tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58131037824904596722024-03-12T17:20:35.391-07:00John Wilcox AuthorJohn Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-6324448166457502002013-09-28T09:39:00.000-07:002013-09-30T09:48:46.338-07:00THE SUIT AND I GO TO TOWN Living and working in the green boskyness of Wiltshire doesn't demand sartorial elegance; it encourages old cords and yesterday's shirt. So The Suit hardly comes off its hanger. A trip to London, however (see blog below) is a very different matter. It calls for something rather sharper.<br />
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Consequently, the little number that I bought some years ago in Cairo when I was researching "The Guns of El Kebir" was brought out to grace the 10.02 to Waterloo, then a lunch with old journalistic chums under the glass canopy at the Wallace Collection (Monty Court, once editor of Sporting Life, looked round our table and called us "The Wallies Collection"), and later the visit to Goldsboro Books in the evening.<br />
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It now has a little trouble meeting in the midriff but no matter, for I feel it still retains its rakish charm if I leave it carelessly unbuttoned. Drinking a drop of the dry white just off Shaftesbury Avenue and chatting to the delicious Chiara Priorelli from my publishers, The Suit and I, then, felt quite at ease, even, perhaps, a touch of the Noel Cowards coming on. I even met a couple of fellow authors who had read my books.<br />
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So it was that, after leaving the party and sauntering down Jermyn Street, I felt that it was far too early for us to retire. Perhaps a dry martini to two at the Ritz? Dammit, why not? Now I hasten to add that I am no stranger to the place. Years and years ago, when The Suit was certainly little more than a wrinkle on the back of a sweet young Merino ewe in New South Wales, I kept an account at the Ritz. These were in the days when I was a Captain of Industry (oh, all right then, a lance corporal) and I very occasionally entertained the top men of Britain's textile and clothing industries.<br />
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You will see, then, that the two of us were not over-awed as we swept into the Rivoli Bar. Two stonking vodkatinies later we decided that the only way to finish an interesting, if slightly self-indulgent day was to dine round the corner at Wilton's. I remembered it (after just one visit at roughly the time when Shirley Bassey was beginning her career) as a splendidly traditional restaurant. It would now ideally suit our mood.<br />
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The top hatted doorman outside was looking in disdain at two grockles who were studying the menu outside - what did they think the joint was, a cheap Italian? - but, of course, he lifted his hat and opened the door for the Suit and I as we tottered slightly mounting the steps. Inside, the blonde receptionist insisted that it didn't matter that we had made no reservation and we followed her swinging hips as she led us to a table for two right at the end of the restaurant, ideally situated where we could see the comings and goings.<br />
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And what comings and what goings! The world, it seemed, had brought in his trophy wife, each looking alike with long, blonde streaked hair snaking down her back and legs stretching for ever down from a waist that you could encircle with one hand. Not one of them, of course, would ever have cleaned behind the back of a fridge.<br />
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To our delight, one couple took the table next to us. They leaned to kiss each other, so proving of course that they were not married. "Champagne cocktail, darling?' he enquired. 'Of course, darling.'<br />
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I sipped my Chablis, not meaning to share it with The Suit but a little, I'm afraid, did manage to find its way down the left lapel. We consumed, since you ask, a scrumptious lobster soup, a melt-in-your-mouth smoked salmon omelette and, naturally, another glass of the golden nectar, before summoning the bill. Together with the aforementioned dry martinis, it totalled roughly what Betty and I had paid for our first house.<br />
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Only slightly daunted, the two of us wound our way back to where I was staying at me club, for<em>, bien sur</em>, one last Armagnac for the lift.<br />
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On the train home the next morning, one side of The Suit was certainly not talking to the other and I sat whimpering, staring out of the window and wishing that God had never invented credit cards. Once home, of course, I found that my trophy wife had not cleaned behind the fridge. It will be the old Harris tweed and jeans the next time I go to town. <br />
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John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com1North America53.069734647585918 -106.9921803474426327.547700147585918 -148.30077434744263 78.591769147585921 -65.683586347442628tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-90733006673305799622013-09-27T09:22:00.000-07:002013-09-30T05:01:17.411-07:00BOOKSHOP BURNING BRIGHTLY IN THE GLOOM So...bookshops all over Britain are having a rough time, battered by e-books and the cut-price, omnipotent Amazon. Right? Well, yes and no.<br />
