Why so small?

Is it just me, or are French beer cans getting smaller?

With Kronenbourg 1664 releasing a 33ml can, you get as much beer for your Euro as you would Coca Cola.

In England, Stella Artois have introduced the aluminium 'demi...'

250ml - a French 'half' - in a can costing 75% of it's fatter brother.

I've grown used to the French stinginess concerning their delicious lager. If you go to a cafe and order 'une biere,' you end up with a pathetic 'demi,' which is barely enough to quench any man's thirst. Only if you order 'un baron' do you get a real measure. A germanic litre in a glass that you can barely hold in one hand.

I'm worried.

The French have already got us Brits beat in the moderation stakes because their youth isn't out on a Friday night getting into fights, committing casual sexual assaults or vomiting in the bushes. All we need now is for them to be drinking less than us and Britain is well and truly screwed.

Stand up, France. Stand up for your 50cl steins and your barons. Stand up for hot days and cool, frothy nectar than pours down our throats like bubbly honey.

Cognac, Armagnac, Calvados and Eau de Vie

Today, I was feeling fuzzy.

It was because lunch last seven hours yesterday. We went to see our friends the Peels, who cooked a delicious roast pork (with crackling and stuffing, unheard of in France) and polished off the delicious meal by opening a few bottles of Eau de Vie.

Eau de Vie, in case you didn't know, is French for Water of Life. In fact, almost all distilled alcoholic spirit has a name based around that. Whiskey is apparently ancient Gealic for Water of Life. As is the Russian origin of the word Vodka. And while each country's native spirit seems to be so individual, they all come from the same core process.

The French spirit is, of course, brandy.

But brandy itself is an enormously broad description. All brandy is, essentially, is Eau de Vie made from grapes. Grape juice, or even wine, is distilled into a fiery clear spirit which develops it's rich flavour and colour by being aged in traditional oak barrels.

The Italians have brandy. So do the Greeks. And although it's typical for brandy to be distilled from a grape base, the description covers just about any fruit used to prepare the spirit.

But brandy is the alcoholic spirit of France. And in keeping with such a varied nation, which boasts over four hundred types of domestic cheese, there are many types of French brandy.

The most famous is Cognac.

Cognac is a name that only brandies distilled in the Cognac region of France can boast. Just like Champagne, it's a regional brand name that is jealously guarded by the most famous Cognac Houses, like Hennessy, Martel and Courvoisier.

And just like regional brands, like Champagne and Bordeaux, to produce authentic Cognac you have to follow strict guidelines. Not only must it be produced in the Cognac region... The spirit itself must be made from at least 90% Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, or Colombard grapes. It must be distilled twice in copper pot stills and aged at least 1/2 to 2 years in French oak barrels in order to earn the coveted title Cognac.

Not quite as famous as Cognac, but growing in popularity and argueably the superior drink, is Armagnac.

Made in very much the same style as Cognac, in fact using exactly the same grapes and the important oak barrels, Armagnac is distilled with a colomn still, rather than the copper pot stills. This explains the slightly different taste of the spirit. Like Cognac, it must be produced in a strictly controlled region in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Some people suggest the flavour of Armagnac to be more complex. However, the two real reasons why Armagnac is more critically acclaimed than Cognac come down to production. The Armagnac has 200 years more history than Cognac and is made in much smaller quantities. In fact, for every five bottles of Armagnac that are produced, more than a hundred bottles of Cognac hit the shelves.

Certainly, those in the know pick Armagnac over Cognac, if only to impress people.

But of all the French brandies, the one I have fondest memories of is Calvados.

Calvados is a region of France, in Normandy. Normandy is famous for it's delicious pigs and plump, ripe apples. Unsurprisingly, the local brew is cider, rather than beer, and their local brandy is made from apples, instead of grapes.

Cognac uses copper stills. Armagnac uses the colomn still. Either method is appropriate for Calvados, but it must be oak aged for two years to earn the right to be called Calvados and produced under strict guidelines similar to the more famous brandies.

The reason I like Calvados is because of the time I spent living and working in Normandy, in a little seaside town called Saint Valery en Caux. My friend Sarah lived down the road, in Rouen, and many a night involved ill-considered forays into Calvados tasting.

If you ever go to Normandy, you'll see postcards throughout the region with holes cut in them. They're jokey cards making reference to the 'Trou Normande,' which is the Normandy Hole.

The trou Normande is the single measure of Calvados one gulps down between courses in Normandy, to create a 'hole' in your stomach to fill with the next course.

While Cognac and Armagnac are apparently the preserve of the cigar puffing coinessuers, Calvados has a wonderfully accesible history and is a much more fun drink. If you're looking for a suitable after dinner snifter that could stimulate a conversation (as well as your appetite) I'd certainly pick a bottle of AOC Calvados.

Bottoms up!

Blogger Totalitarianism

Today Blogger steadfastly refused to let me log in with my 'old' Blogger and I had to switch to the monstrosity that is Blogger 2. Hence the new look of the blog.

Sorry for that. Business with continue as normal, hopefully.

Tina in France

Please find out the explanation for this picture at Tina's Blog.

Piglet...

Just some shots of the WORLD'S most favourite dog.

He's such a diva.

Brrrrr. Vive la log fire...

Well, if it wasn't winter back home in Winchester, it certainly is out here in France.

Actually, it's not that cold. About 3 degrees. But there are three inches of snow in the Deux Sevres and my parent's lovely house, which looks so wonderful in summer, was transformed into a winter wonderland.

This isn't so great for the four legged inhabitants of Le Cliperton Trailles, who complain about the cold and definitely don't like being forced outside!

I can sympathise. For the sausage dogs, their tummies are AWFULLY close to the ground. Here is my mother's gang, standing outside the door looking a little ticked off. "My paws are cold!"

Here's Katy, the Grande Dame of my mother's dogs, looking up crossly as I stood by the door. "Let me in! My undercarriage is getting frostbite!"

Off to France again!

What with Tina's, Dad's and my birthday in close proximity, we're taking a well deserved week off to relax in the wintery chill of the Deux Sevres.

I'm really looking forward to it. Fine wine, great food and the chance to sit down next to crackling log fire. We really missed being with my parents for Christmas and it will be wonderful to see them. Plus we're heading out there with my parent's best friends, so it'll be a family party.

It's up to me to take the wheel tomorrow morning, when our ferry touches in down in Caen. Here's our proposed route.

Unfortuntely it'll be behind the wheel of a Skoda, rather than my speedy Volvo 480. However than means all the more room for vino and other Gaullic goodies on the route back!

PETA stands by their men...

This is the thing that horrifies me.

Even on the third day of the shocking PETA animal cruelty trial, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals still support and condone the activities of their employees Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook, who slaughtered between 30 and 80 healthy cats and dogs when they couldn't be bothered to find animal shelters for them, like they'd promised.

"Adria and Andy were simply doing their jobs to euthanize the animals" was the official line.

What complete rubbish. These two murderous crooks went from animal shelter to animal shelter, misrepresenting their intentions and lying about what they really intended to do.

In North Carolina, Animal Control Officer Barry Anderson asked them if they could really find homes for the animals he was passing into their 'safe keeping.'

"Yes. No problem. Absolutely." Adria Hinkle told him.

Based on that assurance, Anderson then gave over his own pet, a puppy called Happy. Happy was unfortunately not housebroken and Barry Anderson was reluctantly rehoming him.

Even though Anderson handed his pet over on the explicit understanding that it would be rehomed, Happy went the way of the other animals. Brutally slaughtered and dumped anonymously into a dumpster.

The trial continues. PETA continues to support their employees.

