Dru, Steinbeck and the Book of Deer

Dear Juliet I hope you're okay today and I hear you're at Monsterpalooza come the end of May. Well, I hope you have a nice few days there. Give Dru the day off and let her go shopping ! Actually, there's a story about Dru I probably never told you... You'd probably think I was nuts... Oh, what the hell, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! Well, I was back in Hollywood in December 2013, at something of a loose end, meeting Gina Gomez, Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller (lucky again!) and despite all that, thinking about Dru. I'd never quite got her out of my head and I didn't really want to, although I must stress I do know she's fictional. As you may recall, I'd just finished Spike & Dru : the Graveyard of Empires and my creative process is like a production line at Ford. I finish a story, it takes a week off and then the next instalment starts magically assembling itself. Such was the case with Dru V. True Blood was still on TV at the time and I'd me...

Dear Juliet As you know, King Charles III has come a-calling but I don't want to put a downer on your day by going on about politics. Particularly at the moment. So I thought I'd explain about Kings Charles the First and Second; and about Britain's own revolution. And how Shropshire fitted into it! In a word, Charles I (1600-1649) believed in the divine right of kings and basically wouldn't obey the English and Scottish Parliaments. He even fought against them during the English Civil War, was convicted of high treason and beheaded in 1649 . England briefly turned into a Commonwealth or republic and Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector or head of state. However, the Stuart Restoration took place in 1660, returning Charles II (1630-1685) to the throne. Before that, though, Charles II had had literally to run for his life , hiding out at Boscobel House in Shropshire and then in a nearby oak tree to avoid Parliamentary soldiers. The tree, called the Royal Oak , did no...

Dear Juliet Today is a workaday day, but last night I was skulking round Bridgnorth's avenues and alleyways. Saw a service user late that evening and, once I was finished, took the opportunity to roll the car up and round the High Town and take this picture of the old Town Hall dating from 1652 for you. Gosh, it was good doing things like that for you again. It also felt entirely normal and natural, and yet at odd moments I'd be beset by feelings of fragility and awe. It's like I've gone through the looking glass to a far-future time I never thought could be; yet it is as if the past is present, alive and awake like gossamer paper dancing in the wind. Once again I am doing these things for you and while it may be the worst of times for the world at large, it is the best of times for me. For you too, I hope. It seems a cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's was born in Bridgnorth in 1894 and championed equal pay for women in Congress. Allah, threads, tapestries etc....

Dear Juliet You looked happy here, just the other day. This pleases me, more than I can say. Have a good hug, I'll think of you all day. 🤗 Love, James

Dear Juliet I like America and its princess (that's you), I liked it from the first moment I came through customs in Hawaii in 1989. I was coming back from the working holiday to Australia and successfully made that early crossing of the Pacific. I was on United flight 812 Sydney to L.A. that August and I'm afraid to say flight 811 (going the other way) had lost a door west of Honolulu earlier that year. They'd checked flight 812. It's door hinges were weakening too, but I was reasonably sure they'd fix them pretty soon. I'd stayed briefly in a backpacker hostel in Sydney's Kings Cross (er, it burnt down six weeks later, arson...) and after arriving in L.A., I'd gone up to San Francisco and missed the 1989 earthquake by a few weeks. I remember heading east over the Oakland Bay Bridge and, well, a piece of it fell off during the quake... It's always been like this: I go somewhere, something really interesting happens to me, I leave without a scratc...

Dear Juliet As you know, London literary salons are where folks like William Pratt (Spike) hung around writing effulgent poetry and being eaten by vampires (Dru). I guess my Society of Authors get-together on the 14th is the modern equivalent and it's nice to feel like I did something with my life. There's also free pizza. I briefly met a young author called Molly Arbuthnott there last year, got invited to her last book launch and ended up floating up and down a London canal behind King's Cross on a languorous literary voyage. It looks like she's having another one in June so I'll go back if I can. Yes, I wish you could be there. They've turned the old 19th century coal warehouses into shops, pubs and eateries; and this is part of today's fun London. Walk past a grotty building site, turn a brief corner and suddenly you're in a swish urbanscape which befuddles the mind . I don't know how anyone manages to live locally, but still it stays awash with...