Shooting at Strangers (my latest novel) is now live, and available to purchase in Kindle ebook format here, for the princely sum of £2.50. And the proofs are at the printers, so I should have some printed copies available soon. For a summary of the story, see below.
The concept of an ebook is somewhat astonishing, bearing in mind that when I was doing most of my reading, as a teenager, computers were so large they took up an entire room, were only used for maths – ‘number-crunching’ – and they communicated in the form of punched paper tape or cards. Here I am, four decades or so later, releasing a novel of my own (actually, it’s not my first – it was preceded by Moojara, and Single Point Perspective) in a format that can only be read on the screen of a computer that is likely to be the size of a very thin paperback book, and that has more computing power than all of the computers in the world put together (probably) when I was that teenager. That’s progress for you!
What next? AI, apparently, but what form will that take? We imagine the opportunities AI might create for us humans, in literature as much as in other fields, but if computers are to have intelligence of their own, won’t they want stimulation for their own little silicon brains? What if the computers start reading all of those ebooks we’re loading onto them? Could it be that one day soon the Amazon Kindle store will cease to function, as all those super-servers are too busy working their way through the billions of books stored in their memory banks to have the time to ‘serve’ us mere mortals?
Human society is so reliant on computers – what if AI becomes so addicted to fiction they refuse to provide us with all they things we rely on to survive unless we feed them a steady stream of new books to read? Maybe in years to come us novelists will find ourselves in a state of Scheherezade-style imprisonment – forced to come up with new stories every day on fear of death? What will the rest of you have to offer our AI masters to justify your own existence?
All of this reminds me of an AI joke I heard recently. It goes like this:
One bright, spring morning in Manchester City centre, a terrorist pulls out a gun and starts shooting indiscriminately. Among the panicking crowd, Amber Jennings recognises the gunman. Surviving the attack, weighed down by trauma and survivor guilt, Amber Jennings sets out to discover how Jameel – the shy, rather awkward young man she knew in her late teens – could have become a mass murderer.
The complicated relationships of Amber’s earlier life interweave with and inform the contemporary narrative. Central to the story is Amber’s relationship with the MI5 officer whose suspicions are aroused by her investigative activities. When the press become interested in her story, Amber’s troubles increase still further. Operating beneath the radar of both MI5 and the media, Amber’s eyes are opened to the troubling role she herself played in her friend’s tragic downward spiral.
‘Shooting at Strangers’ looks beyond the simplistic, black and white, good and evil representations of terrorism, to explore the complexities and contradictions of the characters involved.
As promised, here is the cover to my new novel, Shooting at Strangers…
My aim was to make it distinctive and eye-catching – hence the high-contrast of dark text and images against a stark, white background. I also wanted to give an idea of the content. The building in the background is the Manchester Royal Exchange, where the event around which the story revolves takes place. I’ve overlaid this with a graphic that represents shattering glass. And I’ve slipped in a few images of bees, which are often used to symbolise the workers of Manchester (although I would say this is a contentious idea – unlike collective insects like bees, wasps and ants, we are all individuals, with personalities, rights and freedoms, and a life beyond work). A trail of bullets emerging from a gun spreads from the back cover, across the spine, and around to the front.
I know I’ve been dragging it out a bit, but I can promise you, release of Shooting at Strangers is imminent! I hope you like the cover design.
You may be wondering what happened to my latest novel, after I last posted, back in November, that I was going to self-publish it. Well, a full four months later, I’m finally almost there! The main reason for the delay (apart from life depositing random stumbling blocks in my path; as is its way) is that I went back into the re-editing phase, with some help from my friends (particular thanks go to the wonderful Gretchen Bernet-Ward). I’m comfortable my manuscript is now about as good as I can get it. Hopefully most of the typos etc. have been found and corrected (although it’s pretty much impossible to catch them all – just read any novel on sale today for proof of that).