On an unrelated note, despite promising to rehome all the animals it shelters, PETA continues to 'euthinaze' over 90% of them. That's more the 14,000 a year. The lethal injections administered by Adria Hinkle and Andy Cook - and presumably other PETA employees - were unlicensed and illegal in the state of North Carolina.

PETA - Murdering the Animals they Pledge to Protect

PETA. It stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

It's the largest Animal Rights organisation in the world, pledging to fight against the use of animals and animal products for food, clothing or medical experimentation and the elimination of killing animals considered 'pests.'

With about a million members, PETA raises upwards of $25 MILLION per year to organise such worthwhile projects as:

Donating $20,000 if the town of Hamburg, New York, changes it's name to Veggieburg.

Telling kids to keep their parents away from their pets, with campaigns called "Your Daddy Kills Animals" and "Your Mommy Kills Animals."

They also targeted students with the "Got Beer" campaign, which promoted the drinking of beer instead of milk - accompanied by some very spurious claims about the health effects of milk. Find out more here.

That campaign they were forced to retract after Mothers Against Drunk Driving complained that the adverts promoted underage drinking. In UK, the Advertising Standards Agency banned the campaign because of the misrepresentations (i.e. blatant lies) they made regarding the health effects of drinking milk.

They also ran many shocking campaigns using Holocaust imagery. Wikipedia records a campaign "juxtaposing images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of caged chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses."

PETA used this repugnant caption: "like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps."

Understandably, The Jewish Anti-Defamation League denounced the campaign.

Chairman Abraham Foxman found the disgusting campaign: "outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights ... The effort by Peta to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent."

It's not just Jewish people PETA has offended.

PETA Vice President Dan Mathews recently attacked AIDS activists, who were complaining about PETA's objection to medical testing on animals to find a cure for AIDS. Mathews response, which seemed to share more in common with the opinions of the American Taliban than an animal rights organisation, was: "AIDS is easy enough to avoid."

Dan Mathews also called world renowned animal conservationist Steve Irwin "a cheap reality TV star" who "made a career out of antagonizing frightened wild animals"

Which is ironic, since the late Steve Irwin has done more to benefit REAL animals that PETA has in it's 27 years of existence.

Even former PETA employees, like Sue Perna, called PETA "an abuser of the human animal" and added "the further [animal activists] distance ourselves from PETA, the better off the animal rights movement will be."

Consumer Freedom's website tells us PETA "has donated over $150,000 to criminal activists -- including those jailed for arson, burglary, and even attempted murder." In the last 6 years, over 80 PETA activists have been arrested.

PETA openly advocates it's activists breaking the law. Click here to listen to PETA vegetarian campaign director Bruce Friedrich as he encourages activists to commit arson against restaurants, medical laboratories, and banks.

Even more shocking, especially in post 9/11 America, PETA directly donated money to an organisation called the North American Earth Liberation Front, a group classed as "domestic terrorists" by the FBI, who encourage their members to attack people and property they feel 'blights' the environment.

Here is an organisation that OPENLY SUPPORTS TERRORISM. It should not be allowed to exist in modern America.

But this week, the most shocking truth about PETA has emerged as two of PETA's activists go to trial in North Caroline for the killing of over 80 animals.

It blows their claims out of the water and basically confirms what more and more people are realising. That PETA is an organization of self publicists and anarchists who have lied and manipulated a million people, including celebrities and teenagers, into funding their criminal, terrorist and inhuman activities.

PETA doesn't care about animals.

The case in question involved two PETA employees, who were assigned the task of taking rescued animals to various animal shelters throughout the region.

Because the effort involved, the two activists instead decided to kill all the cats and dogs. They were discovered by police dumping the animal's corpses in the dumpster of a local grocery store.

Read the whole sordid story here.

The most shocking thing is that many of these cats and dogs would have found homes through the shelters. A mother and her two kittens were amongst the animals slaughtered.

I wear my heart on my sleeve. Growing up on a farm, I saw that the meat and diary industry could be entirely humane. Consuming animals has allowed the cost effective conservation of thousands of rare breeds and species of livestock.

If you really care about animal rights, choose organic and free range produce. Not only are they more humane for the animals - the produce is of better quality and better for you, too.

Don't give any money to PETA and don't support any of the show-boating campaigns they run.

Los Amigos Bicycle Drama

Tina and my favourite restaurant in Winchester is Los Amigos, run by the lovely Vincenzo.

And rather than have it cluttering up the roads (which I strong disagree with, see my article Ban the Bicycle) he uses a pushbike parked in the High Street to advertise his wonderful continental cuisine.

In theory, anyway.

Winchester City Council, world renowned for their opposition to any successful business enterprise in Winchester, is threatening to take the bike away as 'illegal advertising.'

It seems our council, aside from charging London tax rates, is deliberately stomping on anything approaching original enterprise in our fair city.

They need to be stopped.

Bicycle sign "must go"

THE owners of a Winchester restaurant say they feel they are being picked on after county bosses ordered them to remove their advertising bike.

Since September Vincenzo Panunzio and his business partner, Carlos Rodriguez have parked a bicycle with a chalkboard advertising their restaurant attached, on a bike stand outside Monsoon, in the High Street. Full story here.

Jade Goody's India Visa Blocked

Goody Will But India Won't Let Her In
Thursday January 25, 09:48 AM

Jade Goody's goodwill proposed visit to India is in doubt - after her visa application was turned down. The 25-year-old was planning to fly to the country next week to apologise for her racist comments on Celebrity Big Brother. Full story here.

Oh for GOD'S SAKE.

Unless this is due to a prior criminal record we didn't know about, I can't see any reason for India to block this degenerate chav's visa.

Certainly, they might want to protect their country's gene pool in the unlikely event that Jade decides to breed out there... But that's unlikely.

Why has a minor scandal become such a global issue?

Seriously. Surely you can't just ban somebody on the grounds that they're an unmitigated ass.

I mean, Gerry Adams and Yasser Arafat were both let into the states (and legendary New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani kicked Arafat out of a theatre, saying the federal government might have to work with that terrorist, but he sure as hell didn't.)

It just seems petty. And while it's fine for a person, or even a politician, to be petty - I think it's pretty screwed up when an entire nation decides to snub an olive branch.

Pub Double - A Short Story

This story was inspired by all the Shilpa/Jade racism nonsense that's been dominating the media at the moment. I'm not entirely sure it works, but I gave it a try.

The pub was packed and noisy.

Eddy and Pranay shouldered their way to the bar.

“Hey!” There was a gap in the crowd, barely a few inches wide. Eddy managed to squeeze in. “Two pints of Grolsch, please.”

The barman nodded, reaching for the pint glasses.

A rough shove crushed Eddy against the bar.

“Oh, sorry, Mate.” A big fellow with a shaved head turned around, sloshing beer over Eddy’s shoulder. But the apology died on his lips.

“Hey!” His dilated eyes widened. He took in Eddy’s bright red hair, curly and dishevelled. “Hllo, Ginger!”

Eddy winced, but said nothing. He held out his hands for the two pints.

There was another shove. This time it was friendly, but over enthusiastic.

“Oi, Ginger!” the shaven headed man slurred. “I’m talking to you!”

Eddy looked up, his eyes narrow slits.

“That’s right, Ginger,” the big man grinned, gratified by the response. “I’ve always wanted to know. Do your collars and cuffs match, Mate?”

Eddy ignored him. He grabbed his drinks.

“Oi!” The bully wasn’t backing down. “I asked you a question!”

Eddy made to leave.

The man’s hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Oi, Copperknob,” he slurred, “I’m talkin’ to you!”

Eddy snapped: “Leave me alone!”

“Oi, Easy, Mate,” the big man bristled, his shoulders widening. “I was just asking you a question.”

