Aquileo | The Veggiebox

Aquileo | New Me

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:15:00 +0000

The smart serious new me is now over at

http://aliyawhiteley.wordpress.com/

and there are details up about the redux version of Mean Mode Median, my story and interview for Smokelong, and some other exciting bits. So if you're looking for me, me is there. Come on over and sign up to my feed.

Okay, not that serious. Just a bit more serious. And definitely no vegetables. Apart from one aubergine that snuck in there.

Aquileo | Veggie Books: The New Goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:04:00 +0000

I've watched Neil Ayres' The New Goodbye go through a number of incarnations, and each time it's become a little bit stronger. Now, available from this week as an E-book, it's absolutely right. And it's wonderful.

With the sounds of cutlery and pans coming from the thin galley kitchen Vicente had disappeared into, Mila scanned a cheap CD tower of records. She found an R&B compilation and fed it into the player. The opening bars of Sam & Dave's Soul Man filled the apartment. In the kitchen, Vicente was dancing as he cooked and emulating the guitar fills as best he could with his terrible singing voice. Mila went to stand by the kitchen door.

'Ham, mushroom and onion. Hope that's okay.' He had already laid salad out on a wooden chopping block about a foot square: avocado, red lettuce, tomatoes, diamonds of cucumber and a handful of cress and some mint leaves, with lemon juice squeezed over it all. Mila hadn't eaten since breakfast and the smell of the omelette frying caused her stomach to growl. She drank a large mouthful from her glass in an effort to quieten it.

'Hungry?' Vicente said, teasing her with the fact this hunger would be satiated imminently.

'Peckish', she admitted.

'Here then.' Vicente flipped a browned omelette out onto the wooden block and picked up the neck of a bottle of olive oil and two forks wrapped in paper napkins. 'Let's go and eat.'

He carried the block into the lounge. Sam and Dave had given way to Nina Simone. Mila and Vicente sat on a soft and deep-seated sofa and Vicente set the food down between them.

'Bon apetit.'

'Looks good.'

'Thanks. So long as it tastes that way.'

They ate without speaking, each manoeuvring across the plate to meet in the middle at the heart of the omelette.

'Go ahead,' Vicente said.

Mila waved her arm to gesture for him to have it, but knocked the bottle of olive oil over. It had begun to glug over the skin of her thigh before Vicente had managed to right it. He held up one of the paper napkins.

'Here, let me.'

Mila didn't move, just let the towel soak off some of the oil from her skin and then massaged the rest in. Vicente pulled the towel away. The oil had soaked through to his palm. He put the paper down on the wood block and licked at his hand. Mila watched his tongue flick out a couple of times to caress the skin.

'If that works for you,' she said, upturning the bottle and letting the rich gold liquid pour out and run onto her lap, 'I'm sure it would work for me.'

Neil has a wonderful sense of tempo to his writing. It's always about the speed at which events happen, and he can slow a moment to a stroll through tender emotions. I admire his writing enormously and I think he deserves to be read more widely. So buy it now at an absolutely bargain price, and enjoy reading a story that's about the reality of being human.

Aquileo | The hermit emerges: on Calvino and Ezra Pound

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:01:00 +0000

Guest post by Neil Ayres. A normal service will resume next week.

You were possibly expecting someone a tad more exciting than me when Aliya indicated a guest might drop by whilst she's on her hols. Sorry about that, but here I am.

Anyway, I'm raising a well-trodden subject that’s on my mind a bit at the minute. How well do we really want to know our authors? Perhaps slightly ironic, given I'm posting this on an author's blog.

Agents and publishers are keen for their authors to have a public profile (as are plenty of authors themselves.) And as a recent NYT article demonstrates beautifully, this cult of self promotion isn't exactly a new phenomenon.

But what about the drawbacks of this style-over-substance approach when it comes to reading the books themselves? I've read plenty of books and manuscripts by people I know, and it'd be disingenuous to insist this knowledge of the person behind the story had no influence on how I would experience the story.

Why am I thinking about this? Two reasons. Firstly, I've just finished reading Italo Calvino's Hermit in Paris, a loose collection of autobiographical writing and interviews from the fifties through to the eighties, with much reflection on his earlier life.

