In memory of Shane MacGowan

More than a decade ago three classic works became mashed-up in my imagination to create a festive short story which the (sadly now defunct) The View From Here published for Christmas 2011. The works in question were Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, a smidgeon of Orson Wells' notorious Martian Invasion radio broadcast and, most influential of all, the Pogues' Fairy Tale of New York.

So I offer my story here in gratitude for the inspiration and in celebration of Shane MacGowan's creative life.

Happy Christmas 2023.

Nighthawks: A Fable of New York

By Oscar Windsor-Smith

Okay, so you're outside Jimmy's Bar and Diner looking in through this wide window, in from icy darkness to cool fluorescent light. At the bar are two figures, a guy in a fedora who’s chewing the fat with the bartender and a dame in a red dress. The dame is counting her fingers. I’m the guy in the fedora. We're nighthawks, get the picture? This is night in New York City and not just any night. My name? You can call me the Truth Fairy.

A black and white glides in over steaming gratings and slithers to a stop. Two cops stumble out. They lurch across the sidewalk blowing on their hands and cursing the knee-deep frozen snow. Mahoney is first in the door, dripping and slipping. O'Shaughnessy reaches shelter a second later, stomping the snow from his boots. The barman produces two glasses and a bottle of bourbon.

Mahoney roars, 'That'll be two coffees for us, Jimmy.' He winks at me and I nod. He addresses the bar: 'Them eejuts will believe any fairy story, little green men an all.'

Jimmy replaces the glasses with china mugs and fills both with neat bourbon. He gives the cops a look that says: pay up you mean bastards. A second later Mahoney's nightstick crashes on the counter an inch from Jimmy's fist. They're nose to nose.

'Call it a present, Jimmy,' I whisper, trying to save him losing teeth as well as dough.

'You siding with them?' says Jimmy. 'Now I got three wise-guys, huh?'

I tip my fedora, glancing at O'Shaughnessy. He shrugs and downs the bourbon, probably the only seasonal spirit he knows.

O'Shaughnessy hiccups. 'Sure we'll need the drink if we're to deal with them eejuts out there.'

I flash my press card, peel a bill from my wallet and slide it over the bar to Jimmy.

'And which particular idiots would that be, Officer?'

The cops stare at me, at my card and at the remaining bills. Mahoney empties his mug and licks his lips. I nod at Jimmy and he refills the cops.

#

The back seat of the black and white stinks of smoke, sweat and stale piss. Out the window the snow clouds have cleared, the stars are crisp, the sky dark. This is crazy but I've got to check the story out.

O'Shaughnessy belches. 'Sure we never get a minute's peace now, since them movies.'

'Movies, what movies?'

'Men in silver suits, flyin' saucers an' the like.'

'Invasions from Mars,' Mahoney chimes in. 'Never been the same since that eejut, a while back. What's-his-name? Horse an' something, on the radio, wit' his stupid Martians.'

'But you know the guy who reported this incident?'

'Sure, it was Morrie Kaiser. He's okay.' Mahoney has turned on the radio. He's shouting over Sinatra, banging the wheel in time with the beat. 'He runs a drug store wit' his two brothers down on Lower East Side.'

I look out over the East River and see nothing but regular stars. The sidewalk looks almost civilised. Nature has swept man's garbage under the carpet of snow. Rows of brownstones zip by and then we're in the war zone. Hispanics, Poles, Italians - name any nation - you'll find some up the rusting fire escapes in these tenements.

It's ten degrees below out there. That should keep the natives inside, but up ahead there's a crowd milling about in the pool of light outside Kaiser's Deli. They're excited, pointing at the sky. Strangest thing is they’re all pointing in different directions.

The cops pile out of the black and white, nightsticks poised for action. Mahoney slips, falls flat on his fanny. O'Shaughnessy trips over Mahoney. O'Shaughnessy collapses too.

This proves something weird is going on. One cop on his back should make the day of any Eastsider; two should make their year. But nobody has noticed.

The cops have scrambled to their feet and Mahoney is pointing at the stars, his jaw hanging loose. 'Will you just look at that!' he shouts. O'Shaughnessy is scrabbling about in the snow trying to retrieve his nightstick. He looks up, whispers 'Holy mother o' God', and falls in a dead faint.

I climb out of the stinking black and white, glance at the heavens and see only stars and darkness. Granted, there are more stars here than uptown where the streetlights work.  However, to survive a sidewalk at night on Lower East Side, stargazing I do not recommend, so I go find the Kaiser brothers.

