A Hungry Post

Much as I would like to blog - much, in fact, as I would like to stay in the office and finish the work I was supposed to do today - I need to go home now, because I am too hungry to remain. This is somewhat embarrassing, but I suppose it is what comes from having your lunch at 11.45 instead of your usual 1.30, which is what comes of having only a banana for breakfast because you didn't want to feel sick in your yoga class. (Just as well. We were doing twists).

So why not head over to one of my favourite sites, Passive Aggressive Notes, and enjoy this excellent, and somewhat crazy, photo essay? (With apologies to those who have already seen it when I posted it on Twitter yesterday.)

Alternative

Don't read my blog today. Read Robert Hudson guest blogging on Me And My Big Mouth. It is an inspiring photo essay which will blow your mind, and teach you to make better coleslaw, which won't be hard: coleslaw is the finely-shredded food of the devil. I need to go and wash my tongue just from thinking about it.

Introducing BBBB

A rare treat on the blog today, an interview with the delightful Stephanie Butland, Firestation Bookswap regular, blogger of Bah To Cancer fame, stupendous BBBB book giveaway organiser and cupcake baker extraordinaire - more on all of which can be found below. You should read right to the end of the interview unless you are on a really strict diet, in which case you might want to close the browser the moment that I mention cupcakes because it gets very tempting from there on in... But to start with, talk of BBBB and books in general.

Who are you and what is this BBBB of which you speak?

I'm Stephanie Butland and I was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2008. Since then I've had surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and ongoing drug therapy, and I've chronicled my dance with cancer at www.bahtocancer.com.
One thing I discovered during treatment was that my usual response to long days of not feeling well - curling up on the sofa with a book - didn't work. At first I put it down to poor attention span and watched a lot of daytime TV instead. But then someone gave me a Georgette Heyer novel and I devoured it. I realised that my usual books - dense, dark thrillers, complex small-print novels, modern fiction usually involving incest and other nastiness - just weren't the right books for me while I was trying to get better. So I started reading differently - Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, Lisa Jewell - and was re-reminded of what a healing thing a good book can be.
The BBBB - Bah! Brilliant Book Bonanza - was born from this experience. I've persuaded lots of lovely writers and publishers - including your fragrant self - to donate copies of their books, and I'm inviting anyone in need of a good, uplifting read (you don't need to have cancer) to come along and leave a 'pick me!' comment. So you can get a good, free, read if you need one, or you can make a small donation - I'm suggesting £2 - for every 'pick me' comment that you leave. So, if it works - and I'm going to look a complete twit if it doesn't - people in need of a good book will get one, and cancer charities will make a bit of money.

How can my lovely readers get involved with BBBB?

Readers can go to www.bahtocancer.com/bbbb and click on the 'May 2010 BBBB' link, read the list of available books - and there are some brilliant ones - leave a comment to say which one they'd like, and leave a 'pick me!' comment.

Writers who want to get involved with the BBBB can contact me via the site and tell me about the book they'd like to donate. It can be anything - fiction, biography, poetry, young adult books - so long as it leaves you with a smile on your face.

And now for some book questions. First book you remember reading / being read to you?

I remember a book called 'A Child's Garden of Verses' which was a big, heavy, illustrated poetry book. And my Grandma had a book at her house that she read to me and I loved - called 'Jim and Mary and the Rocking Horse' about a rocking horse in a park that sometimes came to life. I remember my Dad reading to me a lot. And I remember always being a reader. The first time we went on a plane, I missed the whole experience because my Mum had bought me a new Malory Towers book to read on holiday and I wasn't allowed to start it until we got on the plane. So I spent the whole flight with my nose stuck in the book with my Mum periodically interrupting me to try to get me to look out of the window.

First book that had a significant impact on you and the way you saw the world?

I really wanted to say something really impressively intellectual here, but I have to be honest and say it was one of the Enid Blyton St. Clare's boarding school books. I forget the context exactly but the message was that everyone has something special about them - and one day you will discover what is special about you. I liked that. Still do.

Favourite obscure book that everyone should know about?

'Chatterton Square' by E. H. Young. The characters are just exquisite and the story so moving. And it's such a delight to read a book where all the main characters are middle aged and none the less interesting for that.

A book that everyone loves but which you just don't get?