As well as much of his later fiction, I've read some of Calvino's non-fiction before (and mentioned on this blog years ago that his Six Memos for the Next Millennium is my favourite book on writing), but in these his voice was always present -- a big part of the enjoyment of reading them, of course -- yet the man himself was not. The meat of Hermit in Paris (given how much of an influence it appears to have had on him in later life) is Calvino's travel diary of his time spent in America, and more importantly, in New York. This he wrote when he was around thirty seven, as a series of letters to his colleagues at the Einuadi publishing house in Turin, where he worked as both a publicist and editor, so I think it's safe to assume they give as honest representation of a writer as you're likely to come across, in that he was writing to people who knew him well personally, as well as knowing his writing.

The thing is, although I rather liked the Calvino I got to know in this diary, he was rather at odds with the author I knew before starting out on the book. I was aware that this alteration of perception was likely once I embarked on the journey of reading the book, but he's one of the few authors I really feel the urge to know well. The good news is by the time I got to the end of the book, this new Calvino (from the American Diary) and the one already established in my head had merged satisfactorily for me, thanks to the other pieces included in the book. Calvino's note for the pieces in the book (which was published posthumously) stressed the point that his opinions and beliefs were of the moment, which is a given, but it was useful to have the author's reminder there in front of me.

Calvino maintained that an author's distance was a crucial factor in the appreciation of the work, but although he went to reasonable lengths to maintain this distance himself, as a personality, for anyone with more than a passing interest in his output, even now he's no longer alive, he is by no means an anonymous factor when considering his books.

And my other reason for thinking about this at the moment? Well, it relates to a project I'm working on as part of the day job. A tie-up event between Creative Review (my employer) and Tate Britain's forthcoming exhibition of Vorticism. (Vorticism was a short-lived Futurist-inspired British avant garde art movement that born shortly before the First World War.)

The movement's key figure was Wyndham Lewis, who was much influenced (and supported) by Ezra Pound. Pound and Lewis took Pound's Imagism guidelines and applied them to visual art, with Pound coining the term Vorticism to represent the resultant work.

I knew little about Pound (and less about Wyndham Lewis) before starting work on the project, save that he was a challenging poet, and a fascist.

Interestingly it was reading Hermit in Paris (Calvino grew up in Italy under Mussolini and it is well documented that he fought for the Partisans during WWII), that gave me the impetus to learn a bit more about Pound, and for pretty much the first time in my life, attemp to understand how such a large swathe of Europe could have fallen under the sway of fascism in the lead up to WWII.

WWII, certainly up until my generation (a generation whose grandparents and older relatives have firsthand adult experience of the war) generally has a kind of in-built default position of anti-Nazism (let's be clear: this is a GOOD thing), but I would argue that this blanket education of why Hitler wasn't good news obscures the social causes of what led not only to its political rise, but to such a huge number of people tolerating fascism as part of their everyday lives.

I think most Europeans have some kind of innate understanding that WWI provided the breeding ground for WWII. But, oddly, I've only just begun to make explicit connections about how this occurred. Many people may just view this as personal ignorance on my part, but I'd lay money on there being huge numbers of reasonable, intelligent people whose knowledge is as unexamined as my own.

Pound was of course a hugely fallible man, but he was also no idiot. He helped launch the careers of TS Eliot, James Joyce and many others, before becoming disillusioned with London after WWI and moving first to Paris and then on to Italy, where he supported Mussolini's fascist regime (which Calvino by the time of WWII was of course actively opposing). Calvino meanwhile become a militant Communist following the war, and has an interesting, incredibly honest essay about how he squared his Communism and support for the USSR with Stalin's atrocities. (Calvino did not leave the Italian Communist Party--and political activism--until 1957.)

As with Calvino, Pound's life can be viewed as one of stages. Just to round out my picture, I'm going to read some of Pound's selected poetry. I'll no doubt struggle to keep at bay the idea that it's written by a deplorable fascist, but I'll give it a go. After all, it's what Calvino would have wanted.

If you didn't know, Neil has a site for social media and digital stuff now.

Aquileo | Fiction Uncovered

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:35:00 +0000

Fiction Unovered, a new lottery-funded site aimed at promoting mid-list authors, launches today, with support from retailers including Waterstones and Foyles. The lead illustration from the site (also shown here) is by my mate and yours, pen and ink illustration specialist Johanna Basford.

Aquileo | Working the line

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:51:00 +0000

For those interested in this sort of thing, a piece of mine has just been published over on Futurebook, The Bookseller's digital-oriented blog. It's mainly aimed at publishers, but might be of interest to some of you lot. Also good if you like old pictures of American prospectors.

