The Week That Was

An interesting week that began with Monday's QI production meeting being filmed by The South Bank Show. They're doing a special all about our boss - the estimable Mr John Lloyd CBE - and his extraordinary career in TV. And, let's be honest, it's well-deserved. He's given us The News Quiz, Not The Nine O'clock News, Spitting Image, The Museum of Curiosity, Have I Got News For You, QI, Blackadder and had a hand in Mr Bean and several other well-known shows. He also co-wrote two episodes of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and The Meaning Of Liff with Douglas Adams. The man's a genius and deserves every accolade lobbed at him.

Tuesday was a working at home day, hunkering down on finding great material for the new series of QI and Wednesday was much the same. Thursday saw me having a couple of quite exciting meetings, one about my possible involvement in working for another popular TV series and one with a publisher about a new book. Then, in the evening, it was off to the famous Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross Road for the Transmission Prize award ceremony.

I was one of the judges this year - no mean feat when every candidate was an amazing person - and my role at the awards was to do a 15 minute presentation explaining who the eight finalists were, what their big idea was, and why we'd selected them for our shortlist. The prize was awarded this year to Dr David Nutt, a brave and brilliant chemist who is challenging politicians over their attitudes to classifications of drugs. As he points out, some of the most damaging drugs are perfectly legal and there are things that can be done to reduce their negative effects on society ... but there is a lack of political will to do so. Meanwhile, other drugs remain illegal making research into their possible uses in medicine fraught with difficulty and bound up with red tape.The Transmission Prize is all about taking big ideas and communicating them effectively and, in his books, interviews, talks, blogs and other media, David speaks with passion, authority and clarity. He was a worthy winner, but picking him out of such a brilliant shortlist was really difficult.

Okay, I admit it. I did enjoy a little ripple of thrills in seeing my name in Foyles' window. It may not have been any of my books on display, but I was judging the winner from the books that were on display ... so that's nearly as cool, isn't it?

Friday saw me back at work on QI and also taking part in an 'Ask the Author' live Twitter chat organised by my publishers at Unbound. Some of the questions were bizarre to say the least! But my latest book - Constable Colgan's Connectoscope - does contain some pretty weird facts too.

When I got home I was both flattered and amused to see that a student called 'Jack J' from the University of Chester had animated one of my appearances on Radio 4 last year. I appeared on Josie Long's Short Stories, speaking for a minute on the subject of the police playing hide and seek on night duty in the early 80s as a way of learning beats. Here's his excellent effort:



This week was a good week. And now the weekend is approaching and I'll be doing some extra QI work to make up for the hours I lost on Thursday. But, to be honest, it's a joy to do so it doesn't really feel like work. :)

What's that? Lunch break is over?

Ow! Mr Fry!

That whip stings!

Video didn't kill the Radio Star

Yesterday was an interesting day. It began at BBC Radio 4 and my appearance on the Saturday Live magazine show with the Reverend Richard Coles and Anita Anand and guest star Richard Osman of Pointless fame.

Great fun and lovely people. We discussed quizzes, Cornwall, policing and the curious subject of cows having regional accents, among other things. You can listen to the show or download it as a podcast here.

I then mooched around some bookshops and was delighted to see that the Connectoscope has started to appear on the shelves. I don't think I'll ever not be thrilled by seeing one of my books in the shops.

 

Then it was on to North East London and a video shoot for the new single by Emperor Yes. I've known the lads - multi-instrumentalists Ash Gardner and Hugo Sheppard and Three Trapped Tigers drummer, the mighty Adam Betts - for a few years. Their videos are always innovative and slightly bonkers, usually involving mad costumes, animation and nods to favourite film genres. Here, for example, are their videos for Wasps and Cosmos:

I won't issue any spoilers about the new video other than to say it centres around an apocalyptic party and some curious men in costumes. My role is the mysterious 'Straws Guy'. Intriguing, eh? I'll link to the video when it's released but, in the meantime, here are a few teaser photos from the shoot (apologies for poor quality - phone camera in low light) ...

Under the costumes you might recognise Museum of Curiosity producer Dan Schreiber (frog) and magician Pete Heat (polar bear). You might also, if you're a regular to this blog, spot my Carl Sagan cartoon behind the band:

More links to Emperor Yes here.

Why the e-book gives you e-xtra

By now, most of you who helped to make my new book Constable Colgan's Connectoscope a reality have got a copy. Some of you opted for the e-book/audiobook option only. If that's so, the e-book is now available to download here. The audiobook will be with you soon; it's been recorded and edited and we're just sorting out the technical gubbins to make it available for download. Oh, and the e-book and the audiobook are available to ANYONE who pledged, even if you also got a physical hard copy.