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Yes, because it is sadly true that the great names that used to dominate the High Street are now reduced to two: Waterstones and W.H.Smith (if, that is, you can find a book to buy among the greeting cards and games on the shelves of the latter). No, because it is not true of <em>all </em>bookshops.<br />
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The huge Heffers in Cambridge seems to flourish and, if, like me, you were among the 120 or so assorted authors, agents, publishers and buying punters who spilled out from the innards of Goldboro Books onto Cecil Court in the heart of London last night, you would surely have said, "depression - what depression?"<br />
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The occasion was a party given by owner David Headley to mark what he called "History in the Court," a celebration of historical fiction, a genre in which yours truly can count himself a modest practitioner. If such occasions are becoming a rare event on the literary scene, then no-one has told the ebullient David.<br />
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It's true that his operation is not exactly typical of book-selling in Britain. For one thing, Goldboro Books is a specialist operation, selling only first edition hard backs. For another, seventy per cent of his trade is mail order, his books winging there way all over the world. Only the remaining thirty per cent comes in "off the street."<br />
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He broke off for a moment from pouring the booze last night to tell me that 2013 had become a record year, with turnover up by £130,000 on the previous year. Why, when conventional bookselling is struggling?<br />
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Because, he said, he and his staff knew their market and their customers. Trust had grown up between seller and buyer that was paying off in terms of sales.<br />
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He could have added, however, that flamboyant marketing and a flair for publicity had played their part. He is always ready to support his authors, as he demonstrated last year when he happily gave a party in his newly expanded shop to launch my book "The War of the Dragon Lady." Long may his example burn brightly in the bookselling gloom!<br />
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John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-9088414223807371712013-09-11T02:44:00.000-07:002013-09-11T02:44:34.770-07:00FONTHILL IN THE GREAT WAR...? I have spent much of this glorious summer researching the eleventh novel in the Simon Fonthill series. It has been a rather desultory business, interrupted by the need to see how England were doing against the Aussies in this most fascinating of Ashes series and also agonising about whether I should try parting what's left of my hair on the other side. The book will be set against the invasion of Tibet by the British - oh yes, it actually happened - in 1904. No title yet but I am toying with 'THE HIGH ROAD TO LHASA.'<br />
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My thoughts have also been straying, however, towards considering what to do with Fonthill after he, Alice and Jenkins, have brought the warmth back into their fingers after fighting the Tibetans (and, in the case of Simon and Alice, each other) on the high passes of the Himalayas. In chronological terms, it ought to be the end of the trio's adventures. After all, by the time of the beginning of the World War I, Fonthill will be 59. A bit old for an adventure hero and, anyway, I didn't want to return to the Western Front so soon after 'STARSHINE.'<br />
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Then, however, a reader wrote to suggest that the contemporaneous conflict in German East Africa, which in fact lasted longer than the war in Europe, would be ideal territory for Simon, whatever his age. For more than four years the German, isolated from their homeland some four thousand miles away, conducted a remarkable campaign. It was thrillingly related in William Boyd's novel, 'An Ice Cream War.'<br />
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Fonthill, with his experience of campaigning in many different parts of Africa - Zululand, the Mozambique border, and the homeland of the Boers - could, it was suggested, be of invaluable help to the British High Command in this conflict. It's an idea. What do you think? Post me your views.<br />
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John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-67323110661817231462013-08-29T09:32:00.001-07:002013-08-29T09:32:38.213-07:00A FACE AT LAST! One of my readers, James Baker, has decided that it was time I came into the 21st century and has insisted that I have a Facebook page. He has accordingly created one and put it into life on my behalf. Anyone interested can turn to it on https://wwwfacebook.com/johnwilcox. Thanks James. You put me to shame! John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-19232837508922168612013-05-04T08:26:00.002-07:002013-05-04T09:27:34.582-07:00THE WHEEL OF LIFE A couple of days ago I typed the most beautiful words in the English language: The End.<br />
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It's always a relief to finish a book but this one - the tenth novel in the Simon Fonthill series and the thirteenth of mine in all - had a kind of modern resonance. As I finished it, signing off after Simon had fought with the Gordon Highlanders in the great Pathan Revolt in the North West Frontier of India in 1897, I heard on the radio that three Scottish soldiers had been killed by the Teleban in Afghanistan.<br />
