books – Page 5 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 37

Pity the December baby. Born in the darkest month, doomed to have their birthday forever superseded by all that Christmas nonsense. It’s impossible to book anywhere for a nice meal out, you end up with a shared birthday/X-Day gift, and there’s the general feel that your special day just isn’t that—well, special. My extended clan of friends and family has many Sagittarians in its ranks, including a Christmas Day and a New Year’s Eve child. Honestly, it sucks. This festive season, spare a thought and a little love for the December babies in your life. They didn’t choose to be born this way.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 36

I feel strangely hopeful. Tango Clown has done exactly as expected. He’s filling the most important roles in government with nutcases and incompetants, not realising the slender margins he has in the legislature. There will be chaos in store, but the real harm he could potentially do will be bogged down and choked as the inevitable grandstanding and bloviating turn into internal civil war.

There’s an old Chinese curse—may you gain everything you wish for.

Cheeto Wig is about to reap all he has sown.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 35

The day after, either through luck or some sort of divine prescience, TLC and I had booked a couple of days off work. It would have been tempting to spend the time staring bleakly at walls or screaming into pillows. Instead, we’d planned to do a bit of decorating. This turned out to be the best decision we could have made. Two days deep-cleaning and painting the kitchen was a mindful, healing activity, taking a room apart and remaking it as a cleaner, nicer place in which to be. It kept us off social media and news feeds, but above all left us feeling much more positive. Change is inevitable, whether for bad or good, and things happen in cycles. Eventually, the kitchen will always need a good clean-down and a fresh lick of paint, and things will feel all the better for it.

Today, we start on the conservatory. The great work continues.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 34

I was out being social like a real live boy this week, something I like to do to persuade you humans I am one of you. The pub we gathered in had, of course, oranged itself up in readiness for next week’s Night Of Spooky. So, my pals and I were quietly enjoying ourselves with refreshing beverages, cheap and cheerful food and a board game (returning also a wave to pal Kelly who can provide further evidence that I do go out on occasion) when a great line of students poured in through the front door. All dressed in some manner of Halloween accoutrement, the line seemed endless and the queue carried on for a good twenty minutes before petering out. Everyone seemed cheerful and there was no sign of ill behaviour. But it seemed strange to me they’d choose the Thursday before All Hallow’s Eve to do a pub crawl. Unless this was just stage one of a much larger, more elaborate ritual which will culminate in mass revels on Broad Street on the night itself. It goes to show how big a deal Spooky Season is now, as a first flare in the run-up to the end of the year. By the next Swipe, the evenings will have properly started to close in, and the darkness will begin to rise. I hope you’re all preparing yourselves.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 33

Plague is in the house. TLC caught a nasty bug on one of her days in Oxford last week which has effectively laid her out flat for a week. As we share everything, it was only natural that she passed it onto me. Subsequently, after a morning at work where the numbers in spreadsheets danced a nimble foxtrot before my uncomprehending eyes and I felt my throat closing into a fist clenching acid-coated razor blades, I figured it was time to pay attention to the bleedin’ obvious and hit the eject.

So, today is Friday and I’m having a rare sick day. I’m wrapped in my cosies and bumbling round the house while C does a half-day of remote work. I plan to make a healing soup from leftovers and freezer finds, slump in front of some Star Trek but, more importantly, get a jump on this week’s Swipe.

See, even at my most vulnerable, my thoughts are of you, lovely Readership. I hope you’re grateful. Send hugs.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 32

Sometimes I wish I was a little more organised. I scatter notes and ideas across a broad swathe of notebooks, apps and online writing solutions. I mean, it’s nice to come across the kernel of a story by accident but if I was sensible, I’d have one box for everything. Even Scrivener, my supposed writing application of choice, is a maelstrom of nested folders and projects, often clones of each other, full of half-started scripts and shorts. I came across a stern note to myself in Google Keep written back in January, setting out a perfectly reasonable schedule of works for the year. No prizes for guessing how many of those bullet points have been filled in.

So here I am, bumbling through the maze I built for myself, managing, somehow, to push out a newsletter at the last minute every Saturday, usually in my sleep shorts while TLC dozes upstairs. It must be working, or I wouldn’t do it this way. Right?

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 31

And here we are in Spooky Season. The change is clear and definite, especially if you’re an early riser. The air is cooler, crisper. The light takes on a certain lambent quality, a warmth at odds with the drop in temperature. TLC has reorganised her wardrobe, and the jumpers and big boots are now within reach.

In the garden, the change in season is more obvious. The tomato and cucumber plants have been cleared away, the winter potatoes tucked into the little greenhouse, safe against the threat of frost. There’s prep and clearance to do, as at the end of the month Copse End will undergo another of its regular massive transformations.

Autumn is here, and we’re ready for it.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The image above is of a desk at William Wordsworth’s schoolhouse in Hawkshead, Cumbria. I did not, despite the evidence to the contrary, add my own distinctiveness to the collective.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 30

Slightly twitchy, slightly nervous. Today I am presenting a seminar on horror as part of Reading Writers’ 2024 Writers Day. Yes, I know I am amongst friends, in a safe space, talking on a subject i know intimately.

Even so, I know when I stand up there will be a rock on my chest and a bone in my throat. I know I’ll rush it, there will be a weird quaver in my voice throughout. I will be breathless and at some point halfway through I will have to give myself an abrupt mental warning to clam the heck down. Why do I put myself through this? Because, ultimately, it’s good for you. Talking in front of people teaches you, if you’re as terrible at extemporisation as I am, to prepare as well as you possibly can.

People keep telling me I’m good at this. Boy, they have no idea. Come tomorrow afternoon, the Negroni Of Victory will be very well deserved.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 29

I’ll begin, if you’ll indulge me, with an extract from the Introduction to William Wordsworth’s The Prelude, which speaks strongly to the reason TLC and I find ourselves up in the Lakes time and again. Willie was from around these parts, of course—educated in Hawkshead, lived and worked in Grasmere—so he understands the draw of this wild and beautiful place.

The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!

That’s as highbrow as you’ll get this week.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 28

The Paralympics have been a complete lock on our telly screen this week, for good reason. Drama, tension, comedy, tragedy, triumph and defeat, all played out across the stadia of Paris thanks to Channel Four’s exemplary stewardship. It has been an incredible week, with Team GB blasting past their previous medal total. It’s been fascinating to see how the old guard, legends like David Weir and Laura Muir, have fallen back while exciting new names have stepped up to the podium. The banner has been passed. It is being held high. What a week. What a show. What a tournament.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.