tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55125732010-04-30T14:49:01.790+01:00Nottingham novelistdavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comBlogger158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-29196935178246017132010-04-25T16:41:00.007+01:002010-04-30T14:49:01.797+01:00

This will be the last post on this blog in the old format. Next month, it will return with a new look, at the same address. I wasn't planning to write any more entries, wanting to keep the Stanley Middleton event as the top item until it was over. But the Stanley celebration is now fully booked (see below) so there's no need. And this weekend, my thoughts have been dominated by the deaths, after

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-78472832857667166132010-01-24T13:12:00.012Z2010-04-22T11:12:57.821+01:00

On May 8th 2010, the University of Nottingham will host a celebration of the life of one of its most widely respected alumni, the novelist Stanley Middleton. The Booker Prize winning author died in July 2009, a week short of his 90th birthday. The celebration will include live music, readings from Stanley’s novels, poems and unpublished letters, together with short talks on his life and work.I'll

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-3717329405286296932009-12-05T11:54:00.041Z2009-12-31T13:28:44.990Z

Every year for the last 21 years, we've sent a CD or cassette containing our favourite music of the year (strict rule, it has to be from the last 12 months) to our music loving friends, and if you're one of them, you might want to look away from this blog until your copy arrives. We start posting them Monday, to catch the last post to Canada, China and (hopefully, Nicola!) Australia. For the last

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-25115808847115228102009-11-26T11:59:00.007Z2009-12-06T11:43:12.875Z

I made my second visit to the new Nottingham Contemporary gallery this week and it confirmed my impression from their opening party. It's a very intelligent use of the available space with good sized, interestingly shaped galleries and some interesting, quirky aspects. In the high winds, the path up the hill it is carved into was closed off. A shame. I still haven't seen the outside properly in

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-51514634499220933482009-11-04T18:55:00.007Z2009-11-17T10:58:38.852Z

Here's 'That Other Blue Song', only the second new song that Leonard has played on his extended comeback tour. This is its third performance, recorded in Durham, US (to hear the first two, go here). The only other new song played is Lullaby. My other entries about LC are here & here.

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-37922567805960288162009-10-14T09:35:00.006+01:002009-10-14T09:50:58.400+01:00

Nottingham Playhouse's production of 'Our Man In Havana' opens tomorrow and plays Nottingham before touring. Below is an article I wrote about Greene, Nottingham and my novel 'The Pretender'. The article (along with interesting pieces about Havana and working with Greene) can be found in the programme for the play, which I'm going to see next week.When Graham Greene arrived in Nottingham, he was

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-20867058120822755962009-10-08T15:31:00.003+01:002009-10-08T15:42:57.917+01:00

I'm what you might call a very occasional journalist. I go to gigs most weeks but rarely review them. Two of my closest friends, however, write for regional newspapers. Through them, I often get plus ones (ie freebies) to shows in Nottingham or Sheffield. Last night, my Nottingham friend was indisposed. Rather than miss the sold out show by The xx, which I'd been looking forward to more and more

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-1094328396455866752009-10-03T14:29:00.005+01:002009-10-03T15:09:09.947+01:00

Yesterday I had to do some speedy reading in order to write a note for the programme to Nottingham Playhouse's adaptation of Graham Greene's 'Our Man In Havana'. A few years ago Michael Eaton and I took David Lodge to what we thought was Greene's old lodgings, Ivy House, at number 2, All Saints Terrace, near the Arboretum (bottom photo above). Here's David's account of the visit.However, this

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-28702584305975616042009-09-23T11:03:00.003+01:002009-09-23T11:08:52.579+01:00

Here's the new Eels video, which is worth bringing to your attention, if only for E's bookshelves in it. Also, he gets to fall for Padma Lakshi (who reciprocates, which is kinda convincing, since E could be a younger version of her ex, Salman Rushdie). Pity about the ending, though. That E, he always undermines himself. Do play this in full screen, as it's a high quality stream, and do read his

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-73374426663614632112009-09-15T13:49:00.004+01:002009-09-15T14:41:00.548+01:00

I discovered the poet John Clare in 1979, when the singer Kevin Coyne adapted his best-known poem 'I Am' on the wonderful 'Dynamite Daze' album. I bought his collected poems and read up on him. Easy to see why former mental nurse Coyne should be fascinated by a poet who spent the last 23 years of his life in Northampton's lunatic asylum. Hard to understand why the Literature degree I was doing

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-75612052059557445882009-09-15T10:31:00.002+01:002009-09-15T10:38:27.887+01:00

Here's the cover for the German translation of 'The Pretender', which will be published in hard cover next year by Kindler Verlag. Isn't it cool? Evidently the German title means 'The Swindler', which is fine by me...

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-47040665353755094352009-07-30T13:00:00.010+01:002009-07-31T18:46:11.922+01:00

As we were driving back from our holiday in Scotland, a text arrived to tell us that our dear friend Stanley Middleton had died. He would have been 90 on Saturday. He was suffering from cancer and had been ready to go for several months. I visited him for the last time just before we left. He was in a nursing home, dying with the same dignity that he lived his life. There's a fine obituary from

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-90770065964712470882009-07-03T11:20:00.004+01:002009-07-06T13:01:16.389+01:00

12.05AM. Rich and I lose each other coming out of the Queen's Head. He goes one way, I go the other, but five minutes, two texts and one call later, we're reunited. Fran and Chris are off buying presents for my niece and nephew but rejoin us at half twelve. Amidst the steadily growing crowd of young folk gyrating round their handbags, we dance to Motown, then decide to return to the camper van.

