The Well-Tempered Clavier

Idle Tom the Publisher calls, a bit shirty-like, early yesterday morning. I was barely on my second cup of coffee, had hardly finished doing my (easy) Sudoku in The Times.

"Well?" he says. In fact it’s more than a "says". It was almost a "barks".

"Well? Well? Is that how you greet me on a Monday morning? What’s wrong with, "Hi Bill, how was your weekend"?"

"Well the point is that you promised me a date with Susan and nothing’s come of it."

"Susan?" I said. "Who’s Susan?"

"The mother of Damian."

"Oh! That Susan! Of course - well I’m just sorting it out. In fact, it was here in my in-tray of important things to do - and as you can imagine, fixing you up on a blind date is right at the top of the pile."

"And rightly so."

"Umm." There was much I could have said at this juncture, but seeing as irony is not Tom’s forte, I segued onto an infinitely more interesting subject: "Tom, I’ve had a really good idea."

"Oh yes?" Not interested. Even remotely.

"You know how you’ve tried to get me into all these Literary Festivals like Edinburgh, Althorp, Henley and the rest - "

"Yeah, it’s really tough trying to break into those festivals -"

"Yeah, I’m sure it is Tom. But the point is … you don’t have to do the festivals. Why don’t you come up to Edinburgh next year and put on your own show. It can be a one-hour show, you doing your stuff, and at the end of it all you flog a load of books to the grinning punters."

"Me?"

"Yeah! You’d only have to do it for a month! I’ll sell the books at the back. It’ll be brilliant! You could may call it, "I wanna publish your book!" Use it as a talent-finding competition - and at the end of the festival, come what may, you’re going to publish a book that you’ve discovered during the festival."

"Hmm. You know what Mr Coles -"

"Yep?"

"I think you might be onto something!"

Idle Tom the Publisher calls with good news. Great news! Quite superlative news!!

Somehow, some way, he’s managed to carve out a deal with an American publisher, Soho Press; even got a very modest advance for it too.

However …

"It’s weird," said Tom. "They’re changing the title -"

"Really?" I said. "What’re they going to call it?"

"Not a bad name actually. They’re calling it "Prelude"."

"Prelude. Hmm." I mulched it for a moment. Prelude. Works on a number of levels. Lot of different nuances. "Good title."

"It’s not bad."

"The problem with calling it The Well-Tempered Clavier was that no-one had ever heard of it."

"Yeah - and you know what? We could bring out the book again over here, call it Prelude, and all your old readers will think it’s a new book. It’ll be double bubble!"

Double bubble indeed. "But you know what’s even better than that, Tommy?"

"What?"

"They’ll be doing a new front cover!"

News from the front-line of Idle Tom’s love-life, that gritty, unrelenting no-man’s land where my publisher finds himself all alone and hunkered down in a muddy, God-forsaken fox-hole.

"So Mr Coles, how’s it going?" asks the Idle One. That’s how he likes to start every conversation. I can imagine it - you stagger in off the street after a mugging, blood pouring from your face, and all he can say is, "So Mr Coles, how’s it going?"

"It’s going very well indeed thank you, Tom. What about your love-life? Any action there? Want to take any of these lovely ladies up on their offer of a blind date?"

"Ummm … could you just refresh my memory?"

"Of course. I’ve put out there for any woman who’s really really desperate to get in touch. And that’s about it. At the last count I had three offers."

"Three?"

"One of them sounded very promising. A young mum from London. Susan, I think, was her name. She’d been forward by her son Damian."

"Do I have to do this?"

"I think it’ll be fun. And, more to the point, I think it’s going to be good for you. You need to get out there, Tommy - "

"OK."

"OK what? Do you want me to fix it up?"

"OK."

"Consider it sorted. Now don’t go getting too drunk. I know what you’re like when you’ve had too much to drink and it’s not pretty

Off to London for a TOP LEVEL MEETING with Idle Tom the Publisher as well as my Uber agent, who for some reason came over all shy and retiring after hearing about this blog and said that "under no circumstances whatsoever" did he wish to appear in it by name.

Fair enough Darin - your wish is my command.

Anyway, this top level meeting had been set up a month ago. E-mails had been sent round in triplicate. Phone numbers exchanged. It was total belt and braces on this one.

We had arranged to meet up at Finchley Road tube station, from whence we’d go to a restaurant where we’d be meeting … we’d be meeting such a big hitter that I don’t even dare mention his name.

And we had agreed to meet there at 12.45 on the dot …

I arrived early. As you do if you’re shipping down from Edinburgh for the day. Had a great spot outside a cafe, where I could my eye on the goings-on outside the tube station. Sip my coffee. Watch the world going by.

Darin turned up at 12.45. Naturally.

