August, 2005

Responding with a plum.

The Staffordshire town of Leek has been ordered, by the county council, to remove all its sumptuous hanging flower-baskets from its lamp-posts, because they constitute a "hazard". How's that, you ask? Well, it seems that if a car were to collide with the lamp-post, the baskets might fall and hurt someone.

No, I'm not making this up.

Fair point, you might say, it could happen. Well yes, but wouldn't it be better to stop the cars from driving into the lamp-posts rather than to pour weed killer on the flowers? Like by lowering the speed limit to 20 mph in the town? It's not the flowers that are the hazard but the cars which annually slaughter 3,500 people per year in the UK, mainly in the built up areas of the towns. Flowers don't go around slaughtering people. But everyone treats this carnage as if it were cause by an event akin to flooding, earthquake or Act Of God. I don't get it. Cars kill far more people than terrorists, mass murderers, drug pushers and Acts of God put together. Our considered response to out-of-control cars? Chop down the flowers.

Thinking about this gives me purple migraine. Anyone know any good campaign groups?

We don't really need science fiction, not when our city elders are launching attacks on fuchsias and trailing lobelia as a means of reducing traffic accidents, but I went to the Worldcon in Glasgow anyway. A fantastic event - but too big, and I ended up missing some people I would have liked to have spent some time with. This convention had over one thousand programme events, multi-tracked. But I did get to see many fine friends both from home and abroad, plus I managed to drag Sue and the savages up to Bonny Scotland with me, and even blagged extra tickets from the lovely Ingrid at Harper Collins to smuggle the family on board The Tall Ship for the Voyager party. Well, it was Ella's ninth birthday and she thought it unbelievably cool to go to a grown-ups party.

I'd explained the ship would be crammed with "famous people", by which I meant the usual riff-raff of artists, publishers, writers, editors and critics. But when the savages demanded their customary fix of sugared fizz I discovered that the bar was at the other end of the ship. Every two paces along the deck we encountered another long-lost old friend, usually disguised by an eye-patch or waving a hook distributed by Harper Collins, and some hanging upside down from the rigging. It was slow progress to the sterna as I introduced the birthday girl and her brother all round. The fizz was calling, after the seventeenth handshake Ella dragged me aside. 'For god's sake, how many more famous people do I have to meet?'

Deflating, that girl. I nearly said, 'You know there are lots of children in Africa who would love to be on this boat meeting famous editors,' but I did catch myself just in time. And I know what it's like when you're gasping for your ship's ration. We finally found the grog, dispensed by a gloomy pirate barman, and I left Ella giving Sharyn November a good listening-to. Joe meanwhile had found a hoard of plastic gold doubloons and pieces-of-eight that were part of the evening's props; he filled his breeches, bag, pockets and shirt with the things. Ingrid, if you want 'em back, I'm sick of finding them in my bed and in my shoes. And under my keyboard. And stuffed in the DVD slot.

Panelling at the convention was fun. I arrived slightly late for one panel I was on only to find I was designated as the moderator. Being immoderate I never agree to moderate panels and suspected I was being punished for my tardiness, but when I checked the schedule afterwards someone had slipped a crafty (M) - the equivalent of the pirate's Black Spot - next to my name. Anyway I constructed a theory on the hoof as it were and invited my fellow panellists to respond, which they did with aplomb. Or "with a plum" as I heard one ex-footballer sports commentator say recently. The subject: Romance in SF & F. We did get into that ol' fractious gender routine about leaving lavatory seats up, but largely it was intelligent, fun and not entirely disposable. Other panels were heated: brilliant academic and editor Joan Gordon whacked the dazzling and erudite Gary Wolfe from Locus on the head with a paperback. I was sitting next to Gary and I felt the wind from the paperback. This on a panel where reviewers and academics were invited to find commonality. The odd thing about Joan's strike was that it was pre-emptive. The blow was landed before anyone on the panel had spoken. I was sitting between the two, and I watched my Ps and Qs in that panel, I'll tell ya!

No, I still don't know what it was about.

I did a reading with the filthy bits from Limits of Enchantment. I also want to mention those people who came to my kaffeklatch on the Sunday - readers of this blog from around the world! It was great to see you and thank you for coming - I'd name you all in person but my other two readers will be envious. All in all Glasgow was a fine trip. Ella told Alan and Jude from Borderlands Books that I didn't even shout at her when she spilled a full glass of cola in my lap "because it was my birthday". We had a smashing dinner with the splendid Gray clan before the convention, and after it we drove to the top of Loch Lomand where we made a special point of admiring its natural beauty.

Great reaction to Twoc meanwhile, which picked up a very good Guardian review and a lot of presence in the bookshops. I'm just completing the follow-up (well, not a follow-up, but a second YA novel, which I'd contracted with both Faber in the UK and Viking in the US.) I'm enjoying this. The new one is called Do The Creepy Thing. I'm looking forward to finding out what that's all about. I'm also deep into a draft of The Tooth Fairy (the movie) which has recast the story back in the UK with its original concerns. So, work proceeds.

I've had to cut back a little on my teaching at NTU. I will continue to teach on the MA Writing course, because life wouldn't be the same without it, but won't be doing any more undergraduate teaching for the time being. Somehow I feel a bit sad about that. Obviously the MA students are more dedicated to writing, but there was a lot of spontaneity around the undergrad students who were doing it for less vocational interests, and I think I'll miss that. I'm a pretty decent teacher, and I'm worried that I might be a better teacher than I am a writer. Don't want to think about that too much.

And I won't have to think about it at all for a week because we're off to the mystical island of Achill island, in the Republic of Ireland, for a few days! I wrote about this in a previous blog. It really is one of the most extraordinary places on the planet. Last time I went there about twelve different novels started forming in my head - down! down! you wantons! - because the place is like the raw substance of fairy tale transmuting into story before your eyes. And around your ears. You can't stop it. It's a truly magical place, where hanging baskets and all other species of flower can feel free from persecution by demented local authorities.

Graham Joyce can be contacted by emailing graham@grahamjoyce.net