Dog And Bone, 1990. 244p

Jack Naylor is a solicitor for a Glasgow legal firm (working from their branch in Dumbarton!) He has frequently acted for the activists of a local peace camp located in Glen Douglas. When two of their number are arrested for the murder of a noted and well-liked peace campaigner in Glasgow he is asked to take on the case. It is his first time acting for someone accused of murder; hence the title Blooding Mister Naylor. About halfway through the book as the plot began to complicate and fold back on itself I began to form the suspicion that the title would perhaps become all too literal.

One of the two accused, a woman, is released early on. The usual sorts of complications ensue. Naylor’s bosses do not want him to take the case, there are hints of MI5 and SBS involvement, multi-national corporations lurk in the background, Naylor’s movements are followed, his phone calls tapped and his professional integrity questioned in the press.

This is a work in the comical/thriller style later mined so enthusiastically by Christopher Brookmyre and as such is very readable, but is a shade or two darker.

Unfortunately the book is littered with typos and/or misspellings. Dog And Bone was, I fear, a publishing venture based on less than a shoestring though with a striking set of covers unmistakably designed by Alasdair Gray.

If you like Brookmyre, though, give this one a go.

Sadly there will be no more like this from Chris Boyce as he died in 1999. So it goes.

So, according to City analysts we needn’t bother watching the football fest in South Africa this summer.

A team at J P Morgan has crunched the numbers and come up with the eventual winners.

And (surprise, surprise) it’s England.

Well, I too have a model for World Cup performance.

Mine is based on past form and results in World Cups and other International Championships.

On that basis I make it that England will not have a sniff at it and instead will go out in the quarter-finals.

(Probably on penalties.)

You read it here first.

Secker and Warburg, 1995. 233p

An ex-convict calling himself Morrow is asked to a house to give his opinion as to the authenticity of eight paintings of classical scenes belonging to a Mr Morden. In the course of one of his subsequent visits he meets a woman whom he only ever names as A, whose sexuality turns out to be complex and masochistic and to whom the narrative is addressed. However, on occasion “Morrow” seems to address, rather than A, the reader directly.

The novel mainly charts the progress of the couple’s strange relationship as well as the other complications in Morrow’s life; a distant cousin he calls Aunt Corky, a gang boss known as Mr Da, a police inspector named Hackett. All this is delivered in a series of long rambling sentences replete with sub-clauses and digressions and, for the first few chapters, very little dialogue. As well as this taste for prolixity the narrator also has an extensive vocabulary – a typical Banville trait. In the background there is a series of murders by a killer dubbed “The Vampire” which are referred to throughout the book but of which no more than that is made.

The nine (longish) chapters are interleaved with descriptions of what I presume are meant to be seven of the paintings. The individual artists concerned are given as Johann Livelb, L. van Hobelijn, Giovanni Belli, Job van Hellin, L.E.van Ohlbijn, J. van Hollbein and Jan Vibell. The eighth, mentioned in the fourth last page, is Birth of Athena by Jean Vaublin. A passing knowledge of Greek mythology might be a help in disentangling all of this. Curiously the (unattributed as far as I can see) cover picture of a man-like creature with strong upper arms and back but bearing a bull’s head – quite the most unprepossessing on my shelves I might say – does not seem to relate to any of these.

There is no sense throughout the book of linkages between the various strands until four pages from the end where some, if not all, is revealed and a measure of sympathy induced.

Athena is an extremely literary diversion. For those who want a bit of plot in their fiction it is somewhat lacking. As a portrait of a dysfunctional relationship and an exercise in unreliable narration it is, however, accomplished, but perhaps too over-elaborate and ultimately unengaging.

I found this article after a search for Aberdeen Art Deco reached this blog and I followed the link. The list of buildings begins on page 6 of the document.

As well as some cinemas it gives my first Aberdeen Art Deco feature the Bon Accord Baths,

Jackson’s Garage,

Amicable House (see below from flickr.)

For Foresterhill Medical School, King’s College Sports Pavilion and Tullos Primary School I could find no photos.

The Northern Hotel, of course, I have featured before but here’s another picture.

(More of this hotel can be seen on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8333696/3203661261/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/8333696/3204511190/.)

No mention in the article of The Beach Ballroom, though.

In my other searchings I came across a Modernist House in Garthdee Road Aberdeen, Architect Roy Meldrum, near Gray’s Art School (see http://flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/1356336304/ and http://flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/1356336300/.)

Then there is The Lemon Tree/St Katherine’s Centre, Architects Jenkins and Marr 1937 (see at http://flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/1368315644/.)

There is this too from Bon Accord Street.

There is also a striking relief on the side of a tenement.

You may be unaware that, as well as giving readings of fiction, the performance group to which I am an occasional contributor, Writers’ Bloc, from time to time publishes chapbooks containing fiction produced by members.

To launch the latest of these, Bloc is having a launch do on Thursday 27^th May. Since one of the chapbooks features football exclusively the event will be held in the function suite at the home of Hibernian Football Club, Easter Road. (I’m tempted to turn up wearing a Dumbarton shirt just to be contrary.)

Attendance is free!

Here is the press release:-

WHAT: Book launch, with live readings of original fiction

WHO: Writers’ Bloc spoken-word performance group

WHERE: Function suite, Easter Road Stadium, Easter Road, Edinburgh

WHEN: 7.30 p.m., Thursday 27 May 2010

HOW MUCH: FREE

URL: http://www.writers-bloc.org.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/blocspace

OR FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK OR TWITTER

Writers’ Bloc is pleased to announce the launch of two new chapbooks, and has secured the function suite at Easter Road for the launch!

