13/06/2008
A Taste Of Things To Come
I’ve had a couple of emails asking for news about poor Mark and Tom, suspended in limbo since the final page of Good Thing, Bad Thing. Are they happy? Are they still together? Are they making babies? Of course, I can’t give a lot away, otherwise you wouldn’t buy the sequel when it comes out at the end of the year and I would starve to death, but as a little taster, here's a draft short story about our heroes. It will probably end up being the first chapter of the sequel. Let me know what you think.
Combining © Nick Alexander, 2008
Sleep evades me. The wind is hurling itself, invisible battalions crashing against the shutters. I imagine that the subsonic thuds are the lines they show on weather maps, smashing to smithereens, cartoon style, on the walls of the building, hopelessly, pointlessly. <more>

10/06/2008
Mountain Weather Sucks
Well after the massive snowfall of the winter, so heavy it pulled down the power and phone lines, spring so far has been, well, how can I put it? Rainy.
Actually rainy doesn’t really cover the concept of water falling from the sky as if from a bucket, twenty-four hours a day for seven weeks.
I and my two cats have been trapped in the two tiny rooms (for whilst the garden is vast, the house isn’t) staring out at the endless, endless, endless rain. I suppose it’s global cooling.Friends have arrived in the rain (with kids !) and left in the rain – I’m sure when asked what France was like the kids will say, wet.
Of course it’s been a perfect time for getting down to serious work, so I have been able to put lots of hours in on both the next novel in the 50 Reasons series and the TV adaptation of 50 Reasons, but it’s hard to write and be clever and funny when day is only marginally lighter than night, and when you think the constant drumming of the rain may just, at any minute, drive you out of your mind.
I’ve always had a problem with weather of course, but over these last seven weeks I’ve been able to, explore, you could say, the concept more fully.
I don’t know why it should be so, but when I get up in the morning, a sunny day is a good day, and a rainy day is something to be got through. A whole week of sunshine leaves me happy on the verge of manic, but a week of rain and I’m struggling to get out of bed.
Interestingly my cats are the same. If the sun is out, they’re up and out at seven am. And if it isn’t, well, they don’t even struggle; they just sleep 24/7. With the rain having lasted for seven weeks I’m hoping they can still walk. So maybe it’s just natural?
It now seems to me, that if there is one thing I could do to improve my quality of life, it would be to be able, finally, at forty-four, to reject the stranglehold the weather has on my emotions. Suggestions welcome!

23rd January 2008
Internet and Dating II
I've been thinking for a while that I need to come clean about Internet and dating... A while back (here) I ranted on about how I didn't believe in the net as a dating method and how I had removed all of my profiles...
Well, I have a confession to make... I did put one of them back online... My feeling was that though I no longer wanted to waste hours on the net (and when you're on 14400 baud modem it really is hours) searching for Mr Right, I felt a bit like I had withdrawn completely from the lottery.
So I decided to maintain a single entry - just in case the universe wanted to choose that method to make my dream man manifest.
I was far too busy fighting the dormice and knocking out walls to put any effort into it, but I decided that the daily dose of hope that checking my email provided was important.
Well, in May someone did contact me over the net - a guy from Paris. We chatted via email for a while, and then over the phone. And then he came to stay.
I was pretty scared about this because at that point I was fighting the squirats, sleeping amidst the rubble and crapping behind a tree. But he came to stay and was cool with all of this, and even returned twice during the summer.
I was really so busy and so exhausted with the new place that I didn't think about or analyse what was happening.. it was all very day to day. Cute guy on email, funny guy on the phone, easy-going guy cooking food on a camping stove with me...
And then the summer was over and his third visit ended, and as I rode back from Nice airport alone, I suddenly realised that I would have to see him again. That not seeing him again, and again, and again was unimaginable to me.
When he got home he phoned me, and I said, "Hey, I just realised, we're a couple," and he laughed and said, "I was wondering when you would notice."
Amazingly I have found my Mr Right on the net - I have never been happier.
So even if I am still convinced that the obsessive, time consuming, frantic searching that so many of us end up doing on the net doesn't work - true love exists there as much as anywhere else...
So if you're single, then having one foot in that door, so to speak, while you get on with your life, can't hurt. It can't hurt at all. ;-).

17th January 2008
Here Comes The Sun Doooh Don Doooh Doooh
The sun came back! Oh my god - I can't find words powerful enough to explain just how gorgeous those rays feel when they have been tucked behind a mountain for a month.
There is a moving square of sun that moves across the bedroom floor and then disappears. I have been fighting the cats for sun space but I think we have come to an arrangement.
If I sit cross legged on the floor with one cat on each knee we can all sit in the same square of sun!
The tanning session lasts a bit longer every day, and today I think it may actually be warm enough to throw a rug on the snow and have a mid-day snooze!
Why are my moods so tied to the weather? Why, simply because the sun is back am I dancing around like a teenager to the CD I just bought? (Holcombe Waller - Troubled Times - stunning!)
Pics of sun and snow here...

10th January 2008
The Ups and Downs Of Snow
So my first winter in Le Mas seems to be the worst winter they have had for ten years... Ain't it always the way?
Thirty centimetres of snow may not sound like that much, but when it is heavy wet snow, and when it re-freezes overnight and the weight pulls the trees down, and the trees pull the phone lines down, things start to get interesting... The sun disappeared behind the mountain on about the 10th of December, and my little mountain haven turned into a little mountain hell.
Still, it was my first winter here, and as such something of a novelty... But I won't be spending next Christmas here - that's for sure.

15th December 2007
A White Christmas
So it finally happened. The snow arrived! Everything is quiet - the snow seems to dampen the normal sounds from the river - the animals of the forest are all silent - presumably hiding somewhere warm, and as I walk around the garden there's just this strange rubbery creak as my shoes crush the snow. Magical!
Pics are here...

26th October 2007
Autumn Colours
I know it's a cliche, but right now, I'm just bowled over by the colour of autumn up here in the mountains. On a sunny day, the play of the light on the leaves in the trees, and above all, on the fallen leaves drifting along in the streams that crisscross the land, is absolutely stunning...
See what you think - have a look here...

1st October 2007
The War Against The Squirats
So, I finally got a good night's sleep last night - the first in ages. It looks as if the war against the dormice - sorry squirats (dormice sounds way too cute) may finally be being won!

I'm pretty much a pacifist and I've been vegetarian for over twenty years, so I was loathed to take the beasts on on their own terms.