Morrie Kaiser is a nice guy. He sends a brother to get me coffee.

Morrie shrugs. 'What can I tell you?'

'Tell me what's going on.'

'You see nothing out there?'

'There's nothing to see but stars.'

'Come.' He picks up something and leads me out the back door. We clank up three flights of fire escape to where light is leaking out from a curtained window. I hear raised voices. Morrie turns, an index finger to his lips.

'You're a useless drunken fool, Joe. You've not brought home a dollar in months.'

'Sure, there's no work to be had for a chippie in New York, y' junkie slut.'

'Seems you've found enough dough to finance the drink, and your gambling.'

'But me luck's changing, Mary, I can feel it.'

‘Maybe, but I'll be seein' none of it. Oh.' Her scream rattles the windowpanes. 'It's coming, Joe. The baby's coming.'

That’s when I hear bells, not the fire department this time, the church kind. It's midnight.

I turn to Morrie. 'It's a miracle,' he whispers. 'Tonight all our wishes are granted.' He smiles with glistening eyes. 'Seems like we all see what we need to see.' He shakes his head, wind-milling his arms, lost for words. And then he finds his voice and can’t stop talking of the visions he has seen: his late and sainted mother and his grandfather back in the old country.

Morrie Kaiser’s brothers are standing behind us, nodding agreement. All three brothers are carrying small packages. Queuing behind them are the cops, laughing like a pair of kids, and behind the cops a line of smiling people stretching down the fire escape and on as far as you can see. The cold doesn't seem to matter any more. In fact, the night seems almost warm.

Pulled by some unseen hand, the curtain moves aside and there sits Mary, thin and white, a baby at her breast. Dark-lidded and stubble-faced, Joe leans for support against Mary's chair. 'It's a boy,' he slurs. A cheer rises and spreads out down the line. I glance around. Tonight has brought joy to so many simple lives. What right has a cynical hack to interfere?

I'm mulling this over when I find myself thinking of a dame in a red dress. The strangest feeling fills me, could this be what those starry-eyed dreamers call hope? Perhaps it’s the atmosphere, the booze or the time of year. Suddenly all I know is I must get back to Jimmy’s bar. I push my way down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk.

I'm trudging back through knee-deep snow. Discordant voices assail the air somewhere behind me. The cops are singing Galway Bay. Candles burn in windows everywhere. Despite the biting cold more people are out on the streets, strangers dancing, embracing. An old guy totters past me wearing little more than a pair of pants and a shirt; he's singing The Rare Old Mountain Dew at the top of his lungs.

I turn my face skywards and imagine the dame in the red dress has made it big in showbiz and life is good. Perhaps tonight dreams really can come true?

I'm two blocks away from Jimmy’s when streetwise sense returns. Maybe the miracle would have lasted longer if I hadn't seen Fingers De Vinci and his pickpocket outfit working the crowd, and then I remembered that ‘Mary’ and ‘Joe’ were two of his regular team. But, hey, they've spread the Christmas dream to so many people, even me… well, almost. Who am I to throw cold snow over the celebrations?

I make it back, and Jimmy's place is full to bursting. Shouldering my way to the bar, it crosses my mind that this is the first time Jimmy has decorated the place. And then the dime drops: the power is out. His candles are in beer bottles.

‘Still here, Babe?’

The dame in red turns and says something I can hardly make out over the din.

‘What's that? You want to know what Mary called her baby?’ I give her my cynical laugh. ‘Hey, this ain't Hans Christian Anderson.’

She pulls a sad face.

‘Next thing you'll ask if Morrie Kaiser and his brothers got a slice of the action.’

The lady purses her lips and nods. I try to catch Jimmy’s eye.

‘How’s about one more drink to warm up, Babe? Then back to my place and I’ll tell you the whole story, okay?

 

Copyright: Oscar Windsor-Smith 2023

Who Owns a Student's Copyright?

(EDIT: Please read PS at foot)

Make no mistake, I have enjoyed the first year of my four year Creative Writing degree course at Birkbeck. The tutors are excellent, the facilities are great – quirky in places but that's historic Bloomsbury for you, and to the creative mind quirky is like fresh air – and I have made a lot of great friends. But...

When I attempted to enrol on-line for my second year I was astounded to find the following* clause among the T&Cs. It may be that the clause was present last year, if so I enrolled then in ignorance, having take up my place in a hurry at the eleventh hour.

