Book Stuff - yes, real, stuff, about books!

You can't have failed to notice my slipping you a quick one this Wednesday.

Oh.  You didn't notice?  Well, never mind, because I shall reiterate.  No, that's nothing to do with lino - why would you think it would have something to do with lino, when have I ever talked about lino?  Why would you even need to know about lino?

This week, the new cover of my new book, which is new, was revealed.  It looks like this: -

There.  A slightly different angle from the Wednesday one, but, you know, it's a book, you can turn them round and look at them sideways if you want, and this cover is designed to allow you to do just that!

So.  As you can see, it's entitled Hubble Bubble,and  has a very nice picture of a cauldron, a bottle of poisonous-looking stuff and an old book, so I think that you can guess what it's about.  No, it's not my book of recipes.  No-one would pay for that, because most of my recipes are written on little pieces of paper and shoved into inaccessible places, for the good of mankind, although I still maintain my 'Jam and Baked Bean Rice Krispie Crunch' is a noteworthy advance in the cause of cookery.

This is a book about witchcraft.  But pretty rubbish witchcraft, as practiced by a group of women who each have one specific wish they perform spells in order to get.  Mainly though, it's about Holly Grey, a woman who doesn't wish for anything, because she's happy with her life the way it is, doesn't believe in any of that 'magic' twaddle and is far too busy working, visiting her brother and hanging around with her friend Megan to have time for prancing around anything at all.  Let alone a cauldron.

But, you know I wrote this book?  And you know my books are never simple, don't you?  So this one has a lot of truly chaotic elements in, some involving actual elements - well, it snows a lot at one point.  A lot.  It is set in North Yorkshire, where it does sometimes snow quite a lot.

Like this.  There is also an incident of childbirth - but if it's all right with you I won't put up a picture to illustrate that, we all know how it goes, don't we? Like trying to get an umbrella out of a chimney without putting it down first.

There is also a woman who works in BHS, so if cushions and lampshades are any kind of 'trigger' for you, then approach this book with caution, some bonkers people, some people who are really quite normal, a Jeep, handcuffs, motorbikes -  and a Welsh journalist called Kai Rhys, who not only doesn't believe in magic, he doesn't believe in anything very much at all.

And you have to wait until June to find out what the hell it's all really about.  Mwhahahhahahahhahaha!

Oh, and there's also an enormous, sticky, badly-behaved, scruffy dog called Rufus.  Who's based on my dog, Tiggy, only is much, much bigger.

Imagine this, only huge.  And without the laundry basket.

A midweek quickie...

Just popping by, lovely people, to let you have a quick squizz at this....

Out next June, from Choc Lit!

All right, all right, you can go about your business now. Go on... no, there's nothing else for you... No, I'm not even going to do The Dance...

Oh, all right, if you insist....


...there.  Happy now?

If it's much above room temperature and it cracks when you bend it then I won't touch it.

I like mine pale, floppy and cold.  Lots of people like theirs steaming hot.  I know of one person whose has to be nearly black and smelling of burning.  But I suppose it's a matter of personal taste, and also what exactly you are going to do with it.

If you're wanting it for dipping, then obviously a degree of stiffness is essential, but if it's purely for ad-hoc (dare one say, almost recreational) purposes, then the rigidity is of less importance than the overall appearance.  Too hot and the aesthetic pleasure can disappear, but then if it is allowed to become too cold it can lose a lot of the immediacy of the olfactory experience....

What?  Oh.  Toast, obviously.  Why, what did you think I was talking about?

This is what toast looks like.  For normal people...

I grew up (and, as previously mentioned, also outwards) in the heady days pre-toaster.  In my youth, toast was made by hunching wretchedly over a waist-level grill, exhibiting various levels of boredom and indifference and indeed, in my case, generally wandering off to do something else and only returning when flames had actually reached the tea-towel.  In order to prevent me from actually, you know, incinerating my nearest and dearest (although, given my cooking habits, most of my dearest prefer to remain at quite some distance from me - whole continents have been used in order to prevent me trying to feed them such sensitive objects as scrambled egg or pie), my mother took to making my breakfast toast for me, during my formative years.

My mother, who grew up in those years when daylight was actively rationed, rises at six.  She makes toast at six.  And then, in what can only be described as a spirit of pure devilment, doesn't actually tell anybody about it.  Therefore, rising at a civilised hour, as in after the dawn chorus, meant, during my youth, being confronted by toast which was actually flexible.  I grew up believing that true toast could be bent in half and didn't so much crunch as tear.

The first time I was faced with toast in the format that most people would recognise, ie, stiff and with butter melting gently into the surface, I believe I actually cried witchcraft.  For, somehow, the chilly, floppy, butter-vehicle that I was used to seeing had become something turgid with melted dairy-product, with a crust that shattered beneath my teeth and which made a 'crunching' sound when eaten, rather than a noise like someone attempting to masticate a sheet of damp newspaper.

But for me, sadly, it was already too late. My preferences had become set in stone.  Now I am known for my daily 'waving of the toast' ritual, in order to cool it down, render it flaccid and make it a suitable receptacle for whatever my 'spread du jour' may happen to be.

Just don't get me started on jam.  Really.  Don't.