It's just my name.

I know my name.

It's just a bog standard any-old name. I've seen it around for years and although it took me a while to learn how to spell it (ch... not k...), I'm used to it now.

It fits me, sits around me, follows me and sometimes gets there before me.

It never surprises me, when I hear it I don't look around unsure, I know it's me they want.

It's me.

I know my name.

I’m used to it.

It does a job, gives me a label, makes it easy for others to get my attention.

My mum chose it, I don’t know why she picked it, I was there at the time, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

It’s my name, just my name.

I’m used to it.

So can anyone tell me why every time I look at it on the side of the book in front of me I can’t stop smiling?

Why don't you buy it and see if it makes you smile too?

I think it might, in fact, I'd stake my name on it.

       

We deserve better...

Do you remember when you could trust? When you could take things for granted? When if you looked at things they seemed solid, defined, unwavering and true?
There was a time when the pillars of Great Britain held up the country like great English oaks, sturdy, squat, warm to the touch and everlasting. Reassuringly un-bowing in the winds of change they stood for centuries, and would stand fast for centuries more.
If a criminal or a terrorist was released on appeal we would shake our heads and talk about "Some bad apples" or even worse "no smoke without fire" and the people wronged would get some compensation (minus the rent the Home Office took for their incarceration, which always struck me like Terry Waite paying council tax to the owner of the radiator he was handcuffed too) and go off and be bitter for the rest of their all to short lives.
I used to drink in a bar where Charles Connolly was a bouncer. Charlie had been convicted and served time for robbery in the fifties after being implicated in the notorious Cameo Cinema murders in Liverpool. This big bear of a man would once propped up a bar with me for a night telling how he had been forced by the police, by his barrister and by the prosecuting barrister to admit to something he hadn't done on pain of death. He told us how the police and prison services had abused him, worn him down and broke him on the broken wheels of justice to lie in court. And how those lies had snatched his neck from a tightening noose that claimed his co-accused, a man he'd never even met before.
That night it was hard not to believe Charlie, he rung his big bruiser hands and positively ached with honesty, but I'm afraid my doubts still remained. I'm afraid as we walked home I thought "Well you would say that wouldn't you? They wouldn't have arrested him for nothing."
Charlie died a long time ago now, I hardly knew him at all, but I wish I'd believed him that night, because now I've no doubt he was telling the truth.
I'm sorry Charlie.
Then there is Ricky Tomlinson, Jim Royle, who appears to have been abused royally by the Queens's government and judiciary. Tomlinson, convicted along with Des Warren on charges of conspiracy to intimidate. Both men were incarcerated almost as freedom fighters, wanting only the right to a fair wage and safe conditions in which to earn it, both men languished in jail, often held in solitary confinement, naked, wrapped in blankets with women folk camped outside the jail protesting their innocence. As Warren told the judge on the day of his sentencing:
 "The conspiracy was between the government, the employers and the police. When was the decision taken to proceed? What instructions were issued to the police, and by whom? There was your conspiracy."
It now appears Warren was right, for his were the only honest words spoken under oath that day.
Like some banana republic our great offices of state have conspired to cover up, both for themselves and for others, be they greedy bankers, claiming MP's, fiddling Lords, kiddie fiddling priests and corrupt top cops they lived in a hall of mirrors and we trusted them, like fools.
Even the BBC was drawing a shell suited veil over the disgusting deeds of one of its stars, allowing him, and possibly many others, to roll like pigs in their own filth safe in the knowledge that while Auntie spoke peace unto nations, she wouldn't say squeak to Lady Justice.
How about the church? I'm almost loath to give mention to an organisation whose founder said "suffer the children".
Because suffer they did, and suffer they do, while their abusers live out pensioned retirements surrounded by a warm cocoon of conspiracy. While one walks out the door it appears one of his cardinals has fell out the closet, who'd have guessed?
So we find ourselves unable to trust that and those which we held dear, George Dixon was a lie, Horace Rumpole was a lie, George Mainwaring was a lie even Hugh Grant in Love Actually was a lie.
Justice is a word heard a lot around Liverpool of late, it's a small simple word, easy to understand, easier to implement. Truth and justice are often mentioned together like bangers and mash, fish and chips and war and peace. But unlike the others, they can't be had separately, you can't have justice without truth.
I was a policeman, I've seen people lie, seen, I once gave evidence in court about an offence I'd witnessed with my own eyes, the defendant beat his breast, frothed and flustered, rolled his eyes and sighed and the jury acquitted.
A guilty man walked, justice opened the door for him and let him pass, he was one who got away and lived to fight another day and I was upset and saddened. I couldn't look the victim in the eyes afterwards, I was ashamed and felt like a failure and I still do.
But had I lied to Lady Justice to secure a conviction, had I exaggerated and bended my story to fit onto her scales and then tipped them when she wasn't looking, I wouldn't have been able to look at myself in the eye, and I would have been more ashamed and felt more of a failure than I do.
This country, its institutions, its leaders and enforcers should feel that shame, Lady Justice should lift up her blindfold and level her sword at ones we once trusted and now doubt, lest we should start to doubt her.
We need to start again, we need truth, we need justice, we need honesty and we need to believe in it, because if we don't, we will come to expect, and accept, exactly the opposite.
And we deserve better.
Don't we?

