Authorized Blog for Andy Tilley, British sensational humorist and novelist, author of Recycling Jimmy from Kunati Books 9781601640130http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/Authorized Blog for Andy Tilley, British sensational humorist and novelist, author of Recycling Jimmy from Kunati Books 9781601640130en-US2008-10-13T05:43:13ZSquarespace Site Server v5.0.0 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Well that's all well and good, but what about the chickens?http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2008/2/1/well-thats-all-well-and-good-but-what-about-the-chickens.htmlWriter Member2008-02-01T08:20:22ZI got fan mail today from a bloke who’s just finished reading Recycling Jimmy. Now I know that, for most of the Kunati authors who had their novels published at the same time as me, this milestone was passed some time ago but I like to think that my target audience are just slow readers. Particularly pleasing is the fact that the letter came from someone who had never written to an author before. He just wanted to thank me for giving him a good laugh. How cool is that? Made me realise too that the whole process of writing a book doesn’t count for much if no one appreciates it. I always thought that I was writing for my own pleasure and whilst that maybe true to a point, the fact is that once published, you realise that you were writing for others; writing in the hope that someone, somewhere will like what you’ve done. There are other types of feedback that validate all this of course: royalty cheques (which reminds me, where the hell is mine?) and reviews, but generally these are from people who are either in the business or have an interest in it. If I had to choose, I’d take that unsolicited contact from a complete stranger any time. On the other side of the coin, no doubt it’s the start of sleepless nights for me; images of a tattooed madman sat sniffing my book surrounded by walls covered with news clippings and excerpts scrawled in chicken’s blood. Only messing Allan, much appreciated and glad you enjoyed RJ.

]]>Shelf Lifehttp://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2008/1/18/shelf-life.htmlWriter Member2008-01-18T10:44:32ZI write contemporary fiction; darkly comic stories that string together snapshots of today’s attitudes and events. On the surface, I’d accept that this particular genre is perhaps the simplest of all to tackle. I don’t mind admitting that, as a naturally lazy bloke, writing without research is hugely appealing. But it isn’t all good news. You see, for my stories to work, the reader has to recognise their context or at least be aware that the places and people they are laughing at or with, really could exist just outside the door, That’s how fiction works; the fresher the situation, the better the reading experience. The flip side of this is that, in today’s world where taste and truth can change with the flick of TV switch, ensuring the longevity of a manuscript needs careful attention. Imagine for example, Dan Brown putting the final touches to the Da Vinci code, sitting back with a smug grin only to see on the news that some dusty old archaeologist had found the real holy grail, spooned a goblet from the sand somewhere in the Holy Land. Bummer, and it’s the same risk with the fictional manuscripts that we slave over for months on end. I can tell you, it can be a long, anxious wait between submission and release; a time during which at any moment mass opinions or truths can change turning your funky fresh book into a pile of rotting pulp.

Recycling Jimmy...get it whilst its hot!

]]>The unreasonable weight of evil wordshttp://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2008/1/9/the-unreasonable-weight-of-evil-words.htmlWriter Member2008-01-09T11:38:04ZI almost had a great day yesterday. Things had been pretty slow after the holidays and I was pretty much resigned to yet another session of watching ducks through the window when Kirk called. He’s an Aussie, a pal of mine from work and on the spur of the moment he decided to drop in to visit me and my girlfriend on his way back to Algeria. Naturally, most of the entertainment took place in the pub where it didn’t take long for a whole host of friends who I hadn’t seen since Christmas to join us. Like I say, all the ingredients were there to make a day great (unexpected friends packed full of stories and huge laughs) that culminated in a guitar thrashing session back at the lodge. Cool, and a fantastic time was almost in the bag when, lying in bed just before the stroke of midnight I unaccountably blurted two words to my girlfriend, snoozing on the pillow next to me. Now I won’t say what those words were (why or what isn’t important here) but the argument and tension that followed was black enough to turn the whole day sour. My own fault and I’ll hold my hands up, but what struck me during that dark, silent hour between fight and sleep was how powerful those words had been. Five bad syllables that had somehow managed to pollute the thousands of good ones that had previously been spoken that day. Bad words have this ability. They can ruin moments, days, lives and they can break things that an eternity of good words will never fix. This isn’t rocket science but it does also explain why as a writer I sometimes find myself staring at a blinking cursor for hours on end looking for the right word. In reality though, it isn’t my search for the right word that delays; it’s my fear of the bad one, the one with the power to turn the last three pages in to toilet paper.