*  " 35.     If a student during their course of study produces original work that may be commercially exploitable, the College is entitled to the copyright and may seek to secure royalties or patents. Any revenue will be divided between the College and the inventor as set out in the College's Financial Regulations. The College waives its right to the ownership of copyright in books, articles and written work, other than where specifically commissioned or in which substantial revenue related to the author's link with the College is generated."

This clause effectively purloins my copyright and replaces it with a "waiver" of the College's purported "entitlement", followed by two ambiguously worded exceptions to that "waiver".

To be clear, I never have and never would submit my work to any publication or competition whose organisers prevaricated or equivocated over the long-established legal (and to my mind immutable) principle that copyright, and all other rights, belong to the author of a work unless/until he/she chooses to reassign them in a contract.

Why then should I as a student be forced by unavoidable T&C terms to sign up to a contract I would not dream of entering into outside the College environment?

Whilst possibly apposite and understandable in relation to other disciplines, clause 35 has no place in a creative writing context.

In short, unless the College is prepared to remove or drastically reword clause 35, nothing less than a categorical and unequivocal formal assurance that the clause does NOT apply to the BA CW course and my own creative work – under any circumstances – will persuade me to enrol.

I do hope an acceptable resolution will be forthcoming and soon. Otherwise what a sad end this will be to an important adventure in my life.

PS: CLAUSE 35, PART 2:
 
OK to go back into the water

I’m exceedingly pleased and relieved to be able to report having received the unqualified reassurance I sought regarding clause 35 in Birkbeck's T&Cs of enrolment, thus:

"…the copyright in all the original creative work you produce as part of your BA in Creative Writing belongs to you in its entirety now and forever more. The College has no claim on any creative work you produce during your degree, regardless of whether or not it is submitted for assessment."
Clause 35, it appears, is a generic clause intended mainly for grant-funded scientific research projects.

I respectfully reiterate, it would be a chuffing great idea to put this information IN or, better still, get clause 35 the chuff OUT of the BA Creative Writing T&Cs.

Whatever. I'm now looking forward once more to another term at Birkbeck School of Arts with respected tutors and great student buddies.


#endclause35

London Short Story Festival - Caption Competition

You know when you go to a really special writing event – like London Short Story Festival (not that there's any event remotely like LSSF) –  and you meet reams of interesting, friendly, knowledgeable and like-minded people and you take loads of pics over several days and then life gets in the way and it's only later you realise you have captured some quite special moments?

You don't?

Ah, so it's just me then.

Anyway, here's one pic from this years unforgettable #LSSF that I thought was asking for a caption competition.

What do you think that cheeky Paul McVeigh is whispering?  

PRIZE? Seriously, do you think I'm made of money?

Get stuck in there my creative buddies, but do please be kind.

Forgive me, +Paul , but when I first saw that familiar cheeky look my iPad had captured, it did occur to me that maybe leprechauns come in different sizes... Just saying.

On BBC television news this morning, the awful memories of a survivor of Auschwitz - a child of fourteen when he entered the camp - moved me to tears. His harrowing description of a Nazi officer standing at the head of a line making cold decisions of left or right, life or death, was somehow awfully familiar. And then I remembered why. Some years ago I wrote a short story for a competition. The subject had to be 'fear'. My entry, written after a considerable amount of disturbing research was called The Direction of Our Fear. It has been published twice in print *, but never before online. The significance of today's date suggested now might be an appropriate time. I hope you agree but please forgive me if you consider I'm wrong. If you have time to read my story, I think you will realise why this morning's testimony gave me cold shivers. Please be advised, this short piece pulls no punches and could cause offence to some people.

The Direction of Our Fear

On February 7th 1979, Wolfgang Gerhard went swimming. Witnesses reported that he had entered the sea in some haste from the beach at Bertiog, near Embu das Artes, Brazil.

His corpse made landfall further down the coast, bewildered horror frozen in its eyes.

Forgive me. I must explain. We had entertained Herr Gerhard every night for years. Our theatre served to aid his failing memory, for we could not permit our subject to forget.

In youth Wolfgang Gerhard showed great potential. He achieved a doctorate in philosophy at Munich and in medicine at Frankfurt. Early in World War Two he was a hero, saving the lives of comrades under fire, and then power corrupted his mind and dark ideas seduced his soul. Some generous folk say he was an aberration, a simple anomaly in facets of personality common to us all. But you must judge for yourselves. Come back with us.

#

The lights grow dim. Herr Gerhard's entertainment is about to start.

'Come, Doctor, take my hand. It is time to revisit your achievements.'

Wolfgang Gerhard rolls his eyes as if seeking escape, but there is none. He grunts in futile protest. His heavy eyelids droop.

