Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto

Galveston is the novel from Nic Pizzolatta who was the show creator and writer of the neo noir True Detective which was set in Louisiana. That style of dark realism is shot through this gritty tale of low rtent lives in the shallow end of the criminal underworld. Rot Cody is a small time enforcer / hitman cracking head and collecting money for a local crime boss when what should have been simple job goes horrifically wrong. He’s forced to run both from the police and his ex-boss taking the only other survivor a damaged young girl called Rocky with him.

The change in circumstances forces him to evaluate his own life and he acts like a surrogate father or elder brother to rocky when his every instinct is screaming at him to abandon her and go it alone.

The writing is shot through with ink black poetry finding beauty and meaning in the minutiae and gutter scrapings of small lives poorly lived.  The charactisations are spot on and the plot is more about atmosphere and suspense than full on action. Anyone who’s looking for an American slice of the dark Scandinavian fiction should find themselves right at home here. 

Dominion CJ SANSSOM

Dominion asks the question what would happen if Britain had capitulated after the Dunkirk escape? How would Europe have changed the book is set in 1950s when the third Reich had finished on the western front and Britain is a fascist state under Prime minster Mosley.    David Fitzgerald is an unremarkable civil servant who has started to leak documents to Churchill resistance. He’s given a mission to smuggle an old school friend with a terrible secret out of the county. However the German army the British fascist and the SS will do anything to posses it.

This is a slow burner to start with having a glacial pace that really builds the drab grey atmosphere of post war fifties with a horrific Nazi twist. As with all of Sansoms work the research is impeccable and he delves into some of the facts behind the fiction at the end of the book. However you never get the feeling the writer is trying to blind you with information. “Never Mind the plot feel my research!” not naming names *cough* Kate Moss *cough*

In a sentence, it’s end of the affair meets Len Deighton 

Gone girl – Gillian Flynn

The movie has been out for a little while so I thought I’d read the book first, as I prefer to do things that way around where possible. Gone Girl centres around the marriage of a New York couple Nick and Amy who have to give up their city-life to move out to the sticks to support Nick’s family. When Amy goes missing in suspicious circumstances the skeletons of the couples decaying relationship are spilled out in front of a baying media as Nick’s culpability is called into question.

It’s hard to talk about this story without giving plot points away but I can say that the writing and distinctive voices of the characters shines through, using alternatively Nicks accounts of current events and Amy’s Diary of the previous years together. This device of current and past events gives flight to a plot that keeps the pages turning well into the night. It’s definitely a ‘just one more chapter’ book and will keep you gripped until the final page.

The casting of Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike gives hope that the movie will hold some of the dramatic power of the book. But I’d read it first just in case it’s a let-down… There has been some controversy about the book/film which directly relates to spoilers but I think the story should be seen entirely as a work of speculative fiction and not an endorsement of any particular view.

Thoughts from a Conference

Business speech in every mouth
Cheap suits in every corner
Conferences suck

I work in business
This is not what I imagined
A life badly lived

My tie only chokes me
Someone somewhere is laughing
Anywhere but here

For security
I made a cage for myself
I cannot see the sky

Life is before me
A million shades of Beige
Time for something else.

Ten books that have stayed with me:

Ten books that have stayed with me:

Iain M Banks - Use of weapons

Anyone that I’ve talked to knows how much I love Iain Banks and Iain M Banks and choosing just one book was torture but this was the first of his books I read with my jaw somewhere around my ankles. By turns funny, brutal and exciting it features my favourite book ‘twist’ of all time.

Hunter S Thompson - Fear and loathing on the campaign trail 1976

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is his most famous book but this much larger tome follows the author into the insanity and craziness that is the American political system in the seventies. His style of Gonzo Journalism has been much copied but very few authors can tell a story in the moment like he could. As Mark Twain said “Never let the Facts get in the way of a good story”

Jeanette Winterson - Sexing the cherry

It’s a slim volume but filled with the kind of imagery that will stay with you forever. The first book I ever bought on my now wifes recommendation and for that reason alone I have to have it.

