Laurie Graham's Blog, page 33

       One thing about a Virtual Party: no glasses to wash. Nevertheless I’m glad of a day of rest. Am I the only woman who needs to lie down with cucumber slices on my eyelids after a party rather than before?

 A Humble Companion is well and truly launched. Many thanks to all of you who showed up. And to those who didn’t, ‘where the heck were ya?’ Some people didn’t find their way to the Guestbook but were kind enough to leave comments on the blog so I decided to put all the names into the prize draw hat. Well, Superquinn carrier bag, actually. And the winners are… drum roll, please… Jeanne, Christopher, and Jane (not Mary Jane) with whom I’ll be in touch.

Now normal life resumes. I really need to catch up on all the work I’ve not been doing but this is not looking like an auspicious week for closeted concentration. Bloomsday events start tomorrow, with their typical Dublin mix of serious literary debate, great music and theatre, and fancy dress daftness. So it’s going to be a gentle, gradual return to the desk.

Perhaps just as well. Don’t want to strain anything.

Well the Queen had a three day celebration for her Diamond Jubilee and what’s good enough for Her Majesty is certainly good enough for me. Today we begin by making a little piece of history. King George IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover, the first ever reigning monarch to blog.

Parties. Used to excel at them, unlike HM Old King whose idea of entertainment was three hours of Handel, scrape, scrape, wheeze, wheeze. One finds them rather wearying now. Getting shaved and powdered, then selection of waistcoat and neck-cloth, etcetera. Exhausting business, and dispiriting. Nothing flatters the figure, unless viewed in a slenderising mirror.  We order new coats and the damned tailors so scrimp on the cloth every seam is strained.  Shoes pinch too. Can’t dance anyway. Short of puff. Tapping doesn’t help. Surgeons all imbeciles.

Literary Occasion, apparently. How the literati must rejoice to have a monarch who reads. We once gave Miss Austen permission to dedicate a novelette to Us. Strange creatures though, writers. Often stooped and pallid. Not without danger, however. Hidden claws. They offer very little by way of conversation but they’re all the time noting a person’s character, to take it away and make it an object of ridicule.

  Tempted not to attend. Breeches too tight… greatly regret… no public engagements until further notice. To hell with literature. Send the barber packing, dismiss the chamber groom, order a bottle of cherry brandy and a roasted chicken. One is King, after all.

*****************

His Majesty may find it useful to read on. The Quack Doctor, whose excellent website can be found at http://www.quackdoctor.com called by earlier today with some advice for bibbers and topers.

Means of Restoring a Drunken Person

 Advice from the Medical Adviser, and Guide to Health and Long Life

 As the paroxysm of drunkenness is sometimes so excessive, as to produce apoplexy, the following is useful:—Let the patient be placed in a chair, supporting his head, and then administer a wine glass full of the best vinegar, rubbing his temples gently with a little of the same. If the good effect be not seen in ten minutes, other means must be employed. If the patient is in the first stage of the fit, that is, if his face is red, and his skin hot, let him be stripped, and have a pail of water showered on him from three feet above his head. This may be repeated three or four times. If this does not produce a full effect, give thirty grains of ipecacuanha. Let it be particularly observed, that if the eyes are fixed, and red, and the breathing difficult, to send immediately for a surgeon. Should the patient be in the last stage, namely, paleness of countenance, and cold skin, use no cold water, but content yourself with rubbing his temples and nostrils with vinegar, and give the ipecacuanha as above, with warm water or tea. In cases, where, from bravado, madness, and the like, a great portion of strong spirits is suddenly drank, and the person as suddenly falls senseless, every means must be tried to get a quart or two of warm water (or cold, if warm cannot immediately be procured,) tea, coffee, milk, or even weak beer, so as to dilute, as soon as possible, the spirits taken; also the ipecacuanha as directed above. If the patient vomits the contents of the stomach, then there are hopes of recovery. He should be put to bed, and whey given in considerable quantities, at short intervals, for twenty-four hours.

