Until It's Over by Nicci French

In and amongst the tidying and filing, I managed to read another crime novel this weekend, to keep myself sane. It was Until It's Over by the husband and wife writing team, Nicci French. The fact that I managed to read it so quickly is a testimony to its power as a page-turner, given that it was 377 pages long. I had got it in a nice big book club paperback edition from one of my local book discount shops for £2.50, so it was a real bargain.

Until It's Over is a psychological thriller that really does play games with your head. It makes you feel as if one of the main characters is going mad when murders mysteriously happen around her. Why and how are they happening that way? Is she really involved in the killing spree? Does she herself even know whether she is or isn't?

I found the book gripping and the ensemble cast of characters interesting. I'm not quite so sure that the second half worked as well as the first half - I can't go into any more detail without giving away the plot. However I did find the final chapter genuinely moving and, all in all, the book was a satisfying read.

Full Circle

The big clean up continues apace. I've done loads more filing today and the two drawers of the filing cabinet which belong to me are filling up nicely with green suspended files, each neatly labelled. It has been quite a novel experience today to come across piles of handouts and to think, 'Ah, yes, I've seen some like these - they're in the filing cabinet,' and to be able to reunite them instantly with their lost companions.

I've also discovered I have far more resources and handouts than I thought, especially for Modern Languages (as French is another of my specialities). I had obviously spent quite a lot of time surfing the net and printing out useful items. The one that surprised me most was a thirty-two page printout of French tongue twisters (virelangues), as I had no recollection at all of having found such a thing on the internet. I dare say they will come in useful some day. Here's one to whet your appetite:

L'assassin sur son sein sucait son sang sans cesse.

That translates roughly as 'The assassin on her breast sucked her blood without a rest.' A strange thing to say, but at least it will get you to move your lips.

I also found some stuff from my days on the Core Group (management committee) of Huddersfield Community Radio, a group which campaigned for Huddersfield to get a licence to have its own radio station. I had been very involved in it, and had devised and run training courses on interviewing and presenting as well as producing and presenting hundreds of shows in the Restricted Licence Broadcasts that we would run for a month at a time, twice a year.

One strange thing I found today was some feedback from a Listeners Panel on my presenting. At one stage those of us who already presented shows or who wanted to present were asked to submit a showtape. These were played to a selection of volunteers who gave us points for professionalism, clarity, radio voice and personality and made comments about our performance. What I found most surprising about my feedback was that someone had said I was 'Perhaps a little reminiscent of Hi-de-Hi's Gladys'. Someone else had written 'Makes me want to shout Hi-de-Hi!' Two Hi-de-Hi comments out of a sample of fifteen! Should I have been worried?

Fortunately, I wasn't traumatised for life by the Gladys comparison, although you might find a rather gaudy yellow blazer tucked away in the back of my wardrobe. I shall have to ask my students whether I remind them of Hi-de-Hi. Fortunately, many of them weren't even born when the show was on TV, so they won't know what the heck I'm talking about.

Strangely enough, this bout of Huddersfield Community Radio nostalgia took place just a day after Pennine FM has apparently gone bust. Pennine FM was Huddersfield's commercial radio station, a successor to Huddersfield FM, which got its licence through our campaigning. I haven't really had any dealings with the full time Huddersfield commercial radio stations, partly because when the licence was awarded, I had my hands full looking after my baby son, partly because I cared deeply about the community aspect and the speech content and had no wish to be involved in just another commercial station.

Still, I do feel sorry for the staff who have lost their jobs and for those members of the community who enjoyed listening to the station. It seems as if what we began all those years ago has now gone full circle. With or without Gladys at the microphone!

The Big Clean Up!

Yes, the big clean up has started today in the Barker household...

No, we haven't been victims of fire or flood (thank God!) although we did have a bit of a leak under the bath before we went away on holiday.

The big clean up is all about filing. Restoring order into a house which was being turned into chaos by thousands of bits of paper. Lesson plans, handouts, photocopies, magazine clippings, books...

Everyone has their own particular Achilles' Heel. Mine happens to be filing. I've hated filing for most of my life and done my best to ignore it.

I was exactly the same even when I was a student at Cambridge. Every day I'd come back from lectures and dump my notes in a pile in the corner of the room. They'd still be there at the end of term, only by then the pile would be huge and deranged - and I'd end up deranged trying to sort out which sheets of paper belonged together and which subject folder each set of notes ought to end up in.

