ensconced in the crow's nest of the International Rights Centre which, unless I have misinterpreted something, you either need to pay extra to get into, or must have been specially invited to. Bummer. Back to querying by email, I guess.

One very interesting thing I did see was the Espresso Book Machine 2.0 in action. This print-on-demand machine produces a 250-page book in 6 minutes. Unfortunately, the Americans who were giving the demo of the machine, had bought the wrong weight paper, because they couldn't work out the metric equivalent of the paper they normally use. The 80gsm paper they were using was too thin, so the spines of the books weren't the right thickness, and every book coming off the machine didn't look too good. To add insult to their own injury, they were taking any old book file from LightningSource, a lot of which was very poor quality writing - the sort of thing that gives self-publishing a bad name, because it is not quality controlled, and because the writer can't write. I've got one of the books in my bag, and it is dreadful in content, layout, and physical presentation.

There are 12 machines in use at the moment at World Bank InfoShop, Washington; New York Public Library; New Orleans Public Library; Internet Archive, San Francisco; University of Michigan Library; Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, VT; University of Alberta Bookstore; McMaster University Bookstore; Newsstand UK, London; Library of Alexandria, Egypt; Angus & Robertson Bookstore, Australia; University of Waterloo Bookstore, Canada. There are plans to install some more (as 2.0 beta sites) at McGill University Library, Montreal; Blackwells in London; and Brigham Young University Bookstore. The machine still needs an operator to run, but I believe the potential is huge. But only if used properly, with the necessary quality control to ensure high editorial standards. That day is some way off, though, as the costs are not insignificant - USD96k per machine plus operator salary and on costs, plus 1 cent per page in other production cost (I don't know if the operator I spoke to had a full handle on all the costs, so I don't know exactly what's in that 1 cent cost).

As far as attendance is concerned, I can't really judge. What I would say is that it was by no means very busy, and certainly not heaving. There were no gangway crushes. A reflection of the current economic climate, I would suggest. And by 17:30, the bigwigs had either left or were swilling wine on their stands, looking relieved that there was only one day to go.

My intention with this post is not to be negative. It is to tell of one day at the London Book Fair from an unpublished writer's point of view. Walking away with any number of free books (although they are proof copies) made me think, though. (I hasten to add that I saw no such freebies on the HC stand). When I first registered with authonomy, I made a suggestion as to how HC might deal with those top 5 books they thought were good but didn't fit into a list (ie well-written, well laid-out and worth taking a small punt on without creating reputation risks for HC). That proposal was to create an authonomy imprint, do a short trade paperback run of the top 5 books, say 1k per book each month, and to sell them for GBP2.99 a copy. Having been here today, I am more convinced than ever that this would work, and that HC would have at least one bestseller a year on their hands, as well as significant kudos in the market place as a result.

Conclusions? No different to any other industry conference in that it involves a lot of preening. However, it’s obvious to me that many of the people employed in publishing who are further down the foodchain than the folks at the very top actually put in some significant hours. It also became apparent to me that, for people like myself, who are very good writers but not marketeers, and who want to break into mainstream publishing, having an agent is extremely important. For me, in the wake of all the anti-agent bluster that’s been going round twitter and the net in general, this is a really important recognition. The other side of the coin is that serious self-publishing is still an option, but with the proviso that we’re able to persuade readers that our writing is not to be compared with 95% of self-published material which is dross.

On Writing

2009-04-15T23:36:00.001+01:00

Where do they come from? The words? The poems? The stories? The books? From the booze, the fags, the sex, the despair? From happiness, ecstasy, joy and hope? From the dreams we never achieved? From the voices we hear in our nightmares, our jealousies, our fears? Because we see things we hope will never happen? From a desire to escape our realities? Because they are too painful to confront? There is no happiness in writing. Even a happy ending does not promise better things. There is always betrayal, decay and death beyond the final sentence.

So, why write if there’s never a happy ending? Because we have to. Because we want the answer to all our questions. Because there has to be an answer. Something out there that makes all our moments and seconds worthwhile. Because we’re on a quest. In our books. In our thoughts. In our lives. Because what keeps us striviing is the need for redemption. For ultimate salvation. For knowledge of what comes next. Although we will never know. That’s what drives us.

