More on Fever Crumb
Good news! Here's a link to an interview I did recently with Teenreads.com. Bad news! It features that horrible photograph of me smirking with flopsome hair. I believe it was the photographer Bill Brandt who said, "People look ridiculous when they're smiling", and how right he was...
Ireland Part 1: Dublin Rocks!
This is the first post for a while, because I've been Away. On Monday 12th I flew to Dublin, taking Sarah and Sam along with me, and they spent Tuesday and Wednesday morning looking around the city while I did my best to publicise A Web of Air (available now folks, in all good bookshops.) I don't like cities, but Dublin seems a nice one; broad streets, big parks, fine architecture, and more barbers' shops than I think I've ever seen in one place - clearly having a haircut is a very popular pastime in Ireland. And the sun shone, which I gather isn't typical Dublin weather.Tuesday started early with an interview on breakfast television, which seemed to hurtle by but which I'm told lasted a good eight or ten minutes - if only British TV would give time like that to children's authors. Then off to Trinity College. Their annual Trinity Week was in progress, and as part of it Children's Books Ireland had some lucky school groups bussed in to hear me talk about my work along with two fellow authors, Oisin McGann and Conor Kostick. Oisin McGann seems to be the Irish Philip Reeve (or maybe I'm the English Oisin McGann) in that he's another illustrator turned steampunkish YA author (although he's written many books for younger readers too); Conor Kostick is a steely left-wing academic who also finds time to write popular and highly acclaimed sci-fi adventures for teens. It was a pleasure to meet both of them, and I'm greatly looking forward to reading their books.
I was back at Trinity in the early evening for an event with Robert Dunbar, the Merlin of Irish children's books, a fascinating man whose love and enthusiasm for children's literature is inspiring. We had a long conversation in front of a small audience, during which he (and they) asked many perceptive questions about my books and didn't mention any of their manifest flaws, which is always a relief. Then off to a posh upper room for a small reception at which A Web of Air was officially launched; I suppose I should have said a few words to mark the occasion, but as I'd been up since dawn and talking all day I left that to Marion, my editor, who of course did it very well.
On Wednesday morning Alex from Scholastic led me off on a brisk tour of Dublin's bookshops, where I signed lots of copies of my books, and then to lunch and an interview with Jane Carroll for Inis magazine; another perceptive questioner with a deep knowledge of children's books. Hopefully my answers were of interest, although I was feeling a bit tired by then so we'll have to see how it turns out...
And meanwhile Sam and Sarah toured Dublin by open topped bus, went round the Guinness factory, played on St Stephen's Green and shopped for folk music (Sarah) and T-shirts and shoelaces (Sam).
Ireland Part 2: Here My Power Was Born...
Once all my book-business in Dublin was done, Sarah collected a hire car and we took off south to the Wicklow Mountains. It seems that when Irish people aren't busy getting their hair cut they like to while away the time by building bungalows, and hundreds of these litter the landscape south of Dublin like Monopoly houses, spoiling some beautiful scenery. But once you leave them behind the country soon becomes magnificent; high, heather-covered summits, fast-flowing rivers, deep valleys filled with ancient oaks. It all felt very familiar, and not just because it reminded me of Dartmoor and the Lake District. Among these hills, back in the wet summer of 1980, John Boorman shot his film Excalibur, inadvertantly jump-starting my love of the Arthurian legends and setting me on the path that led to Here Lies Arthur.
I must have seen the film thirty times, yet it was hard to pin down any of the actual locations. I presume it was over the bleak peat-bogs of the Sally Gap that Paul Geoffrey's Perceval went questing for the grail, but was it on the upper lake at Glendalough or from the private, inacessible Lough Dan that Excalibur rose from the waters? I couldn't be sure; Mr Boorman chose his shots with care, stitching together a world of magic from fragments and glimpses of the everyday. But even he could not disguise the great Powerscourt Waterfall, and the pool at its foot where Nigel Terry and Nicholas Clay end their furious duel looks just as it did on screen. Arriving there, even thirty years too late, felt like stepping into the landscape of a well-remembered dream. (If I look a bit preoccupied in the photo it's because I took it myself; Sam and Sarah wisely left me to do my fan-boy pilgrimage bit alone while they went to the play area, which I don't believe was there in King Arthur's day.)
Ireland Part 3:The Grounded World
Returning to Dublin after our time in the mountains we discovered that we were in the opening chapter of a 1970's JG Ballard disaster novel, in which a spreading cloud of invisble volcano dust puts an end to civil aviation and thus to Civilisation As We Know It. "When Will This Nightmare End?' demanded the headline on Dublin's freebie newspaper (which might as well be the headline on all newspapers, every day). Sam was a bit dismayed to learn that we couldn't fly home on Saturday as planned, but rallied once we explained that you can pick up Dr Who on Irish tellies and that our dwindling funds would mean we'd have to eat at McDonalds, fulfilling one of his lifetime ambitions. Indeed, we were much better off than most of this week's stranded tourists, since we don't have 9-5 jobs to get back to, and could afford (just about) the costs of our extended stay in The Most Expensive Country In Europe*. Not only that, we had the redoubtable Alex at Scholastic to 'phone for advice, and our hotel, Staunton's on the Green, had the most friendly, helpful, good-humoured staff you could hope to meet - if you ever need to stay in Dublin, stay there.
Even so, by Sunday it was clear that we needed to plot a Daring Escape, so I went down to Dún Laoghaire and booked tickets on a ferry out of Rosslare on Tuesday morning, and with one (very slow) bound, we were free... The ferry crossing was pleasant and relaxing, the long train journey through Wales and Somerset rather less so. Finally, late yesterday evening, we arrived home, and very glad we were to see it.
So what have we learned from our stay in Ireland (apart from, NEVER GO ABROAD, YOU MIGHT GET TRAPPED BY A BIG OLD CLOUD OF INVISIBLE ASH)? Well, we learned that Ireland is very nice, which I'd never really doubted, but it was good to confirm it for myself. The people are friendly, the countryside is beautiful, and they have good biscuits. (The confectionary aisle in Tesco's at Wicklow was a veritable biscuit museum: Mikados, Jammy Dodgers, Iced Gems... we stood entranced for several minutes.) It was interesting to be in a place which had been ruled (or misruled) by Britain for so long before it won its independence; it made for a strange mixture of the familiar and the foreign, and it felt good. It made me think that if we dug a big trench from the eastern end of the Bristol Channel down to Weymouth, then Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset might make a nice little country of their own. If Labour ends up winning the elections* again we shall all have to get our shovels out.
*I have no idea if that's actually true, but coffee and buns were Very Expensive, and since coffee and buns are what I basically run on, that hurt.
*EDIT: They didn't, but we're no better off: West Country UDI now!
