From the anals of musical history

Mes Amis

European Union... Charlie Williams, author of the funny (and somwhat scary) Deadfolk has let loose some of the inhabitants of Mangel on his blog... well, one of them... standing in for "the usual bloke" Keith from Frotsoft - Mangel's premier internet design company (did they really design Microsoft's website, I wonder?) - has a bit of advice for those intent on buttering up a nice bit of crumpet (with jam)... I'll never mock Europe again...

Sideways... Its Swingers ten years down the line. Two guys go for a trip in the California wine country before one of them gets married off... the divorced, nervous writer just wants to drink the wine but his friend the actor wants to get it on the last week before his wedding... Sideways is funny, its rather sad and its brilliantly acted but FOR GOODNESS SAKES NOT ALL WRITERS ARE NEUROTIC.. Ahem... I'm sure, there must be some of us out there who ain't, at least...

Its a matter of opinion... so I just found the blog of some writer I reviewed a while back... turns out as a reviewer, "brother, [I'm] bad". Without going into details (the person kept my name and specific details out of things so I'll do the same courtesy) they thought they'd written something and I actually thought they'd written another. What I do love is that they ignore the fact I did say positive things about their work... its just that they failed, for me, in the bigger picture... and despite their best intentions, there was nothing that was different to anything else I'd read in the genre especially the big bestseller I compared it to... Oh well, that's what you get for being honest... I think some writers just expect automatic good reviews... At least Christopher Brookmyre has a sense of humour about bad reviews...

So that's it till next time.. nice to see you up here, Beccy... You'd forgotten you'd started this thing, hadn't you?

Au revoir