'The Time Traveller's Wife'. I get that the conceit is clever but frankly, I just couldn't care less. I've recently given up on 'The Children's Book' by A S Byatt when I was 100 pages in and loathed everyone in it. I read 'Wolf Hall' and felt very 'So what?' at the end, although I've loved Hilary Mantel's other novels. Oh, and you can keep all of Dickens.

All-time favourite book (or books - as this can be like choosing between your children)?

'Middlemarch' by George Eliot for the sheer span of it, and for Dorothea Brooke
'Bel Canto' by Ann Patchett, which is simply faultless
'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth - I do have a bit of a big book fetish and this is the top of my big book list
The Edith Wharton one with Lily Bart that I can't remember the name of. Oh, hang on, "The House of Mirth'. The inevitability of the ending breaks my heart every time
'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell which is so brilliant and so clever but the brilliance and the cleverness don't interfere with the fact that these are really good stories.
'A Month of Sundays' by John Updike, although frankly I'd pay to read Updike's shopping list.

A special BBBB question - what's the perfect uplifting read for when times get really tough?

For me, it's a Jane Austen novel, because I've read them all so often that I can read and enjoy them without too much effort, and they link me back through my past, and new things speak to me every time.

Last but not remotely least: you are famous amongst the Firestation Bookswap audience for your delicious cupcakes. Care to share a recipe with us?

Of course! Here is my 'Vanilla Variations' recipe.

To make a dozen cupcakes you will need:
- 125g butter at room temperature
- 125g golden caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 125g self raising flour
- a tablespoon of vanilla extract (not essence)
- a glug or two of full-fat milk
- muffin cases (not cupcake cases. This matters: it gives you the optimum cake to icing ratio.)

Heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius or so. Beat together the butter and sugar until it's really, really pale, or get a machine to do it for you. Add and egg and half the flour and beat it in slowly. Then the other egg and the other half of the flour, then the vanilla, then enough milk to make a soft dropping consistency - take a spoonful of the mixture, hold it sideways over the bowl, and if it falls off within 3 seconds that's what you've got.
Divide the mixture between the cases and put them in the oven. Take a look at them after 15 minutes: they should be pale gold and spring back to the touch. If in doubt, give them another 5 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and leave the cakes in there until they are cool.

Now, the topping. This is where the variations come in. Try any of the following. As a general rule, the longer you mix the toppings for, the better they'll be.

Basic icing: 200g icing sugar and a little cold water. Vary this by replacing the water with lemon or orange juice, or adding a drop of rosewater. Golden caster sugar will give a hint of caramel.

Royal icing: start by whisking an egg white until it's foamy then add 200g icing sugar. This gives you a crunchier icing when it sets. You can add any flavouring to this one, and try it with golden caster sugar too.

Traditional frosting: use 100g cream cheese (such as Philadelphia), 50g butter, 200g icing sugar and a glug of vanilla extract.

Add 2 tablespoons of good quality cocoa powder to any of the above.

Try mixing lemoncurd with thick greek yoghurt and putting a raspberry on top, but you'll need to store these in the fridge and eat them quickly.

Beat 100g Nutella with 200g icing sugar.

Melt 200g good quality dark chocolate, 50g butter and 100g double cream. You'll need to leave this to thicken before you use it and keep these in the fridge.

Once you have the icing and the cakes are cool, put the icing on and spread it around, and put something yummy on the top. Raspberries, chocolate buttons, sugar roses, dolly mixtures, flaked almonds (good with rose icing), those chocolates in the shape of seashells - they're all good.

Enjoy!

Marie, why aren't you blogging that much these days?

Because my second novel is bleeding my creativity dry. In a nice way. Like a friendly vampire.

But also because I've been moonlighting. You can find me guest posting over at Facegoop, the internet's newest and best makeup and products website in which we can eavesdrop as two fabulous women, one of whom is aka the splendide Belgian Waffling, talk to each other about smearing Chilean snail slime on their faces (actual example). My post was about Nuxe lip balm and I will soon be updating as I try the brand new Rouge Charismatic colour and discover that it has literally doubled my charisma with one application.

You should be reading Facegoop every day even if you don't wear make-up. You really should.

Best Greek myth ever?

By Martha Pack, age 8.

David Tennant or John Barrowman?

