DO NOT READ THIS POST UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE TAKEN MY HARRY POTTER QUIZ.
Thanks to everyone for their patience while I went off to the fjords. Here, as promised, are the answers to my Harry Potter quiz which first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph’s Seven Magazine last year (clicking on the image should open a larger version in a new window).
I had to laugh at these two strategically placed signs at the very top of the Olympic ski jump above Oslo: “No exit” and “Fire Exit”.
Knowing how much she hates heights, I got the feeling this would be one of Clara Mackintosh’s least favourite places. If there were a fire, at least she could “fold” her way out rather than open the doors and leap out. I confess I struggled a bit too, until I pictured myself climbing the steps up to a Soyez rocket on my first mission to the International Space Station rather than preparing to jump off a ninety metre hill.
Good practice for astronaut training as well as making me see Eddie (the Eagle) Edwards in a whole new light. It’s a long way down…
Belated blog greetings from Norway. A fine Saturday night was spent at Oslo’s new opera house, an architectural triumph on the waterfront, looking out onto the fjord.
I chastised my host for not getting me a front row seat – we were in the middle of the second which, as it turned out, was within spitting distance from some of the tenors. There’s nothing quite like being there to add to the experience.
It had been raining outside too, but that didn’t stop me climbing the roof to admire the view across Norway’s capital (and discover alien machines hiding in wait, ready to take over).
Machines are waiting to take over
And before you think another British yob abroad (though clearly with more sophisticated taste than most), the roof is designed to be walked over (at your own risk). Back in Blighty I still can’t get over the absurdity that you’re not allowed to so much as dip a toe in the water of Diana’s fountain, lest you might injure yourself, and there are plenty of burly security guards on hand to tell you as much.
The event was the opening night of Operafest, a collection of numbers from different composers and pieces. I felt the best came from a new opera based on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, though it didn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of Kate Bush. As well as my good self, in attendance were the King and Queen of Norway, most of the Members of Parliament and then the Mayors and dignitaries from around the country, such as the unexpectedly glamorous Norwegian Women’s National Wrestling Champion here.
It’s impossible not to feel at home in Oslo, even extending to out singing of God Save the King in Norwegian, but to the tune of the British national anthem. And despite arriving in the country carrying only a shoulder bag, so somewhat lacking in the usual opera finery, Bjorn Simensen, Director of the Opera (with a beautiful diamond collar that matched the opera house’s crystal chandelier) was still happy to chat and enthused over the fabulous oak staircase and underwater sea defences to protect against wayward ferries.
Left: opera house chandelier; right: me and Bjorn Simensen
Even better, star soprano Eli Kristin Hagen offered to sing at my Norwegian book launch (more later) and the post-opera champagne flowed while listening to ballads in the opera house foyer from a group of local soft rockers that sadly included an accordion player (by this point it’s safe to say the quality of the music had taken a downturn).
Eli and me
If you’re in Oslo, even if (like me) opera isn’t really your bag, the building’s got to be high up on your list of places to visit.
As I may not be online for the next few days, I thought it only fair to leave my loyal readers with a special treat before I disappear out of the aether.
Last year, Seven, the Sunday Telegraph Arts Magazine, asked me to write a Harry Potter quiz for them. This was to coincide with the release of the fifth film (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and, more importantly (in my eyes at least), the final book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
My goal when creating this was to make it a Harry Potter quiz that Jo Rowling would love. I hoped that she might spot it, while skimming the Sunday papers, and be wowed by the idea of a Ministry of Magic Oblivator implanting the Harry Potter story into her memory while on that fateful train journey, so she could tell the Muggle world what truly happened. I daydreamed she’d find out who I was from the paper and invite me up to Edinburgh for tea, where I could ask her help in publishing the Johnny Mackintosh stories. But if you think that’s how Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London came to be commissioned, that turned out to be another story entirely…
On Rowling’s website, Potterphiles can take wizarding exams known as W.O.M.B.A.T.S. (Wizards Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test). My idea was to create S.T.E.W.S. (the Sunday Telegraph Examination in Wizarding Studies). All that remains to be said is “wands out”, and off you go…
Take the S.T.E.W.S. (in theory the link will open in a new window – if it’s a little slow to load, I hope you’ll find it was worth waiting for).