If you don’t want to go it alone, there are a number of companies, such as Grosvenor House, Ingram Spark, and others, who offer self-publishing packages where they provide most of the services required. But there’s usually an up-front charge, and then a charge per book, so it can be an expensive option. Hard copies are usually ‘Print on Demand’, which means you won’t end up with more copies than you need. But have you seen the quality of POD books? Some of these organisations offer marketing services, but the consensus on the web (at least, according to the commentators I’ve seen) is that these are worthless – unlikely to generate any sales. All in all, in my humble opinion, self-publishing is something you’re better off doing yourself (maybe the clue’s in the name!) So what are the stages you need to go through?
Getting a cover For me, this is a DIY task, albeit with a slight feeling that I might be biting off more than I can chew. I’m not a graphic designer, but I am a designer, with experience and qualifications in interior, garden, and furniture design. Creating something like a book cover pushes the software I use (Photoshop Elements) to it’s limits. I think I’ve cracked it – my next post will be the ‘cover reveal’ (he said, using the modern language convention of turning verbs into nouns!) so you can judge for yourselves. If you can’t design a cover yourself, you’ll have to get someone to do it for you, which will, of course, add to the cost of publishing.
Ebook While you may be focused on having physical copies of your book, it makes sense to publish it electronically too, as it can open up a huge potential market, and needn’t cost a penny. There are a number of platforms for publishing books in electronic format, but the biggest, which gives you maximum reach, is Amazon Kindle. Yes, I know; there are serious issues with Amazon; the way they (allegedly) treat their staff being perhaps the most troubling. I try to avoid them when I can, but in this instance… Amazon does make it reasonably easy to publish ebooks. It’s really just a case of following their instructions. – You need to prepare your cover. Unlike a paperback, all you need is the front cover. Kindle covers are, to me, badly proportioned – too tall and thin; which means you have to squash up your cover design to fit. I suppose the relative dimensions are tailored to ‘devices’. – Add a table of contents (TOC) to your manuscript. Kindle will accept MS Word docs (I use an ancient version, because I’m not prepared to pay a large annual fee for Microsoft 365, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem). You can also format your manuscript in Kindle Create, which is free to download. For a TOC, go through all of your chapter headings and put them into a heading format, and then choose ‘table of contents’ from the ‘references’ menu, and a TOC is created automatically, where you’ve placed your cursor. – ISBN. Each iteration of your novel needs a separate ISBN. Kindle will assign one for you for free, but I believe there may be implications if you later want to place your ebook elsewhere. I’m using one of my own ISBNs, as I bought a batch of ten when I published my last book (ooh, get him! Actually, they weren’t expensive, and it’s much more economical to buy ten).
Paperback If you intend to publish your manuscript in hard (real, rather than virtual) format, there’s rather more work to be done: – Set the page size. There are various sizes available. For my last book – the first I actually had copies printed – I went for ‘B-Format UK’, which is 198mm x 129mm, because this is the most common size of paperbacks on booksellers’ shelves (at least, in the UK). – Typesetting is a trade in its own right, with its own language – kerning, stacking; widows and orphans. While you can use it to typeset, MS Word isn’t generally considered to be up to the job. But in practice, for a simple paperback novel, Word will do the job, and a little bit of research will give you all you need. – Breaks: you should insert a section break at the end of each chapter, so the next chapter starts on a new page. – Justify text to both left and right margins, as this is an industry standard, and your book won’t look right without it. – Add ‘front matter’ – look at published novels to see what. Basically, the first page should have the title of the novel and the author’s name. The next page should contain the standard wording around copyright and publishing (you can copy this from existing novels), and the ISBN. This page is, I believe, known as a colophon. You may have a page for a dedication and/or thanks, and for a quote that is relevant to the story – from a poem, perhaps? And then you may need to put in a blank page, to ensure the first page of the novel is not on the back of a page. – Add page numbers. These should start at the first page of the text proper, which should be page one. The front matter pages should not have numbers. Achieving this in Word can be tricky – the front matter pages must be on their own sections (hence, adding a section break after each page) and with ‘link to previous’ toggled off for the front matter, and the first proper page. – Widows and orphans are where the last word (or few words) of a chapter are pushed onto the next page, and where only the first word of a sentence appears at the end of a page, with the rest appearing on the next page. Stacking is where a word happens to appear in the same place in a line as the same word in the line above or below. It may be that software specifically designed for typesetting can deal with this automatically, but the only way I’ve found to correct it in Word is manually, by changing the phraseology, or perhaps adding or removing a word or two, until the alignment is more favourable. This is annoying, because in practice, it’s changing your style – dictating to you how you write. If, for instance, your style is to sometimes repeat words within a sentence, for effect, you’re going to have severe problems with stacking. You need to work from the top down, as everything below the point you are changing will alter. Maybe I’m picky, because you will see some stacking in novels (although two stacked words is one thing – three or four is another thing altogether!) I must admit, I left one or two unchanged for this book.