Transmetropolitan - Warren Ellis

Bit of a cheat. Transmetropolitan is a comic series comprising of 60 individual comics telling the story of a grim and dirty future where one man with an honest heart and a portable bowel disruptor can make a difference. It’s probably my favourite comic series with a distinct beginning middle and end that feels like a full length novel and despite the dark tone has moments of proper heartstopping beauty that are all the more poignant for the squalor that surround them.

Eisenhorn - Dan Abnett

Blood, death and madness in a dark grim future where there is only war. Everything you need really. It’s a martial story and no one writes battles better than Dan Abnett who manages the trick of getting you to care about characters whose lives can be measured in pages rather than books.

War and peace - Tolstoy

I spent three months reading this monster of a book and it would be difficult to better a chronicle of the follies and foibles of men covering a broad swathe of life of the characters. That title isn’t kidding. It genuinely covers nearly everything.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

It’s probably wrong to admit to having had a teenage crush on a fictional character but Elizabeth Bennet is smart, funny, strong and occasionally hilariously acerbic. If I could exist in one novel as a minor character I think it would be this one.

Microserfs - Douglas Coupland

A Story of Microsoft employees during the mid-nineties that decide to branch out and create their own company. It’s a good book in its own right but it stayed with me because it reminded me so much of myself and my fellow geeks at the time. It’s a proper snapshot of the mid-nineties when the Geek inherited the earth. 

The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams

I read the first book when I was seven or eight, I didn’t get 75 % of the jokes but I still loved the idea of traversing the unfathomable depths of space in a dressing gown with only a towel for company. I also loved the idea of a portable device that meant you could hold the sum total knowledge of the universe in your hand. Cough iphone Cough

That old ace in the hole -Annie proulux

Annie Proulux has a ability to draw characters so well that you feel like you’ve known them half your life after a couple of pages. This book has stayed with me as every time I reread it it’s like visiting old friends that you haven’t seen in ages. It’s set in the pan handle of Texas around the windmills that draw up water for the grazing animals which doesn’t sound like the greatest premise for a book . But It’s an area I’ve driven through once and will go back to one day.

Fragment of something

The houses lay clustered around the bay like a concert audience, faces turned in rapturous wonder to the aquatic maestro.  Once there had only been a handful of grey stone fisherman's cottages built to hunker against the cold coastal winters. As the industry floundered along the odd weekend retreat appeared in brighter colour than the drab functional oblongs. The land continued to be encroached until the fisherman's dwellings became swallowed up by luxury apartments and their livelihood was finally consumed with it.

Ed has started shooting his first film in over a decade and I'm totally made up for him.

However it feels weird that I'm only tangentially involved. Not through any fault of Ed's though. He asked if I'd like to help out with the payroll but when we looked at it my skills don't match what's needed. His accountant will probably perform that function for virtually nothing.

So why does it feel like I've missed out on an opportunity?

Let's nip back into the past, to around 2003. I had a six week job as a trainee producer on a series of short movies in Cardiff. And I sucked at the job.

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I'm sure I sucked so hard that they use the verb "to Taylor something" when it's been fucked up beyond all belief.

I had good intentions all right, and I like to think my ability to get on with most people is valuable in most industries, but my list of failings could fill an entire page. But the brief highlights include;

A lack of confidence
A lack of contacts
A lack of industry knowledge
Inability to speak Welsh
A driving license that at the time didn't allow me to drive hire-cars.
Living with friends an hours commute from Cardiff when I should have been on site 24-7

Although I got on with the Directors and writers I realised that I was not built for that media world. I like working as part of a massive company/enterprise where I can just get on with data managment or numbers or payroll without putting myself out to be shot down in flames everyday. I just want to be left alone to get on with tasks.

Since I escaped South Wales I've enjoyed every job I've worked at as they've all had that sat-at-a-desk quality that I find so endearing.

What I'm trying to say is that I am where I am happiest and although the allure of the film set is strong I know I can best help one of my best friends by not getting in his way. He has worked stupidly hard on this and has spent the best part of the last two years focusing solely on this project whilst I've just dicked-around flitting from one interest to another without getting deeply bogged down in any of them. He deserves this success because he's put the hours in and I haven't.

A set visit would be cool and a chance for a cheeky cameo is always fun (If I can still act) but my "Glorious Career in Media" turned out to be none of those things.

I wish Ed every success with his because he deserves every bit of it.

