Review: Full Dark No Stars by Stephen King

Stupidly, I always forget to review audio books. I go through quite a lot of them, as although they can be an expensive indulgence, facing a day weeding in the garden or cleaning the house from top to bottom is much more appealing if I've got a great new story to help pass the time.

I bought Stephen King's latest collection of four novellas several months ago and although it was one of the pricier ones, at about 15 hours long it's also good value. And I've listened to it numerous times - or at least, to one of the stories.

In any compilation, you'll always have favourites and the one that you tend to skip. Of these four offerings, there is a clear stand-out in my opinion. The other three are perfectly fine and entertaining enough, but two of them suffer from the curse of the audio book - a bad narrator.

Now, I don't mean to be critical, as Jessica Hecht's telling of Big Driver and A Good Marriage is serviceable, but it's irritating, I'm afraid. Her style is very mumsy and cute, with each word spoken as if she was smiling broadly, a technique they teach to call centre operators in order to butter up hostile customers. And this grates very quickly.

It is also strangely incongruous to the subject matter. Maybe that was deliberate, a way of underlining the horror that each of her protagonists suffer and how it changes their cosy little worlds. In both stories, the lead characters are women who are very comfortable with themselves and their lives, until something terrifying turns everything upside down.

Big Driver sees a successful, single novelist making a very ordinary trip to speak at a women's meeting, only for her journey home to descend into nightmare. Suddenly, a lady who is smugly content with her easy, well-paid work, her quaint home and a sickeningly cutesy relationship with her sat nav, finds that the safety of her little car is invaded. The experience leaves a gentle woman with a yearning for bloody revenge; an examination of how we can never truly know ourselves until the shit really hits the fan.

This is a hard story for any woman to listen to - rape is possibly the most distasteful thing to be explored in any literature and this depiction would turn anyone's stomach. I would not accuse King of being gratuitous with it - after all, the reader must understand a character's suffering in order to relate to their reaction - but it wasn't an enjoyable episode.

The theme of making unpleasant discoveries, both about yourself and those close to you, is continued in A Good Marriage, in which a similar happy housewife makes a discovery about her husband that shatters her world. Of course the real interest comes in what she chooses to do about it, and the question that it inevitably raises in your own heart - what would I do in her place...?

Craig Wasson, the narrator of the two male-led tales, acquits himself better in Fair Extension, the brief story of a terminally ill man who meets a charismatic market trader just when he is despairing about the unfairness of Life. Given the opportunity to change his luck if he can bear to pass the bad fortune onto someone else, he finds old resentments rising to the surface, in a story that feels like you've heard it before, even though the spin is fresh.

But the main attraction, the first and longest of the novellas, is my favourite by a mile. I haven't read all of King's work or even most of it, but I would say that 1922 is one of his best short works in my experience. Brilliantly told with curmudgeonly conviction by Craig Wasson, this is a gruesome and captivating tale of grisly murder and its sinister consequences.

Set in the year of the title, 1922 follows the moral unravelling of Wilf, a dyed-in-the-wool farmer whose cherished family tradition is threatened by the pretensions of his feisty wife. When Arlette inherits a substantial amount of land, she wants to accept a corporation's large cash offer and flee to the city, an idea that doesn't go down well with her husband and their teenage son.

Along with Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger and Michelle Paver's Dark Matter, 1922 is one of the stories I've listened to (or read) over and over again, more for educational purposes than anything else. Others might disagree with my reverence for these works, but there is something about them that fills me with admiration and, as an aspiring writer myself, they strike me as being fantastic examples of a simple story well told. I crave the authors' technical expertise and devour the novels as a kid might cram frantically for an exam, trying to identify the secrets of being an extraordinary storyteller.

Maybe it's like trying to pick out individual sparkles in a chunk of gold - ie. impossible. Or maybe it's wishful thinking, that I'll absorb their brilliance by some sort of osmosis. Either way, I can't leave them alone.

So, It's a No Then...

(I make no apology whatsoever for the excessive swearing in this post. It's for medicinal purposes.)

Jesus. You massive, heaving collection of absolute bell-ends.

The next person who whines to me that they can't shift the Tories out of their district council is going to get punched in the windpipe.

Yeah, you might have stuck two fingers up to Nick Clegg - in retaliation for the way he's annoyed every Lib Dem voter over the last year - but you've also just spat on your own cornflakes. Not so much cutting off your nose to spite your face, as tearing off your head, drop-kicking it into the path of an oncoming truck and shitting down your own neck.

Knobbers.

Review: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by PG Wodehouse

Reviewing a PG Wodehouse book is like scrutinising a clear night sky and trying to pick out which of the bright, shining, wondrous stars you like the least. Or the best. So basically, it's impossible. And pointless.

Because you see, Wodehouse operates in a different universe to us all. Try and find a way in which his tales of upper-class toffs pratting about in country mansions might relate to the disaffected youth of 21st century Britain, and you're going to draw a blank. It doesn't. It doesn't relate to anyone or anything, because the world these glorious characters inhabit probably never existed.

The adventures of Bertie Wooster, Freddie Widgeon, Psmith and the Blandings crew should really be stocked in the fantasy section of your local bookshop, because this is truly a fairytale world. A world where everyone is stinking rich, they all dress for dinner and 'problems' extend as far as someone's embarassing memoirs being published, or accidentally getting engaged to someone who's ditched a former fiance but will be back in their arms before the day is out.

Some people pick Terry Pratchett's Discworld or JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth as their 'escape all this shit' destination. I choose Totleigh Towers, Brinkley and Market Snodsbury, for Wodehouse's pre-war England is as mystical and alluring a place as any of these fantastical creations.

I unashamedly confess that Bertie Wooster and the fabulous Jeeves are my favourite characters and a few hours spent in their company is never wasted. In this particular novel - which I know I read before as a kid, but am now enjoying afresh in my new deluxe Everyman edition (dust jacket removed before reading, obviously) - Wooster is under threat of unwanted marriage once again, when the formidable Lady Florence Craye suffers a break-up from the fatheaded Stilton Cheesewright. With his liberty at risk, Bertie must try to reunited the star-crossed lovers while helping Aunt Dahlia to get out of a fix concerning her husband Tom, a pearl necklace and her ever-present weekly women's magazine, Milady's Boudoir.

As fast as Bertie screws everything up, Jeeves shimmies in to set things straight again, to happy endings all round. Ahh, bliss.

(For me, there is always at least one 'laugh out loud' moment in every Wodehouse novel and this one concerned the rather tiresome life of oysters. I won't repeat it here - you need to be there, really - but look out for it.)

A Right Royal Surprise

Generally speaking, I don't have much time for the Royal Family.

I don't wish them dead on a spike, or any other sort of personal harm, but I could live without the drain on the taxpayer (who, if memory serves, directly provides at least two of the five main sources of the Windsors' mammoth annual income).

I could live without seeing them float between their many opulent residences. I could live without hearing about how wonderful this old woman is because, oh look, she visited a hospital for half an hour and smiled half-heartedly at a sick little boy who's probably going to die because his parents can't afford to go private, yet the jewels in her personal collection could fund three billion brain operations and still have change left over.

What of the junior doctor standing next to her who's worked a 72-hour shift, saved the kid's life three times over and is about to drop on his feet, just as soon as he's overseen the installation of a new brand toilet so the Queen doesn't have to feel the unpleasant warmth from someone else's arse cheeks, should she need to take a tinkle during her brief visit? Oh, no one cares about him because he's not Royalty. We all want to coo over the staggering courage of an elderly multi-millionaire who has lived her entire life in luxury and privilege and never done a day's work since the moment she plopped into the midwife's pan, yet has still managed to endure the hardship of a short journey in her chauffeur-driven Jag and fifteen minutes of glad-handing the riff raff. Ma'am, where would we be without you?

