Sunday 6 April 2008

A Sunday Morning Protest

When it was suggested that I be a torch bearer for the Olympic flame, I had to ask myself if I wanted my name to be associated with a regime famous for human rights abuses and cruelty on an unimaginable scale. In other words: did want to be known as the man who helped support the Sugar Babes?

In the end, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in my shaving mirror and refused the dubious honour of being sandwiched between Denise Van Outen and some Blue Peter presenter. It would appear that it was the correct decision. It would seem that half of London is as appalled as I am in the way that the Suger Babes have hijacked the Olympic flame and used it for their own purposes. I gave a cold shiver as I watch BBC News 24 as the Sugar Babes’ bus drove past the protesters and the dumb music drowning out the intelligent chants. It put me in the mood to do my own spot of protesting. I spent my morning replying to not one but two requests for help from struggling writers.

It’s only because there have been two of them in the space of a couple of hours that I’ve decided to comment on a regular phenomenon. People see what they only want to see when browsing the web. They see only what applies to themselves, what enhances their own reputations. They want the easiest path to success. I can hardly blame them. Yet neither of the authors had bothered to read my blog. They simply wrote to me, assumed I could (and would) help and then launched into long descriptions of their books and offers to send me a copy.

As any of my regular readers would know, I’m a man always willing help a friend. However, I must draw a line at people who sidle up to me on the great internet pavement and ask for the price of a publishing contract. This is not an attack on these young hopefuls but had they bothered to scroll down the page beyond my email address, they might have read about my own struggles. Rather than help them, I’d happily encourage them to give up. The whole world is engaged in the process of writing books and the more I can do to encourage rivals to abandon their scribbling, the more chance there is that my own highly amusing novels (which are sure to sell millions) will find a home.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I am glad that I did not bother sending you anything from my own oeuvre - which can be viewed at my array of scintillating and hilarious blogs..

Selena Dreamy said...

"They want the easiest path to success. Rather than help them, I’d happily encourage them to give up."


Very well argued.

They have the kind of credentials bound to give one airs. Richard Madeley was one stage of their research that paid off. How either their talent or their genius were to assist in the promotion of their books was presumably not made clear, but no doubt there would be countless agents who immediately resolve to add Richard Madeley’s protegees to their list of quacks.

This ought to cheer us up.

No more apprenticeship for writers! The lid of the genie’s bottle is well and truly off. The literary gold-rush has become a stampede. Reserve your publisher now. The Internet has unleashed a veritable whirlwind of emerging authors wishing to be feted like transatlantic soloists. Success means more to them than great ideas, let alone the painstaking, unmitigated drudgery of collecting life’s experience. In any other walk of life you’d be fired for incompetence. But any idiot, apparently, can be a writer. It has to be faced: even Jordan has an agent. Go ahead, you can be her!

As an exhibition of greed the rape of our culture is certainly blatant.

Dreamy

Anonymous said...

I seriously laugh out loud at how you refuse to write "Sugababes".

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Sugar Babes or Sugarbabes? I really didn't know there was a difference and, now that I do, I feel slightly unclean... I'd also like to point out that they're neither made of sugar, nor are they babes. A more accurate title might be The Orange-Fleshed Post-Pubescents but if we are being strictly accurate, I could think of some better titles than that.

Anonymous said...

AHAHAHAH now that was hilarious!

Oh dear... you have something with adding extra letters! It's Sugababes, without the 'r'.
AN insult to the english language I know....

I cannot judge the "babes" as I have never met them, but some of their songs are catchy.

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Ah, Joana. I think you're wrong. It's actually 'Sugbbes'. You are right, though. Their songs are very catching. They remind me of malaria.

Anonymous said...

oooh so bitter!! I could hear the cracking of a whip as I read that!

Silly me! It's obviously 'Sgbbs'.

Thank you for teaching me proper english.

Curly said...

It was a Black day for Gordon Brown and the UK govt.

Who authorised the use of Chinese security personnel in London?