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Tossa de Mar, Costa Brava: sitting out on our large, covered, tiled balcony, sipping crisp white wine (actually we finished the wine ages back and are now on San Miguel, but “wine” scans better) washed down with chorizo, soft cheese and Serrano ham.

We arrived late Monday night off the bus from Barca airport, helping the sleepy kids traverse quiet Calle Barcelona like miniature drunks. As we inspected the terrace two Manchester women shouted from the balcony above: “There’s two little wild kittens in your garden, they’ve lost their mum, can you do owt?”

We peered over the railing into the “garden”, an overgrown patch between the block and the hotel-hacked cliff-face; a six foot drop, apparently too high to get back up. The kittens mewled for madre. In the fridge we found garlic sausage and soaked bread in milk and threw it in the general direction of their pathetic cries emanating from a bush.

Tuesday morning called animal rescue, who sit by their phone in a state of constant readiness with thick gloves, nets and mustard gas; no-one spoke English, call back at one. Just before one mother cat returned, sniffed the sausage and gave us a surly glare – less “thank you for feeding my kids,” more “fuck you and your diabolist interference,” which is roughly how I feel about the ladies upstairs – if the rescue people had spoken English the kittens would now be toast.

As we sit on our terrace, from the swimming pool cut into the rock above our heads there is an occasional “splash”. The cliff walls rise steep and smooth, melted by wind and sun and sea so they reflect the light, glass-like. There is a strain of thunder in the mountains; from the living room, “when I see an elephant fly”. A soft rain begins to fall on the canopy and greens the plants. Down in the bushes, the returning mother suckles her kittens.

Having nothing better to read I scan the latest New Statesman. What a bad joke it has become: my one-time god Pilger somehow crow-barring Israel into a piece on Australia, guileless interviews with New Labour irrelevancies, yet another love-in to the Left’s favourite Bête noir, BE Ellis. Grow up, boys, move on: everything has changed. Don’t you get it yet?

Yesterday – Wednesday - we went to the other beach, Platja de la Mar Menbuda, a short walk over a humpbacked road, behind us mountains sprinkled with apartments in local stone as if carved in the side, down below the water and rocks intermingling and covered with naked humans. We were better prepared than the day before, with inflatable rings and a parasol, even a bottle of water, and the water was clean and tranquil (oh) and the rocks tall and well-cut, and the people prettier than I have ever been and the sun just too damn hot. Hate the beach.

How odd, to read in the Sunday Times “why I let my nine-year-old wear a Burqa”, the same day I finished the magnificent Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Infidel”. Wonder if the author of the former has ever read - or even heard of - the latter? (This is one of those questions to which either response is unforgivable.) What next, 2-for-1 excisions in Upper Street nail-bars, female circumcision for kids at Glasto and Glyndebourne, get their faces painted while-U-wait?

Similarly – well, not quite, but hopefully you’ll catch my drift – the other night I watched dad-lad cartoon “Snatch” (with its terrific insights into working class life, its unrelentingly realistic portrayal of London) a few days after watching “The Last Picture Show”. Has the “author” of the former ever watched the latter? Surely he’d never be able to meet his own gaze in the mirror, let alone call himself without a trace of irony a “film-maker”, if he had.

The rain falls harder, cleansing the terrace of ants, crumbs and leaves. The thunder growls deep in the hills and now no-one splashes in the pool above; when you go swimming the last thing you want is to get wet. The kittens hide in a pipe, little heads stuck out like an Athena poster. Hope the pipe doesn’t suddenly gush, send them shooting out like furry bullets...

The beach at Tossa is hard loose shingle that sand-blasts your soles, a deep cove, the great Villa Vella floating above the ocean (last night we drank reasonably-priced beer at its summit as Sean attempted to tombstone), once in the water you paddle and it drops, deep and sudden, the waves get beneath and suck you back. In the New Statesman someone complained that the last bit of Larkin’s poem was “weak” because coastal shelves don’t deepen.

Wrong.

Tossa de Mar, Costa Brava: sitting out on our large, covered, tiled balcony, sipping crisp white wine (actually we finished the wine ages back and are now on San Miguel, but “wine” scans better) washed down with chorizo, soft cheese and Serrano ham.

We arrived late Monday night off the bus from Barca airport, helping the sleepy kids traverse quiet Calle Barcelona like miniature drunks. As we inspected the terrace two Manchester women shouted from the balcony above: “There’s two little wild kittens in your garden, they’ve lost their mum, can you do owt?”