I could live without knowing the Queen has power of veto over the Government's plans if she really wanted to flex it, because in what is undoubtedly the world's leading democracy (yeah America, I said it) a ceremonial role which can actually make decisions on important stuff like who's going to run the country is pretty ludicrous.

Most of all, the thing that absolutely offends me - in that real, grating, soul-aching way that only happens when you're properly pissed off, like REALLY pissed off - is the bowing and scraping, the insufferable pomposity of people not being permitted to speak before the Queen does; of not being allowed to walk down a corridor that she's due to infest at any moment, lest the presence of another human being should cause her little blue blood vessels to burst with indignation. The suggestion that if you are not 'of the aristocracy', whatever the hell that means, you are not fit to command the attention of this very ordinary old lady and her spawn, regardless of whether you want it or not, is just incomprehensible to me.

How stuffy and ridiculous life must be for staff at Buckingham Palace is just beyond my wildest facilities of imagination. And for what? An accident of birth, that's what. She accidentally got born to a particular guy, who was only where he was because one day, many centuries ago, one bloke probably cut another bloke's head off and nabbed the crown, sticking his tongue out and shouting 'I'm the king of the castle!' And just like that, he was.

So yeah, I'm not the biggest Royalist you'll ever come across. And when the tremendous broo-ha-ha about Prince William's impending nuptials to Kate Middleton kicked off, I could not have been less interested. The bank holiday was a bonus, but it was hardly going to be the heart-warming festival of joy that everyone kept promising. Above all else, I just felt a crushing sense of sorrow for the poor girl.

When I've revealed this to people, they've practically choked on the words as they've tried to remind me that she's marrying into staggering wealth and comfort, with not a financial care ever again, as long as she doesn't do a Fergie. Any children she has won't have to lift a finger in this life either and that's got to be a nice thought to keep you warm in bed at night.

But I'll tell you what - rather her than me. I wouldn't trade places with Princess Catherine even for all those millions that will be cushioning her from now on. Imagine it - she'll now have surrendered her privacy forever. She's got the Queen as her grandmother (I'm sure she's a barrel of laughs once you get the karaoke out but come on dear, smile!!!), she'll be absorbed into all that soul-destroying rhubarb of pomp and circumstance that surrounds the Royals and, worst of all, she'll have to go to church EVERY CHRISTMAS DAY. Ugh, makes my blood run cold.

But you know what? Even with all this back catalogue of slightly sour feeling towards the Royals, I enjoyed the wedding. I actually thought it was rather nice. Because although it was all hideously overblown, as the day approached, I found myself being drawn into the patriotic feeling of celebration. I planted a red, white and blue hanging basket without a thought. I actually felt a pang of regret that I had to work and couldn't join the crowds in London. And - don't tell anyone I said this, but - I even shed a little involuntary tear when Prince William turned to see his bride for the first time and evidently told her she looked beautiful.

Because at the end of the day, these were still two young people getting married. Pledging to spend their lives together. Unlike Wills' parents - who had reportedly only met 13 times before the big day and were more manufactured than Ken and Barbie - these two had known each other for ten years and the genuine intimacy was clear in their warm glances, their little shared jokes, the glimpsed holding of hands in the carriage when they had a brief respite from the endless waving. This was real. I hope for their sakes they are truly in love but either way, there seems to be a friendship there and hey, that's better than nothing.

And Kate did look absolutely stunning. She looked every inch the princess and I actually felt excited for her and Wills as they rode off towards Buck House, the good will and affection from the thousands gathered along the route being palpable, even through the television. Even if the tide of public opinion turns against the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as it inevitably will, at least no one can take this day, and those wonderful moments, away from them. Nor from the crowds and the people watching across the globe, for whom I really believe the Royal wedding was a festival of joy after all.

Review: Electricity by Victoria Glendinning

When a friend and I were discussing favourite books some months ago, they mentioned this novel, saying that although they didn't remember masses about it, the story had left its mark on them.

That intrigued me so I kept my eye open for it, without success. Until a copy finally found its way into my hands a few weeks ago, via a chance find in a second-hand book shop. And I'm really glad it did. Because not only was it a really enjoyable story, but I felt something which I find is quite rare in literature. Beyond simply entertaining and beguiling me, it seemed to have a connection to me; it spoke to me about my life and experiences, about my hopes and concerns.

Electricity is not the most uplifting of tales, I suppose, but neither is it a depressing one. It seems to me to be an honest reflection on Life, on its disappointments and elations. A thoughtful consideration of all that is offered to us, or taken away, from the point of view of a young woman who simply wants to know how it all works.

Brought up in a narrow house in Victorian London, by a repressed mother and a father who possibly has more interest in his daughter than is strictly healthy, Charlotte is a typical and rather mediocre middle class girl. Her dour lifestyle is enlivened considerably when the charismatic Peter comes to lodge at her home and the excitement of breathless young love blossoms - an experience denied to so many woman compelled to marry for financial or emotional security, both then and now.

Peter is an enthusiastic disciple of the newfangled electricity that is literally lighting up Victorian society and his career soon takes the newlyweds to a large house in the country, to install the new technology for a wealthy lord. Here, Charlotte will learn more about the unstoppable energy that flows through her veins, just as formidably as the electricity in the wires.

From the start, Charlotte tells her story with unflappable honesty, seeking to neither dress up her motives nor inflict punishments on herself that she does not feel are deserved. Although she is not the warmest of characters, what shines through is her curiosity and the sense of adventure that slowly seeps through the hard veneer applied by a Victorian upbringing. In a cool, uncomplicated way, she is independent and inquiring. She pushes at the boundaries placed upon her physical and emotional life and cannot seem to understand why she shouldn't experience all the things that are offered up to her, regardless of whether they are deliciously thrilling or tortuously painful.

Even when recalling the headiest days of early love, she is able to view it with a cool eye and draw conclusions that are not cold, but are insightful. She strives to make sense of the sensations and emotions that make us all helpless, yet without attempting to deny the magic or view romance with too cynical an eye.

There is no doubt that she does terrible things and sacrifices other people's happiness in order to explore Life's outer edges. All she wants to do is to live Life to its full potential, to escape the needless ties that bind, and her ability to choose her own path, for good or ill, is carried as a theme throughout the book. Yet Charlotte is not callous and the dragging ache of remorse at her more selfish actions is not glossed over. But she seems to accept the emotional consequences of her decisions with as much resignation as the practical ones, and this ability is perhaps the real key to her freedom.

Discovery of the Week

Richard Madeley gets right on my tits.

He's been doing that for a while, but I should probably explain why that's particularly on my mind right now. He's been sitting in for Chris Evans on Radio 2's breakfast show this week and although I try to thrust my iPod cable into the requisite stereo hole and drown out his glass-of-water voice as quickly as possible, sometimes early morning slumpiness gets the better of me and a few gaseous snippets of banality leak out, threatening to overwhelm me with a sudden realisation of the futility of Life.

However, there have been a few occasions when I've been unable to divert my ears quickly enough to avoid hearing his boring stories about the adventures of himself and his equally charmless wife, the excruciatingly bland Judy Finnigan. Mostly, these moments have been painful and traumatic. But, against all expectations, his time on the breakfast show has actually brought about something - wait for it - pleasant.

On Monday, he chose a record of the week. Here we go, I thought. This'll be former members of ABC joining forces with Kenny Thomas to record a funk-pop version of No Woman No Cry. But it wasn't. It was a country-style song called Me and Tennessee, a duet sung by Tim McGraw and (this is a turn-up) Gwyneth Paltrow. And I absolutely love it.

In recent years I've been exposed to quite a lot of country, roots and bluegrass music in local venues and I've mostly really enjoyed it, much to the surprise of my own preconceptions. This isn't hardcore shit-kicking, but it's got enough of a flavour to give the lyrics about disappointed love the tortuous wrench that country does so well.

