I am going on holiday

It has been quite the summer, full of trips backwards and forwards on aeroplanes doing things I cannot talk about. Next week, however, the "holiday" starts; a holiday that lasts for three weeks and takes in various places, including Marrakech, Hastings, the Isle of Skye, York and Bedford.

We leave next Tuesday, and I will be showing you bits of it. My intention is simple: in each new location, I will supply to you, my legions of adoring readers and/or fans:

1. A photograph of the bed that we will be sleeping in, pre-sleep;
2. What we had for breakfast;
3. A photograph of something we have seen that day.

Amazing.

Pip pip!

NWM

I try to get an agent using pictures of cats

As we all know, the internet is made of cats.   I cannot say I am overly fond of cats, and yet I am aware that most people (especially ladies and literary agents) like them a lot.   Some have been known to spend up to three days a week inputting the words "cat photographs funny ha ha not funny peculiar" into Google and looking at the resulting images over and over again.

It is this piece of information that has led me to this most recent attempt to get a literary agent, even though everyone (apart from fucking Jonny B) knows that the whole publishing-deal-from-blog thing stopped in 2005, i.e. when I started blogging.  Still, I will not be deterred.  Writing books is the best job in the world because a) you have to do it by yourself, i.e. you don't have to talk to anyone; b) it is portable, i.e. you can do it anywhere; c) a lot of the things and people that have happened to me you couldn't invent if you tried, so I will just 're-hash' those (but with some name changes to avoid legal issues) to make my books, making it less difficult than it would appear at first sight.

Steve Jobs, Vanessa Feltz and Mark Zuckerberg all made their fortunes by putting photographs of cats on their websites.  Also, many international best-selling writers (not including fucking Jonny B) were discovered because they put pictures of cats on their websites, knowing (as do I) about the whole literary agent/cat-snap dynamic.

For example:

Dan Brown, before writing books about nuns etc, wrote a blog about seahorses. One day, he posted a picture of his cat, Doctor Truffles, looking at a seahorse.  Heide Lange from Sanford J Greenburger Associates found him that way.

Jilly Cooper had a blog about jam. One day, she put a picture of her cat, Feral, at a polo match eating a strawberry jam sandwich on her blog. That is how Desmond Elliott found her.

Cecelia Aherne had a blog about what it is like living with a brain made of feathers and crumbs. One day, she put a picture on her blog of her cat, Jizzbiscuit, looking inside her ear, wondering how come he could see out of the other side of her head.  In this way, she was discovered by Marianne Gunn O'Connor and now earns millions of pounds a year writing books that have been proven to decrease your IQ.

I have therefore not given up hope.  If I put a lot of pictures of cats up on this blog, there is a chance that a cat-loving literary agent may find me and offer me a) an idea; b) some hope. Until then, I can merely sit back, relax, and say to you: enjoy my Gallery of Cat. (You may enjoy, as an additional challenge, working out which of these cats I have shared a house with.)

Maurice of Kennington (pronounced with a French accent, i.e. Maur-eece, not Morris. You may pronounce Kennington as you wish).

A cat of Amsterdam, thwarted in his attempt to go to the local discoteca

Second Cat of Amsterdam, interrupted whilst playing online poker

Flirt of Kennington




































Jane of Seymour and her cat, Geoffroy

Monster of Brixton

Also Monster of Brixton

Le Chat du Lac, "qui aime se frotter contre les fruits" - particularly the soft downy peach.  NB: he was interrupted in mid-frotte with this plum, which he had pulled from the bowl himself.  "He has no name ... sometimes it is ... Chat."   I cannot comment on the cat's haircut; suffice to say Sometimes Chat was not happy to have his undercarriage mown, and that the original haircut revealed strips of pink catskin. 

Corndog of St-Joseph-du-Lac (and Montreal)  I have known some cats in my time (see above), but this one takes the biscuit.   Corndog was adopted at six months, just after she had had her first litter.  She was found protecting a Bush of Kittens, for Corndog had committed her one and only intelligent act: hiding her kittens in a bush to protect them from marauding coyotes. Since then, her main activities have included lying down, looking at imaginary moths with her mouth open and getting her head stuck inside  yoghurt pots.

If this Visual Cat Fiesta doesn't get me the attention I so richly deserve, I will give up right now!!!

Pip pip!

NWM

I am planning a trip and am not called "Faeces"

Yes, it is true. The cuminolimbus of silence has obscured the rays of joy that spurt from the sun of chitchat. Every day thousands of well-meaning people (some of them of acceptable levels of intelligence) check my web-blog. "Is today the day?", they whisper to themselves, hardly able to look. "Is it?".

The same is true of my adoring readers and/or fans, all of whom are slightly above average in many positive ways, e.g. ability to do starjumps, regularity of facial features and cleanliness of socks. "NWM?", they whisper into the silence, hands rustling in packets of honeyroast peanuts, mouths clamped around bendy straws plunged into 12oz glasses of Jenever: "Are you there?". Still there is silence. "NWM?", they murmur, sucking harder on their straws, "Are you going to write a web-blog post again?". Silence has been their only reward.

