Corpse fishing

I have just got back from a couple of days in Somerset and opened my inbox to find a message from Adrian Downie at Bloomsbury under the title 'corpse fishing'. It turns out to hold a link to an early version of a game we had talked about to go on the Tales of Terror from the Black Ship website. If you haven't seen Adrian's fantastic work on the Tales of Terror website follow the link on the left of the page and have a look.

The game made me laugh, though that maybe wasn't Adrian's intention. I have a fairly dark sense of humour, mind you. Anything with the instruction 'Hook the corpses, avoid the snails' was bound to set me off. I'll have to give some thought as to what we can put on this new site.

I also had an email from Madeleine Stevens at Bloomsbury showing me the paperback covers for Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. Here are the inside covers:

Happy stupid people

I have been doing a blitz on my office over the last few days. Having come to the (almost) end of Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth, it seemed like a good time to clear the decks before really getting to grips with Ghosts, my next project.

I never did get to meet up with Chris Riddell on Friday. His journey was disrupted by engineering works and we ran out of time. I hope I'll get to see him in Norfolk whilst he is on his August break. Apart from anything else I will want him to sign replacement copies of some of my son's books ruined in our leak. Chris has given him lots of books over the years and they are a special part of his collection.

There was one of those questionnaire things in the Guardian magazine yesterday. I can't say I had ever heard of Slavoj Zizek and reading his questionnaire, I'm not sure I want to actually meet him, but some of the answers did amuse me. For example. . .

Q: What makes you depressed?
A: Seeing stupid people happy.

Q: How do you relax?
A: Listening again and again to Wagner

Q: What is your favourite smell?
A: Nature in decay, like rotten trees.

Q: What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
A: That life is a stupid, meaningless thing that has nothing to teach you.

The dreadful weather continues

The rest of my advance copies of the US edition of Tales of Terror from the Black Ship arrived today, making publication seem very close - which is very exciting. I love getting the first batch of books. To be honest, I don't think I'll ever lose that thrill of seeing a book with my name on it.

Wet

The front page of the Guardian informed me that with a sharp rise in temperature expected, English gardens will be full of spiky drought-loving plants. A few hours later and I was standing on a stool trying to block a leak in my son's bedroom as we had yet another torrential downpour here in Cambridge. How those drought-loving plants must be loving this summer.

When I worked for The Independent many years ago as an illustrator, I illustrated an article about the effects of global warming on the UK. I did a take-off of John Constable's The Haywain in which the cart was crossing a dried up river and there were palm trees and sunflowers. The more likely parody would show the cart being washed away in a flood.

I spoke to someone from my home insurance company about the fact that water has been coming into my sons bedroom and ruining his books. I told her that it probably started when there was a terrific rainstorm here a couple of weeks ago and we all stood and watched as water rushed off the roof like a waterfall. She went away and checked and came back and told me there had been no significant rainfall in Cambridge. So we all must have dreamt it.

I'd have to claim it as an accident she said. There was a £75 excess, she said. And my no-claims bonus might be affected. Insurance. Its such a comfort. Until you actually try and claim.

I spoke to Chris Riddell on the phone. I may meet up with him as he passes through Cambridge on the train back to Norfolk. We talked about what we are both up to and he always seems to be up to more exciting stuff than me. He and Paul Stewart are off to the States to promote their Barnaby Grimes books in September. And maybe that isn't as exciting as it sounds - it must be exhausting. But it beats standing on a stool with a bucket.

What's happening?

Well, I'm home alone at the moment, the family being away enjoying the rain-soaked pleasures of the West Country. I am just going through the last of the comments about Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth sent to me by Sarah Odedina at Bloomsbury. There isn't a huge amount to do, but somehow it always seems to take longer than you think to change a word here, and swap a phrase there.

As soon as those changes are in I will crack on with Ghosts, my new book. It will be good to get to grips with a long novel again and I hope to get that done by the end of the year for publication early in 2010. But of course, things are not quite finished with Tunnel's Mouth. The copy editing will go into much greater detail. It only seems five minutes ago I was doing the final edit on Tales of Terror from the Black Ship.

And I forgot to mention that the US copies of the Black Ship came in a week or so ago. Here is a spread showing David Robert's rather fine illustrations to a story called Irezumi, about a tattoo that. . .Well, I think I'll let you find out what happens with that tattoo when the book comes out in October.


And in a very short amount of time I'm flying up to Edinburgh to appear at the Book Festival there. I'm doing my thing at 11.30 on Sunday 17 August at the RBS Corner Theatre, so if you happen to be passing, drop in. I'll be the sweaty one up on stage.

I haven't been to Edinburgh for years and have never been when the festival was on. I'm looking forward to it. You can get a masterclass in illustration from David Roberts at the RBS Workshop Tent between 5.30 and 7pm on Saturday 16 August.

All that you know is at an end. . .

The phone rang today and when I put it to my ear a fog horn bellowed out and there may have been the sound of gulls and a voice said 'This is your captain speaking. . .' It was a little disconcerting. It went on to tell me that I had free tickets waiting for me if I just answered a few questions. The first one was going to be 'Are you a gullible sap?' presumably, but I put the phone down before I found out.

A couple of weeks ago my son stuck his head through the doorway to my office and announced in a solemn voice, 'All that you know is at an end.' Again - this was a little disconcerting given that I am specialising in spooky children at the moment. Then I remembered that we'd been watching 'Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer' and the Silver One delivers that particular line in the movie.

I have been meaning to show some more of Susan Harvey's work on the blog. So here it is. The link will take you to her Flickr site but if you are just too lazy to bother, here are a couple of examples. Her work will be featured in the mixed show at Cambridge Contemporary Art in Trinity Street here in Cambridge. The show started on Saturday and runs for a couple of months. I popped in today and so far her stuff was not on the walls. But it will be at some point.

Brown hawker

The dragonflies have started to take over. This one came into the house yesterday - twice. It is one of the most beautiful insects I have ever seen in this country. In case you are wondering, he's sitting on a sweeping brush that was used to give him a perch to sit on whilst I persuaded him to go and hunt outside.

Brown Hawker just does not seem to do justice to something so dazzling - something that is over 10cm from head to tail-tip and shimmering with flashes of brilliant blue with wings that seem to have been made out of fine copper wire.