*****************

Of all my guests Nellie Buzzard proved to be the most elusive. I’ve been pursuing her ever since she escaped fom the pages of A Humble Companion and finally caught up with her in Kensington last week. She is, I believe, just about ready to slip back between the covers of the book, but before she does she has this to say….

 When Mistress Laurie Graham first offered me a book party I thought I should decline.  I’ve spent quite enough of my life as a wallflower, interesting though it is to watch people displaying their tail feathers. A party always puts me in mind of the aviary in a travelling menagerie. There are the Party Pigeons, who bow and bob and gobble up whatever falls their way: crumbs of recognition, leftover opinions, morsels of gossip. And there are the Party Hawks, who perch above the crowd looking very fine but always with one beady eye watching for the arrival of larger, tastier prey.   

 With the Royalties, you know, one is obliged to stand unless commanded to sit, and that order that may not come, if at all, until after several lengthy concertos. Varicose veins and fallen arches are the painful lot of a Royalty’s poor forgotten retinue. But then I discovered that things are done rather differently in the 21st century.

 ‘You can be seated,’ Mistress Graham assured me. ‘In fact you can stretch out on a day bed with your hair in curling papers and jot down acid observations. No-one will see you. No-one will be any the wiser.’

I don’t care for some of the advancements I’ve seen during my visit to 2012  – everyone seems to be a servant nowadays, constantly summoned by bells and messages, and they carry their cups of coffee through the street. I suppose they have no tables to sit at in their houses. Also, I find the milk has no taste and the bacon has no fat.  But a party at which one is invisible. That is a very great improvement indeed.

*****************

W hich just about winds things up, except to say that those who lurk but leave no message have absolutely no chance of winning the strawberry truffles. Zero. Zip. 

Thanks to all who’ve contributed and attended. It’s been great fun. Same time next year? And let’s close with a song. No, it’s okay, I’m not going to sing.  Take it away, Noel. 

Day 2 of the Virtual Launch of A Humble Companion and, as is only proper, Royalty take precedence.  A few words from Her Disputed but Nonetheless Welcome Majesty, Queen Caroline.

Ach, but vass kind off party is ziss?  Nussink to eat, nussink to trink! When We were Prinzess von Wales We have made many gay party with plenty Hock, plenty German sausage, but in Blackheath was not gut Society, only cattles und neighbours, very dull.  But now We are Queen!!! Now will come clambering many peoples to give respects to Us.

At ziss party vizout sausage shall be Great Writters of The Age.  We shall observe them. Whomundsoever pleases Us shall be permitted to write Astonishing True Story Off My Life. It must be manly writter. We shall like him to have black hairs und shapeful leg. He can come in Our closet and We shall be Dictator.

Mein Lady Hambleton says what if King also goes at ziss party? What if he makes tumults in Our Presence? We sink he will not und We will tell you why. Already at ziss party comes True Gentleman Pig, Ernest von Gloucester Spot. So there shall not be place for Big Fat Ugly Hanover Pig. Und if He does comes We shall blow out Our back bottoms at Him.

 For ziss party I sink I must heff new stockinks und fezzer for mein hat.

  ***************

Worried what to wear in the presence of a Royal fashionista? Sick of hearing about Pippa Middleton’s bum? Well click here if you think getting dressed is hard work in 2012. Or here if you’d like something a bit more… Regency.

And now, A Pig speaks.                                   

 It is a vile slander myth that pigs have bad manners. We have excellent social skills and are ideal guests at any hog wallow party. It is true that being slaves to our stomachs you’re likely to find us at the trough in the kitchen at parties, but we would always leave something for you Humans because we know which side our bread is buttered we’re well brought up animals. We understand the concept of sharing. As long as we get our share first.

We’re also chatty conversationalists, vocal and highly expressive with our jaws ears. You haven’t lived until you’ve had your leg slapped by the ears of a 42-stone boar. You’d like me if we met. And I’d like you back if you offered me some pig nuts and a quick scratch behind my front leg. I’d look you right in the swill bucket eye and you’d know you’d made a friend until the next meal for life.

