A Tribute to 24

Since I wrote this a year ago, of course, the new series is now on, but I'm saving it to watch all at once when it's finished!

22 April 2013

Okay, I was late coming to the party.  I never watched TV series '24' when it came out.  Throughout the 'noughties' I didn't watch much telly.  However, I've caught up.  I've watched the whole 8 series in the last couple of months; I watched the last episode last night and I don't know what I am going to do with all those telly hours, now.  After a long day at the laptop, I can no longer relax with Jack and co.  Unless I start from the beginning and watch the whole thing over again.  I think that's the only thing left to do - I tried watching a new series tonight and it was just - well, it wasn't 24.

Anyway, being obsessed, as I am, I have made my Top 20 of my favourite characters throughout the series.  I hope fellow CTU and Bauer addicts will enjoy!  


The countdown....

20

KATE WARNER

Played by Sarah Wynter.  I liked her because she wasn't a silly girly, and just got on and did stuff even though she was scared - and even though it involved the capture of her evil terrorist sister.  She was the only one of Jack's women who didn't come to a sticky end.  Probably just as well for her that he dumped her, really.

19

CURTIS MANNING

Played by Roger R Cross.  One of those new CTU agents who don't approve of Jack's methods, but ends up seeing that his is the only way.  Pity he didn't hold on to that knowledge; Jack was forced to kill him, after which he was seen crouching on the ground giving it "I can't do this anymore." Curtis was a decent chap, and his friend.

18

RYAN CHAPELLE

Played by Paul Schulze.  The sort of chap you think is a bit of a tit at first, then realise is a good guy.  So sad how he went willingly when Jack was forced to kill him to appease terrorists.  Especially sad when Jack asked him if there was anyone he'd like him to contact and he said no; he had no close family, and no friends; it had always just been the job.  It was all for nothing, too...

17

GRAEM BAUER

Played by Paul McCrane.  Jack's evil brother.  Seemed so sinister and powerful when he was controlling President Logan, but so much less so when Jack got hold of him.  Then he just seemed pathetic; especially as it was obvious he had, like, issues with his ditzy wife being an ex of Jack's - and probably still in love with him.  Suspect his whole life had been destroyed by one-sided sibling rivalry....  Hands up who else thought his son was going to turn out to be Jack's?

16

MIKE NOVICK

Played by Jude Ciccolella.  Original Chief of Staff for David Palmer, made a bit of a prat of himself and had to resign, but redeemed himself later, sussing out many of the Charles Logan shenanigans.  Really liked him even though he only showed one facial expression all the way through.

15

EDGAR STILES

Played by Louis Lombardi.  CTU systems analyst guy, always arguing about stuff that didn't matter, with Chloe, but good at sussing out the stuff that did matter, in the end.  Became Chloe's friend; so sad when he was one of the casualties when CTU was attacked by lethal gas and he was unable to get to the secure room in time.  Remember Chloe finding that picture of the two of them together?

14

DANA WALSH

Played by Katee Sackhoff.  At first I thought the constant pout was going to be too annoying, but she became much more interesting when her dodgy past was revealed - and even more so when she was discovered to be a baddie.  Didn't see that coming at all.  She still managed to pout a lot even when she was shooting people to make various escapes, but by then she'd redeemed herself by doing lots of good stuff like breaking out of "APPREHEND ON SITE".

(Note 11/4/2013: special mention here for the wonderfully loony Martha Logan and the hilarious Maurice O'Brian - I've just watched series 5 again...)

13 

ETHAN KANIN

Played by Bob Gunton.  Loved him anyway for sussing out President Taylor's horrendous daughter Olivia, and also for getting the better of her, but loved him even more when he stood up against President Taylor, and tried to stop her making the worst decision she could ever make.  Failed, poor chap, but expect he's enjoying a peaceful retirement.

12

ALISON TAYLOR

Played by Cherry Jones.  President of US and all round woman with the right ideas, especially putting her own daughter, the ghastly Olivia, in prison.  She was a lady on an idealistic mission of good - until she made a deal with the devil.  Happily this backfired on her, but she redeemed herself in my eyes by being a big fan of Jack and, of course, facilitating what we hope was his final escape....