#

The monster with film star looks stands frigid, his green uniform pressed, his black-peaked cap set at a rakish angle. He waves a baton as if conducting an orchestra, or directing traffic in a Berlin street. To the left he swings his white-gloved hand, then to the right. He is whistling as he conducts lives that shuffle to the crossroads of kismet, the junction with his power. Breathing snatches of Wagner he directs their fate, employing dark criteria known to him alone, to the right, to the left, to death, to life. Such life, for which some show relief, may yet make death seem kinder.

A woman pleads for her child, designated to the alternate stream. A polished Luger pistol rises in a white-gloved hand and two sharp shots settle the matter, leaving two spare appointments.

The conductor tosses the soiled pistol to an underling.

'Zwillinge? Zwillinge?' SS guards move among the lines, seeking twins for purposes only their master understands.

#

For the first time since they herded us aboard that train I can feel Mother's fear. She grips my brother and me, pulling us close to her emaciated body. Father is wracked with fits of guttural coughing but insists that he feels neither cold nor hunger. He moves to the front. The line slows. A command, 'Schnell!' rings out and the baton waves to the conductor's right. Father vanishes in the crush, leaving Mother softly sobbing.

A pair of polished jackboots stands before our down-turned eyes.

'What are you hiding?'

The crush has lessened. We are the focus of his attention. Fingers in a spotless linen glove pass beneath my chin; lift my face toward his. The eyes are dark, the skin swarthy, gypsy-like. The mouth forms a smile, which the eyes do not join.

'Twins?' he says, voice lifting with anticipation.

Mother gasps, 'Is "twins" good?'

'Yes, "twins" is good,' he says, staring for too long at my brother.

'You can help your uncle with his medical research. Take them.' Rough hands snatch us. Mother screams.

'Be silent, Mother. Please. For all our sakes, be silent,' I shout, too late. His face betrays irritation. He gestures to the underling cradling his pistol.

The gun is in the good doctor's hand, aimed at Mother's head. A pure white finger tightens on the trigger. The gun emits a sharp metallic click. He laughs. 'Take away this shit,' he screams, sighs, and resumes directing lives.

#

Oh, how hard you must have worked, Doctor, in less than two years to conduct four hundred thousand souls - such dedication. Three thousand twin children, fifteen hundred pairs like my brother and me.

How to list your achievements? Where to start?

Your own clear vision said blue eyes were good. In our eyes, dye injections always failed. Often they resulted in mere blindness, though sometimes, inconveniently, death.

Once dead, you dissected us with care and pinned our eyeballs to your office wall. We watched the doctor at his tireless toil.

If too small, or sick, or when we’d served your scientific purpose, you cast out our worthless frames; deloused your Aryan world of infestation. When insecticide ran out, you set light to fuel-filled trenches. By lorry load, the living with the dead, they tipped us in, those brave SS with poles who barred escape from one hell to another.

How proud you must be: you and your kind.

#

'Do you remember this, Doctor? Do you still believe you were supermen as Friedrich Nietzsche taught you?'

He slavers into his moustache, muttering.

'Look, Doctor, look here, at my wrist.'

The rheumy eyes stare at everything except my arm. But I can wait. What is time to me? Then, as they must, his eyes converge on that dark number. He shudders.

'Yes, you see it, your special mark for twins.'

The wizened mouth forms a clear but soundless plea.

'What was that? Forgive you?' I smile at his naivety. 'I did that long ago. My forgiveness set me free. I am here not for myself, but for my brother and for all the others who cannot or will not forgive.

'Come now, Doctor, you are a cultured person. You appreciate the music of Richard Wagner; you have read the works of Goethe. You were once a spiritual man, brought up in the Catholic faith. You surely know that there’s a price to pay? Keep in mind that other doctor, Johann Faustus.'

I summon up my multitude: suffering souls from space and time, from then and now and days to come. A fitting chorus for my closing act.

He covers his ears in a futile attempt to silence the cacophony of wailing spirits. His aged eyes dilate with hatred turning now to fear. He scans the open beach and empty sky. 'Why do you torment me so? Who are you?'

'Through the ages men have named me Adrasteia or Rhamnusia. Some have termed me Nemesis. But, Mortal, you may call me Legion for to you I am Every Child, in whose names I bestow Hell and endless torment. Such hubris, Doctor; you usurp my fame. For I am the Angel of Death.'

