Hello again, you spooky people

I'd hoped to have some really big news by now, but it turns out it's bigger than I thought, and will require Leo to dust off his copy of Adobe Acrobat to get some PDF/X-1a files converted to X-1a: 2001. Sorry you asked, I expect. Oh, you didn't. Anyway, not long now, hopefully, and then I'll be able to announce a whopping great Mirabilis book with all-new material.

In the meantime, here's another mini-instalment of Ghostly Goings-On. (For those tuning in from overseas, the rather forced tone of music hall humour is an intentional pastiche of radio in the UK, where laughter is still rationed under the 1948 Wartime Leisure Pursuits and Public Disturbances Act.)

In the picture getting rather cold bums are (left to right) me, my wife Roz, Aimee Quickfall and Martin "Quatermass" McKenna, on a ghost-hunting jaunt to Chillingham Castle, one of Britain's most ectoplasmic piles. Oh dear, it's terribly easy to slip into Round the Horne mode, isn't it. Bona nochy, dally coves.

*  *  *

Sound of bustling train platform. A whistle, "All aboard!", etc

Sound of compartment door sliding back.

HECTOR: Ah, here are some empty seats. Do you need any help with your bags, Madame Blavatsky?

MADAME B: Eees pretty 'eavy, I won't-a say no.

HECTOR: Manny?

MANNY sighs, grunts as he hefts the bag up onto the rack.

MANNY: Blimey, did you pack the kitchen sink?

MADAME B: I thought you say thees castle 'ave da modern conveniences!

HECTOR: It's just an expression. What have you got in there?

MADAME B: Ees my spirits. I jus' gotta check 'em. Hieronymous, knock if you een there...

A knock echoes inside the case.

MADAME B: An' Thumper, you give mamma a knock too?

Another knock.

MADAME B: Gaga? You know-a da drill...

Another knock.

MADAME B: All there, good. I can't-a go nowhere widout my knockers.

Sound of compartment door opening.

CONDUCTOR: Tickets, please.

MANNY: Ah yes, we'll take three.

HECTOR: And a choc ice.

CONDUCTOR: No choc ices. What about a drawing of a sumptuous banquet?

HECTOR (pause) Oh, all right.

Sound of furious scribbling.

CONDUCTOR: That'll have to do. I'm in my pointillist phase but it's murder on the pencil.

Sound of sheet of paper being handed over.

MANNY: Oh, very good. Hang on, what's this supposed to be? Is it a spotted dick?

CONDUCTOR: Huh? Oh that, no, that's King George III stuffing his mouth.

Silence.

CONDUCTOR: Look, I was trying something, okay? Apparently it didn't work. Let's move on. Where are you folks headed?

HECTOR: Three for Chillingham Castle please.

A gasp. A clatter as the ticket machine hits the floor.

MANNY: You've gone as white as a vanilla blancmange that's just been told it's pregnant.

HECTOR: Also you dropped your - Wait a minute. This isn't a ticket machine. It's a camera!

MADAME B: What you' game? Pinch-a his nipples, Manny.

MANNY: I'll have this false beard, first.

CONDUCTOR: No, wait!

Very loud and drawn-out sound of painful tearing.

MANNY: Oh, sorry.

CONDUCTOR: Ow.

HECTOR: Even without the beard, I recognize him. It's Sam Serif of the Daily Bother, isn't it. Better come clean, chum.

SAM: Okay, but it's a long story...

Fade out. Sense of time passing. Fade in to the steady clack of train wheels, their journey now under way.

HECTOR (irritably): We're still waiting.

SAM: Oh, I assumed you weren't interested. I've started doing the crossword now.

MANNY: That's the sudoku.

SAM: I thought there were a few too many 9 downs.

Mirabilis on Kindle!

You'll be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu. Hot on the digital heels of our NOOK release, the first eight issues of Mirabilis are now on Kindle. Admittedly, you're going to need a tablet. I don't think the regular old black-and-white Kindle is going to do them justice. But iOS, Android, take your pick. 

Here are the links (colour-coded for US and UK sites - don't say we don't spoil you) and yes, the first issue really is just 77p.

 Oh, and this isn't the really BIG news we've got in store. Just wait and see what the green comet brings in a few short weeks...

Mirabilis on the NOOK

Thanks to the good digital comics fairies at Graphicly, the whole of Mirabilis season one is now available in NOOK Books. Issues 1 and 2 are free, and the others are $1.99 each.

Graphicly are also converting these issues to iBooks and Kindle formats, so watch out for updates on those shortly. And in a few weeks we'll have news of a stunning deluxe edition collecting all of season one and a sneak preview of season two, in a single full-colour volume at a price that'll make your jaw drop. Stay tuned.