11

BILL BUCHANAN

Played by James Morrison.  One of the best, albeit with a slightly 'jobsworth' start.  Very pleased when he got together with Karen Hayes, who later disappeared as if she had never existed, it seemed.  Or maybe I missed something.  Loved the way he started up again in 'deep cover' after the dismantling of CT, (Oh, and, ladies, I loved the new white-hair-and-black-polo look in Series 7, too, didn't you?)

10

SHERRI PALMER

Played by Penny Johnson.  Always felt a bit sorry for her because she still loved President David Palmer, but kinda got it all wrong.  One of those not-a-goodie-but-not-quite-a-real-baddie people.  Clever manipulators always make great characters, of course.  

9

RENEE WALKER

Played by Annie Wersching.  Definitely the best of Jack's birds.  Much more interesting when she came back after her breakdown in Series 8.  Obviously had a better hairdo in the previous series, though.  Loved her because she was tough and sharp and quick, and a worthy partner for Jack.  Tragic end, had me in tears.

8

CHARLES LOGAN

Played by Gregory Itzin.  What a brilliant character - a man who is evil because he is weak and vain.  Easily manipulated because he was so cowardly, but learnt to manipulate others, too.  Not one single redeeming feature; even his feelings for his wife (his only true ones, I thought, aside from his own vanity) were very much on his terms only.  Without any principles whatsoever - and, of course, right at the end of Series 8 he spilled the beans at the very touch of a blade to his throat. No staying loyal to or protecting his associates for President Charles Logan.

7

GEORGE MASON

Played by Xander Berkeley.  Jack's first adversary - remember when he disabled him right at the beginning of Series 1?  Seemed like a right stuffed shirt at first, but showed his heroic true colours when he was contaminated by radiation, yet told no-one of it and struggled through to do what he could in his remaining hours.  His final flight, to deliver the nuclear bomb over the desert, and his final goodbye to Jack, was one of the most moving moments of all the series.  Sniff sniff sniff. 

6

AARON PIERCE

Played by Glen Morshower.  What a man!  The sort of guy you want on your side, quietly, just there watching, listening, doing the right thing and sussing stuff out.  Glad he found some happiness at the end of it, however briefly, with Martha Logan; you could tell he was happy because he was wearing casual clothes.  Seemed like the wiggly ear wire was still there, though, all the same.  Perhaps it still was.

5

NINA MYERS

Played by Sarah Clarke.  The best baddie of the lot - because she was such a convincing goodie I was even wishing, in Series 1, that Jack was still with her instead of the extraordinarily irritating Teri.  Had no idea at all what she was up to - and I loved her supreme baddie-ness in that she didn't even have any principles, wasn't affliated to any cause, just did it all for the money.  I still think Jack fancied her, even when he'd tied her up in some barn in Mexico. I'm sure they had a 'moment'....

4

TONY ALMEIDA

Played by Carlos Bernard.  I dunno, nothing was ever going to go right for Tony, was it?  He had a chip on his shoulder right from Day One, really, when he was knocking off Nina Myers and thought she still fancied Jack.  I never took to Michelle, but I felt so gutted for him, the way he kept doing a whole bunch of good stuff, like Jack, then getting banged up for his trouble.  No wonder he went bad.  I think that he genuinely cared for Jack as a buddy, though, even when he was double crossing him.  If you know what I mean.

3

DAVID PALMER

Played by Dennis Haysbert.  What a guy!  How could one man be bestowed with so many wonderful, God-like qualities?  Sincere, honest, decent, brave, principled, but with humility, too.  Also in the top 5 of Most Tear Provoking Moments:  when he said his last goodbye to Jack, before Jack disappeared pretending to be dead.  The way he called him 'my friend' - not a dry eye in the house!  GUTTED when he was killed.  On re-watching Series 4 last week, it occurred to me that if Dennis Haysbert ran for Presidency in real life, it would probably be a landslide.