We've tried to make the e-book as accessible as possible by providing it in EPUB, MOBI and PDF formats, so it should be readable on a wide variety of devices. You can also send it directly to the READMILL app on your iPhone or iPad with one click on the Connectoscope site.

We've added something extra to the e-book version too. At the back you'll find a bibliography and a list of hyperlinks to the sources I used to find all of the facts in the book. Because the book is meant to be a light-hearted galumph through the fields of trivia, I don't go into any great detail with each fact. However, I am aware that some of the subject matter might pique your curiosity. So, if a particular subject interests you strangely, I've provided you with the links you need to go and find out more.

The one thing I wish we could have done is include photographs. Sadly, that would have upped the costs considerably and caused a nightmare of assigning rights etc. However, some facts are so much better demonstrated by illustration. For example, in Investigation 16 (page 82), I talk about rainbows and the fact that they should be called rainrings as they are actually circular; how much of it we see depends upon the width of the band of rain and where the sun is at the time. How much nicer it would have been to show you an example:

 

Isn't that amazing? And not a copy of Photoshop in sight (Note: when I posted this image I was unable to tell you who took it. Thanks to a comment left (see below) I now can - it's by Nicole Cambert and was shot from Livingstone Island on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls). In rare instances, you can also get a rainring around the sun (pic: National Geographic).

 

 

Another fact that's so much better demonstrated by a picture is found in Investigation 17 (page 83) where I explain exactly what pink Kryptonite does to Kryptonians such as Superman. It only ever happened once (in Supergirl comic in 2003) but here's a panel from the comic to give you an idea of the hilarity that ensued:

 

 

(Image copyright DC Comics)

 

Heh.

Another Great Week

Another busy week and another seven days of meeting splendid human beings. Work continues apace on finalising the scripts for the new series of The Museum of Curiosity, which starts recording this evening, Sunday 23rd June. This year we have the rather splendid Humphrey Ker on board as our curator; he joins the stellar cast of previous curators we've enjoyed during the last five series, namely Bill Bailey, Sean Lock, John Richardson, Dave Gorman and Jimmy Carr. If you don't know who Humphrey is ... trust us, you will soon.

He's absolutely brilliant and he's going to be HUGE. Mind you, at 6'7" tall, he's already most of the way there. Click here to see a great little sketch for Funny or Die.

In other news, Tuesday saw the release of my book Constable Colgan's Connectoscope in e-book format. So, if you pledged on the book, you can now download it in pdf, e-pub or mobi formats at the Unbound site here.

On Thursday I ran a charity quiz night at the Frontline Club in London. It's the members club for journalists and foreign correspondents and all the money raised goes to the families of the brave souls who risked their lives - and lost - to expose injustice and report on war crimes and other atrocities in the most dangerous parts of the world.

Friday was a busy day with two events to attend. First up was Creat-ED, an 'un-conference' for educators and learning technologists, held at the Barbican Arts Centre in the City of London. The Barbican is quite a place, if you've not seen it. While it's a classic example of 1970's Brutalist concrete architecture, it sports fountains, ponds and waterfalls and an enclosed conservatory full of jungle greenery and tropical birds.

It's a great place to stage an event in although it is very large and takes a bit of time to navigate around. The event itself was all about getting creativity into education; moving from thought to deed. I was one of the guest speakers along with former Cocteau Twins musician Simon Raymonde, who now runs the excellent new music label Bella Union (which gave the world Fleet Foxes, Flaming Lips and others), and smart product designer Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino of Design Swarm; creator of the ingenious internet-based Good Night Lamp. An amazing day spent with the sorts of people I wish my kids had had as teachers at their schools; committed, clever, joyous, innovative.

I then went on to The Nave in Islington, a deconsecrated church, to speak at an event to mark World Humanist Day. Organised by the British Humanist Association, the One Life event featured performances from me, Andrew Copson, Professor Chris French, Iszi Lawrence and Alom Shaha and wonderful music by the BHA choir; an eclectic mix of secular songs including Lou Reed's Perfect Day, Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Elbow's One Day Like This and Monty Python's Universe Song and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

Wonderfully optimistic and uplifting without the hint of a need for God. A great end to a great week.

That Was The Week, That Was

Another busy week that started with the very sad news of Iain Banks' death, a lovely and talented man. I first read The Wasp Factory shortly after it came out and was so blown away by it that I travelled 50 miles from where I lived at the time just so that I could get him to sign my copy. He was doing a book signing and short talk in Cambridge. I treasured that book then and even more so now. Another fantastic writer taken from us far too soon.

