The Well-Tempered Clavier

One of the things I learned on Fleet Street was that it is all too easy to ask one too many questions.
 
You might believe that hacks should ask an unlimited numbers of questions.
 
What can happen though is that you ask that critical last question, and the whole edifice of your story comes tumbling down.
 
And in […]

Got a lot of great friends out there with a lot of great ideas on how to make The Well-Tempered Clavier bigger. Better. A blockbuster, even.
They’re perpetually coming up with sensational ways of turning the Clavier project into a “Go”, and I thought I’d share this little gem from Gerv Cottam, who’s Britain’s Brand king. […]

For over a week now, something had been gnawing at me, just this ever so slight feeling that I had missed a trick; that, somewhere along the way, I had forgotten something of import.
 
And then, a full week after the event, it came to me.
 
Amidst all the kerfuffle about whether Idle Tom the Publisher was […]

A nice little chat with Idle Tom the Publisher; one of those heart-warming natters that fills you up with a golden Ready Brek glow for the whole rest of the day; the sort of conversation, in fact, that makes you feel just great to be alive.
 
"So do you like the campaign?" I said. "Do you […]

I don’t know if this is a thing to be especially proud of … and I’m not quite sure if this is quite the brilliant sales campaign that I had in mind, however … it would seem that I’ve created something of a bandwagon.
 
It might, of course, be better if this trundling bandwagon was actually […]

Edinburgh - home of many great writers. We’ve got J.K.Rowling; Rankin; Alexander McCall Smith.
 
And, my favourite of the lot, Robert Louis Stevenson.
 
Stevenson was born not far from where I live, and throughout his childhood was expected to go into the family trade and build lighthouses.
 
His dad was sorely vexed that instead of lighthouse building, Stevenson […]

Already the campaign to get a replacement for the, ahem, REEE-VOLTING cover of The Well-Tempered Clavier is picking up speed.
 
The doughty Juliet Doyle [NB, by the way, Juliet, how this time I have actually managed to spell your name right and have refrained from calling you Julia Boyle] has weighed in. Big time!
 
Juliet is a […]

What finer way to start the week than with a call from my publisher - the constant bridesmaid Idle Tom?

"Tommy!" I said. "Tommy! How nice to hear from you!"

"Yeah," he said, the word dragging out a little as if he were pretending to be a sceptical Jeremy Paxman. "Yeah."

"What you got for me this week […]