2


CHLOE O'BRIAN

Played by Mary Lynn Rajskub.  How could you not love Chloe?  Still wearing her pissed off teenage schoolgirl facial expression even when she was heading up CTU, patching real time satellite images through to Jack's PDA like she was born to it, hour in, hour out.  Loved the way she said what she thought to stupid pretentious people and didn't stand for any shit - and, of course, the way she was the one person Jack could rely on, always.  Well, she was one of the very few who weren't dead, of course.  

1

JACK BAUER

Don't need to say who played him, do I?  

Jack, our hero, the man who saves the world over and over again.  

The man who is brutalised in a Chinese prison for two years, and needs only a shave and a change of clothes, then he's back saving the world again.  

Jack, we love you.  

Copy that

Hope we'll see you again one day ~ wherever you are....

and indeed we will!

I don't follow you back on Twitter if....

• you don't have a profile picture - come on, there must be something you can upload....
• you don't have a bio - although I do make an exception if you look nice!
• we don't share any interests at all, as I don't see the point - nothing personal
• you mention the words TEAM FOLLOW BACK
• your profile picture is of someone's genitalia (I realise it won't be your own, as I doubt very much that people with the bodies displayed on such pictures have to go trawling Twitter looking for sex partners)
• you are an author of the type of erotica that is openly hardcore porn
• you reckon you're a book marketing/social media expert (bet you're not!)
• you are a rap artist (nothing against you, just really not into that sort of music)
• you are a book; I prefer to follow the writer, not the book 
• you send me tweets telling me to follow you back
• you send me tweets trying to flog me something
• you send me tweets asking me to RT something without even having said hello
• your bio implies that you are looking for sexual shenanigans
• I don't think your profile photo belongs to you
• your bio says 'download book here' followed by the link
• your bio isn't written in English
• your bio is semi-literate
• you try to be clever - I have since found out what a 'petanquist' is, but I still reckon he was just showing off
• you claim to be 'inspirational' (bet you're not!), or have 'eclectic tastes', or be a 'self-confessed geek'
• your bio is some worn out, so called 'profound' quotation
• you describe yourself as an entrepreneur, or, worse, a 'mediapreneur' - or the horrendous 'mompreneur'
• your bio is a mass of hashtags - why???
• you are a Belieber

My new novel FULL CIRCLE - out soon!

... cross fingers!


FULL CIRCLE is the sequel to my fourth novel, DREAM ON, but can also be read as a stand alone.   If you'd like to read about love triangles, infidelity, the lure of celebrity, the destructive nature of alcohol addiction, with a bit of rock music thrown in, then I think you may enjoy it ~ oh, and it's quite funny in parts, too - well, my husband and sister have both read it and laughed out loud at some bits, anyway!

The cover (give or take some changes that may be made)

Here's an early draft of the Amazon blurb:

~~~ ~~~

FULL CIRCLE is the sequel to Terry Tyler’s fourth novel, DREAM ON, but can be enjoyed as a stand alone.  It’s a tale of love triangles, infidelity, an English rock band, the lure of celebrity, and the destructive nature of alcohol addiction.  FULL CIRCLE ~ love, sex and marriage, rock music and secret affairs, with a few laughs along the way!

***

Two years have passed since we left Dave, Ariel, Janice and Shane at the end of DREAM ON. 

ARIEL thought her hard work and perseverance had been rewarded when she met record producer Theo Perlmutter ~ then a tragic event turned her dreams to dust.

Newly married JANICE was happier than she’d ever been ~ but the honeymoon ended when born again alcoholic husband Max careered off the wagon and into the nearest bar.

Being dragged onto The Jeremy Kyle Show in DREAM ON was not enough to make ladies' man SHANE learn his lesson – will his philandering ways eventually catch up with him?

Rock band THOR has risen from the ashes…

… but DAVE is unhappy, trapped in a domestic situation not of his choosing.

Will there be a happy ever after ending for any of them?

~~~ ~~~

I'm hoping it will be out by the middle of April - until then, my fingers are staying crossed!

