Dru, Steinbeck and the Book of Deer

Dear Juliet Currently laid up and lugubrious, but I looked round the flat to find something to tell you about and came upon my book collection. I'm not reading much these days as the work needed to write Macnab was so murderous I liken the whole process (1996-2015) to this excerpt from Conan the Barbarian . Come to think of it, a friend once nicknamed me Conan the Librarian... I also felt like I was manacled to the word processor screaming, night after night for years. I once went out for a walk and found they'd put up several buildings in my absence. Macnab was rescued from the grave by my marvellous publisher in 2015 and with my improved skills I revised it fairly easily. Then I got the very last draft back from Amanda one dark night. She mentioned it just needed a few revisions. There were hundreds. I worked for eleven-and-a-half hours straight... If you consider the whole writing process to be like a brutal boxing match, I didn't even get to hide behind my jab and coa...

Dear Juliet I should have known. I spend the previous blog telling you I'm some sort of mutant superbeing who hardly ever gets ill, and I get ill! At times, I definitely do think God (if He exists) has quite the sense of humour... Admittedly, I usually get some minor bug April and October so perhaps that's it. I've also got my Covid jab coming on Thursday so prepare for a pretty incoherent blog that day. I don't get man 'flu so this isn't a pathetic attempt to get your sympathy. And I think we've been through this before. I had the same bug back in the Glasgow flat years ago. You had it, too, in Los Angeles. I ran out of clever words so I just told you I liked you. I think you liked that. Anyway, stumbled off to St Andrew's Church this morning, not for a service but for tea and biscuits. The locals have turned it into quite the community centre, so there's tea and biscuits on a Tuesday, lunch on Friday and a coffee shop most mornings. And after a fe...

Dear Juliet Well, I'm not chronologically thirty-five, of course. Born 4th September 1964 in Wolverhampton, 5.10 am (Mum had a willow pattern plate made), diagnosed with autism 2002 and you probably know bits of the rest. But then there's this other thing. Twice in my life, I've seen or read something which really struck a chord. The first time was when I read an article about Asperger's syndrome in 2001 And the second was when I watched Unbreakable . The simple concept, explained here by Samuel L. Jackson , is that if there are people who are always getting bugs, always down at the doctors', always moaning on about no' being well at one end of the spectrum, couldn't there be other people at the other end of the spectrum who don't get ill, who don't get hurt, and the thing is, they wouldn't even know it ... Not at first, anyway. I hardly ever get ill. I used to walk into my old Glasgow boxing gym in my forties, not bother to warm up and start w...

Dear Juliet I think I'll do that thing about my being thirty-five tomorrow (hope you're not dying of curiosity) as I was thinking more about another thing: that Somebody Up There Likes Us but He Stomps You Hard if You Go the Wrong Way... That's what it always felt like. That things were supposed to work out one way, and God help anyone who went in the wrong direction. I summed it all up in The Glorious 14th . And as the late and not-so-great Rolf Harris might say, "oh, and it makes me wonder..." Anyway... I wasn't born in Scotland. I was born in Wolverhampton when my parents were living in a small Shropshire town called Shifnal. I mentioned this the first time we met but I was on the biggest adrenalin trip of all time and pretty incoherent, you probably didn't hear and I had no reason to refer to it again. I intended to stay in Roberton, Scotland, but the independence referendum managed the massive job of making me change my perspective (could the tools ru...

Dear Juliet "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take..." Just half-remembered this prayer, and I did wake up all right. I'll do another post for you to receive just before 8.00 am tomorrow, Sunday 12th, but I'll just throw this one in to fill any gaps. A smattering of thoughts: It seems I'm thirty-five (I'll explain later). The recipe for my lethal mocha is: Three heaped teaspoonfuls of hot chocolate. One-and-a-half teaspoons of coffee. Two-three tablets of sweetener (in the UK, Canderel). One-and-a-half teaspoonfuls of sugar. Three squeezes of syrup (Lyle's Golden Syrup). Chocolate milk (optional). Huge Starbucks mug. Too many chocolate chunk cookies and optional Frasier ! The last time I told you all that, you said "goodness!" Next, I think you've read all the articles on my blog. There's that one about telling Trump exactly where he can stuff his ESTA ,...

Dear Juliet If it seems I am later than 6.00 pm, I am sorry. I got back about 4.30 pm your time (no jokes about crashes because I don't think you'd like that) after a good trip north and a great reconnection with the guys at the Welcome Break. I stayed at the Days Inn there for the first time, got reacquainted with their Starbucks and saw Alice Amanda in Forth, South Lanarkshire. She's been disabled all her life and bust her femur a few months ago. Hope I was some help. Tidied up the parents' grave, saw Longwood again, great chat with Tina MacArthur, who used to be our cleaning lady and heard all the stories about you over the years. It would be very very strange yet perhaps quite fitting if you ended up in her living room one afternoon... Tried to find that Thing for you, and it will come from Scotland but I'm going to have to use the internet. Don't worry, it won't be a T-shirt saying "JAMES WENT TO SCOTLAND AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT!"...