The Big Daft Dog.

     The big daft dog, bounced and flounced into my life in 2002. My life, such as it was, was very different back then. But the big daft dog wasn’t, he was the same then as he was yesterday. Age had not withered him, he still loved to play, he still loved to bounce, he still loved to flounce.

     If I looked at him in a certain way he'd be off the couch and next to his lead reading my mind before I’d thought the thought. He knew me better than I knew myself, he knew me like a shadow knows a shape, he knew me better than anyone who’s ever met me, he was my best mate.

     He saw the highs, he saw the lows, he saw my deepest depths and my highest highs, he knew when I needed a cuddle or when I needed to play.

     The big daft dog wasn't so daft after all.

     We went through a lot together; there was a time, a dark time, when we lived in a car together, long winter nights sharing a blanket. He didn't complain he just kept me warm, all he wanted was to be with me, to be my mate, and he was.

     We loved the beach, he loved the sea, dancing and hopping through it, his paws buffed puppy-soft by a million granules as he ran in figure of eights, tongue lolling, the joy of ears flapping, in the only space where a big daft dog could stretch those big daft legs completely. Happy to be alive, running with his best mate... I knew how he felt.

     He loved the forest, sniffing and snuffling autumn leaves, that’s how we spent yesterday,  walking on our secret lane, he saw a squirrel and stopped and stared then looked at me,

     “Did you see that?”

     I did, and I smiled, and I ruffled his ears, and he forgot all about it and got back to sniffing and snuffling.

I stopped at our bridge, and he hopped up on those big long back legs and looked over it with me, enjoying the sound of the water below, watching the silver splashes as it broke over rocks, happy to be alive.

     He sat with me on the couch last night, he had a dream, a dog dream, he ran and twitched for a minute until I rested my hand on his head and scratched his big daft ear. He sighed, stretched and farted.

     And I loved him, he was my big daft dog.

     I hope he is still running in those dreams tonight, now that he is gone.

     Goodnight Boo, I love you and I’ll miss you, you big daft dog.

Hurricane Sandy.

After watching the coverage of Hurricane Sandy over the last couple of days I've decided to promote any profits I make from my New York Trilogy of short stories to the International Red Cross via their international donations page. This enables the ICRC to send the money where they think it is needed most, be that Haiti or be it Atlantic City.
I'm guessing it won't be much, but every little helps and I'd appreciate it if you could like and share this post.
Thank you!

The New York Trilogy of short stories can be found here. 

Poetry.

I'm not really one for poetry. 

 

I once spent an evening drinking with a lady in a noisy pub who told me that "Poetry is a window to your soul". I was drunk and thought she said "arse hole" and spent the night agreeing with her.

            Time and again I've tried to get "into" it, I remember my mad old English Literature teacher Mr Richardson trying to enthuse a class full of unruly comprehensive kids waving some Wilfred Owen over his head and talking about mud.

            God help him, he failed miserably. I spent those lessons looking out the window waiting for the bell to ring so school could end and my life could begin. Ironically I write now, and I wish I would have listened to that poor little man who just wanted to share his passion.

            I used to draw maps in my exercise book of places I wanted to travel too; I'd plot future journeys as "Gas! Gas! Quick boys!" rattled round the room I was no longer in. Poor Mr Richardson up to his knees in a teacher trench with no hope of victory.

            It was on one of those long journeys years later I bought my first book of poetry, a dog eared creased copy of The Mersey Sound. I found it in an old second-hand book shop in Minot, North Dakota.

            I'm looking at it now on the shelf in front of me.

            I don't know how it got there, it has a stamp in it saying "property of Liverpool Library service", I took it back onto the Greyhound Bus and brought it home, and now it lies looking at me, weighed down by fines and dust.

            I read it as I crossed the Badlands, it was winter, so cold you had to wear a hat on the bus. I remember one long narrow road, a grey pin stripe through the snow, flecked with swirling wind blown flurries. The bus slowed its thundering, speed decreasing in the late afternoon low sun, as it passed a tiny house. Two old people stood outside and waved as we passed, I can see them now, ma and pa, standing next to each other. Letting the world know they were still alive.

            The driver explained to another passenger that the old couple would wave everyday, and that if they didn't, the drivers would stop the bus and check they were okay.

            "It's a tough place to live."
            "Why don't they move?"
            "Because they like it tough."