Research on that great fictional work that is the Internet suggested that dormice hate rock music, hemp loft insulation, mothballs and joss sticks, so to start with I tried all of those. The little bastards snorted the mothballs, lounged around on a (very expensive) bed of hemp in the joss-stick smog tapping their little hands (and they do have scary little hands - not paws) to the throbbing baseline of Rush's Moving Pictures. I think they may even have invited a few friends in for a party.

So down came all the ceilings again, and I chased them out with a stick. Or so I hoped. (I may even have beaten one to death one particularly sleepless night - sorry mouse).
They came back daily, but they didn't come back discreetly - no, “Pschshhhh - he's asleep - let's creep back in,” for these guys. No, they bounced in through invisible holes between the roof tiles and screamed at me from the ceiling.

Paloma Paquita, my cat, was so freaked she moved out to the tent I had put up in the garden - really! Whilst Leon Pedro, the younger male cat watched bemused as the squirats hopped along the rafters and squealed and shagged each other. At one point, whilst chasing them with a stick, I sent one of them right in front of Leon Pedro and he reached out very delicately and touched the critter's flank, as if to say, “how very, very interesting.”

Slowly but surely, by getting up every time one of the beasts woke me I got to see the holes they were coming in and out through, and one by one I plugged them with this amazing expanding plastic foam that comes in a can. Until I discovered that the squirats eat the stuff! “More of the whipped cream stuff!” is what they were actually shrieking.
So I bought large bags of cement and my daily ritual became - nighttimes - flag the entry points with sticky tape. Daytime, mix concrete and plug them up.

About a week ago they stopped appearing in my bedroom but still they would scratch their little fingers on the outside in their attempts to get in - surprisingly loud. - And this, still, all night, every night.
So I started getting up and going outside in the middle of the night in an attempt to see them. I started looking at the prices of guns, and wondering if it was the squirats that drove the previous owner to murder.
Only when I was outside I couldn't see the fuckers. The noise was coming from the inside… It took a few nights, in fact it took until they started breaking out into the bedroom again to realise that they were in the walls.

Eventually I plugged the tunnel they had carved to the outside world, and repeatedly I plugged the tunnels to the bedroom too. Except of course that because I was mixing concrete and doing my plugging by day - when they were asleep - I kept plugging them in rather than out.

I'm afraid four days ago I cracked open the rat poison. Special fruit flavoured rat poison designed specially for the delectation of squirats, rat poison that smelt so good - like strawberry chewing gum - that it made my mouth water.
I squashed it into the latest hole and plugged it (again) with concrete.

I feel sad my relationship with the squirats had to end this way, honest I do. But I gave them as many warnings as I could. I chased them out, lit joss sticks, spent 300 pounds on hemp loft insulation, played rock music. Even French music didn't drive them out.
Which just goes to show that being too determined to get your own way can be a bad thing too. Well, if you're a rodent it can.

28th September 2007
A Long Way From Where Exactly?
Friends keep asking me if I'm OK living such a long way away.
It's a funny one really, a question that left me strangely puzzled and unable to respond, until one day I thought, a long way away from where exactly?
For where I live isn't very far from where I live at all.

Of course, what they mean is a long way away from Nice, as if Nice is suddenly the hub of the universe. But Nice is a long way away too. A long way from London, and a long way from Paris. Even further from Melbourne, Australia.

When I start to ask, “From where exactly?” they tell me that my new house is a long way from, “everything.” It's not a long way from beautiful mountains, clean air, a stunning river, or a host of squirats. It's not far from wild pigs, vast lakes and sparkling streams. “Well, from shops and things. From cinemas. Don't you get lonely? Don't you miss civilization?”

And the fact of the matter is that I don't. These things, these things that people think are essential, break down under analysis to: Sockshop, Zara, a supermarket at the end of the road, Pizza Express... And they aren't. Essential, that is. And it's interesting to realize that we live in a society which questions how one can live without a large range of colourful socks within walking distance, but not how one can live without clean air, swaying trees and wildlife.

And as far as being lonely - well, no I haven't been. Not once. I have had visits from friends - some of whom are motorbikers and are only too thrilled to take the stunning ride up here; gardeners, who are chuffed to come up and show me how to chop a tree; or city dwellers, only too happy to spend a day walking in the country with a barbecue at the end. My new beau has been down to see me for a total of nearly three weeks. Three weeks in two and a half months. That's as much action as I've seen in years… And all the way from Paris - now that is a long way away.
And during the week, if I don't see anyone for three days - well - it ain't that different from being in a flat in Nice and not seeing anyone for three days. It happens.
I'm sure winter will be different. There will be snow on the roads, and the log fire won't prove to be quite as appealing to my niçois friends as the sun-dappled hammock, but I expect my flat in Nice will be rented less too. It'll be my turn to do the visiting. Because in the end, it just isn't that far away.

28th August 2007
Oh My God! Toilets, phone, DISH WASHER???
Over the last few weeks the love-shack has moved on in leaps and bounds. I spent what I call one of my chain-gang days (usually Wednesdays for some reason) digging trenches down the hillside and excavating all of the fractured PVC piping leading to the septic tank (yuck!) The result - pure luxury - a working toilet (don't ask how I was managing up till now).
Next, a mate came over from the UK and helped me demolish the oh so-kitsch (and ugly) fireplace (built in the seventies to look "rustic"). Apparently it was built by a couple of Chernobyl engineers (reinforced concrete, mixed with stone - for a fireplace??) so we had to get a pneumatic drill (which I nicknamed Bob to be pronounced in the Rowan Atkinson manner) and spend two days dissolving it slice by slice. Bob is powerful and throbs. I think I love him.
Next a trip to Ikea for kitchen units (luckily someone rented my flat to pay for that) and to the DIY store for blow-torches and copper tubes. Plumbing is soooo easy and such fun - I'm amazed.

Next a friend from Paris arrived (people keep asking me if i'm OK with being so isolated, but to be honest it's more like a train station here so far) and we drove the five hour round trip to the nearest electrical store and came back with a gleaming new (cheapest possible) dishwasher. It was essential, you see, to hold up the work surface ;-)
Sunday a bunch of friends from Nice turned up and together we managed a truly astonishing job - moving the dump at the bottom of the garden - washing machines, fridges, sofas, all rotten and bound together by weeds) up to the roadside where the council has promised to remove it all (hopefully soon). It took five of us all day - and it was a sweltering 35 degree day, but the satisfaction at the end - seeing my garden dump-free can't be described.

