The Grubtown Daily Herald

I like my postman. He recently bought a batch of my books off Amazon, and is always a such cheery fellow (slipping the attack dogs tit-bits before running for the gate). He also brings me gifts. Yesterday, for example, he gave me an advance copy of my special World Book Day £1 flip book, Grubtown Tales: THE GREAT PASTA DISASTER. Okay, so JH-W my editor posted it to me, but it was the postie who actually handed me the package. I think that the cover looks so fab, I thought I’d share it with you, free of charge. Enjoy.

No, those aren’t my words but the words of a passing stranger who caught sight of my latest official author photo, a copy of which was lying on my study desk (not to be confused with my office table). The way that I casually say “latest official author photo” suggests that I regularly have them updated. The fact is, I’ve only ever really had two official photos and the last one of those was taken about ten years ago. Since then, my hair has turned much greyer and my expression less wise.

This new photo was taken by the photographer who photographed me for an article in The Independent in November but whose name has COMPLETELY escaped me for the moment. Sorry, Mr Blank. I’ll add it to the bottom of this post as soon as I remember!

Anyway, rest assured that I had my haircut soon after this picture was taken, and also wiped that silly smile — yes, it’s a smile — off my face.

Now, I wonder what that passing stranger was doing in my study in the first place. And why did she have my DVD player and a pair of silver candlesticks under her arm?

Hmmmm…

The all-new official author photo

There have been complaints. A man with a balaclava — which is a kind of knitted headgear which covers most of a person’s face — dashed into my office this very morning and rapped me over the knuckles with a bendy plastic ruler, with cries of: ”Woawawooaowwwwh!” That’s talking-through-knitting speak for, “YOU HAVEN’T BEEN KEEPING YOUR BLOG UP TO DATE!”, with a slight East End accent. I don’t mean that he was accusing me of not having kept this blog up to date with an East End accent…

Why would I want to keep this blog up to date with an East End accent. It makes no sense!  That would be SILLY.

No, what I mean was that he spoke with an East End accent, through the knitting, accusing me of not having written in my blog lately, and he’d be right.

The long and the short of it is that I’ve been very busy. Yes, I’ve been checking proofs for an up-coming Grubtown Tale TRICK EGGS AND RUBBER CHICKENS. Yes, I’ve been checking pencil sketches for HENRY’S HOUSE: ROMANS. Yes, I’ve even been on a school visit and am hobbling around with a bad ankle, but what’s been taking up most of my time is work on this idea for an exciting new TV series…

…but because it’s so hush hush that I can’t even tell my beard about it, I can’t really write about it here, now, can I? Sorry!

Oh, and before I forget: HAPPY FEBRUARY!

The Man With The Bendy Ruler

Amongst my recent mail I received a lovely letter from ten-year-old A.H. in which she writes about having done a school report on STINKING RICH AND JUST PLAIN STINKY. She even included this fabulous extract:

“You can laugh at the Grumbly girls, faint at the stench of Manual Org and go in a flabbergasted voice, ‘Well, I didn’t know that as going to happen’!”

But not only did A.H. not include a stamped self-addressed envelope, she didn’t include a return address either on the back of the envelope or at the top of the letter… so I can’t reply (or fulfill her request regarding her dad).

This is REALLY SAD when this happens because I do, do DO want to write back and I can’t… and she’ll end up thinking that I can’t be bothered… UNLESS you’re A.H. and you’re reading this. If you are, please get in touch again, with your address this time.

If you know someone who’s ten years old, has recently done a school report on STINKING RICH AND JUST PLAIN STINKY, and has written to me, then please draw her attention to this blog entry, or to the fact that she needs to give me her address.

Thanks for the letter, A.H. . . . wherever you are!

A picture paints a thousand words...

Beloved readers, forgive me for not wishing you a happy 2010 on 1st January itself. I have failed you and will never forgive myself. So, six days later — on Twelfth Night — let me take this opportunity to remind you to take down all your Christmas decorations before midnight (if you put any up in the first place), and to wish you all the very best for the New Year.

I will be sharing five of my 27 New Year’s Resolutions with you in the not too distant future but, in the meantime, let me make a suggestion. Why not make 2010 the year when you spend more time on the Arts with a capital ‘A’?  That’s right, why not read even MORE of my books and take time to visit any art galleries containing portraits of me, or visit museums containing Ardagh artifacts. There’s the Ardagh Chalice at the National Museum of Ireland, one of the finest pieces of Celtic craftsmanship, and the Ardagh Beard Hair at the Museum of Humankind in Tanglesbury.

