CAL Scribe Fiction Prize 2011

Scribe Publications announced the winner of the 2011 CAL Scribe Fiction Prize last week. No luck for me this year. Maybe in 2012.

Winner
Lesley Jørgensen, ‘Cat & Fiddle’ (SA)

Runner-up
Sally Bothroyd, ‘A Cocoa Jackson Mystery’ (NT)

Highly commended
Courtney Collins, ‘The Burial’ (NSW)

Congratulations, Lesley, and best of luck with 'Cat & Fiddle' when it's published in early 2012.

Turning Tides?

A JP (Justice of the Peace) in Scotland resigned last week, so that she could take up the fight against knife crime. Seems she's as fed up as the rest of us at the namby-pamby sentences handed down by the courts.

Good on her, I say - not before time. I wonder how long it'll be before an Australian in the same position has the courage to take a similar stand.

Read the story here.

Shortlist for the HarperCollins Varuna Awards 2010

According to Varuna there were over 200 entries for the 2010 HarperCollins Varuna manuscript development award. The program provides five new or emerging writers each year with the experience of working closely with a senior in-house editor from HarperCollins Publishers to develop a book-length manuscript.

Fifteen shortlisted applicants will be awarded a discounted Writing Development Program with a member of the Varuna Creative Team.

Congratulations to all on the shortlist.

THE SHORTLIST FOR THE HARPER COLLINS AWARDS 2010

Sally Bothroyd: "A Coco Jackson Mystery"
Bill Collopy: "The Hope"
Katherine Delaney: "Miss Kitty's Ghost"
Tim Denoon: “Wilson Turner” (Fiction)
Kathleen Epelde: “The Weight of Love” (Memoir)
S J Finn: “Moral Inconvenience” (Fiction)
Lisa Foley: “Doing Something Marvellous” (Young Adult Fiction)
Peter Fraser: “Through the Heads” (Fiction)
Susanna Freymark: “Sex, love and losing February” (Fiction)
Anne Hedigan: "Psychomachia"
Heather Taylor Johnson: "Pursuing Love and Death"
Wendy Joyce: "Rue du Calvaire"
Jayne Kader: “Mrs Morris for Beginners”
David Kelly: “State of Origin” (Memoir)
Simon Luckhurst: “A Lonely Business” (Biography)
Dave Olsen: "Contagion"
Helena Pastor: “Iron Men” (Memoir)
John Pitt: “Dirty Money” (Fiction)
Robert Szostakiewicz: “The Pendulum” (Memoir)
Greg Woodland: “Pangs” (Fiction)

The five winners will be announced 28 February 2011.

A Thousand Cuts

Each cut that's announced by Government may seem like a small cut, but a thousand of them will kill the nation eventually.

Recent research by the UK's Labour Party suggests that as many as 10,190 front-line police officers will see their jobs disappear by the end of 2012.

This may sound like political scare-mongering by a disaffected opposition, but some forces have already announced plans to massively reduce staffing levels and, taken in the context of the government's public commitment to cut police budgets by up to 20% by 2014, it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

A reduction of over 10,000 officers will, without doubt, lead to a far less effective police service. The people of the UK can expect call response times to increase, detection rates to fall, and the general disincentive presented to criminals by the presence of police officers on the beat to diminish.

Every employer has a duty of care to its employees, and a police officer's employer is no exception. Yet, police officers' lives will be put at risk by these cuts, because any reduction in police numbers will inevitably lead to more incidents being approached by officers acting alone. (The obvious dangers aside, other issues associated with single-officer patrols include lack of corroboration / proof, which leads to a fall in detection / conviction rates, which leads to a fall in morale. None of that seems to matter to most politicians, however.)

Not only will those problems manifest themselves in double quick time, but the UK's national security will be placed at risk - or does the government expect each police authority to maintain the current level of specialist police teams? I think that would be an unrealistic expectation.

Policing minister, Nick Herbert, says it's the effectiveness of individual officers that matters, more than simple numbers.

And I say: there speaks a man who has never policed a picket line, or a student demo, or a city's streets at pub closing time.

By his argument, it matters not how many politicians the UK squanders its hard-earned money upon. What matters is the effectiveness of each politician.

Let me repeat that: It is not the number of MPs that matters, it's what they can achieve with less resources, and for less reward, that counts.

Not surprisingly, there hasn't been one word spoken by Mr Herbert's cronies in government about reducing the burden placed upon the UK taxpayer by that tarted up doss-house we call 'Westminster'.

But here's the rub: I (and I'd bet I'm not alone) would rather see an immediate reduction in the number of MPs - let's start at, say, 50% - than see the number of UK police officers reduced by even one. I'd rather see each MP take on double the work, than see even one library close its doors to the reading public.

The money saved could be spent on maintaining the level of service our cops can provide for us, and keeping our libraries staffed and stocked, and on keeping a five-day school week in North Ayrshire, and in every other council area that's been forced through under-funding to contemplate that unthinkable option of reducing the school week to only four days.

Let's not allow our children - the lifeblood of our great nation - to suffer a lack of education. Let's cut the money that funds Westminster instead, and see how many fat rats jump from the ship.

Brogan's Crossing Reviewed

Maine-based writer Karen Bessey Pease has posted a review of my crime thriller Brogan's Crossing on her blog. I'm tickled pink that Karen, a respected American writer, holds my novel in such high regard. It's the stuff that keeps us writers writing.

Thank you, Karen.

I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago that Brogan's Crossing is on the longlist for this year's CAL Scribe fiction prize. I can't over-emphasise how happy I am to be in the running. It means that my work is being read by three of Australia's most highly-regarded industry professionals: Aviva Tuffield, Fiction Acquisitions Editor at Scribe Publications; Blanche Clark, Books Editor at the Herald Sun newspaper; and Mark Rubbo, CEO of Readings bookstores in Melbourne.