For those who loved to hate Fifty Shades....

.....  here's something you might be interested in - a spoof, released today!  

ONE SHADE OF RED

by Scott Bury

Here are the Amazon links if you'd like to take a look:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Shade-of-Red-ebook/dp/B00C28NLJA/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1364940322&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/One-Shade-of-Red-ebook/dp/B00C28NLJA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1364940581&sr=1-1&keywords=One+Shade+of+Red

And it's only 77p or $1.17!  

Follow Scott on Twitter @ScottTheWriter

https://twitter.com/ScottTheWriter

How to be really, really cool....

This morning there was ice on the pavements that didn't even start to melt until about 10.30.  Freezing cold day! I was watching two schoolboys out of the window.  They were dressed as if for spring, as is the habit of teenage boys in winter because it proves prove how hard and cool they are.  I wrote a very short story about them.

~ So cool he had hypothermia ~

Danny shivered all the way to school.  He slid along the icy pavement, hands in pockets, freezing frosty fingers feeling their way through the material of his not-thick-enough school trousers.  His also-not-thick-enough grey school blazer gave little protection against the 'wind chill factor', whatever that was.  Sounded bloody cold, anyway, and it was.  Under his blazer he wore a white shirt and his school tie, the same as he did in the summer.  His mam had tried to wrap him up in a daft duffle coat type thing and some stupid hat, but there was no way on earth he was going to school dressed like that.  Only the geeks and nerds wore hats and gloves, the sort that handed their homework in on time, were scared to smoke and couldn't get off with any girls. Kids.  Geek chic hasn't reached this part of the North East yet.  Danny was hard and cool, and he lit a tab just to prove it.  His hands were so cold he could hardly light it.


Further down the road he met up with Jake and  Matt. They, too, looked cool and macho in their thin blazers and shirts.  Matt's lips were a weird shade of purple; no, he wasn't turning Goth, he was just cold.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be a Goth, Danny thought - at least they got to wear big black coats.

Jake lit two cigarettes from the stub of Danny's, and handed one to Matt.

"Look at that gay twat over there," he said, teeth chattering, as he pointed at a lad from their class, shuffling along on the opposite pavement, dressed in a parka and a Peruvian style hat, patterned, with a bobble on the top and long flaps over the ears.

"Twat," agreed Danny, though he was so cold he could hardly get the words out.

When they got to the school gates they joined one of the groups standing outside the gates, smoking cigarettes before they went in.  One of their classmates, Oliver, wore a huge padded coat, like a skiing jacket, and one of those warm black Thinsulate hats. He was laughing with a couple of the girls, clapping woollen gloved hands together.

"Your mam get you all togged up for the cold this morning, did she?" Matt said, through lips that were turning from purple to blue, now.

"Aye, did she give you your Ready Brek too?" Jake said.

Oliver looked at him, and laughed.  "It's the middle of winter, man."

"You look a right mammy's boy!" said Matt.

 Oliver raised an eyebrow.  "So caring what prats like you think is going to keep me warm, is it?"

He walked off, arm in arm with a girl called Freya, who Danny had fancied for ages.  


Next morning, Danny wore the coat and hat. 

And the moral of this story is ~ 

a) Trying to be cool guarantees that you aren't
b) Not caring what people think is the coolest thing of all
c) Few things suck worse than being a teenager and having to go out in the cold


(ps: my husband is 47, and still refuses to wear a hat, gloves and scarf....  )

Two Brief Moans.....

Added Sugar

It's everywhere, isn't it?  The other day I was looking at a small carton of supposedly 'healthy eating' beetroot and carrot salad in a supermarket.  On studying it carefully, I found that it contained nearly 300 calories.  How the hell did they manage to get 300 calories into a beetroot and carrot salad?  Of course, the sugar....  it was the same when I looked at many of the fruit juices.  You might as well eat a banana and a kiwi fruit and have a tablespoonful of sugar; at least you'd be getting the fibre from the fruit itself.  And don't get me started on the 'Innocent' smoothie range - you feel as if your teeth are falling out on the first mouthful....