Wolfgang Gerhard gasps, staggers and begins to run. Slapping flat foot fast across the beach, eyes wild, hands thrown skyward, he pitches headlong screaming into the waves.

#

According to news reports in June 1985, forensic examination of human remains from the grave of Wolfgang Gerhard at a cemetery in Embu das Artes, Brazil, proved they were in fact those of Josef Mengele. Although exactly why the chronically unfit sixty-nine year old Nazi should have gone swimming remained unclear.

In 1990, a Baptist missionary set up a home for orphaned or abandoned children in Embu das Artes, Brazil.

We must travel in the direction of our fear.

John Berryman – poet

*  The Direction of Our Fear was first published by the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers as Editor's Choice in their 'Ghostlight' magazine in 2010, and again by Verulam Writers' Circle in their anthology The Archangel and the White Hart, edited by Jonathan Pinnock, in 2011.

Hit or Miss?

Guys, something happened this week that's bothering me and I really need your input. I think we can probably agree that none of us knows how others see us, yes? Or, to lapse for a moment into a dialect we're going to hear a deal more of in coming days: "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Look, I have no hair – not by choice, you understand, it's the genes – and I do work out hard at the gym, regularly, so I could sort of understand if people who don't know what a pussycat I really am might – very briefly and in a bad light – mistake me for someone a 'bit handy'. But, last Thursday, I'm minding my own business in ASDA, clinging on to a shopping trolley while the little woman investigates another aisle, when this geezer swishes silently up to me on one of those Shopmobility scooters and whispers, out of the corner of his mouth, like in bad B movies: “You look the type. I’m looking for a hit man.”

OK, I’m a writer, I make things up, but this is true. Of course I made light of it, hoping he was simply someone with an even more bizarre sense of humour than my own (difficult to imagine), or perhaps a harmless eccentric. With fingers crossed I smiled, what I hoped was a none-hit-man-like humouring smile, and hoped my wife would arrive soon to save me. But before Freda could arrive, the hit-man-seeker’s own trouble and strife turned up with her trolley giving the poor sod such a humiliating ear-bending that I almost felt like taking the commission.

What would he have done if I’d said yes? How much would he have been prepared to pay? I don’t know, but I have a feeling… It was that pleading betrayed look he gave me every time our eyes met as he dogged the footsteps of his shrewish spouse down other aisles.

So, my question is, given that most of my friends online are probably writers, editors, and publishers or in some other way connected with the literary world: Guys, you know how hard it is to make a living as a writer. Do you think there's an alternative income stream for me here?

Please, I'm only after friendly advice, not potential targets. You know how little sense of humour the Security Services have.

EXTRA! Successful Author Exposed as Fraud

Hello again. I know, just as it seemed safe to re-enter the water blogosphere I'm back to threaten your sanity with a post. Apologies, but another chance to interview my chum Jonathan Pinnock was too good to an opportunity to miss. So I'm levering the 'dangerous structure' signs from the door and brushing away the cobwebs for the first time in months.

IttTL: Hi, Jon. Welcome back to my scruffy crash pad. We're out of milk and coffee, I'm afraid, so I hope black tea's OK? The tea bags are behind you, drying on the radiator. Oh, and the jammy dodgers are a bit soft, but you'll find the furry stuff comes off if you wipe them with your sleeve. It could have come from my sleeve, of course…

JP: Nice to see things haven’t changed. I’ll just have a glass of water, please. Boiled.
 
IttTL: Right-you-are. Water, boiled and cooled, coming right up, sir! Jon, it is public knowledge that your hilarious Jane Austen mash-up, Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens, published by Proxima in 2011, was pretty weird stuff. In fairness, that publication marked the cards of your readers and set the benchmark for your Scott Prize-winning collection Dot Dash, published by Salt in 2012. But your latest opus, Take It Cool, has zoomed out of left field even for those countless loyal fans expecting, indeed relishing the unexpected from you.

For the benefit of the few fans remaining unaware, Take it Cool, published by Two Ravens Press is a true-life account of your search for a West Indian reggae musician bearing the same unusual surname as you.

Was this project a long-planned change of direction or–– how can I put this? ––an itch you simply had to scratch?

 JP: The truth is that I started work on TiC some time before I actually got published in any shape or form, back in 2005. It always seemed like a story worth telling, although it took me a long, long time to work out how to tell it. Writing a novel (even one like Mrs Darcy) and all those short stories were extremely valuable in helping me solve that problem. So yes, it’s a bit of a change of direction, but it’s one that builds on everything I’ve done before.