We peered over the railing into the “garden”, an overgrown patch between the block and the hotel-hacked cliff-face; a six foot drop, apparently too high to get back up. The kittens mewled for madre. In the fridge we found garlic sausage and soaked bread in milk and threw it in the general direction of their pathetic cries emanating from a bush.

Tuesday morning called animal rescue, who sit by their phone in a state of constant readiness with thick gloves, nets and mustard gas; no-one spoke English, call back at one. Just before one mother cat returned, sniffed the sausage and gave us a surly glare – less “thank you for feeding my kids,” more “fuck you and your diabolist interference,” which is roughly how I feel about the ladies upstairs – if the rescue people had spoken English the kittens would now be toast.

As we sit on our terrace, from the swimming pool cut into the rock above our heads there is an occasional “splash”. The cliff walls rise steep and smooth, melted by wind and sun and sea so they reflect the light, glass-like. There is a strain of thunder in the mountains; from the living room, “when I see an elephant fly”. A soft rain begins to fall on the canopy and greens the plants. Down in the bushes, the returning mother suckles her kittens.

Having nothing better to read I scan the latest New Statesman. What a bad joke it has become: my one-time god Pilger somehow crow-barring Israel into a piece on Australia, guileless interviews with New Labour irrelevancies, yet another love-in to the Left’s favourite Bête noir, BE Ellis. Grow up, boys, move on: everything has changed. Don’t you get it yet?

Yesterday – Wednesday - we went to the other beach, Platja de la Mar Menbuda, a short walk over a humpbacked road, behind us mountains sprinkled with apartments in local stone as if carved in the side, down below the water and rocks intermingling and covered with naked humans. We were better prepared than the day before, with inflatable rings and a parasol, even a bottle of water, and the water was clean and tranquil (oh) and the rocks tall and well-cut, and the people prettier than I have ever been and the sun just too damn hot. Hate the beach.

How odd, to read in the Sunday Times “why I let my nine-year-old wear a Burqa”, the same day I finished the magnificent Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Infidel”. Wonder if the author of the former has ever read - or even heard of - the latter? (This is one of those questions to which either response is unforgivable.) What next, 2-for-1 excisions in Upper Street nail-bars, female circumcision for kids at Glasto and Glyndebourne, get their faces painted while-U-wait?

Similarly – well, not quite, but hopefully you’ll catch my drift – the other night I watched dad-lad cartoon “Snatch” (with its terrific insights into working class life, its unrelentingly realistic portrayal of London) a few days after watching “The Last Picture Show”. Has the “author” of the former ever watched the latter? Surely he’d never be able to meet his own gaze in the mirror, let alone call himself without a trace of irony a “film-maker”, if he had.

The rain falls harder, cleansing the terrace of ants, crumbs and leaves. The thunder growls deep in the hills and now no-one splashes in the pool above; when you go swimming the last thing you want is to get wet. The kittens hide in a pipe, little heads stuck out like an Athena poster. Hope the pipe doesn’t suddenly gush, send them shooting out like furry bullets...

The beach at Tossa is hard loose shingle that sand-blasts your soles, a deep cove, the great Villa Vella floating above the ocean (last night we drank reasonably-priced beer at its summit as Sean attempted to tombstone), once in the water you paddle and it drops, deep and sudden, the waves get beneath and suck you back. In the New Statesman someone complained that the last bit of Larkin’s poem was “weak” because coastal shelves don’t deepen.

Wrong.

I don’t attend many book launches, and those I do go to tend to be Legend events, so it was interesting last night to be at the launch of Lee Rourke’s first novel, “The Canal”, at trendy boutique bookshop “To Hell With Books” in Bloomsbury.

The launch was good fun, and Lee gave everyone a taster of the book, which is about a guy sitting down by the Regents Canal and watching the world go by. I like the sound of it, and not only because I know that stretch between Islington and Hackney pretty well; I like the sound of a book in which apparently not much happens. As my creative writing tutor, John McAuliffe once said, there aren’t enough books around in which not much happens. At least I think that’s what he said – I wasn’t really paying attention.

As part of the launch, Lee was “interviewed” by literary critic Stuart Evers, which was an intriguing idea, particularly as some of the questions were a bit tougher than one might expect under the circumstances. On leaving, a copy of the book safely under my arm, I was tempted to lean in and tell Lee that your first book launch is probably one of the worst moments of your life, but it gets better after that. But I didn’t.