I'll keep you posted on whose work goes through to the shortlist as soon as I find out.

A Tragedy Down Under

My name is Kazza and today, I am posting on Jack Ramsay’s blog. Jack and his family are at the epicenter of the devastating floods in Queensland. What follows is a posting I made to my own blog a couple of days ago. Jack and Ali--and those many others who have been or are in harm’s way--are in my heart and on my mind.
***************************

I have many dear friends in Australia.

Pete and Naomi, Ali g and KK, and Dozy in New South Wales.

Crookedpaw in Victoria.

Jack and Ali and Larry in Queensland.

Of these, Larry is the only Aussie friend I have actually laid eyes on—the only one I have hugged and kissed, poked and prodded, eaten and drank with. Napped nearby, cut grass with (well, I cut--and he directed the operation) gotten lost on a dirt road with. Larry bought me lunch, I bought him supper. Larry cooked for me, I washed dishes for him. I built a big bonfire and went swimming in the moonlight, while he crabbed at me for doing something so foolish. Larry brought me jewelry from Laos and gave me his Drizabone coat. I handled his car rental, gave him a place to stay for a month, and put two bullets through his cell phone for him.

But even though I have never held the hands of my other Aussie friends, or leaned against them while laughing, or shared a timid bite of Vegemite, that does not mean that I love them any less. I have been incredibly blessed. These far-away friends have enriched my life more than I ever thought possible.

That’s why I am worried, tonight.

Australia, and especially Queensland, is experiencing a terrible tragedy. Flooding there is the worst on record. This land which was recently experiencing a terrible drought is now inundated with water. The rain won’t stop. The ground is saturated. The rivers are over-flowing and the dams are taxed. I am watching and listening. This girl who shuns the television can’t seem to keep away from it.


I am very, very worried. And I’m ten thousand miles away.

I can’t hug, or hold, or poke or prod. I can’t give them a place to stay, if they need one, or rent them a car to get to high ground. I can’t share Vegemite with them or build them a fire to help them dry out and get warm. I’m helpless. And I don’t like the feeling, at all.

My heart goes out to all those thousands of Aussies who are affected by this terrible event. And my thoughts are prayers are with my wonderful friends who at the epicenter of the Australian flood.

God Bless you. And please… be safe. Please.

Friends in Dry Places

It's at times like this I'm glad I have friends. I wanted to blog about writing today, but the weather's had its say and I have more pressing (and far less pleasant) tasks to see to.

Instead, I thought I'd link back to a review of an excellent novel written by a good friend of mine, Corinne Van Houten.

Though Corinne lives on the west coast of America and I'm here in soggy Queensland (the "sunshine state"... pah!) in Australia, we met on that oft-decried website for writers, authonomy, and we've found many things we share in common - not least of which is a desire and willingness to improve our writing.

So, thanks to Corinne's great novel, I have a blog post today. Thank you, Corinne :)

The Picnic's Off

Such a disappointment for a man with an esky full of beer and sausages. Never mind - could be worse. I'm counting myself lucky, in fact, and my thoughts go out to everyone affected by Queensland's devastating floods, but especially to my cousins in Rockhampton.

Good luck, and God bless.

Photo: Kookaburra Park, inundated by the Brisbane river, new year's eve, 2010.

Cuts, Slashings and Charitable Donations

It’s been a depressing week. Not that I don’t enjoy Christmas; I most certainly do. But this extra time off affords me the chance to catch up on news-worthy events around the globe.

I read on the BBC website the other day that the Indian space program (sorry, I’m a Brit... do you mind if I spell it programme?) suffered a set-back when their latest launch resulted in an in-flight explosion. In just a few seconds, an expensive rocket and satellite system checked out in a cloud of smoke off the Indian east coast near Chennai.

Ah, well. These things are sent to try us, no? If there’s one thing I know about the Indians it’s that their strength of character will see them prevail.

Another depressing story concerned the imminent funding cuts to the NHS budget in England. Cuts, indeed. Perverted, callous, merciless slashings, more accurately describes what’s going on.

20 billion pounds worth of ‘savings’ must be made over the next four years, according to the UK Treasury. It’s rhetoric such as this which leads me to believe that the word ‘compassion’ has been banished from Westminster.

Research -- statistics, dare I say? -- has proven that the higher the nurse:patient ratio, the greater the patient recovery rate. Up to 26% more patients make successful recoveries in hospitals where staffing levels are higher. If, as the Royal College of Nursing fears, these looming cuts lead to a staffing reduction of up to 27,000 posts, it is nothing more than common sense to predict that lives will be lost in Britain as a result of cutting the NHS budget.

Let me be clear: British lives will be lost thanks to the UK government’s abominable decision to cut the NHS budget. Add in the imminent cuts to the budgets for policing, ambulance cover, roads maintenance and social services (to name but a few), and the outlook is grim for the people of the UK over the next decade or longer.

I also read, with some dismay I might add, about the UK government’s decision to cease funding of the Booktrust scheme. The Booktrust scheme provides free books to children in England, with the intention of fostering a love of reading from an early age.

From April 2011, the charity will lose 13 million pounds of funding, and there can be no doubt that this decision will, in the short term, adversely affect the quality of life of British children. In the longer term, of course, the damage caused by the UK government’s Scrooge-like mentality towards its own citizens is immeasurable.

I admit to having a vested interest in people reading (and buying) books: I’m a writer; why would I not care about issues regarding literacy? Notwithstanding that, I think it’s nothing more than common sense to say that if we, as a society, allow our next generations to turn exclusively to some other medium for education or entertainment, we’ll be giving ourselves a kick in the pants down the slippery slope to illiteracy. And a society that is illiterate can never stand on its own two feet, let alone help out its friends in their time of need.

Now, that brings me to the notion of ‘standing on your own two feet’. It’s quite an apt turn of phrase, given the content of this post, and my other posts related to spending cuts.

