And all they survey*

Last week a friend of mine emailed me a link to a news item with You’ll like this – you went to private school in the subject bar. I know: it could have been anything. I opened it anyway. It was about a leading girls’ school in London creating its own mini festival to celebrate… not music, theatre or even food – but failure. Yup, Wimbledon High School in south London is holding a “Failure Week”, which will include talks by parents about what they learned from their own disappointments, and assemblies discussing the merits of disaster. The idea is to help pupils cope with the pressure to succeed all the time and to learn to embrace their inner loser. Sounds good to me. I hope ‘failure’ eventually makes it onto the curriculum; it’d be so much more useful to be good at failure than good at maths. People like JK Rowling could be awarded honorary Failure PhDs for spectacularly rising from the flames. (I don’t reckon The Order of the Phoenix was a coincidental choice of title for the author who went from near-destitution to become one of the richest women in Britain.) The only downside I can see is that widespread appreciation of the value of failure might make the phrase “epic fail” more popular, and then I’d have to devote more time to fantasizing about tying up everyone who utters it, wiring their nipples to the mains and beating them with a knotted rope. But as good an idea as celebrating failure might be, the bit of the story that really caught my eye was the inspiration behind the initiative: a “study” showing that during the 80s and 90s in higher socio-economic groups, girls’ anxiety rose in line with exam grades. So achievement involves anxiety? Hey! No way!

I can’t help thinking these “studies” sneak in everywhere. In vast bunkers across the UK, statisticians are working constantly, diligently, desperate to prove… the bleeding obvious. Cancer has increased with the use of artificially made products. Get outta town! People with lower IQs tend to develop right-wing politics. Well I never! Young women with independent incomes and access to birth control might spend some of their time going out drinking. Knock me down with a feather.

It’s money for old (unknotted) rope: nice work if you can get it. Proving foregone conclusions is clearly a nice little earner. So I’ve decided to do my next thesis on the theory that if you roughhouse with adult tigers they will eventually maul you (citation: Siegfried and Roy). Or on the wild notion that if the Lib Dems form a coalition with a Tory majority, the former can expect most of the ensuing policies to be deeply unpopular with anybody who voted for/trusted them, reducing the party’s chances of having further influence for the next decade or so to zero. Or the kerrazzy hypothesis that if you squeeze the most deprived sections of society and then order the police to stand by while everyone does what they want, they’ll probably take you up on it. Or the frankly bonkers supposition that when the Queen’s got a party coming up and a realm to appease, the odd knighthood might get taken away. Trust me: someone, somewhere is already writing the intro…

* This column was first published in The Big Issue in the North on 13/02/12 http://www.bigissueinthenorth.com

Greats of late

Last Thursday I went to the launch of Zoe Lambert’s new book, The War Tour, at the Castle pub on Oldham Street. It was a night of many greatnesses. The Castle is one of the greatest pubs in Manchester, especially that wood-lined back room with its rafters like ribs; I always feel suitably Jonah-like sinking a bottle in there. The pioneering team at Comma Press (who have published The War Tour) consistently make it one of the greatest independent presses in the country. And then there’s my great mate Zoe, who has produced one of the most intense, considered and humbling collections of short stories I’ve ever read. Go get. I’m halfway through – reading it “cover to cover, as you should” according to Ms Lambert – and am full of admiration. Giving voice to victims of conflict, the stories are told from various perspectives, with all the subtlety and complexity you’d expect from an original superbrain who’s done a shitload of research. You can buy the book here. Zoe was supported at the reading by the mesmerising, she-shoots-from-the-hip-she-scores! poet and fiction writer Michelle Green, whose debut anthology is set in Darfur and due to be published by Comma in 2012. Watch that space for more greatness.

And so it’s late in the year, and I’m in the bleak mid-redraft of book two, denying Christmas for another week at least. Three good bits of news re Hungry: it’s gone to reprint, the rights have sold in Slovakia*, and the book is now available on Kindle. Thanks to everyone who’s been such a terrific support this year. There’s no polite way of saying this: you’re all fucking ace.

*Hlad, Hviezdy a Všetko, čo is what it will be in Slovak – not that I instantly went on Google Translate or anything.

Guesting #2*

I do like a nice picture of a wolf.

I’ve written a guest post on Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf for the Writer’s Choice series over at Norman Geras’ place. You can read it here.

