Gary meets Andrew Grant!

You may not have heard of UK thriller author Andrew Grant, but that's only because his first book has yet to appear in stores. Next year, when it does, you'll know it.

Here's how good he is: when he sent round queries looking for a literary agent, an amazing 80% offered to represent him. Most unrepresented writers would kill for a 1% yes rate. When his agent went out with his ms, six publishers wanted his book.

To top it off, he's an extremely nice guy. It's just not fair.

That's Andrew on the left...the good looking one.

Andrew and I met for dinner while I was in London. The topics of conversation were writing, writing, and writing: the joys of writing a second novel, self-promotion, the care and feeding of one's agent, and our mutual writing histories, which have some remarkable similarities despite our different backgrounds. We both reached a point (I will forbear from the term midlife crisis) where we both decided that this was it, rearranged our lives, and wrote a book. Where we differ is that he has a publication date, and a deadline for his second ms.

Stay tuned for EVEN, the first of the David Trevellyan books by Andrew Gant.

Gary meets Anneke and Bill (at last!)

Many months ago, a naive and somewhat rejected amateur writer called Gary was wandering around inside a place called Second Life, an online virtual world, when he ran into a goth girl called Anneke. Anneke was a writer type too, and she told him about an in-world magazine looking for stories.

So Gary wrote a short story that he submitted to the magazine, and they accepted it. That was his first ever sale! (He'd won prizes before this, but never a sale.)

Before he submitted, he sent the story to Anneke to see what she thought. Anneke likes critiquing stories, and she has a natural talent for it. What is most amazing is, not only does she have the ability to improve someone else's story, but she can do it in English. Anneke is Dutch. Astonishing!

And so a habit developed. Every single thing I've written since then, Anneke has checked before I submitted. Every time, she's said something that improved the story. For my short stories that probably didn't take too much of her time, not enough that I feel guilty about it in any case. But then she read my novel end to end and sent me a perceptive and very useful critique. Wow! I fixed the ms as best I could.

Her own writing, in English, her second language, is very good indeed, far better than most native speakers could achieve. I hope one day she submits some of her own fiction somewhere.

In the course of time I met another writer friend of Anneke's. Bill Kirton is a Real Writer. Bill has written plays that people have actually put on. He's had piles of short stories published, and two novels, with more to come. He used to teach creative writing (and Fench) at university. It's scary how much he knows about how to deliver a gritty, tight, solid story.

Bill, a professional, offered to read my novel. He sent me a brilliant critique that pointed out important weaknesses, most of which I'd semi-realized were there but hadn't known enough to know they were weaknesses. I fixed the ms again, as best I could.

I owe Anneke and Bill a lot.

There was never the slightest chance we'd ever meet of course, because Anneke is in Amsterdam and Bill is in sunny Aberdeen. But then I announced I was visiting Europe, so we agreed to converge on London. Which we did, and I, for one, had a wonderful time meeting friends I never expected to be with in person.

I'll have to update this later with a photo; they're all on Anneke's camera.

Bill, the ultimate gentleman, insisted on paying for lunch. He also gave Anneke and I signed copies of his latest book, Rough Justice. I read it that night. Of course I already had a copy of his first book, Material Evidence, on the shelves at home.




What I like about Detective Chief Inspector Carston of the Cairnburgh force is he's a regular guy who just happens to catch killers for a living. Not a trace of detective eccentricity to be seen, but plenty of realistic characters and a murder you can believe in.

Travel Rules of the Gendarmes

After carefully observing the gendarmerie of Paris for some days, I believe I have deduced the rules of how they are expected to move about:

  1. Turn on the siren. This most important of rules applies to all but the most trivial situations. Being late for lunch is not trivial, especially in France.

  2. Have many people in the car. Two is far too few. Five gendarmes looks more impressive to the people watching you whiz by with siren blaring.
  3. Everyone in the car should look earnestly in the direction of travel. This rule must be especially important because I have never seen it broken. I expect this is to give the impression that where they are going is more important than where they are.

  4. Never use one car when three, four or five will do. Convoys of cars, sirens blaring, many men in each car, all looking forwards with intense, earnest expressions. Egads! Whatever it is, it must be important. But why does it happen several times every hour?

  5. As soon as you arrive at your destination, stand around and do nothing much. I deduce this rule from the fact that gendarmes are only seen in one of two states: either rushing about in cars, sirens blaring, or else standing about doing nothing much, often in impressively large groups (I guess that's why they need all the cars) and wearing piles of dark blue armor and armed to the hilt. As far as I'm aware, no one has ever observed them doing anything other than these two things.

Roman Wine Review: Carenum

Welcome to the third and last of the reviews of wine made in the ancient Roman style by Tourelles Winery in Provence.


Carenum is really, really nice. I would happily buy more of this.

Carenum is a sweet, white wine. The label says it is made from late harvested grapes, which is highly believable. It has the intense flavor associated with wines in which the water content was reduced prior to making the vintage.

My wife Helen thinks Carenum tastes a bit like sherry. This is the only one of the three Roman wines which she more or less vacuumed down.

Carenum has had quince added to it, as well as grape juice that's been concentrated by boiling. That gives you a much stronger grape taste than you get from the previous two wines, for which their added spices were a dominant factor.

You could easily serve Carenum in an anonymous bottle at a dinner party and get away with it. Your friends would assume it was a sweet desert wine, which fundamentally, is exactly what it is.

Highly recommended.


If Roman wine interests you, then check out the blog for Mulsum and Turriculae.

Who was the most powerful man in Athens?

It depends on when you're asking about, but the common answer is Pericles.

During the Golden Age of Athens, the guy more or less making the decisions was Pericles. But this does not mean he was in charge. Athens was a direct democracy, so the citizens voted on every single issue. Pericles' power was his ability to persuade the people to see things his way. When he expressed an opinion in the Ecclesia - the Peoples' Assembly -it practically always swung the vote.

Though we call him a statesman, Pericles was, technically, a military man. Year after year he was voted by the people to be one of the ten strategoi, which means Generals. You'll never guess where we get our word strategy.

(I've noticed some common questions leading people to this blog, so I'm making it simple for searchers by answering the questions directly.)