It is quite easy to explain my silence: I have just not felt like writing anything down. There are a great many things happening, but I am not overly keen on writing about "feelings" etc (although mine are fine), and the other things I would like to write about would probably threaten the long-term viability of a) some friendships; b) some possibilities of earning money in the future. I have, however, been exposed to:

1. A proper, sweaty, confused hangover that included primal screaming and cheese

2. A man telling a story that ended with the line "and I said ... is that you, Vanessa Feltz?"

3. The same man telling a story that ended with the line "As long as it's not called 'faeces' or 'Hitler', I don't care what you call it"

4. A good dinner here

5. A good breakfast here

6. And also here

7. A few conversations about how to make a machine that spurts out Pheromones

8. This bag (but red)

9. Flashdance-style dancing to "Back in Black"

10. A great many babies being born to people I know and like (and, oddly, four fast labours in a row producing gigantic babies - very odd)

11. A very real obsession with "The Real Housewives of New York City" - particularly the ghastly Alex and Simon (although obv I love Bethanny)

12. Reading many books at the same time, including this one about Harvard Business School (oddly compelling), my first ever Agatha Christie, Wolf Hall, Saturday and a cookbook by Sue Lawrence. Also FYI The Believers by Zoe Heller is ace.

13. Going "oh cock, it's really, really good, and how they're going to be really famous and I will have to pretend I don't like them" about Arcade Fire's latest long-player, The Suburbs (incidentally, Arcade Fire make more sense when you listen to them when you are driving around Canada. Do not ask me what I mean. I couldn't explain it.)

14. Watching this over and over again:

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

15. Planning a gigantic holiday trip.

Yes. The trip. It goes like this:

Montreal - London
London - Hastings (4 nights, inc trips to for e.g. Rye, Tunbridge Wells, Brighton etc)
Gatwick - Marrakech (7 nights for the wedding of my brother)
Marrakech - London
London - Inverness (on the sleeper!!! Swoon. Do they still bring you a cup of tea and a biscuit in second class?)
Inverness - Skye (3 nights)
Skye - Glasgow (1 night)
Glasgow - Lake District (1 night)
Lake District - Yorkshire (2 nights)
Yorkshire - Bedford (1 night)
London - Montreal

Now do not write and say things like "Oh but 2 days in Yorkshire is not long enough!" or "1 day in the Lake District is not long enough!" or "come to Leeds it is grate!" or "I cannot believe you are not stopping in Lincoln!!". We have people to visit and all of that. I would however be most interested in any tips and "insights" (as we in the advertising industry call "information") about:

1. What to see in Marrakech bearing in mind we are not likely to be able to travel around much;
2. If there is still a cup of tea on the Second Class sleeper when you wake up (see above)
3. What is really super duper on Skye and closely surrounding areas to see with our eyes, i.e. what would you do if you only had a morning.

Yorkshire I know. Bedford is where some people I love live, even though they would rather live in Lewes. Hastings is split into the Old Town and New Town and I of course will be staying (with my "husband") in the charming cottage of some dear friends in the Old Town, complete with view of the sea and (I am pretty certain!) organic sausages with easy reach.

Pip pip!

NWM

I am still in London

I am going back to Canada tomorrow I think, four days after I was supposed to. At night, I sleep in a special tower. During the day, I talk a lot and write things in emails. Tomorrow, I am having my hair cut; I felt guilty about having it cut in London, and telephoned my hairdresser in Montreal to apologise, which is as sure a sign as any that I am losing my mind.

On Monday, I made birthday cake. On Tuesday, we ate the birthday cake and drank slightly too much wine. This morning, I ate toast and strong cheddar for breakfast and was taught how to add bullet points to a Keynote presentation. On Sunday, I saw a friend who was about to have a baby (she has had it and may be calling it Wilberforce), and on Saturday I went to Hastings, which looked like this:

Hastings also, occasionally, sounds like this:



Amazing.

Pip pip!

NWM

I go in some cabs

I am in London for a while and will be spending most of the time in cabs eating pork pies and shouting "Oi, mate!", out of the window. Cabs in London are great. I have already been in four in two days, which is quite good going, even for a cab enthusiast like me).

Taxi rides (various)

Cab 1, yesterday, Kennington to Battersea.

Cab driver: Mobile phones, right?
Me: Yes?
Cab driver: Even tiny kids have 'em.
Me: Tellmeaboutit. In my day, it was all tin cans and string.
Cab driver: Or yoghurt pots and string.
Me: True.
Cab driver: Not much good for long distance calls though.
Me: Also true.
Cab driver: Unless you have a very long piece of string.

Cab 2, yesterday, Battersea to Kennington.

"Excuse me love, got to take this. Billy? Awight mate. Listen, yeah, I know you're on holiday and that but I was wondering ... yeah that's right, Dave was freestyling, had Match of the Day magazine coming down and all that ... yeah... well mate of course I live in Rotherhithe, or is it Surrey Quays? .... Yeah that an' all, mate, remember when they started calling Battersea South Chelsea? Ha ha ha!"


In other news, I am in an office where people ask each other if they fancy a cup of tea, and when they say "a cup of tea", everyone knows what kind of tea they mean. They mean cup of tea tea, not camomile jizz in a fancy mahogany box.

Pip pip!

NWM

P.S. The best ad ever made is here. I know you will like it a lot. Earlier this evening I was unusually tired and weepy (jetlag, weirdness of being in an office in London for the first time in 5 years, shock of having to be in an office talking to people all day, hungry, knee hurts, miss husband, not enough wine), but - and I am not joking - this thing actually cheered me right up, i.e., filled me with joy. You will see what I mean.