Aquileo | So, pumpkins

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:52:00 +0000

We should be talking about them, right? Given the time of year and our vegetable-related monicker. Also marrows, various squashes, sweetcorn and those gourd things (possibly inedible). Oh, and apples too. I had stewed apple and custard last night. I saw some pumpkins, but haven't eaten any yet.

In other news, I'm still alive.

Okay, let's take it a bit more seriously then. Top horror short stories? William Peter Blatty did one about a group of toys that was rather freaky. Anyone know what it was called? Fifty points available.

Aquileo | #crtweetup

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:19:00 +0000

Or, why I've been MIA for some time. The last month or so an awful lot of my time has been spent organising the first Creative Review tweetup, which took place at the Design Museum last night, involved lots of free LEGO and Moleskines, oh and alcohol, and praise be, went off rather swimmingly.

There are lots of photos here of people having fun. And yet more on Flickr.

Aquileo | The New Goodbye 1.5

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:25:00 +0000

For anyone owning an iPhone who wants money off of books at Foyles or free entry into their publisher days, then you need to--if you haven't already done so, be downloading The New Goodbye, as it's just been updated, and that is one of the new treats. Loads of Foyles goodies, plus a new free chapter, a short story and that animated video by Order.

Aquileo | Mr Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:19:00 +0000

So. Aliya's treatment is apparently coming on well (see this old blogpost if you've no clue what I'm talking about), but as she readies herself to come back into day-to-day living, I've been advised to steer clear, so I'm off to the Whiteley motherland for a break at the end of the week, while she road tests her new-found sanity.

Elsewhere, the app update is 'in review' and should be with iPhone owners soon in all its Foylesy goodness.

For those of the Twitter persuasion, or not even, I'm currently over on PC Advisor of all places, talking about my work there.

And in lieu of my blog-mate's wit, I'll let someone else do the amusing stuff. Readers, I give you, Mr Blog.

Aquileo | First night nerves

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:24:00 +0000

I am very much enjoying Beth and Emma Kilcoyne's Roger And Val Have Just Got In (a new sitcom/play thing going out on BBC2 at the weekends at the moment, with Dawn French and Alfred Molina, for anyone unfamiliar with it).

Beth has a nice blogpost over on the BBC concerning the first night of broadcast.

Sorry the player doesn't fit properly on the blog.

In other news, the update for The New Goodbye app has been submitted to the App Store, along with the snazzy Foyles partnership stuff. Should be live in a week or so.

Aquileo | Looks like we hit 88mph...

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:55:00 +0000

Heh, just read this in an interview I did back in 2004 where I was talking about Fragment, the PDF magazine I was editing at the time (heady days indeed--this was around the same time Aliya and hooked up). How's this for Back to the Future, from a Kindle owner now helping develop a magazine app for the iPad:

"Tell me about Fragment. And, does its kind represent the beginning of the end for the printed word, in both book and magazine form?

"...that depends on technology. I'm not much of a hoarder, so if someone devised a handheld book-sized piece of kit that had the same legibility and durability as a book, then I'd undoubtedly get one. My house is small enough* as it is without hundreds of books clogging up the shelves. Publishers are certainly keen. The Guardian is in the final stages of beta-testing its digital edition and many fiction houses offer sample chapters of their books in PDF format on their websites. But at the moment it's still much more comfortable to read from the page than the screen."

* I now live in a bigger house but the point still stands.

Aquileo | Good luck, Ian

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:59:00 +0000

Ian Hocking, an excellent writer, who's had the representation of a respected agent for over four years, has recently come to the difficult decision to give up on fiction writing.

Lots of writers--and lots who are far less talented or technically proficient storytellers than Ian--say they cannot live without writing. That it makes them sad or puts them into emotional turmoil. I'm not one of those sort of writers. I can see myself coming to a point where I could give up on serious fiction writing as Ian has done, if I don't taste that success. I can see other aspects of my life positively benefiting from this, both family and social life, and at work, but for now I will keep on keeping on. But I completely understand where Ian is coming from.

Rather than telling him he's doing the wrong thing, or that he's a quitter, I hope other writers can recognise the amount of soul searching this decision will have taken, and realise too that it's the cut of the pack that has meant Ian hasn't found a mainstream deal or a publisher to champion him, rather than a lack of talent or of interesting stories to tell. As well as being a talented writer, Ian has also done well--far better than most--in promoting his work, something that I know from personal that for someone with a level of integrity, as Ian no doubt has, can leave one feeling a little tawdry. But without this, he wouldn't have had reviews in national newspapers or blurbs from best-selling authors

Please do stop by and wish him well on this new start.