But the real surprise is Gwyneth's voice. I realise she's sung before - most recently on the squeaky clean sickbag that is Glee - but this song demonstrates that she has a really great country voice. I'm going to buy this single and investigate if she's done anymore along those lines, because I owe her a big debt. She's actually made it possible for me to get through a three-minute interval in Richard Madeley's company without wanting to steer the car off the nearest motorway bridge. And that's no mean achievement.

30 Minute Song Challenge

There's a thing doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment. No, not crabs (though no doubt they're positively thriving among certain local Twitter groups) but a little list thingy that people seem to be enthusiastically embracing.

It's called the 30 Day Song Challenge and basically, if the title isn't quite self-explanatory enough for you, you have to choose one song per day for a month, with a different criteria to consider with each new dawn. Tedious and self-indulgent to everyone else, this is a source of great fascination for those of us who love compiling lists and would put their own poos in order of satisfaction if the demand was there.

But I can't be arsed taking a month over it, so I'm going to knock out my candidates now. Only to immediately regret my choices and think of something else tomorrow, I expect, but there's impatience for you. I make no apology for the fact that Elbow will probably be all over this because, like it or not, they seem to have written a song for just about every emotion you could expect to encounter in this life, from agonising heartbreak over a lost love to the mild disappointment brought on by a poor episode of Springwatch. But I'll try to restrain myself.

Here goes... (where the category is blank, I just couldn't muster the brain power to come up with an answer right now.)

My favourite song
Mirrorball by Elbow
(Obviously, this is practically impossible to answer. One can't spend 31 years on this planet and undergo the relentless audio assault that brings, then be able to choose one three-minute piece of music that I prefer emphatically to all else. And music is so subjective, according to your mood. Christ, ask me in the middle of an office party after four glasses of sauvignon blanc and I'd probably claim that Wham's Club Tropicana was the greatest piece of composition in living memory. But today, at this time in my life, it's this.)

My least favourite song


A song that makes me happy
I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness

A song that makes me sad
Don't Leave by Faithless

A song that reminds me of someone
1999 by Prince

A song that reminds me of somewhere
Bootylicious by Destiny's Child
(This song and its video reminds me of bumming around the Greek Islands for the summer when I was 21 - unfortunately I seemed to spend more time in English-speaking bars with MTV than traditional Greek tavernas, doh!)

A song that reminds me of a certain event
Wings of Speed by Paul Weller
(My parents' divorce. Bummer.)

A song that I know all the words to
Upside Down by Paloma Faith

A song that I can dance to
You Can Do It by Ice Cube
(Though only when simultaneously drunk and horny.)

A song that makes me fall asleep
Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez

A song from my favourite band
Forget Myself by Elbow

A song from a band I hate
Year 3000 by Busted

A song that is a guilty pleasure
Don't Stop Movin' by S Club 7

A song that no one would expect me to love
Rock 'n' Roll by Led Zeppelin

A song that describes me
Creep by Radiohead

A song that I used to love but now hate
I'll Stand By You
(I remember buying The Pretenders' original version on cassette when I was at school and playing it to death, Chrissy Hynde's distinctively reedy voice giving the rather saccharine lyrics a genuine sense of gut-wrenching heartache. Only for Girls Aloud to turn it into a ballad-by-numbers yawnfest a few years later, crushing the life out of it like a kitten under a washing machine. Surely there have got to be laws against this sort of thing?)

A song that I often hear on the radio
Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer
(AAAARRRRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!)

A song that I wish I heard on the radio
Statues by Foo Fighters

A song from my favourite album
Some Riots by Elbow

A song that I listen to when I'm angry
White Lies by Paolo Nutini

A song that I listen to when I'm happy
Do I Do by Stevie Wonder

A song that I listen to when I'm sad
I Shall Believe by Sheryl Crow

A song that I want to play at my wedding
Gravity by Embrace

A song that I want to play at my funeral
Let's Face the Music and Dance by Frank Sinatra

A song that makes me laugh
Wonderboy by Tenacious D

A song that I can play on an instrument
I'm Not In Love by 10CC

A song that I wish I could play
Stranger Things Have Happened by Foo Fighters

A song that makes me feel guilty
White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons / Jesus is a Rochdale Girl by Elbow

A song from my childhood
Love in the First Degree by Bananarama

My favourite song at this time last year
Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

Review: Everything Happens in August by John Budden

In my previous incarnation as a local newspaper reporter, I used to get sent books to review. I didn't generally get the big new titles, obviously - what would they want with the column inches offered up by a community rag whose readership was probably eclipsed three times over by the author's Twitter followers? Usually it was stuff that wasn't quite on the Sunday Times' radar or which had some sort of local connection, thus standing a good chance of a mention.

I can't remember which one this was, as I think it slumped onto my desk more than a year ago. Often, those books aren't particularly great, if we're honest with ourselves here. It wasn't unusual for them to be dispatched by the marketing arm of some vanity publishing house, who would happily describe any old shit as the 'next JK Rowling / Stephen King / Henning Mankell' (delete in accordance with genre) as long as the author had selected the Premium Package when they signed away their self-esteem.

Everything Happens in August actually stood out quite early on, to be fair. When clearing my desk on departure from said position, I left a lot of unread crap behind and was relieved to do so, but when a quick scan of the first page of this one actually raised an impromptu chuckle, it went into my cardboard box. And I finally got around to reading it, several months later.

You know what, it's good. It's really very good indeed. I can't see John Budden on the Man Booker Prize shortlist just yet, but the potential is there. Light, funny and rather addictive (the very short structure of the chapters really helps to lead readers on), this is a very entertaining read that adds just enough weight of genuine interest to the humorous fluff. The punctuation is a bit questionable throughout, which was slightly irritating, but I got through it very quickly and would recommend it to anyone in need of a light-hearted distraction.

The premise is a bit of an unpromising one, if I'm honest, which is probably why the back cover blurb alone didn't have me reaching for the bookmark. It's a bit of an ensemble piece, but the action is led by Jefferson Tweedy, a recently redundant accountant who is inexplicably offered a high-powered job by his pompous father-in-law to be.

Jefferson is to be made chief executive of StanEd, an innovative new examinations board that will replace all the existing examining bodies, thus assessing all schools with exactly the same papers. This is surprising because not only does Jefferson have no expertise whatsoever in the field of education, he's also a bit of a div. But he's happy to accept a show of nepotism and is completely untroubled when, from day one, it becomes clear that he will be earning a healthy salary for doing precisely bugger all.

Even several months into the job, when Jefferson is still whiling away his days reading the paper on the lav and has no idea what he is supposed to be doing, his colleagues and father-in-law are still assuring him that he is doing an excellent job, despite no one seeming to know what that job actually is. But eventually, a shifty trip to the toilet leads to Jefferson overhearing something that sounds a bit fishy...

Meanwhile, a dynamic young headmistress tries to bully a failing comprehensive into submission, while over the road, the arrogant head of a feted public school revels in the indisputable privilege and comfort of his position. Add to the mix a disenchanted journalist who longs for a story with meaning, and you have the ingredients for bit of a showdown.

It's true that most of the characters in this book are pretty unlikeable, but I don't think that matters really. In comedy, it's the truths of Life that are much funnier than the romantic fictions we would love to impress on it. And the book itself has great appeal and charm, which makes up for all their failings.

Just Another Frantically Dull Friday

Not so long ago, Friday used to be my favourite day of the week.

Well, that's not entirely true. The day itself could jog on as quick as it liked if I was at work, but the evening - ah, Friday evening. How full of promise and joy you used to be.

Because it's all anticipation at that point. Much like walking out of the school gates on the last day of summer term, your time off stretches away before you to a barely discernible horizon. The idea of all that freedom is intoxicating and it feels inconceivable to think that Monday morning will ever arrive.