Harlequin Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell is probably best known for Sharpe the adventures of the titular hero fighting for the British in the Napoleonic wars. In Harlequin he goes back to the start of the 100 years’ war where England had a claim on lands in Britany and fought bitterly with the French crown for their control.

Thomas of Hookton is a young man in an inconsequential village on the south coast of England whose world is turned upside down when the entire town is wiped out by a mysterious French Lord looking for a saintly relic. He swears revenge and joins the armies of Edward III who set off for France to claim back the lands Edward believes are his by birth right.

The Hellequin were the war bands of English soldiers who ravaged the French lands, named after a mythical demonic group who were said to roam causing havoc and mayhem wherever they went. This is medieval warfare as it actually would have been, dirty, brutal and vicious. There’s very little room for the mythologizing of courtly knights and deeds of virtue. The only reason to leave an opponent alive would not be chivalric but purely if you could ransom him to his family.

I have to declare an interest here as I am a keen archer, in fact my wife actually shoots a longbow very similar to those described in the novel. Times may have changed but there are still people flinging bits of wood at targets and the description not only of the shooting but the use of mass ranks of archers in battle are excellent. Well worth a read especially if you enjoy his other books or history in general. 

Raising Steam – Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett has continued his prolific output in spite of being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2007 and this is the Fortieth book in the Discworld series.

Steam power and most importantly Steam trains have come to the Discworld and Ankh Morpork in particular. Moist Von Lipwig (of previous novels Going postal and Making money) is tasked by the cities benevolent despot Lord Vetenari to ensure the Ankh Morpork Hygienic Railway drags the population into the century of the fruitbat. But deep in hidden caves and bolt holes there are events being set in motion by conspirators that look to sabotage progress and upset the entire political landscape.

After being bitterly disappointed in the long earth and the Long war that he co-wrote with Stephen Baxter I’m glad to report this is Pratchett at his riffing, pun-loving best. If I had to make a criticism it would be that towards the end of the book the characters get a bit lost within the grand scope of the plot itself and that I think a smaller cast of characters would have given more face time to the main proponents of the novel. There is the sense almost of shoehorning in as many of the recognisable characters that the fans will want to see, as possible. Also Pratchett writes heroes and anti-heroes really well but seems to struggle when it comes to three dimensional villains. But these are just quibbles, there’s a three page chapter that is just a build up to a magnificent Punch and Judy joke and if that sounds like your kind of thing you won’t be disappointed.

Deva Divas 2014

I have loved a handful of women in my life and I couldn't give you a common link or thread between them all. Some were fun, some were more serious, some were short, some were tall, I'm going to stop there before I sound like a slut (Too late! Ed.). But the point is I didn't think I had a type.

Until yesterday I would have stood by that statement, but having been to the ladies only Deva Diva’s triathlon I can tell you that tri-athletes are definitely my type. Not physically you understand, there were all sorts of body types and levels of fitness there from the skinny to super Athletic to the more solid body type shall we say.

The thing that united them was the strength of character, the sheer strength of will to face a challenge and not to shy away from it. My wife is most definitely one of those people. Of course the wetsuit doesn't hurt at all…

Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman

Charles “Fat Charlie” Nancy is an unremarkable Londoner whose staid boring world is thrown into complete uproar by the death of his mostly absent father who it turns out wasn’t a vivacious retiree in Florida but the physical incarnation of the West African Spider God Anansi. Still reeling from this Fat Charlie’s previously unknown brother then turns up at his door, seduces Charlies fiancé and implicates him in a embezzlement scam that could have fatal consequences for them all. Charlie is then forced into a quest to prove his innocence and save them all from Anansi’s oldest and most vicious enemy.

Neil Gaiman wrote the book on magical realism, actually he’s written several of them including Neverwhere, American Gods and the Sandman graphic novels. And like those in Anasi Boys he weaves myth and folk stories throughout the narrative which give it a real depth. The Stories showing Anansi’s sense of humour are great and in general I found this one of the funniest of his books. There is a sense of playfulness with the reader being tempered by a much darker side that seems to lurk threateningly in the background always ready to pounce.