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My book - BAYONETS ACROSS THE BORDER, due out next year - has the British fighting against Muslim fundamentalists, stirred up by Afghan preachers. The events in Helmund Province and, indeed, the assassination of a Pakistani candidate in the elections there, virtually at the same time, were caused by the same breed of religious fanatics in roughly the same place.<br />
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Can any other war have lasted for 116 years, albeit intermittently, fighting over the same ground?<br />
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Talk about the Wheel of Life! Makes you weep, doesn't it?John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-72342493454537533142013-04-17T08:56:00.001-07:002013-04-18T09:19:47.164-07:00LAST WORD ON MAGGIE This is being written on the eve of Lady Thatcher's funeral and I do hope (I don't pray) that no lunatic(s) attempt to wreck her last Great Day. But I do wish that a State Funeral had not been planned for her. It's not just the excessive cost of it at a time when the country is so deeply in debt that bankers are rumoured to be thinking of waiving .01% of their bonuses. Or that she was one of the most divisive prime ministers of her time. No. It's just that I don't think she deserves it.<br />
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If Clement Attlee, who left a legacy of "making the political weather" far greater than any premier of the 20th century with the exception of Churchill, could be buried quietly and without fuss, why should this former very average Education Minister in a bad year deserve a Gun Carriage and the attendance of the Sovereign?<br />
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Beats me.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-30670687645939354042013-02-09T04:23:00.001-08:002013-02-09T04:23:03.957-08:00TWO MORE FONTHILLS! A couple or three blogs ago I speculated idly about writing short stories, given that STARSHINE was on the slipway ready for launching and that a new Fonthill was virtually written. The short story scene is a genre that has always fascinated me and one that I have dabbled in over the years without much success.<br />
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Well, that's the way it must stay for the moment. With STARSHINE now on the retail shelves and the latest Fonthill - FIRE ACROSS THE VELDT, set against the background of the second Boer War, the one that ended in 1902 - due to be published in April of this year, my publishers are demanding two more novels about Simon, Alice and 352 Jenkins. <br />
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I have just signed the contract for these and they will be published in 2014 and 2015 respectively. I have had to slip back in time a touch to accommodate the first of the two, which is set in 1897 at the time of the great Pathan Uprising along the North West Frontier between India and Afghanistan - definitive Fonthill territory. The second, which will in fact be the eleventh in the series, concerns the remarkable and rather neglected invasion of Tibet by the British in 1904. The more I have researched both of these twists in the story of the late development of the British Empire, the more fascinated I have become in the unravalleling of the events.<br />
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I do hope that fans of Fonthill & Co will enjoy them. As for me, it is a treat to be back in the saddle with Simon again, thinking, with Fonthill, that I will fall off but managing somehow to hang on!<br />
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John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-31243958117369915382012-12-20T04:06:00.000-08:002012-12-20T08:04:52.268-08:00WELCOME BACK HILARY! I am hoping that Santa might bring me Hilary Mantel's "Bring Up The Bodies" on Christmas morning so I haven't yet read the 2012 Mann Booker prize winner. But - on the ball and up-top-the-mark as always - I have recently put down her previous winner, "Woolf Hall," with a sigh of satisfaction. What a splendid book and a worthy winner of the God-knows-how-many-quids that come as the prize! (Actually, I've just looked it up and the award is £50,000.)<br />
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Hilary won the much-covetted prize in 2009, of course, and I can't help reflecting that "Woolf Hall" is a far better novel than either of the two that followed it: Howard Jacobson's "The Finkler Question" in 2010 and Julian Barnes's "The Sense of an Ending" in 2011.<br />
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I admire both of these latter two writers. Barnes brings a depth of intellect to his work that staggered and intrigued me when I read his first novel, "Flaubert's Parrot" all those years ago, and Jacobson has a wit that always delights me when he appears on the box. Yet their winning novels disappointed me. I could never quite work out what sense of an ending Barnes was trying to depict and H.J.'s book - much vaunted as the first humourous novel to win the Booker - failed to raise a smile with me.<br />
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But Mantel! Ah, <em>now there's a story</em>!! Her story telling is direct, incorporating pace and a sinuous development of character; her dialogue is a delight, overcoming the historical novelist's problem of period speech simply by using straightforward modern language but seamlessly weaving in the odd Tudor phrase or term; and her scholarship makes you never question each seemingly unbelievable twist of the plot.<br />