Another article I had time to read this holiday period focused on one of the few budget increases announced in the last few months: UK foreign aid.

I’m no expert on the ins and outs of spending UK tax-payers’ money on funding development projects in far-flung corners of the globe. Please read that sentence again.

But I cannot let it pass without comment that, when a perilous situation is developing in its own back yard, the UK government remains committed to an INCREASE in its spending in foreign countries.

George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, announced on 20 October 2010 that the UK’s overseas development assistance (ODA) budget will increase in 2011 to 0.56% of the UK’s Gross National Income (GNI). By 2014, it will increase to 0.7% of GNI, as the Conservative party promised prior to this year’s general election.

Fair enough, the original decision was made by the out-going Labour chancellor, but to refuse to cut this budget is an idiotic decision made by an idiotic government. This is one spending spree that must be curtailed until such times as the people of the UK are more able to afford such luxuries.

Part of this increased ODA budget is destined for India, a country which recently announced plans to spend 124 billion rupees on a manned space mission by 2016 (BBC website, 27 Jan 2010). They’ve already set up a fully-fledged (and expensive, no doubt) spaceflight training facility in Bangalore, and in 2009 launched an unmanned space mission as a prelude to manned flights. Mars is also a target of the Indian space programme, by 2030 apparently.

A document obtained from the House of Commons library (Standard Note SN/EP/5578) reveals that the total of UK aid to India in 2008 was 29% of all worldwide aid received by that country, or about 613 million USD.

In 2009, India boasted the world’s 11th largest economy. They’re a nuclear-equipped power, with missiles (tested recently off the coast of Orissa (Odisha) province) that are capable of hitting targets in Asia and much of the middle east. In 2007, India’s TATA motor company bought that most British of icons, Landrover.

You know, a friend of mine back in Scotland slipped on ice and broke her hip last week. Her local council couldn’t afford the salt that would have made the pavements less slippy. Budget cuts, you see. And what with those NHS cuts, and the cuts to social services, things look grim for the poor old biddy’s recovery. But, enough digression...

It’s not just India the British government is ‘helping out’. Take the Chinese, for example - another world nuclear power. Although UK aid to China (sorry, that phrase still flabbergasts me when I see it in writing) is due to end next year, in 2011 the UK will still send them a bundle of cash from the British taxpayer.

The Chinese economy is bigger than the UK's. There are 128 Chinese billionaires. Only America has more. Care to guess which country has the third highest number of billionaires?

Yup. India. Britain lags way behind with 29, compared to India's 69.

Worldwide, there are 90 countries which currently receive aid from the UK taxpayer. While I don’t advocate a complete stop to UK support for these countries, I do want to see cuts to this budget, commensurate with the level of cuts being forced upon the UK’s local councils and government-funded bodies (the NHS, arts, universities, etc).

I see it as crass arrogance that Mr Cameron expects the people of the UK to bear the brunt of these ‘bad times’ while accepting the same level of spending on foreign aid. If it were the same level, that would be bad enough. But to tell us you’re increasing the sum, Mr Cameron, is to kick us in the guts when we’re down.

You’ll be glad to hear I’m coming to the end of my rant. I’ve no doubt many who read this will decry me for being selfish, for having no compassion, or for being a short-sighted racist.

Feel free to think what you want of me - I admit to being myopic. But I am not selfish; neither am I a racist (two of my closest friends are Indian); neither am I short of compassion for my fellows when they are in need.

It is precisely because of my compassion, in fact, that I urge David Cameron and his government to remember the old proverb: charity begins at home.

Do not allow the UK to become the sort of place where justice no longer matters.

Do not allow the UK to degenerate into such a state that we cannot afford to provide even the most basic of social services to people who have paid good money to receive those services.

And do not allow the UK to fester into the sort of place where our children do not know how to read. If you do, very soon the British people will be so illiterate and uneducated that we will not be able to look after ourselves, let alone help out a friend in need.

Reverse these cuts by cutting the UK's foreign aid budget. Do it now, Mr Cameron, before it’s too late and you’re remembered as the man who ruined Britain.

Statistics

The trouble with statistics is that they’re easily skewed and seldom reveal a complete picture.

For example, government statistics reported in the Scottish press today reveal a significant fall in the country’s homicide rate - down 20% on last year - to levels not seen since 1979.

Knife crime, the ugly smudge on Scotland’s copybook, is also down, with homicides involving a ‘sharp instrument’ accounting for 35 of the nation’s 78 homicides last year.

This is excellent news: Scotland now ranks alongside Bulgaria and Romania on the European ‘homicides per head of population’ league table.

The Scottish government was quick to pat itself on the back. Justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, said the success was thanks to the government’s drive to put a thousand extra Scottish police officers on the beat since 2007.

While I agree with the commitment to provide more cops at street level, I dispute Mr MacAskill’s assertion that homicide rates are falling because of his government’s commitment to fighting crime.

Common sense dictates that the gradual reduction in homicide rates over, say, the last hundred years is as much to do with advances made in medicine during the corresponding period. We’ve become much more competent at repairing stab wounds; it’s not necessarily the case that we’re less violent towards one another.

When collating the number of assaults involving knives and ‘sharp instruments’, is the degree of surgery the victim needs recorded? Surely that’s a significant factor in determining whether someone lives or becomes another homicide stat, but I doubt it’s being recorded or analysed.

In my opinion, it's our doctors, paramedics, nurses and surgeons who deserve our thanks, not some spineless politician.

A run of bad luck in theatre - or idiotic funding cuts to the NHS budget - and those homicide rates can skyrocket.

Government statistics? I seldom believe them. They’re too easily manipulated and only slightly more trustworthy than the average politician.

Libraries, Funding Cuts and Diabolical Politicians

Many of you have read my previous posts regarding the disastrous cuts being made to Britain's police forces, prisons and education budgets.

