An Ozymandias Moment

If some of my friends were members of the mafia rather than authors, I suspect I would end up playing the role of their consigliere. Of course it would be a consigliere in the Tom Hagen rather than the Silvio Dante mould. It has to be said, I am a lot better at wise counsel than executions.

While the prospect of a Collins crime family is thankfully remote, I often seem to end up handing out consilium to one of the big bosses of historical mystery. The twenty-two years I have known Andrew Collins have involved me following him into a serious of surreal scrapes and adventures. If I got an email from him tomorrow reading: ‘I have found the lost city of Irem and accidentally been heralded as Sheikh of the Tribe of a 1,000 Pillars. I seem to have kicked off an armed insurrection against Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces. Any thoughts on how to handle the press?’ I would not be surprised.

It was thanks to following the strange wake of Andy Collins and trying to provide advice that tonight, my Lady Love and I ended up enjoying Châteauneuf-du-Pape and crab mousse canapés in the Egyptian sculpture room of the British Museum. Trying hard not to spill wine or crumbs on the Statue Of Sacred Boat Of Mutemuia or lean too noticeably against Shabaka Stone, we were in the front line of the ambassadorial speeches and pomp put on for Dr. Zahi Hawass. However, it was not the speeches or notable guests that awed, but the ghosts of a culture existing outside of their time thanks to their possession of granite, gneiss and grandiorite

The weight of history in Egyptian sculpture room alone is immense. The temporal power of the pharaonic age relics forces you to confront the idea that any remains of 21st century England uncovered 30 centuries hence will cast much weaker shadows. It should be impossible for anyone to give a speech from below the colossal fragment of the bust Ramesses II without having an Ozymandias moment.

One thing I found myself in agreement with Dr. Hawass on during his speech was the untenable position of the Rosetta Stone. When the British ran wild, looting the world for their tawdry gratification, some of the globe’s most significant treasures ended up at the British Museum. The idea of wholesale repatriation by the Grand Dame of Great Russell Street of every iconic item from its collection remains unconvincing when it comes up against the primacy of ensuring such glorious survivors of the past remain safe and accessible. However, the Rosetta Stone should at the very least be time-shared between Egypt and the British Museum. The fact that it is not slurs not only Egypt’s ability to be a guardian of its past, but provides a violently stark reminder that Brits of Empire were amongst the worst thieving bastards ever seen.

Henry Rollins Words of Wisdom

There are only three bits of advice on writing I have ever received that always hold at the coalface. When writing seems impossible, I clutch to the collective insight of Henry Rollins, Dave Sim and Andrew Collins. A more disparate and unlikely bunch to be labelled by the general populace as wise three men would be impossible to find. However, their words have got me through every textual crisis I have faced.

Today I have been musing on Henry Rollins words of wisdom. The world might know him as the most tattooed renaissance man in history, but foremost to me he radiates for having once said: “There’s only one thing that makes you as a writer. You have to write. It’s the only qualification.”

When I heard him say that, it cut through all the crap. Shifted me from angst, navel contemplation and procrastination into the modo fac mindset. If I wanted to be a writer, the first thing I had to do was actually write. Everything else was just a derivative of that essential act.

Several books later and Rollin’s words are still empowering truth. It does not matter how many people read you, it does matter whether or where you are published, all you have to be a writer is write. The principle also holds beyond the boundary of my literary life. Action defines. Modo fac.

1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die – Introduction

To celebrate the publication of 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die yesterday, below is an unedited draft of its introduction.

INTRODUCTION

‘To die would be an awfully big adventure’ – Peter Pan

In writing this book we have come to learn that death is arbitrary. Impersonal, uncaring and indifferent to any force you care to invoke for protection against it. Death can strike anyone at anytime. The thing most frightening is that while many of the deaths we chronicle occurred to ridiculous stupidity, an equal number of them happened due to ridiculously bad luck.

Accidents happen. Wrong time, wrong place. Nothing you can do to avoid it. When whatever archetypal figure of death you pull from your imagination comes calling – whether it is a classic grim reaper with scythe or a top hat-wearing Goth girl from the pages of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman – your number is up. In the end, the apparent arbitrariness of the universe is a lot scarier and harder to confront than the mystery of what happens to us when we die. However, you can almost understand why some cultures see death as the ultimate stalker when you read tales of people narrowly escaping one disaster only to be struck by another within seconds.

One strange thing about death we have noticed is what some people, including authors John Keel and Andrew Collins, have called the ‘Cosmic Joker’. At times it is almost possible to believe that there is some universal force which loves irony and playing with coincidence. What else can you do but laugh when you come across tales of an 18-year-old girl called Jennifer Squelch being crushed to by her horse or the high number of reports we came across of undertakers being killed by coffins.