“Just leave me alone,” Eddy snapped. “Jesus. Can’t a guy go to a pub without being accosted by some drunken chav?”

The hand on Eddy’s shoulder tightened.

“What did you just call me, Duracell?”

Eddy noticed the atmosphere in the bar change. It was almost imperceptible, but the temperature dropped, he was sure of it.

The crowd backed away from the bar, realising there’d be trouble.

The shaven headed yob took a step forward, towering over Eddy. His breath stank of beer and cigarettes.

“You got a problem, Mate?”

Eddy looked up.

“Just leave me the hell alone.”

“Or you’ll what?” The big man gave Eddy a shove.

Eddy stumbled back, caught by the crowd. Drinks spilled. Voices were raised.

With a satisfied smirk, the thug with the shaven head took another step forward. Sensing easy prey, his stringy mates closed in too, backing their alpha male.

Eddy straightened himself up.

His mind raced.

The entire pub was looking at him. There was a mumble of excitement. The situation was balanced on a knife edge, turning nastier each second.

Backed by his three mates, the yob cracked his knuckles.

“I believe you called me a chav, Ginger.”

Eddy straightened his back and prepared for the worst.

That was when he felt a hand on his elbow.

It was Pranay.

Eddy’s skinny friend had stepped from the crowd to support him

The yob and his mates saw the new arrival.

“Oi,” the alpha snapped. “Back off, Paki.”

Almost as soon as the word has left his mouth, he regretted it.

The excited buzz chilled.

The pub fell silent.

The echo of the word ‘Paki’ hung accusingly in the air.

There was silence throughout the pub.

Then, from somewhere back in the room, somebody murmured: “Bloody racist.” That stunned opinion murmured through the crowd.

The yob’s friends exchanged nervous glances. They melted away, disappearing back into the crowd and firmly confirming that they were not with him. The entire pub was staring.

“Oi! You!” The landlord wheeled around the bar. “Get out! You’re barred!”

Grabbing the yob’s shoulder, the landlord shoved him roughly through the crowd and out into the street.

A moment later, he stepped back in from the cold, rubbing his hands.

“We’ll have none of that racist bollocks.”

There was a quick glance in Pranay’s direction.

“You alright, Mate?”

Pranay nodded blankly.

The crowd murmured in support, complaining about the racist yob.

Satisfied, the landlord grabbed Pranay’s glass to top it up.

As he passed Eddy, the landlord gave him a warning glare.

“I saw you start that, Ginger!”

Eddy’s mouth flapped open, wordlessly trying to defend himself.

The landlord wasn’t listening.

“Keep yourself out of trouble,” he warned, “or you’ll be out too!”

Shaving Heads...

My very beautiful wife has started a blog, plotting her progress towards £5,000 for charity and a shaved noggin.

Please check it out. http://shavetinashead.blogspot.com/

She's had a very mixed reponse after starting this appeal. Everybody supports her and the brilliant work she's doing for brainstrust. It's just the shock of offering to cut her hair... All of it!

For some reason, women in Britain would be willing to donate blood, bone marrow and even a kidney for their friends and loved ones. But their hair?

That's one of the things I love about Tina. Shes utterly fearless when it comes to the thing that scares most people - especially most British people - rigid. What others will think of them.

Please support Tina by donating money at http://www.justgiving.com/tinahair

Now the Good News...

Hopeful that success is cyclical, I am very happy to announce a bit of good luck from critically acclaimed writer Ian Hocking, one of the first writing bods I met on cyberspace and Westcountry man to boot.

Bluechrome Publishing, who published his techno-thriller Déjà Vu, are going through some restructuring and that threatened to put Déjà Vu out of print. Three weeks after hearing that news, though, Ian's book (and it's in-the-works sequel, Flashback) have been picked up by The John Jarrold Literary Agency.

John Jarrold has been involved in publishing for donkey's years, with a focus on Science Fiction. Through his hands have passed the works of masters in their field, like Iain M. Banks, so Ian should be incredibly proud to be added to John's lists.

Not that he doesn't deserve it. Marketing bods like me seem to sling around terms like 'critically acclaimed' all the time, but they do mean something. Ian's book has had some excellent reviews from some real sci-fi heavyweights. Read some here.

Given this happy turn of events, I suspect Bluechrome's restructuring might be, rather than the end of Déjà Vu, the event that heralds a wonderful rebirth.

Best of luck to Ian.

First: The Bad News...

It was almost two months to the day that I sent Adventure Eddy off to Hodder and Stoughton. Last night I got my first rejection letter.

Obviously I'm disappointed. Hodder and Stoughton were my first choice of publishers, but they're enormous. Plus the editor took the time to write a very nice personal letter which suggested I would be better off sending my novel to agents first, rather than directly approaching publishers.

So it certainly doesn't close the door. Last night I was even feeling quite pragmatic about it.

My next step is to regroup and target an agent. I'm aiming to do that immediately, before my momentum slows.

It's funny. Selling your novel seems exactly like selling anything else. Airtime. Summer programs. Expensive wines. Deep down, you can only do it if you believe completely in your project.

That must be why getting published is such a challenging project.

It's difficult not to take rejection personally. For a decade now, I've considered myself a writer. So obviously, when I spend a year writing and editing something, I inject it with a huge amount of myself. My experiences at the American University of Paris. Cocktails of people I've known and experiences I've had. Sending off a book - especially a first book - is like giving yourself to a publisher and demanding: "Judge me!"

Fortunately the editor at Hodder took the time to write that letter (which is incredibly thoughtful, given the hundreds of submissions they receive each week.) That small gesture helped me understand why he hadn't chosen the book and gave me hope and enthusiasm for continuing my quest.

Life imitating Art

I got a press release this morning from the Hampshire Constabulary

Operation Basking:

Eight arrested in Liverpool in connection with Hampshire lorry hijack

A total of eight people have been arrested by detectives investigating the kidnap of a French lorry driver and his consignment of brandy in November 2005.

The arrests follow a lengthy investigation by the SOCU, formerly the Force Crime Unit, into the kidnap of the driver and the theft of a lorry-load of brandy at Sutton Scotney on November 29, 2005.

I found it kind of ironic, considering a lorry hijack forms a major part of the Bootleg Boys story.

Britain at it's Best!

On TV, Jade Goody is apparently proved that the ruling underclass are a bunch of bullies and racists.

On the news, crowds of looters pile soaking nappies, broken motorbikes and barrels of wine into the back of their cars as the beachs of south Devon become a twisted Supermarket Sweep.

What kind of impression is England giving to the rest of the world right at the moment?

Children of Men - starring Clive Owen

I guess if a film makes you squirm, literally driving you to the edge of your seat, then it's got some merit. And merit is apparent in Clive Owen's most recent movie, Children of Men, which came to DVD last week.

It's set twenty years in our future, in a dsytopian England wracked by terrorism and crime. It seems the world is falling apart - and the reason is a global human infertility, which has rendered the entire population sterile for the last eighteen years.

Faced with the prospect of extinction, society has collapsed. An increasingly fascist government struggles to maintain order. All foriegners have been declared Illegal Immigrants and rounded up into brutal containment camps - the largest at Bexhill on Sea.

The story follows Theo Faron, a disillusioned man slowly drinking himself to death, like most of the population. Only when his ex wife reappears, begging for his help to transport miraculously pregnant Kee to safety, does Theo find a reason to fight against the inevitable.

The film deeply troubled me.

Although it's based on a 1992 novel by P.D. James, this is a post 9/11 film. Global terrorism, pollution, immigration and government brutality are the themes explored in the movie. It's uncomfortable because director Alfonso Cuarón unashamedly inserts his own political opinions.

In P.D. James novel, for example, immigrants were welcomed to Britain. In the movie, all foriegners are rounded up, giving us a heavy headed insight into Alfonso's position on American and British immigration policy.

