ah - it appears my blog is working again. But because I've been locked out for weeks and weeks, I've moved.

If you want to follow me, I'm now at: http://savingcaravaggio.blogspot.com/

sorry if you've been locked out, too...

Neilx

A writer's weblog to be envied. And a fine writer too. Link is to your left. Check it. Oh, yes, he's just said some very nice things about my new novel, but I think is waiting to until novel is published before he posts it.

The writers quote page is very funny, and edifying.

Things have been hectic.

Moved house

Need to find house to move into while new house is being gutted and extended

New house hasn't been touched since 1972!

Business is busy.

Shepharding novel through process - cover, blub, quotes, design. Almost done.

Trying to get some people to read it and endorse it.

Julian Barnes says he'll take it on his next walking trip to Italy! Hope he likes it; suspect if he gets far enough, he will, but who can tell?

Patrick Neate (whitbread winner) is reading it, but not sure it's his kind of stuff.

Apparently Val Macdermid is also reading it - she's a big advocate in the crime world. No idea what she'll think.

Want to start third novel but sabbatical postponed again.

My twins are a delight. Almost three.

And then there is other stuff: writers' salon at the hospital; ad hoc writing projects etc.

Cooking haggis tonight - my favourtie.

is Pick of the Day in The Guardian.

The FT calls it "preposterously pretentious"!

So I've got the liberals; but the capitalist - well, when have they ever know anything about culture?

It's broadcast tonight at 9pm on BBC Radio 4; and then on the Radio 4 website for 7 days.

will be broadcast Friday April 21st at 9pm. It will then be available via broadband for 7 days so you can listen to it at your leisure.

It is called, "The Incompatibility of Memory in the Pursuit of a New Life".

The brief was 'film on the radio', so don't go expecting clinking china tea cups and the crunching of carriage wheels on gravel. My guess it is a psychological thriller more than anything else; but clever people might conclude it is an examination of the Self's inability to renew itself, and for some that feels like life's great tragedy; for others the path to wisdom. Not that it's any new age bullshit in it. It's a whole lot darker than that.

in writing up stuff on this blog

been very busy - on third sale of house! Everyone wants to buy it; no one wants to own it - but i think this time it's going to through

Writers' Salon was real success. It remains to be seen how long we can keep the momentum up.

My radio play is being broadcast next month - will post date asap.

Finally got someone to read Bellow's Herzog on my recommendation. Did have to buy him a first edition and put it on his desk, where it lay for about two months. He only read it because he went to Leipzig and didn't have anything better to do. Suffice to say, he loved it and rates it in his top 5 novels ever. Which is where is sets in my list.