31st July 2007
No Ghosts - just a lot of rodents
I received a few mails over the last few days asking how my mountain adventure is going, so I thought I would post a quick update.

The house, it seems, holds no ghosts - only millions of door-mice. These little bastards scamper around over the ceiling above my head all night shrieking driving myself - and my cats - entirely crazy with lack of sleep. 
To start with I thought the cats were going to deal with them pretty quickly - the first night was like an episode of Tom and Jerry with cats and mice (door-mice are spider-men mice in case you didn't know that - with big bushy tails and the ability to defy gravity) running around madly all night knocking over pots and pans and smashing glasses. But the cats got bored with the door-mice and now, after only two nights thay simply glance up at them and make a weedy sort of croaking noise as the monsters magically advance across the ceiling.

I ripped out all of the old loft insulation (fibreglass which they love, sick bastards) and replaced it with Hemp (which supposedly they don't dig). It was an awful job - despite the white boiler suit I wore, I got shards of glass in every part of my body - and that was no fun at all. Anyway, I dumped the old insulation, replaced it with the new stuff, and put up a new ceiling... A hell of a job, especially in the 35 degree temperatures we're having this year. Unfortunately it would seem that the door-mice, despite their reputation, think that Hemp is just groovy, and have re-inhabited the ceiling space as fast as you can say "sleepless night".

So I'm now working my way around the ceiling plugging the tiniest holes to stop them getting in and out - yet facing the dilemma of how to do this with plugging them all inside... I've no desire to listen to the buggers slowly dying above my head either... It's truly a toughy. Any ideas, let me know.

Other than that the project has been going well. A very friendly neighbour (actually they're all very friendly round here, only every single person gives you a list - a different list, of who needs to be avoided like the plague) let me onto his land to run a length of pipe up to the spring he has, so I now have on-tap spring water (do you have any idea how heavy of inflexible water pipe is, and how hard it is to get a coil of water pipe to lay in a straight line along a stream bed????), and the man in blue overalls arrived on time to remove the corpses (door-mice again) from the meter box and switch on the juice. Fantastic having electricity!

I have one room I can now camp in - with a ceiling up (albeit infested with vermin - cute vermin, but vermin) a floor to walk on, a sofa to sit and sleep on, and a hifi to listen to.

I am very very slowly clearing the piles of junk that the police ripped from the house and dumped in the garden - it could take years - and picking up all the bits of yellow "crime scene - keep out" tape that seems to be everywhere.

The only real failure so far is in the communications department. France Telecom have failed, over and over and over again to connect my phone line. It's one of those very modern dramas where the computer says "no". Their computer systems, and their phone operators' brains apparently have two, and only two possibilities. That the house has never had a line, or that the house has a line which simply needs switching on. As my house has had a phone line, but that line was ripped out by a passing lorry, they are totally incapable of re-connecting me. Either they assume that the cable is there, because the previous owner (the not very nice one) had a phone, or the house - because it is deep in the mountains, needs a full feasibility study to see if it can be connected. They alternate between these visions daily, and as a result, nothing at all happens. My mobile seems to pick up a weak signal here for about six minutes a day - a window which is kind of hard to catch, so I do feel a bit cut off...
Luckily my gaybours are just near enough for me to share their extremely slow modem connection via wifi... which is how, dear readers I am, very slowly, posting this message. They are very sweet and are lending me toothpaste, and wifi, and just about anything else I am lacking. One of them even tried to add a bit of ghostliness to my experience (which, it has to be said is reassuringly lacking) by "finding" a dusty tarot card outside my window... But my pragmatic brain beat that particular scariness to a pulp the second that he showed me that he has the same deck at home - and, inexplicably, only one example of the card he says he found...

That said, there are moments when I think about what happened here. When I take a shower and think about the dead woman showering here - or sometimes I turn on a tap, and think that the murderer turned on that tap too... But then other times I look up at the pine trees and the towering mountains, and I am just overcome by the beauty of the place.

Much remains to do (understatement). Next week I rip out the kitchen downstairs and go to Ikea for a nice new (read clean) one. And then at some point I am going to have to face the full horror of the incorrectly installed sewage system and no doubt start digging very large holes in the land to install a new one... I will face that one when the novelty of pooing in the woods has worn off... Ok it's already worn off...

Much love to all. Please keep buying the books. I need to buy a proper bed. And maybe a camping toilet.

Nick x

6th July 2007
My First Night in a haunted house
For the first time in years, I'm getting ready to take a long break from writing and do something completely different.
It's been a horrible winter with plenty of heartache and lots of financial uncertainty. Springtime has been a time of frustration, lots of promise on the horizon, loads of things almost within grasp, but nothing actually happening.
Finally summer is here, and, as so often seems to be the case in my life, in the space of a few bright summer days everything has clicked into place; everything has changed.
(I actually have a theory that because I was born on the 31st March, that date is like a rebirth every year. The run up to it is horrible, and then from April on everything just gets better and better. Has anyone else noticed this with their own birthdate?)
Anyway, I've bought a really cheap tiny house (but with loads of land) up in the Alps, and I'm going to be up there spending the next three months trying to make it livable before the snow arrives. It's VERY remote (see the photo) and is located in the middle of a beautiful pine forest.
The house was really cheap (£35,000!) because of its location, but mainly because it has a rather sordid past.

The previous owner is accused of murdering his wife and child there. I know this all sounds very novelesque, but it's true. The police found the poor woman in a bin bag in the shed whilst the baby, a nine-month-old toddler, was never found.

People have suggested that is precisely the dramatic nature of the place that attracts me, but that honestly isn't true. I have been dreaming of a place in the hills where I can get away from the summer heat of Nice for years, but with my tiny income, I just couldn't afford it. And when I saw this place for sale, with it's huge grounds, and babbling brook, I could immediately imagine myself writing my next novel in a cabin overlooking the stream. Getting a bank to lend money to a writer has been a nightmare, but after months of doing the rounds I finally found a solution. Actually, the fact that I can rent out my flat in Nice to tourists should actually help my finances. (If you know anyone who wants to stay in a lovely apartment in the heart of Nice's old town then let me know!)