It's a bit like the phrase 'all natural' - yeah, and so are cancerous growths.  Or that 'one of your 5-a-day' rubbish - I watched a documentary on this a while back and there's no legislation governing this claim at all - anyone can put it on anything, even if all it's got in it are a few over processed bits of spud.  


The Perfect Gift

Since about January 25th, everything was being flogged as 'the perfect gift for Valentine's Day'.  My husband had emails from Amazon trying to sell him everything from books to electrical items to garden tools, under the guise that they were just what she or he needed for that day that used to be about secret admirers declaring their love. Now it's the end of February, everything is 'the perfect gift for Mothers' Day' - cue ghastly compilation CDs by sundry crooners that will end up in record shops' bargain bins.  Next it will be Easter, then Fathers' Day, then they get a bit stuck, until Hallowe'en, I suppose.  


I'm thinking of buying a van load of umbrellas wholesale and flogging them as 'the perfect gift for St Swithin's Day'.  US readers, you'll have to look it up!

THE TRUTH ABOUT GETTING OLD....

 Forty is the old age of youth, and fifty is the youth of old age.  

It's not just that you haven't heard of any of the bands/acts in the Top 40, it's that you don't care that you haven't.  (Severe cases will still call it ‘The Hit Parade’) 

Remember these?

Similarly, you see strange words trending on Twitter, click on them to see what they are, and discover they're some band you've never heard of. They all look like children to you. You consider posting a Lou Reed video but don't get round to it... 

In order to get yourself going in the morning, you don’t just need a strong cup of coffee.  You need several - and a can of WD40. 

Remember when you used to hate staying in on a Saturday night?  Now, don’t you hate it if you have to go out?

...your idea of a good Saturday night is probably, like mine, a nice bath, clean bedclothes, and a jolly good film, watched in bed …

To think I used to go and do this sort of thing BY CHOICE....

(actually, thinking of a ‘nice bath’ as something of a treat is another tell-tale sign!) 

D'you remember about fifteen years ago when, if you’d put on a ‘few pounds’, you could just diet for a fortnight and it’d be gone?  Doesn’t work anymore, does it?

In your twenties, you and your friends have phone calls to discuss men and clothes.  In your thirties, it’s jobs, children, weight.  In your forties you discuss ‘life’.  In your fifties, you compare ailments … okay, you tell me about your cataracts, and then we’ll do my arthritic knee… 

The actors you fancy on telly have grey hair and laughter lines aplenty …

You probably speak your mind a bit more … perhaps you're becoming a bit of a dotty old bird, without realising it... this is me and my similarly old and peculiar sister - or is it Wayne's World??

You can now look at fresh-faced young women and admire their beauty, without feeling jealous; they're so far away from you that they might as well be another species.

Look - no sagging jowls!!  (me on the right, aged 30)

You find that you’re more accepted by older, straighter people.  The sort that used to look at you with a faint air of disapproval/envy/discomfort.  This is because you no longer appear edgy, hip, groovy and 'out there'.  Well, not on first impression, anyway....

However many early nights you have, however many AFDs (alcohol free days), you still don’t look as good as you did the morning after a whole weekend of debauchery ten years ago.

It’s so hard to find clothes that look nice without being too young for you or too middle aged, but that still disguise all those bits of you that aren’t as pretty as they once were.... 

You've probably been saying things like 'yes, well, life isn't fair' to your children/step-children/nieces and nephews for about ten years, now - you remember your father saying that to you? 

If you are lucky enough to have parents still alive, you worry about them in the way they worried about you when you were a child 

Do you remember the things your parents used to say when you watched Top Of The Pops?  Now, when you see the currently chart-popular on television, you say all those things, too.  "Why can't she just stand there and sing it without waving her arms around?"  "Why is he wearing that stupid hat?"

Your youth is a magic memory of long ago, when the world was so different, in so many ways...
... and you can bore for England talking about it, too ... 