The Bexhill Refugee camp is clearly modeled on Guantanemo Bay and one brief scene involves an exact reenactment of the infamous Abu Gharib photos.

This strong political element made me deeply uncomfortable.

However I felt about Cuaron's politics, his talants as a filmmaker blew me away. Children of Men is a truly sumptuous film, with every scene bursting with details and richness.

From the streets of London, teeming with smog, to the brutal refugee camp, resembling some Eastern European warzone, the world Cuaron has created comes vividly to life. This is an entirely credible future, not a flashy commercial like the future presented in films such as Minority Report or I, Robot.

Camera and sound blend seamlessly, making you wince as Theo Faron ducks richochets or dodges assailants. I've never felt so immersed in a film before, not even during the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.

And the acting is superb. Clive Owen is utterly convincing as the troubled Theo. Micheal Caine plays against type as wonderful hippy Jasper. A host of British character actors (including Chiwetel 'Chewie' Ejiofor, brilliant in 2005's Serenity) give their all and the result is a film that's so intense and rich that you need to take an Alka Seltzer afterwards.

It's a deeply troubling movie, but all the better for it. I think Children of Men is last year's most outstanding film and if you haven't seen it yet, I recommend an immediate trip down to Blockbuster.

Myspace is Sued

Myspace.

An internet phenomenon.

A social networking site, which is free to use, Myspace enables you to create a 'page' which features your pictures, profile and personal information. You can add your 'friends' with links to their pages and search online for people who share your interests, tastes or live nearby.

Its a dating website, homepage, networking site and CV all rolled into one and currently has over 100 million members enrolled from all over the world.

The stories about Myspace are legendary.

Like the poor girl who sent in her CV for a great entry level position with a multi-national - only to lose out when they 'googled' her name, found her Myspace page and discovered photos and debauched stories of underage drinking, one night stands and run ins with the law.

Or, more worryingly, the stories of teenage girls who have met predatory men online.

That's the story that's hitting the front page at the moment, as several families sue Myspace for $30 million, in response to their children being sexually assaulted by men they met via Myspace.

It's a horrible story, repeated four times. One girl, only 14 years old, was raped in New York by two men she met on Myspace. Understandably, parents are horrified.

But the question is: Is Myspace to blame?

Myspace doesn't claim to be a dating website. It certainly doesn't condone or encourage communication between minors and adults. In fact, if you're over 18 years old, you are unable to look at the profiles or personal information of anybody under 18 on the site.

However, most of Myspace's members are teenagers, who use the social networking site to communicate with schoolfriends and make buddies elsewhere across the world. It's obvious that sexual predators would use the facilities offered as a hunting ground for suitable victims.

In the case of all four victims, predators communicated with the teenagers via Myspace, set up 'real world' rendezvous and then pounced. Their parents feel Myspace is responsible and should be made to pay.

But if a fourteen year old sneaked out of the house and hung out at a Diary Barn until midnight, where she met a predator who took her off and abused her, would parents be suing the Diary barn? Obviously not.

Sexual predators are called that for a reason. They use whatever tools they can to manipulate, trick and isolate potential victims. If Myspace hadn't been a factor, maybe it would have been Yahoo or Craigslist. Maybe it would have been the good old fashioned telephone, or a seemingly safe after school club or church meeting.

The meeting between predator and prey could have been facilitated many ways. However, not very many could afford to pay out the $30 million these parents are demanding.

I don't think the parents are being greedy, necessarily. I think they're simply trying to find somebody else to shoulder the responsibility for this tragedy.

The parents of the poor teenagers must be asking: Did we do something wrong? Was this our fault? Should we have monitored their internet usage? Or checked where I daughter was going?

It's a parent's proactive to feel guilty. But the truth is, neither Myspace nor the kid's parents are responsible for what happened. The people who caused all this distress are the sexual predators who manipulated, tricked and trapped their victims.

They're the people who should be held responsible and punished.

Alpha Dog

My thoughts on racism were highlighted by reading a review of Justin Timberlake's first movie outing, the true-crime drama Alpha Dog.

Based on the true-life murder committed by bored suburban drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood, it tells the story of rich kids with absent parents, who play-act the drug dealer lifestyle they hear about through rap songs on MTV.

It's a shocking story and raises some real issues about modern parenting and the influence of violent pop culture on bored, impressionable kids. It's ironic that Disney brat Justin Timberlake, who emulates the roughest rap acts with his pop career, is in this movie. It's a perfect part for him.

What annoyed me was a comment the normally sensible Movie Mom included on her review:

"It seems solipsistic, superficial, and short-sighted to put so much energy into the story of this murder when so little attention is paid to murders of non-white, non-suburban kids." Full review here.

I find this highly ironic.

The terrible, violent lifestyle of South Central Los Angeles... The clash of macho, violent gangster cultures... Through excellent directors like Spike Lee, we've had a slough of movies about gangster culture, gun crime and murder of disadvantaged inner city, ethnic kids.

Boyz in the Hood. Gang War: Bangin in Little Rock. Save the Last Dance. There are MANY movies of varying quality that record the terrible warzone that exists in inner city America.

So Movie Mom's remark was totally inaccurate. And considering Britain's currently reeling with remarks considered 'racist,' I had to question why Movie Mom would even say anything like that.

Does the colour of a person's skin eliminate the significance of their murder? Many people would say it does. Traditionally, black people's murders receive less police attention than those of white people. Yet perversely, the opposite is true in the media.

Take for example, the recent rape allegations at Duke University, in which four white LaCrosse players were accused of raping an African American girl. There was understandable uproar and disgust and the story was ENORMOUS in the media.

Yet a white girl, gang raped the previous year by a gang of four black men, hardly made the bylines.

I think there is enormous irony here. There is actually reverse racism going on. I am absolutely in support of total equality, in all aspects of life. I share Martin Luthor King's dream in which skin colour has as little relevence to the way a person is treated as the colour of their eyes. However, instead of helping us reach that goal, the media is currently being counter productive.

Racism: A different perspective

All this talk of racism on Big Brother had got me angry.

I remember a time when I was at Lampeter University, and I got cornered by a bunch of yobbish locals.

They called me a 'Ginger Minger' because I had red hair.

They made fun of my accent, because I have a fairly posh southern English accent.

They mocked me for living in Cornwall, which made me a 'sheep shagger.' Golly, how can any Welsh person throw THAT accusation about?

Anyway. I got away with a bruised ego and a dislike for Lampeter's townies. And people told me to get over it. That's life.

However, when Shilpa Shetty is made fun of for bleaching her dark facial hair, that's RACISM.

When Jade Goody and company mocked her thick Indian accent, that's RACISM.

When Jade's lesbian mother demanded to know if she lived in a shack or not, that's RACISM.

Why are my experiences considered 'tough luck' and Shilpa's considered racism?

Either there's no validity in these accusations... Or I got royally screwed.

Jade Goody... Waynetta Slob...

Anybody else remember Harry Enfield's television program?

In it, he had this hideous Kapper-Slapper monster called Waynette Slob. She was played by the hilarious and talented Kathy Burke.

One of these pictures is of her.

The other one is Jade Goody.

If you are having trouble telling which one is which, don't be concerned. I think the entire country is at the moment.

Hair Today...

AMENDMENT: Visit her blog here!

Tina is definitely a horse of a different colour.

In order to raise money for cancer charity Brainstrust, she's agreed to shave her head for charity - but only if they can raise £5,000 to support Brainstrust's important work helping develop treatment for critically sited brain tumours.