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The book set standards for the Mann Booker competition that seemed to slip away in the following two years. Judging from the reviews I have read, "Bring Up the Bodies" should restore them. Three cheers for the old fashioned historical novel!<br />
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<em> A very happy Christmas and a splendid book-filled 2013 to all the readers of this all-too-occasional blog.</em> John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-39138437187365711682012-11-14T04:29:00.000-08:002012-11-14T04:29:04.858-08:00NEW SIGNINGS Another new book, another round of signings. I shall be signing copies of my newly launched novel, Starshine, at Waterstone's, Salisbury, next Tuesday, 20th November, from 11am until 1pm. I would be delighted to see readers there during that time. You don't even have to buy a book - just drop by for a chat if you are in the area, to help me avoid dropping off...<br />
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I shall also be putting pen to the title page of the book at Beatons, in Tisbury, from 2pm until 6 on Saturday 1st December. All welcome!John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-87874146414034453822012-10-24T09:39:00.003-07:002012-10-24T10:10:46.125-07:00SHORT - BUT TO THE POINT Short stories. You know, the easy-to-write stuff. Just like novels, except that they are shorter and take up less time and effort. And nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. <br />
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I have now had thirteen full length books published (counting STARSHINE,which comes out on 11th November)and have written dozens of short stories, but only one of the latter have seen the light of day. <br />
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This is probably due to two reasons: I was not very good at writing 'em and there are very few publications left in the UK that publish short stories. I feel now that one of the mistakes I have always made in trying to create the short stuff is in regarding the form as - as stated above - really novels in a diminutive form; i.e. with a defined beginning, middle and end. Now, I am not sure that that is right. In fact, I think it is wrong.<br />
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Re-reading some of the past masters of the genre - V.S.Pritchett, William Trevor, Hemmingway, Katherine Mansfield, Scott Fitzgerald et al - I have become increasingly aware that they depict what is, in effect, a slice of life; their tales are observations on the human condition as revealed by glimpsing a happening, often not one of high drama, that illustrate what it's all about Alfie. Some of the earlier successful specialists, such as O'Henry and de Maupassant, employed the device of a slick, surprise ending to lift the tale, but the basic technique remained the same: one of revealing an episode that depicted some great truth.<br />
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So, having STARSHINE, my World War I novel poised on the slipway for launch next month, and the latest Fonthill safely put to bed for publication in the Spring of 2013, I have a little time in hand. I will, then, dip my arthritic toe into the seemingly so placid waters of short story writing. <br />
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I'll let you know how I get on. John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-45280106982210223962012-09-26T10:19:00.002-07:002012-09-26T10:19:57.608-07:00AN APOLOGY At the beginning of this site, I invite readers to respond to my blog and let me have their comments on what I have written. Many of you have accepted the invitation and posted your views. They have all been passed onto me via my e-mail address and I have always responded directly to the writer via the same route.
The trouble is that none of this correspondence has appeared on the web site, so that it looked as though my blog meanderings were disappearing into thin air, evoking no responses.
The general readership, then, were prevented from
observing the interchange of views.
All my blasted fault! I have just discovered that there is a small device on the site which, if clicked, would have allowed the correspondence to be published on the site. And, of course, myopically, I failed to see it. So my apologies to regular correspondents like Trollman for tucking him and his fellow writers away into the ether - and double, triple apologies if my responding e-mails failed to reach them as a result.
From now on, all buttons will be pressed and inter-changes - for better or worse - will be made public. John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-53586885656587215662012-08-11T09:47:00.000-07:002012-08-11T10:14:22.841-07:00UNBELIEVABLY WORTH THE MONEY A last word - from me, anyway - about the Olympics.<br />
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I have always felt a touch ashamed, or defensive at least, about regularly buying National Lottery tickets. As my wife points out every week, "it's a sheer waste of money." Oh, I have had the odd £10 win every blue moon but no gambler worth his salt would contemplate taking on the sort of odds that the Lottery offers. Crazy, of course.<br />
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I have tried to defend the indefensible by quoting that line from "South Pacific," how can you have a dream come true if he don't have a dream?" And I have pointed out that a half of the income from the Lottery goes to charity. But it's awfully difficult to cite the exact instance of where and which charity benefits - and, more importantly, where I benefit.<br />
