THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DISAPPEARING EYEBROWS

It's the call from upstairs everybody dreads. You never think it can happen to you but it can strike at any time. "Dad.. can you come upstairs now please!"

Figuring the worst - a smoking plug socket maybe or a flooded bathroom - I tore up the stairs (after ignoring the first cry for help just to make sure it really was important) to find Rhiannon sitting on her bed crying her eyes out.

"What's happened, honey?"

"I'm sorry! I've accidentally shaved my eyebrows off. I didn't mean to - I didn't know that your razor was turned on all the time..."

Do you know how hard it is to keep a straight face while trying to explain that a razor isn't actually turned on, it's just sharp all the time? She made me promise not to tell anybody but then went and told all her friends one by one anyway, so I don't feel bad about doing the same. Every time I think about how you can possibly shave your eyebrows off by accident, it makes me properly laugh out loud. Not in the text way... Laurel & Hardy laugh out loud. Was it wrong to tell her they will probably grow back in a few days?

•••

I don’t know why they do it. It’s probably to keep jobs when there is no need to keep jobs but when an artist is marketed in his home country when, given half the chance, the rest of the world would be interested as well, well it’s a waste. No, not a waste - it’s a crying shame.

In this instance, I’m talking about Matt Nathanson and wondering why I’ve only this weekend discovered him. For the record, it wasn’t a spoon-fed link, that’s for sure. I’ve stopped looking at all that data driven garbage. It was something I read. If I can remember where I saw it, I’ll add it later.

Anyway, here’s this guy - largely undiscovered by me and I assume many others - who has seven albums of the most glorious acoustic based material under his belt and I’m totally knocked out by him. You can find his back catalogue and anything you might need to know at his site if you find yourself in a similar boat (new album out now and a tour with Kelly Clarkson currently ongoing) but what I’m thinking as I look harder is how long it took him to do it his own way. The first album is almost twenty years old now but I adore the journey he has been on. It probably hasn’t been easy - if I know songwriters at all, he’s probably thought of throwing in the towel more than once but from a listening perspective, I’d like to let him know, I’m stoked that he didn’t.

This weekend has been a genuine pleasure to work my way through with Matt hanging around in the kitchen - figuratively speaking of course, although he's quite welcome to come and write here any time he wants. It’s not very often I find new material that I know will last. If you like acoustic based material, Matt’s the very guy to call on.

Still on the subject of not knowing ‘why they do it’, I was going to take the kids to check out John Carter this evening but I couldn’t find one single screening of it in a 40 mile radius that wasn’t still flogging the dead horse of 3D. Can’t we just go and see a movie because it’s great and not because things might appear to be ‘coming towards us’? All that’s happened in this scenario is that four people who would have gone to see it, didn’t - and for all the batterings it’s gotten in the press, I still think it looked pretty hot, so by my calculations, they really needed some people on their side.

Meantime, I leave you with a video clip of a song that I can't quite believe came out as long ago as it appears. 1990 I believe. Where on earth did all the time go?

Currently reading: Denise Mina, The Last Breath

CARNAGE

Sometime yesterday while I was trying to get some of my fiction finished up, I came to the realisation that I could do much better than I had been. This led to me making a 'sweeping statement' as my friend Rowan likes to put it and I collected all reference to them and filed them away in the trash. So if you're maybe wondering what happened to those items, they have gone to a much better place. The stories however remain, they're getting revamped that's all - better characters, better stories but all wrapped up in one single direction with a far superior premise. Does it take everybody a really long time to get their thoughts in order? I don't know when it will be ready to roll again but the same rules will apply - a complete novel delivered as a serial. Right now, that's about all I know but behind the scenes, the work continues - and you know what? I'm much happier with the whole affair like this. It kind of makes a lot more sense and has taken a ton of pressure off.