Brain tumours are responsible for one in a hundred deaths in the UK, but the facilities and expertise needed to deal with the most dangerously sited tumours hardly exists in the UK. To raise awareness of this issue, Tina's willing to do the unthinkable and shave off all her hair!

In actual fact, Tina's already donated her lovely dark hair to charity before. It used to go all the way down to her hips, but she cut it off and donated the hair to American charity Locks of Love, who make wigs for kids who have lost their hair through chemo or radiotherepy.

Now she's doing again. Please help her out! You can donate money (as much or as little as you want) at http://www.justgiving.com/tinahair

Amputation: Curing Writer's Block. I'm back on the Bootleg

I deleted over twenty pages from my draft of The Bootleg Boys.

It was over 3,000 words and I'd sweated blood over each of them, trying against every instinct to hammer out this story. But when I landed up against a brick wall, I had to admit defeat.

I had writer's block. And as I've said before, there is no such thing as Writer's Block.

It's just a case of one's subconscious telling you that something isn't right in your story. If you continue hammering out the plot, it'll go wrong. Writer's Block is basically like pain. If you feel it, something wrong.

So tonight, I deleted all those pages and got to work again.

And this time, cut back to the beginning of the end of The Bootleg Boys, I saw the direction it needed to take. I saw what the characters needed to do and I introduced some nice elements I'd previously missed. There was a wistful view of the Cathedral, a rusty old Jaguar and Eddy kissed a girl he hadn't expected to. Exciting stuff. I can honestly say I'm back on the Bootleg now...

This experience confirms what I have thought. Only by eliminating plot discrepancies can you cure the ultimate writer's malady. And now, after far too long, I'm moving forward.

I hope I can finish. It's a great story.

Peanut Allergy: The Kiss that Killed

The brilliant Mycroft, from Oxford, who was the inspiration for my soon to be written story The Mycroft Protocol, sent me a heartbreaking story after reading my posts about Peanut Allergy.

Teenager with peanut allergy dies after a kiss
Updated Sat. Nov. 26 2005 4:53 PM ET

A Quebec teenager with a peanut allergy has died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich hours earlier. Full story here.

This puts the whole peanut issue sharply into perspective. I've been thinking a lot about it recently since hearing from Jeff Smith from Nopeanutsplease.

Derek Laud - Voice of Reason

Former Big Brother contestant and one time Conservative candidate Derek Laud had this to say about the Shilp Shetty situation:

"I think there is a growing irritation in this country that everything that appears offensive to another person can be described as racist in order to close down people's right to express their views. It's a matter of taste and nothing to do with racism." Full story here.

He's quite right.

Jade Goody's behaviour in the house has everything to do with her having no class, a big mouth and a chip on her shoulder - and nothing to do with racism.

Jermaine Jackson suffers no abuse and he's black. Dirk Benedict suffers no abuse and he's American (and American's get plenty of abuse in Europe.)

It's school ground antics and bringing up the race card does exactly what Derek Laud says it does - shuts down ALL other discussion.

It's ironic that the forces of 'tolerant' and 'respectful' public opinion have actually created what amounts to Politically Correct Fascism.

Derek Laud is a funny character. I admire him greatly for his dynamic personality and rational opinions. As a gay, black, Tory, Master of Foxhounds in the New Forest, he's certainly unique and representative of multicultural Britain.

What I don't like about him is his opinion of Americans: "They're always going on about freedom and liberty when they oppress people, they imprison people without trial, I hate them. They're not democratic despite lecturing the rest of the world about democracy... and then they wonder why they're so hated all over the world."

Writing For Money - My Ambition

I've been doing more and more research into writing for money and I have a new ambition - to write an article for publishing every single day!

I also found a real lack of information on the internet about magazine submissions, what they expect and how much they pay. So like I did with Hustler Fantasies, I will post submission details when and as I discover them.

I'll keep you updated on how I do!

Hopefully this will not only prove to be a 'modestly' lucrative excercise for me. Perhaps readers and aspiring writers of this blog might be able to use the submissions information to write their own pieces.

Let's get scribbling for 2007!

Big Brother, Shilpa and Janet Street Porter: What is Racism?

Racism has hit the headlines this week, with diabolical journalist Janet Street Porter being arrested for apparently yelling "Hitler had the Reich Idea" at her Jewish neighbour each morning.

At the same time, OfCom logged over 13,000 complaints of racism in the Big Brother House, as Jade Goody, Jo from S Club and all the others I can't remember the names of apparently picked on elegant Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.

If the allegations made against Janet Street Porter are true, the police will hopefully convince her to do what we've all been begging for years - shut that mouth of hers.

But the allegations of racism in the Big Brother house are slightly more concerning.

So far, the 'crimes' committed are:

1: Refusing to eat a chicken she cooked, in case it was 'undercooked.'
2: Discussing whether it was Indian or Chinese people who ate with their hands (hey, kids. They're called chopsticks.)
3: Imitating Shilpa's strong accent.

So far, I don't think any of these particular offences are worthy of being classed 'racist.' If it's okay to make fun of George Bush's accent, or even Janet Street Porter's, why is it racist to mock Shilpa merely because her skin is a different colour?

Racism isn't the issue.

Now I don't watch Big Brother. Especially not after that disgusting debarcle with punk-fraud Donny Tourette. But I have seen enough to establish that what's going on in the Big Brother house is basically just a microcosm of the Primary School Playground.

Shilpa Shetty is a tall, beautiful, elegant woman with an incredibly successful career back home in India. She strikes me as slightly aloof, perhaps with a bit of a princess complex.

Jo, Jade and the rest of the bickering little Big Brother monkeys are just upstart, common kids thrown into the spotlight thanks to Britain's obsession with the Cult of Mediocrity.

They're picking on her because they're jealous and intimidated. And as the bullying increases, so does the distance between Shilpa and her guttersnipe housemates.

The situation will only get worse. What makes it so painful is that Jade and Co. have no idea how much media exposure their playground antics are getting. In the house, they egg each other on to even more childish acts of cruelty and taunting. Out in the real world, millions of people are seeing just how common, bitter and classless these kids really are.

One Anti-Bullying Charity Jade Goody works with is apparently dropping her as a spokesperson. I'm interested to see how the rest of the world greets their favourite Celebrity Nobody when she finally emerges from the Big Brother House.

As for the rest of them?

Well, Jack Tweedy was previous only known as Jade Goody's boyfriend. Now he has the distinction of being the first man to be filmed masturbating on national television.

It's a terrible, terribly show. And the 'bullies' in the Big Brother house are terrible, terrible people. It makes for compelling viewing, though.

At least the quiet dignity of Dirk Benedict and Jermaine Jackson will cement the fondness the public have for them. And Shilpa Shetty?

She'll leave the house as poised and preened as she entered. Perhaps she might be a 'princess,' but she's easily proven that she has the class, grace and star quality that media whores like Jade Goody could only dream of.

Writing Erotica for Money: Hustler Fantasies

WARNING: The following post contains some adult subject matter. This is not to be read by puritanical Evangelicals, fundementalist Muslims or those easily offended.

Contrary to popular belief, people are reading more than ever.

The internet has fueled people's reading. Entire newspapers can be scanned online. Novels sometimes appear on peer-to-peer before the bookshelf. Articles, blogs and news can be updated instantly, unlike newspapers.

And somebody needs to write this stuff. So the opportunities to get paid for writing are growing all the time.

Pornography is one such opportunity. Some people suggest the internet is fueled by pornography. Whether that's true or not, it has allowed more people than ever to have access to the information they need to produce articles and get paid for them.

One such opportunity is writing for Hustler Fantasies.

A spin-off from Larry Flynt's infamous Hustler magazine, Hustler Fantasies is primarily story driven and apparently filled with letters from readers. In fact, many of these are written by professional writers, who get paid £25 for each story published.