Warm up Run

36min 45sec

Nothing but questions

Having had the next generation of the family with us has been awesome. It was so great to spend time with the boys and be part of their lives as much as possible. Watching them play in a way I remember from when I was their age is a great reminder of how my generation of family were. However it also raises questions in my own life that I had long considered resolved.

I distinctly remember when I was growing up that my great Aunt Hilda, whom I've written about before didn't have kids. I wondered about that in the way that children do without malice purely seeking the information. I was told by my parents that it was rude to ask such questions of other grown ups,  so i didn't. I just got back to whatever ever other shiny thing had distracted me

And now I regret it.

If I could I'd ask if she and her husband Bill wanted to have children but never did or if they had had the conversation Em and I had many many years ago. Kids were not part of either of our plans and like responsible people we talked about it when we started to get serious about each other.

I can think of nothing worse than not having that conversation until its forced on you by marriage or a broken prophlactic.

Anyway having spent time with the generation that our kids would be if we had taken a different path it put me in mind of how Hilda and Bill would have been when we were growing up.

The things I have of Hilda now are photos and keepsakes but they hold no answers for me. They can't tell me if she regretted her choice not to have children as one day I might.

Beach

Theres something primordial about being at the beach.

Caffeinated infusion confusion

It was mums birthday recently. In lieu of buying her another present that may or may not serve soley as a dust collector we collaberated and bought her a giftbox of coffees

Let me back up a second.

About six months ago mum bought herself a posh coffee maker one of the type with pods of coffee that you insert one end and in an ideal world a barrista style coffee comes out the other end fresh and foamy enough to make a Starbucks employee weep gomme tears. The idea was to make having a decent cup of coffee as easy as inserting a 'pod' and pressing a button.

It was not the coffee pod brand that I would have suggested had I been consulted. Let me put it this way, George Clooney would have been dissapointed with her choice but probably would have mentioned it in the suavest way possible.

However when the machine is activated what actually happens is it creates a noise like reality being torn asunder and spews forth a thick treacly liquid like the caffeine rich blood of the devil. Mum had persisted with the device rendering it suitable for consumption by humans via homeopathic principles but I was rapidly getting tired of warm beverages with the memory of coffee.

To this end we bought a sample of EVERY single type of 'pod' this machine could accomodate with the hope that one would provide a coffee that was neither too strong or too weak and just like goldilocks we could settle in with a decent beverage.

Mum was stoked to say the least and bustled to the kitchen to try it out. I headed in five minutes later to find her huddled over a retort flask applying the same logic to this pod as to her super strength ones.

It was then I realised that it wasn't about having the best coffee possible, it was about having agency in the coffee making process. Pressing a button lacks the human input of coffee creation and the pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee is about the journey not the end result. Although I have had a lot of caffine today so I could be talking gibberish. ...

Football in the Garden.

Now I might be paraphrasing Richard Curtis here, but I think you lose an essential part of yourself when you travel by airplane. You surrender to a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy and procedure.

Stand there.
Be Here at this time.
Don't talk about these things.
Don't carry these things.
Carry liquid containers smaller than those you would ever normally purchase if the government weren't afraid you were going to become some kind of Heisenberg-like genius and concoct an explosive device out of Right Guard and factor thirty Ambre Solaire.

Breaking any of these seemingly arbitrary rules could find you forced to remove your clothes in front of a stranger who is wearing a rubber glove and a purposeful look. And not in a good way.

So when you emerge out of this area of strangeness and fear into, say, the arrivals hall of a major international airport, your face seems to contort in a certain way. The fear is replaced by relief and a sense that things have at least started to shift back towards normalcy after the Borstal-like nightmare of the last hours (minus the shankings of course).

Phil had previously stated that no one had ever met him from the plane at Manchester Airport so I advanced there with a sign saying "Welcome Taylors!". Em and I had a plan that if the both of use went we would stand five feet apart deliberately not looking at each other holding signs saying "The Judean peoples front" and "The peoples front of Judea".

I'd stood there for half an hour or so whilst the Airport machinery did its thing and my Brother, Amanda and the three boys emerged blinking into the light. Jack waved at me and Hugh just started laughing (he does that a lot, I'm trying not to take it personally). On their last visit Owen, the youngest, wasn't walking so its great to see him developing into a little guy wandering around and trying to get involved in everything.