Meantime, my new vinyl habit has spiralled right out of control in a very short space of time. I haven't bought this much music in what must be twenty years. In the short few days since I've had this Amstrad deck (or Ugly Betty as she has come to be known), I've made good start on a decent collection (or at least what I would term a decent collection anyway). Right now, it looks like this:

The Waterboys first three albums: The Waterboys: A Pagan Place and This Is The Sea, Mick Ronson's Slaughter on 10th Avenue, and Ian Hunter's debut along with his Short Back And Sides, Overnight Angels and All The Good Ones Are Taken. Sometime in the mail today, a cool copy of the Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction e.p. High Priest of Love should arrive. I'm going to stop there and kick back for a few weeks and actually enjoy the spoils of war. I will say this though - listening to vinyl is a massively different experience to both CD and any digital format.

Mr Smith has been vaccinated with a phonograph needle for the second time in his life - and all this vinyl has had a massive impact on me.

I have come to realise that I don't much like digital books either. I don't hate them but I adore reading and I love books. The e-reading experience is not doing it for me. I have tried and it is - frankly - an empty experience. This isn't my last word on the subject because it's quite complex. I think there is much value in e-books. At the moment, my main thoughts are that e-books are great for trying out a new author at low to no cost (if that sort of thing bothers you), firing out samples, when you want to take a huge stack of books on holiday or even to load up on textbooks that would otherwise soak up ... the list is endless really.

But it's not a book is it. Statement not question.

It's a novelty and it wears off.

Over the last few days and notably before this decision hit me, I have bought at least half a dozen books. A copy of Stephen Davis' LZ-'75 (The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour), Denise Mina's The Dead Hour, The Book of English Magic and some others that I forget now and can't remember where I've put them either, but the point is these were all chance pick-ups, not from regular bookstores either. Of the three named, I've finished two and am about to start on The Dead Hour. These are not the reading habits of somebody with a kindle.

These are the reading habits of somebody that loves to read books. But like I said, it's complicated because comics are turning out to be tailor made for the ipad. Apart from work, I have also moved all of my magazine reading to the ipad as well.

Who knows how this will all pan out. Maybe it's all too hard-wired into my psyche. It's all pretty inconsequential really but on the record right here, right now. I love listening to great old vinyl albums and I love well put together books.

Recently reviewed at The Void: The Woman In Black and Van Halen's A Different Kind of Truth

UNPLUGGED

Before I begin I guess I had better own up that the Evil Dead poster I've used here, has nothing to do with the content of the post - but, I'm sure we can all agree, it's a great poster and therefore, valid on all fronts. I must admit, I'm totally enjoying romping through the complete series of The Invaders - there's tons of it and even though the kids thought it looked "old fashioned" and therefore presumably dull, it's brilliant.

I've fallen behind with my self imposed deadlines this week. I am due to publish past two of August Moon on the 14th - Saturday if memory serves - but I'm slap in the middle of a proper book deadline and have a show to host at the weekend. I was thinking that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have these self imposed deadlines, but they are good for me. Maybe a better approach would be not to crucify myself when I miss them but instead, gently move them to a more convenient place - otherwise there's no point in trying to do something for yourself on the grounds of 'enjoyment'.

As the more observant will have noticed, I'm still playing around with the site on a 'live' basis. Not always the best of ideas but it works for me. This week, I have retracted all of my material from smashwords (based solely on the fact that it looked like trying to sell your brand new stuff at a freaking online jumble sale) and shall never return. Instead, I have done what I planned to do from the start - it just took me a bit longer to figure it out - and that was to drop everything on the kindle store at amazon. I can't give it away as I would like, but I have made it as cheap as possible and they have given me five days in the next three months during which I can give it away. I've not decided when those days will be yet and I should probably figure it out so that it works properly for people. File under pending until after the weekend...

Anyway, after the weekend, it will be time to start the PR for Black Dye, White Noise. I've kind of just let it sit there at the moment, which is fine by me, but with a week or so clear ahead of me, it will be time to get off my ass and into some friendly radio stations to maybe talk about it.

FINISHED READING: THE END OF THE WASP SEASON - DENISE MINA

NOW READING: THE TINY WIFE - ANDREW KAUFMAN and Denise Mina's HELLBLAZER graphic novel THE RED RIGHT HAND

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: THE PIERCES and ADDICTED TO RADIO/CLUB FM HAIR via this very sexy ROBERTS RADIO

LATER, I MIGHT: Go fencing. Not sure. My knees are more knackered than I thought. Also thinking I might proffer some thoughts on the new ETERNAL LAW show over at The Void.