I have successfully written stories for Hustler Fantasies before and found them a lovely company to deal with. I received a colourful cheque in U.S. Dollars, a copy of the magazine containing my story and even an obscene Christmas card from the team at Hustler Fantasies.

Since Tina and I are short on money - and God forbid I have to work nights again to resolve that - I have decided to write erotica for money. And an excellent starting point should be the magazine that published me before.

In case anybody else is interested in submitting to Hustler Fantasies, I outline below their submission instructions.

HUSTLER FANTASIES: a digest-size monthly letters magazine comprised of approximately 12 letters and a fiction piece. Specific categories listed below.

Letters: Length: 3-6 typed, double-spaced pages, or 600 to 1200 words Payment: $25.00 (upon printing)

Hot, fast-paced pornographic letters written in a first-person conversational, confessional style.

Thirteen categories: group, trio, oral, anal, kink, B&D, lesbian, voyeur, exhibition, older/younger, straight, phone sex and masturbation/sex toys.

Fiction:Length: 10-14 typed, double-spaced pages, or 2000-3000 words Payment: $100 (upon printing)

Well-written short stories / "true" experiences written in any style, category or voice. At least two explicit, torrid, steamy sex scenes. Emphasis on plot/storyline.No bestiality, rape, incest, male homosexuality, sex with minors, simultaneous submissions or excessive wordiness, please!

Acceptable Manuscript Formats: We prefer to receive your manuscript saved as ASCII or text, on a 3.5 inch floppy disk formatted for Macintosh. Please include a printout. Disks will be returned to contributors. Typewritten manuscripts are acceptable, but must be double-spaced, and the ink must be dark. Handwritten manuscripts are not acceptable.

To Submit a Manuscript: Please include your name, address, social security number and a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Mail to: Hustler Fantasies, LFP, Inc., 8484 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 900, Beverly Hills CA 90211

I find Hustler have accepted about 25% of my submissions. This is because there is heavy competition despite the high churn of stories. Make sure they adhear strictly to the guidelines above. They print one 'fiction' submission per issue, and about six 'letters.' This means you are presumably six times more likely to have your letter published than a story.

Not mentioned above, but obvious from studying their stories, is a preference for 'safe sex' in their stories. Unless dealing with husbands, wives or long term partners, sexual encounters are to include safe sex and the use of condoms.

Finally, the average waiting period for acceptence for rejection is six months. Don't expect to hear anything back any earlier.

If you do decide to submit a story, good luck. Remember to keep them short, hot and sexy.

No Such Thing As Writer's Block

I don't believe in writer's block... But just like the person who said "I don't believe in ghosts, but they still frighten me" - I'm writer's blocked.

I'm not quite sure why. I've been having lots of luck at work. Coming back from the Christmas break obviously refreshed my creative batteries and I've been churning out scripts. Good ones, too. I also took the chance to enter three commercials into Gcap's Kudos awards. The judging's on the 24th January and I'm excited at the possibility of becoming an "Award Winning Creative Writer."

But Bootleg Boys doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

I'm banging my head against the wall and slightly concerned that I'll have to do what often works in this situation and 'amputate' the previous few chapters and start again.

But despite suffering from Writer's Block, I still don't believe in it.

I've previously said that writer's block is just a physical manifestation of some subconcious observation. Whatever you're writing isn't right. There's a plot error, or some poor characterisation. You can't proceed until that's fixed. That's why the brutal 'amputation' method often works. Wiping out the most recent chapters often wipes out the source of the 'writer's block.'

I just need to work out what the problem is.

Funnily enough, though, I took some time out on Saturday night to write something else. I used to write what can only be described as 'smut' for Hustler Fantasies in California. It didn't pay that well, but it did open up the doors to writing 'erotica' for money.

It's an incredibly competitive field, since the world and his typing dog thinks that writing dirty stories is somehow easier than writing anything else. However, on Saturday night I sat down and swiftly hammered out a 6,000 word story which I was very happy with.

Due to the fact that parents, ex-students and work colleagues read this blog, I won't publish the story or link to it. However it does confirm my suspicions that this 'writer's block' I'm suffering from is somehow linked to that particular story, and hasn't affected my 'writing engine' at all.

More news as we have it.

Dogs on Drugs: Love-Hewitt's Pooch takes Prozac

Love Hewitt's dog on Prozac
Entertainment News - 15/01/07 - Helen Bolton

Sit. Stay. Roll over. Take your anti-depressants.

There's a noticeable lack of showbiz gossip - even Paris seems to have stayed home this weekend - so thank goodness for Hollywood's finest admitting to odd behaviour.

Everyman's favourite cleavage, Jennifer Love Hewitt, has admitted she put her King Charles spaniel - called, cleverly, Charli - on Prozac. When Charli started behaving strangely, the vet diagnosed an anxiety problem. Full story here.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say... Well, maybe her dog SHOULD be on Prozac.

You see, I know about crazy dogs, since Piglet is CADD.

Canine Attention Deficit Disorder.

The little miniature dachshund we all love so much is as thick as two short planks. He can run upstairs, but he can't go back down them. And when it comes to dinner time, or any time he's bored, he demonstrates his CADD by frantically licking the furniture and walls.

Thank God they don't use lead in the paint any more!

I am sure some Ritalin would do Piglet a world of good. So Jennifer? I support you 100%.

Let's put our dogs on drugs.

For no reason whatsoever, certainly not to titilate, I will close this post with some pictures of Ghost Whisperer star Love-Hewitt doing what she does best. Which is apparently pout and hold her arms up over her head.

When Peanuts Attack: Peanut Allergy from a Different Point of View

My blog gets quite a few googlers searching for "Bond Testicle Torture," or "Danny Tourette is a Fake." One of the most popular searches leading here is "Torchwood is Gay" and I have no idea how that happened!

But by far and away, the most 'popular' post I have written was Why People with a Peanut Allergy Annoy Me.

I say 'popular' although that's subjective. Really, it's the 'most read' post I've written. Judging by some of the comments and emails I've got, some people don't find it very popular at all!

Luckily, most readers have taken the post in the spirit in which it was written and understand that no, I don't have an irrational hatred of people with a Peanut Allergy. Even if I don't get a packet of dry roasted with my G&T on the plane any more! As Jodi pointed out - we get pretzels instead and that's fine with me. They're much better for my waistline.

One curious email I got was from the author of new blog NoPeanutsPlease.

This is a blog started in the last days of 2006, when the author was forced to rush his daughter to hospital after she suffered a dangerous anaphylactic reaction to, of all things, a harmless cookie - part of a curiously American 'cookie exchange' with neighbours and friends.

I guess the motto's true - if you didn't bake it, you don't know what's in it. How horrible to think that a well intentioned neighbour might have inadvertently poisoned their friend's daughter merely by adding a few peanuts to the mixing bowl!

He described it as a 'formative experience.' A wonderful understatement, I'm sure!

Fortunately, all was well. However the experience inspired him to start a blog to educate other people about the dangers of a peanut allergy. If you know anybody who has a peanut allergy, I'd certainly recommend checking it out.

It's funny how our comments and opinions come full circle, though. In my original post, I was bitching that the rest of the world were now forbidden peanuts on airplanes because of the tiny minority who might suffer an allergic reaction.

This was a little unfair on my part, because the tin-can nature of an airplane does mean that the danger of exposing an sufferer is already greatly increased, even before you introduce three hundred packets of honey roasted nuts into the equation.

But at what point does consideration for other people's conditions become a burden?

Short of having prohibition on peanuts, there's no real way to protect people with peanut allergies from exposure. While the parents of allergic kids might praise the idea of banning peanuts altogether, that's unlikely to happen. Given the rate in which my wife scoffs down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (another curiously American invention) or Reeses peanut butter cups, I'm pretty sure there'd be civil war if anybody suggested it.