I read Nicola Morgan's post on the proposed cuts to library services today, and it turns my stomach to think of Britain degenerating to such an extent.

If you value your local library, use it. Use it to write to the UK government, expressing your outrage that these so-called leaders are taking us back to the dark ages.

The Patience of a Writer

I'm sure that'll replace the original, at some point in the future.

Patience is a virtue, some say. It's also an absolute 'must have' for a writer.

And so is persistence.

I remember when I was just starting out - I thought, quite honestly, that it'd take me a few months to establish myself.

What a loon! A few months??

I found out the hard way that writers need patience. It takes years, decades even, to establish a niche, a market, a presence - call it anything you like. But it doesn’t come easily. And so many good writers give up far too soon.

That's why I admire guys like Peter Watt. He plugs away for hours on end, day in, day out, to meet publisher deadlines and self-set goals. He achieves his objectives, and his hard work pays off. Just last month he released a new instalment of his Duffy and Macintosh saga. If it’s even half as good as the previous novels in the series, it’ll be a cracker of a read. My copy's sitting on my lampstand, waiting patiently to be read. (See how he puts so much of himself into his work?)

And I can’t imagine anything more satisfying than having someone read my stories, interact with the characters I’ve created, or gaze about (in their minds, of course!) at the settings I’ve crafted - and the best way to achieve that goal is to be patient and persistent.

I know it’s easy to become despondent in this business. A few weeks ago I emailed an agent I’d queried with a cover and partial a few months ago. They’d come back quite quickly, asking to see the full ms, and I sent it the same day. Months passed with no word, so I to sent them a polite ‘ahem’ asking if they’d received my full submission. Yes they had, was the speedy reply - but it had been filed in the wrong place.

Am I annoyed?

Hell, no.

I know some people who’d be livid, but I understand these things happen. We’re all human. And, I swear, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve lost a file, I’d be writing this blog from the study of my gleaming white yacht in the Whitsundays.

Do I still want that agent to represent me? Of course I do - one wee mistake doesn't change the fact that this agency ticks all the right boxes as far as maximising my manuscript's potential is concerned.

But it does lead me back to the ‘patience & persistence’ thing.

So, don’t be put off by having to wait - few things happen quickly in publishing.

Don’t stop querying - you only have to get your work in front of the right reader once.

And don’t stop entering competitions.

Yes, that last one will keep me paddling along for a while :)

There's pink, and then there's PINK!

Okay, so no one should laugh when they’re watching a report about homes being resumed. I get that. But is the Aussie sense of humour really on its last legs?

I was watching Nine News the other night and there’s this item about the Queensland State government’s plan to ‘resume’ - compulsory purchase, the Brits call it - about 60 properties in the Yeerongpilly area of southern Brisbane, to make way for a new railway station.

The camera zoomed in close on a few poor unfortunates who’ll be worst affected (I’ve come to expect that when my heart strings are being tweaked for me), such as the hair-dresser who’s worked hard to build up her clientele in the area, and a property developer with a half-built apartment complex who doesn’t know if he’s Martin or Martha any more. I could feel the emotion.

But I kinda lost it when the mature (for want of a better phrase) lady resident blasted onto my screen. Don’t get me wrong – I feel for her, too. Honestly, I do. She’s just finished refurbishing her home and this announcement couldn’t come at a worse time for her.

But she’s wearing her hair bright pink, almost in a punky ‘what-the-hell-are-you-lookin-at?’ style. It goes with her bright pink top, though, and her bright pink lippy.

‘She likes her pinks bright,’ I say to myself.

And there’s nothing wrong in that – she can wear anything she likes, and adopt any look she wants.

Here’s what killed the interview for me, though. The reporter asked her what she thought of the government’s announcement. And she said...

‘It’s shocking.’

But nobody else laughed. Absolutely no one. Not the cameraman. Not the reporter. Not the couple of anchors back in the news room. Not even the weatherman.

Now, I feel for these poor Yeerongpillyites, I really do. But, come on. There’s more than enough bad stuff going on in this ugly big world that’ll depress us. I reckon we should all take every opportunity God sends us to have a good going belly laugh.

Unless you work for Nine News, of course. Very professional.

Not even a smirk.

Recipe for Disaster

Today, the Down Under Dunder focuses on the cuts to public spending that are about to ravage the UK, in particular the proposed cuts to police funding.

The last reports I read from a my favourite UK news web sites said that 40,000 front-line police jobs (that’s actual cops on the beat) are to be lost in the UK over the next four years.

Forces across the country are faced with having to make cuts of up to 25% of their annual budgets. Inevitably, that will result in cuts to actual numbers of on-patrol police officers, as well as police equipment and civilian staff. In other words, the service that each force area provides to the tax-payer is destined to diminish.

Strathclyde Police already have a recruitment freeze in operation. That means each cop who retires or is killed in the line of duty isn’t replaced, resulting in a net reduction in the number of officers available to do the job we demand of them: protecting our lives and property, preventing crime and, where crime has been committed, detecting offenders. Every other police force in Scotland is already doing likewise, or is about to.

As it stands, pitifully few crimes committed in Scotland are detected; roughly 49% of all reported crimes are solved, according to Scottish government figures released on 7 Sept 2010. Any less and ‘...we may as well just put the lights out and walk away...’ to quote Perth Sheriff Lindsay Foulis, the Scottish equivalent of an Australian magistrate. (In fact, Sheriff Foulis was decrying the automatic early release of prisoners, but automatic early release and poor detection rates are issues which are closely related; both can trace their roots directly to the biggest problem facing the Scottish criminal justice system today: under-funding.)

All manner of police services and initiatives will also suffer.

Community policing, for example. Fewer cops on the beat will mean each ‘bobbie’ has less time to foster good community relations and build the respect that a community must have in its officers.