And now I’m hunkering down to write (or rewrite) the only way I know how: keeping myself in and turning off the wi-fi. At least for most of the day. If you’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo, good luck getting your novel done this month.

I’ll be resurfacing briefly on Thursday 24th November at 7pm to read and talk at St Helen’s Central Library (free entry). Hope to see you there if it’s your neck of the woods. Otherwise: until December, dudes.

*Aroo

Not quite creatively bankrupt*

Those bloody Halifax ads. They don’t make me want to bank with Halifax. They make me want to hurt (at least flick hard on the nose) everyone involved in their creation. Another one that bugs the bejesus out of me – and I don’t know if it’s on any more as I’ve been away in a dark, receptionless back pocket of Cumbria – is the one for Impulse body spray. The bookshelves… The cute young couple… If you don’t know it, I envy you. There is a reason for this beyond it being the worst kind of throat-finger schmaltz. I won’t say any more in case you haven’t seen it, but when I first saw it I was halfway through writing a short story that uses a similar device goddamitgoddamitgodDAMit. I spoke to the editor, who told me not to worry, so I finished the story, cringing and cursing every time the ad came on TV. And now, for the sake of my pride – and also to let you know that the story has been published – I thought I’d bash out this disclaimer: I steal things from everywhere, all the time, but not deodorant adverts. Yet.

Anyhow, let’s forget all that now. You can read the story here on the Paraxis site along with lots of other good stuff. Paraxis is a new online short story publisher, edited by the mega-talented Claire Massey and Andy Hedgecock. The theme of this issue is ‘the library’.

* And I love this skit a lot.

Two very important bits of news*

Go ahead and jump!

Physicists at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, think they’ve clocked neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. If it’s true, then time travel starts here. Which is exciting.

And while we’re on the subject of the future, I’ll be chatting with John Niven (author of Kill Your Friends and general all-round funny bastard) at Manchester Literature Festival. We’ll be at Waterstone’s Deansgate on Saturday 15th October at 6pm. If you like the sound of it you can book via the festival website, here.

*Hey, it’s all relative. Or maybe not any more.

Murmurations*

Hello everyone. You know how I like birds? Like, a bit obsessively? Can you be a bit obsessive about something, I’m not sure… anyway, I’m very proud to have a new short story in Murmurations, a bird-themed anthology edited by Nicholas Royle. Bill Broady, Adam Marek, Tom Fletcher, Claire Massey, Conrad Williams, Socrates Adams-Florou and Adèle Geras are just a few of the other writers with stories in it too.

The brief was ‘uncanny’ so I wrote about a girl who struggles to communicate with her father and best friend. Birds and birdlike things help. Sort of. In a weird way. That’s the thing with birds though, they might look pretty in the garden but they’re wild animals and won’t ever quite trust us. Good inspiration for that distance, maybe. My birds tolerate my presence for food (this will not stop me trying to train my favourite, a robin, to take seed from my hand – it’s getting closer). But I’m under no illusions about the fact that they’re not really mine, and while I love feeding them and watching them, they’d happily take my eye out if they were hungry enough (and I was slow enough).

Did you know the Hitchcock film The Birds was based on a short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier? I didn’t, but that one’s in there as well. All good eery autumn reading.

You can get a copy of Murmurations direct from the publisher here if you like the sound of it.

*of starlings, and other lovely collective nouns

Shit my mum says*

I was at the National Portrait Gallery with my mum last week. We did the whole thing, every room, every corridor beginning to end, because we share – or rather I have inherited – a practically masochistic capacity for thoroughness. I love my mum (she and my dad crack me up regularly as anyone who follows me on Twitter will know) and her thoughts at the NPG were a refreshing side-view on the official tourist information so I thought I’d share.

On the Tudors: “Well, they were all ugly buggers weren’t they.”

On a Civil War painting featuring ten children: “Look at that, not a bonny one amongst ‘em.”

“He’s all right.” [Prince Rupert] [who looked like Michael Ball].

And then, as we sat in the café, reflecting on portraiture in general: “Either people have got better looking over the years, or painters have got more dishonest.”

Anne Boleyn, unknown artist, late 16th century

* #1. Because there WILL be more.