Plus, what happens afterwards?

You ban peanuts to protect people with an allergy. What about then banning sugar to protect diabetics? They're already banning trans fat in New York city and halting advertising cheese on kids TV. If we ban everything that's 'bad' for us, it's not long before we'll all be living on nothing but 'regulation' gruel and water.

No, parents with peanut allergies can't expect much help from us regular folk. So it's up to websites and blogs like Nopeanutsplease to educate the rest of us about the challenges they face and hopefully, we'll be understanding and cooperative as best we can.

Hyundai Coupe Tiburon - Why do Brits pay more?

Today I was writing a commercial for the new 2007 Hyundai Coupe.


A sporty, sleek little car, they're quite popular here as reasonably priced sports cars. I don't like them, of course, but that's because I don't like anything that's not got lousy build quality, horrible fuel consumption and terrible reliability.

They're also popular in the States, where Hyundai has a good reputation as an affordable, reliable brand. They too have the 2007 Hyundai Coupe, branded Tiburon out there.

This is where the problem arises.

In England, a brand new 2007 Hyundai Coupe starts from £15,745.

In America, remarkably, it has pretty much the same price. Only in dollars, instead of pounds.

It retails from $16,595.

According to today's exchange rate, that's fractionally over £8,500.

So why - WHY - are the Brits paying £7,245 more for the very same car?

If somebody could explain this to me, I'd be very grateful.

Until then, I'll be sticking with my lovely little 11 year old Volvo.

Miss Potter

For a film with absolute no apparant 'bloke appeal,' I enjoyed Miss Potter far more than I thought I would.

It's a film about the life of Beatrix Potter, the world's most popular children's author and creator of Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny and all the rest of our childhood pals. I have a particular soft spot for Tom Kitten, who burst out of his brass buttons.

Miss Potter stars Renee Zellweger, who has followed in Gwyneth Paltrow's footsteps and now seems more qualified to play institutional women in Britain's literary history than any real British woman could.

That being said, this isn't a fluffy Hollywood version of Potter's life. Oh, it's certainly fluffy, but it's filmed in the same staid style as the finest Jane Austen adaptation. The life of Beatrix Potter isn't portrayed as melodramatic or exciting. Simply the story of a woman who refused to fit into the strict rules of the post-Victorian era.

Beatrix is a woman in her early thirties, who's doting parents long abandoned the idea of marrying her off to a suitable suitor a long time ago. She sits upstairs, obsessed with a paintbrush and her 'friends,' the series of wonderful creatures she creates and paints in beautiful watercolour.

To defy her stoic parents, Beatrix takes her books to publishers and is gratified when Warne & Co. pledge to publish Peter Rabbit. Little does she know that this contract is merely an indulgence to keep the youngest Warne brother, Norman, out of trouble.

But like Beatrix herself, Norman is determined to break free of the shackles parents and society have placed on him and together, he and Beatrix create a new, exciting and affordable book for children that soon flies off the shelves and makes Beatrix famous. And in this common goal, Beatrix and Norman soon reach a romantic understanding.

But even in a nice, predictable story like this, the path of love never runs smooth.

Miss Potter is an evenly paced, sumptuously filmed movie that is a delight to watch. It's practically a love letter to the beautiful Lake District.

My only complaint would be Renee Zellweger herself, who pulls off the accent, the rosy cheeks and the auburn hair - but still can't help gurning and squinting throughout the movie. She basically played Miss Potter as a slightly uptight, sober Bridget Jones.

Miss Potter is in cinemas now.

Prejudice against Gingers: Daily Echo

Footballer demands referee is punished over 'oi ginger' slur
By Clare Kennedy

WHETHER ridiculed or revered, they often find themselves the butt of jokes because of nothing more than their hair colour.

For generations, ginger is the colour that makes it often impossible for people to fade into the background.


Now the taunts more familiar in a children's playground have reached one of the highest levels of the beautiful game.

A football referee today stands accused of shouting oi ginger shut- up' at Southampton Burridge AFC defender, Paul Dyke.

The player has compared the taunt to a racist slur. Full article here.


I wrote this response to the Daily Echo's very interesting - and groundbreaking - article. Groundbreaking because this is an issue I've never seen a legitimate publication touch on before. Congratulations to journalist Clare Kennedy for a brilliant story.

Dear Daily Echo:

I've experienced prejudice for being redheaded my entire life.

At school teachers used to yell "oi, your head's on fire!" When I started working, I was called "ginger" by my bosses. I could never walk down a street without somebody yelling at me and I found myself targeted for verbal - and sometimes physical - abuse whenever I went to the pub.

In 2000, I moved to France and then to America. And it stopped. Abroad, I never once experienced abuse for the colour of my hair. I came to realise it was only Britain that had such a ridiculous prejudice towards people with red hair.

The worst thing? It's institutionalised. Whether on television or in the paper, ginger hair is the last minority you can legitimatly pick on. If you ever turned the tables - and imagined the phrases used to describe ginger people being used to describe black or asian people - there would be an outcry. This is racism, pure and simple.

I'm partly Scottish, not Asian or Black. But it's genetics behind the way I look. That makes these attacks racist. But nobody's willing to stand up and face that ugly truth.

Personally, I've come to think about the word "ginger" the way many black people must think about the word "nigger."

What's worse is there are no redheaded people willing to stand up for themselves - myself included. We've become Uncle Toms.

This has haunted me my entire life and has certainly shaped the person I became. Highly self conscious, with very low self esteem. It wasn't until I went to America that I was able to truly feel confident and free. That's why I'm looking forward to moving back there.

I have written about this issue before: http://rolandhulme.blogspot.com/2006/09/being-ginger.html

I must commend the Daily Echo for actually standing up and saying what a generation have been too afraid to - that racism against ginger people (be they scots/irish or nordic) is no better than racism against against anybody else. I look forward to seeing existing racial hatred laws used to punish those who attack redheaded people as they are used when people attack black or asian people.

The Guillemots

I found something crying; it was my soul,
I fed it milk so it wouldn't grow old,
We crossed the borderline at dawn,
And woke up in a field of corn...
The Guillemots, Annie Lets Not Wait

Please. Please. PLEASE!

I don't CARE if you got a gold star in Creative Writing when you were at school. Your nonsensical scribblings are NOT LYRICS.

They don't even make as much sense as the Beatles "I am the Walrus." And they wrote that when they were on LSD.

Plus, let's be honest. You guys in the Guillemots aren't the Beatles. You're not even the Rutles.

If there's one thing worse than hideously manufactured pop music, it's hideously pretentious indie music. The whole thing about indie music is that's it's supposed to be... Well... Indie. And Pendent. Not regurgitations from your Year Nine English homework.

The fact is, there are countless more talented musicians out there than the Guillemots. One I particually like at the moment is Amanda Duncan.

Tresco: An interesting observation

Back in 2000, I lived on Tresco, in the Isles of Scilly.

It's a slice of life outside of reality. An example of how true this is comes direct from Scillionian The Spotlight Kid, when he says:

A little while ago the [Isles of Scilly] Council were criticised for their appalling road safety record. Year on year our Council have consistently failed to reduce the number of road deaths on the Islands. It cuts no ice than there have never been any road deaths. The Council have arrogantly ignored this reprimand, there has been no improvement. Road deaths steadfastly refuse to go negative.

Brilliant. While Tina and I struggle along to pay bills and do the washing up, there's still some magic left over the twinkling blue sea. It gives hope to all of us.

Thinking Pink with Lisa Clark

One of the best presents a writer can get is a subscription to Writer's News.

Not only is it filled with great tips, advice and contacts, there are regular features about writers who've made the jump from 'aspiring' to 'published.'

It's a huge morale boost to see that people just like you can make the break and get into print. Although when you look a little more sharply into the equation, you see some worrying traits all successful writers have that us unpublished souls need to aspire to.

One such writer I first learnt about through Writer's News is local girl Lisa Clark.

Hailing from Portsmouth, Lisa has just seen her first book, Think Pink, published by Harper Collins. Seeing her name in print isn't exactly a new experience for Lisa, though, since she's already an established and prolific writer on paper and online.

I was lucky enough to be able to ask Lisa a few questions about her writing career - and hopefully pick her brains for some tips.

You've got more career hats than most girls have shoes. Who is the real Lisa Clark? Do you see yourself as a writer? A journalist? A web-guru? If they put your pickled head in a museum, like they do in Futurama, which section would you want to be put in?

Not strictly true, I have a serious amount of shoes! If they couldn't put a bit of my brain in each section, I'd say writer-girl. Why? 'Coz technically, that's all I'm doing when I'm creating features for magazines and the website, but I'm so not a web-guru. I have a super-talented friend who I pay to make it all pretty, I just type and upload - it's the perfect set-up!

You're an agony aunt for Mizz magazine. How did you get that gig?

I am and I love it! I'm a qualified youth worker and life coach and wanted to find a way to combine my skills with my writing so I pimped my services to the teen magazines. Mizz were looking for an agony aunt and asked if I'd be interested in applying, I did a test piece, and got it. Go me!

You've also started your own magazine, Rant. Could you tell us a little about that? How exactly do you go about starting your own magazine? We asked Hugh Hefner, but he wouldn't tell us.

How rude is Hugh?

So, Rant is the urban survival guide for and by teens in Portsmouth. I was studying youth culture at Uni and knew I wanted to write for teens, there was nothing that provided young people in Portsmouth with fun, relevant information specifically targeted at them, so I approached Portsmouth City Council about giving young people the reigns to produce their own magazine for their peers.

They were already planning a publication and asked me to get involved. I became the editor and trained young people in journalism - the magazine was, and still is, hugely successful because we tackled real issues that were effecting young people. We caused a whole heap of controversy, got lots of press attention and even beat Channel 4 and newsround to win a media award.

You've also set up an incredibly popular website, Pink-world.co.uk, with over 8,000 subscribers. So what's Pink World all about and why do you think it's so popular?

I have and it's just had a new, sparkly-gorgeous makeover - so please go visit!I'd had an idea for a book, Think Pink, and thought it might be a good idea to test both the book and the characters out online to see what the response would be like, so that's what I did. That was 4 years ago.The site has gone through lots of changes since then, but ultimately the ethos is still the same.

Pink-world is the zine I'd always wanted to read. 'Cept no one ever made it, which, is really rather rude. Instead, they made a whole lot of glossy zines that told me how to wear my hair, that size 00 was the new size 10 and that I should have serious life-envy of…well, everyone who wasn't me basically.

Don't get me wrong, I love glossy magazines - I write for them, I heart fashion, make-up and all things celeb, so while Pink-World shouts about my love for over-priced make-up (damn, that stuff is cute.) the secret to it's success, according to the readers, is that it also interviews coolio-a-go-go women who are rockin' at what they do, gives kudos to teen girls who are doing fabulous things and provides a weekly fix of everything a girl needs to feel feisty, fun, fearless and fabulous!

If that's not enough, you've also just landed a two book deal with Harper Collins. Can you tell us a little about Think Pink and what you have planned for the future?

Think Pink is a go-for-it guide for girls narrated by hipster heroine, Lola Love. Filled with everything a girl needs to become feisty, fun, fearless and fabulous - Lola and her kooky clique, The Pink Ladies, banish monotone thoughts of chubby tummies, bad school marks and arguing parents, and replaces them with the most exciting possibilities, because lets face it, life's not a dress rehersal!

The book has loads of questionnaires, quizzes, fun things to do and straight-talking advice and will have readers feeling good, dreaming big, being inspired and living life to the full!

I started work on a story idea about a girl who saw the world through pink-tinted shades about 4 years ago, then when I became an agony aunt and saw how much teen girls hate on themselves, I saw the girl in the pink-tinted lenses I'd been working on in fiction form, as a way to help girls shift their negative perspective. The 1st book is in stores now - v.exciting! The second book is out in June which I'm editing the proofs for right now and I'm working on actually writing books 3 and 4 inbetween!

Pink seems to be a lifestyle choice as much as a colour. What's that all about? How much pink is there in the day-to-day life of the real Lisa Clark?

You're right! When you Think Pink, life is substantially a whole lot sweeter! Pink Thinking is postive thinking.

In the book, Lola has pinked-tinted shades to highlight the benefits of seeing the so-called 'real' world filled with it's constant comparisons, unrealistic media images and a need to strive for perfection, in a different, more positive way. Y'see when you Think Pink, anything is possible. You can live a life filled with thousands of candy-kissed, sunshine moments because you're in control. What's not to love about that?

I wear a LOT of pink too. If I'm having an antsy day where I'm all foot stompin' grumpy, I put on a slick of pink lipgloss, my matching glitter-pink pumps and a variety of pink accessories, and I can't fail to smile at my reflection!

Prolific. Seems to sum you up. How do you find the energy for all these projects? Is it coffee? Too much sugar? What's your secret, dammit?

Shux. I'm blushing.My secret? While chocolate does play a big part in the process, it's Thinking Pink.Seriously.I do what I love, that makes work a whole lot easier and I'm chasing dreams so actually, it never really feels like work, just a celebration of achievements!

The boring bit. How do you go about the actual process of writing? Do you have an office? Do you use a laptop or a gold plated typewriter (like Ian Fleming.) Do you write in the morning, or at night? How do you get into the 'writing zone.'

I'm a huge procrastinator. So before I sit down to work I'll check myspace, my emails, I'll write a blog, I'll even do housework - actually, that's ridiculous, I NEVER do housework.

It's not that I don't want to write, because when I actually start, I can't stop, it's just that whole starting business I have a problem with. To get into the 'zone' I have to sit up at the dining table, put on my huge-ass headphones that shut all the outside noise out and play a killer playlist that I would of put together during the previous procrastination period. I'm a total morning person, and will happily get up at 4.30 to write - after 6pm though I' m a waster, so I'm all about the morning.

My tools of the trade are a cute lil ibook called Martha and a pink notebook. The notebook comes everywhere with me and is filled with ideas and lines and comments which I then type up on my laptop.

Book deals don't just land in people's laps. Since I'm struggling to get my own book published, I have to ask... How did you go about getting published and what advice do you have for anybody trying to see their name in print?

I put together a killer proposal. There are loads of books out there that tell you how and the more professional your proposal, the more chance you'll get of having it read. The proposal took longer than the book to write and I then blitzed both publishers and agents.

I got so many rejections it was ridiculous, but I didn't stop sending it, I believed in it and really thought it could work. In the meantime, I contacted a few of the authors I had interviewed for my website over the previous years and asked if they had any advice for me. Some offered to read it, gave me pointers, I changed a few things and sent them out again.

Eventually, a year into the process, I hit jackpot. An agent wanted to represent me. It took a whole year after that to find a publisher, but HarperCollins bought into the concept and now, a year on from signing the contract, the first book is in the shops!

My advice?

Don't keep talking about it, just write. No excuses. If you want to write, you'll make the time.Be persistant. Ask people in the industry for advice.

Don't give up. Ever.

Well, thanks for that Lisa. I'd never really though pink was my colour, but maybe we should all be thinking a bit pinker from now on.

You can find Pink World here and Think Pink is available from Amazon.