All the things you're going to do. All the jobs you're going to get done, all the fun you're going to have, all the hard living you're going to crank out in those 48 hours. It won't be like last weekend, when you wasted time reading in bed instead of springing into action at 8am. You won't spend any more hours relaxing, reading on the loo or just schlumping around the shops when you've got huge DIY projects to conquer, novels to write and bodies to hone. No way. This weekend is going to be different. You're going to be active. Effective. Dynamic.

And Friday is the gateway to all this opportunity. The lull before the storm and a wonderful moment of indulgence before the business of the weekend gets underway. It's not the BIG night of the weekend - that's Saturday, obviously - but it's a time when you can get away with popping out for a few beers or even just getting hammered and lying comatose on the sofa until 3am. Because it isn't a school night and that thought is just magical.

Traditionally, Fridays always used to boast the best telly. I seem to recall that when I was a teenager, Friday was THE night for comedy - you had at least a couple of hours of mouthwatering prospects, from Have I Got News For You through to the distressingly hilarious Beavis and Butthead. (As I got older, Gardener's World became the kick-off point for my pre-weekend telly fest - yeah, what of it???!!)

Sadly, that idea seems to have been relegated to the dim and distant past, much like my clubbing days and Blankety Blank. Now that my two current favourite shows are on alternative nights - MasterChef on a satisfying Wednesday (more than halfway through the working week, yay!) and Boardwalk Empire on an inconvenient Saturday (shit, it's Sunday tomorrow...) there is little to entertain me as I wait for the weekend to begin.

Because, tragic and hopeless though that sounds, it feels like that's all I do these days. Just wait. Wait for my life to begin again. For sad and stunted situations to resolve themselves and for my existence to have some meaning to it again. It feels like I'm stuck in a giant u-bend, waiting for a plug of hair and waste matter to be removed so I can be swept out of the stagnancy and into free flow once again.

I know that's a loser-ish thing to admit, but it's how I feel. So right now, Fridays are no more thrilling to me than any other day. It's just another set of 24 hours to get through - another chunk of time to be negotiated without accident, as I wait for things to get good again.

God, you sad cow. How ridiculous that looks written down. Take control again, for Christ's sake, and sort it out...

Review: Elbow - Live at the O2

To be honest, I've never been much of a one for concerts.

As a teenager, I didn't spend all my holiday job money getting spaced at Glastonbury or taking a slingshot to Wembley so I could propel my knickers onto Jason Donovan's forehead. It just wasn't my thing.

Don't get me wrong, I have always loved music and I could not have got through my formative years without the aid of Paul Weller, Oasis, Blur, Depeche Mode, et al. They were vital companions in those long hours of moping, mooning and moaning about the harsh futility of Life.

In my later teens, I went to see quite a few crappy small bands in various pubs and indie clubs, and more recently I've seen a lot of obscure but good acts in decent local venues. But I just never really liked one band enough to make the effort when it came to shelling out big money to squeeze up against 40,000 other people in an arena environment. This might have been a more appealing prospect had I lived within stone-flinging distance of civilisation, but as coming from Devon meant a five-day camel ride to anywhere which boasted anything bigger than a village hall, I just couldn't muster the energy.

So moving to the South East several years ago has actually been rather a treat. Suddenly I didn't have to take a long weekend off work to see someone play in London. Suddenly I could go and see bands after work, without taking a whole packet of Pro Plus in anticipation of a 20-hour day just to make the round trip.

I can't say I've swarmed all over this opportunity like a tramp on chips. But the proximity of the rather excellent O2 has put a few impossible-to-resist temptations in my way and this week, I was more glad than ever that I no longer live down among the farmers.

Elbow were playing two dates in Greenwich and as soon as I saw the tickets going on sale six months ago, I knew I had to be there. Just that morning I'd announced a rather essential economy drive, but my future security went out the window when that email alert came through. My flexible friend was made to flex one last time before being cast aside with contempt. I was going, and that was that.

And by George, I'm glad I was reckless and irresponsible with my money that day. I don't have very much experience of massive concerts, but I had thought that nothing could surpass seeing Stevie Wonder singing live on stage. Sorry Stevo, but Guy Garvey and pals have just elbowed you rudely into the wings (geddit?).

As usual, the wait for the main band to come on stage seemed interminable, but once they arrived, I never wanted them to shuffle off again. Echoing the new album, they opened the concert in thunderous style with The Birds and it became apparent immediately that this was going to be something special. I've always loved Guy's voice, but just listening to the recordings, it is very easy to underestimate it and simply view it as a rather workaday instrument. Not true, friends, not true at all. His voice just soared, hitting every note and revealing this dark horse to be one of the forerunners when it comes to the great voices of his generation.

Not only that, but he is also a surprisingly charismatic showman. You wouldn't think it to look at him, being no Robbie Williams (thank the Lord), but Guy had 20,000 people eating out of his hand. Funny, warm and engaging, his down to earth approach was a charming balance to the majestic beauty of the songs.

They did all my favourites - Mirrorball, The Bones of You, Weather to Fly and Station Approach among them, along with the essential bone-shaking rendition of Grounds for Divorce. And of course there was never going to be any other finale than the sublime One Day Like This, which seemed to sweep the entire audience up in a tsunami of good will and joy.

Because last Monday's concert was just that - a momentously joyful occasion. Clearly delighted by the adoration of their fans, the band gave it everything and the result felt like an evening among friends. (Of course, I had the standard issue couple of wankers sitting behind me, kicking seats and laughing like hyenas on crack, but even they were flummoxed into silence once Elbow got to work on them.)

It turned out that Guy's mum was in the audience that night and it occurred to me how wonderful it must be for any parent to see their child achieve something so amazing; to send 20,000 strangers away into the London night with an almost post-coital afterglow, believing that they had indeed, to quote Weather to Fly, had 'the time of their lives...'

I seriously considered going back again the next night, because I just didn't want the magical feeling of being surrounded by that music to ever end. But I'll see them again as soon as I can, and as many times as I can, until they stop doing what they do. Which will be a sad day for all concerned. Because nights like that make you realise that, whatever else might be going on that makes Life seem hard and tiring and possibly not worth it, music reminds you that being alive can be immeasurably wonderful too.

One day like this a year would see me right, for Life.

Review: Raising Atlantis by Thomas Greanias

Incredibly exciting premise - phenomenally boring book.

Review: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

There can't be a person alive who doesn't know about The Exorcist.

Even if they have never seen the film or read the book, anybody's grandmother could reel off some of the iconic images featured in both - spinning heads, projectile vomit, hellish bellowing voices and that scene with the crucifix going somewhere it shouldn't.

I saw the film several years ago and I don't remember that much about it, but I do recall not feeling particularly scared. Not that it wasn't scary, just that I think The Exorcist as an entity had already been so indelibly burned into my consciousness by a steady drip-drip of references for years beforehand - I'd seen the clips, heard the music, endured certain film critics discussing it at length - that by the time I came to see it, it was already familiar to me.

I already knew that it was brash, hard, in yer face and incredibly graphic, so there was very little shock value to it when I eventually saw the film for myself. And the same goes for the book. I expected to see those horrific scenes written down and that's what I got.

Which, in a strange way, had an anaesthetising effect on me as a reader. I knew the possessed 12-year-old girl at the heart of it would swear like a docker, would do revolting things, would suggest what priests could do with the Devil's private member. I knew it was all coming and so, combined with the rather casual way in which the story is told, it all rather rolled over me.

And that's bizarre, because The Exorcist is an incredibly disturbing story. Having reminded myself in detail of what Regan got up to, I am freshly astonished that a child was ever cast in the movie. Yet it is written as pulpy entertainment and in that sense, it scores, despite subject matter that should be shocking readers out of their armchairs and into the letters page of the Daily Mail.