I went back to Brian Patten, “Travelling Between Places”.

            I'm home now, but still travelling.

            Coming Home.

Blossom full trees line verges like nervous bridesmaids

Ruffled in pink with spring summer breath fixing their hair they sway looking for a better view

Of you

Coming home.

To me

Curtain twitching trouser hitching old paul waves when you walk past

Next door neighbour bonded a slave by

Arthritic shackles and frayed nerve hackles

Because he can’t go

To the end of the road

On old knees with shuffling wheeze he is bound by daytime tv and radio three

Blaring through walls, Jeremy kyle calls, when you aren’t here

To talk to me

Dripping drop, flipping flop here comes winter bridesmaids stripped by jack frost whip

Branches of knobbly knees with no one to please gnarled knuckle dragging the shades of grey sky

Because you

Aren’t coming home

To me

Again.

India or bust.

     I write for a living. Well actually, now that I think about it, that’s not true. I sell books for a living, I write books for fun.

     I don’t sell any old book mind, I only sell the ones that I write (although if I like your book I will chuck a tweet out there for the world to read, well the 1500 people on it who follow me on twitter that is,) so anyway, I sell books for a living, and I sell those books on the Amazon Kindle.

     The other day I heard that the world’s population is seven billion. Now, by anyone’s imagination, even a Wall Street banker’s, that is an awful lot of people. I wasn’t sure if it was true, so I Googled it, and found this site:

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

     This site is a weird kind of place where you can watch the world population clock spit out an ever increasing number as all over the world babies pop out to add to the delight that is mankind.

     For a while, looking at the number depressed me as I considered the famine and disease and pain and suffering in the world.  But then, after a minute or two, it dawned on me that all over the world the exact same number of babies that was popping out was equalled by people having joyous sex and I delighted in the fun and ecstasy that all that entails.

     And I was happy, for a while, and then I became depressed again, because I realised I wasn’t one of the joyous people having sex.

     But anyway, as I was saying, I sell books for a living.

     So I looked at the seven billion people in the world (not literally, that would be a worse job than selling books), and I thought,

     “If zero point one percent of that seven billion bought my book, I’d be able to retire from selling books, and I’d just be able to write them.”

     So after thinking about all this brain numbing stuff I decided to have a look at my Kindle Direct Publishing page (this is the place where I find out how many books I’ve not managed to sell each month), and while I was there I spotted something that I’d never seen before... my books are on sale in India.

     Now, I knew there are a lot of people in India. But, just to be sure I looked on Wikipedia (because everything is true there, I know this because someone told me so on Wikipedia) and it told me that there are 1.2 billion people in India right now.

1.2 billion people (I don’t know how many are being born or having sex and I quite frankly don’t want to think about it).

     Now I’m guessing, with a fair degree of certainty that they don’t all have kindles, not even the old dodgy ones that used to leave ink on your fingers.

     But what I am guessing is that an awful lot of them do. So, I’ve discovered a massive market that speaks my language (I’ve not sold many books in Italy or Germany I can tell you).

     And what am I doing to sell my books there? Nothing, not a jot, nada, nowt, कुछ नहीं

(that’s Hindi for nothing apparently).

     So what do i do? Do I try to sell books in India via twitter? It is a world wide platform, but to be honest, twitter doesn't work for selling books. It's a lazy way of feeling like you've done something to promote your book, nobody buys after a tweet, not even a bird.

     Do Iwrite a blog? Well, I supose that's what I'm doing right now, but i doubt this will sell any books either, they never do!

     No, there is nothing else for it, I'm going to have research the Indian market, track down some popular blogs and trade sites and I'm going to have work hard to get a toe hold in potentially the biggest English speaking market in the world.

     And in the mean time, I'm going to have to figure out how to find some time to do some writing, because that is, after all, all I really want to be doing.

My latest book, Rear View Mirror, a tale of lager, love, the lost and the lonely on the streets of Liverpool is available here.

A proper book.

                Someone sent me a link the other day asking me to help save a local bookshop,

     “Could you tweet this? He needs help.” She said and I opened the link, to find that I’d already heard of the guy who owned the shop and quite frankly, I didn’t like him.

Let me explain, just so you don’t think I’m the kind of bloke who spends his life going round disliking people he’s never met for no reason (I am a bit like that but let’s pretend I’m not, just for the purposes of this blog).

I used to drive a cab for a living. One of the by-products of driving a cab (along with junk food retention, a brown right arm, permanent tiredness and an acute dislike of students (there is that dislike thing again)) is you listen to an awful lot of BBC local radio.

I’ll not slag off local radio, I spend an awful lot of time on it as part of my weird life, I like that it reaches out to communities, and it gives certain groups a voice they normally wouldn’t get it the huff and puff of modern media.

