Buchan Forth...

John Buchan was in bed, suffering from a duodenal ulcer when he wrote the book that changed my life. And he later described it as a “shocker”. Not in the sense that we take that to mean, but Buchan used “shocker” to refer to works that contained events that were very unlikely to really happen – and that readers were only just able to believe in.

And The 39 Steps, as this work became, along with its hero, Richard Hannay, was a success and has influenced many a film adaptation (to date, 3, with one more in the pipeline), as well as a spin-off drama series on ITV in the late 1980s.

I need to nail my colours to the mast here. I don’t like the 1935 Hitchcock version very much. As a film, its well-constructed, and well made – but its not the story Buchan wrote and I fell in love with.

The Hitchcock film was re-made in colour in 1959, starring Kenneth More, and was an upgrade of the original, but essentially the same, with the same altered story.

The 1979 film starring Robert Powell was far more to my taste, but I still can’t stand the ridiculous dangling-off-of-Big-Ben ending that has become so famous.

I discovered the novel at the age of 14. We’d been forced to move house to an area I didn’t like and away from all my friends – my bus ride to school was now two buses and was long and torturous. The Christmas coming up didn’t seem to be too promising to me then. And when I wandered into a little bookshop in Orpington (which has long since gone), I had no idea what would happen when I picked up a small book from the Wordsworth Classics display. I’d only looked at that because they were all just £1 each, too.

On Christmas day, we travelled to my nan and grandad’s house near Croydon. I had the book with me – not because I didn’t get anything nice for Christmas, or because I was expecting to be bored. But I had it because for once, I’d read something that intrigued me from the start. That first chapter – read in slight desperation because I wanted to go to sleep on Christmas Eve – had had my mind whirring ever since I’d woken up. But until that car journey, there’d been too much going on to read – there’d been church, and then a visit to my other nan and granddad’s… But now I could see how it would continue.

I read the rest of the book between then and the end of the evening. I’ve not read many books within 24 hours, and this was the first. I read it again over the next week. I was enthralled. This was escapism as it was intended. I didn’t care one jot what was going on elsewhere – I was in a world of espionage and treason, where you couldn’t trust anyone completely. Brilliant. Just what I needed.

So that’s basically why I don’t like the Hitchcock film – because its nothing like the book. I was so excited when I managed to get hold of a copy of the film… and so disappointed when I watched it. The ending of the book is so Holmesian in its reasoning, so suspenseful – and its totally changed.

It’s a very good film, I concede, but its not the film I want it to be – the whole plot is altered substantially when The 39 Steps are changed to be the name of an organisation rather than what the book says it is. And even more when a love interest is introduced. The importance of the Memory Man character to the film is very clever, and well-worked, but it all seemed rather less than only just believable to me.

I only really mention this stuff because I read these articles today:

BBC to remake Buchan classic

Austen? Buchan? It's time for more unusual adaptations

I’ve been waiting for the BBC to do this. It’s been my dream for roughly 15 years to write a new version, and I am obviously only hurt because the BBC didn’t ask me to do it… But Rupert Penry-Jones is a great casting choice for Richard Hannay. Its being written by Lizzie Mickery too (who, amongst other things, co-wrote the marvellous The State Within), and the BBC have been at pains to say that although it’s an adventure first written and set in the first years of the twentieth century, it will be worthy of a Bond of a Bourne story.

I’m in two minds about that. On the one hand, it’s a brilliant idea. But on the other, I’m nervous of the implication that it could be somewhat more, shall we say, modern. When trying to play up to the Hollywood standard, TV adaptations generally simply put in more CGI and explosions. I hope this won’t happen here. It looks promising, but I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed!

An exciting marriage…

No, not an actual marriage… But it’s the first thing to make me so excited (if you discount the release of Artemis Fowl book 6 last month… and perhaps not surprisingly, this is related).

Here’s the press release on Eoin Colfer’s site: And Another Thing: Full Press Release

And here’s a summary for those who can’t be bothered to read it:

The widow of Douglas Adams, Jane Belson, has chosen Eoin Colfer to write book 6 of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy… It will be called “And Another Thing”, and will be out in Penguin Hardback next October (2009).

I saw that yesterday and stared at the screen in wonder for several minutes.

My reason is this: Douglas Adams and Eoin Colfer are two authors who have changed the way I think about writing and about storytelling – both have surfaced in my consciousness when I was looking for something to keep going for, and have sustained their appeal for me ever since (which believe me, is unusual). They both also inspired me to write – in different ways.