*****************

And they call them ‘dumb creatures.’ You can Follow Ernest on Twitter @ernestpig

Today’s final contributor is quite a catch. He won’t mind my telling you that he’s been ‘on the run’ since his escape from the pages of A Humble Companion a few weeks ago and it was touch and go whether he’d agree to appear but I’m delighted to say we persuaded him.  Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Dick Morphew.

Parties? Nothing but trouble, and I’ll quote you why. Expense. Havoc. And liberties being took. Myself, I’ve always worked for sober households. Mr Welche didn’t hold with parties. He’d seen enough of His Royal Nibs’s carryings on. And Mr Jack don’t have the time, on account of he’s busy catering jellies and bonbons for people with more money than sense. But I could tell you a tale or two. I’ve got my sources. You care to learn about parties, apply to me.

A person lets it be known he’s At Home, that there’s claret wine brought up from the cellar and vittles laid on the table, before he knows it the world and his wife’s pushing and shoving through his doors. He don’t know who half of them is but he dussen’t ask for fear of giving offence. In they come, ruckling up his carpets and wearing out his chairs. Glasses get broke. Good table linens get stained. And that’s only the commencement of it.

When men get puddled with drink, they’re as like as not to ruin your billiard table or take a pot shot at one of your hangcestors. Then there’s duels. Also dalliances. A good many of them’s brought on by parties. The worst of it though is The Royalties, for you see you can’t disinvite them and some of them’s holy terrors for a free feed.  So everybody’s on pins wondering if the Royalties’ll come, then if they do come everybody’s on pins till they go. And they’re light-fingered too. Any of your bits and bobs they take a fancy to, into the old Royal pocket that goes.

No, ask me, you’re better off noising it abroad that your cook’s got the Itch and your wine smells like week old cat’s pee. You can keep your parties.

*******************

Well, well.

Tomorrow, more guest bloggers, including a Very Big Royal, more music, and the Quack Doctor will be in with a couple of hangover remedies, in case you’ve overdone the cat’s pee. 

Haven’t signed the Guest Book yet? Tsk, tsk.

 Welcome to Day 1 of the Virtual Launch of  A Humble Companion. Feel free to stay as long as you like or, if you’re busy, just say hello, grab a vol-au-vent and run.

Today we have a bit of genuine 18th century cookery, some music, and a lovely nostalgic piece by best-selling novelist and all-round Good Egg, Paul Magrs. But first we’re honoured with a few hesitant words from HRH Princess Sophia of Hanover.

*******************

A party?  I can’t remember the last time I went into company. What if everyone is making clever literary allusions?  Don’t you think it would better to let sister Minny go in my place? She adores a soiree and Billy Gloucester’s at home this week so she’d be glad of an excuse to stay in Town. I really have nothing to wear. This velvet makes me so hot I look like a boiled pudding. Would the lemon muslin be suitable? I could pin a brooch over the grease stain. Or wear my lilac spenser over it, to give it a touch more consequence. But what about my spectacles? If I wear them everyone will think me a fright, and if I don’t wear them I won’t be able to see a hand in front of my face.

I just don’t know. Is Darling Majesty going? If he’ll attend, I will. It would do him good to get up and put on a clean shirt. Last week he said he couldn’t squeeze his feet into his shoes but surely the remedy for that is to order larger shoes. But then, if the Queen intends going He certainly won’t attend. Great heavens, he’d sooner have a tooth pulled. And Caroline, you know, grows quite overstrung if brandy punch is served. Actually, they both do, but it seems to act upon her with greater speed.

It’s all so very delicate. I should rather like to see HM Queen but Darling Majesty would be furious if he thought I’d gone out of my way to do it. So any meeting would have to be quite inadvertent. It would have to seem that I’d simply wished to pay my compliments to the authoress and then been all astonishment when HMQ made her entrance. If you really think the muslin would be suitable.

Now, will this writer expect me to have read her book? Tell me again its title and give me a pleasant remark to make to the author, something that hints at my having read the book without setting in motion a more detailed discussion that might find me wanting. And please write it all down for I shall never remember so many things.

 Oh, and earrings. Hoops or snaps?

*****************

And now… ice cream, courtesy of Mr Jack Buzzard, Master Confectioner of Oxford Street.

RECEIPT FOR VARIOUS ICES AS PROPOSED AT THE SIGN OF THE PINK LEMON

 GINGER ICE

Put 4 ounces of preserved ginger chopped fine into a bason. Mix with two gills, which is to say half a pint of sugar syrup and the juice of one lemon. Add the mixture to 1 pint of good thick cream and churn in a freezing pot. Very pleasant with a compote of prunes.

 STRAWBERRY ICE

 Press 1 pint of hulled sweet strawberries through a hair sieve. Stir in 4 ounces of powdered sugar and 1 pint of heavy cream. Churn till frozen. Lady Lockyer always orders this with chocolate wafers but ratafia biscuits would do just as well.

BROWN BREAD ICE

 Rasp 2 good handfuls of brown bread into a pan with hot melted butter and as much sugar as will lay on a half-crown. Stir it about until the crumbs are caramelised. Set them aside to cool.  Beat a pint of thick cream till it hangs from the whisk. Add the candied bread crumbs and churn in a freezing pot.  Viscount Riddle enjoyed this served with baked lady apples.

*******************

So grab a spoon and tuck in, while Paul Magrs wanders down memory lane…

Newton Aycliffe in 1979 was all dark, blocky council houses arranged in complicated patterns, with main roads strung between, lit by pinkish lamps. New Year’s Eve that year, everyone was coming to ours. Usually it was so quiet, just my Mam, stepfather and me. It was my father’s side who were gregarious and raucous; whose houses were all cigarette smoke and shouting.

 But at the end of the 1970s no party was as good as ours. We had punch, lemonade and Warninks Advocaat; homemade sausage rolls, Birds Trifle, pineapple hedgehogs, hot dogs and strange Dutch pastries, deep-fried in oil and powdered with sugar. We had Dutch and Australian people. We had Dr Hook, Hot Chocolate, ‘I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper’ and James Last’s endless medleys for non-stop boogying.

The Dutch aunts looked like Russian Dolls, gliding about and fussing with paper plates. They brought all the women long, patterned dresses that looked very sophisticated as they bopped in our L-shaped living room. (All except Molly, who mistakenly wore hers around her neck so that, when she arrived late, she looked like a wonky lampshade and showed two pale, hefty knees. My stepdad’s father, a blunt ex-commando, barked out laughing: ‘That’s not how you’re supposed to look in them bloody skirts!’)

 There was a singalong – I noted excitedly in my new Letts Page-a-Day – and everyone sang ‘There’s a Hole in my Bucket’, ‘The Fog on the Tyne’ and ‘Auld Lang’s Syne.’

 Even my Big Nanna – not always given to merriment – was there, tipsy on sherry, with two high spots of red on her cheeks. She tottered off up Arncliffe Place to see the religious murals Molly was painting on rolls of unused wallpaper.

 It was the last time that particular combination of people were together. Laughing and drinking and smoking in the front room. I don’t think we ever had a party like it ever again. But I can see echoes of it in all the parties I’ve been involved in throwing ever since. And in all the novels I’ve thrown, too. The odd assortment of guests; the passion for retro stuff circa 1979; the unlikeliest people dancing to raucous and jarringly eclectic music. And the silverskin onions on sticks and the sweet, cold wine. And, quite often, the confessions and revelations in the kitchen, the introducing of amazing characters to one another, some kind of very dramatic scene going on in the hallway and something unbelievable occurring in the dark back garden.

 ***************

Well, if you’re still not in a party mood after that, click here, turn your sound on and enjoy a bit of a period bop.

Tomorrow the party continues with contributions from Dick Morphew, Coachman to the Humble Companion, and from Ernest, a Gloucester Old Spot boar who’ll be giving us a pig’s perspective on parties. There’ll also be a handy video on how to get dressed, 18th century-style, and a few words from another member of the Royal Family. Security considerations prevent me from saying more.

And before you go, don’t forget to leave a message in the Guest Book. You have to be in it to win it.  

Yey! A Humble Companion made it into the Irish Sunday Independent Top Ten Beach Reads.

Graham is fantastic at creating solid believable characters while at the same time conjuring up the historical period and producing a gripping plot

 Be still, my pitter-pattering heart!

     So we’re off and running. Twenty bookish folk  kindly gave up their Thursday afternoon (including some for whom it was press day) to help me launch A Humble Companion on a sea of champagne, tea and rather superior cakes. Several of them were garnished with gold leaf (the cakes, I mean, not the bookish folk) which seemed appropriately royal, and all of London was draped in red, white and blue, though I’m told that this was absolutely nothing to do with my book launch. Someone’s Diamond Jubilee, apparently.

I also used the trip to London to do a bit of research for my current project. This took me down to Deptford and Greenwich for the first time in more than thirty years. I’d forgotten how wonderful the river prospect is and how superb Christopher Wren’s buildings are. The Royal Naval Hospital was a noble concept and so much the personal brainchild of Queen Mary one has to wonder what other great things she might have sponsored had she lived beyond her 32 years.

I didn’t have nearly enough time there and I shall go back soon, but the grandchildren will be relieved to hear I did manage to pick up a job lot of pirate hats (one size fits all) from the Gifte Shoppe.

Now only five excitement-tossed sleeps till the Virtual Launch. Just to give you a taster, we’ll be kicking off on Thursday 7th with a lovely nostalgic party piece from best-selling novelist Paul Magrs, plus a recipe for a real 18th century ice cream from Society confectioner Jack Buzzard, and a few royal words from someone whose name begins with HRH. More treats in store on Friday and Saturday

And don’t forget, the names of everyone who signs the Guestbook June 7th to 9th will go into a prize draw and three lucky winners will be chosen on June 10th by my heavily blindfolded husband. He is a paragon of probity and cannot be bought.

Standing in the middle of Grafton Street this morning having my photo taken and trying to look completely natural I was reminded of a couple of  other pre-pub moments in my, ahem, career. There was the time when my then publisher’s front desk receptionist burst my balloon of celebrity by announcing me as, ‘Gloria Graham for Mr Motion.’ I think he’s Sir Andrew now. I’m still not nor ever have been Gloria.

There was also the time when, thanks to the haircut and a pair of very large earrings, I bore a passing resemblance to Gladys Pugh. So much so that even not wearing a canary yellow blazer I was unable to convince the group of kids who’d gathered at our photo shoot that I was merely an unknown novelist. They wanted my autograph, or rather Gladys’s autograph. One of them ran across to the nearby bus station and grabbed a timetable for me to sign which I did with what I hope was a sufficiently illegible flourish. At any rate they seemed satisfied.

Dublin’s a bit more sophisticated than that. In so far as there was any interest in what the photographer was up to this morning the verdict was likely, ‘Just another feckin writer.’  And quite right too. In Ireland we writers number more than grains of sand on the seashore.

So now I’m off to London to take tea and cake with the Elect and launch A Humble Companion. I suspect we may also open a bottle or three. But I’ll be back in good time to blow up the balloons and spear the cocktail sausages for my three day Virtual Book Launch. The party for people who don’t go to parties. If you didn’t yet pick up your invitation you’ll find it on the Events page.

All for now, folks!

When I woke up this morning I didn’t   know what a flipbook was. If I’d had to guess I’d have said it was one those cartoony picture books you riffle through quickly to get the sensation that the images are moving. Wrong.

I know what one is now. I may not actually own one but you could say I’m the cause of one, and on the assumption you don’t know what the Sam Hill I’m talking about, I’ll show you mine.

This is my Humble Companion flipbook. Go ahead, take a look. And make sure you have the sound turned on so you can hear the pages turn. How cool is that? I’d say that for a woman who has never used a microwave or watched a 3-D film it’s pretty damned cool.

When I worked in a book shop, in the Seventies, publication date was as non-negotiable as election day. We’d get the new Iris Murdoch in and practically have Securicor guarding the stockroom, lest anyone break in and get a sneaky preview. But  previews are now part of a publisher’s dance of the seven veils, a flipbook being veil number 5 or 6, and pub day being the moment when the final one is ripped off and you’re left in nothing but your tassels.  

Of course it’s only the on-line equivalent of reading the first ten pages in Waterstone’s before you decide whether to part with your money. And this way the real books don’t get as grubby. So, only fourteen sleeps till publication and I’m down to my big knickers and a feather boa. Sequence is everything, they say. Actually, in my opinion, sequins are everything.

And speaking of sequins, don’t forget to check my Events Page for your party invitation. Put it in the diary, dudes.

   Mr F and I disagree on very few important issues  -  they’re mainly of the ‘wet spoon in the sugar bowl’ degree of seriousness, but there is one thing I do think warrants my going public: writing in books. On this point, never the twain.

Like me my husband loves books. Unlike me he never passes them along. He has books going back to his college years, books still in their dust jackets, and I can guarantee he’ll have written something in every one of them. Sometimes he’ll just underline a word. This generally signifies that he thinks the author has used it incorrectly. I purely dread seeing his pencil mark on anything I’ve written.

As marginalia go an underlining is quite mild. Sometimes he’ll put an exclamation mark next to a line. I must tell you, this is hardly ever meant as a compliment. The next worst thing is the word ‘RUBBISH’ in the margin. The endpapers don’t escape defacement either. Phone numbers get scribbled down, and arcane little messages that baffle you when you take Little Big Man down from the shelf years later. Who was Walter, you wonder? And what was it that required 40 minutes at Gas Mark 5? In my husband’s hands a book gets treated like a memo pad.

The books I consider exclusively mine may not be in tiptop condition – I’m afraid I’m a page-corner bender, a practice Mr F would never stoop to  – but I would never, ever write in them. I guess it’s an attitude drummed in to me as a child, when the books I read were mainly borrowed from the public library and to deface them would have brought shame on my family. Actually, my grandmother already had that covered. She smoked in the street. Never scribbled in a book though, credit to her.

************************ 

Well, exciting times are upon us. Finished copies of A Humble Companion  arrived yesterday and they look delicious. I’ll post a picture of the final jacket next time though frankly no photo does justice to its gorgeousness. So, only eighteen sleeps till publication day and the start of my Virtual Launch Party, a three-day extravaganza to which you are all invited and about which, more very, very soon.

This is one of the most confusing times of my working year. It’s just three weeks till my new novel is published, so part of each day is devoted to getting the word out. Tweeting, Pinning, Posting. Plus the really important stuff, like deciding what shoes to wear to the launch party. Then there’s my Work in Progress, which I’ll be finishing, God willing and the creek don’t rise, by the end of October.

As well as doing daily battle with my current characters I need to have a firm grip on my about-to-be-published characters and that’s not as easy as it may sound. It’s seven months since I put A Humble Companion to bed and whilst I remember the general gist of it I’m afraid some of the finer detail escapes me. I’m living with a new bunch of characters now and they have first claim on my attention. I suppose it’s little wonder that I sometimes get Nellie confused with Nan.

There is another complication. It’s round about now, when the last book is out of my hands and the current book is ticking over nicely, that I dare to start thinking, ‘What would I like to write next?’ Ideas pop up. Some get swiftly and deservedly squished. Some persist, like a niggling tooth you know you’re going to have to deal with sooner or later.

‘Take a look at me,’ they whisper. ‘Investigate a little. You know you want to. Just a bit of casual research. No commitment.’

And I always do. Because I know there’s the chance I’ll get a tell-tale flutter, the tiny fizz of excitement somewhere in my gut, that means I’m on to a story that has legs. 

So that’s where I am right now. Trying to drive a three-horse carriage and still remember to buy milk and pick up the dry cleaning. The writing life.