Terrifyingly, it appears yet another fictional storyline in “Out of Office” has come true. Since the novel was published in March, we’ve had the election of a coalition government (no great surprise there), problems with funding the Olympic site (ditto), another failed terrorist campaign (yawn), and now, amazingly, the discovery of a fossilized sea monster – admittedly in the Peruvian desert rather than the Atlantic. Well, who d’ya think I am - Nostradamus?

I’m really delighted to announce that “Out of Office” has just been announced “book of the month” by the deeply influential “bookgroup” website. Previous authors to have been nominated include Hilary Mantel, Cormac McCarthy and Colm Toibin, so it’s a massive honour to be in such distinguished company.

As well as a review of the novel which you can read here, the website has published an interview with me which you can read here.

My only tiny regret is that once again Lucy and/or Lauren at Legend saw fit to send them a truly horrendous photo I took myself with a timer years ago when I urgently needed to send them a pic and my wife wasn’t around to take a good one. I’m sure Lauren and Lucy each have a pic somewhere they’d sooner the world didn’t see and one day revenge will be mine! Ha ha ha! (sound of maniacal laughter)...

Sometimes you forget what’s important. Where you’re from, where you are, and what’s next. You go to work or you don’t, you play with your kids or you don’t, you feed the cats, pay the bills, hang out the washing, surf the net, flick the channels, go on holiday, and all the years slide by and then it’s gone and so are you.

Music helps me remember who I am. Tonight I compiled the Fire Horses soundtrack and yet again I was awestruck by the beauty of the people who write those songs and have the balls to sing them and spend years learning instruments and move everyone who listens each in their own way. Give yourselves a pat, boys, girls and inbetweenies: I don’t know how you do it. But I’m glad you do.

x

Wonderful as it is to be “published” anytime, anyplace, anywhere (aren’t 2 & 3 the same? anyway) – there’s something extra-magical about seeing your short stories in a proper print magazine, ISSN and all. When the proper print magazine in question is the wonderful, world-renowned “Open Wide”, the right-chuffed feeling is even better. It is therefore with great delight and pride that I announce the publication of my short story, “the man who buried himself” in issue 23. I’d post a link to the story itself (it is a bit mad) but deep down you know you’d rather buy it...

www.openwidemagazine.co.uk/issues.htm

Spent an interesting morning with Tom from Legend and fellow author Andrew (“Holloway Road”) Blackman “running” a writing workshop at Blackwell’s bookshop in Holloway Road as part of the festival. Brought back fond memories of my degree at UNL (as was), when Blackwell’s was the shop of choice for many of the more penurious undergraduates (not me, of course) so it was sad to hear it’s going to be flattened soon.

As part of the workshop we asked those present to write about any of a number of themes, or make stuff up, and were really impressed with some of the writing. Less impressive was the fact that just before the event I somehow managed to lock myself in the toilet upstairs and had to bend my front door key to escape. Oh, the glamour...

After the event I met up with Mike from fourthreethree magazine(after John Cage, not the latest Capello formation) and outside the Metro he recorded me reading “Meat City”, one of my wackier stories. After my Fire Horses book launch at LondonMet we all ended up at the Metro; I’m so old I remember when it was called the Holloway Tavern and had lock-ins, so maybe my incident in Blackwell’s was some strange homage.

More on fourthreethree later...

Although some of my writing is easily classifiable (as novel, article etc), much of it is harder to pin a specific label on. Is “Fat Lady Sing”, for instance, poem or prose? Are “the Boab Sentinels”, “the Cockroach Clause” and “Fever Espana” memoir, travelogue or something else completely? (“Who cares?” I hear you ask. I do.).

In an attempt to resolve this somewhat vexatious issue (for me, at least) I’ve decided to bring together all my published short stories, poems, “humorous” items and creative non-fiction under the catch-all heading “Militant Factions”. Hmm, wonder if there’s a book in there somewhere...

To my great surprise and delight I’ve been interviewed by “Writing Magazine” about, well, writing and that. Writing Magazine is a glossy publication for all aspiring writers and its website can be found at www.writingmagazine.co.uk

(Troublingly, on reaching that page you will then be automatically directed to the equally interesting www.writersnews.co.uk. I say “troublingly”, but I don’t mean it. It’s just a bit scary to be re-directed somewhere else. Well, it is for me.)

A writer’s life is a dull one, most of the time, but it is nevertheless rather exciting to be given the chance to describe this vast, overwhelming tedium in great detail.

If you’d like to know for yourself just how heartbreakingly sad and futile day-to-day existence is for a writer nobody has ever heard of, let alone reviewed (thanks, nationals), click here: