Dru, Steinbeck and the Book of Deer

Dear Juliet I asked a couple of local lawyers to check the AI-derived legal documentation I worked up for you, but as it's mainly U.S. law it's just too far out of their remit. Hopefully, however, most of it's near the mark and it probably won't need to be used anyway. But just in case it is, I put it in a nice folder. Quite surreal, really. And of course, everything may be fine. Otherwise, after making a big thing about romantic departures at railway stations, I'm probably just going to take an internal flight from Chicago to Seattle instead. As I've only got 22nd March to 2nd April inclusive to play with, I can't really afford to spend two or three days of it on a train and I've already seen lots of lakes and mountains. I can also take Keith out for an evening meal at the Elephant & Castle ... It looks like I'll probably stay at the Green Tortoise Hostel near the market (shades of the hostel on Schrader), this is definitely going to be an econ...

Dear Juliet Just back from a long shift with lots of people trying to kill me, and not much left in these fingers with which to write. But I guess (and rather hope) you're waiting and wondering whether I'll pop out of the magic box at the end of the day and write something to you? So I have. Because you're worth it. And I remembered which magic box it might be: the one at the start of Camberwick Green (BBC, 1966). I don't think you'd have seen it as a little girl in London but I might be wrong. So this is what it looked like , and I hope I've succeeded in popping out of the magic box for you. Thank God I didn't try to be The Man From Milk Tray ... But you'd have been worth it. Think I'm shoring up potential plans for getting to Chicago and Seattle, but I'll tell you about them another day... Take care of yourself today. Love, James

Dear Juliet Just a very quick one. Slept in, off out with my vampire flatmate but (like the Terminator) I'll be back! Love, James

Dear Juliet Back and battered, though I haven't met my Waterloo... Thought I'd explain something I might have explained before. I'm not bothered about this talent agency. I'm not begging for their interest or desperate for their attention. It took twenty-two years to get my self-respect back after D. C. Thomson, and as soon as I got these words on the inside page of Dear Miss Landau : The moral right of James Christie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. ...it was like this scene from the battle of Waterloo in the TV series Sharpe , when Sharpe finally sees Napoleon and Mr Harper says, "that's all I came for, so it is." And so it was. Everything else was indeed the most glorious icing on the cake, but if it had all stopped after that publication day I always said I'd have had no reason to complain. Wouldn't have wanted to lose you, though. So I won't sl...

Dear Juliet I thought I had three calls today and they've doubled my shift to six, so this'll be a short (but not last) post. I'll see how my paypacket looks on October 20th, then decide whether I can reach Seattle... Did also notice a new neurodivergent talent agency based in Somerset House last night, and I think I'll drop them a hopeless email about both books if that's all right with you? I'll only mention Macnab , the original Dear Miss Landau and maybe the Dru Quartet. It's probably the usual cross-confluence of divergent factors, semi-pollinated by Sarah's rueful comment and the incredibly unnecessary recreation of Sense and Sensibility when its 1995 predecessor seems, by all accounts, to have been quite conspicuously incomparable . Okay, that's forty million quid completely wasted, when Dear Miss Landau would probably still cost no more than a cosy ten mill... Okay, got to run. I hope you have a nice day... Love, James

Dear Juliet I said to Keith I might go over to Seattle between 22nd March-2nd April 2027. I could drop in on him in Chicago and successfully take the Empire Builder across the top of America to the Emerald City this time. Honestly, makes me feel like Green Lantern... What a pity you couldn't just hop the train... Sorry. Evil thought. Anyway, it's far from settled. Whatever happens, please be assured that I'll be really sad I can't visit you, will think about you all the time and will take plenty of photographs for you. I'll probably find a layby to cry in, too. Here's a few in the meantime: Maybe this is where Gatsby's green light might be found, "in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night." Perhaps, as I said in an earlier post , perhaps Gatsby was wrong. Perhaps one fine morning we will no longer be so ceaselessly borne back into the past. Perhaps we will run faster, stretch our arms o...