I was lent a copy of the first Artemis Fowl book in April 2002 by someone who recommended it as something good to get through the gap between Harry Potter books. I devoured it in less than a day, and since then, I’ve read that book probably hundreds of times and have far and away preferred Artemis to Harry.

It was as visual a piece of writing as I’ve ever come across, if that makes sense. I wasn’t surprised to hear talk of a Hollywood film soon afterwards. But its exciting – writing that makes your heart beat faster, your nerves jangle and every sense in your body tingle is a rare and treasured thing. And he managed it with the first book in the series.

My theory is that most series of novels take a couple to hit a peak – it happened with Harry Potter, in my opinion (Book 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best, I think). Saying that, its disproved countless times…

I then bought a copy of a different Eoin Colfer book – The Wish List – thinking I could read it during a week away at Spring Harvest. I read the whole thing on the journey up to Skegness – finishing with about an hour to spare.

When I think about it, it’s the spirit of the writing that attracts me – the style, certainly of Artemis Fowl – follows on almost fittingly on a line that includes Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne and John Buchan, with a twist of HG Wells. His writing – even for small children – is engaging, vivid, exciting, and laugh-out-loud-funny when it wants to be. All things I aspire to achieving one day.

One of my favourite things about Eoin is his enthusiasm. He recently wrote an introduction to a new Penguin Classics edition of “Treasure Island”, extolling the virtues of the book for good reason… and he also embraces his audience – going on national tours to connect with people, encourage kids to read and make people enjoy stories – not to promote his books… And his enthusiasm for Hitchhiker’s is infectious – here’s the piece on his website about the new project…

Eoin Colfer on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

If you haven’t read an Artemis Fowl, go and do that. Beg, borrow, steal, murder, whatever. You have to read the original book at least.

Hitchhiker’s Guide was a discovery I consciously made myself. I heard a couple of people at school talking about it, and soon after I got my first job, I went hunting for the cassettes of the original radio series. I wore those out in a matter of months. It took a while to read the books – mainly because I assumed that Adams would have produced a pretty standard novelisation (like happened with Doctor Who books – although they’re still marvellous). But I was proved delightfully wrong. Having then read Neil Gaiman’s biography of Douglas, I realised that he was so full of ideas, so creative in his thinking, that he never quite got the same result twice. I know that he suffered from crippling writer’s block, which depressed him – and he was famously not a prolific writer – often having to be forced to sit down and write.

The influence these two have had on my reading tastes and my desire to write is sizeable, but I’m not going to get all gushy – for people to spout forth about the brilliance and the influence of Douglas Adams is more cliché than a Westlife video and the best thing I can say about Eoin Colfer is what I’ve already said… Plus, I don’t want to look like a fan now, do I…?

Despite not wanting to be gushy, the combination of Eoin’s writing and Douglas’ creations makes me want to squeal with joy. So naturally, I’m already panicking that its going to be a huge let-down… Oh to be able to ignore paranoia.

'King Kev...

I don't write about football much. I like it - I like playing, watching and reading about it. But I'm not obsessed. I go off it for long periods of time - and the last time was when my beloved Charlton got relegated and then acted like arses (disbanding the very successful women's team - although later forced to reinstate it when a furious backlash erupted - and selling players there was no need to sell). But international tournaments always, always reinstate my love of the game.

Even this transfer window has been fascinating. Not because of Charlton pulling in some very decent players, but because of the big cheeses fighting over mega-rich, easily-bruised ball-kickers. The Berbatov thing, I grant you, was interminable - until Man City livened it up by threatening to gazump their deadliest rivals for the player.

But what dismays me most is Newcastle. I have a slight soft spot for the Toon - I have friends who love the club to bits, and I can understand why. For me, they're a bigger version of Charlton - always promising but never quite getting there. I say like Charlton - more like Charlton with Ken Dodd as financial adviser...

But today's sacking of Kevin Keegan... I'm speechless. Mike Ashley obviously isn't the saviour fans thought he was. Sure he brought King Kev back, and it was so much better for the premiership as a whole that he did - the Toon improved steadily after he arrived and haven't looked half bad at the start of this season. But after all that, he gave the footballing genius that is Denis Wise control over transfers.

It was always going to end up a choice between a legend and a small, mediocre yob.

How do you manage to get that choice wrong?

Ask Ashley. Bloody hell.