Recycling Jimmy ]]>Darwin and the evolution of psuedocidehttp://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/12/12/darwin-and-the-evolution-of-psuedocide.htmlWriter Member2007-12-12T14:33:37ZPsuedocide, that’s the buzz word ripping up the press at the moment (certainly in the UK anyway). It’s back in vogue following the disappearance and reappearance of that canoeist chap. The things people will do to get their hands on a pot full of cash. Hold on a minute though. If Darwin had simply taken a job at Burger King for the last five years instead of hiding in a wardrobe, couldn’t he have saved more than he got paid for dying? Getting back to psuedocide for a moment, this article makes a lot of sense about the reasons why, in future years (in a society that tracks individuals ever closer through financial, employment and even recreational records) we can reasonably expect to hear about more and more disappearances supported by false suicides. I wonder what actions insurance companies are considering in order to future proof their interests in this respect. I’d like to think that they’re going to be a bit more imaginative than simply increasing life insurance premiums for the rest of us. Maybe they should start insisting that any claim resulting from suicide should be supported by a body. In the absence of an actual body, how about accepting a short video clip of the event? Now that would be something wouldn’t it; a whole cottage industry built up around filming suicides? It appears that Jimmy’s idea may not be such a stretch of the imagination after all. Funny how reality often mimics fiction some years later isn’t it?

]]>Gift Certificates....not as thoughtless as you might think.http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/12/10/gift-certificatesnot-as-thoughtless-as-you-might-think.htmlWriter Member2007-12-10T14:10:41ZI came across an article today that made an interesting point about how people are dealing with ticking off endless lists of ‘Xmas presents to buy’. A lot of us it seems are using gift certificates.

However, Judith Martin (known to millions as Miss Manners…apparently) dismisses gift certificates (and, by extension, gift cards) as "a pathetic compromise convenient to people who do not trust their judgment about selecting the right present for those whose tastes they ought to know."

Well bully for you Miss Manners, but I think that labelling people who send gift cards as dithering fools who can’t be bothered to empathise with their loved one’s is a bit harsh. What you seem to be forgetting is that a good percentage of the people who are tasked with buying gifts happen to be men.

What happened to that old axiom that ‘it’s the thought that counts’? We blokes have relied on that for years! For men, gift tokens are a welcome addition to a growing list of presents that we don’t have to think about too hard and yet still get heaps of appreciatiation for from girlfriends and family. Take flowers as an example. We go to the shop, grab a bunch of something bright and smelly and hey presto, we’re transformed into romantic heroes. You’d think that we’d scoured the Amazon, wrestled snakes and been chased by little men in skirts before picking the last orchid in the canopy. Chocolates for Grandma, another no brainer. Any Play Station game for the kids, although this is effectively a gift certificate anyway because you can guarantee that it’ll be exchanged within days for something rated 18. All these gifts have one thing in common; they have been developed by men over generations as the ideal, thoughtless gesture most likely to be received with kisses and hugs.

But it didn’t come easy this knowledge. Men through the decades have suffered slapped faces and endured cold lonely nights in the spare room as they searched for the ultimate in repeatable gestures. Just be thankful that ‘clothes iron’ and ‘washing up gloves’ did get struck from the list sometime in the early 1940’s. As for gift certificates Miss Manners, please leave my generation’s contribution in tact.

There again, if you really are against them and you’re looking for something hip and heartfelt, why not a copy of Recycling Jimmy or any of the other utterly brilliant Kunati titles………