A surprising number of people have said that they can't see how I can even think of living in a place which has known so much violence, and to be honest, it did put me off for a while. But I think that here my writing does have an influence. As a writer, maybe I have a slightly different relationship to dramatic events, and as I have told more and more people about the story of this house, it has become that - a story. I once read somewhere that an essential part of the healing process in human beings is narrative - that by telling and retelling a story, and embellishing and changing details, hurtful events slowly lose their power over us, gradually becoming relegated to the status of fiction. Apparently people who feel unable to tell friends about their hurts and losses just never get over them. Me? I tell everyone everything!

So this summer's project is going to be to head up into the hills, and camp out in the shell of this house and rip everything out before starting afresh. Despite all my reassuring words, the idea of spending my first night in the place is a slightly scary one. I don't believe in ghosts, but what if I'm wrong?
The place is in a terrible state and there is nothing - not kitchen nor bathroom, not plumbing, nor wiring that can be salvaged. Even the loft insulation has to go as it is currently home to a hundred dormice, whom I have to try and evict without screaming like a queen. (I doubt I'll make it - they're very jumpy.) It's a huge challenge but I'm ready and rearing to go. D day - when I get the keys, should be next Tuesday - wish me luck!!
In the meantime, 13:55 Eastern Standard Time has had masses of great reviews, and is apparently selling well. If you fancy a summer read, and you want to help me pay for my new mouse-proof loft insulation, you can buy a copy today from Amazon, or from BIGfib books direct. If you already have a copy, please tell a friend!

There's no Internet up in the hills, so I may not be in touch for a while!
And if you never hear from me again, well, check out the bin bags in the shed...

Have a great summer!



11th June 2007
Half an hour with Armistead Maupin
I recently got to spend nearly an hour talking to Armistead Maupin for UK Magazine 3Sixty. Despite his success (Tales of the City has sold millions of copies), he remains a lovely accessible guy.
I had so many questions to ask him I think I may have overdone it - he sighed somewhat distinctly when I told him the interview was over. But I'm quite proud of the resulting interview… We covered everything from his writing process, to HIV and Viagra. I honestly don't ever remember seeing such an in depth chat with this iconic gay author.

Here's a taster:
N: Many people of my age have, you know, come through the whole thing by being careful and taking care, for, what, twenty years now. And we're suddenly confronted with these twenty year olds announcing that they have become HIV positive. I find it quite difficult to be OK with that.
A: Well, I'm not OK with it. I'm not OK with it at all. I'm not OK, in fact, with a number of selfdestructive things that gay men do. Lung cancer strikes gay men more than the general population because of smoking. I think there are a number of signs that we don't maybe love ourselves as much as we should.
N: So it's like a suicidal desire, almost.
A: Well, there's certainly an element of that. There are bug-chasers out there who want to get infected so they can join the club. I can't imagine what club they think that is… The diarrhoea club… the lypodistrophy club maybe. Because anyone who is sick will tell you that it's not fun at all.
N:Writers like Larry Kramer in the States and Lestrade here in France have been very critical of the gay community. Have you ever felt like attacking them over…
A: Oh, there have been many times. I don't attack any community - because we're not one thing. I attack certain behaviours - my characters make observations about foolish behaviour. But there are many individuals who rise above the adolescent thinking that a lot of gay men still participate in. But I'm never gonna be as grumpy as Larry Kramer.
N: Well, luckily. I mean, that's why Mouse is such a great role model for us. He wasn't living a permanently tragic empty existence. You need positive role models too.
A: Well, it simply wasn't the life that I was living. When I came along and started to write, the image presented in gay literature was pretty damn grim. And as soon as I realized that it didn't have to be that way, if you chose your friends carefully, and behaved in a way that was worthy of love, then you could escape from that terrible fate - of being a depressed old queen. And you know, I have my ups and downs like anyone else, but I'm happier at sixty three than I've ever been, because I know more about myself. And because, (laughs) the wonders of science have allowed me to continue my sex life.

Read the whole thing by downloading the PDF file here (Page 13).


2nd May 2007
My best review ever
I've been feeling so happy all week - I've been literally bouncing off the walls. The reason? It's pretty silly really. I got a great review.
Some lovely chap called Rob Dawson at GT Magazine (formerly Gay Times) gave the best review of 13:55 Eastern Standard Time I could have hoped for.
You can check it out here. Sure, it's just a review, and I've had good reviews before, but it's so positive - he so clearly enjoyed the book... well, I feel quite proud really. And compared with the usual self doubt I feel, that leaves me quite euphoric!
And before you ask, no, I didn't sleep with him. Hey I wonder if he's cute?