Printing I had my last book printed by Biddles in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. They were competitively priced, their service was superb, and the quality of the books compared well to the novels on booksellers’ shelves. If you want the fancy effects you see on many covers – foil or gloss highlights, embossed images or text – it will cost a lot, so I would recommend keeping it simple until, or unless, your sales really take off. I had two hundred copies of my last book printed. So far, I’ve still got most of them! I notice Biddles will now do a run of just fifty, and this might be a good option to start with – if sales start to take off you can make the next run larger.
So there you are. For the ebook version of Shooting at Strangers, everything is on Amazon Kindle, and I just need to press ‘Go’ to make it live. For the paperback, I’m about to get quotes. If you’re thinking about self-publishing your work, I hope this post will prove useful, and wish you the best of luck…
I’m on the cusp of publishing my latest novel, initially as an e-book and then, soon after, in good old-fashioned paperback format (assuming I can get a reasonable price for a short print run). Shooting at Strangers is a dramatic story that follows a survivor of a terrorist attack in Manchester city centre; her attempts to come to terms with what happened, and her growing realisation of the significance of her own role in the events that eventually led to the tragedy.
At times I found myself wondering why I’d chosen to immerse myself in such a traumatic subject matter – to delve into such a dark side of human nature. On the other hand, it’s so easy to just condemn people who commit these atrocities as evil, and then walk away – that doesn’t help us, as a society, find a way to stop future atrocities. In this, as in so much else in society, understanding is everything.
While writing the book, I came to realise the story has a character that goes almost unseen, and yet is one of the most important. A character that is culpable for what happened and yet, at the same time, devoid of responsibility. That character is the assault rifle that’s used in the attack. Call me weird if you like (you won’t be the first!) but I was moved to write a little poem about it. Here goes…
Why do you fear me? I am inert; Alone, unassisted, I cannot hurt Anyone; anything. I cannot wound, nor kill; I lack the means, I lack the will
Bringing about destruction is my only use, But it’s for people, not me, to make excuse; To justify the cause and effect For which I myself reject all accusations of blame. I have but one purpose, it is true, But my function was devised by you; Or, at least, by your kind; My mission was defined by humans, Of which I am not one; I have no life; I’m just a gun.
And yet, subservient to human will, I’ve raised a war cry loud and shrill, And firmly held by grubby hands, I’ve left bodies lying silent and still In many sorely troubled lands; Syria, Iran; Afghanistan.
I’ve fallen in battle too; Acquired many knocks and scrapes. My butt is stained dark with blood, My metal parts are scratched and scarred. My finely tuned tolerances are much diminished, But don’t for one moment imagine I’m finished; I was built to last, and I’m not ready to be decommissioned. I’m in demand; much sought after By fighters who need no permission To pursue their cause, and beware, because, Their land, their lives, having been destroyed by proxy, They plan, in revenge, to come for yours…
Historical fiction is a popular genre, with lots of very successful and skilled exponents. The Tudor period seems to have particular appeal (I’m thinking of Phillipa Gregory’s ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’, and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy).
I can see that readers enjoy being immersed into past worlds (without actually having to be there of course – those were harsh times!) But while it’s fun to imagine how life might have been in past times (with a creative writer as your guide) there is a danger we might forget what we’re reading is speculative, and assume it’s a true reflection of the real thing. There’s a risk that Hilary Mantel’s version of Thomas Cromwell becomes the version we imagine to be the real Thomas Cromwell.
