Interview

Sorry to anyone who tried to listen to the US interview I mentioned a couple of posts below - what I didn't realise is that it was a pre-record, so it didn't go out today. It's going to be on various stations at various different times so I don't actually know when you can hear it, but if I get any more info or a link I will post it here.

Jewish Book Week

I haven't been a published author all that long but I've done a fair few appearances by now, and I've got used to how they work. Jewish Book Week was a little different. Nice turnout - about forty people, I think, including a regular blog reader (hello Hagbar!) I read a couple of chapters (one and four, if you're interested) and discussed my novel - a humourous novel about Greek Gods living in modern London, lest we forget - in a reasonably straightforward way with the friendly compere. Then we opened it to questions from the floor.

First question - yes, from you, the older woman with the long grey hair. Thank you.

"Would you say that extreme orthodoxy in religion, Jewish or otherwise, is in fact a barrier to moral and ethical engagement with the world?"

Well, it makes a change from "How did you get your publishing deal?"

Oh, and...

If you are in the USA, I will be on The Book Show on WAMC-FM at 9.30 CST tomorrow morning.

Oops, nearly forgot to mention...

If you're in London free today at 5pm and fancy seeing me doing a reading and talking about the very serious and important work that is being a writer, I'm appearing at Jewish Book Week at the Royal National Hotel in Bedford Way. It's free and I am wearing a very cool shirt that my mother got for me and some trousers that I haven't worn for two years and am amazed to discover still do up, even though I had a tomato and black bean curry for dinner last night. With rice. So, see you there?

UPDATE: I have changed my trousers, so I will understand if you don't want to come now.

iPod Moment: Shangri-las 'Leader of the Pack'

I upset a few people with my last choice of iPod moment, so here is another one: 'Leader of the Pack' by the Shangri-las. This was one of my first ever favourite songs (the first ever ever was 'Prince Charming' by Adam and the Ants, which I thought was about yer actual fairytale hero) and I have no cause to regret my early enthusiasm. When I was at Cambridge [I was about to write 'a few years ago' but it's wasn't, was it - it was ten whole years ago now] I performed a Karaoke version of this at the Trinity Hall Event and the Senior Bursar came up to me at the end of the night and told me it was the highlight of his ball. Insert your own joke about the Senior Bursar's balls here. But watching the Shangri'las perform it, I feel only shame that I did not do them justice in my choice of attire - silver miniskirt rather than full librarian chic, and boringly quotidian hair. Check out the lead singer's beehive that even Amy Winehouse would be proud of.

My Favourite Search Term

Flicking through the search queries on my blog stats, I notice that two people have been here looking for "Gods Behaving Badly spoiler". Bless! It's a book. If you want to know what happens, just flick to the end.

iPod Moment: Mika 'Grace Kelly'

I didn't used to like this song. When it first came out I thought it was irritating, pretentious twaddle. A friend of mine put it on a compilation for me and I thought "Pah. You have been seduced by crowd hysteria." (I said: "Thank you.") I put it on my iPod anyway. And today it came on and.... I LOVE IT! I was so wrong. My friend and the hysterical crowd were so right. It's brilliant. I had to listen to it twice. The second time I had just got off the bus so I could listen to it running down my street which enhanced the mood yet more. It's petulant and joyful and the tune is great. And it has one of my favourite lyrics in it, the very simple but true "Why don't you like me without making me try?" Why indeed? WHY?

Enjoy. Remember, I am right about this.

Tough Time, Nice Time

Two men sit in a bathtub and talk about sodomy, genocide, and Tom Hanks. If this doesn't appeal to you, best to avoid Tough Time, Nice Time, the new Ridiculusmus show at the Barbican. But why wouldn't it? It's fast and brave and funny and disturbing and very very smart, and I can't think of many better ways of passing 70 minutes no interval do not pass Go. It flies by so quickly that you can't keep up with your own thoughts about what's going on and have to take them all home to ponder later. What's the show really about? A hundred different things - from the difference between Nazis and hypocritical "Ordinary Germans", symbolised by the two characters hard-nosed Stefan and anxious Martin; to the eroticism inherent in the power struggle of conversation; to the seductive impulse to lie to strangers, and to oneself; to the purpose and pointlessness of storytelling, of writing and of movies; to the mystery of how a mobile phone dropped down a toilet whilst being buggered by a rent boy in Bangkok could turn up on the floor of another toilet across town two weeks later, "with twenty-five missed calls". You don't want to laugh in case you miss something and yet you can't help but laugh... This show is only on for a couple of weeks, but it shouldn't be too hard to get tickets - I picked mine up yesterday morning for the show last night. Go, see, laugh, think, and feel slightly queasy.

Bananas

I have travelled quite extensively in the USA and one thing I have noticed is that whenever I go to someone's home it always has a very distinctive smell. Sometimes it's not in their apartment, sometimes it's just in the staircase, but I smell it everywhere I go. It's strong and sweet and has a tinge of rot but it's not exactly unpleasant. I have never figured out what caused it - a particular type of cleaning product was my best guess. I just think of it as American House Smell and until yesterday I had never smelt it anywhere else.

Last night I came home from a weekend away and my house smelt of American House Smell. It was very disorienting as my house was just where I had left it ie not in the USA. Eventually I tracked down the source of the smell to the fruitbowl, which contained three very overripe bananas. I can therefore announce that the whole of the United States of America smells of overripe bananas.

I wish I could segue from that into talking about how the Oscar decisions were bananas, but actually they were pretty much exactly the same as the Baftas except for a choice of Best Film, No Country For Old Men, which (a) was much better than Atonement and (b) poo-pooed my theory that NCFOM and There Will Be Blood would split the Important Movie vote. There's no point me repeating the comments I made then. Never mind. I'm off to surf the net for pictures of Diablo Cody's million dollar diamond shoes.

Bog Standard Blog

My local healthfood shop has recently been taken over by a larger chain, so I went in yesterday to check out their new range. (No difference from what I can see.) While I was there, I bought some loo paper, recycled of course, a nine roll pack, because that's all they had. I've just put it out and it works fine but it's really ugly, sort of spongy like kitchen roll, and it looks like I've bought the cheapest stuff I could find. Now I'm ashamed to have people round to my house.

I mention this because I have made the decision to blog every day (maybe not weekends) and sadly that means that you're going to have to put up with observations of this variety a lot more often from now on. I can't be clever every day you know.