Blatty does write well and manages to draw some colourful characters, from the insufferable detective investigating a bizarre murder below Regan's bedroom window, to the careworn and desperate Father Karras, who is reluctantly drawn into a battle with the demon. There are pretentious touches to his writing which seem incongruous in such a balls-out horror story, and these little touches of literary flair do fall on stony ground I'm afraid. Enough of the 'thin as a whispered hope' nonsense, get to the bit where she twists that bloke's head off!

And that pretty much sums up this experience. I wasn't alive when this book was first published in 1971, so I can't testify as to its reception, but I'd be surprised if certain sections of society weren't practically bursting in the street with outrage. It's certainly not something I'd allow any child of mine to read until they were old enough to not be titillated by the copious cursing and graphic sexual references.

But you know what? It didn't move me. And I hope to God that just says something about how 21st century consumers are being desensitised by the images of horror, both real and fictional, that they see every day, and not about me as a person.

Review: Dissolution by CJ Sansom

Not a huge fan of crime fiction in general, I do like mysteries that have an extra element of interest to them.

Present me with some troubled modern day cop, who spends his days investigating grotty sex-related murders perpetrated with various grades of hot poker, while simultaneously battling a crack habit and wondering whether to shag his much younger and impossibly attractive assistant, and I'll probably pass in favour of Katie Price's latest autobiography.

So for me, a detective story or murder mystery needs to have something extra, something that puts all the gore in a more intriguing context.

I didn't buy Dissolution for myself, I got it for a friend as a Christmas present, a decision based entirely on superficial factors - mainly because it appeared to be about monks (she is a devout Christian) and partly because I was captivated by the olde worlde, parchment-style cover but couldn't afford to buy it for myself. I'd also kind of assumed that she liked historical fiction, though why, I really couldn't say. So I was a bit embarrassed when she popped round with the book a couple of weeks ago and revealed that she'd been surprised to enjoy it, bearing in mind the fact that she really couldn't stand historical fiction.

Still, the situation was saved by the fact that she'd enjoyed it so much, she wanted to recommend I take a look. As I'm currently too skint to buy new books, I was really pleased and couldn't wait to get stuck in, particularly as she had been so impressed by the story that she overcame her dislike of novels set pre-1960.

Personal recommendations from friends can be the bane of your life if their tastes in literature are wildly different from your own, because you really have no choice but to read it in case they ask difficult questions later. Over the years I've gnawed my painful way through countless Maeve Binchy novels, tedious romances and comedy books about funny things cats think, thanks to well-meaning but unsolicited loans from friends. But if they are on your wavelength, word of mouth can be the best way to discover new joys in reading.

Dissolution is the first in a very popular series of mysteries concerning Matthew Shardlake, a medieval hunchback who goes around doing the bidding of the deeply unpleasant Lord Thomas Cromwell. The world of Henry VIII and his ill-fated henchman is one in which I have recently become saturated - having read Wolf Hall, visited Hampton Court Palace, watched The Six Wives of Henry VIII and started getting addicted to The Tudors on BBC2 (in which old Chubba Chops is still surprisingly slim, good-looking and not ginger, despite now being in the twilight of his life) all in the last few months, I'm familiar with this geezer and his doings.

Following his break from Rome so that he could finally get down and dirty with Anne Boleyn, Henry is now enthusiastically dismantling the old church and Shardlake, a London lawyer with a huge chip on his shoulder (not to mention the hump), is dispatched to a Sussex monastery to investigate the grisly murder of one of Lord Cromwell's commissioners. Here, Shardlake encounters a house of God gone rotten, where the monks enjoy rather more good food, home comforts and hot bum action than St Benedict originally prescribed.

Dissolution was good. I don't think it was any more than good, simply because I spotted the culprit from the moment they appeared on the page, but read on in happy anticipation of them turning out to be a red herring, of course . But they weren't a red herring. It was them.

This was disappointing and left me feeling a bit annoyed, as usually I'm terrible at spotting murderers and was possibly the only person in the world who didn't spot the twist in The Sixth Sense a mile off. (As a digression, what the hell has happened to M Night Shamalayan? I mean, did you see The Village?? Did you??!!??)

The mystery is entertaining enough, but the lead character is an enigma, simply because he is rather unsympathetic. I don't know if Sansom deliberately made him self-righteous, rude and envious in order to play with the reader's sympathies, or if it was accidental, but I didn't warm to Shardlake very much. You know you are not a fan of the so-called hero when, during the inevitable dramatic showdown during which one of the protagonists faces certain death, you find yourself rooting for the bad guy.

Shardlake takes his good-looking young assistant to the monastery with him and his conflicting feelings of affection and jealousy towards the buck are interesting. I won't spoil the storyline by revealing why, but disagreements arise between the pair and again, my sympathies lay entirely with the youngster.

I will read more of the series, to see if Shardlake's appeal improves and it was an entertaining enough read. But the medieval setting and political backdrop were what really kept my interest and had this been a contemporary story, it would probably have been put back on the shelf.

Ebay Blues

Something happened to me recently.

Well, actually, a shitload of things happened to me recently, not all of them pleasant. However, one of the more constructive things was really quite remarkable and something that I hope will shape the rest of my life.

I cut up my credit card.

Sadly, that's not quite as dramatic as it sounds, because I've done that before. Only to receive replacement cards through the post a few months later and hit the shops like a dying man in the desert grasping at a can of 7-Up. But this time I didn't just cut up the card, I actually wrote off and cancelled my account. A few days later, it disappeared from my online banking accounts and that was it. I was finally bereft. Or free, whichever way you want to look at it.

I confess, I used to be a shopaholic. It took me a very long time to admit that to myself, because it sounds like the most pathetic, most indulged, most Western thing a person can possibly say. But unfortunately it's true.

It's been about two years since I started trying to curb my habit and the measures required were pretty drastic. These included just not going to the shops, for the magnetic pull I felt to go inside and empty my purse on the counter, while clutching wildly at the pretty things like some sort of mentalist, was often overwhelming. And it didn't have to be clothes. Christ, I've craved all sorts of weird shit over the years. Once I bought a violin on a whim. Okay, I fought the urge - for about two days, anyway - but I caved in the end. And I imagine the feelings I often still get are much like any other recovering addict does; it'll be okay as long as temptation isn't put in my way, because if I start again, I might not be able to stop.

Recently, while in London for a meeting, I had an afternoon to myself and fancied going to the National Portrait Gallery. It was free, after all. But I didn't go in the end. I got back on the train and went home. I told people it was because I had uncomfortable shoes on. But the truth of the matter, as I eventually had to admit to myself with a cringe, was that I knew I would be too tempted by the gift shop. I would fall in love with a painting or an artist and end up buying a souvenir poster, novelty biro or book of the complete works of Caravaggio, despite having not a pot to piss in, as the delightful saying goes. And so the problem lingers. Like alcoholism, I'm not sure if it will ever really go away.

But although I started recognising the problem some time ago, I had made very few in-roads into my lamentable cash situation, until a few months ago. This time the whole process of dealing with my awesome debt problems was a lot more rigorous and, I really hope, terminal. I suppose I even endured an intervention of sorts and god, was it humiliating. It certainly did a good job of taking a claw hammer to my self-esteem, with the effect of making me never want to be in the red ever again.

Anyway, enough of that. The purpose of this post wasn't to expose my childish inability to budget or respect the value of money. It was to have a bitch about Ebay. Or not Ebay specifically - I find the online auction site a brilliant creation on which I have found countless bargains and earned a bit of cash. No, I just want to bitch about one wanker who ripped me off recently. To the tune of 14 whole English pounds.

Now, that probably doesn't sound like very much in the big scheme of things. That's because it isn't. But in the Gormless Idiot scheme of things (which is very, very small) it's rather a big deal, for the reasons listed above. Not only have I been lately learning the truth of the smug saying, 'look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves,' I've also had not very many of either to spend. So when I borrowed some money to splash out on smart new threads for my new job, I had to make a little go a very long way.

