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Archive for July, 2009

On a note related only homonymically (if that is a word) today I received my copy of The Duckworth-Lewis Method’s eponymous CD.

The last few years have been something of an Irish music odyssey for me: I’ve been intending to listen to something by The Divine Comedy for several years (it occurs to me every time I watch Father Ted or The IT Crowd) and then, after stumbling on another Irishman – Duke Special – playing support for Crowded House at the end of 2007, I finally got round to picking up the greatest hits. At the same time, I was looking around for information about the rumoured Idle Race box set and this serendipitously led me to the website of another Irish band by the name of Pugwash. The three acts are very different from each other: the Divine Comedy is an eclectic mix of comic and poignant songs about the modern world, Duke Special is somewhat vaudevillian (again, is that a word?) and Pugwash very much in the classic Beatles-Byrds-Beach Boys vein. All three are, however, brilliantly talented and, intriguingly, seem to be interrelated. Neil Hannon, the singer-writer-lead musician of Divine Comedy, has appeared on both Duke Special’s debut album, Songs From the Deep Forest and on Pugwash’s latest masterpiece Eleven Modern Antiquities, perhaps demonstrating that the Irish music scene is less driven by ego and commercial considerations than its English counterpart.

It should, therefore, have come as no surprise to find that Thomas Walsh of Pugwash was collaborating with Neil Hannon on an entirely different musical project. Released to coincide with The Ashes, The Duckworth-Lewis Method is an album of cricket-inspired songs, poignant, mostly comic and with stylistic shades of both Pugwash and The Divine Comedy mixed with a touch of Flanders and Swann it’s an album far-removed from the indentikit bands that plague our charts at the moment. It’s hard to pick a particular standout moment – diversity always makes choice difficult – but Meeting Mr Miandi seems to be the one that’s got stuck in my brain at the moment.

Allegedly, there is supposed to be a new Divine Comedy album coming later this year, despite Mr Hannon’s best attempts to avoid it, and with rumours that Pugwash will be embarking on their first UK tour to promote their best of album Giddy I’m hoping this means the two acts will be playing on the same ticket. It would certainly make for a good night out.

Links:
Pugwash
The Duckworth-Lewis Method
The Divine Comedy
Duke Special

During the summer months I tend to restrict the writing to light duties. When you’re holding down a full-time job you don’t want all the sunny evenings to be earmarked for work. Usually that means I spend the summer editing a book I’ve already written, or writing a book with characters I know well enough that a day off here and there won’t interrupt the flow.
This year, however, I’m doing something different: in the last few weeks I’ve been editing the current draft of my first stageplay. As a keen theatregoer it’s odd that I’ve not done this before, but I’ve finally got round to it and, once it’s been read by my usual filters, I’ll start foraging for an outlet for it. The play is currently going by the name of Winter Lillies – a name chosen because it feels rather Noel Coward, although the play itself is probably more Alan Ayckbourn in tone and construction. More news as it develops…

The gold standard for an author’s legacy is generally held to be if he gets a word into the Oxford English dictionary. For a comic author perhaps it should be that he gets into the Uxbridge English dictionary – the comic repository of new definitions for Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Published in one-twentieth of a volume, this book contains many omissions – or perhaps omits many contents. Here are a few definitions I think they’ve missed:

Subordinate clause – one of Santa’s helpers.
Dogmatic – having just been delivered of puppies.
Junction – polish for scrap iron.
Irrigate – to annoy by poor spelling.

Got any more suggestions?

As England basks in a pleasantly warm 30C it makes me think of the late great Isaac Asimov. I have shelves full of his books upstairs: many classics of the sci-fi genre; others more obscure.

My favourites, however, are the collections of short stories. Asimov used to have a habit of writing author’s notes in his anthologies: telling about the genesis of the tales, or simply regaling people with anecdotes about his life. This were invariably written with great wit and charm.

In one of these anecdodes, Asimov told of his disdain for sunny weather: when it was gloomy, he said, people would leave him to his writing; when it was sunny, they would try to drag him from his typewriter and into the sun. His response to this was, perhaps, one of his most uncharacteristic short stories, a tongue-in-cheek fantasy where a family, all of whom exhibit his attitude to the sun, catch the attention of their neighbours, who take it upon themselves to bring them out. Resisting all attempts, they are eventually caught in the weather by accident, at which point they melt because – and here’s the twist – they’re made of sugar. Asimov wasn’t saying that he was himself so constructed, but the idea he might have good reason to stay out of the sun was there.

And perhaps, in terms of being a dilligent writer, Asimov had a point. Writers, or at least successful writers, are generally self-employed. I haven’t been a successful writer (yet) but in my earlier career as a shareware developer I have been self-employed and I can quite understand the pressure you feel sitting at a computer keyboard whilst the sun is streaming in from outside. It’s easy to think nobody will mind if you go out – even for ten minutes. Having developed the disciple, I resisted, but then I had to work – I wasn’t a particularly successful shareware developer either.

Asimov had no such excuse. As the author of some five hundred books, many of them bestsellers, he wasn’t engaged in a continual struggle with the wolves at the door. He could, had he chose, have taken entire days away from the typewriter. Under those circumstances, I’d like to think I’d make some allowance. After all, pleasurable job though writing is, it is still a job, and as with any job it’s important to strike a balance – one is better working to live than living to work. Perhaps that philosophy explains why I am not yet successful, but I doubt it. In the end we all need a little time in the sun. So go out and get yourself some. Not too much, of course – you don’t want to melt.