One of those mornings...

On Saturday, I had a v helpful letter from my bank manager, saying that the agreed overdraft facility on my business account was due to expire, and we really needed to have a chat about it, and it would be very helpful if I could get various pieces of paperwork to him a few days in advance of that chat, and like that - and if I didn't do any of this in a timely fashion then the overdraft facility would expire and I'd be stuck with all sorts of penalty charges etc. Which is all fine, except that the facility expires tomorrow - 2nd Oct - and the letter, as I say, reached me on Saturday morning. Which leaves us, like, today to sort all this out.

And I have phoned, and of course he is not available, and they say he will phone me back. So of course I dursen't go out; and I have finished my short story, and do not wish to engage with my novel, with all this looming above me; so I am pottering about the house poking gently at domestic duties and carrying the phone everywhere as I don't always hear it otherwise. I was carrying it in my shirt pocket, till I discovered that it falls out if I bend over: I have dropped it so far into the kitty-litter and the pan of dead goosefat, and am now carrying it in my trouser pocket instead.

The kitchen's too depressing, though, so I've abandoned that and am sorting through a box of dead papers in my study, keep/recycle/shred, you know the sort of thing. It's kinda dull and not very productive-feeling (there are dozens of such boxes in my study; one isn't going to make a dent), but I did just find an old and rather wonderful review by Bill Sheehan of my novel 'Shelter', which has of course recently been republished in the States.

I'll try to get the whole review up on my website soon, but meantime here's the money shot: "To its considerable credit, 'Shelter' is more than just an ambitious experiment in structure, technique and point-of-view. It is also a compelling character study; a vivid evocation of the raw, primal landscapes of Northern England; and a dual meditation on the power of stories and the universal need for shelter, for 'places of safety' that may not, in fact, exist..."

I like that.

Delta blue

The latest discovery from the box of bits: a scrap of paper (well, actually it's a bright yellow flyer advertising an album by Pat Buchanan, of whom I know nothing) which is folded in half, and on the top half of the blank back is a very familiar Chaz scrawl which even I could not read at this distance, and on the lower half is a neater Chaz transcription, as though I anticipated my finding it all these years later: and what it says is

"Delta blue is the colour behind a blind man's eyes, the colour of his shadow in the lights as he picks guitar"

- and I have no idea whether this was a moment's inspiration (which would explain the utter scrawliness of the first version, if I was writing it stoned or drunk or in the dark or whatever) or if I heard it somewhere and scribbled it down for sheer love (which would also explain etc etc).

Google doesn't know it, so I like to think it's my own; but I dunno, do I dare to use it? If the chance arose?