According to today’s Guardian, Jacqueline Wilson’s 86th novel, out this autumn, looks at student/teacher relationships and is called ‘Love Lessons’. Sound familiar? I’m assuming that despite the huge (by my standards) sales of the 1998 David Belbin Scholastic novel, ‘Love Lessons’, not to mention all the press, prize short listing, million plus library loans and all the five star reviews on Amazon, Jacqueline and her publishers aren’t aware of my novel, which is still in shops. No publisher or novelist would deliberately publish a book with the same title, subject matter and target readership as another recent novel. There’s no copyright in titles, or ideas, but I’ve written to Jacqueline asking her to change her title to avoid confusion with my novel, a state of…

Forget old bands reforming. If they have some of their original members, good luck to them. Nobody has to pay to see them play. But what about much loved fictional heroes? I don’t know which meant the most to me in my childhood, Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Who. My Mum suggested I check out the first episode of the latter, An Unearthly Child. I didn’t see it on its first showing. Evidently a lot of people missed the show, because JFK was assasinated that day, so the BBC repeated it the following Saturday. And, from then on, I was hooked. I skipped ‘Coronation Street’ when I was away at university, but I always watched Dr Who, then at its inspired, Tom Baker era, peak. I…

There’s an update on the Save The Maze campaign in the post below this one. I haven’t had time to write here much lately, a state of affairs that will probably continue until after Easter, because I’m spending so much time writing. Now and then an idea for an entry crosses my mind but I tend not to do it because either a) I haven’t got time or b) it’s too self indulgent. But I really ought to write an entry every so often, so here’s a few things I haven’t had time to blog about . Is that a good title? Maybe I’ll use it. Or not. My friend Nigel Pickard published his first novel One, and very fine it is too. Martin’s written…

I’ve been going to the Forest Tavern on Mansfield Road for more than twenty years. One of the back rooms used to be where the Nottingham East Labour Party general management committee drank after their monthly meetings. I remember one evening finding a red faced drunk in a badly stained suit talking to our agent. He was going on about Northern Ireland in an authoritative but boorish manner and I, an unemployed graduate, asked him how he knew so much about it. ‘I am chairman of the Northern Ireland Committee’ he announced. And, indeed, he did turn out to be the MP for our neighbouring constituency (which was abolished shortly afterwards). The back of the Forest Tavern, built by world champion bare knuckle boxer William…

I was at Rock City the other day, queueing to buy tickets for three gigs: the Dears (a great Montreal band with strong hints of the Smiths and Blur), the reformed American Music Club and the mighty Wilco. I had a long wait, for the long haired, mid-30s guy in front of me was buying tickets for lots of gigs and two separate people messed up his order. Mostly, he was going to metal gigs that I would pay money rather than be made to see. But I was taken aback by the last gig he wanted a ticket for: ‘Nick Drake’, he said. I found this disconcerting because Nick Drake has been dead for thirty years. I was a fan when he was sill…