Over on the excellent The Medium Is Not Enough TV blog, blogmaster MediumRob is currently running a competition to win one of two Amazon Vouchers worth £25 each. The question to answer to win the competition is "David Tennant or John Barrowman? And why?" And my answer can be found here below... (Contest open til October 25th, please do enter but please don't win.)



- Hello, I’m looking for a man.
- Well, you’ve come to the right place. That’s all we do here. You might say that men are our speciality.
- I know. That’s why this is my favourite shop.
- Thank you. So what kind of man are you looking for today?
- Um… I’m thinking Scottish?
- Scottish, very good. Very on-trend. Scottish men have been all over the catwalks this season.
- And I’m planning to wear heels, so he’d better be tall.
- We have some very nice men in the 5ft 10 range.
- Hmm. No, I think taller.
- 6ft plus? That will narrow things down a little.
- And I’d like him to be an actor. I’m going for a dramatic look.
- Special occasion?
- I’m thinking of marrying him.
- Oh, well in that case I can see you’d want someone to stand out from the crowd. Well, we have our basic Scottish actor range, and then our Premium range.
- What’s the difference?
- The Premium range are better looking and more famous. But they are priced accordingly.
- It’s a one-off purchase.
- Of course. So do you have any preference on what kind of actor?
- I like science fiction. Television science fiction, in particular. For a family audience?
- Gosh. I’m not sure how many of those we have in stock. Oh, yes, actually more than I thought. But I’m not sure if we can meet all your criteria. For example, here’s Douglas Henshall but he’s only available in 5ft 9 ½.
- 5ft 9 ½?
- His imdb page is very clear on that extra half inch.
- I’m afraid that’s a little short for me.
- I quite understand. I can offer Patrick Stewart, who is a little taller, and while he isn’t Scottish exactly, he has a good Celtic name, and he’s a timeless design classic.
- Tempting. I do like his voice, and he looks great in that Starfleet uniform. How timeless is he exactly?
- He’s currently 69 years old.
- Hmm. That’s a bit too timeless.
- I see. Well in that case, if your requirements are non-negotiable, it’s David Tennant or John Barrowman.
- David Tennant or John Barrowman?
- That’s all we have left.
- This is tricky. Will you be getting any more stock in?
- Not til Christmas, which is when we’re expecting our new Doctor, but he isn’t Scottish, and imdb doesn’t even list his height, so we’re anticipating that he might be quite short.
- I was hoping to be married by Christmas. Right. Well, in that case… God this is hard… and I hate making impulse purchases, but I’ve got to get to the bank and it’s closing in ten minutes… OK. Barrowman.
- Barrowman? Are you sure?
- Yes. No. No. Tennant.
- Tennant?
- Do you offer a refund or exchange if I change my mind?
- Unfortunately not.
- Tennant then.
- Definitely?
- Yes. Absolutely. He’ll go better with my handbag.
- Tennant it is. If you wait here, I’ll just go and get him wrapped.
- No, it’s OK, I’ll wear him home. Thanks very much.
- My pleasure.

And there's more

Rupert Hill (the lead actor) blogs about Future Me over here on the Guardian website. All the best people are blogging about Future Me today, dontcha know.

And I Owe It All To Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage

Remember this? Yes, only a fortnight ago the Gender Analyzer was convinced to the tune of 76% that I was a bloke. Today, it is 95% sure that I am a woman.

Can it be coincidence that for the last few days I have blogged exclusively about bad sex, X Factor and Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage?

I'm not writing much at the moment

so there might be a knock-on effect here. I did post a bit about it but have decided against going into details, instead, to entertain you, have a look at the excellent blogs just there -->

The Truth About Blogging

From Garfield Minus Garfield.

To Review or Not To Review?

OK, time to take this one on.

First of all, let's get a bit of perspective going. The last episode of Doctor Who was watched by 10 million people. My blog gets about 150-200 readers a day, mostly the same people every day, with a bit of a peak after an episode of Doctor Who, but only a small peak - say up to 100 extra readers. But obviously a few more find it over time. So even if you think eventually 1000 people might read one of my reviews - and that is being generous - we are talking about 0.01pc of people who watch Doctor Who. It's practically a pub conversation. And of course, of those, many will disagree with my views.