Where else can you listen to a pensioner moaning about her bin collection than local radio? Well okay, you could listen to her in the post office queue but that wouldn’t give her much of an audience. Actually, it would in my post office where the queue is as long as the opening ceremony of the Olympics (coincidentally most of the old ladies use the same hair colour as Paul McCartney).

Anyway, let’s just say I like rubbish local radio and when I drove the cab I listened to it a lot. One programme that used to be on was a late night chat and easy listening (is there any other kind on local radio?) show. I was half listening one night, keeping an eye on the guy in the back who had gone suspiciously quiet, when I heard the magic words “local author”.

Now I write for a living, as demonstrated by the fact that you are reading this (hopefully) and by the fact that I wrote an eBook this year and stuck it on Amazon. I’m proud of my book, it’s sold fairly well, got good reviews, and I consider it my baby, and I love it, and like any parent, if you criticise my child, I’ll want to rip your face off.

As a result of writing I’ve built up a circle of friends who are also writers, many of them are local, and many of them struggle to make ends meet as they follow their dream. So if I hear of another local writer I like to try to help them, I’ll often download or buy their book, I’ll try to encourage them, support them and eventually, hate them when they become more successful than me.

So when I heard the local writer guest being introduced as also owning a bookshop I was doubly enthused, mostly because he sounded like a nice guy, but also because he might be able to help me flog some books (I’m being honest here, don’t hate me).

After a while they started to talk about his book, he explained that “it is printed on lovely paper, expensive stuff and it’s a proper book, not like those horrible kindle things.”

A “proper” book.

Those words I hate. 

A “proper” book.

He’d just walked into my cab, looked at me, shook his head and said “My book is better than your book.” Which, as I explained earlier, is akin to walking up to me and pointing at my son and saying “He’s a bit gozzy isn’t he?” (I haven’t got kids, but I’m guessing this would seriously p**s me off, even if my kid was gozzy, I wouldn’t want it pointing out).

The author on the radio then proceeded to explain how much he disliked kindles, about how they were killing small bookshops and how they were the end of quality literature and life as we know it (I might have made the last bit up).

By this point I was seething, I no longer cared if the guy in the back threw up, I just wanted to scream at the radio and not just because he’d called my son gozzy (even I’m getting confused now).

I was angry because he was using the same old rant that independent bookshops use about eBooks and Amazon over and over again... they’re killing local bookshops.

It isn’t. There I’ve said it; the kindle isn’t killing local bookshops. 

The publishing industry is killing local bookshops, Amazon is just part of that industry and I’ll be honest, I quite like it.

Last year I had a meeting with a local publisher who offered to publish my book, we sat in his office, surrounded by boxes of books on two leather couches and he shook my hand and said,

“Let’s make a book together.”

 I came out of that office and did a little jump of joy. I actually jumped into the air because I was that happy.

At the next meeting he told me he’d done the figures and estimated I’d be earning about fifty pence for every book sold, I must have pulled a face because he went on to tell me that he would be the one doing all the work and I sort of nodded and felt a bit daft for doing the jump of joy the week before.

It was only on the way home that I thought “Hang on. He’s not doing all the work, he’s doing some of it, but I’ll be the one trekking around book shops trying to flog it, I’ll be the one writing blogs about it, arranging interviews, paying for petrol, sneakily sliding it to the front of displays when the staff aren’t looking. But most of all... I’m the one who bleedin’ wrote it! The shop will make more money than me; the publisher is making more money than me; why am I the one who is making the least money?”

When I mentioned this to the publisher he huffed and puffed and threatened to pull the plug. So I saved him the bother and did it myself.

I’m daft that way.

I could bore you with figures here so I’ll not, suffice to say, if I sell a book on Amazon for the kindle I make a lot more money, and the person who is buying it pays a lot less.

Had someone said that to me a few years ago I would have accused them of witchcraft and thrown them in a pond. 

But it is true, I make more and you pay less. 

And that, I’m afraid, is what local bookshops large and small are going to have to come to terms with. The market has changed and adapted and they will have to change and adapt or die.

It’s no good chucking in a few wicker chairs and a coffee pot, if you are charging £10.95 for a book someone can get off Amazon for £4.00 you are going to end up with a lot of stale coffee.

The world is changing into the World Wide Web. And it’s no good being snotty about “lovely paper and proper books”, it’s time to hop off the tram and get on the bus because this is a real revolution and the workers, i.e. the writers, are fighting back.

This month it was announced that eBook sales have overtaken “real” book sales for the first time, a few flakes of snow have become an avalanche and people are reading and discovering new authors.

Granted, a lot of it maybe fifty shades of sh** but it proves my point, the publishing world has changed and the writers of the world have a platform on which to unite.

When the dust settles I hope there is a place for independent bookshops, especially for the little one my friend sent me the link about; I don’t want to see anyone lose their job.       

    

All I want is to be paid a fair wage for doing mine.