It was all going so well. With £100 I got five dresses, three pairs of shoes, a haircut - not on Ebay, obviously, it hasn't started dealing in parallel dimensions just yet - and a second-hand copy of The Exorcist (alright, the last one was an irrelevant indulgence, but what the hey...uh oh, that reckless attitude is on its way back...)

But unfortunately the very last item I purchased, a rather nice wrap dress from Topshop, failed to show. When I chased the seller with a polite email inquiring when they might get around to posting it, they apologised and told me they would dispatch it that day. It has now been three weeks since I paid for the dratted thing and not a further peep out of them, so I've now had to instigate a case against them with Ebay. And boy, am I looking forward to flexing those feedback fingers.

The most annoying thing about this isn't even the money (though that is pretty annoying, especially as it was the most expensive thing I bought on there), it's the sheer crapola scale of the theft. When I paid for the dress, the seller had one positive feedback response. A few days later, some fellow pissed-off Ebayer left an abrupt slag on their feedback warning other potential customers not to touch them with a barge pole. And now the creep appears to have vanished off the face of the planet, no doubt cackling smugly to him/herself about their mammoth haul (£14 from me and about £3.70 from the other buyer, who was deprived of a pair of hair curlers).

I mean, how pathetic and petty is that? If you're going to nick money off people, at least make it worth the effort, for god's sake! Con artists just don't seem to have much ambition these days, it seems. It would almost be less annoying if it didn't seem so pointless.

Plus, I like Ebay and think it's a good resource. You can get pretty much anything on there - just a few weeks ago I managed to replace a much-loved, over-worn pair of shoes with an identical, unused pair, despite the original purchase taking place the best part of a decade ago. Boy, was that a happy day!

It's just really annoying when you get the rare pillock who ruins it; who makes you distrustful and nervous and feeling a bit stung, the way a child might be scarred for life by an early encounter with a snappy dog. It won't stop me buying on there again, but jeez, I'd like to slap that knob-end silly.

So hey, Spike-Sanders 88 - screw you!!!

Plan B? How About Plan A...

In a recent job interview, I was asked what my 'plan' was.

I gaped a little. The interviewer expanded, with a careless gesture.

'You know, where do you want to be in five years' time? What's your career plan?'

Obviously, I flannelled something about being more ambitious in a creative sense than in terms of job titles and salaries. But to be honest, I was thrown. And not just because I didn't have a ready answer, but because it made me realise that planning is an utterly alien concept to me.

This is particularly strange because in a work environment, I am a highly organised and rather anal person who hates the feeling that I am flying by the seat of my pants and will go to great lengths to avoid it. Lists are probably my favourite thing ever and if I could spend all day filling in planners of various sorts, I would. So why on earth am I such a waltzing Matilda when it comes to the bigger picture?

Don't get me wrong - I have dreams and ambitions, I have hopes for how my life might turn out, in both a personal and professional sense, and I like to think they are not all attached to the saddles of flying pigs. But have I sat down and actually planned for how I might achieve these things? The answer is no and I think I might have just identified, rather belatedly, where I am going wrong in all this.

Now before I start getting out a spreadsheet with which to chart my projected earnings arch, offspring per annum and number of sexual encounters I intend to have until 23 March 2064 (my estimated departure date based on current health variables) there is something very important to be born in mind here. And it is this very canny old saying:

'Man plans and God laughs'.

If the last eighteen months have shown me anything, it is that the Journey of Life is absolutely full of speed bumps, oil slicks and great big brick walls. Setting your life path in stone before you've even turned on the engine can be a recipe for misery if - or rather, when - things fail to follow the directions precisely and start wandering off on unexpected detours. So flexibility and an ability to go with the flow to a certain extent are just as valuable commodities as the determination to follow your desires.

One of my biggest ambitions - perhaps, in fact, my over-riding one - is to become a published author and make my living that way. But it is also one of the most slippery to grasp hold of, because it just cannot happen unless I am a) good enough and b) able to convince people in the industry that I'm good enough. So that dream is kind of exempt from my new improved outlook on Life. All I can do is try my very best to make it happen by actually writing the damn things, so that is the only course of action open to me on that front.

However, I've realised recently that a certain amount of advance planning might not only help me to achieve the things that are important to me, but it could also make me feel better about Life in the meantime. For example, doing a dreary job can absolutely send you to the brink of suicide if, when you look to the future, all you can see is the same spirit-crushing daily routine stretching out before you from here to the grave.

If, however, you can think, 'oh well, I'm only going to be doing this for two years because in March 2013, I'm going freelance and this is how I'm going to get in a position to do so,' it should make the whole experience feel much more cheerful because you truly believe it is only temporary.
Just a means to an end while you put the mechanisms in place to achieve your true destiny. Whether you are writing a book, saving for an important goal, renovating your house or gaining specialised knowledge to help with your career, chipping away at it day by day can give you a brilliant feeling as you see the project steadily march towards completion.

Financial planning is of course more important these days than it ever has been and this is the area in which I have performed worst of all in my adult life so far. But, following a recent and rather traumatic overhaul of my life, things are finally looking clearer to me now and, armed with a determination to never let things get out of control again, the way forward is opening up to me in a way I have never experienced before.

Throughout my 20s, planning felt rather unnecessary and impossible too, as I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and so spent most of my time bandying from pillar to post. Ironically, just as things began to settle as I turned 30, Life put me through the biggest spin cycle yet and I now face a future which is blanker and more uncertain than ever before.

But you can choose to see a blank canvas either as dauntingly devoid of features, or as an inspiration just waiting to be filled with bright colours and exciting new images. My 2011 diary was chosen for its rather cheesy motivational blurb on each page and one little pearl of wisdom has stayed with me. I forget the exact wording, but it said something about dreams being the best thing ever, made better still by having a solid foundation from which they could actually take flight.

Of course, in order to set dreams in motion, you need to identify exactly what those dreams are. I sense that I am going to have a period of soul-searching coming up, to find out what things I want out of my life in a practical, professional and emotional sense, before I can put those plans into action.

So if I want to go freelance in two years time, if I want to buy that dream house, if I want to take that magical journey around the world, I'd better stop waiting for the lottery win and work out just how the hell I'm going to do it, starting today.

It is high time I applied my talent for trivial organisation to the biggest project I will ever tackle - my one and only crack at Life.

Go Compare My Arse...

Modern life seems to be just one endless string of nuisances - some big, some small, all of them nothing more than needless ball-ache.

It feels like you cannot make it through a month without one of these joyless little occasions popping up to make things more crap than they already are. Oh look, it's MOT time. The gas bill has arrived. It's time for the vet to suck more of my life blood to fund the cats' vaccinations. My smear test is due. The front tyre is bald and in imminent danger of pitching me into the nearest hedge if I don't get it replaced. Oh no, a molar is aching. God, the boiler's making weird noises, better let some bloke come and empty my wallet in exchange for glaring at it and whistling.

The particular joy with which I am currently contending is the car insurance renewal. Does this time of year roll around quicker than any other? It sure feels like it and I'm certain it's like bloody Christmas to the insurance companies, as they send out their ludicrous renewal offers in the hope that people will be too bored / busy / terrified to open it in time, allowing their automated direct debits to keep churning out and thus lock them into another year of legalised extortion. Well, this year I was one step ahead of those bastards. I DID open the letter and I DID find the new monthly premium quote and I DID tell them where they could shove it.

Apparently, a rise of nearly 100 per cent is perfectly reasonable and acceptable, the call centre drone assured me when I asked how they could possibly justify raising my monthly payment from £29 to £56, literally overnight. Clearly, these insurance companies are not stupid - they've been checking out Streetview and noticed that I recently swapped my small Ford run-around for a scarlet Lamborghini Aventador.