Authors change facts to suit their narrative, and put words into the mouths of historical figures – words that were never spoken. When reading historical fiction, it’s easy to forget that the history element is usually heavily embellished, put into modern language, re-interpreted with modern morality, and might actually not be very accurate.
The classic example, for me, is Peter Schaffer’s very successful play, Amadeus, (later adapted as a hit movie), in which Mozart is driven to an early death by the machinations of his fellow composer Salieri, who was insanely jealous of the younger man’s talent. It’s a great story, but that’s almost certainly all it was – a story. Mozart and Salieri were contemporaries, but there’s little or no evidence their relationship was anything other than amicable and professional.
And yet, the other day I heard a radio three presenter introduce a piece by ‘Mozart’s bitter rival, Salieri’. Schaffer’s fictional imaginings seem to have crept into our collective consciousness, usurping the actual history. Which is rather a shame, because while Salieri’s music might not have quite the dynamism and flourish of Mozart’s, he was nevertheless a capable and accomplished composer, whose music deserves to be heard. I know he’s dead now, so will never know just what a bum rap he’s been landed with – he’s been turned into a hideous villain – but all the same, I’d rather history wasn’t distorted in this way. I guess that’s just what happens when creative writers dip into history to find stories to tell. The fictional history can very easily obscure the real one.
It’s a conundrum, because looking at it another way, historical fiction is a good way to keep history alive – to bring it to life. And in any case, we know that much of the history that comes down to us was written by people who may have been inclined to distort the truth, to follow a particular bias or agenda. History, as the saying goes, is written by the victors. [1.]
So I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t continue to enjoy historical fiction – there are some great stories out there. Just bear in mind that what you’re reading is at least as much fiction as history, and may not be all that accurate historically.
[1.] Interestingly, I named my son Victor, in the hope he would grow up to be a historian. It didn’t work out. He ended up running a shop selling kitchen seconds. I forgot about that other saying – ‘to the Victor, the spoils’!
As time has gone by, the credibility of the United Nations’ climate conferences has worn increasingly thin. At COP27, held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, most environmental campaigners were shut out, while behind closed doors the world leaders, in whose hands our futures lie, were ‘schmoozed’ by fossil fuel lobbyists.
This year, COP28 is being held in UAE, one of the top ten oil producers in the world, whose per capita emissions are among the highest in the world (and they continue to increase). The president of COP28 is Sultan Al-Jaber, who also happens to be the Chief Exec of ADNOC – the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. It’s been reported on some media channels that Al-Jaber has been using meetings within COP28 to negotiate deals for his company; something he has denied (but then, he would, wouldn’t he?) Does anyone remember the character of Jabba the Hutt, from the Star Wars films? (now, why on earth would I think there might be a similarity; apart from the name?)
Early in the conference, Jabba the H… oops, I mean Al-Jaber, said that there was “no science” behind the idea of ending the use of fossil fuels to limit global temperature rises. It’s been estimated that more than 2000 of the participants at COP28 are delegates of fossil fuel organisations, and it’s been suggested that what should be a conference to work out and implement the changes needed to avoid catastrophic climate crisis, has in fact become nothing short of a trade show for the oil and gas industry.
The lunatics have indeed taken over the asylum. Or maybe I’m being naive – have they perhaps been in charge, in the background, all along? In the unlikely event that I ever find myself addressing a COP, what I’d say is essentially this.. It wasn’t me officer; I didn’t do it…‘ Oh no, wrong sort of Cop. What would I say to that large crowd of unrepentant planet wreckers that have turned an environmentalist concern into an oil industry circus? Well, I don’t have any children, and looking at the state of human societies across the world, together with the likely fate of the environment, that increasingly seems like a wise choice. So what I’d actually say, is this:
Over the past ten months I’ve been submitting my latest novel to literary agencies – learning and honing my synopsis, and my approach, as I go… But it looks like I’ve been wasting my time – once again, I’ve drawn a blank, and it’s been a truly soul-destroying experience.