The answers? After (and I really do mean AFTER) you have done your very best with the quiz, and positively haven’t taken a sneak peak at any answers or tried to google them rather than use your own fabulous brain power, your reward is the answers. I’m sorry there are no prizes!
Last night, despite the sure and certain knowledge I wouldn’t know a soul there and no one has yet heard of Johnny Mackintosh, I attended the Society of Authors party. Sadly, this meant my newly devised Astronaut Training Programme had to be put on hold. Quite what it was a party for was never made clear. Society Chair, Tracy Chevalier (who wrote Girl with a Pearl Earring) welcomed us by saying we didn’t need a reason, that writing is such a solitary profession it’s a good thing to meet your peers. That said, when I did, many of their raison d’etres seemed to be to moan about publishers and agents. I don’t have an agent and love my publisher…
My initial tactic was to prowl the room like a big cat, identifying the prey that was becoming separated from the herd. The flaw in this plan was that the isolated “authors” you meet may well turn out to be as limp as a struggling okapi, perhaps managing the estate of a little known Kazakhstan poet, or writing academic monographs about the unlikely impact of a 12th century Armenian hermit on trade in Genoa, three centuries later.
Time for Plan B. In hindsight, the people already in groups, talking, and not ostracized by their fellows, were always likely to prove more interesting. But it’s harder to break in. Trusting to everyone’s relief that the Charlotte Bronte readings were over but hadn’t been used as an excuse to end the free wine, it was time to pounce.
Clare Dudman and I thought we’d met before (and probably have), but I realized once we were talking it was perhaps because she reminded me of The Daily Politics’ Jenny Scott (watching daytime telly, however good, is one of the perils of authorhood). Samantha David didn’t tell me she’d written I Married a Pirate, an early hit on the YouWriteOn authors website, for which I shall chastise her. But she did provide handy hints about free European travel, and then reached beyond our little group to pull in Sue Cook, former Nationwide presenter and now a Hodder novelist. Sue was terribly kind and said I was far too young to remember seeing the show. If I can fool her, perhaps I have a chance with the European Space Agency interview panel?
Then I found myself with the fabulous Beth Webb, whose Tegan books sounded so fascinating they’ve shot from nowhere to near the very top of my reading list. Beth was talking with a member of the society staff, which proved a wise move, not only because said staff member (unnamed for reasons that will become immediately apparent) was particularly charming, but also because it meant the free food and drink continued throughout the night. As I supped my vodkas and tonic in the comfort of the Victory Services Club, the International Space Station receded ever further into the distance…
Today I discovered that ESA (the European Space Agency) is recruiting new astronauts – it would be wrong not to apply.
The first small steps for a children’s author (but giant leap for Europeans) have now been taken by enquiring about the relevant medical examinations. Preparing for an imminent book launch hasn’t proved sufficient motivation to get fit and lose some weight. The merest glimmer of a place aboard the International Space Station will see the kilos fall off me in no time.
Do I have any chance whatsoever? I remember Jodie Foster’s Dr Arroway in the film Contact (when confronted by the magnificence of space) said, ‘They should have sent a poet.’ I’ve got to hope ESA will consider a children’s author, complete with a Cambridge science degree, to be close enough. One of my proudest moments at university was meeting Carl Sagan, author of Contact and the wonderful series Cosmos that helped inspire my dreams of space and the Johnny Mackintosh stories.