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Now that has all changed. Caught up in the Games fervour - at first reluctantly but now wallowing in it - I note with pride that the National Lottery has contributed a goodly share of the cost of staging the games. And so my £5 worth of input every week makes me a sponsor, removing that lurking feeling of guilt about wasting family income.<br />
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I feel as if I've won a Gold. Well, almost.<br />
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Crabby Postcript. The one good thing abut the end of the London Olympics is that the nation will now be spared hearing the word "unbelievable" gasped by medalists and commentators something like twenty or thirty times a Television day. I'm no pedant about words but the adjective isn't accurate, anyway. Does anyone think that an Olympic finalist would enter the event without belief of victory, even if it is only tucked away at the back of the mind? Words like "satisfying," "wonderful" or even the awful "awesome" would be more descriptive. The dreadful repetition, though, causes the most irritation. It's a relief to know that the damned word will fall away from our screens now...an unbelievable relief, believe me. John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-58050944629467469482012-08-10T09:38:00.004-07:002012-08-10T09:38:41.501-07:00THE RAINBOW RUNNERSAllow me two pennorth of comment about The Games. Have you noticed how so many of the Brits picking up medals are...gulp let me summon up my courage to write this...well: <em>NOT WHITE?!</em><br />
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There, I've written the unsayable. But this is not a racist tract. Firstly, it is a straightforward fact and deserves to be noted. From the burnished black bonce of Mighty Mo, our very own matchstick middle distance runner, to the slightly sepia-tinted skin of gorgeous Jesse, so many of our winners - certainly in the track events - are descended from immigrants.<br />
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Why these athletes are better than people of Anglo-Saxon stock - certainly in the track events - is not for me to conjecture. The point is that without them I doubt very much whether we would have gathered such a record breaking tally of medals in this greatest of international sports gatherings.<br />
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So doesn't this say three bloody good cheers for immigration?John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-19711681690384092432012-07-08T13:52:00.000-07:002012-07-08T13:52:25.300-07:00CORRECTION! In my last blog I wrote about two new books of mine: STARSHINE and FIRE ACROSS THE VELDT. The publication dates for these new masterpieces have been changed and I hurry now to correct them.<br />
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STARSHINE (the glow from Verey lights that illuminated No Man's Land in Wordl War I and so caused every everyone in it to freeze, thus stopping the war for a few, brief moments) is a novel much of which is set against the battles of Ypres. It will now be published appropriately on 11th November, this year, exactly 94 years from the amistice that ended the war.<br />
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FIRE ACROSS THE VELDT, the ninth and latest in the Simon Fonthill series, sees our hero fighting the Boers as a Colonel in the regular British Army. It will hit the bookshops in hard back from in Spring 2013 and then in paperback form some six months later. Happy reading!John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-60868147252503927522012-06-05T05:15:00.001-07:002012-06-05T05:15:35.659-07:00A NEW FONTHILL AND ONE LONG NURTURED OTHERI am, I confess, the most irregular blogger. I guess this is because, blushing now like a wallflower, I confess feeling that my opinions on most things outside the field of writing for publication are of little interest to other people. True, I will vent a touch of spleen about George W Bush occasionally - even now - but usually I confine these blogs to things that concern me as a writer and therefore might be of interest to my readers.
In this context, then, let me welcome you back to this blog with the news about two new books of mine.
I have recently typed the two most beautiful words in the English language: The End. They brought to a close the ninth novel in the Simon Fonthill series, FIRE ACROSS THE VELDT. The manuscript has now gone off to my publishers and, all being well, will come onto the nation's bookshelves in January 2013 in hard back form and then, in paperback, the following September.
This book sees Simon, his wife Alice and his comrade and former batman "352" Jenkins fighting in the second (and the one we all recall) Boer War, which ended in 1902. This time Fonthill has been lured back into the Regular army by Lord Kitchener to become a Colonel and lead a special unit of light horse to fight the Boers at their own type of "hit and ride" guerrilla warfare.
The second book gives me even more pleasure. I wrote it some three years ago to give me a break from the Fonthill series and to satisfy the long standing desire at the back of my mind to write about the first world war, in which my father and all six of my uncles fought - producing one Victoria Cross, one Distinguished Conduct Medal and one Military Medal.
Titled STARSHINE, it has been accepted by my publishers and hopefully will be out in January 2014, appropriately one hundred years after the outbreak of that terrible war.
