www.markpiggott.com

Urgent appeal on behalf of all newspaper cartoonists

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:25:00 +0000

Satirists everywhere, I‘m writing to ask for your help. A “funny” cartoon is urgently required for all national newspapers in time for tomorrow’s editions. Themes: cowardly and/or incompetent Italian captains deserting sinking ships; rats to lifeboat first; &c. May have secondary use on “Mock the Week”. I’d do one myself but I can’t really be arsed.

This cake tastes yummy, by the way. So you can have one and eat it...

Fuck religion, fuck politics, fuck the lot of you...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

...is the name of a 1983 album by Bristol-based up-tempo beat combo, “Chaotic Dischord.” Though I don’t necessarily share their sentiment when it comes to politics (what could be more fun than reading about the adventures of Mr Huhne?), after reading about these vicars getting their knickers in a twist re: gay marriage, these spiky-haired scallywags might have a point regarding the first part of this admittedly provocative statement.

Finished me book, by the way – and finished at Portsmouth. Fun while it lasted – pity about the travelling. Now what? Now I wait...

Oh, F.F.S: not Corfu again...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:35:00 +0000

Gerald Durrell’s “my family and other animals” was one of my favourite childhood books (which might explain why visiting Corfu was something of a disappointment when I visited in 1988), and Lawrence’s “The Black Book” remains an adult favourite. Nevertheless it was rather depressing to find that The Times devoted two pages of its shrinking review section to a memoir by Lawrence’s wife’s daughter, Joanna Hodgkin, today (21 Jan 2012). If this rambling and disorganized extract is anything to go by, there is nothing new here; just another relentless trawl around one of those families, like the Amises, Mitfords and bloody Windsors, that the media seem so much more fascinated in than anyone else.

A few pages on we are informed that The Bookseller reports that sales last year were their lowest since records began ten years ago; surely the reviewers could focus on new books about the state we’re in rather than endlessly replaying true life sagas from a distant age?

Rant over – back to the rewrite of “emptiness”. I read the other day that your mental ability starts to decline when you hit 45 – which I do, a week today. Best get me skates on...

Random notes - before I go under

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0000

Don’t worry (yeah, right) – not forever, just for a few weeks while I dive deep, deep into the murky, bracing waters - of “emptiness”. Spent the last few days tying up the loose ends – sorting out tax returns, resigning from Portsmouth, drinking, swimming, writing a strange short story about the night-time Finnish forests.

Now all is quiet, all is still – but for my brain. No excuses, nowhere to hide. I love this feeling: on the high board, arms out-stretched, holding breath, opening my eyes and looking down.

But before I dive – some random thoughts:

Had a strange email the other day – some oddball who claims to edit a well-known magazine, suggesting that if they mention my novel I won’t mind them publishing my feature for free. Um – how can I put this, you amateur, you cheapskate? I‘d sooner press “delete”...

Strange, that ship going down, more or less exactly where the boat in my novel sails, and in which the narrator fantasises about the ship capsizing:

“In the night I vomited again, more urgently, as if my body were attempting to dispel the remnants of my morality and taste, a deeper and browner texture; then I tried to sleep as the ship rolled and pitched. Sometimes it felt it must keep rolling till we were all upside down: the cabin would fill with water and the shampoo sachets and mint chocolates, the pillows and the bath-robes would dance in a dark underwater vortex as I gulped with disbelief...”

(from emptiness)

Finally watching The Sopranos, and from mister Gandolfini possibly the greatest acting performance of all time – here is an American hero who sleeps late, who then gets up and scratches his nuts...

No time, no time: time to go, to dive in (from this rickety burning bridge) and swim. 1,2,3...

(Happy Birthday to two heroes: to you, Mister Ali, and to you, Mister Bowie...)

all is quiet on - well, you know when...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:40:00 +0000

We set out early on the 29th: north, to Rovaniemi, home of the "real" Santa Claus. It was dark until around 11 but the No. 4 motorway was relatively clear of snow until Kemi, a few miles short of the Swedish border at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, where we turned inland. Here, in the swirling snow amid the endless birch forests, we ate burgers and nuggets in a vast supermarket, kids playing on a indoor climbing frame, old folk waiting for their bus in the warm.

As we neared Rovaniemi the snow thickened and for miles we were stuck behind a slow tractor; soon a snake of traffic curled behind us, headlights barely visible through the blizzard. The town was larger than expected, with a grand central bridge and the usual monstrous neon edifices, but there were signs for the Arctic Circle and our goal: Santa Claus Village.

