Toast and A Ham

A quick phone call and I had the facts I needed. It did indeed appear that I had a great great great uncle who crafted false limbs from cork to enable pirates to float should their ships sink. It’s a fantastic story which I intend to write up into a book. ‘Pirates & Stumps’ will be my next best seller and I hope to have it ready in time for summer.

The research will take me some weeks, which delays the real pleasure of sitting down with my laptop and crafting words. I take so much satisfaction from writing about my family that I found it somewhat disappointing that Alan Titchmarsh should bad mouth my attempts this morning.

It happened at a breakfast held in Westminster that brought together the nation’s best selling writers to celebrate our past glories and look to ways to boost the economy in these difficult times. The government had organised the event to promote the fact that more books were sold this Christmas than during any previous year. I, of course, didn’t labour the point that it was the first Christmas that a book was out under the Madeley name. Which made it all the more annoying when Titchmarsh piped up.

‘By ek!’ he said from the top table, ‘it’s so good to see you all here at this special event. It reminds me of the day my Aunt Glady’s petunias bloomed early one warm January morning up there in Yorkshire. To see all your radiant faces... Well, it makes an old gardener’s heart melt. It really does.’

I had to sip my water at this point. I’d been struck by an unexpected rise of bile in my throat.

Titchmarsh turned cards and continued his speech.

‘There are so many good things to say about the past year’s work. We writers are a special breed. We require special soil, just the right balance of shade and sunlight, and a firm hand when we begin to sprout in the wrong direction.’ He then began to quote some W.B. Yates before he paused for laugher. There wasn’t any. Nobody laughed at W.B. Yeats. Not even Mrs. W.B Yeats who’d probably heard them all before.

Titchmarsh was unmoved. I’d hoped he’d have taken the hint and cut his speech short. It wasn’t to be. He carried on squealing like a fire in a dry compost heap filled with hedgehogs.

‘But from where I’ve been sitting in my shed, I’d say it’s been a good year. I’ve finished writing three new novels, which should be coming out soon. “The Maltese Fuchsia” will be the first in a series of detective stories I’m setting in Yorkshire about Sam Spade, a private eye and expert in shrubs. My next book is a sequel to “Trowel and Error” which I’ve called “Throwing In The Trowel”.’

Again, he paused for laughter. I examined my nails as I waited for the silence to die down.

Titchmarsh cleared his throat and seemed to mutter another ‘by ek’ before he was on to his next card.

‘I have big hopes for “Throwing in the Trowel”,’ he continued. ‘It’s a gentle story set in Yorkshire about a gardener whose battle with depression takes a comic turn when he discovers a secret formula for growing giant sprouts.’ He flicked cards. I wondered how many cards he had in the pile that ran an inch thick. ‘Finally, there’s “Hoe Down”, a story set in Yorkshire about a working girl who finds therapy and just a touch of romance in a herbaceous border. I might have broken a few taboos with this one and it will be the first of my books to have a warning sticker on the cover. So if you don’t want to read some quite graphic descriptions of petticoats and ankles, you better not read it.’

‘Good idea!’ shouted somebody.

Titchmarsh looked my way as though suspecting it was me. I couldn’t deny it. It might have been me.

‘Yes, it’s been a good year, all told,’ he said. ‘We’ve had some bumper blooms and some quality books. But I’d like to make special mention of Dick Madeley’s “Fathers & Sons”.’

I sat up in my chair. I hadn’t expected that. I had expected a twenty minute snooze before Titchmarch finished and they served bacon. I gave a wave to the crowd and looked up at Titchmarsh, though I didn’t like the tone in his voice when he piped up again.

‘Ooh, ay! I see that Dick is with us today. And looking as tanned as a proper apricot. We don’t get sun like that up Yorkshire way...’

‘You don’t get apricots either,’ I said. I don’t quite know what I meant by that but I’d been caught rather flat footed.

‘I wanted to mention Dick’s book because it has outsold all the other celebrity blockbusters this year,’ he said. ‘I think that deserves a round of applause.’

I gave another wave as the collected great and good of showbiz, publishing, and politics honoured me by slapping their paws together.

When I sat back down, I noticed the look in Alan’s eyes. I realised that I knew what a plant must feel like when he comes as them with a fork.