Aquileo | Islands in the stream; strawberries and cream

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:10:00 +0000

Last week Scott Pack mentioned on his blog that he’d taken a couple of location-specific books with him on holiday to the Isle of Wight.

I too am off on holiday soon, and not that I’m lucky enough to be heading to a tropical island—last time I looked south Devon was neither tropical, nor and an island—but I’m just finishing up with Robinson Crusoe (on the Kindle, Tim) and have also indulged in a hardback copy of David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet, which I’ve lined up next. It’s a coincidental quirk, but, without having read The Thousand Autumns… etc. I’m assuming there are similarities between it and Defoe’s classic, both in historical setting and in the situations the lead characters come up against. In other words, they are complementary books.

So what I’m getting at, in a roundabout fashion, is asking you this: What two books would you recommend that go together like strawberries and cream? (I would say like peas in a pod, but don’t want to set Aliya back any steps on the road to recovery.)

The only rule is recommended books aren’t allowed to be by the same author, or a second author picking up characters from the first, a la Wide Sargasso Sea or Roger Morris’ Inspector Porfiry series.

PS Talking of Scott, Happy Birthday Bookswap.

Aquileo | Music videos, bookshops and iPhones

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:57:00 +0000

So, while Aliya's undergoing some serious rehab (see my previous post), I thought I'd give you an update on what's been happening during my prolonged absence.

First things first, the nice chaps at Order have recently finished the music video for The New Goodbye. And for those who don't have an iPhone, here it is in all its stop-motion goodness, featuring the stock still acting talents of Mr Rich Watson.

The New Goodbye - Music Promo from ORDER on Vimeo.

In other news, I am due to deliver the science fiction novel I've been working on for most of this year to an agent by Christmas. Which means if I want to run it past Aliya first, I'll need to have it done by November. This is coming along nicely, so shouldn't be a problem, and it's a really nice project, so that's exciting.

But perhaps more exciting is that Foyles are partnering with me for the first update of The New Goodbye app, offering discounts, store coverage and event tickets to anyone with the app on their iPhones. More on that one soon of course. For now, I'll leave you with the dulcet tones of Mr Watson.

Aquileo | The Great Escape

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 08:38:00 +0000

I have made good my escape, but can’t believe you all accepted Aliya’s word of what had been happening to me. I suppose the last blogpost I wrote, about being tasked with a secret government mission concerning vegetables, which was made under threat of being buried alive in a pile of potatoes may have helped suppress any feelings of suspicion, so I’ll give you all the benefit of the doubt.

But rather than a Playmobil version of Heaven, I have been through Hell. Hell I tell you.

Several weeks ago I feel unwittingly into a trap set by Aliya and her family, who had undergone some kind of group trauma resulting in them all believing the key to the world’s salvation will come in the form of vegetables.

I was invited to their house under the pretence of trying a new recipe Aliya had arrived at due to an odd mix of ingredients in her latest veggiebox delivery. They had far too many tomatoes, and as we all know, not being a true vegetable, tomatoes are things Aliya has little truck with.

I was as much a fool in going as you have been in believing the warped Playmobil fantasies she has been playing out on this blog since my capture. (Incidentally, anyone who knows me would be aware that I’d never write iPhone with a capital ‘I’, even with the inconvenience of U’s for hands and no discernible fingers to speak of. What’s more I feel my reputation as a stern, joyless misanthrope may have been irrevocably tarnished by the ‘Neilio’ sign-offs Aliya used in her fake missives.)

So how did I make good my escape? Ironically, I turned Aliya and her family’s own vegetables against them.

As close readers of this blog will know, Aliya’s hubby is a military man. Recently he—rather than I—had been tasked with a top secret government mission concerning vegetables. But not just any vegetables. Oh no. We’re talking GENETICALLY MODIFIED VEGETABLES.

These are strange, triffid-like creatures that grow in the space of days rather than weeks. During my imprisonment—which, if you’ve ever read The Collector, you’ll have some idea of how Aliya treated me—the only times I was allowed out of doors unsupervised was to tend the GM vegetable patch. This was a sorry scrap of earth (these GM foods will grow pretty much anywhere) surrounded on three sides by fifteen feet high sheer concrete walls, and on the third side by the sad entryway to the stairwell leading down to the cellar where I was kept.