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-53826374734750292442009-07-02T10:51:00.016+01:002009-07-05T10:41:16.177+01:00

In the camper van, nobody is stirring. I head over to the next field and buy myself a bacon and egg bap with a mug of tea. The tea tastes disgusting, made with heavily fluoridated water, but the bap is brilliant. I ring my mate Rob over in the family field but fail to get through. So I head into the site and catch the end of the midday headliner on the main stage, Status Quo. In 1973 I had a

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-21106400829987516352009-07-01T10:17:00.008+01:002009-07-05T10:42:44.709+01:00

Slow start to the day. Pyclet and banana for breakfast, then to the Pyramid stage to see the brilliant desert blues boogie of Tinariwen, a Malian band I've seen three times before. It's quiet at the front, so we discover that there's a dividing, safety wall to hold in the first thousand or so people (what, at a Bruce show, is called 'the pit', or at Beyonce 'the golden circle'). You can only

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-65310869958556379862009-06-30T17:57:00.007+01:002009-07-07T18:04:24.595+01:00

The rain puts paid to our going out early. Fran conjures up tea and bacon sarnies before we head into the festival, through plenty of big puddles, wearing wellies. There are new stages since I was last here - the Queen's Head, which is mostly a disco, and 'Dirty Boots' where bands play every hour but are not listed in the programme. You have to check the blackboard. We head up to the John Peel

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-63100819613228563902009-06-30T11:54:00.006+01:002009-06-30T12:44:18.003+01:00

The plan is to set off around eleven but we're on Belbin time (soon to be Glasto time). I'm with sister, Fran (+ her partner, Chris: his first Glasto), and my youngest brother, Rich. They've driven over from Sheffield. The four of us set off at one, following the official route suggested for camper vans (Fran and Chris have just bought a 26 year old Hymer). While waiting, I've read a Twitter

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-30141169531110557962009-06-17T10:35:00.017+01:002009-06-30T11:48:22.029+01:00

I had a BS Johnson day yesterday. Thanks to Scott, I heard that the BFI were showing all of Johnson's films, which I'll write about shortly. I'd arranged to meet a publisher, but this got cancelled, which turned out to be serendipitous, for it gave me time to visit the superb 'Treasures of the British Library' exhibition (Hardy, Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, Beatles lyrics, the last page of

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-58516340295019690222009-05-09T14:56:00.008+01:002009-05-09T15:27:40.241+01:00

My friend and colleague Michael Murphy died yesterday after a long illness. Michael, who was only in his early forties, was a fine poet and a lovely man. I wish I'd known him better, but shortly after he started to work at Nottingham Trent he was laid low by the brain tumour that was to cause his death. I last saw Michael in August, at the National Wildflower Centre in Liverpool, where he lived.

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-32323211632732950972009-05-01T14:50:00.017+01:002009-05-02T15:21:03.641+01:00

A few words about the images above. They're wordles. A 'wordle' is a web tool that allows you to see how frequently words appear in a given text. You can tweak your word "clouds" with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Do your own here. I've pasted in the 3000 words that make up the afterword to the new edition of my best known novel Love Lessons, which Five Leaves publish later this

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-46118078379861017752009-04-09T10:00:00.006+01:002009-04-09T11:05:20.883+01:00

Forget 'Watchmen'. This year's most exciting event for Alan Moore fans has been the online publication of issue three of 'Big Numbers', the comic he wrote in 1990 with art by the amazing Bill Sienkiewicz ('Stray Toasters'). Read it here. Unfinished major works are fascinating to me, and this one especially so. That said, I can't unreservedly recommend reading all of 'Big Numbers 3' if you haven't

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-83312143144351810262009-03-31T18:38:00.006+01:002009-03-31T19:29:37.448+01:00

I went into town today to visit Selectadisc for the last time, but the store had already closed down, as Sue found when she took the photos on the left on her way to work this morning. I've been shopping at the store for 33 years. When I arrived in Nottingham it was on Goldsmith St, where the Royal Concert Hall is now. I used to flog them my spare review copies from the university paper. I spent

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-46686458315162790622009-03-11T17:30:00.005Z2009-03-11T17:43:39.050Z

Just back from the terrific American Scene touring exhibition at Nottingham University's Djanogly Art Gallery, where I fell in love with the screenprint on my left, Counterpoint by Edward Landon, from 1942. If anyone knows where I can buy a decent reproduction, please let me know. I know I could fork out for the catalogue and I probably will, but I'd like it on a wall and would prefer to have it

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-12732495547738950632009-02-27T00:01:00.006Z2009-02-27T00:09:44.698Z

Today I'm publishing a new story, In A Hot Place, on this website. You can download it here. The story is also published in a new book aimed at teenagers and in today's Morning Star. 'In A Hot Place' is just 1500 words long and its inspiration is obvious. That said, the piece is not specifically about a particular secret prison, or one country's involvement in illegal rendition. The narrator's

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512573.post-72001168272106986142009-02-21T11:20:00.010Z2009-02-27T11:59:30.497Z

I'm reading with two debut novelists at Nottingham Waterstones on March 26th. I enjoyed Chris Killen's The Bird Room over Christmas (see below). It's a wry, witty novel about sex and ennui which has deservedly been attracting a lot of attention. Chris was one of my dissertation students when I first began teaching Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent in 2002. That makes me feel a little old. Mind

davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942904101462561169noreply@blogger.com