Isn't it nice?  You take more pleasure in standing and staring; the light in the sky, the leaves rustling in the breeze ~ ~ ~  and you do things like taking pictures of your houseplants to put on Twitter.

Hangovers last days, not hours.  That’s if you can manage to get drunk enough to get one in the first place, without falling asleep half way through, or asking for a nice cup of tea. 

You find it frustrating that younger people don't take your advice.  You thought your dad didn't know what he was talking about as well, didn't you, eh?

Each birthday, you contemplate how old you are and think, how the hell did that happen?!

I'm the one in the white shawl - aged 10 days!

If you go to see your favourite old bands on their first tour for six years (or whatever), the audience is full of lots of grey haired people like you.

You probably look back on all your mistakes, sometimes. I bet you wouldn't change many of them, though, because they've made you the person you are now.  But you might still make mental lists of 'things I wish I'd known at 18'.  This used to be a regular feature in the Sunday Times when I was about 21.  I didn't understand it at the time; I read it, but of course I thought I was immortal, then, like all people of that age, and didn't realise that one day my whole life wouldn't be all stretched out in front of me, waiting to be filled.

When you were 20, you thought 40 was past it, didn't you?  When you're over 50, though, you realise that even 60 is still alive and kicking..!! 

The best bit about getting old, though, is the fact that you've got there at all.

Amen!

"Since The Smoking Ban...."

The other day on breakfast television I saw an item that made me feel really annoyed.  It declared that 'since the smoking ban, reported cases of childhood asthma had fallen by blah blah percent'.

No, of course I wasn't annoyed by the fall in reported cases of childhood asthma. What annoyed me was the reporting method of this information.

To accompany the spoken report, they showed a man standing outside his house, in the snow, shivering as he drank a cup of hot beverage and smoked a cigarette.  Outside his house.  

Since when did smoking in one's own home become illegal?


The purpose of this piece of film was, clearly, to influence the impressionable public to think that nasty dirty smokers should not even be allowed to smoke in their own houses.  That they should be ostracised and made to stand out in the cold.

I smoke between one and five cigarettes a day.  Since my husband gave up, I do not smoke in the house.  I would not dream of lighting up in the house of a non-smoker, or around children under ten, or in any of the places where it is no longer allowed, including open air railway platforms (ludicrous!).  But whether or not people smoke in their homes is up to them, and should continue to be so.  I think it is far more damaging for children to watch pap on television, to have access to internet porn and the soft porn of many music videos, to have unrealistic expectations about how they should look, to play violent video games, than it is to breathe in the smoke from the occasional tab, yet all these things are legal and actively promoted.

Most notably, the cases of reported childhood asthma were a lot higher in the ten years leading up to the smoking ban than they were in the 1950s and 1960s when everyone smoked, freely, everywhere.  Could this rise have been connected more with all the chemicals in the air, in the foods we eat, and in God only knows what else that we don't know about, than cigarettes?  Most smokers with children didn't smoke in the house, anyway ~ it didn't take an official ban to stop them doing so.

The other day I got ticked off by a 'jobsworth' type for smoking just outside a bus shelter, in the open air.  He told me that 'they' would have something to say if they caught me. 

Smoking is not a crime.  There are very few places left where we can enjoy a fag without having to stand out in the cold; don't try to make people feel as if they are commiting a crime by choosing to have a cigarette in the privacy of their own home - or indeed in the open air.  If I'm having a fag in a pub garden and you don't like it, go and sit somewhere else!

OH MY GOD I'M SUCH A FAT PIG!!

..... yes, it's that time of year!


Last night I looked in the mirror and was appalled by what I saw.  However skillful your make-up, nothing can disguise those chubby cheeks...  and don't get me started on the stomach that seems to the THERE, in my way, whatever I'm doing....

I decided, this morning, that a drastic kick-start was necessary.  Last year, a friend of mine went from being fairly hefty to looking pretty good, by doing one of those diets where you pay someone shedloads of money to send you a load of dried STUFF, then just eat that instead of real food.  Sounds a bit crazy, yes, but it worked, she looks great, and she's kept it off.  

