Cryptic Friday #5

Last week's question was: Have the police party gone to the ship? 7 letters.

The answer is... Possess. (please don't ask why)

As that one was pretty tricky, this week is an easier one:

Took a ride round the Wild West show. 5 letters.

Well, it is for charity.

In Britain we have our fair share of worthy television charity events that do great work in finding employment for celebrities nobody has ever heard of. But this year, two minutes into a mildly amusing dance routine in a Comic Relief dance competition, I amazed myself by smiling. For me it was like seeing Laurel rising up from the dead to poke Hardy in the eye for one last time.

I've enjoyed Ade Edmondson's career ever since Rik Mayall first hit him over the head with a frying pan back in the 70s when they were The Dangerous Brothers. Later, Ade's comedy evolved in The Young Ones when Rik would set fire to Ade's pants while hitting him over the head with a frying pan. Later still, his comedy evolved further in Bottom when Rik would break Ade's legs and set fire to his pants while also hitting him over the head with a frying pan. And then finally, the comedy reached its logical end in the Bottom live shows where Rik would superglue himself into a blow-up doll, break Ade's legs, set fire to his pants and still manage to hit him over the head with a frying pan.

But then they got too old to play themselves and they split up. So Bottom fans were left to wonder whether Ade would ever get hit over the head with a frying pan again for just one last time... for old time's sake.

Beaten into Kindling

The excellent anthology Beat to a Pulp (featuring one of my yarns amongst one hell of a lot more) is now available for download on Kindle at Amazon for the amazing price of $5.99.

So...… what is a story?

I was guest blogger for the day at the Avalon authors blog with my article on writing So... what is a story?

Cryptic Friday #4

Last week's question was: Capture her with love. 5 letters.

The answer is... Lasso.

This week is a lot more cryptic (and by that I mean that I struggled to get it even with all the other clues filled in):

Have the police party gone to the ship? 7 letters.

Dragon time... honestly

And so it came to pass on the 3rd of March, 2011 that the author George RR Martin did announce that the publication date for book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire would be July 2011. And there was much joy in the world for verily we fans have been waiting so flaming long we've all completely forgotten what the heck Tyrion and the lads were up to.

Good news though. Hopefully Book 6 will appear in my lifetime!

The Prairie Man cover

Below is an advance sighting of the cover for my forthcoming Black Horse Western The Prairie Man, which amazon are claiming will be out in August.


If you've read my previous comments about covers, you'll know that I'm always pleased when a cover depicts a scene from the book or captures a feeling of the story or title, and so in this case I'm especially pleased. For a start it's a Prieto Muriana cover and that means in the full picture there'll be plenty of extra details, but even better, the simple scene does actually happen in the story. Now, I know it's hard to write a western without having a scene featuring 'bloke on horse' but in this case there is an important moment in the story that has been effectively depicted. In fact I hope readers might like this moment as much as I did and then glance at the cover...

More details on the book nearer the publication date.