23/4/2007
Why Internet Dating Is A Turn-Off
I woke up this morning and there was no electricity - a planned outage while the electricity company update the cables. It's weird getting up with no electricity: no tea, no coffee - though in truth I did manage a lukewarm tea-like slop on the camp stove before the gas ran out.
No lights in the bathroom - so a shower in the grey light from the tiny window. And above all no computer - a continuation, an exaggeration almost of my new, no internet lifestyle.
Because, yes, on Friday, I cancelled all of my online dating profiles.
The decision was partly a result of reading Didier Lestrade's new book, Cheikh (Highly recommended if you speak French), but more a culmination of my own thoughts about the whole internet dating thang, crystalised by reading Lestrade's book.
I was amazed, when I came to cancel them, just how many profiles I had accumulated: Gaydar, Bikermen, Gayromeo, Manhunt, Gayvox, Dialh... A mad obsessive-compulsive search for a bit of love.
But internet doesn't work, well, not for finding love anyway. It's very efficient at providing hope... and maybe sometimes that is enough - the myriads of men who might just be your next boyfriend. Only they invariably aren't....
It struck me, as I was working my way through the sites (finding the cancel buttons ain't easy) that it's rather like buying a window cleaner that promises to offer sparkling transparent windows, but actually provides only dirty smudges. Internet dating is like buying a product that doesn't work, again and again and again.
Only 72 hours after having "quit" the net - and it truly is as hard as giving up smoking, I keep finding myself on my habitual chair in front of the computer with nothing to do - I am starting to have sparkling realisations about the whole process. I have met so many bizarre people through the net, and so many of my gay friends have become more and more depressed, more and more highly strung, quite a few of them so much so that I no longer see them. Well, it struck me today that we are all in the process of having slow nervous breakdowns, and the net, and the hours spent in front of it are, if you ask me, the main cause.
For the vast array of men of all shapes and sizes gives us hope in the future, whilst the very nature of the net ensures that it cannot deliver the one thing we truly want - a face to face relationship based on honesty. For the very nature of Internet dating is dishonesty.
With tens of profiles, you need to start by showing your best side. You choose the best photos, accentuate your good points, and forget the bad. And that, in itself is a kind of the dishonesty.
In the real world, of face-to-face dating you don't have to of course, because the faults of the one, the spot on the nose, or the extra three kilos, are unavoidably visible, and the same goes for your rivals. But on the net, you start off by hiding, or lets be generous and say, not showing, your faults.
Then with thousands of competing profiles, you realise that your only chance really is to lie a bit. Age, weight - best to knock off ten percent. You've been meaning to go on that diet anyway, right?
Photos of last summer, or the summer before, or maybe even the summer before that look better, so you might as well use those. And because everyone else is lying, well, the only chance you have to look better than the rest, to actually attract someone whilst floating in a sea of a hundred million profiles, is to be the one that lies the most.
And of course, lying doesn't work; lying can't work in the real world. The second you step out of the internet and into real life, the kilos are there, the spot is red and throbbing, and that, my friends, is why most of the people you meet on the net, you only ever meet on the net.
The hope of course is that when you do finally obtain a face-to-face you can charm them with your wit and intelligence... make them forget about the zit. But most of the time, the deception between the internet generated hope and the physical reality, the gap between the lie and the truth has become so huge that you just can’t get past it, because you just don’t have the time.
And the main reason that you don’t have the time is because the first thing you see when you are lucky enough to actually meet someone from the net, is that they have lied.
And the wit and intelligence you were hoping for has evaporated, anyway. Because the people you meet spend most of their time - on the net.
Gregory Flood, in his book, I'm looking for Mr Right makes the point that in order to meet Mr Right you need to stop looking and start becoming Mr Right. If you like rock-climbing you're quite likely to meet a compatible partner rock climbing. And if you like photography you're most likely to find a partner at a photography workshop. Like attracts like, and the things we do alter the people we meet. No surprise then, that the depressed who spend all of their time on the net looking for men meet mainly depressed men who spend all of their time on the net looking for men.
So the net “sells” hope. And they do sell it. Most of the sites offer limited functionality to drag you in, and then, once the addiction bites, they make you pay. They are raking in millions selling hope, but what they are really delivering seems, looking around, to be despair. And that's got to be immoral, right?
I don't know how long I will last without that hope, for I truly feel like I am going cold turkey from a drug, but that in itself is interesting enough to motivate me. My obtuse character says that if it's that hard to give up something up that doesn't do me any good, then it's gotta be a worthwhile experience to give it up, hasn't it?
Friends are shocked. “How are you going to meet someone if you're not on the net?" they ask.
And they’re right. I don’t go to the bars much (I can’t afford it, and most of them have become sex clubs), and I have never done the sex clubs because I instinctively hate them. And in a finite logical world my friends are right. I’m putting myself in an impossible situation.
Except that I don't believe that the world is like that. I think existence is flexible and unpredictable, and supportive. And I think that those who make the effort to be true to themselves, those who refuse to participate in a system of lies, breakdowns and depression, those who refuse to have their hope of love and friendship transformed into a moneyable commerce will ultimately come together. The universe owes it to them, and the universe will deliver. Won't it?

And this morning, of course I have no electricity at all. So no email either. No Le Monde online to read the analysis of the French elections.
And this too, is strangely calming. The street outside is quiet, I can't hear my neighbours washing machine, or the old lady downstairs' television, and there is nothing to do except write my diary. Never was it so easy to sit down and think. Never was it easier to sit down and write.
Oh. A bip, a hum, the fridge just lurched into action behind me. The juice is back. Time to go check my email. Pavlov, eat your heart out.
Interestingly enough, this week is TV turn off week as well. But maybe that’s pushing it a bit far. One thing at a time eh?

- Update: So, yeah, in a way I failed... I'm only human and all that. Two things happened to make me put my net profiles back up. One, a reader told me that I was "mad" to have deleted them. After all, he explained - that's how he discovered my books. So maybe it's a good marketing tool.
The other event was a cute american I had been chatting to told me he finally came to nice a week ago, and thought he could contact me when he got here via gaydar. Turned out he couldn't, so I missed him. I think he might have been fibbing, but can I really take that chance?? The interesting challenge now is how to be present on the net without it devouring my life again. Will let you know how it goes.

17/4/2007
Book Plan - Life Plan
Over the last few weeks I have received a number of lovely emails from readers asking when I am going to publish a follow-up to the 50 Reasons/Sottopassaggio/Good Thing, Bad Thing trilogy.
It’s great to know that the demand is there for a fourth novel. It seems to me that if people are ploughing through three novels and still wanting more, then I must be doing something right.
The only trouble is that, truth be told, I have no idea whatsoever what to do with poor old Mark.

Good Thing, Bad Thing was written at a time when I was (I thought) in a stable long-term relationship. The solving of problems, the building of a joint dream that Mark and Tom embark upon in the novel are reflections of my own hopes for myself at the time it was written. In fact, the relationship between my novels and my life is a little more complex. Novels are also ways to try out ideas before doing them in real-life. What happened to Mark and Tom seemed a good destination to aim for when I wrote it. Both for them and for myself.

But real life gets in the way, and that’s not what happened in my own life at all. My own relationship ended in a messy, unavoidable, landslide kind of a way, and suddenly I find myself single and staring at the empty page trying to envisage a future for Mark and Tom. In a way I’m trying to work out which futures I would like to try, both for Mark, and for myself.

The original idea was to make the fourth (and final) novel, a collection of short stories exploring the key moments in the couple’s entire life together, filled with all the alternating happiness and tragedy that define existence. But looking around me, looking at my own life, that seems about as likely as George Bush admitting that the war in Iraq was a mistake. My relationships don’t last eternally, or at least, to date, none of them have. And looking around, nor does anyone elses.
So if I craft a life together for Tom and Mark, is that an ideal, or just a lie? Could anyone really believe it?

Maybe Mark and Tom do what lots of gay couples do and stay together but shag around. It’s the only way to make gay relationships last, so many people tell me. But what is the point in making “last” a relationship that has had its heart – fidelity, honesty and love - ripped out? Where is the nobility in that? How can I seriously end this series with such a slide into such facile compromise?

Say it becomes, instead, the, oh-so-true-to-life story of how they stay together becoming slowly bitter and bored. Another of those tight-lipped unsmiling couples you can see in any coffee shop – nothing left to say. But why would anyone read that? Why would anyone live that?