Touchdown*

A bit like an ageing space shuttle, today I’m coming back to earth after the craziest few months… Tuesday was the last launch for Hungry, in London, and it was exciting and head-heating and buzzy after so many exciting, head-heating, buzzy events and now I’m on a train and almost home (re-entry to Mancunian atmosphere T-minus 30 minutes and counting) and I’m slowly slowing down…

I’m looking forward to getting fully immersed in the second draft of the second book. I lay awake most of last night in a hotel room in Pimlico, battling with plot and perspective and a hundred things that aren’t working properly yet, and I think now I have somewhere to start next week – at least I hope so – when I batten down the hatches and go back into my Prestwich training cave for a while, doing the thing I do everything else to be able to do: write.

Thanks to everyone who has been to the events and who has read the book and got back to me with their thoughts – you’ve made me realise that the thing I was most afraid of (feedback) is actually one of the most rewarding things about putting a book out into the world.

But for now I’m pretty burnt out.

* neeeeeeeeeooooowwwwwrumblerumblerumble

Take That*

I’ve been pretty rubbish at blogging lately so by way of apology here’s my latest column – as appeared last week in The Big Issue in the North. I’ve pasted the text below in case you can’t open the PDF…

BIG ISSUE COLUMN 27/06/11

*and party

She’s Got Issues
Emma Unsworth calls last orders on binge drinking scare stories

Gender equality issues have been making headlines lately in the shape of SlutWalks – the most recent one being in Manchester on 10 June – and Times columnist Caitlin Moran’s brilliant new book, How To Be A Woman. If, like me, you’re lucky enough to mainly socialise with men who identify themselves as feminists, sometimes it’s easy to forget that there is still much work to be done in the fight for equality. But is there ever.

Last week’s news coverage of the Take That gigs at the City of Manchester Stadium made my blood boil. I was reminded of the articles and TV shows from a few years ago identifying “binge drinking” as one of the biggest problems created by young women in Britain. Never mind that exactly what constitutes binge drinking is fuzzy and at best unrealistic. Never mind that plenty of young men go out drinking after work and at the weekend – and have done for centuries. It doesn’t matter that more and more women are pursuing careers instead of having children (hey, some even manage to do both) and therefore have a personal disposable income for leisure. Nor does it seem to matter that the vast majority of these women don’t drink to excess in a way that makes them dangerous to themselves and others. Because the subtext of the rusty old binge drinking hook was this: women, especially young women, simply shouldn’t drink.
Almost half a million fans attended the eight home gigs Take That played to kick off Progress Live, their biggest UK tour to date. And yet somehow the papers were full of horror stories of hordes of “boozed-up” female fans because – and the figures here are pretty staggering – Manchester Royal Infirmary admitted just 87 more people than last year with drink-related injuries for just six of those eight gigs. Out of half a million, 160 people in total were admitted to A&E and treated for alcohol poisoning and sprains, but even the BBC couldn’t resist getting in on the hyperbole, describing MRI as being “flooded” with drunken women.

I’d like to see the stats for a football match because I’m sure MRI A&E sees a spike in admittances during each and every one of those too. Not that women don’t attend football and men don’t attend Take That concerts, but in terms of the gender demographics of both, it’s clear to me there’s demonisation afoot. The media also swooped on the 65 women who were thrown out of the eight gigs for being too drunk, largely ignoring the fact that 35 men who were also ejected for the same reason. Thinking of the demographic of those gigs again, that’s an interesting ratio, isn’t it? But no – drunken women were the scandal of Eastlands.

There was also a real cruelty in many of the reports – and online comments – slamming “middle-aged” women for trying to “relive their youth”. Stewards were
quoted as saying that women arrived early to get a position near the stage and drank for hours – fuelling the notion that female fans are all hysterical idiots. I mean, how ridiculous! The fools! And how inconsiderate! Really
they should all have been at home watching Outnumbered or dipping their nets.

I’m not saying alcohol doesn’t cause problems when consumed in excess at public events (and private ones, for that matter). I also think that if under-18s are permitted into a gig, alcohol shouldn’t be on sale at all. And I don’t doubt there were more people admitted to A&E the nights of the Take That gigs – but I bet there’s a spike whenever there’s a concert on in town. I’d like to see the figures from Oasis concerts too. And Status Quo. And Peter Kay. And don’t even get me started on those kids bouncing off the walls high on sugar when The Wiggles crew comes to town.

www.bigissueinthenorth.com

Guesting*

Apologies to those of you who followed the link when I tweeted it this morning, but I have written a guest post for top lovely blogger and novelist Kate Lord Brown, author of The Beauty Chorus, and you can read it right here.

*or ‘hot-blogging’ maybe?