]]>Sexual Equality for Paedophileshttp://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/12/5/sexual-equality-for-paedophiles.htmlWriter Member2007-12-05T07:52:58ZRecently my publisher was asking for discussion topics that could be linked to the subject matter of Recycling Jimmy. I was racking my brain, considering a possible tie in to one of its subplots, specifically the UK’s sexual offenders list (huge debate here from time to time) when who should pop on the MSN home page but Ms Debra Lafave. Does anyone remember her? Must admit, I don’t recall there being much reported (back in 2004 when she was first arrested) but she was nicked again this morning, this time for violating her probation. The reason? Apparently Ms Lafave bust her parole by talking to a co-worker who also happens to be a 17 year old girl and therefore a minor. Bit harsh that some would argue but what’s really wrong with this headline? Any suggestions? Well I’ll tell you what’s wrong; the fact that Lafave even has a bloody co-worker. What the hell is the woman doing at work? Why isn’t she in prison? Back in November 2004, when she was a teacher, Debra Lafave seduced and had sex with a 14 year old boy. Her punishment then? 3 years house arrest. What! Okay, I can understand that a 14 year old should maybe be grounded for being very very naughty but an adult who has sex with a child? Imagine if it had been a male teacher who had groomed and eventually raped a student in his classroom. Would justice be served then if the judge sent Mr Walker to his bedroom to think about what he’d done? If ever there was a cast iron case for sexual equality, then this is it. ]]>Do not open your parachute until clear of the boat.http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/12/4/do-not-open-your-parachute-until-clear-of-the-boat.htmlWriter Member2007-12-04T08:37:55ZIt was the last flight of a particularly long and shitty day travelling home from Algeria . The final leg of the journey flies from London to Manchester , a distance of about 200 miles. I’d already watched 3 safety demonstrations that day (okay, one of them was by sun crazed German pilot of a small twin prop explaining how to ‘open the door a little if the cabin gets too hot’ during the flight-yeah, sure mate, and if its gets too cold I’ll light a small fire shall I?) and so I was showing about as much interest in safety procedures as the tired brunette was as she stood in the aisle just in front of my row, nonchalantly flapping her arms in the general direction of the emergency exits. That was until she bent down (no smut please, trying to make a serious point here), picked up a bundle of orange material and started climbing into a demonstration life jacket. Now I know I’m not the first person to think this but I’ll say it again anyway, just to illustrate a point. Why the hell, on a flight path that (apart from a couple of streams and a big garden pond just outside Cheadle) doesn’t go any where near water, are we told how to use a life jacket? Isn’t this a bit like giving everyone on a boat a parachute just in case it sails over a bleedin’ waterfall? And even if we were midway between London and New York when the oxygen masks dropped and you start slapping the old lady next to you to grab hers ‘in case yours doesn’t work’, is a life jacket really what a screaming passenger needs as his plane slams into the water at 200 miles an hour? Now I’m no expert, but I think that a parachute would be more use. If I owned an airline, that’s what I’d be pitching. My cabin crew would be all kitted up with goggles and big flappy pants, showing you how to tumble out of the back of the plane if things got hairy. Who knows, maybe for the frequent flyer, we could have an advanced section on how to grab hands, form a circle and perhaps swap business cards on the way down.

Okay, maybe that’s taking things a bit far but still, it’s a good example of what I wanted to illustrate here. Urban philosophy is what that is. ‘Huh?’ I hear you cry, ‘But doesn’t urban philosophy define a set of principles that can be applied to a city’s expansion or redevelopment?’ Well probably yes, but not here. When I talk about urban philosophy, I’m referring to all that stuff that spills out of the mouths of ‘urban philosophers’, usually in pubs. So what do I mean exactly? Well, my dictionary definition of it would look something like this:

Urban philosophy

• noun (pl. urban philosophies) 1 the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence only based on nothing more than a hunch and something you’ve seen a bit about on the Discovery channel once. 2 high quality bullshit that everybody knows is wrong but no one has the knowledge required to contest it. 3 anything that your best mate agrees with when he’s drunk but denies his agreement in the morning. — ORIGIN Greek urbanus philosophia ‘love of wisdom when combined with drink’.

Personally, I can’t get enough of it, and that’s why you’ll find quite a lot of it in the dialogue between Jimmy and Kevin in Recycling Jimmy. Here’s Kevin blurting out an ill considered but fundamentally sound (?) idea for putting the fun back into road accidents.

‘Well, I think they should have prizes that you can win when the airbag inflates. You know, written across the bag when it comes out. Not on all of ‘em of course, that would be stupid. People would be crashing just to see if they’ve won ‘owt. No, it would have to be just on a few, say one in a thousand. Most of the bags could say ‘Sorry, you are not a winner’ and perhaps have the number of the local hospital on or summat like that, but some of ‘em could have like loads of bits of silver confetti in and big red writing that says ‘Congratulations, You’re a winner, phone this number to claim your cruise’ or whatever. What d’ya think?’

