Bokassa gets a good review!

Having sent out review copies to all the usual suspects, and a bit disappointed at not hearing what had happened to the copies I’d sent, I realised I hadn’t heard from Polari Magazine. For some reason they don’t put an address on their website, and I emailed the editor asking him where to send my book. I sent a reminder email and finally got the address of their reviewer. He got back to me thanking me for the book and saying he was inevitably busy with two other reviews and would get to mine in due course. To my enormous surprise, I just got an email from him saying he was reading it now, at the expense of the other two reviews, because it was such a gripping read! AND he gave me a cover quote:

‘a fast-paced and picaresque romp – funny, sexy and intriguing’

I couldn’t have asked for a better write-up! It’s going to have pride of place just above Everton’s hair on the front cover.

I feel a bit guilty, really,because I should have warned him not to ‘dip in’ before he was ready to do the review. But I didn’t want to seem to be blowing my own trumpet. Unfortunately for him, the story keeps up the same pace right until the very end, and he’s only got to chapter 9. Still, I now know the book does what it says on the lid!

Don’t forget to interact with my social media to get the chance of getting one of TEN free copies. Or come to the reading on Hampstead Heath on the Friday before Pride. Or to the others on the day of Pride. But, if you do win one of them, don’t ‘dip in’ unless you have the time to read it all! Tiny url for this post: http://tinyurl.com/d72azem

Sleaze Sells

I was browsing the Kindle store’s Lesbian and Gay section and was struck by the large number of e-books with lurid covers promising (and delivering, boy were they delivering) rampant and graphic sex. Cool, everyone loves sex. And they do say it’s difficult to get right. Although I suppose writing sex could be considered like performing it. Some people are just good at it, some people have to practice and some people just suck. Anwyay, I was put in mind of an observation on a programme about e-books on the radio a few months back. Apparently, a large percentage of Kindle owners, when asked, said they would not want to have their Kindle returned to them if it were lost. Curious, you might think, until you realise that their Kindle was probably loaded with books they bought cheaply and of which they are not particularly proud. In other words, it was full of smut. Those graphic covers of the books on the shelves of the shops in Soho with blacked-out windows are not the sort of thing you want to be seen reading in the Tube on the way home, however much you want to dive into the steamy, sweaty coupling promised by the picture on the front. And that’s where the Kindle has worked yet another revolution in our lives. Smut can be downloaded and read completely anonymously. You might as well be reading Thomas Hardy or Jane Austin, so far as the people on the bus are aware. Always provided you can conceal the bulge in your trousers and remember when to get off …

Yet another reading (well two, actually)

As part of my July Pride reading of Bokassa’s Last Apostle, I'm going to be getting the 10.23am riverbus from Greenwich Pier to Tower Millenium Pier and reading from my book at the back of the bus. Then getting off at Tower Pier, I’ll be taking a very short tube ride to the Monument and reading again from my novel at the very top. Both readings will be videoed. Anyone and everyone is welcome to turn up. If you are intending to come, please visit my facebook profile and RSVP. The link to the Riverbus event is here and the link to the Monument event is here.

Date: 7 July 2012.

Riverbus: leaves Greenwich at 10.23am. Cost: £6 single. 10% discount with Oyster Pay as you go.

Monument: I will be at the foot of the Monument at 11.00am and need to be at the bottom by 12pm at the absolute latest. Be prepared for a long climb up the spiral staircase inside! Cost: £3.

I’m then going off to do a reading at Wood Green Library, then returning to central London hopefully to have some fun at the Pride festival. And fitting in another one or two readings.

A Gay Olympics flag?

I suppose it’s a bit obvious but, if queers in London want to support the Olympics, they could do worse than switch the colours of the Olympic flag for those of the gay rainbow flag. Pictured is my version of a gay olympic flag. The colours are identical with those of the gay rainbow flag in Wikipedia. Before I posted this I googled "gay olympic flag" to discover that Gay Star News had run an April Fool’s joke about the IOC having decided to add a pink ring to the Olympic flag! Read the article here. Midland Zone for one seems to have been suckered in. Details here. Google images search seems not to have found any matches for anything looking like what I have come up with. It’s probably copyright heresy, but, what the hell. If you like the idea of a gay olympic flag, please tell everyone! If anyone wants to get some made, I'll sue your balls off if you don't cut me in! In fact damn me, I'm asserting my moral rights to the copyright! © Rod Shelton 2012. So there! If it’s already been suggested, please let me know!

Monkey Elected as Mayor

Random but amusing post: The News Quizz today brought this to my attention. Back in 2002, the Mayoral Election in Hartlepool was won by... A monkey! The mascot of the local football club decided to stand as mayor in an attempt to ridicule the office. His campaign had "Free bananas for schoolchildren". Much to the chagrin of the main political parties, he actually WON! He’s obviously a colorful character, as he has been twice thrown out of away games for simulating sex with a female steward and an inflatable doll. The football club is called ‘the Monkey Hangers’ because the town once hanged a monkey one the basis that it was a spy for Napoleon. Apparently the monkey was re-elected on Thursday. He began campaigning wearing the usual business suit, but after strident demands from the townsfolk he was forced to put the monkey suit back on! You just couldn’t make it up! OK, so it ain’t exactly today’s news, but it is amusing!

On Hampstead Heath ...

So begins the scene where we meet Kash and Édouard in my novel, Bokassa’s Last Apostle. They are manning a stall on Hampstead Heath, giving out free condoms and lube. I took a stroll onto the heath recently on a damp and drizzly spring afternoon. Obviously, there was nothing untoward going on, just a lady walking her dogs. It is very different at nighttime, when the opening of my novel is set. My hero, Everton Jones, wakes up after being beaten unconscious and having all his possessions stolen, including his clothes. At the junction of the path in the picture above, Kash and Édouard have set up a folding table and are giving out the free packets of condoms. When Everton runs, stark naked, down this path:

I'm planning to read the first chapter of my book at this very spot on the Friday before Pride, that’s 6 July 2012 at 9pm. (provisionally). This, and a series of readings in the places where the action takes place, are going to be videoed and put up on youTube and here, of course. But, how do you get there?

Everton gets there by getting off the bus from Birmingham at Golders Green to look for a pub. He turns the wrong way out of the bus station and goes to his left, up the hill. He eventually does find a pub, this pub: