Botched spellings - surprisingly not the fault of Idle Tom
The Lord giveth - and the Lord taketh away.
My first review - of sorts - in a national paper.
The Daily Express carried about an inch last Friday. Not that I’m not grateful - all reviews welcome.
But I did feel ever so slightly miffed …
Bear in mind, by the way, that I have been writing huge features for this paper for over four years. Week in, week out, there will be another spread or comment piece by me, complete with name and picture byline.
So - here’s how they repaid one of their most loyal servants:
At Eton, Kim, 17, is drifting through his education when he hears new piano teacher India playing Bach. It changes Kim’s life for ever. With their affair comes the thrill of illicit love.
Well. It’s ok. Just about. I mean it’s a plug in a national newspaper, circulation of over 700,000. Not the greatest plug in the world. But there are a whole load of first-time novelists who’d salivate over a review like that.
However.
Maybe I’m just being a little nit-picky.
But did they really have to botch the spelling of my name? The entire story is only about 50 words long, and yet somehow they’ve got the book down as "The Well-Tempered Clavier", by William Cole. Cole?? Where the hell did that come from?
Renton said I should demand a correction. Probably be bigger than the original story.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Cole is a much better name. As in Old King. And you’ll get fewer sill jokes about Newcastle.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:59 am
Dear William,
I am Hopimg this will maybe get to you through the system. However, if not I would be grateful if you could let me know if this has been recieved just by a simple “yup thanks” I am a bit hazy regarding these sites. O.K down to business. You approached me in a book shop in Leeds in order to get me to buy your book and I an only say that this was a very happy day in my life.As Someone who can say your prose is tight and exacting, the metaphors bound off the walls, I could say a lot more about what you do if I wanted to be clever, but I don;t want to be clever with this
One of the aspects of the novel I loved is thr fact that I was in windsor at the time you recollect and some memories are mine
also. However William, Please write another one soon and I shall be in line.