Monday 30 October 2023
Monday 16 October 2023
Monday 25 September 2023
Write Drunk, Edit Sober
Write drunk, edit sober - Hemingway said or didn't really but the much repeated quote has long been attributed to the writer and it's a good story. It sums up the public image of ole Papa even if it is actually the opposite of the truth. Hemingway was indeed a man who liked, nay loved a drink but he wrote in the morning, and didn't start drinking until the afternoon .
Still, when legend becomes fact print the legend.
Image, pop culture and exaggeration have done the business, built the myth and it's easy to visualise a slavering, red eyed, finger-stumbling, Scotch-scarred Hemingway at the keyboard.
Still, as I sit at my screen, three O'clock in the morning and raise a glass of Johnny Walker Black and mouth that salacious quote - 'Write Drunk, Edit Sober' - It is Hemingway I think of.
Cheers mate!
Tuesday 5 September 2023
OLD TV HEAVEN - MURDER SHE WROTE
Last night, lounging in front of the TV, aimlessly pushing buttons on the remote control I stumbled upon an episode of Murder She Wrote - this is not my usual type of show, though I have seen some episodes. Is there anyone who hasn't? - but I watched it anyway. Drinking a smooth Penderyn malt, I just let the show run it's course. It's cozy style may be out of fashion - these days crime drama tend to be gritty, moody and introspective but there's a lot to be said for old school crime/mystery shows where the murder victims never bleed from gun or knife wounds, and fall to the ground without leaving an untidy mess.
12 seasons, 268 episodes and scores of murders - Cobot Cove, the fictional setting for the show, has a murder rate of 1,490 to the million which basically means that you are safer in a war zone than in the leafy New England town. The show was actually filmed in Mendocino, California and still today hordes of fans visit the area to walk the streets where Jessica Fletcher solved baffling crime after baffling crime. The show ended in 1996 but it remains a favorite of TV schedulers across the globe.
It may come as a shock to many to learn that the brilliant Angela Lansbury was not the first choice to play Jessica Fletcher - originally the show runners approached Jean Stapleton, best known as Archie Bunker's long suffering wife, for the role. In fact the role had been created for the actress but she turned the producers down as she was going through a lot in her personal life having recently lost her husband. Looking for a replacement Angela Lansbury entered the scene - she had recently played Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the movie, The Mirror Crack'd and this made her a natural choice since the role of Jessica Fletcher is basically a transatlantic Jane Marple in any case.
'When I read the first script, I was immediately taken by Jessica Fletcher,' Lansbury told People Magazine back in 1984. ' I felt the script could have been written for me.'
The show had always been a big hit for CBS but when its 12th season was moved from its traditional Sunday evening slot and broadcast on Thursdays, putting it in competition with NBC's Friends, the ratings took a nose dive and it was decided to pull the plug before a 13th season.
Four TV movies followed and the show has never really gone away - there are the re-runs but there are also a series of books, credited to J B Fletcher but written by a series of ghost writers, that are still going strong today.
Thursday 31 August 2023
Check out a great crime Audiobook...written by Gary Dobbs, Narrated by Aubrey Parsons
ADVERTISEMENT
Get it on Audible - free with a subscription.
The bestselling crime novel now in audio format and read by the talented Aubrey Parsons.
-
COMANCHERO RENDEZVOUS as by Mark Bannerman A Black Horse Western from Hale, 1999 Major John Willard is sent on a special mission by the pre...
-
Robert B. Parker, who is largely responsible for the rejuvenation in the 197 0s of the hard-boiled genre of crime fiction, died today at his...