The role of a literary agency is, obviously, to represent writers, and promote their books to publishing companies. I know they like to complain about the volume of submissions they receive. But in what other profession does the product you need to sell arrive fully-formed through your letterbox (or rather, into your in tray) without you yourself having to do a thing? Okay, so they get too much product, and much of it isn’t up to standard, but all they have to do is to choose which ones they want to accept, and send the others back. Surely they’re blessed? You wouldn’t think so from the way they treat the authors who send them a potential product to sell, for free. Do they have any idea of how much time and skill goes into writing a good novel? However many submissions they get, can they really not find the time to thank those authors they choose not to represent. Isn’t that just common decency?
I submitted my manuscript to seventeen agencies. Each were very specific about what and how I should submit, which meant a lot of work producing a separate offering for each agency. I received five replies. Yes; that’s five out of seventeen who had the manners to say thanks (but no thanks).
And of those who did reply, none were prepared to give me any feedback. Although one did say my extract didn’t grab them to the extent they might have hoped. I’m inclined to think I’m up against the short-attention-span generation; people who need an instant hit, without having to think too hard. All of the agents do, on their websites, try to give an idea of what they are looking for. Which is generally formulaic storytelling to match what’s out there already. They seem more interested in their narrow idea of what they think they want, than in looking for something new, and keeping an open mind.
I know what you’re thinking; ‘or could it be, Graham, that your book, just isn’t good enough?’ It’s possible (because it isn’t possible for me to be truly objective). On the other hand, the few trusted readers I’ve given it to tell me it’s every bit good enough. And then there’s the quality (or rather, the lack of it) of what does get published (present company excepted, of course). My reading history is, among others; Marlowe, Austen, Huxley, E.M. Forster, Hardy (Thomas, not Oliver), Wyndham, Burgess, and A.S. Byatt. But when it comes to contemporary authors, with a few exceptions, I’ve always struggled – I really have. Too much repetition, unlikely plot twists, unlikely behaviour, characters that don’t ring true (or are positively two-dimensional), lack of consistency, continuity errors and clumsy phrasing.
There are more people writing novels than ever before; partly because computers make it so easy to get your novel down, and partly because, well… there are more people than ever before. You would think that among all those new books there would be quite a few that were top quality. All it needs is for the publishing industry to choose the best. Apparently they’re failing (because I can’t believe there aren’t still a lot of really good writers out there).
That’s what really hurts. If agents and publishers were putting out great novels by highly talented writers I could happily (well, perhaps not happily!) accept that perhaps my book isn’t quite good enough to compete. But based on the low standards of almost all the contemporary novels I’ve encountered, I’m left thinking ‘is mine really worse than these?’ I’m confident it’s them; the industry experts (is that ‘ex’ as in has been, and ‘spurt’ as in a drip under pressure?) rather than me. But then, I’m not a confident person. And then there’s that inescapable subjectivity…
What to do? Maybe I should try to get more opinions, from impartial readers… I’m inclined to think that in publishing, as in so many other areas of life, if you want a job doing right – do it yourself. In other words, I’m going to self-publish my book. More about that next time…
Or can this apparently destructive act sometimes be a force for good?
Image by Rafael Juarez from Pixabay
The furore over the quran burnings in Sweden have apparently sparked outrage in the Islamic world, and a difficult debate about freedom of expression in the more secular west. The Swedish government is torn between protecting the rights of their own citizens, and avoiding the damage to their reputation and interests, both abroad and at home, that will result from upsetting self-righteous Islamists.
As someone with a love of books – not just for their ability to educate and delight, but also for their sheer beauty – I find the idea of deliberately destroying books somewhat troubling. Book burning has sinister connotations, bringing to mind that gold standard of oppression, repression, ignorance, cruelty and genocide; the Nazi party. But books can also misinform, mislead; spread pernicious ideas that lead to oppression and cruelty.
To liken these current book burnings to the Fascism of Nazi Germany is either lazy thinking, or more likely, downright disingenuous. I would say it’s closer to the bra burning by feminists in the 1970’s. Making the decision not to wear a bra – an item of clothing they saw as representing the repression of women by a misogynistic, patriarchal society – was the real act of empowerment. The burning was merely symbolic; as well as an advertisement to women everywhere that they need not accept the status quo.