If these two books give readers as much pleasure as I received in writing them, then I will be very satisfied.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-91177078711888207772012-04-07T09:05:00.005-07:002012-04-07T10:01:43.512-07:00ABOUT READING AND WRITING...As an ex-Fleet Street hack, I hate it when statements of so-called fact are not substantiated - particularly, of course, those with which I don't agree!<br /><br /> For instance, in this morning's Times, Emma Duncan, the Deputy Editor of The Economist, states unequivocally that reading is on the decline. Well, it almost certainly ain't. At least not according to the Society of Authors, of which I am <br />a humble member, working at the mine face.<br /><br /> The Society tells me that more and more books are being published in the UK, viz 150,000 titles in 2010, a considerable increase on the 110,000 that came onto the nation's bookshelves in 2001. In terms of books sold, the respective figures were 229 million compared to 110 million. A think it's a fair assumption that that means reading is increasing overall, not declining.<br /><br /> As I say, Emma doesn't give her sources. But perhaps she is misled by the fact that the sale of printed books in this country - and probably in all developed markets - is falling. But what is happening is that, according to Tim Hely Hutchinson, CEO of Hachette UK, one of our largest book publishers, most readers are swapping the purchase of a print book for an e-book.<br /><br /> Is this good news? This is the key question for authors. I guess we don't know yet. What is certain is that the market is undergoing a sea change. According to the Society, Amazon has become overwhelmingly the world's largest retailer, with a market capitalisation of $80billion - and that makes me, at least, distinctly uneasy. <br /><br /> The prices that Amazon charges for its books are heart-warmingly low for the consumer. For the author, they chill the knee caps. Book shops will charge round about £8 for my paperback novels - presuming that savage discounting does not take place, which it invariably does. This means that I receive something like 56pence per book, less agent's commission of, in my case, 15%. That's if the published price is not discounted. Not much, you might agree for the original manufacturer of the product. But this is reduced to about 28 pence at Amazon.<br /><br /> Amazon will have to sell a hell of a lot of my novels to make that return viable for a year's creative work.<br /><br /> Am I moaning. Too right, I am sport. I think I might take up flower arranging....John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-25758757877676977302012-02-13T04:11:00.000-08:002012-02-13T04:25:01.279-08:00SAVE ME FROM ONIONDOMFreshly back from the magnificent country of the Orange Free State - a touch like John Ford's Monument Valley here and there - in South Africa, I face an in-store signing of the new Fonthill novel, THE WAR OF THE DRAGON LADY, from ll am to one-ish on Saturday, 25th February in Waterstones, Salisbury.<br /><br /> I do not fancy sitting there, like an onion, with no-one to talk to, so if any fans of Simon Fonthill & Co are in the area on that day, do call in. You don't have to buy a book (although, by golly, it would be great if you could...); just come and say hello.<br /><br /> Thank you in advance.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-11728951381438337162012-01-20T05:36:00.000-08:002012-01-20T06:20:17.868-08:00WILCOX ON THE VELDTPersisten bronchitis permitting, I fly out from London to Johannesburg on Tuesday to conduct on-the-spot research for Fonthill number nine, now firmly titled "FIRE ACROSS THE VELDT." This is, of course, set against the background of the second and best known Anglo-Boer War, the last of Queen Victoria's "Little Wars," although this one was certainly not so little.<br /><br /> The novel will be published by my new publishers Allison & Busby in January 20(hard back) with the paperback to follow in September of that year and the audio and large print versions due out somewhere in between.<br /><br /> As a previous blog refers, I have already begun writing the story but there comes a time when one has to visit the sites that one is describing to get the feel, the smell and the physical contours of the place to recreate it - even though it may have changed in 110 years. And that time has come for this book.<br /><br /> I have always tried to observe the factual chronology of my stories and I had a problem with this one. This lay in the fact that the first half of the Boer War, when the Brits took such a hiding from those "amateur soldiers," the Boer farmers, at Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop, coincided with the Boxer Rebellion in China and I couldn't have Fonthill in both places.<br /><br /> But what seemed a problem turned into an advantage,for the second half of the conflict in South Africa, which coincided with the relief of Peking, turned out to be much more fascinating to me. As reinforcements poured into Cape Town from Britain and various parts of the Empire the tide of the conventional war turned and the Boers were defeated in set piece battles, losing their State capitals. The war seemed over and Field Marshal Roberts sailed for home, leaving General Kitchener to "tidy up."<br /><br /> K, however, sensed it wouldn't be that easy. The hard core of the Afrikan army took to the veldt, forming fast-moving units which lived rough and conducted guerrilla warfare against the extended British lines and outposts. Reading of Fonthill's exploits in China and knowing of his reputation as an irregular soldier, the General summons him to the Cape to help him "fight the Boers at their own game."<br /><br /> Fonthill can't resist the challenge. The trouble for me, however, was that the places where Fonthill and 352 Jenkins clash with the great Boer commando leaders - De Wet, Botha, Smuts et al - were mainly in remote regions of the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and the northern mountains of the Cape Colony, sites not always well described in the books of the period. So I must go and see for myself.