Having overheard conversations concerning a new fridge freezer that had to be ‘just so, for you know what’, I knew I had to at least attempt to escape, even if I was destined to die trying. My plan was simple, but, as you will now realise, given that I’m here writing to you, effective.

I planted my next batch of seedlings in a carefully considered pattern, so that when they had grown to their full size—within a matter of days, the mutants!—they would spell out a rescue plea for me. To whit: Help! Nutters Have Me Locked Up And Are Making Me Grow These Weird Super-Sized Rhubarbs. Send A Shrink.

Although this was quite a lot of veggie-text to fit into the small courtyard, I felt I needed to add something more, to illustrate the urgency of the situation. So did. PS Please Hurry. I Think They’ve Got A New Fridge Freezer On Order.

Now all I could do was wait. Three terrifying days passed. I had a real scare when that leaflet about the second hand fridge freezer came through, but as luck would have it I was granted a reprieve. And with just minutes to spare my rescuers arrived. As I was airlifted to safety by the Waitrose helicopter, I could see a white goods delivery van had parked up outside the house.

As soon we landed I called my good friend Professor Robert Winston and asked for his advice. He picked me up in an armoured truck and we were straight back to the military base, although it petrified me to be there. I needn’t have worried though. Bob’s crew of trained SWAT Psychiatrists had soon overpowered what little resistance was offered, mainly by Aliya armed with Munchie’s Supersoaker 3000 and a dressing gown belt tied round her head.

I’m pleased to report that the Whiteley family are now ensconced in a high security rehabilitation unit in Milton Keynes specialised in the treatment of vegetable obsessives, and are generally making good progress. Aliya’s therapy mainly consists of exposure to Rorschach images resembling squashed tomatoes.

Aquileo | Postcards From the Veg: Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:37:00 +0000

Uh oh. You know something big is going down when an angel appears in your bathroom while you're flossing.

So there I was, with the little piece of white string still wrapped around my index fingers, when a portal opened above my shower curtain and a being of light and grace popped out. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He/She/It (hard to tell) handed me a golden scroll, gave me a wink, and tootled off to more important matters.

It's bad news, guys. Brace yourself.

Dear Vegemites,

Mourn me not! For I am not dead. Well, actually, I am dead in the very real sense of the word, but it turns out there's a heaven and it's ACE! A bit like Butlins in a zoo but with room service. I've been given a lovely chalet with a real fireplace and an en-suite. I'm not even having to share, as there's no shortage of space given that this is a metaphysical state of being rather than an actual country. Marvellous.

So yes, you didn't save me from the desert island and Roary ate me. But I don't want you to feel bad about it. Life is just too short to spend in regret. However, I wouldn't like you to feel too good about yourselves either. You didn't really try to help, did you? And I'm not just talking about helping me. I'm talking about helping each other generally and being nice and good and kind and stuff like that. And growing more vegetables. It turns out growing more vegetables is the key to world peace. No, I'm not allowed to explain why. It has something to do with allotments, that's all I'm saying. You have to work it out for yourselves.

And so I bid you farewell. Ta ra. So long. Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you. Live long, and prosper. Or don't. I just hope you get lucky enough to be allocated a chalet next to me at the end of it all. I have to go - the synchronised swimming competition is just kicking off.

Angelic hugs,

Neilio.

Goodnight, sweet Playmobil Prince. We will miss you.

I wonder if he gets a reincarnation option. He probably wouldn't take it, though, what with a real fireplace and synchronised swimming, right?

Aquileo | Postcards From The Veg: Desert Island

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:53:00 +0000

I was enjoying a lovely day out at Woburn Safari Park yesterday. There are elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers, monkeys, and swans. Well, giant swan boats, in fact, and while I was dabbling around in the water a small green glass bottle clinked against the side of my own sturdy little swan boat. I picked it up and examined it. I guessed it had once contained Becks beer, by the remnants of the label, but now it was home to a rolled piece of paper. A message in a bottle! How utterly exciting! And quite strange, given that it was in a boating pond in land-locked Bedfordshire.

Guess what was inside. I bet you can't guess. Go on, have a try. A wild stab in the dark. No, just have a go. Oh go on, go on, go on... yes, okay, it was the latest postcard from Neil on his travels around and above the planet. Sheer luck brought his latest ramblings to me. Funny how the world turns, innit?