This year will see FOUR more — yes: one, two, three, four more – Grubtown Tales in print: The Wrong End of the Dog, Trick Eggs and Rubber Chickens, the £1 World Book Day Book The Great Pasta Disaster, and finally, in September, Splash, Crash and Loads of Cash. And if that doesn’t make for a momentous year, I don’t know what does!

HAPPY 2010! 

 

The Ardagh Chalice. Like Beardy, a thing of great beauty.

A reader eagerly devours anything and everything about 'comic sensation' Beardy Ardagh

No, the heading to this entry aren’t my words but those used in a headline profiling me in this week’s Times Educational Supplement, brought to my attention by Mary Page from East Sussex Schools Library & Museum Service (which doesn’t appear to have an apostrophe in it). Thanks for that, Mary!

It’s a really well-balanced piece by Helen Ward but I would say that, wouldn’t I, because I don’t come across as an egotistical maniac. One of the things I REALLY like about the profile, is that Helen interviewed Jim Paillot, who illustrates the UK editions of my Grubtown Tales (and shared the Roald Dahl Funny Prize with me for Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky). Unfortunately, I’ve yet to meet Jim face to face because he lives under a rock in the Arizona Desert, so we communicate via e-mail, telephone and – on very clear days — smoke signal.

Amongst the things Jim says in the article, my favourite quotes are:

“Every illustrator waits for the chance to draw a ghostly bag of frozen peas. Those opportunities do not come by every day so I was quick to recognise that. If you like your stories to be full of wholesome people who eat sensibly and observe good hygiene habits then you should run away from this book.”

and:

“To celebrate getting the prize I took a day off and sat quietly inside my personal sensory deprivation tank. It’s filled with deli meats and wet carpet remnants. I find that relaxing.”

Now you can see why I really wanted Jim to illustrate the series in the first place. He’s my kinda guy.

You can read the full TES profile  by clinking on this link: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6031792 

If you don’t, I’ll want to know why.

The space below is reserved for ‘What I Did In My Christmas Holidays’ and will soon be filled by my team of ghostwriters. In the meantime:

SEASON’S GREETINGS!

This picture is taken from an UPSTAIRS window.

That’s deep!

The Ardagh Estate

It’s just a week since my knee op and I’m not quite as mobile as I hoped I would be. This has to do with the shonky ankle on the foot of my other leg, and the heavy snow we’ve had lately. It’s hard enough to get around in this snow and  ice if you have two perfectly working legs, let alone two dodgy ones. Don’t get me wrong, the snow makes everything look very pretty. Dotty Hendrix topped with a foot of snow is a thing of beauty. (Sorry I forgot I had your front door key in my pocket, Dotty.)

It’s just that the roads in and around Tunbridge Wells have been bad, bad BAD. The other evening we had to abandon our car and get a lift from a friend with a four-wheel-drive vehicle with snow tyres. (Thanks, Tim.) The trains have been virtually non-existant too.

Still, I don’t need to be able to walk to write… I’ve been checking the proofs of Grubtown 4: THE WRONG END OF THE DOG, the pencil roughs of Henry’s House 7: ROMANS and working up an idea for a new TV series with Ragdoll Productions.

They’re excited.

I’m excited.

They’re excited that I’m excited. 

I’m excited that they’re excited.

They’re excited that I’m excited that they’re…

The Christmas tree is up, but what a palaver. I always get my tree from the same wood but after it’s closed to the public for the day, because I know the forester and like to choose my tree away from the public’s gaze. Unfortunately, Toto forgot to bring the wire-cutters so we had to climb over the fence rather than go through it like we usually do. It was easy enough getting in. I stood on Toto who was standing on Dotty whilst Rickets stayed in the Bentley with the lights off but the motor running. Getting back out again was much harder because we had the tree with us and that had to go over rather than under too.

The forester has a little hut in the woods which he sleeps in over the Christmas period because, sad to say, there are plenty of Christmas tree thieves about. (I don’t know what the world’s coming to.) Anyway, I didn’t want us to disturb him, so we were being as quiet as possible until Dotty went and fell in the netting machine. You know the sort of thing: you push a big fat Christmas tree through it and it comes out the other end all long and thin and neaty netted up, a bit like a sausage. . . which is a exactly what Dotty looked like.