Most of the rest of the week was spent in a studio recording the audiobook of Constable Colgan's Connectoscope.

 

I was at the House Of Strange studios in the shadow of Canary Wharf in London's docklands. It's a very cool place, owned and run by my good mate Ash Gardner, producer of such bands as Three Trapped Tigers and Emperor Yes.

After three days and 12 hours of reading out loud, I've developed a whole new respect for people like Stephen Fry and Martin Jarvis who make a great many audiobooks. It's surprisingly tiring work. Yes, all right, it's not digging roads or nursing but it is quite wearing, especially as you have to keep up an enthusiastic, evenly-modulated tone throughout.

I've also discovered that the written word and the spoken word are quite different things. When you read out loud, you suddenly have to know how to pronounce people's names correctly and, even more challengingly, foreign names and words. This issue became particularly acute when I got to chapter 11 and suddenly found myself facing words like sippuakivikauppias and kuulilennuteetunneliluuk - two of the world's longest palindromes; one Finnish, one Estonian. Eek.

How did I fare? You'll soon be able to hear.

A Case for Upcycling

As much as I quietly loathe car crash neolexic portmanteaus like 'chillax', 'bridezilla' and 'stagflation', today I find myself 'upcycling'. Oh the shame.

Upcycling is the art of recycling a thing into something better. Apparently. That's still recycling in my view. Or repurposing. But, whatever we call it, I've done it. Or, rather, Mrs C has.

She's spent the last couple of days preparing for an upcoming craft fair by making pencil cases and laptop and tablet bags from old off-cuts of material (she is a very experienced and exceptional seamstress and tailor). And it suddenly occurred to me that here was a possible new use for the promotional T Shirt I had printed to wear at fundraising events for my book. The book is now funded, has a different cover and will soon be in the shops so the shirt is redundant ... so the poor thing's future was looking bleak. It would probably end up spattered with paint and plaster or cut up for use as dust cloths. That just seemed ungrateful. Was there an alternative? There was indeed.

The T shirt lives on as my new pencil case - Upcycled and reincarnated. Isn't that cool?

I think so.

If you're going to get RSA, this is the way to get it

Yesterday I did a mass signing of copies of Constable Colgan's Connectoscope at Unbound HQ. What a joyous job.

And here you can see Isobel and Caitlin working hard getting all of your copies into envelopes ready for posting. Excitements!

It doesn't get any more exciting than this ...

Yes indeedy, those are the trade paperback and special edition hardback editions of Constable Colgan's Connectoscope in the flesh. Well, paper. They arrived in the warehouse last week so they should soon start being posted out to all of you lovely people who pledged on it through Unbound.

The ebook is being prepared as we speak and should be available for release soon. And I start recording the audiobook in a couple of weeks. Good news!

Oh, and if you want a copy of the special hardback edition - get yourself over to Unbound pronto! They won't be around forever and they won't be available in the shops.

Cor! Constable Colgan's Connectoscopic Cover!

Ladies and gentlemen, aliens and robots, may I present the MAGNIFICENT cover of my new book ...

 

Isn't it great? It's by the brilliant writer/illustrator of the popular books Goliath, The Gigantic Robot, Hunter and Painter and You're all just Jealous of my Jetpack, the very splendid Mr Tom Gauld.

I met up with Tom last night to thank him for doing such an amazing job. He's as nice as he is talented.

I must also mention the genius that is designer Mark Ecob who sat down with me to work out what was needed and came up with the perfect cover. Just wait until you see the full wrap-around cover - it's gorgeous! But what do you expect from the guy who was recently entrusted to redesign the covers of Iain Banks' fiction books? With Mark and Tom on board, it couldn't fail.

So, there you go! I've been very spoilt. And we have a cover. And, if you pledged on the book through Unbound, the book will be in your hands soon. It's gone off to the printers and, as they can have up to a six week turn around, it should be ready sometime around late May/early June. The e-book should be ready about the same time and I'm recording the audiobook in June. And then the trade paperback will be in the shops in the Autumn, in time for Christmas!

That said, if you didn't pledge on the book but can't wait until September, you can still pledge here and get a copy sent out to you. However, your name won't now be listed in the back as a funder as there has to be a cut-off point for the print process to start.

Exciting times!

OM(Flipping)G!

Wow. Wow. And thrice wow.

After I posted my New Year message in the shed yesterday things went decidedly barmy ... but in a good way, you understand, not in a monkey with a machine gun sort-of way. The Connectoscope is fully funded! A virtual avalanche of pledges, coupled with Christmas orders and some pledges from the most recent live event pushed me over the finishing line just in time for all that weird Scottish folk singing and crossed-shaking-arms business. I am absolutely astounded. What a great start to 2013! What with working on QI and the Museum of Curiosity this spring and summer, I was already expecting to have a great year, but this is the canine's nads, it really is.