Stunned silence.

‘Obviously they could wait until they were feelin’ better. There wouldn’t be a time limit on it or nothing like that.’ Kevin qualified, amazed by the cool reception that his idea had received.

Kevin’s idea was taken directly from a conversation (and as far as I could tell, a serious one too) that I overheard in a pub. If you keep your ears open, there’s loads of ‘urban philosophy’ around and nine times out ten it will either get you thinking or make you piss yourself. Sometimes I find myself steering whole passages of action toward a situation where these types of things can be expressed by one of the characters. I’m still working on how to incorporate something that I heard the other day though: my mate Malcom’s suggestion that everyone should leave the fridge door open for an hour a day to help combat global warming.

Andy Tilley

Author: Recycling Jimmy

]]>Passive exercise will kill us all.http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/12/3/passive-exercise-will-kill-us-all.htmlWriter Member2007-12-03T08:17:06ZI finally found some time to write yesterday and it felt good to be back there, shutting the world out and creating an alternate one. It was easy too but as I wrapped up and reviewed progress I did find myself asking ‘where the hell did that come from?’ This morning, I think I stumbled across the answer.

Me and my mate Malcolm spend quite a bit of time stood outside the office these days. The reason for this is that we’re both smokers. Now before you run off and tell the police, perhaps I should just clear up a few popular misconceptions about people who smoke. Firstly, we do not all carry a small puppy around in our pocket to stub cigarettes out on. Neither do we purposefully flick lit matches through the open windows of old people’s homes (that was an accident and no charges were brought). Never the less, we remain social pariahs; stared at like carnival freaks outside restaurants, chased from public parks by angry mobs. This is our life now, thanks to the over hyped phenomena that is passive smoking. Anyway, that said, we do abide by the rules and we try not to moan and, getting back to the shelter outside the office, we kind of enjoy the regular opportunity to grab a chat. This morning’s conversation (we have to have equal amounts of topics and cigarettes so here’s a tip girls: if you’re serious about finding Mr Personality, go get yourself a twenty a day man) was about global warming, specifically that frequently misunderstood and much maligned gas, carbon dioxide. During the course of the discussion we roughly calculated the contribution of CO2 in the atmosphere from you’re average set of lungs, and this totalled up globally to about 30% of the annual USA CO2 emissions. Big number that, but what struck me was that this is the figure calculated at rest. Imagine how much this increases during exercise when your lungs are pumping hard to drag 200lbs of flab round Central Park. My point is this. If we, the smokers, are to feel the full brunt of the law because of a possible link between poor health and passive smoking, shouldn’t those same agencies who persecute us be banning sweat suits too? The people who jog, sweat and grunt their way through life are not only, for the most part, offensive to the eye but also breathing too much and hurtling our world ever quicker towards its ultimate demise. Just a thought, and one that may well find itself in print too one day.

]]>Memories..fact or fiction?http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/11/26/memoriesfact-or-fiction.htmlWriter Member2007-11-26T13:18:19ZYesterday was a good day. A couple of pals from way back when paid me a surprise visit at the lodge. Now normally these things freak me out because, in spite of what you girls think, blokes do have some personal pride and inviting visitors in to a place that looks like it’s just been burgled always puts me on edge. Fortunately though, when the visitors are ex-flat mates, this doesn’t apply as ex-flatmates are never concerned about anything other than how their mate is and how much beer he has in. ‘Place is looking good’ was about the only comment passed, that from Higgy as he crouched in front of the fridge to inspect his options. We never left the kitchen, save for the obvious reason, and as the lodge is small that didn’t have to mean leaving the conversation. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t too long before the topic of that conversation came around to Recycling Jimmy. Crabber’s came across a copy in the bathroom. Neither of them had seen it nor read it and, whilst both knew that it had been published, I guess it hadn’t really meant anything until they actually held and flicked through the pages. After the initial round of piss taking (mainly targeted at the dust jacket picture which does make me look a bit like a Dale Winton impersonator) came the obvious question, asked by Crabbers but on behalf of them both.

‘So am I in it then?’

