Authors Electric

I suspect that most, probably all, of the other Authors Electric either don’t watch TV at all or concentrate on programmes devoted to culture, the arts and serious discussions of crucial social issues. I imagine them sitting back on a Charles Eames chair, sipping a glass of Château Pétrus and enjoying a serialisation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason on the latest Bang and Olufsen. My own diet, on the other hand, is predominantly of football, rugby, cricket and golf viewed from a Scrabble-named IKEA chair as I scoff a tub of peanut butter ice cream. A Charles Eames Chair Fine, it’s a very popular, quite addictive medium with highly professional writers, actors, presenters, producers and the rest who cater for almost all tastes. Even the despised commercials show levels of creative and professional excellence way beyond those of some blockbuster movies. But I really don’t like what it’s done with the notion of ‘reality’. I know it’s a cliché, but one of the reasons is t...

Tomorrow I am heading up to Stonehaven, a wee town just south of Aberdeen. Wendy Jones - a keen AE member and blogger (as well as successful crime writer) does a monthly radio show on the local station, called BookBuzz. She has invited me to be this month's guest author. So I am feeling quite energised and ready to rock 'em in the aisles. I actually love radio as a medium and have been a listener since the 'tranny' days of my misspent youth. I even worked briefly for a local radio station and chaired an advisory panel for another. That was a great wheeze since it involved going to twice yearly to the IBA HQ in London for meetings. Their offices were directly opposite Harrods. My children were quite the envy of their friends as I shopped there for those little 'bring-you-back-a' presents, with which we parents assuage our guilt when we dare to have a life of our own and leave them - albeit perfectly well cared for - even for a short time. I also love radio b...