“They should have sent a poet”
The most serious impediment to my application may well be the UK government’s refusal to sign up to the human spaceflight aspect of ESA’s budget. The future of humanity depends, ultimately, on whether or not we leave this island Earth and become a space-faring species. Fail to do so and we will (I hope it’s later rather than sooner) become extinct. I come from an island nation, with a long and proud history of exploration and I hope government will have a change of heart.
As Sagan put it in the introduction to Cosmos:
“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it, we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen out toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return.”
How can it feel, this wrong?
From this moment,
How can it feel, this wrong?
The only thing that feels wrong about this is the secret, guilty pleasure of being privileged to hear another set from the wonder that is Portishead.
Haunted . . . fragile . . . agonized . . . achingly beautiful. All adjectives that could and should be used to describe Beth Gibbons’ delicate vocals. The last time I heard them in the flesh, sending shivers down my spine and bringing goosebumps up on my arms, was at Glastonbury 95. That was the year that Robbie ran away from Take That only to turn up, orange haired, on stage with Oasis. Some of my friends from today were at that festival, but none of us knew each other. I can picture some kind of 4-dimensional space-time grid mapped out, with our lines intersecting at that moment, before spiralling back together many years later. Completing the map (in which the three dimensions of space have been collapsed into one, for clarity) it shows I went to the gig with Eddie from college.
1995 was also the year, in the biggest Glastonbury crush I have ever experienced, we rightly booed Evan Dando, ex of The Lemonheads, mercilessly for an hour in the acoustic tent before he finally took the hint and made way for Portishead’s triumphal set.
It’s always disappointing when whoever’s fronting a band doesn’t interact with their audience. At worst, at least you always hope to get a grudging “thank you” when the applause dies down, but I expect witty banter, delivered with a swagger. With Beth we had nothing, nichts, rien, zilch. It didn’t matter for a moment – it was perfectly in keeping with the performance. For this isn’t just music – it’s Portishead’s music. And it’s nothing short of fine art, transporting the listener to heights we could never otherwise hope to reach. The closest I’ve heard anyone else approach it, but from a very different angle, was Toronto’s The Dears.
Beth quivered and quavered throughout, with a black and white (naturally) backdrop of video from the set. The Brixton Academy already has the best views of any mid-size venue and this only enhanced them. I’ve saved the first ever video on this blog for Roads, the second track of the encore. I’d say it’s my favourite, but as wonderful song after yet another wonderful song soared around me, I realized how magnificently crafted each was in its own way. But here’s Roads:
At the end of it all, painfully early at only 10.50pm (could the band not have played for forty minutes more?), Beth finally spoke to us. She apologized for her singing, saying how awful it had been all night. She told us to look forward to next time when she would be far better. How can you improve on perfection? We’re privileged that this prodigal band has returned. If you have the chance, you must go and hear them in person. After Beth’s closing words, I cannot wait for next time.
Tonight, at a disappointingly empty ICA, it’s Oldham’s Twisted Wheel. Arriving uncharacteristically early, I even caught the final couple of tracks from Opera House before them – a band (complete with Micky Mouse sweatshirts) that looked and sounded as though David Tennant had mistakenly plucked them out of 1982. 
Had I been managing them the first thing I’d have done would have been to warn them off the name. Try typing “Opera House” into a search engine – they have so many doppelgooglers it’s probably the worst band name to do a web search on since (the presumably defunct) Symposium. Never heard of them? My point exactly. Someone came round and gave me a card allowing access to ten downloads, but of course it was lost and I’ve no chance of ever tracking them down, even on MySpace, so their moment in the spotlight ends here.
At their best, Twisted Wheel took me back to student days, but with a modern twist (though one track could have been mistaken for the King of the Hill theme tune). When less good, they spend too much of their time trying to sound like Arctic Monkeys. If I were still at college, I’d have been straight into the mosh pit, a whirl of elbows, pinballing around at the front of the stage. Being the ICA, of course this is a slightly gentler, more cerebral, setting where groupies can sit on the corner of the stage and there’s only a handful of good-hearted moshers entering into the spirit at the front.