Perhaps Mark and Tom get bored with each other and split up. Maybe they get angry and fall out forever. Lord knows they’re both difficult enough.
It’s a very fashionable solution. It’s what everyone around me, gay and straight seems to be doing. But what then is Mark’s future? What life can I then craft for him?
Another batch of short affairs? Fifty more reasons to say goodbye? That may be fine for Mark as he romps though his forties, but how to run that story line when he’s sixty, or seventy? Isn’t being single, hunting for tricks in old age the very definition of failure within our societies?

Right now I have no idea where to take poor Mark, and so, he remains suspended in limbo between those final pages of Good Thing, Bad Thing, smiling and waiting optimistically for his future to unfold. And the fact that I don’t know where to take him says surely far more about my own life than it does about his.
Any ideas anyone?

22/3/2007
Save's The Word
Much of gay culture up until now has been built upon the need for solidarity, because of how bad the past was, at how persecuted we were. Our sense of self has been engineered from past suffering and at thinking how lucky we are to be living in these relatively enlightened years - built upon the memories of the struggles that have taken place in order to obtain our liberation as much as anything else.
But in the "enlightened" West it would seem that we might need to find a new raison d’être for the new century. If being gay is to become totally acceptable, then will there be any further need for a gay community?
We're not there yet, but think about it. If it becomes ok to snog your boyfriend in any pub do we need gay pubs? And if it's ok to dance with him do we need gay nightclubs? And if every bookstore has a gay shelf, do we need gay bookstores?
I was struck this morning by the news that Gay's The Word, Britain’s ONLY remaining bookstore is suffering financial difficulties and is threatened with closure.
Jeanette Winterson, Times columnist says that, "Gay's the Word was a brilliant shop but the very fact that it is thinking of closing may mean that its work is done."
It’s part of a current world-view that implies that oppression is over, that the battle is won, and can all the poofs please just shut up now.
I get her point, but surely whether or not its work is done depends on what we see its work as being, and whether we, as writers and reader want its work to be done. As long as we want it, I would argue, then its work isn’t done.
And the truth is that the battle isn’t won yet. Homophobia though thankfully tempered still exists. Snogging your partner (only if your partner happens to be the same sex, of course) will still get you punched in most pubs in the country. And most bookshops still don’t have a gay section, or anyone to advise you where you can find a good book that contains people whose lives look like yours.

As a writer - who knows that my books will never be on Border's Shelves for the simple reason that the people at Border's New York office will never add them to their narrow-minded worldwide lists - I think that an independent bookstore where I can actually walk in and chat to the owner is an invaluable resource.
As a reader, I consider that being able to pop into a store and be advised by a real reader who is passionate about books is essential - just as essential as having a gay pub to have a pint in, or a gay nightclub to have a boogy in.
Tesco may one day have a gay rack, but try asking them for advice about a decent gay read.

But things are thankfully changing, so maybe the future is one of complete integration. Maybe future generations of gay men will read about how in the eighties and nineties there were gay pubs and gay bookshops, and wonder what that must have been like. Will they feel nostalgic? I think so.
And that future, well, it's not a future I am ready to embrace. The gay businesses need to survive, and with oppression waning, they are maybe going to need a new reason to exist.
So how about this? How about the fact that we love one another, as fellow (gay) human beings. How about building a sense of community around that instead, around the idea that we are proud of who we are – not forced to pretend to be proud in the face of oppression, but truly proud. Let’s be proud of our literature and proud to have pubs and clubs.
Let’s all go down to Gay's The Word and buy a book right now, for the simple reason that the owners are beautiful human beings, that the service they provide is essential to our sense of identity, that it is clearly obvious to anyone with a gay brain-cell that Britain's last gay bookstore must not close. www.gaystheword.co.uk

15/3/2007
Elves and Parallel Universes

A funny thing happened to me this week. I got dragged into a Parallel universe.

It all started four days ago - I was sitting at my desk. The music I was playing whilst working started to grate on my senses, and I realised that this was because it was competing with a noise coming from outside...
So I turned off the sound and leaned out of the window - and there, in the street below was the source of the music. A fiddle player.

He was a funny looking chap - ruddy cheeks and cropped hair along with a two foot long beard and his playing - an Irish jig  - was amazing. So I grabbed a cup of tea and took a break, leaning on the windowsill, tapping a foot to the music and watching him play.

After a while he swapped instruments, and pulled from his enormous backpack a set of oillean pipes. The music he then produced was so astounding I ended up clapping, along with a few passers by. The wee musical elf looked up at me and winked, and when a few minutes later he finished, I somewhat nervously invited him up for a drink.

Close to, he was even more surprising to look at. Beneath the beard he is the spitting image of Brad Pitt, and even though the beard disguises this fact pretty well, every now and then I catch a glimpse of him from a new angle and think, Shit! He looks like Pitt.

Joris (pronounced Yours as in, "Hi, I'm Yours") turns out to be surprising in just about every way. He is 27 and has been travelling and busking pretty much since he was 15. He's dutch, but speaks english with an irish accent (he spent some years in Ireland... travelled there by... pushbike of course... His instruments were behind the pushbike in a trailer...

Unfortunately, he tells me, someone stole his bike,  so he's now hitching his way around instead.

Joris looks a bit mad - the blue eyes don't help - and he laughs a bit too loudly, stares a bit too intensely, and from time to time I wonder if he isn't maybe a bit psychotic, but as time goes by, for he is in no great hurry to go anywhere, he turns out to be more unique than mad. He came to Nice for a girl, he tells me. A girl he met in Ireland whose name he doesn't know. He's hoping to bump into her. Is that mad? Maybe. Maybe not.

His parents? They are in the Netherlands. And they're fine about him travelling. They realise he's actually better when he's travelling, because when he's at home he smokes too much dope. It's great that it's legal, he says, but he has travel if only to get away from temptation.

Joris becomes a presence in my life for a few days. Often he busks outside my window - it feels like i'm being serenaded, and invariably he comes in for a beer or two.  The cats don't like the smell of his gear and run and hide. They have a point. Sleeping rough has left its mark. But Joris is funny and friendly, and open in a young naive way that I had forgotten existed. And his Dutch education has given him a stunning breadth of view. He tells me about Greek gods, the etymology of the word music (the art of the Muses - the daughters of Zeus), and even teaches me a few English words I never come across before.