Sometimes the moment of death is not ridiculous, but the bizarre path that leads up to it. While many would argue there are plenty of causes worth dying for, we doubt you would find anyone who would argue it was worth dying over a can of beer, burnt toast or the loudness of someone’s snoring. Yet as we have discovered, the fatal spirals that lead toward death start over the most ridiculous trivialities of life.

We have tried to ascertain the truth of every tale told here. At every turn we have tried to rule out friend of a friend stories, tried to exclude all manner of shaggy dog stories. On some of the most unbelievable we were surprised when our phone calls to the police and other authorities turned up the answer: “Yes, that really happened” or: “I did not see it, but my colleague was on that case.” Of course, for some entries the best we got was: “We have heard that happened, but I cannot personally verify it.” It will be certainly be interesting to try to explain to the taxman why we are claiming calls to everywhere from Dubbo to Uzbekistan, Henan Province to South Carolina on our expenses.

Almost every entry we have included could be tracked back to an original newspaper or broadcast media report. However, having both been newspaper news editors, we are well aware that not everything that gets reported is necessarily accurate. You would be surprised at just what a hard-pressed or lazy journalist will write and try to slip through a news desk. Some papers will unwittingly report urban legends as fact only for their faux story to be endlessly repeated in other publications by those too indolent to carry out even the most cursory of checks. However, if you are ever tempted to think that any death recorded here seems too preposterous just think back and remember that moment in January 2002, when George W. Bush, at the time the most powerful man on the planet, almost choked to death on a pretzel.

All death is a tragedy for someone. However, it seems to us that instead of retreating into the elements of our culture that see it as taboo subject or turn it in a complex dance of fetishes and mythology, laughing at its most ridiculous expressions is a healthier way to go. Of course, by saying that, we are now probably doomed to fall victims to the strange humour of the Cosmic Joker.

In our own lives, both of us have already faced moments when we could have exited the stage of life in manner ridiculous enough to gain an entry in this book. From falling into a bear pit to choking on a bit of carrot or getting death threats from members of the Albanian Mafiya, we have seen that death can lie just around the corner. The only sane response to this knowledge is to laugh, love and live as much as possible. As one of the entrants in this tome, Sherwood Anderson once wrote: 'Life Not Death is the Great Adventure.'

'First we Take Seoul, then we Take Ankara'

Today I received an email from the Kimizi Kedi Publishing House. They want to put out a Turkish edition of Global Gangland. This is of course incredibly flattering. Who does not want to be published in Turkey? My friend Andrew Collins is something of an established literary name in Turkey and I remember seeing the beautiful Turkish editions of his works.

However, given the rights situation with Global Gangland, I had to let Kimizi Kedi know that as much as I would be delighted to authorise them as my Turkish publisher, it was beyond my power to make happen. This is a shame. I would love to be able to say: 'First we take Seoul, then we take Ankara.'

It is becoming clearer that I need a new agent. Not just so I can say: 'Talk to my agent about it', but so I am always in the situation to say yes to offers I would relish taking up. The core elements of Global Gangland for me were being able to provide a voice to marginalized victims and to highlight how anti- libertarian laws and inequality create forces that impact on us all. Talking about how the biggest crime and injustice is tolerating systems that perpetuate poverty is worth saying in any language. To remove all barriers to me doing just that is why I need a new agent.

21-Pepper Rum in the Rain

For those of a hoodoo persuasion, it has been a wet night in the boneyard. Purple candles and 21-pepper rum in the rain. The saving grace is that you get a lot less Halloween cemetery tourists when it is pissing down. Of course, today is just part of the Season. The heart of the action is Fete Gede when there’s no trick or treat contingent to worry about.

It seems somehow fitting that we are coming up to the end of the year and beginning of the new within hoodoo. Exchanged the last emails and texts with AM today. Heartbreaking doesn’t even begin to cover it. Being Halloween and with her being an Irish lass, this was always a big day in the calendar. I have no idea how I’m going to get through Christmas, New Year, Valentines and the anniversary of our engagement/my birthday.

In between being a maudlin old bastard, I did get a small amount of work done. With Stephen Grasso’s help I have put together a flier for the book for QuestCon on Saturday. I’ve worked in the words of a certain CIA agent (‘We will seek redress if your course of action is publishing those details’), Andrew Collin’s ‘I don't believe he’s managed to get away with what he has’ and ‘Buy it!’ from The Observer.

Laughter today came from learning of the existence of a Christian song with the lyrics:

‘I like bananas, I know that mangoes are sweet
I like papayas (PAPAYAS!), but nothing can beat
The sweet love of God

You can search for the tropics to find a fruit that's new
You can swim in the ocean, until your face turns blue
But look no further, I'll tell you what to do
Just open your bible to Galatians 5:22’

Even if your world is disintegrating at 20,000 feet, how can those lines and the knowledge that someone thought the best metaphor for Christ’s love was that is was better than the taste of papayas, not bring at least a ghost of a smile to the lips?