I shall save the delights of that place for another time, but suffice to say it was quite pretty, rather tacky, and fairly expensive. After a few hours, clutching our "gifts" (kiitos, Santa) we took the 78 road down through the dark hills to Ranua, where we stayed the night in a smartish hotel - or rather, a chalet behind it, almost submerged in the deep drifts. I went out for food and drink and at a nearby shopping unit the local kids had their cars lined up beside all the snow-buried snowmobiles, playing rap, revving their engines in a manner that seemed rather poignant.

Next morning we went to Ranua Zoo and saw owls, eagles, lynx and our first polar bears; as huge and magnificent as you could imagine. The zoo was full of loud, laughing Russians who shook the trees to send snow cascading down on their kids and a party of Spaniards who seemed to find the snow new and exciting - though maybe they are from the mountains, who knows...

We sledged all afternoon and then drove back to Oulu via yet more quiet, snow-packed roads, the snow hynotic in the headlights, every few miles a warning sign for elk, those 500-kg beasts that like nothing more than crashing through your windscreen. If we should skid off the road into a tree there are few passing cars, and there are wolves and bears in the woods if the cold doesn't get you first... Suffice to say we made it home.

Today, to take the edge off the traditional new year head, I was sent off through the woods to forage for food. Finally found a supermarket and then went round in circles in the snow, disorientated by the endless trees (and suburbs) but happy, loving Finland and looking forward to an exciting 2012.

To play us out today, I can't think of a more apt song and video than this, from those long ago days when U2 were still fucking good.

Happy new year to you all...

29.12.11: driving on ice

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:25:00 +0000

Not being what you'd call a happy driver, it is with some trepidation that today I take up the gauntlet and drive us all into town. First, I clear last night's snow from the drive: three or four inches and still falling, animal tracks scattered all round the side of the house - reindeer, elk? Emma and Sean take up snow-boarding like natives and we go down the hill on groovy sleighs with a seat in front and runners in back; you scoot with one leg then hop up and you can steer pretty well into oncoming traffic.

The car is a big old Toyota with five seats and five doors, power steering and a warning bleep when you reverse. Strange, driving in these conditions, even with chains on the tyres; most of the roads are under several inches of snow on top of compacted ice, even in the city centre. Added to which it's left hand drive, you drive on the right and some of the driving laws are different to home. Good job they're polite...

We walk through the park at the centre of Oulu, snow falling hard; it's only a degree or two below zero, not cold enough for gloves. We throw huge ice balls into the river from a bridge and they fall right through, bobbing up again like dirty grey marshmallows. Apparently at some points during the winter you are allowed to drive the 10 kilometres across to Hailuoto island. Don't think we'll chance it; navigating the multi storey is stressful enough.

Oulu is a pleasant place, quite cosmopolitan, if having a Thai restaurant counts as cosmopolitan. We eat vast kebabs in a cafe and then walk through the snow to the car. Three: already dark. Home for hot chocolate. Really should read some Finnish writers. Reading Charles Jackson's "The Lost Weekend" instead.

28.12.11: A walk round the lake

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:05:00 +0000

Sensible place, this: the cars are parked in docks and you plug them into a heater for an hour or two before setting off; instead of vacuum cleaners there are these pipes which take all the dust god knows where; in the supermarket, the massive Prisma we visited today, the conveyor belt diverts into two so there is no hold-up. The roads are sensible too, no-one drives too fast or too rude, and pedestrians zing about on skis and sledges...

The temperature is perfect, minus one or two, barely any breeze, dry and clean. Only when the wind picks up do you feel like you're out of your comfort zone.

We walk up through the woods at the back of the house to the lake, a few hundred metres across, a long oval with us at the western tip; frozen solid, tracks all across the surface, but we take no chances, dragging the kids on sledges round the edge, the sun peeking through the trees, an impotent orange blob, past bathing huts which must be for the summer swimmers, where we bump into a middle-aged local woman.

"Where are you from?" she asks.

We tell her.

"Ah, but where?"

We tell her.

"Ah, yes, Highgate, Hampstead, I have been there... and you are visiting with your grandchildren, yes?"

Throwing her through the frozen ice we continue to the other end, where a huge misshapen tower dominates the heavy grey sky, and Mad Max-style ploughs scrape the roads, and there are Swastikas on lamp-posts - very white, Oulu. The walk back along the southern lip is harder, the snow deeper, trees more dense; past a little wooden school with a cross on its side and swings out front, beside the lake. Feels rather like a scene from The Road. By the time we get home we've done a kilometre or so and feel fresh; the sun begins to set and the night falls quick, those twilight Lapland blues fading to black.

