Blog / 2008

As a musical antidote to a year of retro-pop and talent show tat let's go back about ooh, 121 years and hear something really silly. (Although it's harder than it looks - try hitting the Karaoke lyrics on cue) Happy New Year!

In no particular order; White middle-class authors complaining that they feel as if they are in a minority and are being discriminated against. Try this; grow up and write better. Private members' clubs filled with demented screaming media folk with ironically flattened hair. (They usually have faux-fifties wallpaper and offer comfort food at prices that would have kept your grandmother going for…

From Whistler to Wilde, from Augustus John to Aubrey Beardsley, through sips of absinthe and clouds of cigar smoke, the Cafe Royal in Regent Street played host to London's artistic elite. But after years of slow decline it's going, to be turned into yet another upmarket hotel. Its furniture goes under the hammer on January 20th. I've been to many parties in its upstairs rooms (and have hosted a…

Back in the 1980s (and again in the 90s) I did some marketing work on Richard Williams' unfinished masterpiece 'The Thief And The Cobbler', probably the greatest animated film never to see the light of day in its intended form. The problem was that the film - based on Persian miniatures and the writings of Sufi philosopher Mullah Nasruddin - was an insanely intensive labour of love that predated…

Yes, I said there would be six novels, and yes, I planned the series accordingly, hiding little tricks and clues in the books to point the way to other volumes. However... The new books have a little twist of their own. The series is going to continue for a while because I have more tales to tell - but there will be more emphasis on the team as a whole, as well as a few surprises I kind of planned…

This illustration was produced by Michael Nicholson for the BBC, with the excellent Hannah Gordon reading an abbreviated version of my Sherlock Holmes story 'The Lady Downstairs, click here.

I know it's a guy-thing to endlessly adjust lists of favourite or hated films/books/football teams, but one of the things I've done in my upcoming memoir 'Paperboy' is to include lots of lists. One is a list of words I read in hearty kids' adventure novels…

Fantastic Plastic Machine has been around a long time. He's a J-Pop artist with a retro sound that mixes uplifting lounge and soundtracks, and his videos always follow a simple idea, like this little charmer. (Video is no longer available)

I blew them up in it, then moved them out, but it's still a great little building. Now elderly detectives Arthur Bryant & John May are leaving their offices above Mornington Crescent tube station (pictured below) as the unit is closed down for good...but where will they go? For the benefit of overseas readers, I should explain that locating the Peculiar Crimes Unit above Mornington Crescent…

I'm blogging a lot at the moment because a/ I'm stuck on a plot point for the next Bryant & May, and b/ my partner and I will shortly be heading to India, and we'll be gone for almost three weeks, during which time I won't be blogging often (I work on a MacBook Air so it has to be Wi-Fi, and where we're going, there ain't roads). Anyway, here are the links to the short film based on my short story…