"Ghostly Goings-On"

If you live in the United Kingdom, you'll probably agree with me that the funniest thing about BBC radio comedy shows is that you can listen to them for half an hour and not laugh once. Oh yes, I know there are exceptions. Count Arthur Strong is a hoot, The League of Gentlemen began on the radio, and The Goons - well, maybe not as hilarious to us today, but still recognizable genius. But three swallows doesn't make a summer, and the rest of radio comedy is like listening to a bunch of am-dram performers who've been told they have to improvise a comedy sketch to avoid the firing squad.

A couple of years ago, Martin and I were planning a trip to Chillingham Castle (way up in Northumberland, where the north turns nice again). Turns out we were essentially planning a long weekend in the car, as I live in Battersea and Martin lives in Nottingham, but that's a detail. It was the castle's reputation for ghosts that attracted us - not the ghosts themselves, as neither of us is that credulous, but the possibility of sighting some choice fruitcakes on the midnight spooky tour.

It may seem like I'm rambling, but to pull these two strands together: I invented an imaginary BBC radio comedy show called "Ghostly Goings-On" to liven up that long, long car journey. Here is a fragment:

BBC RADIO ANNOUNCER: 

And this Sunday lunchtime we have a brand new series of "Ghostly Goings-On", starring:

Angus Deayton as HECTOR PLASM 

Also starring: 

David Tennant as MANNY FESTATION 

and 

Catherine Tate as MADAME ZIGGY BLAVATSKY

[Sound of knitting. A door opens.] 

HECTOR: Hello, Madame Blavatsky. You look as if you've seen a ghost.

MADAME B: Why you no go bake you' eayd?

[Audience laughter at silly foreign accent.]

HECTOR: I think you mean boil my head.

[Audience laughs again, not having realized that was what she meant.]

HECTOR (contd): Unless we get a case soon, I won't have to. My head will just fall off for lack of money.

[Cautious tittering from surrealist contingent in audience.]

MADAME B: Wait! I senses a presence tryin' to communicate...

[Clatter of letterbox flap. Thud of letter dropping onto mat.]

MADAME B: It ees a message from da other side!

[A knock at the door.]

MADAME B: Rap once for-a yes, twice for-a no!

HECTOR: Oh good grief.

[Sound of door opening.]

MANNY: Hello you spooky people. Did I just see the postman?

HECTOR: Kevin Costner will be delighted.

[Single laugh from sole audience member who recalls the movie; he turns the laugh into a cough.]

[Sound of letter being ripped open.]

HECTOR gasps.

MANNY: What is it, man? You've gone as white as a sheet.

[Long, tense pause. ]

MANNY: Sheet, Madame Blavatsky. Not shit.

MADAME B (with relief): Oh-kay doke!

[Audience roars with loudest laughter so far.]

HECTOR: It's a laundry list from Chillingham Castle! Oh no, wait...

[Sound of paper rustling.] 

HECTOR (contd): On the other side - a note scrawled in very red sticky ink.

MANNY: Give it here, let me see.

[Sound of paper being snatched.]

MANNY (contd): That's not ink, it's... Oh no, it is ink. I've got a pen like that. They're rubbish.

MADAME B: Ze note, what does eet say?

MANNY: "Help, I have been given a fatal poison and have only minutes to live."

HECTOR: You look perfectly fine, old chap.

MANNY: Not me, you fool; the note. And there's a P.S.

MADAME B: A peees?

MANNY: "Come at once and catch my murderer!"

HECTOR gasps loudly.

MANNY: What?

HECTOR: I left the teabags in the pot. It'll be stewed!

Tall stories

I've blogged before about A J Alan, radio raconteur of '20s and '30s Britain. Think of an English Rod Serling, only on the wireless instead of the TV and with considerably less formulaic a cast to his storytelling.

That era was the Burgess Shale of broadcasting, when interesting experimentation trumped genre, ratings and tribally narrow tastes. A J Alan's tales of the odd, the quirky, the (mildly) racy and the (sometimes) supernatural were definitely perfect for long winter evenings by the fireside with tendrils of grimy London fog pressing up against the window panes. Not "the Twilight Zone" so much as "the Velvet Hour" - which, I know, some say is dawn, not dusk, but I think of it as the time when cocktails may be respectably mixed and drunk and one might start to think about dressing for dinner - at least, in the world that Mr Alan and his listeners inhabited.

I mention this now because Spark Furnace Books have just published a paperback edition of But That's A Detail, my collection of A J Alan stories. So if you want something different, and really rather good, I'd say it's an absolute snip at £3.99.

Book Two preview

The second Mirabilis book was due to go on sale in May, but we've just learned that the entire print run is currently in Germany. The shipment started off in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the publishers are based, on February 20th, so the books are approaching Britain at a rate of about four miles a day. We're hoping they'll speed up now. If not, expect them in time for Christmas.

In the meantime, here's an online preview of Book 2 courtesy of Myebook, or click on the BookBuzzr widget above. You can still order the gorgeous hardcover edition of Book 1 here and you can pre-order Book 2 here. But, if you can't wait, the paperback edition is available here.