So ... 'What happens now?' I seem to hear you ask through the fug of hangover. Well, the good news is that - unlike some of the books on Unbound - mine is already written. Therefore, all that needs to be done is some proofreading and double-checking, some cover designing and typesetting and then it's off to the printers to make your delicious hardbacks and e-books. The paperback will go into the shops later. I'm also going to record the audiobook this month so that will be available and FREE to all of you, no matter what level you pledged at.

Now, I haven't discussed deadlines with Unbound - I imagine they're all feeling 'tired and emotional' today having seen three books smash through the 100% funding barrier yesterday (Well done Jess and Kevin!). But I reckon it's not unrealistic to say that the book will be ready fairly soon.

So, once again, thank you so much for helping to make the Connectoscope a reality. I really could not have done it without every single one of you.

S
x

Oxford Unbound

We did our first Oxford-based Unbound Live this evening. Tremendous fun as always and a lovely audience at The Jam Factory - the old Frank Cooper Marmalade Factory. MC for the evening was the inimitable Mr John Mitchinson seen here in all of his hirsute glory.

Our first reading and book pitch came from Kevin Parr whose darkly comic tale of birdwatchers and murder - The Twitch - is currently 70% funded.

Then came Lisa Gee with her usual spirited sales pitch for Hayleyworld, her biography of a forgotten bad poet and rubbish horseman.

Next up was E O Higgins whose comic mystery novel Conversations with Spirits is currently 48% funded.

And to round off Part One, Katy Brand read us some extracts from her very funny first novel Brenda Monk is Funny. 

Part Two kicked off with Keith Kahn- Harris telling us about his continuing efforts to find big fish in small ponds - The Best Waterskier in Luxembourg.

Then it was yours truly. We were told to keep our pitches to eight minutes. So I wrote a talk all about what you can do in eight minutes. You can read it in my Unbound shed here ... but only if you're pledging on my book!

Penultimately, Robert Llewellyn read us some exclusive extracts from his sequel to News from Gardenia, his utopian sci-fi novel ...

... and George Chopping - performance poet extraordinaire - rounded off a splendid evening with his usual gusto, reading new poems and some from his published collection Smoking with Crohn's.

Wonderful fun!

Enthusiasm Unbound

On Monday I took part in my third Unbound literary event at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London. As always, it was a spirited 'bookslam' with a number of Unbound's authors pimping their books to an enthusiastic, supportive and wonderful audience. The evening was introduced by one of the publisher's founders, Mr John Mitchinson ...

... and he was followed by a succession of speakers, including myself. Here's the line-up, including a quick precis and hyperlinks to their books.

To kick the evening off, we had a great presentation by David Bramwell about his book The Number 9 Bus to Utopia in which he visits a number of communities around the world that believe that they have discovered a better way to live your life.

Next up was Robert Llewellyn talking about News from the Squares, his sequel to the hugely popular eco-friendly sci-fi novel News from Gardenia ...

'Queen of Tarts' Tamasin Day-Lewis then tempted us to buy her new book Smart Tart by selling slices of a freshly made chocolate tart in return for pledges. Mitch could not resist ...

Up next was the always entertaining Keith Kahn-Harris talking about his 'big fish in small ponds' project The Best Water Skier in Luxembourg. Keith's just back from meeting the most powerful politician on Alderney and is now preparing to meet the top heavy metal band in Botswana ...

Closing off the first half with his usual thump and gusto was performance poet George Chopping, author of the rather brilliant Smoking with Crohn's.

The second half kicked off with me talking about police work, fruit and the structure of the universe; all part and parcel of my new book, Constable Colgan's Connectoscope ...

Jessica Jones then told us all about her bittersweet memoir The Elegant Art of Falling Apart; an often hilarious, occasionally tearful account of how she beat breast cancer, survived broken relationships and a breakdown to become the strong, witty, wonderful lady that she is.

Lisa Gee regaled us with tales from Hayleyworld, her hilarious biography of William Hayley; terrible poet, terribly nice man and terrible horseman ...

Penultimately, Benet Brandreth and Robert Hudson gave us a sneaky preview of the next series (and future Unbound book) of Warhorses of Letters, the acclaimed BBC radio comedy  ...

... and we were serenaded on our way by a fantastic acoustic set from Luca Serino and Harry Shearer of The Fireflies.

Another wonderful event to be part of. I hope that everyone's book does very, very well (and that The Fireflies get a music deal and the great producer they deserve)!

All photos (c) Stevyn Colgan