Requests for information under ‘freedom of information’ legislation will go unanswered, because there won’t be enough civilian staff to attend to those requests.

Crime prevention initiatives will fall by the wayside, abandoned as ‘non-essential’.

Inter-force investigations (of alleged police misconduct or incompetence, for example) will be compromised.

Hey, Amnesty International, are you watching that one?

You name it, it’ll be cut.

Fewer firearms officers, yet more criminals turning to guns, since the deterrent of being caught and convicted is diminished.

Fewer police helicopters, yet more criminals prepared to endanger the public as they careen along our streets at idiotic speeds in the hope of evading justice.

Fewer police dogs, yet more criminals encouraged to violate the sanctity of a stranger’s home and sneak off under cover of darkness.

Bad enough. But the real problem, as I see it, is the dystopia that must surely fester in such a sour melting pot of injustice. I see the UK turning into a nation of vigilantes – victims of crime, their families and friends, who let nothing stop them from exercising their God-given right to justice. Worse, any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to throw his weight around will jump on the vigilante bandwagon faster than you can say ‘Nice bullets, Mr Kersey’.

Kangaroo courts; no right to a fair trial; punishments that grossly outweigh the severity of the crime committed; no right of appeal.

Defence solicitors should also be concerned by these cuts – where will their bread-and-butter business come from if the detection rate plummets?

It isn’t a pretty picture. In fact, we’re witnessing a disaster in the making.

When the crime rate spirals because our courts can’t cope (surprise, surprise, court funding is also under review), and when violent criminals who should be locked up wander freely among us because there’s no room to incarcerate the fewer and fewer who are convicted (prison budgets...care to guess?), the public will take only so much before they fight back against those who would steal their freedoms.

I don’t think it’s a question of ‘if’; more a question of ‘when’. And as soon as a community heads down the path to vigilantism, that community is ruined for all time.

These cuts will permanently scar the face of British society. They’ll turn a once-beautiful part of the world ugly.

It doesn’t have to be so, but it’ll take a far stronger government than the one we have now to steer Britain away from the brink of ruin.

One positive will come from these budget cuts, as far as the Tory / Lib. Dem. UK government is concerned: the reported crime rate will fall.

Of course it will; it’s inevitable. The ‘reported’ crime rate (not to be confused with the ‘actual’ crime rate) will fall because, in the not-too-distant future, days or even weeks will pass before some over-worked, under-valued, demoralised and ill-equipped plod turns up to log your crime report; and there’ll be little or no chance of tracing, let alone convicting, the perpetrator of that crime. The public won’t bother calling the cops to report ‘petty’ crime, and the reported crime rate will fall.

[Aside: what is ‘petty’ crime? Is it when some splendid example of adolescence and his trusty screwdriver cause thousands of pounds of damage to the side of my car? Or is it when someone less fortunate than me breaks into my home and shits on every photograph I have of my dear departed mother. I’m curious to know what the government’s spin merchants define as ‘petty’.]

Three years from now, if indeed it takes that long, the UK government will quote this drop in reported crime figures and laud its achievements in delivering tough policies on criminal justice while still reining in the costs of policing the nation. They’ll ask for another term in government and promise us better times ahead.

And the Mad Hatter will be nothing short of delighted, because everything will be what it isn’t. Finally.

He’d be delighted now, in fact, since I’ve come to the end and stopped.

Lockerbie

There’s been a heck of a lot of press coverage about the release last year from a Scottish prison of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, “the Lockerbie Bomber”. And quite rightly so. It seems everybody has an informed opinion, one way or the other, on the wisdom of setting this convicted murderer free, and it’s comforting to know there are still some people out there who are capable of rational argument.

I’ve held off passing comment because I’m living in Australia these days, and my feeling up till now has been that what goes on in Scotland doesn’t really affect me. But I’ve come to realise that’s a misguided philosophy since I will inevitably return there one day, to live or to die, and because I still speak with a brogue that identifies me as Scottish wherever I go, despite the Australian bushman’s hat sitting atop my head.

So, friends, I want to use this blog to make my position clear for all time: I believe it was fundamentally wrong to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi before he paid full price for his crime. In fact, I believe it's fundamentally wrong to release any convicted criminal before he or she completes the full sentence handed down by the trial court judge.

And, just so you know, it irks me when people – complete strangers, mostly – decry me, as a Scot, for the additional pain the Scottish government has caused the families of the victims of the Lockerbie atrocity.

I was sitting in front of the fire at home that cold night in Scotland in December, 1988, enjoying a beer with some friends. It was a quiet Wednesday evening in Perth, and we’d just begun our Christmas holidays. We were watching a video – can’t remember what was on it – but when it finished the TV brought us back to the real world with news coverage of the carnage that had rained down on Lockerbie, a relatively peaceful village in the Scottish borders.

The pictures we saw were horrendous. Flames. Twisted metal. Demolished houses. Papers and possessions scattered in the now infamous crater. I was a cop at the time, and I know from bitter experience of house fires and vehicle collisions – small bones by comparison – that the rescue crews and police officers on the ground will have witnessed something unspeakable that night, and for many days and nights afterwards.

The enormity of al-Megrahi’s crime must never be understated. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s victims were human beings. Most were ordinary people, just like you and me, making the long journey home to be with their loved ones at Christmas, a sacred time of year for us Christians. But that didn’t matter to al-Megrahi. He had his agenda, and that was what was important to him.

That man denied his involvement. Even after an impartial court convicted him, he appealed his conviction, rubbing salt into the wounds he inflicted on the families of his victims yet again.

He has shown no remorse. He’s shown no empathy for those upon whom he heaped indescribable suffering. He should have died in prison, cancer or no.