Anyway, today I decided that enough was enough. Either I tackled the filing crisis or else there would be no room for any of us in the house. There would be absolutely no chance of me opening the door to visitors - though to be honest, any visitors might be hard-pressed to find us amid the piles of paperwork.

I must say that I've surprised myself by how well I've done. My half of the four-drawer filing cabinet no longer houses bank statements and car insurance documents from 1988. It now has folders full of handouts and writing and, what's more, everything is labelled!

There's still a lot to do, but the task doesn't seem so bad now that I've freed up some space to put things. I've already managed to clear the piano duet stool and I'm looking forward to seeing my dining room table again sometime soon.

Holiday Reading

Yes, I've been absent for another couple of weeks, this time because of the Easter holidays. I spent most of the school holidays in Dundee with my family and really enjoyed the chance to relax completely and forget about work and all the demands on our time and attention that we all experience in everyday life.

We deliberately avoided scheduling too many visits and appointments so that we would have time to just chill and have a complete change. It was bliss to be able to sit in cafes and read as long as we wanted. And there were plenty of bookshops to browse, so we were never short of reading material.

As usual, I'd taken a pile of books with me, just in case, but I discovered lots of books to buy while I was in Scotland. I find that when I'm in Scotland, I like to read books by Scottish authors. I may have books with me that are perfectly enjoyable, but if they are set in England, reading them would destroy the holiday mood and the feeling of being in a different country.

For example, before we set off on holiday, I had begun to read Stuart Maconcie's Pies and Prejudice: In search of the North, and I was really enjoying it. But somehow it seemed disloyal to read about the North of England while I was in Scotland, so that was abandoned. While browsing in Waterstones, I discovered some new books set in Scotland by some of my favourite authors, so I couldn't resist them, especially as they were on a 3 for 2 offer.

I began by reading Glasgow Kiss by Alex Gray. I had read one or two of her books a while ago and this, her latest offering, appealed to me for two reasons : it was a generously sized book club edition, rather than a tiny paperback, and it was set in a school in Glasgow. Some of the action was set in the centre of Glasgow, outside Borders Bookshop, an area which is one of my usual holiday haunts, so I particularly enjoyed being able to imagine the places which were mentioned.

I found the dialogue convincing and the plot compulsive reading - in fact, I had read all the 353 pages within 24 hours. I can heartily recommend the book to crime lovers. Alex Gray really makes us identify with her characters and shows how crimes can affect the lives, not just of the victims, but of other innocent people. In this her fifth book, she has really mastered crime writing and has set herself up as a serious contender in the genre.

The second book I read was Easy Kill by Linn Anderson. This was also set in Glasgow, in the Necropolis, the sprawling hillside graveyard which has been compared to Paris's Pere Lachaise Cemetery (where I had filmed many years ago with the BBC). I had spent some time exploring the Necropolis with my family on my last stay in Glasgow, which is probably just as well. After some of the gory things which happened in it in the novel, I'd have thought twice about venturing there, especially after dark!

Linn Anderson had caught my attention a few years ago when I bought her second novel, Torch. Like Torch, Easy Kill features the intrepid forensic scientist, Rhona MacLeod. It's a dark book, which pulls no punches. This is far from the Happy Ever After scenario you find in some crime writing - people are deeply affected by their experiences, and that goes for Rhona and her colleagues too.

What was the third book I bought in my 3 for 2 offer, then? It was by another Scottish crime writer, Val McDermid and it's her latest paperback, A Darker Domain. But after reading two crime novels back to back, I fancied a change, so I ended up reading a couple of non-fiction books - so if you want to know what the Val McDermid is like, you'll have to wait, or else read it yourself...

'There's Been a Murder...'

We've been having a crime spree in our adult education centres. Not a rash of graffiti and muggings, I hasten to add, but several weeks dedicated to the art of crime writing. And jolly good fun it's been too.

Of course, someone had to sow the seeds of violence and in this case it was the Huddersfield Literature Festival, organised by the lively and imaginative playwright and university lecturer, Michael Stewart. I had been meaning for some time to introduce my students to crime writing and as the Literature Festival had included in its schedule an evening performance on the subject, entitled Bloody Brits, this seemed like the perfect trigger.

After they'd spent weeks analysing crime novels and reading about post-mortems, murders and grisly discoveries, I decided that my students were now ready to unleash their violent tendencies and put their shady plans into action, so I announced that each of the three classes would have their own crime writing competition. The best two stories from each class would receive a prize - a crime novel.

I've already received the first lot of entries. The prospect of a prize has spurred most of the students into action, even though I gave them a very tight deadline. (Well, the cops don't get to choose when they dash out to look at a dead body, do they?)