But there was no sign of Tom …

"Where’s Tom?"

"He’s late," I said. "He’s always late. In fact he’s probably gone to the wrong place. If he can contrive to go to the wrong place, he will go to the wrong place."

"But I was pretty explicit …"

"I’ll give him a call," I said, and ten seconds later I had the man himself on the phone.

"Tom!" I said. "Where the hell are you?"

"What do you mean where the hell am I? Where the hell are you?"

"I’m outside the tube station waiting for you! What do you think I’m doing?"

"Well I’m waiting for you outside the tube station too!"

"Oh," I said, as this icy calm descended over me, "and what station might that be?"

"Finsbury Park," he said promptly. "I’ve been here ages."

"Finsbury Park? How can you do this to me? You’re supposed to be at Finchley Road you idiot!"

"Finchley Road? Are you sure we didn’t agree Finsbury Park?"

"Of course I’m sure. Why do you always do this?"

"Just let me look at the A to Z. Finchley?? Finchley Road is miles away! I’ll have to get a cab!"

"Well whose fault is that then?"

Sometimes I think we must sound like an old married couple, bickering together about whose turn it is to use the false teeth …

Never come across The Small Press Review before … but from the little I’ve read, it is a most excellent magazine. First-rate. Forthright. Independent. Dazzlingly perceptive.

Oh - and did I happen to mention that they’d just given the thumbs-up to The Well-Tempered Clavier?

Diana Harris-Deans is the reviewer - and Diana has done me proud. Diana - thank you! A grateful nation salutes you!

I would give you the link, but since there isn’t one, I’ll give you some of Diana’s choicer pearls myself:

"The Well-Tempered Clavier is a love story, a charming and at times truly a fantastical love story.

 

"Coles captures brilliantly the excitement and pain of a seventeen-year-old’s first real love redolent with desire; the highs and lows, the joy and despair.

"It seems as if Kim never stops for breath as his passion for India is punctuated by libidinous thoughts about Angela and Estelle.

"This is a delightful story that tumbles along, building tension again and again as both Kim and India throw caution to the wind putting their illicit love affair in constant danger of exposure."

Now just because I’ve been on holiday this past month doesn’t mean for one moment that I’ve been off the case as regards The Well-Tempered Clavier. No Sirreeee!

Throughout my time in The Sticks, I was sending out yet more copies of the Clavier, as well as pounding the phone.

And - surprisingly - I even managed to get a plug for the book in the world’s most prestigious paper (bar none), The Wall Street Journal.

Of late, I’ve turned into a bit of a book reviewer. For The Express, I’ve just done up a review for Manfredi’s (dire) book "Pharaoh".

But the Journal is a bigger piece of cheese altogether - not least because at the end of the piece they allow you to give your own book a little puff. How civilised is that?

I was reviewing Hugh Trevor-Roper’s book "The Invention of Scotland", written 25 years ago, but only just published. Trevor-Roper loved nothing more than dishing it out to the Scots and, even though he’s been dead five years, would be thrilled to know that he’d got in one more pop from beyond the grave.

I called up Idle Tom the Publisher to tell him the good news.

"Got another plug in the Wall Street Journal," I said.

"Hey that’s great!" he said. "Do you know I think I’ve witnessed a knock-on effect today in the Amazon sales."

"You check my Amazon sales every day?"

"Certainly do! I think that after your story appeared, there was a spike that lasted about two days -"

"So what’s that mean in terms of sales?"

"Oooh - not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe two even three -"

"Two or three? Are you joking?"

"Nope - it all counts though BillyBoy!"

Back from a full month’s holiday with the family. A full month of English weather with variously: Beaches on the Isle of Wight; beaches in Kent; and beaches in Norfolk.

And, as it turned out, I had a full month off from Idle Tom the Publisher - four weeks without speaking to Britain’s Mr (Young) Publishing 2008.

I was sure though that when I called up yesterday morning, Idle Tom would be just brimming over with good stuff to tell me.

"Hi Bill," he says.

"Hi," I replied - and then, eager to steal his catch-phrase before he inflicted it on me, I asked, "How’s it going Tom?"

"Umm. Um - good! Very good, thank you."

"Well that’s excellent, Tom, and so what news do you have to report on the publishing front?"

"Umm - I think we’ve signed off on that deal for your second book Project X haven’t we?"

"Certainly have, my bucky! Certainly have! The biggest publishing advance in Legend Press history - and what’s more, you’re carrying the can for any of the legal costs when we get sued."

"I agreed to that??"

"That’s why I’ve got an agent, Tommy. Anyway, I’m currently steaming into Project X, should have it finished in a month or so, but what I really want to know - "

"No, what I really want to know -"

"No, what I really want to know is what happened to all these white-hot deals you were striking for The Well-Tempered Clavier about six weeks ago?"

