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15 November
Here's a question I've been pondering for a while. Can Welsh writing ever be sexy?
Some time ago on Radio 4 the Welsh novelist Russell Celyn Jones lamented that while Irish and Scottish writing was seen as ‘sexy’, Welsh writing, in contrast, was viewed as asexual. For most people Welsh writing has never shrugged off the image created by the most famous Welsh novel ‘How Green Was My Valley’. It was subsequently turned into the most famous Welsh film (though it was directed by John Ford, an American of Irish descent and the cast was dominated by actors from Dublin's famous Abbey Theatre), which went on to beat ‘Citizen Kane’ for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It became fixed in people’s minds as the Welsh story. A small, suffocating village where everyone knew everyone else’s business, a poor, hard working, god fearing family, dominated by an overbearing mam, the congregation quaking in their boots as they listened to the regular hellfire sermons at the chapel, a pit disaster, and/or a failed strike, leading to crushing poverty. If we want to update it, we only need to have the pit close, or the valley flooded in order to make a reservoir. It is a small, hermetically sealed world, unchanging, clannish, and lacking in colour. No one new or in any way different enters, no one ever escapes. What possible interest could outsiders have in what goes on there?
It is as if Wales, geographically small, is also condemned in the popular imagination to be emotionally and intellectually small. Yet this stagnated view of Wales is far too narrow to encompass the issues and concerns of a rapidly changing, culturally diverse country. Wales, for instance, had to deal with the alleged problems of immigration diluting national identity long before the English, as people flocked to south Wales for jobs in the mines, heavy industries and docks (as did my parents, making the short journey from Ireland). Also, of course, the industrial (now post industrial) south is not representative of the whole country. There are rural and Welsh speaking areas where the familar stereotypes have never applied. But no, let's just carry on parading the stale images of male voice choirs, rugby scrums, Tom Jones belting out 'Delilah' and the odd photo of Dylan Thomas with a fag in his job, that'll do the trick.
14 November
One of the characters in the novel I'm writing at the moment knows a great deal about music, and as part of my half-hearted ongoing research I have been reading Chris Salewicz's excellent biography of Joe Strummer, 'Redemption Song.' OK, I also just wanted to read it as I, along with many others, thought that The Clash were just about the best rock band that I've ever seen when, and would surely take over the mantle of The Who, who were the only other live act to stand comparison. Strummer was, of course, an intense, maddening, hypocritical and contradictory character. It was vital to maintain at all costs the image of The Clash as some kind of gang that had emerged from the back streets, which is very far from the truth. They were, in fact, just as artificially manufactured as The Sex Pistols. One small story retold in the book highlights this nonsense perfectly. Strummer told journalists that he'd borrowed money off a drugs dealer to buy his first PA. But in actual fact he'd obtained the money from Arabella Churchill, the grandaughter of Winston Churchill, whom he'd met at Glastonbury at the beginning of the 70s. Even more embarassing, part of this PA had belonged to prog rockers and class enemies Pink Floyd. Whoops.
12 November
It was good to be involved in 'The Gathering' at the weekend, it being the third annual 'Wonderful Word of Words' festival in Leeds, supported by the Irish Arts Foundation. Myself, Ian Duhig and Siobhan McMahon read our poerty and prose, interspersed with music and song (and even Irish dancing). I always think that its a great shame that while poets are often invited to collaborate with musicians and artists, prose writers seldom are, as the mixture of words and music works particularly well. A very good day.
30 October
One of my favourite songs at the moment is Loudon Wainwright’s ‘Daughter’. Actually, it would be easy to put together a compilation album of Loudon’s songs about his various sons and daughters, he’s written so many. They range from tender ballads about them as young children, right through to later, much sadder numbers about how their relationship has gone wrong: but that’s another subject. The song was featured in the film ‘Knocked Up’, which I saw ‘in the summer. It was one of those evenings when I was dying to go see a film but couldn’t find what I really wanted, so went for a compromise. It was interesting and fairly amusing, but I failed to see what the fuss was all about; I’m sure that’s because I’m too old for that kind of film. A group of teenage girls were sitting further along in the same row as us, and one of them started giving a running commentary on the film into her mobile: ‘They’re having it off now. She’s really wasted, otherwise she’d never do it with him, he’s such a dog. Oh my god that is so gross, they’ve just shown him naked!’
But what really amused me was listening to the director talking about it on the radio not long after. The poster featured a head and shoulders shot of Ben Stone, the male lead, looking rather forlorn and guilty. The strapline above is ‘What if this guy got you pregnant?’ The joke being that he’s hardly a male model – a little on the plump side, rather ordinary looking, a mop of curly hair. But apparently they were advised to change this poster for certain countries. In Greece, for example, he apparently was considered to look rather too like the average Greek male, and so they were worried that no one would get the ‘joke’, or that they might cause offence: ‘Hey, what’s so funny about that? He’s a good looking guy.’
15 October
There's now a programme on Radio 4 on weekday afternoons called, I think, 'Music Club' in which three people each pick one of their favourite tracks and then explain why it means so much to them. The others then pitch in and give their opinion. I heard it for the first time last week when I was driving back from running a workshop. One guy chose Billy Bragg's 'New England', and it was really good to hear it again. He talked about how he loved the fact that it was so low tech, and explained that it was actually a demo that Billy had made for a record company, which they'd then rejected. So Bragg asked if he could keep the demo and then released it himself. 'Its a pretty primitive sound, all that echo, it sounds like he's recorded it in the bathroom', said the Bragg fan, before adding that he liked to think that Billy had in fact been sent to the bathroom for being naughty. There is, if you listen to it, the kind of plaintive and put-upon tone of the unjustly scolded boy in Billy's voice that makes the idea sound very plausible. That night I began searching for my copy, which I hadn't played for ages. How often does it happen that once you hear someone talking about a piece of music that you once liked but have stopped playing, you become desperate to hear it again?
When I did play it again it had acquired a whole new resonance now that I knew he'd recorded it after being sent to the bathroom for being naughty.
14 October
Recently I read an interesting interview with the former Man Utd star, Paddy Crerand. At one point he attempted to broker a peace deal with the IRA. He met them in the middle of the night at a secret location in Derry and told them that they should renounce violence, that the only way to solve problems was by dialogue, not by shooting and blowing each other up. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. Not because they thought he was hopelessly naive, but because all they wanted to talk about was Man Utd and Celtic. Apparently this is recounted in greater detail in his autobiography, 'Never Turn The Other Cheek.'
Crerand is from Glasgow which, of course, has also been trying to tackle secetarianism. The last time I was there, about three years ago, I saw something which cheered me up considerably. I noticed two teenage girls walking alongside each other in the middle of the city, pushing prams and talking and laughing. One was wearing a Celtic shirt, the other a Rangers top.
23 September
Here's an old Emo Phillips routine that seems much more relevant now than when I first saw him do it years ago...
I was walking across a bridge one day when I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said 'Stop, don't do it!'
'Why shouldn't I?' he asked.
I said 'Well - this is a beautiful world, there's so much to live for.'
He said, 'Like what?'
I said 'Well... do you believe in God?'
He said, 'I do.'
I said, 'So do I. Are you Christian or Buddhist?'
He said, 'Christian.'
I said, 'Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?'
He said, 'Protestant.'
I said, 'Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?'
He said, 'Baptist.'
I said, 'Wow, me too! Are you Baptist Church of God, or Baptist Church of the Lord?'
He said, 'Baptist Church of God.'
I said, 'Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?'
He said, 'Reformed Baptist Church of God.'
I said, 'Hey, me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?'
He said, 'Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915.'
I said, 'Die heretic scum' and pushed him off.
7 March
Going Under has now been sold to Germany and France, which I'm very excited about. The art of the translator is a very difficult one. I remember having an interesting correspondence with my Dutch translator when he was working on All This Is Mine. A novel narrated by a 10 year old Welsh boy and set in the sixites presented must have presented many difficulties for Sjaak, but he was a very skillfull and meticuous translator. He had translated all of John Irving's novels, who thought so highly of Sjaak's work that he had taken to sending him the proof copies so that he could pick up any errors early on - quite a compliment. When Sjaak was working on a scene set at the ground of Crindau FC, Liam's perenially underachieving home town team, he had trouble grasping what a 'tea hut' was. An internet search had alerted him to the idea that it was the sort of thing that vanished when stadiums were upgraded, but he found it hard to picture. In turn, when I tried to imagine the Dutch queuing up in the rain for a cup of (basically) hot water in a styrofoam cup, served from a filthy old turn, I struggled. When I explained just exactly what this primitive attempt at providing refreshment to football fans consisted of, he was incredulous - my god, I never knew you had it so hard in Britain was more or less his reply. On another occasion, he emailed me to ask what Liam meant by a 'greenie'? He told me that he had looked it up in several dictionaries and that it was described as a particularly large wave favoured by surfers. 'Now I know that its not that' he said, 'So what do you mean?' 'Nasal mucuous' I was forced to reply. After I explained to Sjaak that the dismal Crindau FC were inspired by own perenially underachieving home town team, Newport County, he very thoughtfully sent me a link to a website dedicated to that club's past glories (such as they are).
4 March
Is there nowhere in Leeds that you can escape from Jimmy Saville? The cafe on the edge of the lake in Roundhay Park was a favourite haunt of his. He would sit there, surrounded by two or three fawners hanging on his every word, holding his cigar aloft like a baton conducting the adulation. He must be in his 70s now, but still sported his trademark peroxide shoulder-length hair and usually wore a colourful sports jacket, tee shirt, gold medallion, jeans and the kind of expensive trainers favoured by teenage boys, complete with trailing laces. But recently the cafe was burnt down (an electrical fault the cause, apparently) - so where could poor Jimbo go to obtain his daily does of adoration? It turns out that a nearby Chinese restaraunt will suffice. That's where I came across him the other week, his unmistakable tones the first thing we heard when we entered. He was in the reception area, where you sit and look at the menu while you're waiting for a table, next to a couple in their 20s who were looking very self conscious as he held forth. It was hard to work out whether they'd arrived with him, or whether he'd pounced on them when he'd come in and trapped them in a corner.
After a couple of minutes the people at one of the tables in the restauraunt began singing happy birthday, the waiters brought over a birthday cake and cheering broke out. It was as if a current of electricity had been shot through Jimbo. He was out of his chair in a flash and gambolling over to the table like a man 40 years younger, where he promptly inserted himself into the proceedings. He put an avuncular arm around the birthday boy's shoulders and posed invitingly for photos. Then he prattled along for a while in that robotic style of his, before circling the table shaking hands and bowing and smiling ostentatiously. When he returned to his seat he was positively glowing. Shortly afterwards we were shown to our table. Within minutes another table broke into happy birthday, out came the waiters with another birthday cake and down the stairs once more gambolled Jimbo. He then repeated the performance with, if anything, even more gusto. At this point I remarked that it wuld be just our luck if they gave Jimbo the table next to ours, so that our meal would be constantly interrupted by his unbearably boring tales of his Radio One heyday (he has a voice like foghorn). But no, shortly afterwards he came down the steps again, only this time to say goodbye to the whole restaraunt, waving and gurning on the steps as he did so. He departed after much hand shaking and back slapping with the staff. So it seemed he had no interest in eating at all. Apparently gatecrashing other people's special occasions was the only reason he was there.
3 March
We brought The Four Fathers to the opening day of The Essex Book Festival on Thursday, World Book Day. In the morning we did an interview with Dave Monk of Radio Essex in the middle of Witham Library, as people streamed in for the launch. Dave was surrounded by a gaggle of young assistants - one of whom stood opposite him, a large clock clutched to his chest, another who wrote things on post its and held them up in front of her - five minutes to traffic news; four minutes to traffic news, and so on. The absurdity of the situation was too much for John who, when the one minute to trafiic news post it appeared, took it from the assistant and pasted it to his forehead. Dave didn't bat an eyelid. We then mingled for a while with readers and other writers and members of the army (they're very welcoming at The Essex Book Festival, one of the very best in the country), before our online chat with readers. Several people who had read the book wanted to know what my dad used to get up to in his shed, which features at the beginning of On The Edge. This mostly seemed to consist of dismantling metal objects, then trying to re-assemble them and failing abysmally, the nearest he ever came to having a hobby. However he also used to keep garlic in there, as the smell of it disgusted my mother and she refused to have it in the house. Once, when he saw me watching him eating a raw slice, he offered me one, saying 'garlic is a great thing, you'd never see a Frenchman with a cold.' In retrospect that was the nearest we ever came to a man to man talk.
After another chat with Dave, we grabbed some lunch then headed off to do an event in a prison in the afternoon. Before Four Fathers I had never been inside a prison, and was a bit apprehensive, but we've done 4 or 5 now, and each one has been fascinating. I vividly remember a conversation with someone I had inside last year. He told me how the other guys sometimes got him down with their moans about the quality of the food, the boring jobs and the irritating habits of some of their neighbours. To him, all that was irrelevant, a mere distraction from the real pain - that of being seperated from his kids; no other punishment could compare to that. When I walked out of the prison that day I felt a very lucky man.
The Essex Book Festival continues for the rest of the month.
27 February
The Rhondda has been more or less stripped of all its industry, and is now fighting to save its last major textile manufacturer, the Burberry plant near Treorchy. As I've already mentioned, it was announced late last year that Burberry were closing down their factory in south Wales and moving production to China, to cut costs. I'm wondering if Britain will soon be a country that doesn’t make anything - what will that feel like? Here's Aidan, the hero of Going Under, pondering that possibility:
'Aidan wondered what the future would be like, when everyone talked, made speeches or gave presentations, ran PR companies and wrote press releases all day and there was no one left to actually make anything. Where would they turn when they needed something? They'd pay people in India peanuts to make it for them.'