Dear Vegemites,

HELP!

I don't know where I am. Well, I'm on a desert island, dear readers, but as to which one I have no clue. Re-entry into the atmosphere didn't go as smoothly as one might have hoped for, and I was lucky that my capsule crash-landed near to this place. Roary the litte polar bear and I managed to swim to shore, and have found a cave and some fruit and a football that we've nicknamed Wilson for the hell of it, but no humanity. Not a single person. Not even a signal on my I-Phone.

Actually, it's quite pleasant.

At first I was confused from clinging to a floating barrel for two days with only a hungry and annoyed polar bear for company, but things are really looking up now. With nobody around to cock this place up, I can honestly say it's a small patch of paradise. Did you know banana trees grow fruit all year long? Amazing. Roary adores the yellow flesh, and I'd imagine he's the first polar bear to discover the joy of slipping around on the discarded skins. He enjoys himself immensely, sliding first one way, then the other. Marvellous.

But now I really would like to get back to espressos and Doctor Who (has a new series started yet?) and sugar free gum stuck to the pavement and all the other great things about England, so please come and find me. Please. Before Roary gets any bigger and decides that his diet needs meat in it.

So, hoping this is au revoir and not farewell forever,

Neilio
xx

Eek! What shall we do? I'm hopeless at Geography.

Aquileo | Postcards From the Veg: In Orbit

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:56:00 +0000

While I was in Devon buying surf-wear and eating pasties, Neil was having yet another adventure of his own. He's a brave one, and his murderous tendencies seem to have worn off for the time being. Which is good news for Astronuat Jip Tuckerer, who showed our very own intrepid traveller around space. Not all of it, obviously. Just the teeny bit of it above our planet.

I don't know how Neil is funding this adventure. I-Phone sales of The New Goodbye must be doing pretty well, huh?

Greetings vegemites!

Thank goodness I packed my NASA space pen! Or there would be no postcard from this location, that's for sure. I'm in space, orbiting the planet in the top secret, privately owned SpaceRace laboratory as they conduct fruit-related experiments to try to find answers to the world's many problems. Leading the way is astronaut and top fruitarian Jip Tuckerer, who explained why the SpaceRace lab maintains orbit over the Himalayas.

"When satellites' orbits degrade through malfunction, the same thing always happens; they end up caught in a constant pattern over one part of the Earth - the Himalayas. This effect, caused by stuff that is too complicated to explain to anyone without a degree in astrophysics, is known as the Himalayan Gravity Well. And we at SpaceRace have been looking into utilizing that effect to human advantage. But first we must truly understand it.

How did Newton begin to formulate the theory of gravity? He turned to the lowly apple. And if it's good enough for Newton then it's good enough for us. We have been throwing an apple a day into the Himalayan Gravity Well for the last two years and monitoring the results. Interestingly, the only solid result we have so far is the disproving of an old aphorism - since I myself have four PhDs it can definitely be said that an apple a day doesn't keep the doctor away! Ha ha ha."

Jip allowed me to release apple number 675 from the airlock. What an honour. Next time you think of the Himalayas, think of my little piece of fruit above it, and all the other little pieces of fruit - evidence of the effort that are constantly being made to unite the world in peace, harmony and understanding. Wow. Although how they will manage that remains to be seen, but let's not be picky right now.

And so, until next time, keep eating your five a day and give the sky a special wave.

Neilio.

I can't say I liked the sound of Jip Tuckerer much. Still, what a very interesting subject. Yeah.

Aquileo | Postcards From The Veg: The Arctic Circle

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:35:00 +0000

Right, so, for those of you not in the know, Neil has buggered off on a journey around the world to find the answer to the energy crisis (or any other crisis you can think of)via the medium of vegetables and today I received a postcard from the Arctic Circle. Yes, I know he was in Cape Verde last week; I can only assume that his geography skills aren't that hot. Like the rest of him, being in a rather chilly location. Heh.

Here's what he had to say:

Greetings Vegemites!

The dwarf pirates of Cape Verde were more than helpful - one of them, Sneezy, happened to have a good doctor friend who also treated the son of a transport magnate. Twenty-seven quick phone calls later, and I was on a flight to Norway, and then transferred to a luxury cabin upon an expedition ship headed for Longyearbyen, a port situated on the largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago.