‘Nah, it’s a story mate. Pure fiction about suicide for profit. Not really our bag that was it?’

‘Well this sounds familiar Tilley. It’s my scooter isn’t it?’

Higgy read out the brief description of Kev’s scooter from the book and I had to agree; it was his scooter, something that really pissed Crabbers off. He snatched the novel, told Higgy to get more beer and began flicking through the pages. It didn’t take him too long to find a riposte.

‘Page 158. I did that. Ran off with your trousers that time in the night club.’

It was true, and Crabbers’ account of what had happened in the Tropicana that drunken, devastatingly embarrassing night opened the flood gates to another round of piss taking and, as we ploughed through our past experiences as Manchester student’s, on more than one occasion I found myself thinking, ‘hmmm, that’s in the book too.’

So here’s me thinking that I’ve consciously written a piece of dark, fictional comedy when it turns out that, in reality, a large amount of it appears to be based on flashbacks from nights best forgotten! But believe me, I am almost certain that we never dressed someone up as a rabbit and dropped them off a cliff.

]]>Cough for Christ’s sake man!http://www.deadlyprose.com/andytilley/2007/11/24/cough-for-christs-sake-man.htmlWriter Member2007-11-24T07:38:03ZWhere I work there’s isn’t much to do in the evening. The Algerian Sahara is spectacular to look at but you can only say ‘oooh, look at that sand dune’ so many times before it starts to get on your tits. Entertainment wise it’s about as gripping as a Steve McClaren press conference. So more often than not I fill the time just before my night’s kip, lying down and unwinding with a film on the box. That was until last night, when I was forced out of my bed time after time to bugger about with the volume setting and try to find a sound level that would allow me to hear what Nick Nolte was saying. In the end it was too much so I turned the saggy faced grunter off completely and lay in the dark seething. How the hell does someone whose job is supposedly to articulate a script for the benefit of the viewer, maintain a career with a gob full of gravel? Cough for Christ’s sake man! He must be the most Heimlich manoeuvred man on the planet, total strangers grabbing him round the sternum and jerking him up and down every time he says hello. And he isn’t the only one. That Lucy Loo or however you spell it, absolutely trashed Lucky Number Slevin for me. Great film, absolutely no idea what she said in it.

Now I fully understand that directors want to create a piece of work that’s convincing and that it wouldn’t be credible if alcoholic private eyes pronounced perfect English with impeccable grammar, but it is possible for a character to be believable without having to resort to ridiculous accents or them husky tones that require subtitles isn't it?. I mean, look at Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The dialogue between Jules and Vince is staggering but only because we can hear every word of it. But the fact that the actors talk crisply and clearly doesn’t make you doubt for a moment that if you jumped the queue at MacD's then they’d pop a cap in your ass.

If you’re writing a book, the issue of how to handle gritty, regional dialogue is even more of a challenge, mainly because you don’t have the luxury of any supporting action to carry the dialogue through. I’ve tried to read books where the author has stayed true to strong regional accents (Scottish for example) and find it difficult to keep the momentum in a scene building because trying to decipher the speech takes too bloody long. For example, if I was to try write and express, as best as I could, the sound of an excited young Liverpool lad seeking confirmation from his mum that firemen actually do put out fires, then I would have to write something like,

‘but dee doo doo dat don’t dee doh, mam.’ Tommy said from inside his hood.

What’s the bleedin’ point in that? Or suppose there’s a scene where someone from the Caribbean is ordering bacon at the Tesco’s meat counter. If the strict tone of the dialect is to be maintained he should ask for some ‘beer can’ shouldn’t he? I think that to write this would be wrong. You don’t want your reader having to stop and think about why the hell the bloke is ordering a six pack of Stella when his missus specifically sent him out for a pack of Danish, now do you? By the way, try saying ‘beer can’ without sounding like a Jamaican asking for bacon. You can’t.

Personally, I think trying to strive for too much realism in the passages of dialogue that connect action (and so enable it to flow) can really damage a scene. Pretty much all the stories I tell are set in Manchester and I must admit it is tempting to pad out the exchanges between characters, fill them with ‘mad ferrets’ and ‘blue noses’ but to do that would be wrong. After all, saying something that only you and Liam Gallagher can understand isn’t the best way to communicate an idea is it? Juno wot a meeeen arr kid?

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