(no subject)
Scotland is so beautiful in the sunshine. Of course you only really get about 48 hours a year to test this hypothesis, but it's certainly worth it when you do catch the good weather. The dour black bricks that I usually love in Scotland lose some of their melancholy intensity when brightly-lit like this, although the scenery has become spectacular. I'm over on the west coast - the best part, although this particular town is pretty rough and consists mainly of pound shops and kebabbies and CHEQUES CASHED HERE signs. The Kilmarnock sign includes the slogan ‘The UK's friendliest shopping town’, which is a laughable combination of ambitionlessness and mendacity. To be fair, whenever I thank anyone in a shop here, they all say Nae bother, pal, but that could just be the sunshine talking.
The locals are so unused to the blue skies. Everyone is crawling out of the houses, squinting suspiciously into the glare, as though emerging into some unknown post-apocalyptic landscape. I sense a latent belief that civilisation is just two hot meals and an all-over tan from anarchy.
On Friday, Hannah and I went to see Louis de Bernières, who was in town for the Lincoln Book Festival. I was curious to hear him talk, because I think he is a genuinely brilliant writer despite all the idiots who think he is a brilliant writer. Anyone who has listened to my standard pub rant about Why The Ending to Captain Corelli Is Not Shit will know that that book had a big effect on me, as did the trilogy he wrote about Colombia, which is extraordinary. What impresses me about him is that he's the only writer I can think of who writes so well about other cultures, without the usual fallback device of a Western character through whose eyes everything is filtered.
Anyway, in the event I didn't hear him talk about any of that - he had no intention of discussing his books, but instead turned up with a selection of stringed instruments and proceeded to play his way through a variety of Serbian folktunes. Hannah and I were rather excited, what with our trip to Serbia last year. He even played a couple on the mandolin.
In the middle he did do a little reading from his new one, A Partisan's Daughter, but I was actually a little disappointed by the admittedly brief extract we heard. Anyway. As a musician he is nothing special, and plays as you might imagine a middle-aged professional writer to play. During the tricky bits the tip of his tongue appeared in the corner of his mouth. But all in all there was something enormously satisfying in seeing someone who has had some success (after a long, long wait), and who is now contentedly filling his time with things that interest him, whether or not he's any good at it.
Plus, it does makes a change from the usual writer's talk - where, as he put it, ‘I read something out for about ten minutes and then someone asks me what I thought of the film.’
The locals are so unused to the blue skies. Everyone is crawling out of the houses, squinting suspiciously into the glare, as though emerging into some unknown post-apocalyptic landscape. I sense a latent belief that civilisation is just two hot meals and an all-over tan from anarchy.
On Friday, Hannah and I went to see Louis de Bernières, who was in town for the Lincoln Book Festival. I was curious to hear him talk, because I think he is a genuinely brilliant writer despite all the idiots who think he is a brilliant writer. Anyone who has listened to my standard pub rant about Why The Ending to Captain Corelli Is Not Shit will know that that book had a big effect on me, as did the trilogy he wrote about Colombia, which is extraordinary. What impresses me about him is that he's the only writer I can think of who writes so well about other cultures, without the usual fallback device of a Western character through whose eyes everything is filtered.
Anyway, in the event I didn't hear him talk about any of that - he had no intention of discussing his books, but instead turned up with a selection of stringed instruments and proceeded to play his way through a variety of Serbian folktunes. Hannah and I were rather excited, what with our trip to Serbia last year. He even played a couple on the mandolin.
In the middle he did do a little reading from his new one, A Partisan's Daughter, but I was actually a little disappointed by the admittedly brief extract we heard. Anyway. As a musician he is nothing special, and plays as you might imagine a middle-aged professional writer to play. During the tricky bits the tip of his tongue appeared in the corner of his mouth. But all in all there was something enormously satisfying in seeing someone who has had some success (after a long, long wait), and who is now contentedly filling his time with things that interest him, whether or not he's any good at it.
Plus, it does makes a change from the usual writer's talk - where, as he put it, ‘I read something out for about ten minutes and then someone asks me what I thought of the film.’