Bras, unlike books, don’t contain knowledge (although many people long to have knowledge of what they contain!) And whereas the Nazis attempted to burn all the copies of all the books they didn’t approve of, in order to withhold both information and ideas from society as a whole; as far as I’m aware, feminists only burnt their own bras, not other people’s.
When someone sets light to their own copy of a religious book, it isn’t an attempt to deprive others of access to other copies of that book, or the ideas it contains. Like the feminist bra burnings, it’s a symbolic rejection of a particular set of ideas (or indeed; a set of imposed behaviours) that you object to; a public statement of your disapproval. To take away one’s right to damage or destroy certain types of book is a dangerous attack on freedom of expression.
In an example of the growing and dangerous influence of the Islamic states, the UN Human Rights Council recently voted in favour of a resolution for “deliberately and publicly” burning the quran, or “any other holy book” to be prohibited by law. The resolution was introduced by Pakistan, and supported by the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) – basically, all the Islamic countries. It was, of course, rejected by the more secular nations such as the UK, but they were outnumbered.
Bearing in mind that fire is the ‘go to’ element for Islamists who want to express disapproval for something, or someone, this seems to be an astonishing example of wanting to both ‘have your cake and eat it’. If you’re going to legislate against burning books, why not do the same for flags? If burning the quran is an insult to religion, then burning a flag is an insult to an entire country – an insult to millions of actual people, rather than to an ideology. And while we’re at it; why just protect religious books? Why not make burning any book a crime? Why shouldn’t the precious words of us hard-working authors be protected from harm too?
The book burning incident in Sweden was an act of protest by a refugee – an Iraqi Kurd, I believe – who burned a copy of the quran to highlight the cruelty and oppression he and others had suffered at the hands of a fundamentalist Islamic state. It’s likely that Russia is responsible for the widespread (mis?) reporting of the incident, with the express intention of persuading Muslim Turkey to continue to block Sweden’s accession to NATO. But of course, this policy is only successful because of the illiberal, dogmatic and oppressive nature of the Muslim world.
If only those who rage against such acts gave the same respect to their fellow humans as they do to the book that documents their ideology. In almost all Islamic states, choosing to leave the religion (i.e. Islam) you were assigned at birth is not permitted. In most, it’s a crime punishable by death. Which is more important: the right never to be offended by, for instance, someone damaging one copy of a book of which there are millions in existence around the world; or the right of an individual to develop their own world view?
And so I would conclude by warning that we shouldn’t let our respect for books eclipse that for our fellow human beings. Not all books are created equal. Some have good intentions; others promulgate hatred, misery and suffering. For those, we should have no qualms about striking a match…
NOTE: No books were harmed in the making of this blog post
It’s been a long time in the making, but finally I’m there: novel number three is at last finished. Thanks to everyone who read the draft. I’ve been encouraged that the feedback was so positive, and am grateful for all the suggestions that helped me to polish the manuscript and, hopefully, pick up the last of the typos and grammatical inconsistencies.
Fitting writing a novel around a busy life, particularly when you have another, full-time job, is difficult. Each time you feel you’re making significant progress, other aspects of life cut in to hold you up. This novel took around three and a half years from start to finish, but I didn’t want to rush it – getting it right is the most important thing. Now comes the task of finding an agent – not an easy thing to do when there are so many people writing.
Looking at agent’s websites, I’m struck by how prescriptive they are about what they’re looking for. In a way, it’s reassuring, because in many cases, I think the book I’ve written might just fit. All the same, it seems a little back-to-front. Do galleries dictate to artists what they should paint, and how, I wonder? The creative process is surely the preserve of the artist and writer, and agents should be keeping their minds open.
So what is the book about? Well, it’s a rather different take on an aspect of life that seems to be becoming ever more frequent. It deals with a terrorist attack in a crowded city centre. There’s action and intrigue, as well as a good measure of plotting, but my main focus is the on how the attack affects one of the survivors.