Who will win? I haven't finished reading all the entries yet, so I don't know, but suffice it to say, there could be some surprises. It probably won't be a case of the prizes just going to the usual suspects.

I only hope it won't be my blood that's spilt when I have to announce the results...

Shamed by my Students!

Yes, that's right, I've been shamed by my creative writing students. It isn't as if they've done anything embarrasssing like putting a car on the roof of the Adult Education building or telling the powers-that-be that my whiteboard handwriting's a mess. No, they've been paragons of virtue - having things published, winning competitions, and even writing 100 words a day for an internet challenge.

That's what really got to me. Here are my students undertaking to write 100 words a day on the internet and how many words have I written for my blogs over the past few months? Have I been setting them a good example? Should I have 'Could Try Harder' on my termly report card?

It isn't as if I dislike writing my blog entries. In fact, I find them very relaxing and I get a real sense of achievement when I see them on the internet, especially if someone actually reads them and sends me a nice comment. I had got into rather a good routine of doing them late in the evening when I was chilled out after a day's work, and I found this rather a good way of winding down and putting the day to bed.

The trouble was, of course, that the day's work had started to end later and later. Was I going to sit down and write a blog when I finished my lesson preparation or my PGCE assignment at midnight?

Then there were all the other things that I ought to be doing every day as well, things which regularly jostled with the blog-writing in my mental time-table. Like getting some exercise. (Sadly, the MacAlpine Stadium, once my second home, is now but a distant memory as I haven't been to swimming or aquafit for months.) Or practising my clarinet and saxophone, especially now that I'm in a clarinet trio/quartet that actually plays in public from time to time. Or giving Reiki treatments to myself and my family, now that I've had my first attunement.

There are so many things I could feel guilty about not doing. But that would be a waste of the precious time that I do have. So I forgive myself for being human, being tired, not always being the most organised person in the world. I hope you will forgive me too.

And if you're still beating yourself up about something you haven't got round to doing, maybe you could try forgiving yourself too. Maybe if you do, instead of squandering your life on regrets, you'll release some vital energy to do something positive.

Namaste!

To Travel Safely is Better than to Arrive

Like many parts of the country, Huddersfield had snow this morning. Not that unusual, you may say, although for the past few years we've become more used to torrential rain in the winter rather than snow and ice.

You'd think by now we'd have mastered simple things like how to get our car out of the drive and onto the main road, but there was still a sense of danger as I struggled to drive my car down the hill out of my cul-de-sac in first gear, stopping every few yards, just to make sure I could.

When I eventually made it to the Springwood Car Park, a large long-stay car park at the top of a hill on the outer edge of the Ring Road, new hazards awaited me. For a start, the car park hadn't been gritted and so driving along looking for an empty slot became a perilous experience. Even driving extremely slowly and carefully, I was still skidding, much to the consternation of a group of students who were merrily walking down the middle of the car park, apparently unaware of just how much danger they were putting themselves in.

Trying to manoeuvre the car ninety degrees to position it in an empty slot was an act of faith in itself, but I made it. But new, unforeseen problems awaited me. I got my handbag out of the boot and was fastening my anorak, ready for my expedition to the ticket machine, when it suddenly dawned on me that my car appeared to be moving. I got back in, drove a little bit further forward and engaged first gear as well as using my handbrake, which seemed to do the trick.

There I was standing next to my car, making sure it was safe and stationary, when I felt something big and solid and heavy press against my bottom. It was the car next to mine, which was sliding backwards into me! Once I'd got myself out of its way, I studied it and it became apparent that this innocent-looking vehicle was on the run! Slowly, but surely, the driverless car was making its way out of the slot and down the hill. I stood by, aghast but helpless.

In the end, I decided my only option was to report it to the police, so I dialled 999 and reported it, giving them the registration number of the car and its location. Then I went off to college, hoping that when I returned to my car, I wouldn't be faced with a scene of carnage and twisted metal.

By lunchtime, when I revisited my car, the runaway had gone and the cars opposite it didn't have any visible dents, but the nifty little sports car on the other side was halfway out of its slot. But at least it didn't seem to be moving any further as by then the snow had thawed. Looking along the car park, I could see a zig-zag line of cars which had tried to make a break for it and were poking out of their slots. It was most bizarre and a phenomenon I had never come across before.

It just goes to show that when you think you've seen everything, there's still something new for you to see. And arriving safely at your destination isn't the only difficulty that you face when you're driving in wintry weather. Staying put is quite a challenge too!