It wasn’t the noise of her falling through the machine which alerted the dog. It was me laughing. Well, you can’t blame me: an elderly woman with blue hair trapped inside a giant hairnet is high on everyone’s Top 100 Funniest Things list. Anyway, once we’d freed her, we only had time to grab the nearest tree and get it and us back over the fence before some snarling ball of hate threw himself at the chain-link fencing, teeth bared,closely followed by his slavering dog.

We had rigged up a trailer to attach the tree to* [*see previous entry] but there was no time. Dotty, Toto, the tree and I cramned into the Bentley with Rickets at the wheel and we sped home.

And, now, as I started by saying, the tree is up. And very pretty it is too. My only slight gripe is the sign nailed to the top of it, which we’ve been able to remove, not matter how hard we’ve tried. It reads: ‘BEWARE OF THE DOG’ . We’ve tried tarting it up with a tinsel trim but it still looks out of place, somehow. (If only it had read, ‘BEWARE OF THE DONKEY’, then it would have fitted neatly into the nativity story.) I’ve asked Dotty to print out a picture of me - a head-and-shoulders shot would be nice — to stick over the sign. That’ll perk up the tree no end.

Season’s greetings!

As those of you who know me –or have been following my antics over the years — will be well aware, I am not only an award-winning and internationally best-selling children’s author but am also an extraordinarily gifted athlete and dancer. I admit that I’ve put on weight recently, but this is a part of my fitness programme. Instead of lifting weights, I’m carrying these extra pounds with me at all times, so that my work-out regime isn’t limited to the gym or jogging track.

Every move I make, I’m pumping iron!

You don’t believe me?

You should see how much I sweat just unwrapping a Chunky KitKat or ordering at Mcdonald’s.

Sir Philip ducks out of celebrity dance-off

As for my dancing, let’s just say, the only thing stopping me giving in to the constant pleas from the BBC Strictly Come Dancing team (since day ONE) is my not wanting to put the so-called professional dancers to shame. Say no more.

Imagine my horror, therefore, to have recently developed not only a knee problem but a ankle problem too. The ankle isn’t getting looked at until February, but I’m having an operation on my knee on Monday. Please be assured that, during the brief time I am under the general anesthetic on the operating table, all the computer passwords granting access to my as-yet unpublished novels will be in the care Dotty Hendrix so, in the terrible event that should something go wrong, the nation — the WORLD — shall not be deprived of the beauty of my prose.

I’m not going to ask for a 24-hour prayer vigil during Monday’s operation, but it would be nice if some of you were to observe a few minute’s silence at your home or place of work. Cars could pull to the side of the road.

Thank you.

Today, my assistant Dotty Hendrix tells me, is the first day of  Hanukkah, and I know that it’s also two weeks until Christmas. If all goes according to plan, this time in two weeks I’ll have served up the HUMONGUOS turkey and the Fortnum & mason’s Christmas pudding — not at the same time — and we’ll be onto the mince pies, tangerines, chocolates and nuts, sharing a few of those awful cracker jokes and mottos, and wearing paper crowns. (Well, everyone else’s crown will be paper and from a cracker. I’ll probably be wearing my usual casual day-wear one, studded with the semi-precious stones.) 

“DO YOU HAVE ANY UNWANTED GOLD JEWELLERY?” Then melt it down and make your own crown, stupid! (I even have a lighter one to wear in the bath.)

Unwanted gold jewellery?

I love the lead up to Christmas, especially opening a door of my advent calendar each morning. Today’s door was HUGE and, when I opened it, I found Toto, my houseboy, curled up asleep behind it. Then I realised that I wasn’t weaing my glasses and had actually opened the door to the third-floor broom cupboard. (He doesn’t need his own bedroom because he normally sleeps at the foot of my bed in case I need him for anything in the night.)

We’re getting our Christmas tree tomorrow (Saturday). I don’t want it scratching the inside of the Bentley when we bring it back from the woods, so we’ve rigged up a kind of trailer to tow behind the car. It’s made of some old wooden palettes with a few skateboards — confiscated from some local ‘rough’ children — lashed to the bottom with bungee straps, to act as the wheels. I’m a little worried that the Christmas tree might roll off when we take some tight bends, so have instructed Dotty to sit on the trailer first and we’ll lie the tree flat on top of her so that she can hold onto it for the return journey, and then we’ll tie them both down. Toto is good at knots. I would get Toto to sit on the trailer, but his arms aren’t really big enough to get around a decent-sized tree. Rickets — our faithful family retainer – could do it (if his back didn’t give way), but he has to drive.