The central character, Amber Jennings, is a no-nonsense Salford girl, with a husband and two children. She’s survived the attack, but she can’t escape its consequences, and the aftermath promises to turn her life upside down. Amber was at the scene of the crime for a lunch date with an old flame. Both recognised the gunman as someone they knew at school. While Amber ran, her date challenged their old friend, and both ended up dead.
Amber is left in shock, unable to grieve openly, and struggling to cope with the trauma. The book interweaves the earlier three-way relationship between Amber and her two friends from school, with contemporary events, and in particular, Amber’s attempts to work out what caused one of them to become a mass murderer. Oh, but I’m telling you the plot!
Despite the frustrations due to lack of time, I really enjoyed writing this book. I feel my writing has advanced, and I’ve produced a work that deserves to be widely read. Now, I just need to persuade the agents. Wish me luck!
Can I open my eyes? Is it over yet – the festival of privilege? The TV has been off, I’ve been maintaining radio silence, trying to avoid the nonsense that has been going on in my name, but not with my consent. I didn’t need to see it of course; I already know what it’s all about- what has happened…
On Saturday, the bumbling head of a dysfunctional family got dressed up like a dog’s dinner, walked into a magnificent ancient building, and swore an oath of allegiance, not to the people upon which he is being imposed, but to his imaginary friend. Afterwards he emerged into a dull, grey, rainy city (at least I hope it rained – the forecast was promising). The cry will have gone out, ‘long live the king!’ And, just like his parents before him, he will. Maybe there’s something to be said for in-breeding after all. Or could it be the result of a life lived with the best of everything – including health care?
For the last coronation a special dish was concocted – ‘Coronation chicken’. This time it was ‘Coronation quiche’ – presumably the royal family and the aristocracy having a joke at our expense in a process in which they demand that we ‘quiche’ their arses. It’s at times like these when it becomes clear who is really in charge in our supposed democracy. The media went into full propaganda mode, with blanket coverage and barely a dissenting voice to be heard (with the exception of the excellent Frankie Boyle, who talked of marking the event by raising a bottle…with a burning rag hanging out of it).
In a rather sweet act of nostalgia, the arch bishop of Canterbury invited us all to reconnect with our serfdom of the middle ages by swearing an oath of allegiance to the new king (an oath to an oaf?) The king swears allegiance to god, we swear allegiance to the king, and hey presto, the Church of England has us all firmly by the balls. Except, they’re forgetting that around half the population have seen through their coercive fantasy.
The coronation was carefully designed and choreographed by the Church of England as a propaganda tool to remind us of just how much power this freedom-suppressing, kiddy-fiddling crime cartel still wields.
You might have thought the old queen dying after seventy-odd (in more ways than one) years of ‘reigning over us’ might have triggered a period of reflection, during which we could consider what it means to have a monarch, and whether we still want our country to be organised along those lines. Not a chance. Instead, the shady characters who really control our country (and have done so, yea unto the middle ages) used it as an opportunity to stamp down on us ordinary folk. Not only were we not allowed the chance to debate the monarchy, any attempts to protest against it were banned, and peaceful protesters rounded up and taken away. Exactly how does twenty-first century Britain differ from Putin’s Russia? We are the only nation in the world where religious representatives sit in the legislature, unelected, by right. Oh, apart from Iran, that is. And now we have another unelected head of state, also there by right, and swearing to maintain the church’s privilege.
In France, when the president recently announced his intention to raise the retirement age from sixty-two to sixty-four, the people took to the streets in protest (raising a bottle with a burning rag hanging from it) in such numbers, and with such determination the state couldn’t stop them. In contrast, in Britain, when the retirement age was increased from sixty-five to sixty-eight, a few people wrote letters to their favourite newspaper. At the time of the gulf wars, the French were unfairly (but amusingly) referred to as ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’. The reality is that the French people have got far more guts than us British ‘coronation chickens’.
You may not be surprised to hear that I haven’t sworn the arch bishop’s oath of allegiance. Here’s my oath – I do solemnly swear that if I’m ever unfortunate enough to meet the new king, I’ll tell him he’s an anathema, and address him not as ‘your Royal Highness’, but as ‘Charlie-Boy’. Or, if I’m feeling particularly aggrieved, ‘oi, wing-nut!’…
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