It was pretty cold, and my luggage had mysteriously disappeared. Later I saw a member of the crew walking past in my best feather boa. Still, the crew was polite, if a little light-fingered. They pointed out many of the wonders of the area to me, including icebergs, ice floes, and icebergs. And polar bears, including a little orphaned bear we found floating on an enormous frozen celeriac. No, actually, it was an iceberg.

The little polar bear - nicknamed Roary - was delightful as long as it wasn't annoyed. I fed it cows' milk fortified with a paste made from Swedes. That's the inhabitants of Sweden, not the vegetable. Well, I don't think polar bears eat vegetables, do they? And there was a plethora of Swedes on board, attending an iceberg-shaped souvenir selling convention. Nobody missed a few.

So - world peace via vegetables not achieved this week, vegemites. But one little polar bear kept happy. Perhaps the little things are all we can really aim for. Huge happiness can only be made up of so many tiny good deads, right? I mean deeds.

Signing off until next time,

Neilio

xx

This trip seems to be taking a macabre turn, wouldn't you say? Hmm.

Aquileo | Crying Out For a Trained Professional

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:57:00 +0000

Hubby and I watched The Fellowship of the Ring again last night (definitely the best of the LOTR films, as the other two seem to get stuck in slo-mo hell every now and again) and I was struck by the way the Ring of Power (worthy of capital letters, methinks) got lost. And became myth. And then became legend. You get the idea.

When Gandalf comes across that ring at Bilbo's birthday bash, he's not sure what it is. So he goes off to Minas Tirith and, there in the cellars, he looks through a heap of unnumbered dusty scrolls until he finds a very accurate depiction of the Ring of Power and its horribleness.

The library obviously didn't have anybody in charge of it. It was a mess. It occurred to me - and I said this to Hubby before he shushed me - that it needed a properly trained librarian to bring order to chaos. And I bet if a librarian had been working there people never would have forgotten about the incredibly important ring in the first place. That librarian would have made a note of it somewhere and things that should not have been forgotten wouldn't have been.

Just saying.

Now, Terry Pratchett, he has the right idea. He's put a trained professional into his library in Ankh-Morpork university. Nobody point out it's an orangutan, okay?

Aquileo | From verdant shores

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:05:00 +0000

Just a quick one before I have to take the toucan for a walk: my post for The Bookseller's Futurebook blog went up today, talking about my experiences trying to get published and producing The New Goodbye. And I hear word the music video has gone under the editor's knife, so that should be with us soon, in all its technicolour, stop-motion glory.

In other news, I'm surprised to find they've never heard of asparagus here.

Aquileo | Postcards From The Veg: Cape Verde

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:51:00 +0000

Phew! After an anxious weekend spent wondering what has happened to m'blog-buddy, I received a letter this morning. Things had indeed got a bit hairy for him while travelling from Fuerteventura by boat, but his common sense and chutzpah carried him through:

Dear Vegemites,

I took a slow boat from the Canaries, planning to sail around the Cape of Good Hope to reach Madagascar, but after only a few days on a barely seaworthy vessel (never make your travelling decisions at 3.00am after a large amount of tapas and Napoleon Brandy, that's all I have to say) it became obvious that the captain did not have my best interests at heart. I was locked in a small cabin and fresh drinking water was only provided if I agreed to perform the Macarena every evening for the amusement of the crew. It was humiliating, and in no way helpful on my tour to find out about the top secret usages of vegetables around the planet.

At least this shameful episode did not last long. On the fourth evening the crew interrupted me mid-hip-sway; they rushed to the side of the boat and pointed at the sail in the distance. The Jolly Roger! As they grew closer I felt hope and despair in equal measure; I had to hope they were a nicer bunch with less predilection for modern dance. I stood utterly still, my hands in the air, as they boarded the boat. They were a fearsome sight - none of them over 3 feet high, and armed with fake beards, pointy hats and cutlasses, they were the dread dwarf pirates of Cape Verde. They killed every single member of the crew, including the odious captain, and I sank to my knees, which brought me level with the eyes of their leader, Grumpy.

I didn't beg. I slowly reached into my bag and took out a radish I had been saving for the journey. I offered it to him - he took it, sniffed it, licked it, bit in, devoured it - yes! He was a vegetable lover, just like me! He unrolled a map on the deck and pointed to where the best vegetables grew around here, then offered me a slice of thick white fibrous vegetable with a sweet taste, which he called Manioc. It was delicious.