So far a lot of people have made the comparison between my Brother and I and Jack and Hugh, I was the second child and smiled a lot. Phil was a bit more serious about his fun.

Speaking of Phil it was great to spend some time with him as he and I went to pick up a rather nice rented Passat with lots of room for the kids. now I'm not saying we got lost from the rental car place back to the terminal to pick up Amanda and the kids but the route we took was certainly scenic and Phil and I had time to vociferously curse the airport road layout and all designers thereof.

We got to "Grannys" and she was waiting with big smiles and hugs for all the kids as is the want of Granny's everywhere. They lost no time at all in getting a football and having a kick-about in the garden. It's great playing football with six and four year olds as my ability with a football consists of being just about able to boot it in the roughly the intended direction. No one's expecting me to go on a mazy run on the right and swing a big cross into the box. If i can boot it to them they're happy which makes me happy. Phil and I used to play a lot of football in the garden, which was big enough to hold our footballing dreams of glory even if our skill-sets didn't quite match up.

Amanda looks really well considering her fourth is due in October, it's been great seeing how amazing she and Phil are as parents and for that matter Jane and Wez as well. I think maybe it's just Em and I that never developed that parenting gene.

It's sobering if I'm honest. I lead a very selfish life compared to nearly all the parents I know. It's not that I feel guilty about my life choices, alright I do feel slightly guilty, but it's more that I see the sacrifices that the people that I love have made and I see the development of these tiny people as their reward and it seems like a lovely way to spend your short existence. However I've never been puked on at three in the morning whilst trying to change a nappy so I know it isn't all sunshine and roses.

They headed over to the cottage and I headed home first to meet up with Em. Due to confusion over lifts and details too dull to go into now, Llions Mum and her greyhound Sandy came over to pick Llion and ended up staying for an hour or so. Sandy was a rescue dog and is one of the sweetest natured Dogs I know but having been a racing greyhound is trained to chase anything small and furry so we have to be super careful regarding bringing him into any proximity with cats.

Carter seemed most upset that I was booting him out and gave me a look as he slunk away that said "That's the last time you'll find a mouse on the doorstep, Buddy!". Sandy came in and spent the next twenty minutes try to find where the scent of cat was coming from but eventually wound himself down and collapsed onto the rug. Have you ever seen an old greyhound trying to lie down? It's like a controlled demolition as bits of the leg lever against each other and seem to crumple in sequence until he's lying on the comfy rug.

We discussed the house and various and sundry until Em and Llion arrived and we went out separate ways.

We took the back road over to Betws-y-coed across the Denbigh moors and saw the usual level of complete disregard for personal safety on those ridiculous roads. What is it about an open twisty road that brings out the inner Clarkson in people?

Anyway we found the cottage and it's a perfect match for them with a large front room for the boys to congregate with a garden that's entirely fenced in. We had supper whilst the boys set up a slate processing factory(?) which we helped with until it was time for bed for us all! We headed home over the moors and eargly waited for the next day when Wez, Xander and Jane would arrive and we'd have the whole family together again.

36min 40sec

Morning run of 6.5K

You shouldn't take photographs at funerals.

 At the wake is fine but the actual passing of a friend is an occasion possibly best not marred by flash photography and blurry pictures of the coffin so here's what I'll remember from Brians funeral.

 The club colours being worn by at least half the congregation. Brian had specified that he wanted archers to wear their colours I like to think that because that's how they would have been dressed when he last saw them. 

The Forty longbows held over the coffin and mourners by the longbow archers as we proceeded in. Recognising familiar faces with the unfamiliar mask of grief.

After the unreallness of it all we started bantering in the usual way we do on when shooting and I can't help but feel that Brian would have appreciated that.

 One wall of the chapel in Wrexham is entirely glass and looks out onto a garden and I remember thinking how well designed and peaceful that made everything feel.

 One of the songs they played was always look on the bright side of life which was totally perfect for Brian and his life. He was a relentlessly funny guy and always interested in other people and their development. 

There was a corsage of flowers in the red dragon of Wrexham Bowmen in front of the coffin and I realised that they had placed his longbow on top of the coffin as well.

 Goodbye Brian, you were a damn decent fellow and always a pleasure to be around.