I knew that she'd been on these special 'juice cleanse' things, too, obtained from the same company.  I don't usually go in for that sort of thing, but, as I said, emergency measures are called for, particularly as in two weeks' time I have to meet up with two slim and glamorous friends who I haven't seen for a while!

Aforementioned friend gave me the link to the website for this 'juice cleanse' thingy.  I looked at it.  The cost was £200 for a 5 day course.

Okay, you've picked yourself up off the floor, right?  But I expect you thought the same as I did.  Two hundred quid for five days' worth of fruit juice??? What sort of profit margin do they make on that, one wonders??  I'm in the wrong job!  

So, that one's out of the window.  I shall now go to Morrissons, and buy lots of fruit to make my own.  

On the subject of having to meet my slim and glamorous friends, though, something else occurred to me.  Men don't worry about this sort of thing, do they?  Why can't women be more like men?  

Consider these two scenarios.

Scenario I

Clare, Lucy and Emma meet up for the first time in 6 months.  Clare has put on a lot of weight.

Clare: God, I was dreading meeting up with you - I've really piled the weight on since giving up my job.  Well, you can see I have - okay, I've been sitting on the sofa with the ice cream too...  I feel horrible!

Lucy: You still look fine.  Honestly, it's not half as bad as you think, and you're wearing the right clothes to hide it.

Emma:  Don't worry.  Happens to us all.  Try the Atkins diet, it's brilliant.  But you look great, anyway! 

Clare goes to loo...

Lucy:  Crikey, hasn't she piled it on!  I mean, she's still pretty, but ...

Emma.  Yeah, but she needs to get a grip.  She told me she's a size 14, but I reckon it's more like 16.....

Both cast an eye up and down each other's forms, to assess which of them is the thinnest. 

Scenario 2

John and Bob are meeting up for the first time in 6 months.  John has put on a lot of weight.

Bob (giving John's stomach a playful slap): Christ, mate, what's all that?  Did you leave any of the pies for anyone else??!

John:  Fuck off you cheeky tosser.

They laugh and retire to the bar for a drink, the subject now done and dusted.

I write the books I want to read - do you?

..... I don't think I could write any other way!  There are certain subjects I LOVE to read about, so I put them in my books, because I love to write about them, too - when I start a new book I always think, ooh, what can I put in this one?  Does everyone do this?  


One of the things I love reading about, in magazines and newspaper articles, too, is women who are diet obsessed - how they feel about putting on weight, how their image of themselves affects their life, the lengths they go to in order to limit their food intake - which is why I created SARAH in 'You Wish'.  

...and I also have a strange fascination with people who can't accept that someone they're crazy about is not interested in them, and who do all sorts of cringe-making things in their self-delusion - PETRA in 'You Wish' was making me squirm as I wrote her!  I suspect it's a bit of that 'there but by the grace of God go I' thing - most of us get real and know when to think, okay, he's just not that into me, but poor Petra is unable to do this...

The general theme of this book is whether our lives are controlled by destiny, coincidence, or personal choice - something else about which I ponder frequently.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Wish-ebook/dp/B006423HGW
http://www.amazon.com/You-Wish-ebook/dp/B006423HGW

I like to write from personal experience too, not as a cathartic thing but just because the writing comes more easily when I really know how something feels.  I know we can't always write about what we know, or no books about zombies or vampires or life after a worldwide nuclear catastrophe would ever be written, but it works for me.  Like many people, I've experienced periods of loneliness in my life; endless Friday nights involving nothing more than a bottle of wine to drink alone, and MySpace!  SHARON in 'Nobody's Fault' reflects much of this - lots of my readers have told me how they really identified with her; I think the lonely bit is something most of us have experienced, especially in this day and age when there are so many more divorces and single people living alone.

