A slightly extended version of my review for the Nottingham Post. Nottingham has waited 35 years for Scritti Politti. None of the band’s previous incarnations, from do-it-yourself post-punk to neo-soul success, have toured heavily. Singer/songwriter Green Gartside suffers from crippling stage-fright. An approximation of the current line-up produced the excellent White Bread, Black Beer album in 2006. Green’s already played Nottingham once this year, in the Sandy Denny tribute, where he seemed confident and sang wonderfully. Perhaps, at a youthful 57, he’s ready for us. Or perhaps not. ‘Are you alright? Because I’m terrified. Thank you for coming,’ he begins. ‘Good night.’ The band kick off with classic ‘Sweetest Girl’. Five years ago, when I saw the new incarnation at Sheffield’s Leadmill,…
In the week of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival (see post below) and the Booker prize long list (on which I’m delighted to find this debut, indie novel by a fellow member of Nottingham Writers Studio), it’s more than appropriate to host this particular guest post by Nicola Monaghan, aka Niki Valentine. Like last year’s guest poster, Lawrence Block, Niki wrote one of the Crime Express novellas, the very fine The Okanawa Dragon. I’ll be taking a proof of Possessed on holiday with me. It’s already available as an e-book and will be published in paper on October 25th. I am frequently asked what the difference is between my Niki Valentine books and those I write as Nicola Monaghan. I am tempted to say the Valentine…
It’s fifteen years since I last attended a Crime festival. Why? I was spoiled, in that, for several years we had Shots On The Page here in Nottingham – in 1995, we had Bouchercon, too, a rare honour. In 1997, I MCed a huge launch for the anthology I’d edited, City Of Crime, in a Council House ballroom packed with crime writers. Hard to follow that. I stopped writing YA crime novels soon afterwards. The market had changed, thanks to Harry Potter, and I was ready for a change, too. But last year I published my first crime novel for adults, Bone and Cane, and this year Mark Billingham was kind enough to invite me to host a table at the Theakston’s Old Peculier crime writing festival. In…
Oops, a month has gone by without a post. Sorry about that, especially to those who don’t read my ramblings on Twitter (these are near daily and can be found in a box to the left, unless you’re in China, where it’s barred: sorry, Martin). I’m getting stuck in to a redraft of my next novel, so am unlikely to write again for a while, but I do have a guest blogger lined up very shortly. Though, to confuse things, she’ll be writing under a pseudonym. These days, I need to leave at least eight weeks between drafts of a novel so I can see the thing fresh.This means that, even after the surfeit of end of term marking, I’ve had time to check out…
This review appears in today’s Nottingham Post Fifty years since her first hit and a few days after selling out the Royal Albert Hall, Dionne Warwick brings her band and the South Bank Sinfonia strings section to Nottingham, a city she first visited in the mid-60’s and has returned to regularly ever since. Unfortunately, it’s the middle of a long, wet bank holiday that has seen many flee the country. Only half of the seats have been sold. Dionne doesn’t mind. ‘The order of the evening is to have a good time,’ she begins. Her voice has ‘given her good news’. She’s over a cold, so will be able to add a couple of songs that she couldn’t manage earlier in the tour. The early…