A Very British Blog Post

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Have been having a grand catch-up on my emails (just the 117 now left in my To-Answer folder) and discovered this British Blog Post offering, received on 23rd February, duly flagged up for my IMMEDIATE attention and then lost in the mire, from one Seumas Gallacher who is a v. good chum of mine.

Seumas first emailed me out of the blue back in… oh, 2008 I think it was, and said he’d enjoyed Wannabe a Writer? and he’d love to take me out to lunch. (Apparently I was his third choice after Billy Connelly and Alex Ferguson but they didn’t want to come.)

Well, how could I resist such flattery?

Usually I resist it very well actually (not for nothing do I have a chapter in Wannabe a Writer We’ve Heard Of? entitled Nutters & Weirdos) but there was something about old Seumas’s email that made me say – hey, why not?

I even met him on Friday 13th.

When I queried the wisdom of this, he promised to bring along a black cat and he did!  It lives on the back seat of my car –  I won’t tell you what I call it 🙂 – and, I like to think, keeps me safe on long journeys…

Since that first lunch, when he was asking me questions about the whole publishing process, describing what an old dinosaur he was when it came to all things web-based,  he has written two thrillers which have downloaded in their thousands and also become a blogging fanatic. Now he can teach me a thing or two!

So since he says I should do a Very British Blog Post I thought I would. Tho’ I’m not putting on the flowery frock for anyone. Here goes…

Q. Where were you born and where do you live at the moment?

A. I was born in North Cray – which counts as a London borough these days, but was then Kent. Now I live in Broadstairs by the sea…

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Q. Have you always lived and worked in Britain or are you based elsewhere at present?

A. Always been here. Tho’ now base myself in the Dordogne for at least a couple of weeks a year at the fab www.chez-castillon.com. Teaching there this April (one last place left on my course) and September. Click here for details (where you can try to win your stay for free!).

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Q. Which is your favourite part of Britain?

A. Oh gosh I hate having to pick favourites. When I spend too much time here, I miss the buzz of London, when I’m a few days in the city I look forward to seeing the sea. If I go hill-walking in Wales I feel I should do it more often, if I visit the west country I long to live there… Britain has too many lovely corners and contrasts to make that sort of choice.

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Q. Have you ‘highlighted’ or ‘showcased’ any particular part of Britain in your books? For example, a town or city; a county, a monument or some well-known place or event?

A. Both my third and fourth novels One Glass is Never Enough and Prime Time are set mostly here in Broadstairs.

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Q. There is an illusion – or myth if you wish – about British people that I would like you to discuss. Many see the ‘Brits’ as ‘stiff upper lip’. Is that correct? 

A. Maybe in old films…  Though I do think we are good in a crisis. Brits don’t run about screaming when the place is on fire or the roof has fallen in. They get on with what has to be done and then have a nice cup of tea.

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Q. Do any of the characters in your books carry the ‘stiff upper lip’? Or are they all ‘British Bulldog’ and unique in their own way?

A. My heroines are more likely to weep and wail and throw themselves about, to be honest. And then have a stiff drink. The only stiff upper lip in Prime Time comes when Laura has Botox.

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Q. Tell us about one of your recent books

A. Prime Time – a cheering tale of dysfunction and daytime TV – was shortlisted for the Romantic Comedy category of the RoNas – the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards. And One Glass Is Never Enough was based on my two years of co-owning a wine bar. Oh dear that’s two books. Silly me.

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Q. What are you currently working on?

A. The full-length print version of 100 Ways to Fight the Flab – which will be out next Christmas.

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Q. How do you spend your leisure time?

A. Walking, reading, eating and drinking, playing poor tennis, wondering how the hell I managed to get so behind on my emails…

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Q. Do you write for a local audience or a global audience?

A. I write for anyone who is good enough to read me and I’m hugely grateful to every one of ’em. Thank you xx

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Q. Can you provide links to your work?

A. Of course – tho’ I think they are pretty much plastered all over this blog already. See “books”

Hope that meets with approval, my old mate. Now I believe I have to suggest others to do this too?

How about

Morgen – http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com

Vikki – http://angelchildvikki.wordpress.com

Lynne Hackles – http://www.lynnehackles.blogspot.co.uk

Annie Ireson – http://annieye.blogspot.co.uk

and PDR  http://rowanlindsay.blogspot.co.uk/

for starters….

But if anyone else reading this, fancies a go, why not? Leave a comment here so we can all come and read it.

jxx

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