Every book is a quest wrapped into another story. Every poem. Every sequence of words ordered into the semblance of a sentence. A greater whole.

I can’t stop the words. They appear out of nothing. In dreams. In shapes. In colours. In sounds. The voices never stop.

Take an empty notebook and a pen. Carry them around with you. Listen in on other people’s conversations. On buses. On trains. In cafes. In restaurants. In the street. Walk slowly. Loiter. Mishear lyrics from songs on the radio. And write it all down. Cannibalise the world around you for every ounce of mangled word you can gather onto your paper. Scribble. Jot. Doodle. Invent.

Go into a pub. Buy a drink. Sit outside and light a cigarette. The people who talk to you while you’re smoking are infinitely more interesting than the non-smokers inside. As you drink, the people who walk by without talking to you will become more beautiful, more weighed down with secrets and meaning. And all the time, scribble, scratch, draw. You may even fall in love out there.

Allow yourself to be tortured by your thoughts. Don’t be pragmatic. Don’t accept the world as it is. Fight it. Fight to change it. Gouge holes into the present’s fabric. Distort it. Bend it. Nothing is real.

You will wake one night, with or without someone by your side, your head full of sentences. You will have left your notebook in the other room. You must resist the temptation of the warm bed or body. Jump up. Race to your desk, and scrape those sentences into any piece of paper you can find. And don’t stop with the words that woke you. Carry on, carry on, until you are no longer able, until your hands tremble with exhaustion. And then go outside into the coldness of just dawn and wash your face in the breeze that always guards that time of day.

One day you will be happy. That will be the day you can write nothing useful. Nothing that matters. Nothing that will mean anything. Happiness breeds empty pages.

We are incomplete. We are sinners, and not necessarily in the religious sense. We commit, every day, crimes against those who share our lives. And not just against the people we know. We are guilty of not caring, not paying attention, not agitating. We carry the sins of omission with us forever. As do our characters. And through them we seek redemption. Feels like heaven. Then crash and burn.

Don’t look around. Don’t stop when your words make no sense to you. Keep going. Keep going. You can always change your mind later. But you can’t change yourself if you stop. The moment is gone then. If you stop, you might never write that great line you were meant to. Then it will all have been for nothing.

There. A fully-formed character jumps into your life. Suddenly. Without warning. And then another. An enemy. A lover. A child. They will decide what to do. You cannot guide them. They will guide you. They will drag you through their lives. All you have to do is to write it down. And you will fall in love with them. Become a part of them as much as they become a part of you. And you will remain intertwined for the rest of your life, past the last page of the book. And then? Only death will tell.

In a darkened room, a solitary light. A bottle of red wine. A half-full glass. An overflowing ashtray. Paper upon paper. Mountains of paper. Desk. Floor. Bed. Everywhere. And a shadow. A moving, chasing, writhing shadow. You.

Allow the words their balance. Read. Read. Read. What others have to say is part of your journey. What others have suffered. What the suffering of others has created.

Allow the words their rhythm. Dance with them. Scatter the dust. Scatter the ashes of the dead. Dance with your ghosts. Fast and slow. Hate and love. Say what you feel, not what you feel you should say. Shout. Skip. Scream. Dance. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Live. Die.

Where is the truth? There is no truth.

Where is the answer? There is no answer.

When will the words come? When you least expect them. Ninety-five percent of the brain’s activity is taken up by daydreaming. So daydream. And don’t throw away a single word. Even if you don’t use it.

I’ve locked myself away now.
Finally.
Being on the outside was too much to bear.
All the wind and noise,
All the confusion of living,
Of loving and being loved.

That’s over.
The pain is ended.
The glistening torture
Of dreaming shadows into being
Has gone.

A single room.
A single bed.
A single light.
A desk.
A chair.
A book.
A pen.

This is where I live now.
This is where I die
When the last page is turned.

Richard Pierce, 15th April 2009