Yet, the Scottish government saw fit – apparently without consultation with the families of the victims of the bombing (or with anyone else for that matter) – to ‘show compassion’ and release him from prison. And they cite a medical report from some source that now refuses to even explain itself to the people who most need to know how and why this decision was reached: the families who lost their loved ones at the hands of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

You may have guessed that I have a passionate viewpoint on the subject of crime and punishment. I admit right here and in public that I’m a hardliner – commit a crime and you’ll pay the full price for it. No remission or time off for good behaviour. No access to TV. No access to telephones. One meal a day. If you’re sentenced to 30 years, you’ll serve 30 years and break rocks while you do it.

Yeah, I know – I’m an animal.

Or am I?

Inspired by what I see as the inadequacies of most modern-day criminal justice systems, I wrote a novel speculating on how close the public is to revolt over the matters of crime and punishment – that was long before Scotland’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill gaily pranced to front and centre of the world stage and showed up the Scottish criminal justice system as the pussycat it really is.

But here’s the rub: if you read just about any newspaper in Australia or Scotland (my points of reference) you won’t have to search too hard to find an article somewhere exposing the softly-softly approach to modern ‘justice’. And if you read the online editions in particular, the chances are you’ll come across a readers’ comments section – what the public have to say about the level of punishment handed down in our courts.

The comments can get quite alarming at times, even for me, but the gist of what the public has to say is this: the vast majority of us want stiffer sentences; we want prison to be a horrible place, not a holiday camp, such that it serves as a genuine deterrent; but most of all, we want to feel safe to walk the streets.

Rapists often serve two years when they should (in my opinion) be locked up for life – hard labour, no remission.

Child molesters are smacked on the wrist and told to stay away from kids. (Here’s a rhetorical question: how many kids’ lives does a child molester have to ruin before he’s (or she’s) considered a threat to society?)

A murderer generally goes to prison for a lot less time than someone who steals $10 million from a bank – assuming the prosecution decides to pursue the charge of murder, and isn't enticed to settle on the easy option of accepting a guilty plea to culpable homicide.

Is that justice? Real justice? If you answered ‘yes’, come the hell on! Have you asked the victims of crime what they think? Have you asked their families?

So here’s my recommendation to Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond: stand up and be men about what you’ve done. You made an appalling decision. Sure, you have no legal obligation to travel to America to justify your actions; but your obligation to the families of al-Megrahi's victims goes far deeper than legality – it reaches into the very heart of this thing we call 'morality'.

Get yourselves over to America, meet with Senator Menendez and his colleagues, and with the families of every victim of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi if they want to meet you, and look them in the eye. Tell them why you did the unthinkable. Show them your reports. Justify yourselves. Prove that you have just as much compassion for them as you do for this convicted murderer.

Then, when you genuinely understand their hurt, their anger and their despair at what you’ve done, apologise to them, and to the people of Scotland for the embarrassment you’ve cause us, and resign from the Scottish government.

One Thing Australian...

All things Scottish, all things Australian, and all things literary… that’s what DUD is all about. That’s what Jack is (mostly) all about. And this is Jack’s blog, so that is as it should be.

However, once in awhile, Mr. Ramsay lets me pop Down Under to play on DUD. But I hesitate, sometimes. After all, I’m neither Australian nor Scottish. And, while I AM a writer, I’m not sure just how ‘literary’ I am. For sure, I know I’m not in Jack’s league when it comes to literarability.

However, I do have an Aussie connection. I have several good Australian friends, and I am going to have the pleasure of meeting one of them very soon. Larry arrives in Maine on Sunday night, and I will be picking him up at the airport. How exciting!

I am SCARED TO DEATH!

What if he doesn’t like me? What if I am far, far less impressive in person than I am online? After all, how much trouble can I get into when all I have are my words to make an impression? But once Larry meets me in person, he gets to see and experience the full deal. The real McCoy. Me, live and in color. Holy smokes.

This could be bad.

I once sneezed a pea out through my nose while dining in a restaurant.

I walked though the supermarket with a mashed and melted chocolate Rollo stuck to my butt.

I drove through town with a live chicken stuck in the grill of my car.

I drove through the same village with my groceries on the roof of my truck.

A customer introduced himself to me as Mr. Derbogosian, and I responded, “God Bless You!” (No peas were forthcoming, thank heavens…)

I bragged about getting a good deal on a piece of property by saying “I jewed them down to $25,000.00.” The man I was speaking to was named Steinberg. (Someone should shoot me and put me out of my misery.)

I got nervous when meeting a politician, so I licked my hand and slicked down his rooster-tail. (I feel a migraine coming on…)

I even broke wind in church (but made a remarkable save by scowling at the old man sitting one row behind me. It was a spectacular ploy, and the poor gent even apologized for it, afterwards. [I'm going to Hell, aren't I?])

And all that… well. That was just last week.

With luck, my Aussie friend Larry will be a big buffoon. He’ll lack grace, finesse and style, and he’ll be homlier than a stump fence, too. If that is the case—if he’s kinda like me—then we will have the time of our lives.

But if he’s cool, and suave, and polished… I think I’m doomed.

When he comes home-- when he flies the 10,000 miles back to Brisbane and Russell Island-- I hope you’ll not give his stories too much credence. If he’s as awesome as I think he is, my plan is to keep him drunk for the four weeks that he’s here.

And really… you can’t believe a single thing a drunk Aussie says, now, can you?

Grammar Pet Hates (a.k.a. Boy Him Card Read Good)

Warning: this is a rant. Look away if you're not in the mood for rantings :-)

Clarity. That’s all writing’s about. Well, okay - not all. But, without clarity in what we’re saying to people, there will never be complete understanding between human beings. That’s an important point to remember about why we need grammar; why grammar’s important to get right.

As a writer, I tend to pay particular attention to the structure, grammar and punctuation of anything I read – there’s an incorrigible editor locked away inside me, I suppose – and when I come across one of my pet hate grammar mistakes, I almost always throw a Trussie and correct the mistake with a big black permanent marker pen. What can I say – I’m human and some things just get under my skin. And just like everyone else, there’s one thing in particular that sets me a-fizz.