IttTl: Reviewers have described Take it Cool variously as genealogical, musicological, historical and even 'a British man's odd quest.' Each of these descriptions seems to touch on aspects of your book but none truly does it justice. Is there an existing term that accurately describes Take it Cool, or will the world have to invent one?

JP: TiC is one of those books that refuses to fit in any particular pigeonhole. It’s pretty much sui generis. This suits me fine, but it’s a nightmare from a marketing point of view. What’s nice is that the genealogists (at least the one who reviews books at Family Tree Magazine) seem to get it from their angle, although I’m still waiting to see if anyone in the music press takes an interest. What I really want to shout from the rooftops is ‘Look, FORGET ABOUT $£@%^& CATEGORIES, this is a book you’ll ENJOY. Just trust me and TRY it.’ However, last time I tried doing that, I got arrested for causing a breach of the peace.

IttTL: Sui generis? That phrase must be one of a kind. I usually discourage the use of suspect language on this blog, and clambering about on the roof poses safety issues for the landlord, but I digress… In your quest for a connection between your own family history and that of Dennis Pinnock, the trail took you to 18th century Jamaica. When did the possibility of a slavery connection occur to you, and how did you feel when it did?

JP: No question about it, that was the point at which the project took flight. Up until then, it was going to be the story of me trying to track down this obscure singer, with a vague sideplot of me trying to find out how we were related. It really wasn’t much to build a book around. However, once slavery raised its ugly warty head, there was a whole new dimension to explore. There was always the risk, of course, that I might end up implicating myself (or at least a contributor to my genes), but it seemed worth taking.

IttTL: It seems to me that your eclectic musical tastes, your confessed magpie collecting tendencies – having discovered Dennis' career and discography – and a growing admiration for Dennis as your researches progressed have coalesced in Take it Cool to produce a unique bond across time, race and culture. So, it must have been quite a moment when you finally came face to face with Dennis. Can you describe that meeting in a few words?

JP: I’ve no idea what he made of me, but I liked him a lot. He was very unassuming, but also keen to talk about his career and his music, and the conversation didn’t flag for a moment. This was true of the other guys I interviewed as well, Paul ‘Snoopy’ Nagle and Tex Johnson. What was really nice, and quite unexpected, was that they all took my quest at face value and didn’t think I was some kind of idiot. In many ways, this was the best validation of the project.

IttTL: In Take it Cool you make great show of being uncool. In this respect, sir, you are a fraud. Take it Cool has done what it says on the label: it has taken you, Jonathan Pinnock, cool. How can a white British guy whose book has received a warm and enthusiastic review on itzcarribean.com, not to mention a prize book giveaway on that same coolest of websites, continue to claim un-coolness? 


JP: I’m not sure you can ever truly shake off un-coolness. You either are or you aren’t, and I’m most definitely not. However, if the book ever does get reviewed in the music press, I may have cause to re-evaluate this.

IttTL: Indeed you should, Mr Cool – sorry – Jon (for now). You're not a man who stands still for long. So, what are likely to be the next challenges you'll be taking on?

JP: That’s a very good question. As ever, there’s a whole load of things I’d like to do, almost none of which will actually make it beyond the first 1000 words or so before they self-destruct. For example, having had one stab at narrative non-fiction, there are now half a dozen other similar projects I quite fancy having a bash at. But I’d also like to go back to fiction, although exactly what form that’s likely to take, I have no idea. I’ve recently enrolled for the Creative Writing MA Programme at Bath Spa, so I’m hoping that will help me decide what I should be doing.

IttTL: Best of luck with sales of Take it Cool, Jon, your MA, and with all your future undertakings. Thanks for dropping by.

Jonathan Pinnock blogs at jonathanpinnock.com, an address in cyberspace that rewards the visitor with a miscellany of literary goodies; here you'll find links to Jon's eclectic back catalogue plus abundant evidence of his polymath skillset.

What could possibly enhance this image?

Today The Independent reported the death of Glenn McDuffie, aged 86. That name probably won't mean much to you, but it's a fair bet that you will recognise the man behind it. 

You see, Glenn was the sailor in this famous photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaed on August 14th 1945, in Time Square, New York. Over the years it has become a symbol of the joy experienced at the end of the Second World War. I can add nothing to the raw human emotion recorded in this amazing image, but I believe the work of a friend of mine may just do that.

Please, if possible, turn off any noise around you, sit, and allow yourself three minutes and fifteen seconds to listen to Donna Gagnon reading The Kiss.

Rest in peace, Glenn McDuffie, you have a very special place in human history.