Day of the Triffids

What can I say about the BBC's adaptation of The Day of the Triffids? Eddie Izzard was good in a silly role. Apart from that I can't think of many positives. It had clearly had a fair amount of money thrown at it. It certainly didn't fail through lack of effort or seriousness.

Maybe the fault lies with the book. Don't get me wrong, John Wyndham was one of my favourite writers when I was in my teens and The Day of the Triffids is a good book. But maybe it shows that whilst some things work perfectly well on the page, they don't when realised as moving images.

When I say that it's the fault of the book, I don't mean 'fault' at all. What I mean is that maybe the notion of filming The Day of the Triffids is doomed from the start. It seems a cinematic concept, but it is essentially flawed. Creeping carnivorous plants are a creepy concept in a book, but just plain silly on screen. Dressing the film up like 28 Days Later ( film that based its opening on The Day of the Triffids) did not make any difference. This was a zombie movie without zombies.

Does that mean that the book is flawed? No, I don't think it does. John Wyndham was not writing a screenplay, he was writing a novel. It should not have to work in any other format. What it shows is that the way we imagine when reading is different from the way things are shown in cinema and television (and so it should be). Film is limiting and pedantic. It has to show and depict in a way our imaginations do not (unless they choose to).

Literature is - I think - more tuned in to that way of thinking. It is a direct link from the imagination of the writer to the imagination of the reader.

Footballer's thumb

I have spent far too long playing FIFA 2010 on my son's xbox 360. The game was a Christmas present (to him, not me) and it has been driving me crazy ever since he opened it.

These games all follow the same pattern. We both play the game when it first arrives and we laugh at our incompetence and the weird quirks (in this case the deranged commentary). I go about my normal life. My son plays the game over and over again, gaining an intuitive grasp of all the many button and lever combinations. He becomes unbeatable.

I was sure that this would be different. He could use the buttons better than me, but I could play a tactical game. I could pass the ball. I could bide my time. Football isn't all about running down the pitch and going for goal every time.

We play again. I get thrashed. We play again. I get thrashed again. My thumb hurts. I launch into a long diatribe about the randomness of the whole game play, hinting strongly that the computer is somehow favouring my son. He gets upset. We play again. My son toys with me, using his goalkeeper as a centre forward and passing the ball back and forth in front of my goal before scoring. I sulk. I insist on being someone other than Tottenham just in case their infuriating ability to lose to just about anyone has been factored into the game. I play as Chelsea. I get thrashed.

I refuse to play any more.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone and happy St Stephen's Day. Hope you had a good time yesterday and that you at least got some of the things you wished for.

Snow has come to Cambridge

I'm ready for my close-up now Mr Downie

I had a meeting with Sarah Odedina today. We had a 'what's next' meeting, and I was very pleased that she seemed to be so enthusiastic about my new book proposal. This will have to jump through a few hoops yet before it becomes a definite thing, so I won't say any more about it now.

Sarah caught me on the hop a little, as I had really come in to talk about the possibility of doing a graphic novel at Bloomsbury. This idea had come up at a meeting and Sarah contacted me to see what I thought.

I have wanted to do a graphic novel ever since I was a teenager (though I would have called it a comic then). I love that form of storytelling. Or at least I do when it is done well. In this country - for reasons I am never very clear on - it rarely is. The graphic novels produced by children's publishers are particularly duff.

Graphic novels also do not tend to do good business here. Booksellers don't know what to do with them and there is still a culture that says comic books are for kids. Although there is an understanding that novels for children have to be well-written, for some reason publishers think they can get any old nonsense past children when its in comic form (when those children can go and buy the best of Marvel or DC or Dark Horse).

But this is a put up or shut up business. Will what I do be any better? I think it will - I certainly hope it will. But it may not even happen.

After my meeting with Sarah, I met up with the collectively wonderful Adrian Downie, Ian Lamb and Susannah Nuckey to do a promo video for Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth. Adrian shot the whole thing on several HD cameras against a green screen. Ian operated a complex arrangement of lighting and Susannah did wonders with props and make up (I looked twenty years older by the time she'd finished!)

A backdrop resembling a cross between a cupboard and a cellar will be added later apparently.

Inbali's books

A light icing sugar dusting of snow this morning in Cambridge, followed by sleet and then drizzle. I spent the day doing various pre-Christmas jobs, one of which was to pick up a couple of books sent by Inbali Iserles.

She sent these for the Cumbria Books appeal because she was going on holiday and we were still hoping to gather all the books in by Christmas. I was out when the postman arrived - of course - and I have just got round to dragging myself across Cambridge to pick them up from the sorting office.

It does make the scheme seem real though - having another author's books sitting here, ready to go.

De verschrikkelijke verhalen van het zwarte schip

A big parcel of books arrived the other day containing the Dutch editions of Tales of Terror from the Black Ship. I have been so busy blogging about Cumbria that I haven't had a chance to acknowledge their arrival.

It is always a thrill when another country decides to take your book, and always a little disappointing if they do not take the next in the series - so I'm very pleased that Pimento has taken The Black Ship.

And I love all those jagged Vs and Ks in that title.