Joris lives on the same planet as me, and; for a few days at least, walks the same streets. But his world is so different... He has no phone, he has no email address. He never knows where he will sleep that night. And he has a stunningly optimistic outlook - he tells me that something always appears, someone always puts him up. And if they don't then he gets to sleep on the beach, which he likes anyway. He seems to be able to ignore the negatives. The bike thefts and any non-offers of help don't get to  him. "You have to decide to only see the good things," he tells me. And it works for him, truly it does. Everywhere he goes people chat and talk and feed and put Joris up. He oozes a kind of open bonhomie.  It's no surprise that he chose Irish instruments, Irish music... His whole attitude to life echoes the cliché of Irish friendliness.

Last night Joris took me to a local pub where a musician he met in the street was to play. I followed him hesitantly through the door into yet another world. A very straight world.

The pub was full of women - well over half, much to Joris' delight, and lots of very very drunken men. Everyone was smoking, drinking, laughing, clapping accompaniment to the guitar of Manu, Joris' new friend. I haven't been to a rowdy straight bar for a while, and the contrast with the dank depressing nightlife that is the French gay scene is astounding.
So we stand at the bar, getting slowly drunk, chatting about this and that, dancing a little to the music, finishing up drinks that people (already too drunk to remember), are constantly leaving on the bar.
Apparently straight men are dancing together, hugging each other, and in their drunkenness they look gayer in that straight pub than any gay man would ever dare. They talk to me, buy me drinks, take me outside for a joint! I am half waiting for someone to put a move on me. I wouldn't mind... I'm not quite sure what's going on, but this world, this musician's world where you can walk into any pub and everyone is your friend, is a fun world. I like it.
And then Joris gets his fiddle out and joins with Manu to play a jig and the place goes wild.

At the end of the evening - well actually at 3am everyone else is still going strong, but I am waning - I say good-bye to Joris and head for the door.

Then I realise that I may never see Joris again. That is his nature. So I go back and slap him on the shoulder in a manly way and say that I'm sad he'll be gone soon. I feel the need to tell him that I like him before he dissapears. He just laughs. He's used to people liking him I guess. He knows it already. 
He replies by saying, "Humm, you smell nice," and winks at me before cracking up laughing. The line comes from Little Britain which we watched together the day before - it's the moment when the Prime Ministerial aide reveals that he is gay, reveals that he has a crush on the PM. It takes me a moment to work out where the line comes from, and even longer to work out the meaning. Actually I'm still not sure. Maybe embarassment diffused through humour, maybe something to do with confusion between the fact that Joris knows I'm gay, and my need to tell him that he has touched my life, even if only lightly, even if only briefly. But it is funny and so I stagger from the pub giggling.

On the way home I think about how different this view of Nice is to anything I have experienced so far, even after 16 years it is the first time I have been in this bar, and I wonder how many different parallel universes live within this same town.

And then I think about this strange man, this ruddy cheeked, Brad Pitt elf that women drift magnetically to, that everyone drifts magnetically to, and I ponder the fact I will probably never bump into him again. That even if I wanted to keep in touch with him I can't - for he has no address and no email; he has no phone. It's almost as if, within the definitions of our modern society, he doesn't actually exist.  
This makes me sad, so I wonder why I attach so much importance to permanance. Why our society curls its lip at transience, why a one night stand is "worse" than a lifelong marriage. Why an intense friendship of three days is worth less on the balance sheet than one which lasts months or years. Joris doesn't seem worried about impermanence. He seems to actively search for it. Maybe that's why he is so happy.

And then, (I am I remind you, a little drunk) I wonder if Joris does exist. Maybe he really is an elf, posted beneath my window to ease my winter blues, dropped from above with a fiddle and a mission of showing me that there are many parallel universes around me, and it's up to me to choose which one I am going to live in, and that if  I  have been living an isolated lonely existence all winter, then maybe that has been my choice. I wonder how many other magical elves are wandering around. Maybe we are surrounded by them. Maybe we just fail to invite them in for a beer.

PS. I went for a long wander around town today, in the hope of getting a snapshot of the mystical elf. But of course, he was nowhere to be seen.

PPS. Just as i typed that phrase, I heard him playing outside the window. So here is the proof. Elves do exist.

PPPS. Joris bumped into that girl he came to Nice for... Not so mad after all.


7/1/2007
When the homeless are the victims of the war between left and right

In recent days, rows of red tents have sprung up on the beach here in Nice, temporary "housing" for the homeless and their supporters provided by a French charitable association, Les Enfants de Don Quichotte.
At the support party on the beach yesterday evening I saw lots of artists and hippies, well meaning middle class Nicois citizens and youngsters standing around snacking and talking about the plight of the poor; I heard people with bourgeois accents talking inclusively - using the term "we" to describe themselves and the homeless (who for the most part stayed on the other side of the row of tents). And more tellingly, I saw homeless people holding cans of beer being turned away from the party because it had been deemed by the organisers, a "no alcohol" event.

The movement, which started in Paris and has now spread nation-wide, is demanding housing for all, a laudable enough aim it would seem.
The problem is, that as philosophers have repeatedly pointed out, you can think about a problem only in terms of the vocabulary you have available to label and analyse things. So choose your words carefully. 
French political thought is still drowning in the ancient divisions between left and right, capitalists and oppressed, us and them, and the analysis that such a vocabulary produces is that the homeless are "victims of capitalism" and that they are homeless because "the system" hasn't provided them with housing.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has given social policy more than a minute's though will realise, the reasons for homelessness are many and varied - mental illness, chronic depression, alcoholism, immigration both legal and illegal, drug addiction, and, of course, yes, those who fall through the economic gaps in the various nets that society provides. But their homelessness is a symptom of society's failure to manage those problems adequately - it's not the cause.
The state could give a brand new house to every homeless person in france, but the alcoholic will still drink himself to oblivion and piss on the sofa, the junky will still invite his mates round and turn it into a squat, and the mentally ill may still wander off and fail to return, or sit in a corner and starve.

And the way that a society deals with these problems, the way that a society integrates its diverse social services to manage alcoholism, drug addiction, economic deprivation, immigration and yes, homelessness goes way beyond the boundaries of left and right. It's the reason that there are people who drop out of society in all societies - and that every society of whatever flavour, develops a strategy either to fight the causes or to hide the results or a mixture of both. In the Soviet Union those who didn't fit in were sent to labour camps or lock-up asylums; In Nice (run by the ex National Front Jacques Peyrat) the solution - during the tourist season - is to round them up every morning and quite simply ship them out of town.