‘Yes, Dick has outsold all of you this year. Except, of course, Julie Walters, Dawn French, Alan Carr, and Paul O’Grady.’

I gave a shrug. There was no shame in coming fifth in that list but I had wished that he’d mentioned it earlier.

Except he wasn’t finished.

‘Bill Oddie, Jimmy Savile, James May, Eric Idle, Paul Young, Richard Hammond, John Prescott, Simon Cowell, Terry Wogan, Eric Sykes, Norman Wisdom, Tom Jones, Jeremy Clarkson, Esther Rantzen, Cleo Lane, John Humphries, Shirley Bassey, Roger Moore, Simon Clegg, Gloria Hunniford, and Ross Kemp.
I sank lower into my chair.

‘And that’s not to mention a humble gardener from Yorkshire. Like I said, a good year for Dick and a good year for all of us. I think we all deserve a round of applause.’

After such a public humiliation, I could hardly be expected to stay for the whole breakfast. I slipped out once they began to dish out the crusty bagels. It was half a mile to the station and I walked through a rather grey London morning simmering with resentment and vowing that with ‘Pirates & Stumps’ they’d have a literary masterpiece that even malicious Yorkshire gardeners couldn’t ignore from their sheds.

Obituary: My Novel (May 2007-July 2008)

I had already written an interesting and incident-packed post for today but I’m putting it on hold for a couple of hours out of respect for an old friend of ours.

You might not be aware but this is a dark day in the Madeley calendar and, quite frankly, I don’t know how I’m going to cope.

Those of you who are regular readers might want to bow your heads at noon today in an act of remembrance for a friend that never stood a chance. I want you all to take a moment out of your busy lives to remember our old dear friend, ‘My Novel’.

My Novel was due to be published today. It was going to be a day of great celebration. Judy was going to go to the local bookshop and try to buy a copy of my book and get me to sign it. I was going to pose next to the bookshelf while Judy took snaps for the blog. I would have then come on here and encouraged you all to go out and buy it. It would have been the best £7.99 you would have spent all year.

Alas, it was never to be. Due to the buyout of one publisher by another, my book was cancelled. The cover was designed, the proofs read, and many of you were listed at the back in my acknowledgements. It’s still listed on Amazon. It just doesn’t exist in the real world. I think it’s every writer’s nightmare to have an ISBN number for a non-existent book. It’s much worse than never getting published. You can’t know how bad I’m feeling this morning.

My Novel came into this world on a wave of great optimism. People said that my political satire cheered them up enormously, that it was well written and as funny as hell. Others said ‘mehhh’ but it still found a publisher willing to publish its three hundred pages of artfully crafted nonsense. At noon today I’m going to give it a Viking funeral by burning a copy of the manuscript to commemorate its passing from the publishing world. As I watch it drift out into the middle of the lake in our back garden, I’ll probably shed a few tears as I blow my Nordic hunting horn to tell Stephen Fry to shoot the flaming arrow that will ignite all 90,000 words of my carefully written prose. And when I’m done, I’ll come back here and post something to mark a new phase of my life.

I’m not abandoning my hopes of becoming a writer. It’s just a bit harder to find the words this morning.

My Novel.
“You deserved better.”
(May 2007-July 2008)

My Friend The Blogger

Tonight I've had cause to reflect that some of us are simply too nice. A horrid little word this 'nice'. I hate being nice. Let me be arrogant, deceitful, ambitious and only in business for the quick profit. I despise my own affability, my easy going nature, my reluctance to do harm. Let me make money and damn the consequences. I normally try to see only the best in others. From now on, I want to see lies. I believe everything that people tell me. Let me begin to doubt them. I also believe in the old myths about hard work being rewarded in the long run. I see that it's all folly.

It's not easy to write this evening. The tenses all feel wrong. The first person is far too remote.

You see, this all begins with my friend, another generally affable sort who also writes a blog, putting the finishing touches to a novel. A publisher asks to see his manuscript. Compliments are exchanged. An offer to publish the book is made. A contract arrives. It's far from a generous contract. People who know about these things advise him to send his manuscript elsewhere. I advise him to look for a better publisher. I tell him that the contract is not right right for him. But the writer is an affable sort. He wouldn't do that to the only people who have shown any faith in him. He's loyal, you see. He lives by certain old fashioned principals. I keep telling him are going to ruin him. Yet he's never been adept at putting a price on his own skills. He accepts whatever terms other people offer him. He often works for nothing. So he signs this contract despite the fact that he won't see any money for at least a year. Even then it might not be very much.