I was catching a train the other week, and right on the wall three feet from my face, surrounded by some Troglodyte’s best graffiti ‘art’, was something that that Trog would have sprayed over if he’d known it was stealing his thunder. I don’t want to risk infringing on some advertising exec’s copyright, so I won’t reproduce the error here, but here’s another very similar example from a well-known UK TV cookery show:

Whoever wins, it’ll change their life forever.

It’s on pay TV. It’s played right at the start of every show. It must be right, right?

Wrong.

What’s the problem? Bad grammar. The sentence has an agreement issue. It starts off singular (whoever), changes to plural (their), then sods off back to singular again (life).

Clarity? No chance. How many winners are we really talking about here? One, or many? You may think it doesn’t matter, but I’m asking myself: ‘How many chefs can win this competition? Can there be only one winner, as the sentence starts off suggesting, and which would be far more exciting? Or, will there be many, as the middle of the sentence seems to predict?

Bad grammar = no clarity = lazy speaker = no respect for me as a listener/viewer/reader.

If the presenter really wanted to ‘card read good’, he would have said (for example): We’re about to change someone’s life forever.

What alarms me most is that this obviously incorrect (and often confusing) way of speaking / writing is becoming increasingly acceptable in media – newspapers, TV, radio; and in publishing.

A while back I flirted with a website called authonomy – writers upload their works, whether finished or in progress, and others read and comment. I remember pointing out a very similar agreement issue to one chappie who’d uploaded a sample of his novel, and who wrote for a big-time newspaper. He also claimed to have a qualification in journalism. Good for him – no, seriously; I admire him for caring so much about the art and craft of writing (communicating) that he’d dedicate time and effort to formalising his qualifications.

But this chap almost knocked me off my seat when he said that I was the one who was wrong; that modern teachers actually tell their students that it’s okay to write sentences like that.

What absolute rot. It’s never okay to allow standards to slip. It’s never okay to turn a blind eye to laziness – or encourage it, for that matter - and claim it’s the modern way.

We’re writers. We work to a given set of high standards and we must always maintain those standards. If we don’t, no one will know what the hell we’re raving on about.

If you’re a writer, aspiring or otherwise, read Lynne Truss’s excellent book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It’s probably the most cathartic text I’ve read in years, and it sets the bar very high. Please, aspire to achieve those high standards.

Oh, and for all the purists out there, I apologise for starting so many of my sentences with conjunctions. Here’s what to do: scroll back to the top of this article so that it fills your computer’s screen, then take a big black permanent marker pen...

Viewpoint Writing

Viewpoint

I mentioned in a previous blog posting that I’d come to talking about viewpoint in fiction one day. That day is here. I don’t intend to delve into the real nitty-gritty of what is one of the biggest (and heaviest) subjects in the world of writing novels. Instead, I’ll give an outline, and I’ll conclude by pointing you in the direction of my favourite reference material.

Viewpoint – or point of view – refers to the eyes through which the reader ‘sees’ a story unfold.

If I told you a story about a trip I made to town to buy shoes with my wife (don’t get me started), I’d be telling you that story from my point of view. In literary parlance, that’s called ‘first person viewpoint’ (FPV): the person who is relating the story is the person who experienced it first hand.

There are a couple of other ways to relate a story, though. One is called ‘second person viewpoint’, (SPV) and the other is ‘third person viewpoint’ (TPV). Just like FPV each has its advantages and disadvantages, and I’ll discuss these briefly.

First Person

We drove to the store, the same store we were in last week, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostled me, unaware I was on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and I’ll...

The big advantage with FPV is that the reader gets into the character’s head almost immediately. That brings the reader closer to the character, and empathy with that character (the holy grail of the fiction writer) follows on pretty quickly. For example, when we read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, we’re reading the story from young David’s point of view – first person. Almost as soon as we start reading, we begin to get a real feeling of sympathy for David’s plight, and we start rooting for him. Bingo! Dickens has his readers onside and they’re easy meat after that major hurdle is overcome. We care about what happens to David, so we keep reading to find out how he fares.

One major disadvantage with FPV, however, is that writing style is more noticeable. Because you’re getting more personal with your readers, they’ll pay more attention to your ‘voice’ and be less forgiving if they find they don’t like it.

Another major disadvantage with FPV is that the writer must find some credible means by which to keep relevant information from the reader without having that reader exclaim in frustration, ‘But how could this character not know that?’ For example, in a murder-mystery it would be inconceivable to have a scene from the murderer’s first person viewpoint – for where would be the mystery in that? A writer could, technically, keep information back from the reader to increase and maintain the mystery to the end, but would you really want to read another book by that author if your bubble of anticipation was burst with some fact that must have been known earlier on? I doubt it.

Second Person

You drive to the store, the same store you drove to last week, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostle you, unaware you’re on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and you’ll...

SPV is an ‘in-your-face’ way to write, I find, and it really packs a punch when it’s done right. That’s the biggest advantage of writing in SPV – your writing stands out from the crowd... a bit like the stinky kid in the high school playgrounds.

And therein lies the problem. A huge slice of your readership pie won’t like reading this kind of writing because they’ll probably feel like they’re being dictated to by Moses or some snotty TV chef (actually, cook books are a great example of second person viewpoint writing). If you want to write like this – if you really, really enjoy the challenge that’s inherent in writing SPV - then go for it. Be aware, though, that just because you make direct short addresses to the reader (you’ll do this, and you did that...) doesn’t make your writing SPV.

Third Person

Jack drove to the store, the same store he drove to the week before, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostled him, unaware he was on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and he’d...