"Bubblin’ under."

"Bubblin’ under?"

"Hey! But I got those stickers from Andrew McColl Smith printed up. The Number One Ladies Detective Agency guy. Yep, they’re all printed up, stuck on the books, already gone out to the shops. Look great, actually -"

Something wasn’t quite right. "What did you call this man?"

"Andrew McColl Smith."

"Jesus! Is that the name you’ve put on the Clavier stickers?"

"Is there a problem?"

"Well for a kicker, Tommy, he’s McCall Smith, not McColl Smith -"

"Considering we haven’t spoken for a month, you’re being pretty picky."

"And for seconds, his first name is not Andrew but Alexander."

"Hmm." A very slight pause. The hint of wind being taken out of sails. "Surely though the quote’s the thing - I mean who cares about the name?"

"Call yourself a publisher?"

"Now I’ve got a question for you -"

"Oh? What?"

"What happened to all those lovely women who wanted a blind-date with me? There were a couple in London who sounded quite tempting."

"Well - I’m just so glad we’ve finally got round to the most important topic on today’s agenda, Tommy: Your love life. What’s happened there by the way?"

"Bubblin’ under -"

"That bad, eh? But hang on … hang on! That was the exact phrase you used to describe all the various projects that we’ve got going with the Clavier? Have you done anything at all this past month?"

And finally … for my last posting before I go on hols, I have a remarkable spat-ette to reveal.

Last week The Well-Tempered Clavier was appearing in The Wall Street Journal.

This week, it’s the page lead in the Axegrinder column Press Gazette - read by hacks all over the country. Obviously a highly influential mag.

And the page lead all stemmed from … this blog.

A month or so back, I mentioned en passant that my

old boss Jonathan Ashby used to drink his own piss.

Now this was not some figment of imagination - as at least half my colleagues at the World Entertainment News Network remember it too. (Well - it’s not something you easily forget.)

The Press Gazette asked Ashby for his views, and Ashby … gave them. (Though frankly he was always so spaced out of his eye-balls on dope, that I’m staggered he can remember anything at all from his days on this agency.)

Here’s Axegrinder’s page lead:

Showbiz hack Jonathan Ashby was this week distracted from his current project - writing a biography of Camden warbler Amy Winehouse - by a former colleague’s claim that he once had a taste for a most unusual beverage.

 

Let’s just say the non-alcoholic "drink" resembles apple juice, but is more pungent and cannot be bought in shops.

 

According to Edinburgh-based freelance and former Sun reporter Bill Coles, who twice worked with Ashby at the World Entertainment News Network (or, as he dubs it, "The Reuters of the dustbin"), he would drink a pint of this every morning in the office.

 

On his blog, he explains, "I remember how he would traipse round the newsroom in his bare, Hobbit-like feet, slopping the contents of his pint glass all over the carpet."

 

Axegrinder asked if perhaps he was taking the, er, mick.

 

"No, it’s all true," insists Coles, who has just signed a deal to write a second book for Legend Press, following last year’s publication of the romantic novel The Well-Tempered Clavier.

 

"I think the drink was supposed to lift his mood. Pretty disgusting though, slopping it everywhere. Ugh."

 

Quite. Ashby is outraged by the suggestion. He tells me, "Sorry to spoil Bill’s fun, it’s totally untrue. Perhaps you are unaware that Bill is an Old Etonian. This is public schoolboy humour, which, sadly for Bill, he has never grown out of.

 

  "I suspect this is a desperate attempt to get some publicity for that awful novel he wrote last year, which barely saw the light of day before it was consigned to the remainder bin."

 

Might it perhaps have been REAL apple juice and Coles was simply mistaken?

 

"I’ve never ever drunk apple juice," replies Ashby. "During my 10-year term in Fleet Street, before becoming the founder and editor of the World Entertainment News Network, I never ever touched the staple fare of many other showbiz journalists, which was alcohol and cocaine, choosing instead to begin my working day at 6am every morning with a big mug of coffee and a spliff while I read through all of the latest editions of Britain’s plethora of broadsheet and tabloid newspapers."

 

For good measure, he adds he was landing exclusives when "Bill, the oldest son of a millionaire pig farmer, would have been at Cambridge University studying theology before starting his career at the Cambridge Evening News."

 

Coffee and a spliff for breakfast? Ashby is surely the perfect choice to pen Amy’s life story.

 

* Back in a month - around July 28 - with tales of Tom’s blind-dates, Project X, and all the other extraordinary goings-on of The Clavier. Should you feel the need for a personal update, do please get in touch via the website, and I’ll do my best to give you a quick briefing.