I’m a little surprised by the lack of a crowd, especially as Boris Johnson seems to have taken the night off from mayoral campaigning to play the bass. You’d have thought he’d have been a bigger draw.
They’re a very tight three-piece, presumably named after the northern soul club in Manchester (see what happens if you have a googlable band name?) and you can detect the influence. You Stole the Sun and the Monkeys-inspired Strife are probably the standout tracks, but you get the feeling there’s more to come.
And, if Jonny can step further outside the Arctic Monkeys vocal footsteps, you get the feeling it will be pretty good.
You Stole the Sun rounded off the set list (which clearly has no space for an encore), the lights came straight up and we few, we happy few, sauntered away, giving us time to get home and watch the vid of Simon Smith being fired from The Apprentice. What was Sir Alan thinking?
“Roll up. Roll up. Get yer rights ‘ere.”
Yesterday was the 2008 London Book Fair. The partying went on so long into the night that it’s only now I can blog about it. Over lunch, one super-agent told me “no one in publishing drinks anymore.” Yet, by the time the Earls Court clocks clicked past five o’clock, happy hour had already started on many stands. For the previous seven hours, visitors may have shied away from hearing about the latest developments in digital inventory management and distribution, but lay on the alcohol and the people will come.
As ever, the Quercus stand was one of the best. I recall the two-man company at the top of (a lot of) stairs in Marylebone that first hit the LBF three years ago with only two books but still a very impressive stand. Now there were plenty of titles, including a lovely row of my proof copies, and all that was missing was a tall author dropping by on a regular basis to replace the company name that kept peeling away under the blistering Earls Court lights.
A tip for the fair – if you’re important enough to ascend the escalator into the paradise of the International Rights Centre, water coolers are laid on everywhere.
Down below, in the fourth circle of the inferno, visitors have been known to suffocate in the heat while standing in line hoping for the rights to bring the latest Ian Rankin blockbuster to Siberia. From up above though the fair makes an impressive sight, with only a few whispers in my ear to say that all this could be mine if I’d just sign up with the right agency.
After a day of shameless networking and self-promotion, I nearly ran out of business cards – those lovely people at Moo will be getting a new order soon. For the first time I met the Dutch publisher of Johnny Mackintosh, Job Lisman from Prometheus, who was a delight. And Anthony Cheetham made my day by saying that he liked my plicans (read the book – you’ll find out). I’d arrived with Anna Faherty from Strategic Content and we met up with Jon Reed of Reed Media and the Publishing Talk group. Jon tells me that Second Life is hosting a virtual book fair next week on Cookie Island. There, everyone will be able to look down from above and no one will overheat, but the virtual booze is unlikely to taste as good as the real thing.
Today I self-googled. It was a moment of weakness – I know I’m an addict but, with your help, maybe I can stop doing it. When I typed “Keith Mansfield” into a search engine I read nothing about the author of Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London but much about my brilliant namesake, the legendary composer of library music. UK TV viewers may unknowingly have had their cockles warmed by his uplifting themes for Grandstand or Wimbledon. If I’ve overcome the technical difficulties, you should be listening to his Sporting Highlights while reading this blog. If I’ve failed, put my name into Last FM and treat yourselves to a few previews.
Accepted wisdom has it that one’s internet namesake is referred to as a googleganger. OK, for a few nanoseconds it sounds meet and right, but a moment’s thought reveals the term to be a modern day triumph of style over substance. Drawing on the German, it’s actually the doppel part of doppelganger that means “double”.
So today is a historic occasion for my blog when I attempt to coin a new word for the English language: doppelgoogler. In a few years’ time perhaps the lexicographers of the Oxford English Dictionary will cite this page as the first occurrence of a brand new expression. Perhaps, around the same time, the eminent library music composer Keith Mansfield will self-google and discover his literary doppelgoogler.
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