TPV is where the story is narrated by someone who wasn’t present as a character. There are a couple of ‘sub-modes’ in relation to TPV: omniscient (where the narrator knows and can relate anything that goes on in any character’s mind at any time); and limited (where the narrator narrows what information is divulged by keeping thoughts, feelings and attitudes to one viewpoint character in each scene or chapter.) And in limited, there are even more divisions – referred to a levels of penetration (i.e. how deeply into a character’s mind we can penetrate.)

The great advantage of third person viewpoint is that the narrator can more directly control what information is available to the reader. For example, in first person viewpoint, unless you’re Lwaxana Troi, you can’t usually tell with any great accuracy what’s going on in people’s minds when you walk into a room. But with TPV (omniscient) the narrator can get into those minds and let the reader know what’s relevant. Equally, with careful planning and execution, the writer can hold back information with a higher degree of credibility – and that can lead to increased tension and suspense.

That’s why TPV limited is the viewpoint of choice for writers of mysteries, thrillers and horror stories: readers find out what the writer wants them to find out, exactly when the story needs them to, for best effect. What’s behind the scratched wooden door? What will happen if our main character doesn’t jump off the train right now? Who was it who really planted the bomb? All of those questions can be answered after drawing out the maximum tension and suspense from the story, and TPV limited gives the greatest flexibility towards that end. Better still, in TPV writing style takes a back seat and lets the reader concentrate on the story.

There are disadvantages, of course, to writing in TPV. There’s a temptation to ‘head-hop’ – start a sentence or paragraph telling the story from one character’s viewpoint and end up telling it from another’s. That leads to confusion in your readers’ minds – never good.

The biggest disadvantage, however, is common to both first and third person limited viewpoint: controlling what your characters do and do not know at any given time. For example, if you’re narrating a TPV story using limited point of view, you can’t have that character thinking or talking about something he can’t possibly know about.

Conclusion

Whatever viewpoint you choose to write your story in, make sure it works best for the story you're telling. Try out a few paragraphs, or even a whole chapter, in each viewpoint that takes your fancy and go from there. Some viewpoint modes work best for certain story types – first person for comedy, for example, and third limited for thrillers and suspense. The big question is: what works best for the way I want my readers to enjoy this story?

Reference Materials

I found Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card (ISBN-10: 0-89879-927-9) to be very helpful in demystifying the subject of viewpoint.

Approaching Our Dotage--by KazzaBP

I’ve been pondering age, lately. My age. And I’ve come to realize something.
I’m getting old.

There are all kinds of clues. Wrinkles where there never used to be any. Gray hair that re-sprouts exponentially every time I pluck one. Arms that aren’t quite long enough to allow me to read the newspaper. A child who is approaching thirty.

One of the most telling signs, though, is how I am perceived by others. Young men never, ever flirt with me anymore. Instead, they call me Mrs. Pease. And old men flirt with me all the time. They call me honey, darlin’ and my favorite, which just came my way today: baby doll.

Hehehe. I am so far from being a ‘baby doll’, it’s not funny. Well, it is. Because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. He was eighty if he was a day…

Yep, I’m getting old. There’s no denying it. But I find comfort in many things--the first of which is–-my friends are getting older too. In fact, one of my dearest friends is about to catch up with me, once more. Jack Ramsay–-brilliant blogger, author extraordinaire, husband, builder, brother and best friend–-is having a birthday this week. For the next five months, he will be every bit as old as I am.

And I intend to rub it in.

Jack is a strange combination of mature, responsible man, and pain-in-the-ass kid-at-heart. He is full of sage advice one minute; giving words of wisdom and citing common-sense snippets designed to improve the world around him… and the next, he’s spouting potty-mouth and tee-heeing over the asinine and ridiculous.

It’s a combination I love, and one that is bound to keep him mentally healthy for years and years to come.

And that’s a good thing, for his body is falling apart all around him.

Now that Jack is approaching his dotage, there are subtle changes in his life and his life-style. He used to play rugby and tussle with the staunchest of adversaries. Now he watches the game from an easy chair and shakes his fist petulantly when he takes umbrage at a call. His grocery bags used to contain items such as curry chicken, beer and even the occasional bottle of Scotch. Now, he unpacks antacids, prune juice and—dare I say it?

You know… I really don’t! Because Jack–-even as he gets decrepit and stooped, even as his eyebrows begin to resemble thatched eaves and his whiskers get all gray–-is still a spirited son of a gun. He still gets wrathy, still gets wild, still gets EVEN! I’ve learned my lesson there! No way am I going to mention his incontinence pants! No way in hell!

Oh, I could go on and on about the not-so-graceful aging of one of my best friends. I could mention the hemorrhoids, the corns and the bunions and the bi-focals. But I won’t, because that would be mean, and I’ve a strict policy against elder abuse. Besides, I’m about to sneeze. And at Jack’s and my age, that can have disastrous consequences.

Happy birthday, Boy. And welcome. It's not so bad...

The Incredible Collapsing Man (meets Lee McGowan)

It's not often I fall in a heap with shock. It's even less frequently I'm left speechless (och, weesht - ye know Ah like tae gab). Today, both of the above happened. See, I've just checked the Tuesday night football scores, and I'm going to have to take back everything I've ever said about my beloved St Johnstone.

How timely for an example to appear right now: see, in years gone by I would have interjected there that the club's full name is actually St Johnstone-Nil.

I've suffered long and hard at their hands over the years. Every die-hard Saints fan has. But, lo! Lo and behold! St Johnstone 4 Rangers 1

I said St Johnstone 4 Rangers 1

Good God - the world's buggered. Someone restore some order again soon, I beg you.

Speaking about football, a great new writer by the name of Lee McGowan - a fine Scotralian, just like me, who's just as mad on the beautiful game - will be reading his work in the meeting room of the Brisbane Central Library on Saturday 10 April, starting at 3pm. For more details go here

I'm going to try to pop along, and I'm sure Lee and everyone else on stage will make everyone very welcome.