I love a grand passion, too - hence ADRIENNE and NICK in 'Nobody's Fault' - the love affair that can't be resisted and causes havoc for all those involved.  Speaking as one who's always followed my heart, I tend to write about people who do so, as well!  I won't say too much in case you want to read the book, but I do like to read tales about people who completely lose it when everything comes crashing down... 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobodys-Fault-ebook/dp/B006VHGWIA
http://www.amazon.com/Nobodys-Fault-ebook/dp/B006VHGWIA


Oh, and now I come to that 'Sliding Doors' thing, which I think about so much!  Thus: if I hadn't taken a job at that office in 1981 I wouldn't have met my friend Angela, with whom I went to that party where I met my first husband Steve, through whom I met Jane, whose spare room I stayed in when Steve and I broke up.  If I hadn't stayed with Jane I wouldn't have done a few shifts in the pub across the road, where I met Alan, who became my second husband, and who insisted we move to Norfolk... etc etc etc!  This is the theme of 'The Other Side', which I first wrote in about 1999; I re-thought it all and re-wrote it last year.  

In 'The Other Side' I've written about lots of other things that I adore reading about, too - self obsessed women who want to 'have it all', bored housewives stuck in dreary marriages, the cut-and-thrust of 1980s Thatcher's Britain, a rock chick or two, the fear that someone is out to steal your man, and the deterioration of people for whom alcohol becomes a serious problem... 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Other-Side-ebook/dp/B00843W6QG
http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-Side-ebook/dp/B00843W6QG


....and lastly, I come to 'Dream On'.  I've known loads of struggling musicians and pub bands in my time, and I wanted to write about them - the guys you see down the pub, the ones who go to all the rock gigs and want to be rock stars, too! Some books I'd read on this subject didn't seem to be written by the people who'd known these guys, so I thought I'd write about them myself.  'Dream On' isn't only about DAVE and the other members of Thor, though (yes, Dave thinks he's a reincarnated Viking), but about the relationship between him and the mother of his son, JANICE - I wanted to write about a real life, ordinary woman, living on her own in a council house with her son, fearing that the man she loves is never coming back.  Janice and the other main female character, ARIEL, are both strong women who don't make a song and dance about it, they just get on with stuff; and they're not at all 'girly'.  The sort of women I like!

'Dream On' is full of characters drawn from people I've known - the funny Geordie drummer, the completely bonkers 'artiste' GLYNIS who runs a 'creative workshop', the womanising guitarist SHANE, 'chav' MELODIE with her hair extensions, whose life ambition is to appear in Hello! magazine - and, never mind the TV talent show, I LOVED writing the bit where one of the characters ends up being forced to go on The Jeremy Kyle Show..!

On a more serious note, I've dealt with the issue of Alzheimer's sufferers and their carers in this novel, too - my mother has this, and I hoped that anyone else who has experience of it would want to read about it in a novel, as I did.  I like the way that the subject sometimes features in soap operas; the problems surrounding this are getting more attention these days, I am happy to say.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dream-On-ebook/dp/B0094WNOF8
http://www.amazon.com/Dream-On-ebook/dp/B0094WNOF8


I'm in the process of writing the sequel to 'Dream On', as I felt the stories of Dave, Janice, Shane and Ariel were not yet finished.  (Note from Sept 2013 - Full Circle was published in April) In this one I've written about more things I love to read about - the problems facing someone whose spouse is an alcoholic (and the shame of the alcoholic who's made a complete fool of him/herself!), jealousy, the anger people feel when they realise they've been lied to, the pretensions of those who feel they are intellectually superior to others, and the joy of giving them their come-uppance ....  it will be called 'Full Circle' and I hope it will be ready for publication soon!  

After 'Full Circle' I am going to start writing another novel, about another favourite subject of mine - stalkers.  I touched on this a bit in 'You Wish', but this time it will be the main theme of the new novel - title as yet undecided.  It will also be about the way people are affected by feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, another topic that interests me greatly.  It won't be as light as 'Dream On', though it's been said that I manage to deal with quite heavy subjects in an easily readable way, so it won't be much of a departure from the norm. (Note from Sept 2013 - this has just been published, and is called 'What it Takes')

I hope you've enjoyed reading a bit about what I like to write about - and what I like to read about, too - all suggestions to add to my ever growing 'to read' list are welcome!