<br /><br /> And if the clear air of the High Veldt doesn't defeat this lingering bronchitis, then I shall turn to drink.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-46864369938883904732011-12-16T10:07:00.000-08:002011-12-16T10:34:25.607-08:00Bloody bronchitisI have bronchitis. Now I know that this news is not up there on a par with the recent doings of the leaders of the European Union, nor even of the latest twist in Katie Price's love life. But, damnit, it has taken over my existence at the moment. <br /><br /> Any fool can have bronchitis, of course, but mine is PARTICULARLY INTERESTING and I feel I must share its fascinating details with you.<br /><br /> This is noisy bronchitis. Noisy, that is in two ways. There is the conventional rasping wheezing, coughing and expectoration (ordinary people spit; authors expectorate), which is so painful and debilitating. But my bronchitis has a very distinctive voice of its own, which emerges when I put my head on the pillow at night and desperately try to sleep.<br /><br /> You see, across my lungs and inside my chest there is coiled a serpent. It has two voices: an initial and constant bubbling kind of rasping murmur just to show you that it is there and and hates you. It is sufficient to keep you awake. Then, just when you think you might be drifting away, the second emerges.<br /><br /> This is when the serpent lifts its head from its coils and decides to strike. This is a manevolent hiss that precedes the slash upwards into the throat which brings on, suddenly and viciously, the bout of frenzied coughing.<br /><br /> Fanciful? Not at two a.m. it isn't, when you are all alone in the blackness<br />of the night and the terrors press in. Mind you, perhaps this is a form of bronchitis that only writers get. Creativity gone mad, do you think? Nah. Can't be. It's too real.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-85252795621766295722011-12-03T06:45:00.001-08:002011-12-03T06:52:34.671-08:00Swindon hears about FonthillThose of you out there who follow the doings of Simon Fonthill, Jenkins, Alice and Co and who live within a spit or so of Swindon in North Wiltshire might care to know that I will be talking about them all at Highworth Library on Monday evening (5th Dec) at 7.30.<br /><br /> The talk is entitled "The Pitfalls and Pleasures of Writing Historical Fiction" but I will dig a bit into how these characters were created and developed. Everyone is welcome (no charge)and the address is Highworth Library, Brewery Street, Highworth, Swindon (just off the A419).<br /><br /> Do come and shout "Rubbish" from the back of the hall.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-27963762201439110842011-11-28T04:14:00.000-08:002011-11-28T04:28:44.330-08:00IMPERIAL ECHOES IN THE PLIGHT OF THOMAS COOKI am feeling distinctly sad about the Thomas Cook saga. You will know that the famous old company - Britain's second biggest tour operator - is virtually broke. It has net debts of £1billion, is said to be spending £30million a month and its share price has collapsed. It has gained a day or two of breathing space by negotiating a £200 million loan from its banks, so the word is that it will get through the crucial January holiday booking period. But its mid and long term future looks shaky.<br /><br /> I am sorry not because I depend upon the company for getting me about the planet, but because it played a not insignificant part in Britain's imperial history about which, some of you may have noticed, I rather like to write.<br /><br /> When, in 1896 Kitchener was planning his invasion of the Sudan to attack the Dervishes in Khartoum, way up river in the south, it was to Thomas Cook that he turned to take his supplies down the Nile to feed his advancing army. Without Cook's famous river steamers he would not have been able to fight the Mahdi's army at Omdurman two years later.<br /><br /> Sad that such a once important company is struggling in these hard times. Lord Kitchener of Khartoum must be turning in his watery grave.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-67350951485085958772011-11-18T03:35:00.000-08:002011-11-18T03:50:06.227-08:00FONTHILL RIDES AGAIN!These are the keyprints of a happy chap. Happy because my old mate Simon Fonthill is riding again. I have just left him at the end of Chapter One of the ninth Fonthill adventure, he having escaped the clutches of the famous Boer commando leader Christian de Wet, with Alice, Jenkins and their black tracker, Mzingeli, and boarded a British armoured train in the Orange Free State in late September 1900.<br /><br /> Yes. It's the Boer war - the second, because loyal readers will remember that Fonthill & Co fought in the first Anglo-Boer War, then called the Transvaal War, which ended in 'Last Stand on Majuba Hill.'<br /><br /> In fact, it should be admitted that the trio have been back for some time, having gone through the perils of the Boxer Rebellion in China in the eight novel, 'The War of the Dragon Lady,' which will hit the bookstalls in hard back in January and then in paperback the following September.<br /><br /> But for me I only know that the intrepid army scout - poor horseman, indifferent shot but inventive opponent of all enemies of Queen Victoria in so many of her 'little wars' of the last quarter of the nineteenth century - is alive again when I write about him. And it is good to have his company once more.<br /><br /> This novel (working title, which won't survive, is 'Commando!') is due out early in 2013. I am already saddle sore.