Buy your own movies!

There has been a lot of fuss over the last few days about our fun-loving Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, whose husband watched a couple of blue movies and the charge later appeared on her expenses sheet at the House of Commons.

We have all been enjoying her embarrassment of course, and the delicious irony of a government so invasive of the privacy of its citizens being exposed in this way. It almost makes me want to be a political cartoonist again.

But personally I think the real outrage here is that the Commons passed, as a legitimate expense, the watching of any movies, whatever the type. Who cares what they watch in the privacy of their own home, as long as we're not paying. I am just as annoyed that my tax money was used to pay for Surf's Up to be quite honest. And there can be little excuse for watching Oceans 13 once - but twice? At my expense!

The affair of Leander Deeny, Newton Compton and the Uncle Montague cover is with the Bloomsbury lawyers, so it would be inappropriate of me to comment further.

But watch this space. . .

Tunnel's mouth

I received proofs of the cover for Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth this morning. The book is out this October in hardback, published by Bloomsbury, alongside the paperback of Tales of Terror from the Black Ship.

It is David's best one yet, I think. I look forward to seeing a version of it wrapped around Leander Deeny's next book.

Oi! That's my cover!

Someone left a comment on the blog today telling me that the cover for Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror was being used for another book entirely in Italy. I couldn't believe that they could possibly be right, but it turns out that they are.


The book in question is Gli Incubi di Hazel by Leander Deeny, published as Hazel's Phantasmagoria here in the UK, with a cover, like Uncle Monty, illustrated by David Roberts . It is published in Italy by Newton Compton; in the UK by Quercus. Curious, huh?

Why or how this strange state of affairs came about I have not as yet discovered. When I find out, I'll let you know.

Paperback black ship

The post brought two packges from Bloomsbury this morning: one contained three copies of the Swedish edition of Uncle Montague Tales of Terror, the other some proofs of the paperback cover for Tales of Terror from the Black Ship.

The cover is the same as for the hardback, but with a nice quote from the Independent on Sunday. It is out this coming October.

Apple anyone?

This is a curious bit of synchronicity I thought I'd share with you.

I noticed that Stephen King has incurred the wrath of many a teenage girl, by saying that Stephanie Meyer 'can't write worth a damn.' Brave man.

I'll set my kittens on you!

We went to Lavenham on the way back to Cambridge on Sunday. I haven't been to Lavenham for years and my son had never been here. We almost lived here before he was born. When we decided to move out of London in 1993 we were looking for somewhere to rent and looked at a place in one of Lavenhams ancient houses.

Goodness knows what it would have been like to live in such a tourist trap (although Cambridge is not without the odd visitor, come to think of it). Lavenham could easily be dismissed as twee and chocolate boxy, but it never feels that way to me. The architecture is just too extraordinary for that: the way the houses seem on the verge of collapse - as they must have done for hundreds of years. If it was in France or Italy, the same people who get snooty about somewhere like Lavenham would be raving about the colours and the textures and snapping away like crazy. Yes, Lavenham is a bit clean and neat and precious - but is that really so terrible?

Anyway Lavenham always has another association in my mind. As we walked into the market square in a lovely low evening light, I was reminded of the fact that this was the location for a witch being burned at the stake in Michael Reeve's grisly 1968 movie Witchfinder General, starring Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins.


Suffolk does seem to have had an historical obsession with witches. The witchfinders did indeed come to Lavenham. Hopkins' assistant John Stearne came here in 1645, welcomed by the firebrand rector, William Gurnall. One Anne Randall confessed to having familiars - one called Jacob, the other Hangman - which she sent to kill the horse of a man who had refused her wood and the pig of a man who had cursed her. Which might be a little bit chilling had these familiars not been in the form of...kittens. Yes - kittens. Aaaaaargh!

These demonic kittens didn't make it into to the movie, sadly.

And by the way, witches were not burned in England, though filmmakers refuse to accept this. We roasted heretics with periodic enthusiasm, but not witches. They were hanged (though they were burned in Scotland) and then only if they had been found guilty of maleficium - harmful magic used to bring about destruction or death.

I do know of one witch who was supposedly burned at the stake - Margaret Read in King's Lynn in 1590. Her heart is said to have leaped from her burning body, smacked against the wall of a nearby building (the place is still marked) and then bounced down the street to jump into the River Ouse.

But this is unlikely. The burning I mean. The bouncing heart, who knows? Some people think that the heart story should actually be attached to the story of a servant girl who was burned in King's Lynn - but not for witchcraft. She was burned for petty treason. She was found guilty of causing the death of her master and this (like the killing of a husband) was deemed to be a kind of regicide (the man being king of his house) and the punishment for a woman for this crime was burning. Right up until 1790, amazingly.

The skulls of Orford

We went to Orford on the Suffolk coast last Saturday to eat some very tasty food in the Butley Orford Oystery. After a wander round the castle we had a look in the church and graveyard. I have photographed these wonderfully grim headstones before - many years ago in the days before digital. In amongst them, was this more modern and much more chirpy slate marker.