writer's moll

for 2006 that is. Can’t let the year slip away without saying thank you to my few loyal readers. I started almost a year ago to give me a bit of confidence to express an opinion (any opinion actually, since the worst insult I ever had was from a relative who described me as harmless) and I said I didn’t care if no one read it. But I lied. It is fun writing it, but that’s as nothing compared to the thrill I get when you, dear reader, bother to take the time and trouble to leave a comment – up yours is acceptable too - well, almost!

Although our recent dismal performance in the Ashes was a bit embarrassing, if winning celebrations have to include the repellent gloating that the Aussies have just indulged in along with the endless jokes about what a useless bunch the other team are, I think I’d rather we carry right on being losers. Besides, they can’t have it both ways – either they won because they’re geniuses, or because we were hopeless – which is it?

I’m a big fan of AA Gill and am often helpless with laughter at his very funny, if somewhat cruel, restaurant reviews (firm but fair is his view), but it’s his more serious pieces that really show what a marvellous writer he is. Mr & Mrs Cliff gave me Gill’s latest book Previous Convictions for Christmas – a collection of his articles on people and places - and I’m caught up in alternating waves of delight and despondency with it – delight at such a great read, but despondent when, though the same is true for any other writer I care to compare myself with, I realise that I couldn’t write even one sentence as good as he fills every page with (see, as if to confirm it, I’ve committed the sin of ending that one with a preposition). Even in the Foreword there’s an entertainingly told account of his dismay, on the day he received the proof of his book, at finding that the title had been used before, by none other than his first wife’s famous father Cyril Connolly, which he describes as follows: there is no pain in the literary world as masochistically, self-despisingly painful as title envy. All authors have a secret list, a buried hoard of sure-fire, brilliant, memorable, posterity-guaranteeing titles – if only they could come up with the small inconvenience of a book to act as a plinth. He rang his ex wife to explain that he had no idea her father had used it previously (I must find out the dates involved in that story, as you wonder why he wouldn’t follow the fortunes of a famous ex relative), but she persuaded him that he should use such a good title and keep it in the family. And if the rest of the book is as good as the first chapter - discovering his hidden hippie at Glastonbury - I’ll be well pleased.

Finally got round to picking up Rob’s personal possessions and one of the most poignant was a book by Brandon Bays on her successful fight against cancer, that he used to take on all his day-long treatment sessions. It made me smile because we’d arrive at the hospital, he’d pull out his book but he could never stop talking long enough to read more than half a page. Maybe if he had …

Liked the following snippet of family conversation:

J to S: ‘what are you up to tomorrow?’

S (with a groan): ‘gotta babysit Ella’.

Nothing wrong with not enjoying the prospect of babysitting, but isn’t it a bit odd when it’s your own baby?

Happy New Year.