“Thought-provoking and a damn good story” – new review of Perfect World

Interested? You can buy the book here.

 

The Express quotes from my book ‘Jose Mourinho: The Art of Winning’

The Daily Express is this week using a quote from my book Jose Mourinho: The Art of Winning as (another) stick with which to beat (the delightful) Manchester United manager. Here’s a link to the piece – scroll down for the quote (and the pull-out).

And remember to buy your copy of the book while stocks last (or while Jose lasts) from here.

‘Outside’ in the News

My recent novel I Am Just Going Outside features in the December 2018 issue of Writers’ News magazine, in the Subscriber Spotlight section. There’s a snippet below.

Remember to join the conversation on Twitter, using the hashtag #outsidenovel, or, if you haven’t bought your copy of the book yet, go here.

First review of ‘Outside’

The first review of I Am Just Going Outside and May Be Some Time has now been posted to Amazon… and it’s a good one. Four stars. Thanks to Al Devey for this.

You can buy the book here, and you can join the conversation on social media by following the hashtag: #outsidenovel.

Look at what Amazon just recommended for me…

#outsidenovel

Also wants me to watch Paddington 2 for some reason… Not exactly the same audience as for Outside…

My New Booky Blog on the Big Bookend website

I’m guest blogging today regarding my new novel I Am Just Going Outside and May Be Some Time on the Leeds Big Bookend blog.

You can read it here. And you can buy the book here.

Happy Launch Day!

It arrives, heralded by the drumroll of thunder and forked tongues of lightning. It arrives, kicking and screaming, bellyaching – it’s wanted to be out for weeks, and now it is. It arrives, armed to the teeth and bearing a grudge. It arrives, my new book: I Am Just Going Outside and May Be Some Time, produced by those lovely folk at Wild Wolf Publishing (who were also responsible for Bully, Paint this town Red and Small Man Syndrome).

You can read all about it here.

And you can get your sticky paws on a copy by following this link. Tell your friends; tell your family. And join the conversation on Twitter (search for the hashtag: #outsidenovel).

Quick Update: ‘Outside’ Release Date confirmed…

Wild Wolf Publishing have confirmed the exact release date for my new novel I am going outside and may be some time. It’ll hit the stores on 27 July 2018. It’s a date which has been momentous throughout history. According to Wikipedia in 1054, Siward, Earl of Northumbria invaded Scotland and defeated Macbeth, King of Scotland, somewhere near the Firth of Forth. In 1890, Vincent van Gogh shot himself. He would die two days later. In 1930, Shirley Williams, the British politician and academic was born. Around 55 years later she would stay at our house. In 1960, the American singer-songwriter Conway Savage was born. He never stayed at our house. In 1974, The House of Representatives voted to impeach Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal. On 27 July last year, the American playwright Sam Shepard died, but this year, there’ll be a literary event of a different magnitude/ gravity.

So remember to look the book up on Amazon on this famous day in history. Cheers!

 

Happy Birthday NHS

You probably know, but it’s the big seven-oh for the NHS today. I wrote a blog, which has been published to the NHS Digital website. Please see below for full content:

“My parents were up to stay last night to babysit for the kids while my partner and I went out for a meal and to the cinema. We watched Jurassic World. It was pretty silly, and to be honest I spent most of the time thinking that I’d rather be sitting in our back garden, enjoying the warm evening with a glass of wine. As soon as the film finished, we drive home, threw open the patio doors, and did exactly that. The four of us from two generations (the third generation were – Glory be! – in bed, or so we thought) sat out as the sun went down, and eventually conversation turned to the NHS. Last night was the eve of the NHS’s 70^th birthday, after all.

My Dad’s a Baby-Boomer, retired now, and living the good life. Though my Dad and I are close – bonded by our love of the same football team – and at times it seems as though we aren’t a generation apart (usually when we share the same view of the manager; of what our best player needs to do so he can turn it on in very game not just when he has a new haircut and wants the cameras to get a good look at it) there are times when the years between us are more obvious. And I’m not just talking about technology, and Dad’s luddite tendencies here.

Dad was born not long after the end of the Second World War, in 1947, to parents Doris and George. George was a builder. Doris worked in a soap factory. George had to lay a lot of bricks and Doris had to make a lot of soap in the wake of the arrival of their bouncing baby boy. Indeed, they were still paying for that baby five years later: a special payment plan had been set up by the hospital to cover the fees. George, who was a Yorkshireman and fiercely stereotypical in his tight-fistedness, was probably kicking himself until the day he eventually died on account of the fact that if they’d only waited another year, they could have had little Raymond George for free, on the new National Health Service.

On Christmas Day 2013, my girlfriend Heidi gave birth to our own son, Jesus… No, I’m kidding, Leon George. He was named, in part, for the grandfather he never met (and also for a crossword clue – Leon is Noel backwards). The birth was very traumatic. There were a lot of complications. At one point there were no fewer than 15 health professionals in the room with us. Back in the day, grandfather George might have been totting up exactly how much all that knowledge, all that expertise, was going to cost him. But Heidi and I didn’t have to worry. Because of the NHS.

As the sun finally sneaked over the horizon like a kid told for the very last time it was bedtime, we shared many more stories of how the National Health Service had helped us all, every generation, and the extended family too. I’m sure many similar conversations will have been heard across the country, and will be heard today, too.

That’s why I’m supporting and promoting the anniversary by engaging with the following activities, and I’d like to encourage you to do so too:

• Frames and twibbon – we have launched two Facebook frames and a Twitter twibbon for staff, patients and the wider public to show their support for the birthday. Come on, do it, even if you hate the word twibbon as much as I do!
• NHS Voices – with the support of celebrities, the NHS Choir will be trying to get to number one for the birthday. Please support the NHS Voices campaign via social media.

And from twibbon to dinosaurs… The ridiculous to the sublime…

In Jurassic World one of the characters gave a speech (pretty much the only dialogue in the whole film, it seemed; the rest was all-action, all dinos snacking on folk) about how sad it would be that the de-extinct were about to become extinct again. In the world of the film, dinosaurs were not simply majestic, mythical creatures from books to children around the world, but, thanks to Jurassic Park/ World, they’d been made visceral. Real. To then have the dinosaurs die out again would be a heartbreaker for kids who’d lived with the sublime and had almost – but not quite – come to take them for granted.

The NHS is venerable – yes – and creaky in some parts. To hear some describe it, you’d think it was something mythical. Something from a film, or an ancient legend – perhaps something Arthurian. There’s something very round and tably about it in the national narrative. Some might describe the NHS as a dinosaur. But it ain’t. The NHS may have more varieties than Heinz but it is very real. And we cannot take it for granted. We must care for it, we must curate it, we must continue to help it to innovate, and we must continue to tell its story.

So raise a cuppa, or a glass of wine after five, to this sublime, multi-faceted collection of organisations, services, and most of all people. And be proud. And remember to share your stories on Yammer.

A quick epilogue. We talked into the night, into the birthday itself, before finally going to bed. On our way up to bed, we checked in on Leon, and on his sister, Peggy. Leon, we saw, hadn’t been as tucked-up and cosy as we’d previously thought. Perhaps our conversation outside had woken him up. Perhaps he’d been awake all the while. Either way, when we went into his room, we saw he’d laid all of his dinosaur figures out on his ‘volcano mat’, in battle formation (herbivores v carnivores).

For Leon, aged four-and-a-half dinosaurs are real. When we ask him where he would like to go on a day-trip, every time without fail his first choice is Jurassic Park. He’s young enough, idealistic enough, and un-cynical enough to still believe he walks amongst the sublime. In most respects, his parents and grandparents – us – we don’t believe in all that anymore. But we are very lucky that we can set cynicism to one side and see the embodiment of our ideals in the sublime National Health Service.

Fade out, to Jurassic Park theme…”

 

 

 

Exclusive Extract from my new Novel: ‘I am just going Outside…’