All this happens some months ago.

My affable friend finishes writing the book and spends weeks working on the final proofs which he duly sends to the publisher. All this time, he's struggling on very little money, falling deeper into debt. Then it all goes quiet. He hears the occasional bit of news about the book. He learns that an illustrator has been paid to produce a picture for the front cover. The artist earns money from the book. My friend, the writer, doesn't. But he's affable so he doesn't complain.

It all goes quiet again but this affable guy notices that his book is listed on Amazon and that makes him very happy. He rings me. 'It's going to happen,' he tells me. 'Soon.'

Today, my affable friend had a long and not particularly enjoyable day at work. He explained to me that the job is tough because it's mundane. It's slowly destroying the guy's spirit. I share his pain. I know what it's like. As you know, I am in a similar position. Yet he also tells me that he wants so desperately to escape the trap of debt. He's only working to keep up the repayments on the debts he's amassed after a long time studying and writing, neither of which have made him rich. Quite the reverse. He should just take a job, five days a week, and earn £20,000 a year. He's a bright guy. He has good qualifications. Probably better than 99% of the people in the country. But he just wants to write. He wants to make people smile because he truly believes that it is a moral way of living.

But it's still a struggle. He's only getting through the days because he knows that he's got a book coming out. He's not in the 8 to 5 rut because he thinks that he is really a writer. He believes in his own talent. He refuses to become the suit they force him to wear.

Only, tonight, he arrived home to be informed that his book is now not being published. 'It's complicated,' he tells me.

I reply that I should hope that it bloody-well is complicated.

But now he's angry. He's also in tears. Yet he's still affable. He says that he can't hold any of this against the publisher. He argues they were in a difficult position. I agree. I tell him that their business didn't have a sensible business model. I say that I didn't believe in the books they published. He admits that he too had doubts: that if they could publish 'those' books, was his own any better? That's as much conversation as he can take. I come off the phone having shared his agony and having felt his pain. I too shed a few tears before I sit down to write.

Now I am left wondering what he really feels. Disappointment. Anger. Frustration. Despair. Perhaps even relief? I suspect that he is beginning to think what he's always feared: that his book wasn't that good, that he's not that talented a writer, and that he's fooled himself for so many years. I should imagine that he feels embarrassed given that he has told people that he was having a book published.

If I were him, I'd try to stay calm and to use his anger to spur him on. He should write to the publisher and explain how he feels like he's been used. He should tell them that they took his dreams and did the worst thing possible: they made them 'almost' come true.

Tonight I've only managed to write because my friend has fallen silent. How I wish it were so very different.

A Day With The Writer's Market

After spending the last eight hours thumbing through the 'Writer's Market 2008' (forward by Peter Ackroyd), I've condensed over 50 pages of details for the nation's literary agents into one helpful pocket-sized listing. All you ever need to know about searching for representation is summarized in the following. I suggest you send them your manuscripts immediately. I know I have.


The Geoffrey Pinfrock Agency
14 Duntcare Road, London, L1 7RF

Contact: Geoffrey Pinfrock, Harry Grebe (historical and biography), Andrew Tinkle (fiction).

Established: 1952.

Insider Info: We specialise in fiction and non-fiction. We are on the lookout for bright undiscovered writers. Although we are renowned for taking raw talent and helping them to reach the next stage of their publishing career, we would much rather head-hunt a few established writers from other agencies whose percentages we are happy to undercut by a few points.

* Geoffry Pinfrock became a literary agent after a long career as a successful novelist, penning three books set around the Swahili Swamp Fever epidemic of 1873. Our agency is proud of its reputation as a relaxed environment where Geoffrey takes a hands-on approach with all new female clients. Charges of sexual misconduct and serial groping are routinely dismissed before our famously long liquid lunches.

Non-fiction: Considers anything with a celebrity face on the cover. No academic books unless it is accompanied by its own series on the BBC. No nature books unless your surname is Oddie. No books about poetry unless your name is Fry.

