Creeps and how to use them to your advantage

Here’s a writing tip from an expert – Scandi Noir thriller writer Will Dean. He has what he calls a “creeps book”, in which he notes down anything odd, unsettling or eerie he encounters. Each time he writes a new book, he sifts through them and sprinkles them through the narrative. It works especially well with dialogue and things seen by characters – a distinctive scarecrow that gives ones one an uneasy feeling perhaps – something to set a tone without having to spell it out.

And the same applies to anything interesting and potentially useful that you see, hear, hear of or.. smell perhaps?

But enough of me – here’s Will himself. Have a look/listen. It’s about a minute long.

You can hear more of Will Dean, me and Steve on the podcast at https://anchor.fm/wed-like-a-word/episodes/2–Will-Dean—the-author-leading-the-British-invasion-into-Scandi-Noir–Nordic-Noir-e3k730/a-acjt4q

The full podcast with Will Dean is here.

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Katy Perry the new Hitler?

Not with that moustache Katy. You've got the uniform down though.

Is Katy Perry the new Hitler?

Maybe I should rephrase that. As you may know, we got famously the last time we met, nose to nose, popstrel to kangaroo. What I should have asked is this: Is Katy Perry’s Hot n Cold the new Downfall?

It’s not all just about getting stoned…

It’s not all just about getting stoned, wearing a veil and chopping hands off thieves. Islamic law, that is. There’s a lot of talk, fear, posturing, hot air and general ill-informed comment about sharia.

So here’s your chance to become an instant expert – well, within 40 minutes.

The In Our Time radio show on BBC Radio 4 was discussing the origins of sharia this morning.

Britain’s answer to Donald Trump

Imagine if… all police chases were like this

Imagine if…

…all police chases were like this…

Some fantastic euphemisms in the video: “A response vehicle soon arrives and notifies the felon of their presence.” = blasts holes in their van.

I’ve driven round a fair bit of South Africa, with and without hitchhikers. (The deal is

Actually, the best bit is the video at the bottom

Newton Emerson. Gorgeous ain't he?

By rights we should all be long dead, given what we have to put up with these days. Passive smoking, motorists driving while eating apples, cyclists without helmets, overhead power lines, mobile phones frying our brains.

How we ever made it this far without ending up looking like that bloke on the left, God only knows.

It’s all gone soft…

I think this means she loves me, rather than she loves biscuits. Or maybe both. (My daughter is quite partial to a biscuit.)

Yes, it’s time for a love-in. It’s gonna be a bit Chinese, a bit Scottish, a bit Australian – a bit gooey. Especially the very cute seagoing baby kangaroo. So, here goes…

CHINA:

The Banned / A New Name

Everyone’s getting banned. Aung San Suu Kyi is banned from leaving her house arrest in Burma. Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is banned from leaving the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. And now I’ve been banned from using the computer on Sundays. I proudly stand with my fellow bannees. But Sunday is past. So I can now mention a couple of things.

1. Worrying/odd treatment of the British National Party (BNP) by BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat show. See Guardian newspaper news story and Roy Greenslade comment.
2. Something delightful I saw on the Cultural Snow blog.
3. I’ve changed the name of the main character in my novel, Blackwatertown, to (ta dah) Macken. Or more fully. John Oliver Macken, aka Jack Macken, aka Jolly Macken. There now. Isn’t that a heroic moniker?

Macken’s previous name was too close to living people, who might themselves be displeased, or might themselves incur the displeasure of others incapable of differentiating fact from fiction. Bad for the health and all that.

Macken is a conflicted Catholic policeman serving in the RUC in the 1950s. After farcical encounters in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains of County Down, he is demoted from sergeant and banished to sleepy Blackwatertown near the Irish border. His arrival has far-reaching consequences: It wakes the place up; stirs up the murkiness round the mysterious death of the police officer he is replacing; sparks a new border war; and begins a sometimes dark, sometimes funny, wild ride through the politics of sexuality, sectarianism, loyalty and what it means to belong.