Hello dear friend – isn’t it a nice day? I went swimming in the sea at Eastbourne today. Which is to say, I tiptoed towards freezing, mazy tendrils of spume, terrified of receiving a toxic weever fish dorsal spine to the heel, dived into the waves, screamed, and ran back out again. But it was bracing!

I’m telling you all of that as a way of softening the blow that I am doing no gigs, anywhere, this week. Dawww! I’ll be taking a, if not well-earned, then certainly much-needed break, and cracking on with editing the novel I’ve been beavering away on for the past year and a half. It’s taking shape, you guys. The crazy psychic ejecta is cooling into a landscape. I’m bursting to tell you all about it, but I want to do it properly. Patience. (that’s me talking to me, by the way)

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Don’t forget I present a radio show with the writer John Osborne on Future Radio every Tuesday morning, from 9:30am-midday. You can listen live online by clicking here. Message us on the show and request some music!

This Week, I Have Mostly Been Reading

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

I’m just over a third of the way through this Hugo and Nebula winning novel that mixes time travel with Oxford inter-college politics. It’s good fun! History student Kivrin travels back to 1320 to research medieval England, something goes wrong, people on both sides of the time divide start getting poorly. I like and care about most of the characters. The chronophysics don’t really work, but then, every time travel narrative collapses if you analyse the science/logic too much. It’s a testament to how good Willis is at dialogue and characters that I don’t really care. I’m just enjoying the ride.