27.12.11: To the Northern Lights..?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:05:00 +0000

An early cab from the house to Heathrow, a longish wait, then a 2 hour flight to Copenhagen. The plane has a camera in its nose so you can see what it looks like to take off and land from the pilot's perspective, coming down into Copenhagen you feel like you're landing on the water, then at the last minute you see the runway - the wind shakes the plane and you feel like adventurers, but when you land the airport is just another mall of the usual names, the same old logos.

Another wait, then up over the Baltic Sea to Helsinki, this flight even rockier (the Finnish girl next to me shaking with fear, asking when we might land...) where the waiting room for the internal flight up to Oulu is as dowdy as a bus-station... Then another rattling flight, but at little Oulu airport a cabbie is waiting with a sign and drives us to our temporary home, a warm, kit-design bungalow with underfloor heating and sprinkled with fairy lights.

The roads are icy but manageable; the snow pushed into huge piles by the road; and in Oulo the daylight hours this time of year are 11-3. In Rovaniemi, where we plan to drive in a day or two, the sun is just above the horizon for two hours in twenty four and the temperature takes another plunge down off the scale, almost down to the temperature of Hebden Bridge in June.

Barfs in the Park DVD out now

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:35:00 +0000

As a huge comedy fan, there's nothing I love better than watching my favourite stand-ups stand up and make observations about everyday life. How do these guys think up this stuff? Geniuses! (Or should that be genii?) Anyway, I'm definitely gonna buy this new DVD for Christmas - for all my friends, and probably for myself as well.

More details about "Barfs in the Park" here.

Farewell Hitch

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Saddened to read of the death of one of my (few) heroes, Christopher Hitchens yesterday. I only recently read his brilliant memoir, Catch-22; he was one of the bravest (physically and professionally) writers around. Not enough like him – and more specifically, not enough editors out there with the guts to publish (for want of a better word) the truth.

Also just finished Lee Stringer’s “Grand Central Winter” yesterday, really good read; lots of witty one-liners and very good on the politics of homelessness and alienation in New York. Stringer is a former editor of “Street News”, from which the Big Issue got its idea – except from what I can tell, Street News was much braver, more in yer face.

What Hitchens and Stringer have in common is a belief that the truth is a messy, inconvenient business. Any aspiring journalists wanting to try and fill their shoes should bear that in mind. Don't be afraid to write the truth; be ready for the inevitable fall-out. You can deal with it because you know in your heart you did the right thing.

It ain't Christmas yet folks...

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:10:00 +0000

Why do the review sections devote 2-3 months a year to “best of year” fillers? Are they really so short of new books that try to say something about the world we live in that yet again they feel this overwhelming urge to remind us about Julian Barnes, Amis and the latest undiscovered Mitford Sister?

Every year about now I turn to the weekend review supplements hoping to read about something new and instead get the usual list of best-selling fiction; the year’s "best" biographies; the winner of the Man Booker and so on. It’s the same every summer when they ask a load of famous authors who they’ll be taking on holiday and they all say the same thing: each other.

Hopefully 2012 will see a few changes: literary editors less in thrall to the multi-nationals, publishers who decide to take a few more risks, agents who make an effort to push new, original and radical perspectives, and maybe we writers could do our bit by producing challenging, relevant novels that offer something new.

“Fire Horses” was about England’s recent history; “Out of Office” about its present; and “emptiness” is about its future. The fact that neither of the first two has yet been reviewed in the nationals doesn’t mean they don’t exist; it just means people don’t know about them. Which makes me sad. Not for me, oh no: but for all those people out there who haven’t been given the opportunity to read them yet. Those poor, poor people...

The Still Project

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Recently I was asked to contribute a short story to an interesting project called "Still", by artist and photographer Roelof Bakker. Roelof has taken a series of haunting photographs in a disused town hall and wanted some stories to accompany his images; my fellow Legend Presser Andrew Blackman kindly put my name forward along with several other Legend authors.

Roelof offered up a selection of images, and invited each writer to write a story based on that image alone - an interesting exercise and one I may put to my students next Semester. My story, "Midnight Hollow", drew on my experiences of working in town halls, and late at night, and buffing floors, and being a sad and lonely individual (a long time ago, obviously...)

The images and stories are now all in place and Roelof now has a publisher on board, so the book should be out next year. In the meantime visit his website fore more information about this and his other work. He's a great photographer and I'm delighted to play a small part in the project. I even love the title - which as I'm sure Roelof knows is the title of Joy Division's final album...