Fiction: Considers action/adventure, humour (not satire), mystery, romance (no pornography), thrillers, contemporary fiction (but nothing set in Ireland involving peat). We are actively seeking new novels about the angst of simple middle class London folk who work in a creative field such a publishing and turn to the booze and drugs as a form of escape.

Submission guidelines: Do not send manuscripts. Do not contact us via email, post, or carrier pigeon. Approach us in the first instance through a friend connected with the industry or an established name. We will not reply to you unless you're already known to us. Do not approach us in person. We own a bloody big dog who has a taste for human blood.

Clients: Victor Occram Jnr., Horace Tadpole, the estate of Sir. Henry Sellinger Pfnnar.

Tips: No unsolicited submissions, letters, or emails. To make yourself known to us, you should be either be a published author who we already represent or related to a published author who we already represent. People know to us are welcome to make themselves more known to us. The rest of you can just hop it. And yes: that includes you.

Please note: we are not accepting submissions at this time. All manuscripts will be burned on our open log fire while we sit around cackling as we warm ourselves by the heat of your fading chances of publication.

The Touch of Nepotism

An old farmer friend of mine, who shall remain nameless other than to say he’s big in diary cows, rang me on the landline late last night. He caught me with a Cadbury’s chocolate finger stuck up one nostril as I tried to bite off its other end without using my hands. You might call my behaviour ‘odd’ but these are the challenges I sometimes set myself just to keep myself sane.

‘Madeley?’ I said, stuffing the remaining finger into my mouth.

‘Richard,’ said my farmer friend, ’I need a big favour.’

I sank back into my chair but not before taking the 500 page manuscript from the desk and putting it on the floor. As I set it down, it struck me, not for the first time, that the title, ‘Fry, Oddie, & Me’ sounds pretty convincing as a collection of my shorter essays and shorter writings, mainly culled from this blog. My agent has been onto me for weeks to get it printed out so she can begin hawking it around the bigger London publishers and procure me a bit of loose shilling for my pocket that had become increasingly prone to muttering to itself and sitting lonely in the corner.

‘Fire away, Desmond,’ I said, though Desmond is not his real name. ‘You know I owe you plenty of favours. What is it now? Want me to come and help you like last time and rub butter into your cows’ udders?’

‘No, no,’ said Demond. ‘Nothing like that. It’s to do with my youngest, Samantha. She’s just turned twenty three.’

‘You want me to come and rub butter into her udders then?’ I asked as I wiped chocolate from my nose.

I don’t think Desmond was too impressed with the light way I verbally fondled his daughter. However, he was obviously trying to keep on the good side of me and let my comment slip by like a well margarined teat.

‘Sam’s always wanted to get into journalism,’ he began. ‘She’s done her qualifications. Got her 2.2 from the University of Luton and she now fancies working for one of the big broadsheets. You know… Like The Guardian, or The Times. To be honest, Dick, if it came down to it she’d probably give The Telegraph a try. But that’s just it. I was wondering if you could pull a few strings and get her an “in”.’

‘An in?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know what an “in” would look like. If I did have an “‘in”, I’d used the “in” myself to get myself “in”. I’m more prolific than Clarkson and with more opinions that Gill. I’m perfectly placed to attract a huge readership but even I can’t get in the front door.’

He sounded disappointed. ‘You can’t tell me that you haven’t got some strings you could pull. She’s pretty good at writing. Spells well, good punctuation, the lot. And she has a lively mind. Not the other day she noticed have few black umbrellas there are in the world. How observant is that?’

‘It’s clearly Pulitzer material,’ I agreed, ‘but print journalism is not a business for familiar favours. You don’t get into print just because you’re the son or daughter of an established name. You have to learn your craft by spending years if not decades working in local newspapers. Tell your daughter to start out at the bottom and by the time she’s fifty, she might earn her chance to flex her writing muscles with the big boys.’

You can tell when a chap’s disappointed but doesn’t want to show it. It’s all in the verbal ticks he displays when finding a reason to get off the line.

‘Oh, well, if that’s the way it is, mate,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I bothered asking… Thanks for nothing.’

After I hung up, I surprised myself to discover that a pretty rotten mood had made itself at home in the room. Putting a flea into a fellow’s ear is not the Madeley way. Not when he considers the fellow a good friend. However the assumption that some people have about me just rubs me up the wrong way. Just because I’m famous, it doesn’t mean that I should be obliged to do every rum Harry a favour. Doors that are closed to me shouldn’t be opened for others just because I say so. Might as well hang a bloody sign around my neck reading: ‘“A” list media careers here, form an orderly queue at my right elbow’.

Anyway, I turned off the light to my office, with one small smile directed towards my finished manuscript, and I hopped it up the stairs towards warm bed and an even warmer Judy.

The warmer Judy was already sitting up in the warm bed, a notebook on her lap.

‘Shopping list?’ I asked as I dropped my trousers.

‘Synopsis,’ she replied.

‘For the shopping list? Surely it’s not that long, even for a New Year order.’

‘For my novel,’ she said.

I tried to give her one of my dignified stares. Hard to do when you’re standing in the middle of the room with your trousers around your ankles. However, I think I did a fine job of it. She seemed to shrink in the bed and pull the notebook towards her.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she snapped. ‘You’re just angry because you can’t get anybody to read your stuff.’

‘It is not stuff,’ I told her. ‘It’s clever social commentary disguised as lightweight comedy. Besides, what makes you think you’ll be any different?’

‘Of come on, Richard,’ she laughed. ‘We haven’t been running the country’s biggest book club without knowing something about books. I’ve already got a plot and plenty of characters. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to sit down at the computer and write my first chapter. How difficult can it be?’

I stepped out of my trousers and picked them up. A snap of the wrists and they were folded and draped over the back of the chair and I set to unbuttoning my shirt.

‘Give me the outline,’ I said. ‘Let’s see what you have.’

She cleared her throat and looked at her pad.

‘Justine Pontleby is the 22 year old daughter of well known celebrity chef Gordon Pontleby. Trading on her father’s fame, she lands a top job in the world of afternoon TV.’

‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘Could never happen. A young sniff of a girl like that would never get a break in TV. She’d have to work years in regional TV or radio before she’d even get a chance of the big time.’

Judy just peered over her half-glasses before she continued.

‘She meets debonair Richard Smiley, a charming if slightly psychotic host of a popular TV talk show. Smiley has dark secrets involving an addiction to sniffing Toilet Duck. When he is involved in the accidental maiming of the show’s weatherwoman, Justine is forced to help cover up the crime…’

I shook my head as my shirt fell away. Just before it hit the floor, I flicked my leg and the shirt came flying back over my head. I caught it and folded it in a single move before I turned my attention to my socks.

‘The thing is, Judy,’ I said as I bounced on the edge of the bed. ‘You have a plot but it’s unbelievable. A man as crazy as this Smiley character would never get his own show.’

‘He hosts it with his sister,’ said Judy.

‘Again, that’s very unlikely,’ I replied as I rolled up my socks and threw them on the chair.

Down to my underpants, I jumped up and strode out to the mirror to run through my five minute Tai Chi exercise I do before bed every night. I like to be centred before I sleep.

‘Don’t you want to hear the rest?’ asked Judy as I began to fight imaginary foes in slow motion.

‘To be honest, Judy, I don’t. It seems to be yet another of these unbelievable stories about the corrupt world of the London based media. I just wish you could tell it how it really is, with the honourable people who work long hours on quality programming before returning home at night feeling totally rewarded with their lives. Instead, I suppose it will be nothing but tales of sex, drugs, and stale bread rolls in the Green Room.’

She closed her notes.

‘I already have an agent who is interested in representing me,’ she said.

I was in the deep squat of the tiger stance as she said this. I felt my muscles tighten. ‘An agent?’

‘Felicity R––,’ she replied.

I looked at her blankly.

‘You know. She’s the daughter of old Reggie.’

‘Little Felicity? She’s a literary agent now?’

‘Oh, come on Richard. Don’t tell me you don’t remember Reggie asking us to put a word in.’

‘Did he?’

‘He did.’

‘I don’t remember putting any words in anywhere,’ I replied, feeling so small squatting there in my red and yellow underpants.

‘Of course you didn’t. But I did.’

‘You did?’ I stood up and heard a bone in my back go acoustic. ‘You can do that? You can put words in?’

Judy stretched a hand towards the light. ‘Not for anybody,’ she said with a smile. The room went dark. ‘Goodnight Richard.’