Andrew C. Ferguson’s The Secret of Scottish Football is a soccer book with a difference. Fife has spawned many famous footballers, but it’s also had its share of the supernatural. As these stories show, when the two collide, the results can be more surprising than the half-time pies at Stark’s Park.

Scotland on Sunday described one of these tales as having “all the energy and vigour of early Irvine Welsh, but with far more humour and nuance”. In his foreword, Pat Nevin says, “Harsh reality sits side by side with sometimes even harsher fantasy, in a long Scottish tradition that echoes much of the work of Robert Burns…”

Continuing the culinary theme, the stories in Morag Edwards’s Nil by Mouth are a dark, spicy mixture, topped off by recipes and Mo’s own fantastic artwork. Just make sure you follow the haggis recipe very carefully…

Booksquawk.com calls this chapbook “a fantastic example of the darkly witty Scottish sense of humour and a punchy little collection of stories that can be devoured in a lunch-break”.

The event starts at 7:30 p.m., and there’s a pay-as-you-go bar. Even Jambos will be made welcome.

Notes for Editors:
Writers’ Bloc is Edinburgh’s premier spoken-word performance group. Its members include published and prize-winning poets and novelists, who present original material with iconoclastic attitude.

Writers’ Bloc’s publishing arm, Bloc Press, has now produced six chapbooks, all in limited editions of 250 signed copies. The first two have sold out.

For more information:

E-mail: embassy@writers-bloc.org.uk

Phone: Andrew Wilson (0131) 467 0410, or

Andrew Ferguson (07981) 805976.

For a review of Nil by Mouth, see http://www.booksquawk.com/2010/04/nil-by-mouth.html

Review of one of the stories in The Secret of Scottish Football: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/books/Speculative-reading-is-a-Halloween.3476961.jp

Review of The Secret of Scottish Football, and interview with Andrew C. Ferguson: http://tsgfootballfiction.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/the-secret-of-scottish-football/

So Cowdenbeath are in Division 1 and Arbroath have been relegated to Division 3.

I wouldn’t have favoured a Brechin-Cowden play-off final as Airdrie Utd had been having a good go at surviving in Div 1. Alloa perhaps suffered from losing their top place in the division so late (much as Cowden did last year.)

The Forfar-Arbroath match-up was predictable for their final and I wouldn’t have liked to choose between them.

Cowden get promoted again after not achieving it by their own efforts last time. It’s a funny old game. Maybe their experience in losing last year’s final helped.

Interesting times in Div 2 next season. Four new teams. Since the introduction of play-offs that hasn’t usually happened without demotions of teams having financial problems.

We will struggle.

Yesterday, despite them being a running background to my adolescence, for the first time ever I went on a demo. It was for the Fair Votes (Take Back Parliament) campaign and took place in Edinburgh.

This is the (slightly sparse) early gathering.

The procession was from St Giles Cathedral to New College on The Mound.

At The Mound

An MP (Mark Somebody – I didn’t catch his surname) addresses the multitudes.

Purple Flags

The purple stands for liberty it seems – or was it justice? I wore a purple shirt.

There might have been about 300 hundred people taking part. Not bad for something organised within a week. Along with the organisers the police were given a vote of thanks. Hardly a revolutionary mob but you’ve got to start somewhere.

What do we want?

Fair Votes!

When do we want them?

(Well, preferably about thirty years ago. But hey: it’s never too late.)

This must be one of the most radical reworkings of a hit song. It’s up there with Joe Cocker’s With A Little Help From My Friends.

(The original can be found here.)

There are echoes of late Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd on the intro which is also reminiscent of the early Status Quo hit Pictures Of Matchstick Men except with an organ instead of a guitar.

Abacus, 1995. 91p

Translated from the Czech, Ostře sledované vlaky (Close Watch On The Trains,) by Edith Pargeter.

This slim book, 91 pages of strikingly wide margins, constitutes no more than a novella, but is full of incident. It also treats of those novelistic big issues, love, sex and death.

In early 1945 various railway workers play out their lives against a backdrop of military and passenger train movements through their strategic location, a small railway station in Bohemia. The novella’s denouement takes place against the fire-bombing of Dresden lighting up the night sky.

Graduate trainee Miloš Hrma comes from a long line of eccentrics, one of whom tried to stop the German invasion in 1939 by the power of hypnosis alone – before being crushed by a tank. In his private life Miloš is troubled in his relationship with his girlfriend Masha by a lapse of physical prowess at a crucial moment.

The station is a surprisingly sexualised environment – the Station Master’s oilcloth covered couch has been ripped in several places during an illicit liaison and Dispatcher Hubrićka has used the station’s official stamps scandalously – to imprint the female telegraphist’s buttocks.

The feel of the passages dealing with these aspects of people’s lives is akin to magic realism but of course along with these there are always in the background the train movements, which the workers keep under close surveillance, to consider.

I know no Czech and consequently have not read the original so cannot say how true it was, but the translation read easily. A slight familiarity with German or Latin may occasionally help the reader with the few quotes from those languages which are included but the context makes most of them obvious and the important one is later rendered in English.

In Closely Observed Trains Hrabal has written a fine novella, an impressive work about how life carries on even in trying circumstances – and also an observation on the futility and arbitrariness of war.

Europa League Final, Hamburg Arena, 12/5/10

I thought this game was dominated by defensive organisation. There certainly weren’t many clear cut chances. Both first half goals were not so much created as slightly, or completely, fluked.

Fulham seemed to tire in extra time. I think the main problem though, like with Rangers a couple of seasons ago, was this was a one-off game with no home tie to bolster your chances and no ten-men-behind-the-ball in the away leg.

A fit Bobby Zamora (the way he’s been playing in this competition) might have made a difference but this one may have been just a game too far for Fulham.

It’s good that Atletico have eclipsed Real for once, though.