Insurance in general has gone through the roof this year, according to Bob or Ken or Janice or whatever their name was, as they informed me through slurps of coffee and mouthfuls of digestive biscuit. My insistence that countless other companies were offering me identical policies for less than £35 was met with the polite scorn usually reserved for senile grandmothers who insist they can see Nazis in the garden. Yes dear, of course they are.

Like a prostitute playing hard to get, they went through the usual motions of seeing if they could 'bring the price down a bit' and, after a pointless flurry of typing, announced they could offer me cover for £44 a month. When I told them it was an unattractive offer and I would be taking my business elsewhere, they asked me when my house insurance was due. I brought the conversation to a close.

Luckily I have managed to find a reasonably priced policy with another insurer which will only cost me £1 extra on last year, but annoyingly they want a rather large deposit and as my finances are somewhat embarrassed at the moment, the renewal will have to wait until a nerve-shredding 11th hour before being confirmed. But never mind, at least it keeps things exciting...

In my opinion, the insurance industry is the Devil's favourite hobby and all concerned should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I would have less animosity towards someone who beat small children with sticks for a living than to someone who announced they 'worked in insurance'. I have had a number of brushes with these hellhounds over the years, none of which left a pleasant taste in my mouth.

Particularly the time my limited edition Mini got written off after being shunted in a traffic queue by some prick in a van. The market value would easily have been in excess of £1,000 but because the 'blue book value' (ie. something no doubt written by insurers, for insurers) was only £500, I found that the premiums I had been paying on a £1,600 car for the last five years were pretty much worthless, and the situation is sure to be the same with my current vehicle. (I'd like to have seen what they had to say if I had given its value as £500 when I took out the bloody policy.)

Once they had deducted excess, which took several months to retrieve from the guilty party, I had an extravagant £350 with which to replace my car and therefore had no choice but to get into debt in order to fund the purchase. So I was basically shafted by two arseholes in one day.

The most annoying thing about car insurance? Like every other sane person in the country, I have spent the last year swearing profusely and switching channels every time that massive bell-end came on, bellowing about how you should thank your stars you visited a certain insurance comparison site. And yet when I sat down at the computer to start this thankless task, which website address did I automatically enter without a moment's thought, it's irritating little refrain dancing around my empty brain cavity as I did so?

Bah.

Review: The Art Thief By Noah Charney

The great thing about literature is that sometimes it really adds to your life in more ways than simply entertaining you.

Sometimes, a great book can kickstart a new interest or hobby; it can make you aware of ideas, people or places you had never considered before and can leave a lasting impression on your thoughts, behaviour or even lifestyle.

Now, I'm not saying that Noah Charney's tale of people nicking stupidly priced daubs is a masterpiece, far from it. But it came along at just the right time for me. Recently I've found a new interest springing up in my soul. People who know me well will say, 'oh yeah?' and try to cover their mouth as they yawn, because I tend to develop a new fascination with something obsessive every other week. But I think this one might be a keeper, simply because it's so unexpected.

I never thought I'd say this, but recently I've developed a fledgling interest in art history. Not the nonsense that art school twats turn out these days, I've never had time for that and I've always tended to think of art in general as highly over-rated and a place for dickheads to hide their lack of talent. Last week I bought 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die and the 20th and 21st century chapters were almost entirely filled with primary school rejects; good canvases ruined by someone drawing three lines and a dot and calling it 'a reflection on the futility of life' or some such rhubarb - needless to say, those chapters were pretty much skipped.

But real art, the stuff turned out when people had less tolerance for arty-farty-ism and you were likely to get your head lopped off if you dared portray the king's nose in a way he didn't like, is actually very interesting indeed. Because proper art does actually speak a language which is concealed from the viewer unless you research it a bit and, you know what, it's kinda fascinating.

It started years ago with my first visit to Rome, a city absolutely stuffed to the gills with beautiful and breathtaking works of art, from paintings to buildings. When I went a second time, I'm afraid my art knowledge came from Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, rather than any higher minded source. But, say what you like about that novel, it did at least introduce art and sculpture to the masses and following his false trail around the Eternal City was both fun and educational.

A few weeks ago I watched a couple of documentaries about the Baroque movement, purely because the first episode looked at Rome, and to my surprise, I found it mesmerising. The codes and iconography to be found in great paintings, not as part of some conspiracy but simply because good painters are genuinely trying to say something, is captivating and left me keen to know more. So I bought the art book and it really did open my eyes even further.

Then I remembered that a couple of Christmases ago, a relative kindly gave me a bumper pack of cheaply produced paperbacks which I had kind of forgotten about, one of which was The Art Thief. So I thought I'd give it a whirl. Written by a genuine art crime expert, it gave some fascinating insights into that world and even mentioned some of the paintings in my new non-fiction book, leading to the cross-referencing between fact and fiction that can make this sort of reading such a joy.

Now, don't get me wrong, The Art Thief isn't going to win the Orange Prize any time soon. But it was entertaining enough, even if it was a bit top heavy on facts sometimes - Charney's central character, Gabriel Coffin, is a charismatic art crime expert (wonder where he got that idea) and the snippets from his lectures are a thinly disguised device for the author to show off his own knowledge. By the end, I'd had enough, particularly as I lost track of the twisty-turny plot about halfway through. Paintings are stolen, fakes turn up in their place, which have in turn been painted over originals, which turn out to be fakes anyway.....uh???

While some of the supporting characters, such as the droopy London detective and his entertainingly quirky French counterparts, are nicely done and add a bit more depth to proceedings, Coffin is too two-dimensional - handsome, rich, smooth, a smartypants - to really hold much interest. And the twist barely merits a brief shrug of the shoulders, let alone a shocked intake of breath. But it gave me a bit more of a steer on how to read paintings so in my world, it has done its job.

Review: Beyond Black By Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel is one of those writers with whom, along with Sarah Waters, Will Self and Stephen King, I would happily swap brains at the drop of a hat.

Prior to Beyond Black, I had only previously read her Man Booker Prize-winning epic, Wolf Hall. Magnificent and intricately researched as it was, I did find it hard-going in places and so I was a bit nervous about reading more of her work in case it went straight over my head.

While I was working in a bookshop recently, I was replenishing the 'M' section when I noticed some blurb on the cover of Beyond Black in which someone stated it was 'the greatest ghost story in the language'. As a ravenous consumer of supernatural fiction, I snapped it up immediately and was surprised and delighted by what I found inside.

In a dramatic change from Wolf Hall - which takes the reader on a marvellously confident romp through the early career of Henry VIII's chief advisor, Thomas Cromwell - Beyond Black plays out in the far less colourful and deadly setting of modern day Reading. Alison is an obese but successful psychic, whose life could be described as lonely if it were not for the cacophony of spirit voices with which she must contend on a daily basis.

A medium's life is far from glamorous, it seems. Alison spends her time trekking up and down the M4 corridor and circumnavigating the M25, whiling away the hours in rain-soaked traffic in order to entertain well-paying audiences in various town halls and pub function rooms. The story offers a hilarious glimpse at the gruesome reality of this supposedly mystical profession, as Alison endures the bitchy frustrations of fellow circuit entertainers who may or may not be genuine.

As she begins to make a good living from spiritualism, Alison unexpectedly hires the bitter and abrasive Collette to be her personal assistant, thereby bringing together two disappointed women in a dreary lifestyle that drives fear into the heart of any female singleton. Almost eaten alive by anger and frustration, Colette makes a formidable presence, while Alison tries to come to terms with the childhood nightmares that still trouble her well into her 30s.

This novel is an absolute masterclass in the magic of the mundane; in which the boring realities of life take on a compelling quality and unsympathetic characters are so well-drawn, they speak more clearly to the reader than any delightful hero of lesser books. One of those novels where nothing really happens in terms of plot points, yet you can feel life unfolding before your eyes all the same, Beyond Black is a truly inspiring example of work by someone who can just write with their eyes closed.