Also, I do like Doctor Who and I do write positively about it. Looking back over my reviews of this season, eight were broadly positive and five were broadly negative, with a bit of a grey area in both cases, as there were quite a few middling ones this time round. So overall I liked most of them. To put that in a bit more context, over the four seasons of Who, this has come third as far as I am concerned - I liked season 2 best, then season 1, then season 4 and lastly Season 3. And even so, Season 3 had my favourite episodes of all time in them: the 'Family of Blood' two-parter. So I do not 'not like Doctor Who' and I am not going to stop watching. Why would I? I don't know if it's going to be a bad episode until it's over. Or a good one - I didn't think much of 'The Stolen Earth' until the last five minutes, and there's no way I'd have wanted to miss that.

One of the things that makes Doctor Who fun to write about is that it's such a mixed bag. It can be so good and so bad that it's hard to believe that each episode goes past the same exec producers. I've worked in TV myself and I know it can be bloody hard to get things in, on time, and well-made, but Doctor Who is one of the most watched, highest budgeted programmes on television. It's not just a kids programme, it's a BBC flagship show and it should be good. So it's legitimate to point out when it isn't. One of the things that makes Russell T Davies fun to write about is that the work he does is also such a mixed bag. Casanova is one of my all-time favourite dramas, and not just because of the presence of lovely David Tennant. Queer as Folk was exceptional. Loads of his episodes of Doctor Who have been brilliant - notably Midnight, this season, which got a rave from me. I am also, as far as I know, the only person alive who liked the Cat Nuns. But that doesn't make this season finale any better. I review Doctor Who because there is a lot to say about it, and because, judging by my comments, people like reading my reviews and discussing their own - often opposing - views. These are good reasons to write reviews. I'm sorry that I don't like every episode. But I just don't.

It's never fun getting a bad review. I should know, I've had them myself. If you want to read some, try this one, which describes one of my sentences as "surely one of the clunkiest published sentences of the year", or this one which says that my book is "so bad... it's the kind of book that could be made into the kind of movie someone might accidentally watch on an airplane" or indeed this one, in the New York Times of all places - circulation a bit more than 1000 - which says that my book is "so conventionally constructed that it suggests the help of fiction-writing software". I don't enjoy reading this kind of thing, but I do read it, and I put up with it, for two reasons: 1. My book is out there. I have put it in the public domain, and people are entitled to say what they like about it. And 2. It is impossible to make a piece of work that everybody will like. Not possible. It has never happened to anyone, and never will.

So I will carry on watching Doctor Who and I will carry on reviewing it for as long as I enjoy watching it most of the time and I enjoy writing about it. I've been told that if I don't like Doctor Who, I don't have to watch it. The same goes for my reviews. If you don't like reading them, nobody is forcing you to. On the other hand, if you like reading them because you hate them so very much and enjoy coming onto my blog to slag them off in the comments, don't start telling me what I should or shouldn't write about, because you leave yourself open to accusations of hypocrisy.

However, I do accept certain things. It is easier to write a bad review than a good review, mainly because bad reviews are funnier. There's definitely a risk of being vicious just for effect. That's something to watch for, and in future I will. Also, when I am watching something with a view to reviewing it, I do have my critical mind on, which means that I don't just relax and lose myself into it, I am looking for points to raise, in favour and against. So that can go against the spirit of just enjoying it. I'll look out for that too. And there is always the risk of slipping from attacking the product to attacking the person, which I do try to avoid, though Russell T Davies might feel entitled to disagree. (Ah, Russell, still my number one choice for adapting Gods Behaving Badly for TV. The chances of that are receeding into the distance at quite some rate, I imagine, after all this.)

Ultimately, if I am going to review, I am going to write bad reviews. If I don't enjoy something, I am going to say so, I am going to say why, and I am going to do it in a way that I hope others will find entertaining. I am not seeking out the people who made the work to attack them directly, I am doing it here, on my own site, which people can choose to read or ignore as they wish. And there is a comments facility so that if anybody wants to disagree, or to exercise the right of reply, they can do so. Preferably not anonymously.

So, over to you.

Shhhhhhh............

Don't tell anyone, but I've been unfaithful. I've been writing for another blog... It was only once - it meant nothing to me - it will never happen again... Well not until they ask me anyway.