The more astute among you will have noticed that the little boxy bit at the side of the page now contains a bunch of Shetland-related events. Well, Shetland-related in the sense that they actually take place on Shetland. Which is always the best place to do Shetland-related things, as it requires a lot less suspension of disbelief. It’d be pretty damn difficult to do a convincing amount of Shetland-related stuff in Barbados, for example. Unless you found a way to make the local seagulls fly sideways, followed by small children, dogs, and assorted sheep. Yeah, I know it’s a terrible…
Read moreThe Blog of Stuart MacBride
Standing on the brink…
OK, so not so much ‘standing’ as ‘sitting’, but ‘sitting on the brink’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? Yes, I know it’s been a while since I last updated this thing. So long that all the code is infested with spiders and fuzzy with dust, and the spam-posting-onanists have been merry decorating the electronic walls with their stinky urine and half-wit graffiti. Though to be fair, it must be hard to post advert-filled comments one handed. Bruising their knuckles on the underside of their desks… But I digress. Book Number The Seventh (or Book Number…
Read moreAvast, me hearties
No, it’s not September the 19th yet, but as the good folks at HarperCollins have just launched the good ship Dark Blood on an unsuspecting population, I fell a bit of ‘Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Jim Lad, I can’t takes me greyhound backs to Glasgow…’* was in order. So far (fingers crossed) it seems to be going down OK. Which is nice. Mind you, I haven’t checked that meeting place for the dispossessed and mentally squinky, Amazon, for hate reviews yet. So it’s entirely possible that I’m missing out on some great vitriol. When Blind Eye came out I found the crappiest review…
Read moreIt’s not just me, is it?
As a result of officially becoming an old fart last year – crossing the River Styx from the land of milk, honey, and boobies, into the cold wasteland of my forties* – we switched allegiance from Radio 2 to Radio 4. For years and years the alarm would go off at 06:45, just in time to hear Sarah Kennedy rambling her way, barely coherently, through the papers. And that was nice. We liked trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about, it leant a vague warm fuzziness to the start of the day. Then Terry Wogan retired,…
Read moreMartin Scorsese, eat my shorts (socks, or pants)
“What’s this?” I hear you ponder in the darkest recesses of your delicious brain*, Well, obviously I wouldn’t want him eating the underwear I’m wearing: that would just be a bit rude, wouldn’t it? Bad enough someone coming to visit the house and helping themselves to the biscuits… But, yes, anyway, the reason I make faux-mockery noises in Mr Scorsese’s direction is that I too am now an international film making guru man! Oh yes, you might laugh now, but while you sit there with Buckfast dribbling out of your nose, I’ve made my YouTube directorial debut: And I have…
Read moreKnox, Knox, Knox, OUT! OUT! OUT!
OK, so I have a wee confession to make: I was kinda bricking it a bit on Saturday. Thinking there was no way I’d get more than about a dozen people to film the angry crowd scene (and let’s face it, it’s not that easy to make twelve people look like an angry mob. Though they’d be perfect for a disgruntled bus queue) I got in touch with a nice man I know at the Evening Express. “Can you mention it?” says I.“Well … the paper’s pretty much designed for Friday, but I’ll see what I can do.” says he.…
Read moreFancy trying something new?
All those life coaches with their plastic hair and plastic tans and plastic teeth are always telling us we need to try new things in this life to avoid becoming boring slabs of deep-fried potato*, slowly oozing into our collective couches. Well, if you fancy expanding your cultural horizons I have a proposition for you: come to Aberdeen. Specifically, come to Aberdeen’s Victoria Park this Saturday the 13th of March for 14:00. And wear a woolly hat. Why? Bleedin’ ‘eck, isn’t it enough that I’ve asked you nicely? Didn’t think so. This year, for the first time, those naughty monkeys…
Read moreCompetitionistical
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, and the new book is being a little sticky this morning, so now seems like as good a time as any. Well, maybe not as good a time as, say, sitting on the grass in the height of summer with a bottle of fizzy wine and a groaning picnic basket*, waited on hand and foot** by a bevy of dusky maidens – that would be a pretty damn good time. Anyway, yeah, so: competitions. First up comes courtesy of those lovely people at Alibi, in conjunction with other lovely people…
Read moreCorrupting the nation’s children…
Well, it’s official, I am now a force for evil in the world. Much like Marmite, tie-dye tank-tops, my next door neighbour, and Belgium. It started out innocently enough, teasing nuns, breaking wind in elevators and not owning up to it (ala Sam Neill), running with scissors… But then I couldn’t stop. I needed bigger, and better, and more evil thrills! And so in the end, I settled on a plan to corrupt the youth of our once proud* nation. Seems straightforward enough, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not like the little sods aren’t already naturally inclined towards evil. And…
Read moreRaw nipple soup*
To be honest, I’d kinda forgotten what the outside world looked like. Having recently passed the Mother-In-Law of all deadlines, I was finally able to venture out of the house this week: hurrah! Or it would have been ‘hurrah’, if not for the bloody snow. I am fed up of snow and would now like it to bugger off wherever snow goes when it dies. In previous years I would’ve taken some time to build a vaguely obscene snowman (or woman) in the back garden, but this year I’ve been confined to the house with the aforementioned deadlineitis – staring…
Read more