Saturday, December 08, 2007


Something for the weekend....
I had hoped to be posting on what I might do next...but no official confirmation yet...sigh...so in the meantime I'm recording two things that have added to the gaiety of nations.
First the pseudocide of canoe man (love the new word). I was at a party last night when someone said 'I really can't understand why everyone is so excited about this story'. But for a journalist it has everything - and in vulgar parlance has 'legs'. A man turning up from the dead after five years excites; who has not dreamed of doing the same (in fact my whole novel is about that). Then...a wife who has mysteriously left the country and gives an emotional interview about her surprise at his return....Followed the next day by the appearance of a photograph which proves she can't be THAT surprised. (The woman who googled it  - and every journalist thinks why didn't I think of doing that? - before going to the Mirror lived in a part of the country where the Sun is not welcome.....ah how those old wounds fail to heal). And the fact that they were apparently brought down by an overheard phoencall at a doctor's surgery  failing to say no to posing for an estate agent's picture...you would think if you had perpetuated an alleged fraud then you would think twice...Extraordinary stuff. Not least the fact he lived in a bedsit next door for three years. This is the Mail's latest update
One friend summed it up by saying: "It's the story with something for everyone. The bloke walking in to the police station - men are all sighing inwardly at the thought he got away with doing a runner. The women....she's got all the money in her name. Then for some reason they allegedly fall out - and it ends..."
This is a very British affair - with bedsits and doctor's receptionists, canoes and estate agents. In the US surely there would have been a glamorous broad or two, a breakneck run for the coast, a final cryptic note saying farewell. Instead we have angry boat owners allegedly complaining about non-payment of bills.
Read Andrew Pierce in the Telegraph's account. It made me laugh out loud
Meanwhile this song is my current earworm. I love it though. It makes me laugh every time I hear the rhyme for 'thirty' and 'dirty'

2 comments:

John Kelly said...

I'm loving this story too. The odd little details are wonderful. A woman from Kansas? The fake limp?

That's the first Scouting for Girls song I've heard, though I've heard their name. The song reminds of my favorite recent rhyme, from Fountains of Wayne's "Stacy's Mom":

I could tell she liked me by the way she stared/
And the way she said, 'You missed a spot over there.'

The kid is mowing the lawn.... The video is a little too MTV/after school boner for me, but I like the band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJmwYKy7eM

Glenda Cooper said...

Ohhhh Stacey's Mom! How utterly bizarre - I had a conversation with someone on Friday about that song - in a completely different context....There does seem to be a sub genre of Mrs Robinson rock around. MILF'n'roll?

The canoeist gets better and better. My novel is about someone who goes missing for seven years and then returns partly to do with a legacy. An agent once told me that was a completely unrealistic proposition....I should have obviously involved a canoe, woolly hat and a coffin-shaped door and then there would be no problem.