Of course Aidan, in coming up with such an attention grabbing publicity stunt, and milking it for all its worth, has now joined that world, an irony which he is very aware of.
20 February
Its interesting to see that in the wake of the very powerful campaign against the closure of the Burberry factory in south Wales, which so closely mirrors the events portrayed in Going Under, that Burberry has called in a lobbying company to help fight the bad publicity, and have brought in the former Sun editor David Yelland to advise on how to counter the union's case. This is a very modern dispute, with both sides now seeking to gain the upper hand in the media. Except, of course, that Burberry are the ones with the real power, while those supporting the workers facing redundancy must rely on ingenuity, energy and their excellent organisational skills.
18 February
Nowadays when your new book is about to come out your publisher is always interested to hear any ideas that you might have about how to promote it. Although I feel well taken care of by Random House, with hundreds of new books being published every month, less fiction being reviewed every year and intense competition for those prime positions in bookshops, the author feels under pressure to be something of a self publicist. I actually enjoy doing interviews, speaking in public and reading my work aloud. Rather late in the day I discovered that I am very comfortable on stage, in the studio, or talking about writing to an audience.
The main character in my new novel, Going Under, buries himself alive in a coffin as a protest against the closing down of the factory where he works. A number of people suggested that I should have some photos of myself taken in a coffin to publicise the book's release. I was slightly ambivalent about this at first, but everyone I spoke to thought it was a great idea. So I contacted Kevin Reynolds, the photographer Route brought in to take some publicity shots for the Four Fathers tour last year, and who did such a great job. Then I found a Funeral Director willing to stage such a shoot. We were all set. Then my father was taken into hospital on New Year's Day. The following Sunday he died in his sleep. He was 87 years old, in poor health and suffering from dementia, so in many ways you might say it was a blessing. Nevertheless it was a crushing blow. I drove back down to Wales to be with my mother and deal with all the practicalities. I rang the publicist at Harvill Secker and asked her to postpone the series of interviews that she had arranged. Both she and my editor were very understanding and sympathetic. I also pulled the plug on the coffin shoot. Since my father's death it no longer seemed such a good idea. The thought of climbing into a coffin and posing for the camera now turned my stomach. What would my father have made of such a carry on just a few days after he'd died? I felt there was now something distasteful about an idea that had seemed such good fun just a few weeks before.
I was still in Wales dealing with the aftermath of my father's death when the book appeared in the shops. Normally I would have walked into the town centre and checked that the novel was indeed in the bookshops, a nervous tick that many authors share. But such things seemed irrelevant at the time. Instead I found myself driving out to the crematorium where dad's coffin would be taken after the church service, to familiarise myself with the route and find somewhere nearby to hold a buffet for the guests. That week, instead of stoking the publicity machine I spent my time talking to hospital staff, the mortuary attendant, the registrar and undertaker. While performing these tasks, the irony of my father dying just as my novel about a man who buries himself alive was about to come out was never far from my mind.
17 February
I'd like to apologise to anyone who has tried to contact me through my website over the last couple of months. I have only just discovered that there was a problem with the link, after someone whose emails had not reached me eventually contacted me by phone. The email link has now been repaired.
15 February
An author would usually be pleased to find that their new novel is topical, but in my case it has rather a bitter edge to it. The Rhondda has lost just about all of the industry that it was once famous for - the mines and iron and steel works. Now its fighting one last battle, that to save The Burberry factory near Treorchy, the last significant textile manufacturer in the area. Burberry announced last year that they were closing down their factory and moving production to China, where they could pay the workers peanuts. Just alike Going Under, management promised there would be no redundancies, then went back on their word. Just as in Going Under, globalisation means pursuing the endless search for increased profits, no matter what the human cost. In my novel at one point Aidan wonders if there will soon be a time when nobody makes anything in this country anymore, and that when we need things we'll just pay someone in India or China to make it for us. I do feel that time is getting closer.
Just as in Going Under, the national press only started taking an interest in the campaign once those trying to save the factory came up with some inventive publicity stunts. The actor Ioan Gruffudd, who made his name in Hornblower and is now plying his trade in Holloywood and models for Burberry, was born just 10 miles away from the factory. Once a little moral pressure was applied he came out in support of the workforce, which embarassed Burberry. That started the ball rolling and Bafta recently cancelled its celebrity reception party the night before the awards due to a planned demonstration by the workers from the Treorchy factory. Tom Jones, Rhys Ifans (who has promised to burn his Burberry clothes if they close the factory), Charlotte Church, Emma Thompson, Alex Ferguson and Irvine Welsh have joined the chorus of disapproval. Burberry also makes perfume and Valentine’s Day protests are planned for Burberry shops in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Houston and Paris. Let's hope they are successful.