Having found something in common, he was delighted to help me out; he instructed his second-in-command, Bashful, to take me to their homeland, the beautiful Cape Verde, and it is from there that I send this letter. Awesome vegetables here, particularly the Manioc. There are two types - one can be eaten raw, and the other must be pulped and cooked to remove the natural toxins. The pirates grate them and sprinkle them over every meal, just as Italians would use parmesan. What an experience!

For now, au revoir, and keep munching,

Neilio

xx

That was a lucky escape, huh?

Aquileo | Postcards From The Veg: Fuerteventura

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 08:07:00 +0000

Yay! Neil arrived safely in Fuerteventura as part one of his mission around the globe to see how vegetables are being used in unique and exciting ways to combat a number of worldwide problems. His first missive has arrived for us underlings - let me share it with you here. Unfortunately, he forgot to take his camera so I've had to recreate his experiences through the medium of Playmobil. Neil is the Playmobil figure in green trousers.

Dear Vegemites,

Hail from sunnie Fuerteventura! Bananas, tomatoes, oranges and olives are widely available here but you won't find much in the way of a root crop, which makes the decision by SPROUT (Society of Progressive Research On Ugly Turnips) to set up shop here quite a surprising one.

SPROUT has been working tirelessly for the last three years on the sister project of CERN's LHD in the search for that elusive particle, the Higgs Boson. There is a little known quote from top Physicist Nils Nilssen - "The Higgs-Boson could be anywhere... so why not start by looking in the easy places? Take a trip to the Canaries and split open a turnip or two." This became the inspiration for the building of the Small Hadron Collider (seen in the picture below - Aliya), which is manned by Mr Harold Trike, formerly of Kettering, and a team of trained parrots.

The SHD (interestingly enough, situated within Mr Trike's own shed) works on mains electricity. The turnip is inserted into the GST (green slidey tray), which then is rammed at great speed into a set of rotating knives. The GST is then removed to the garden area, where the parrots pick over the tiny particles in the hope of spotting the Higgs-Boson. If this was to occur, the lucky parrot would emit three piercing squawks and would attempt to hold the particle still in its beak until the arrival of Mr Trike, whereupon it would be rewarded with a little bell and a cuttlefish. There have been a number of false alarms, says Mr Trike, but no solid results as yet.

When questioned about the likelihood of the parrots spotting an infinitesimally small particle, a SPROUT representative pointed out that, "the parrots don't know that they're looking for it anyway, and wouldn't recognise it if it slapped them around the beak with a giant cuddly toy wearing a tee shirt that said HIGGS-BOSON WOZ HERE on it. This is the upper end of theoretical physics we're talking about here.'

And now, I must away to the next stage of my journey. Good luck in all your endeavours, Vegemites!

Neilio

Well, he sounds very chipper, doesn't he? He must be having fun. I wouldn't have minded a trip to the Canaries. I'm just saying.

Aquileo | At least you'll never be a vegetable - even artichokes have hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:44:00 +0000

Due to having been selected by a top secret government agency to do something that I can't tell you about, I'm going away for a while. I am however--much like the gnome in Amelie, or Faye L Booth's touring copy of Cover The Mirrors--going to be sending missives of my travels onto Ms Whiteley (what I mean is, I know they didn't send missives to Aliya, but, well, you get the gist.

She has decided, in her wisdom, to share them with you on this here blog. This all has the added benefit that I get to post a pic of the lovely Audrey Tautou here. So everyone's a winner.

And before I head off, here I am going off on one on Windsor's Beat (thanks to Melanie Gow for inviting to contribute), and also discussing the art of how writers with day jobs 'keep it together', over Sam's blog. Both pieces carry a picture of me in a jumper, which seems a bit perverse seeing's as it's about 2 billion degrees in the shade in these parts at the moment.

So, for now, in the words of Ms Tautou, 'au revoir'.

Aquileo | One step at a time

noreply@blogger.com (Aliya Whiteley/Produced by Slicklix) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:41:00 +0000

Just a little update on my attempt to take over the world. Last week saw The New Goodbye and me popping up on the Indie Quarter and the Creative Review blog. Any words of wisdom you'd like to add to keep the story up there on the most recently commented panel are most welcome. There was also a piece on Bookbrunch, but you need to be a member to see that.

In farming news, I missed Countryfile, but did catch this lovely film on 4onDemand (not as good as the BBC iPlayer, but same principle). There were no farmers, but the last film is of 'Britain's Oldest Newlyweds' and is tip-top.