The real fun will begin once the tree is up in the house and the decorating gets underway. I’ll have my first mince pie of the season and bark instructions from my favourite chair.

Happy Hanukkah!

Look. I’m sorry. I’ve been very busy lately and relying on my beard to keep this blog updated… and , now that I finally get around to reading what he’s written, I find that the answer is a big fat zero.

[Question: If zero is nothing can it ever actually be big and fat or small a slim because nothing is nothing is nothing? It can't get more or less. Maybe 'a  big fat zero' refers to the number zero; the numerical representation of nothing? Or not? Who cares (apart from that guy in the anorak who keeps nodding interestedly and jotting things down on a banana skin)? Look, he's got blue ink around the corners of his mouth from were he's been sucking his ballpoint pen.]

Anyway, there I was expecting to read my beard’s perspective on my winning the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, my subsequent appearances on TV and radio, my after-dinner speaker’s slot at the Society of Childen’sBook Writers & Illustrators’ annual conference in Winchester (though, at first, I thought it was in Warwick ), my attendance — along with a whole host of other fab children’s authors — at the UK finals of the Kids Literature Quiz, and my being filmed reading the first few chapters of my £1 World Book Day book.

Philip Ardagh with an unidentified pet and its owner

But, no.

It was not to be.

Of course, my beard has a perfecty good reason for NOT keeping my blog updated — not least, not having any figures with which to type — but I need a scapegoat and, not having one, a beard is the next best thing, what with beards being the distinguishing features of many goats, scape or otherwise.

Just in case you were wondering where the term scapegoat — meaning someone blamed for the wrong-doings of  others — comes from, I thought I’d put aside the next however many words to explain, so here goes: If someone you love has just given the kitchen floor a really good clean and said, “No one can go in there for the next fifteen minutes until the floor is dry!” but you forget and leave muddy footprints all over the nice clean floor, you need an excuse. You need a get-out clause. You say, “It wasn’t me! It was an escaped goat!” but, because you’re in such a hury to blurt out your lies, lies, LIES, you say ’scapegoat’ instead of ‘escaped goat’. See? What a terrible liar you are. That makes you a BAD person, by the way.

QUESTION: What is the different between the above explanation and a completely empty larder?

ANSWER: One has a total lack of pies. The other is a total pack of lies.

If you don’t already know the origin of ’scapegoat’ and you want to know, THEN LOOK IT UP IN A BOOK or — seeing as how you’re on line anyway — look it up on the Net.

When I haven’t been doing all the stuff my beard should have been writing about, and which I’ve mentioned fleetingly above, I’ve been hard at work on a non-book related project. It involves writing, so has nothing to do with my project-managing the building of my new secret underground lair beneath a distinct volcano.

No.

And don’t say, “Your new lair can’t be that secret if you’re telling everyone about it.” Well, my answer to that is that it’s the LOCATION of the lair that’s secret not the fact that the lair exists. Or will exist, once we’ve sorted out a few teething troubles with the build. (Apparently, there was some problem with escaped goats when they poured out the wet concrete for the floors.) As for the other project — the one involving writing — all I can say is the forty-four sounds required to make up all the words in the English language. No, sorry. I mean I can say the forty-four sounds one needs to say all the words in the English language, but that was not what I meant to say back there and then.

What I meant to say was is: all I can say is that it has to do with television. Exciting? It’s enough to make my beard’s hairs curl. Now perhaps it’ll be able to hold a pen…

The idea of posting these pictures is to give you an idea of what it was like to wander around the Cheltenham Literary Festival’s 60th birthday festival on one of the days when it wasn’t raining. And very nice it was too.

There are a number of nice things about being an author at a book festival:
1. You’re an author in the first place, which means that you get to write books.
2.You get to meet OTHER authors and, sometimes, get to go to their events.
3. You’re surrounded by lots of people who are PAID to be nice to you.

Here are some pictures of just a few fellow writers I’ve run into recently… or there will be just as soon as I can get the ADD PICTURES button to co-operate. Let me go and get it another saucer of milk –