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-21002527632787790742011-10-04T04:22:00.000-07:002011-10-04T04:42:30.913-07:00AH, THE POWER...!This blog doesn't usually wash its feet in the dirty water of politics - particularly those of another country. But it did recently bewail the rise of Rick Perry as favourite in the Republican race for nomination as US president, pointing out how unwise it was to tread in the footsteps of his Texam predecessor, the Great George W.<br /><br />How satisfying, then, to read that Perry has now so quickly fallen away in the nomination stakes, following disclosures that as Texas Governor he lured subprime mortgage lenders to his state only to have to bail them out with $35 of taxpayers money.<br /><br />Ah, the power of a blog! I really must see what I can do to bring down other despots: Mugabe, Putin, George Osborne, perhaps?John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-48009968743224814932011-09-06T09:52:00.000-07:002011-09-08T06:11:44.090-07:00GEORGE W.BUSH - WHAT A HERO!Gloom and misery everywhere. The economies of Britain, the USA and the Eurozone are in deep trouble; the war in Afghanistan shows no sign of ending; Britain's MI5 is accused of complicity with America in the systematic torturing of terrorist suspects; thousands are awaiting sentencing following our recent riots; and President Obama's chances of re-election next year seem to be falling as fast as the stock markets.<br /><br />Viewed from this side of the pond, the Republican party in the States seems to be in the ascendant. Desite the fact that no clear leader has emerged to take on the President next year, the right wing is chortling at the way it humbled Obama over the threat of a default on the nation's debts. Each of the putative Republican candidates seem to be jostling to appear more xenophobic than the rest. Tea cups are rattling all over the mid-West.<br /><br />Now, would you believe it, the latest front-runner, Rick Perry, is Governor of Texas, he looks and sounds like his great forebear in the job, George W. Bush and he even wears cowboy boots!! To this lover of the USA, it seems as if the world has gone mad. May I, then, in the spirit of comradeship, beg the voters of the great US to consider recent history.<br /><br />When George W. moved into the White House in 2001, the USA had a two trillion dollar budget surplus. It even looked as if the national debt of 5.7 trillion dollars could be eliminated by the end of the decade. It's worth reflecting what this other, older, cowboy-booted Texan then did.<br /><br />He cut taxes, reducing annual revenues by 1.8 trillion dollars. He declared a war on terror and set up two military invasions far from American shores, financing them entirely by borrowing. The wars and consequent increases in defence spending added 1.5 trillion dollars to the national debt. At the same time, he looked on serenely as Wall Street and the American Banks over-lent, so precipitating the Western financial crisis.<br /><br />By the time he left office, Bush had squandered Clinton's surplus and nearly doubled the size of the debt, adding more to it than any president in American history.<br /><br />It would surely be an exaggeration to blame the man for all of the ills listed in my first paragraph. One person can't be responsible for all that, can he? Or can he? I acquit George W of causing the onset of winter and the arthritis in my right knee. But for most of the rest, there's a smell of Texan denim clinging to it all.<br /><br />The American electorate should think on it.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813103782490459672.post-46513667228657323472011-07-18T08:34:00.000-07:002011-07-18T09:42:03.268-07:00A CYNICAL ASSASSINATIONI never thought I would write these words, but here goes: I don't think that Rupert Murdoch should have closed down "The News of the World." <br /><br /> As an ex broadsheet journalist, I disliked the paper intensely and the recent revalations about telephone hacking and payments to the police merely confirmed my view that its news gathering was often unprincipled and its content usually cheap and poor journalistically. Shutting it down, however, seems to me to be a cynical attempt to divert attention from the projected BSkyB bid; throwing the paper to the pursuing wolves to save the occupants of the sledge.<br /><br /> As I understand it, the present staff of the newspaper are not accused of any wrongdoing. To throw them out of work, then, seems grossly unfair, even though Murdoch has stated that "most" of them are to be offered jobs elsewhere in his empire. And, crude and superficial as the NOTW's content always appeared to me, it was welcomed as an old friend into more homes in Britain than any other paper. <br /><br /> So I would have cleared out the stable but kept the horse alive - hunted down the original wrongdoers and those few who still existed in the newsroom and management corridors and passed them over to the investigating police. This old-established newspaper could have been scrubbed down and re-launched, keeping its title and most of its present staff and returning to honest news gathering, presented in vigorous tabloid style, and yes, studded with celebrity names for those who like that sort of tack. <br /><br /> The irony, of course, is that the sacrifice of the paper seems, on present evidence, to have been in vain. Murdoch has had to withdraw his bid for BSkyB in the face of public opposition, anyway. <br /><br /> His strategy now seems to be to lie low and hope that the fuss will die down so that he can make a renewed bid for control of the television channel later. Will it? Well, the old Aussie (though he gave up his nationality and became an American citizen just so that he could buy into American TV) remains a real live newsman with a flair for popular taste and opinion. He might just get away with it.<br /><br /> But he will have had the fright of his life. And a much loved piece of Sunday rubbish journalism will have disappeared from our week-end breakfast tables.John Wilcoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997115366639869621noreply@blogger.com0