"Lost in an immensely abundant brain"

I've recently been reading some Henry James, which is not necessarily a good idea last thing at night. My wife used to occasionally put herself off to sleep with a sudoku, until she noticed how hard it was to wake up in the mornings, an effect we called "a sudoku hangover". Well, if arithmetical puzzles can overheat the brain and make it unfit for placid slumber, just try Mr James's baroque sentences. I've got a Physics degree, for heaven's sake. I can compose something like my interactive Frankenstein book without the aid of a flowchart, just banging the logic mark-up straight down on the page as I write. So, not entirely thick, okay. But Henry James's prose can entangle my brain like a problem in vector calculus. Parsing those endlessly nested grammatical pathways is only slightly easier than punching out of a black hole's event horizon. Restful sleep? It's all I can do, after putting the book on the bedside table, to keep my brain from melting through the pillow. H G Wells must have felt the same way; it's his quote that I used as the title.

This is not to say I don't admire James's work. I happen to prefer more populist authors like Dickens and Dostoyevsky - or Wells - where it's the story that engrosses you rather than the sentences. But I can appreciate his fine eye for character and social circumstance. That said, I was amused by this anecdote by Edith Wharton that reveals that James's great big bonce, whether processing fiction or the real world, left no room for simplicity:

It chanced however that Charles Cook, our faithful and skilful driver, was a born path-finder, while James's sense of direction was non-existent, or rather actively but always erroneously alert; and the consequences of his intervention were always bewildering and sometimes extremely fatiguing. The first time that my husband and I went to Lamb House by motor (coming from France) James, who had travelled to Folkestone by train to meet us, insisted on seating himself next to Cook on the plea that the roads across Romney Marsh formed such a tangle that only an old inhabitant could guide us to Rye. The suggestion resulted in our turning around and around in our tracks till long after dark, though Rye, con¬spicuous on its conical hill, was just ahead of us and Cook could easily have landed us there in time for tea. 

Another year we had been motoring in the West Country, and on the way back were to spend a night at Malvern. As we approached (at the close of a dark rainy afternoon) I saw James growing restless, and was not surprised to hear him say: 'My dear, I once spent a summer at Malvern and know it very well; and as it is rather difficult to find the way to the hotel, it might be well if Edward were to change places with me and let me sit beside Cook.' My husband of course acceded (though with doubt in his heart) and, James having taken his place, we awaited the result. Malvern, if I am not mistaken, is encircled by a sort of upper boulevard, of the kind called in Italy a strada di circonvallazione, and for an hour we circled about above the outspread city while James vainly tried to remember which particular street led down most directly to our hotel. At each corner (literally) he stopped the motor, and we heard a muttering, first confident and then anguished. 'This—this, my dear Cook, yes ... this certainly is the right corner. But no; stay! A moment longer, please—in this light it's so difficult ... appearances are so misleading ... It may be ... yes! I think it is the next turn ... a little farther lend thy guiding hand . . . that is, drive on; but slowly, please, my dear Cook; very slowly!' And at the next corner the same agitated monologue would be repeated; till at length Cook, the mildest of men, interrupted gently: 'I guess any turn'll get us down into the town, Mr. James, and after that I can ask'—and late, hungry and exhausted we arrived at length at our destination, James still convinced that the next turn would have been the right one if only we had been more patient. 

The most absurd of these episodes occurred on another rainy evening when James and I chanced to arrive at Windsor long after dark. We must have been driven by a strange chauffeur – perhaps Cook was on holiday; at any rate, having fallen into the lazy habit of trusting him to know the way, I found myself at a loss to direct his substitute to the King's Road. While I was hesitating, and peering out into the darkness, James spied an ancient doddering man who had stopped in the rain to gaze at us. "Wait a moment, my dear, I'll ask him where we are.” And, leaning out, he signalled to the spectator. 

“My good man, if you’ll be good enough to come here, please; a little nearer… So…” and as the old man came up: “my friend, to put it to you in two words, this lady and I have just arrived here from Slough – that is to say, to be more strictly accurate, we have recently passed through Slough on our way here, having actually motored to Windsor from Rye, which was our point of departure; and the darkness having overtaken us, we should be much obliged if you would tell us where we now are in relation, say, to the High Street, which, as you of course know, leads to the castle, after leaving on the left hand the turn down to the railway station.” 

I was not surprised to have this extraordinary appeal met by silence, and a dazed expression on the old wrinkled face at the window, nor to have James go on, “In short” (his invariable prelude to a fresh series of explanatory ramifications), “in short, my good man, what I want to put to you in a word is this: supposing we have already (as I have reason to think we have) driven past the turn down to the railway station (which in that case, by the way, would probably not have been on our left hand, but on our right) where are we now in relation to – ”
“Oh, please,” I interrupted, feeling myself utterly unable to sit through another parenthesis, “do ask him where the King’s Road is.” 

“Ah – ? The King’s Road? Just so! Quite right! Can you, as a matter of fact, my good man, tell us where, in relation to our present position, the King’s Road exactly is?” 

“Ye’re in it,” said the aged face at the window.