Hilary Mantel, I hate you. Yours, A Jealous Aspiring Writer.

Review: The Kind Man by Susan Hill

In a previous review, I've mentioned the difficulties authors must face when trying to follow up on a huge literary hit.

Just as pop artists must struggle to live up to that big number one, still played at office parties twenty years later, so it must be a similar challenge for writers who have knocked out a story which instantly became a modern classic.

Susan Hill's The Woman in Black is a universally acclaimed ghost story which sits proudly alongside the work of MR James and Charles Dickens, when it comes to a beautifully constructed and truly scary supernatural fiction. Although Hill has since become a very successful crime writer, she has also turned out a number of other ghost stories and, in my humble opinion, none have come close to the giddying highs of Eel Marsh House and its creepy inhabitant.

Now it is not for me to suggest that her subsequent efforts have failed in their intention - indeed, she might have been aiming for something distinctly different from The Woman in Black, in which case she has succeeded. But as a reader, I found her second-to-latest book, The Small Hand, to be disappointing and I'm afraid I feel the same way about The Kind Man.

To be fair, I don't think this is meant to be a ghost story. I'm not entirely sure what it is meant to be, but I'm pretty certain it's not meant to be frightening, so fair enough. Thought-provoking it most certainly is.

Set in a poor rural village in some indistinct time in the past, The Kind Man follows the story of a young woman who marries a nice chap and settles down to humble working class life. While her sister turns out several children, only to sink into depression and lovelessness, the woman has one daughter who later dies.

The grief-stricken couple attempt to go on with her lives, but things take an even worse turn when her husband loses his job and develops cancer. But there seems to be a miracle in store for them both - a miracle which will have far-reaching and unforeseeable consequences.

I'll be honest - I got bored with this story. It is immensely well-written, but the pace was slow, even for such a short novel, and I was a bit irritated by the apparent moral that kicked in towards the end. I also didn't really understand the connection between their daughter's death and the husband's experience. Although I could guess at it, I found that I didn't really care because the story didn't seem to fit together properly in my mind.

A great story should leave you feeling equally fulfilled and bereft when the final page is turned. Unfortunately, the characters in The Kind Man were not compelling enough to capture me and as the story also failed on that point, I was quite relieved to be able to put the book down and move on to something else.

Review: If The Dead Rise Not By Philip Kerr

I went into a fair bit of detail about Kerr's anti-hero, Bernhard Gunther, in my review of a previous book so I won't go crazy on this one, but here is a brief recap.

Gunther is a gumshoe in 1930s and 40s Berlin, an ex-policeman who was forced to play his part in the war but didn't enjoy it and holds no sympathy for Nazi ideals. These experiences have scarred him to a degree and he has a refreshingly honest approach to some of his clients, but it is clear that he is pretty much still a good guy.

This novel spans two time periods and settings - the pre-war tension of 30s Germany, where Gunther falls in love with a beautiful American guest while working as a hotel detective, and 50s Argentina, to which Gunther has been forced to flee under the guise of a Nazi war criminal in order to escape a trumped-up murder charge. Here he bumps into his former lover again and falls headlong back into her problems.

His escape to Argentina was set up in a previous book and the way in which Kerr's stories dovetail together show a really nice commitment to the character, while still making a great stand-alone read. Sure, there is some pretty cliched wish fulfilment going on here, such as the way in which gorgeous women fall helplessly into Gunther's bed the moment they meet him, and one twist regarding his former lover's daughter can be seen coming a mile off.

But Kerr's stories are gripping enough to keep things feeling fresh and just on the right side of cheesy, for Gunther gets involved in some pretty dark doings and confesses to feeling scared at the right moments.

In short, a brilliantly entertaining novel for fans of hardboiled detective fiction or indeed, anyone just looking for a bit of well-researched and well-written fun.

Review: There Once Was a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Proper weird, this one. If you want contemporary tales that are a little bit freaky, this bird is probably your go-to gal.

Described as 'scary fairy tales', this slim collection of short stories covers some pretty broad ground. From the depressingly realistic scenario of a woman with mental health issues setting traps for her young neighbour's cute baby, to the wildly imaginative tale of twin sisters who are cursed to share one enormous body, Petrushevskaya veers from the bizarre, impossible world of the Brothers Grimm to the sort of mundane viciousness you see on the news every day.

Most of the stories have some sort of supernatural element, but not all. One is a rather unsatisfying snapshot of life among persecuted Russian peasants who are forced to scratch out a living in the forest, while another follows the attempts of a mother to set her wayward son on the right track in life, only to realise that she has no idea what that track might look like.

Whether her tale is magical or more pedestrian, the common thread that seems to run through Petrushevskaya's accomplished stories is an acceptance of life's disappointments and frustrations. The darkest and most disturbing horror story can leave you feeling entertained and even quite uplifted if it is safely removed from the normal experiences and truths of every day life. But this writer does not allow the reader to do that. Her themes seem to originate from the inescapable downside of being alive - the rejected lovers, the dead marriages, the loneliness, the crushed self-esteem, the unfairness of politics, the broken promises, the forgotten dreams. And god, that's depressing.

I'm glad I read this book because Petrushevskaya is a highly gifted writer and her ability to explore political and emotional themes through her work is evident. But I'm not sure I'll be seeking out any more of her stuff just yet. Sometimes you are in the mood for escapism and, despite the fairy tale label, Petrushevskaya's fiction is just a little bit too grounded in fact.

Review: The One From The Other by Philip Kerr

Generally, I'm not a great reader of the crime genre. There's something about endless murders, maverick coppers and the constant one-upmanship of crime authors trying to create the most gruesomely televisual demises which does very little to whet my literary appetite.

But a recent change in my financial circumstances has led me to curb my spending on new novels and forced me to skulk back to the bookcase, in search of all those books I haven't yet read. The unappreciated gifts, the unfinished snooze-fests, the ones I'd been lent without asking and wished my benefactor had not been so kind.

One such book was a freebie that came with a loyalty cardholder's magazine published by a well-known high street book emporium. Small, lightweight and bendy, The One From The Other looked like cheap pulp fiction. And just like that much-maligned genre, it was bloody entertaining.

If I do read crime fiction, I want it to have a little something that distinguishes it from the rafts of contemporary adventures in gritty murder that practically block out the sun on the literary horizon these days. And in this aspect too, Kerr's novels score highly with their period setting.

Set in 1940s Berlin, the story stars hard-bitten German private detective Bernie Gunther and the dialogue crackles with his cynical witticisms. Described by many critics as Raymond Chandler-esque, Kerr's writing is actually different from that - set against the backdrop of a war-ravaged Germany and the lingering hangover of Nazism, the all-too-real cruelty and fear that had terrorised the country just a couple of years earlier adds a real edge to the action. As a non-Nazi who has seen his country go to the dogs and been forced to bear it if he wants to hold onto his skin, Gunther has more to be cynical about than the average New Yoik gumshoe.

Gunther is a compelling lead character, smart and witty yet with a callous streak that gives him a Jack Bauer-type quality of unsettling ruthlessness. Dripping with period detail and Kerr's intimate research, right down to the brand of shoes worn by the protagonist, the story is a really gripping and entertaining ride, boasting a humour and film noir flair that lifts it above the norm.

I enjoyed The One From The Other so much that I reached into my increasingly shallow pocket and am currently devouring one of Kerr's earlier Gunther novels, which is set in the 30s and gives a terrifying take on pre-war Germany as Hitler makes his sickening rise to notoriety.

Based on these first two brushes with Kerr's work, I can confidently predict that he will become one of the few authors whose entire canon will grace my cheap Ikea book shelves in time. Just as soon as I can drag myself out of the gutter and back to the book shop...