But there are reasons people become homeless, and there are other reasons that they stay that way, and things need to be done, things do need to be changed. 
And the discussion that does needs to happen - how to improve French economic growth in order to provide more and better paid jobs - how to improve services to the mentally ill to enable them to reintegrate society in a meaningful and long lasting way, how to deal with the constant influx of immigrants from dog-poor countries both legal - from Eastern Europe and illegal - from Africa or Asia - are far too complex to be visible through the distorting kaleidoscope that is left/right, us/them, communist/capitalist.
In France, today, I can't see any sign that the vocabulary being used - the polarising, simplifying absurd dialogue of right and left is anywhere near complex or nuanced enough to describe the problem, let alone solve it. 
And, of course, no-one seems to think to ask these people what they need, and Les Enfants de Don Quichotte are no exception. How many do you think would have replied "a red tent on the beach and no-alcohol party please." ?

In the meantime, Les Enfants de Don Quichotte in Nice, have managed to herd 150 people into red tents on the prom. To the great delight of the left wing press. "Look !" they scream, "Look what the capitalist bastards have done." "A home for everyone!" they say. "Right now!"
Of course they don't say what happens when everyone else in the world decides that Nice, or France, or Europe is the place to go for free housing, or who pays for the it, or what economic model might create more jobs for those housed... And they don't say what happens when the mentally ill burn the place down or the alcoholics piss on the furniture... and if you try and discuss it with anyone, well that's easy. They tell you you're a fascist.

And when Les Enfants de Don Quichotte have a party on the beach beside the tents - to raise media interest for these people that they are struggling to make "visible" - they make it an alcohol free party - to avoid trouble, you understand.
So the alcoholics wander up to the party - and then wander back to their doorways and the bus shelters. Because, as in society at large, they aren't the kind of homeless that the Enfants de Don Quichotte want the TV cameras to see. It's best, after all, to exclude them.

I came away feeling strange, maybe even a little sick. I came away feeling that, in the end, for all the laudable discourse, the whole event had far more to do with good old fashioned left/right politics, with antagonising the right wing town hall, with pushing some new voters towards the left, with creating a not inconsequential dose of feel good factor for the liberal classes organising it, than it had anything to do with helping the homeless who were there. 

And I came away feeling strangely anxious that once this is all over - when the red tents no longer captivate the media - that those poor people will be let down with a bump - that they will drift back to their park benches and their squats realising that they were used for someone else's ends entirely. And the idea that, like the right wing politicians,  those well meaning lefties also care more about their own political aims than they care about them, well I can't help but think that that might hurt. It might hurt a lot.


20/12/2006
A Christmas Story for you

Here's a new short story from the collection I am working on. I hope you enjoy it.
Have a great Christmas everyone.

Alice stares at the Christmas lights, reflected and flashing on the shiny streets of the city below, then she pulls back her focal point and watches as the droplets of rain chase each other down the pane.
“Eight million…” she says quietly.
She leans forward and rests her forehead against the glass. It is cold and unyielding – uncomfortable and hard. And yet… And yet, in some strange way the discomfort comforts her. It almost pierces the bubble – almost breaks through the numbness.
She sighs heavily and straightens her back, then raises a hand to support herself. Three yellow cabs slither along the street below.
She turns from the window and looks back into the room. The light is fading and she should switch on some lamps. Or go out.
She could go and sit in the bar again. The waiter was friendly enough. She could sit there until another freak starts trying to buy her a drink and then come home again. She could maybe try another bar. But the barman might not chat to her. Or the freaks could be worse. They usually are.
-more here-


4/12/2006
The Great British Finger-Point

At a dinner party a few weeks ago, the subject of climate change came up.
"Did you look at that guide in the Guardian," someone said, turning to look at me. Specifically - I note - at me.
I frowned. "Yeah, I did actually," I said. "It was good."
"You need to," my assailant replied, wiggling a finger. "All those flights!"
And everyone around the dinner table nodded knowingly. Smugly, even.

Unfortunately - typically - I'm not quick enough to defend myself; not quick enough to point out that my flights back to the UK (I live in France) are an essential part of my job, nor that I don't earn enough to be able to afford to take the train. I don't explain that I carbon offset all my flights (not perfect I know, but not entirely irresponsible either). Neither do I point out that, unlike my friends, I don't live in a large detached house heated with vast amounts of petrol and coal, but in an extremely small apartment running on (very little) 100%  renewable electricity driving a 200% efficient heat pump. I even forget to mention that I don't run a car.
So I just sit, rather shamefully, and stupidly - it seems to me now - and watch, and seethe a little, as my friends, with their four kids and their big houses, wiggle their toasty warm fingers at me, bathed in the gentle light of tungsten lamps. And eventually someone opens another bottle of Australian plonk, and the discussion moves on to which of this holiday's selection of chinese-made junk they will buy their kids... <more here>

15/10/2006
A short story for you.
Inspired by TC Boyle's stunning shorts (If you don't know them then check out "Tooth and Claw") I have begun playing around with some shorts of my own. I'm not sure what to think about the results yet, but the process is definitely enjoyable - so much less stressy than trying to structure a whole novel. So here, for your enjoyment (hopefully) is one of my new stories - OK Sticker -
Please remember that this is a work in progress, and above all, please please tell me what you think, and if you this kind of thing would make a worthwhile collection...

20/08/2006 - A rant about Anglo-Saxon Liberal Precarité.
The two dirtiest words on the French political scene right now are “Anglo-Saxon Liberalism” and “precarité” – precariousness.
The unions, the media, in fact virtually everyone you speak to believes that the public must be protected from the two evils - “Anglo-Saxon Liberalism” and “precarité”
These terms, and the associated fuzzy thinking, have been irritating me for so long I have decided to have a rant.

1. Anglo-Saxon
Of course the term Anglo Saxon – which the French use to group together the British and The Americans - is, since about the tenth century, perfectly meaningless.
The British Anglo –Saxons mixed races long long since with the celts, the Danes and the Normans, whilst the American people are nowadays about as far from Anglo-Saxon as any nationality could be.

2. Liberalism
Again, a completely inappropriate term, which the French use when what they really mean is “monetarism.”
What liberalism actually means is, “A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority. »
Now what could be so terrible about that ??

So if it’s not Anglo-Saxon Liberalism, what are the French fighting ?

What they mean, of course, when they complain about anglo-saxon liberalism, is Monetarism.
Why use the term « Anglo-Saxon Liberalism ? » instead of monetarism ? Well, it lets you beleive that that this evil comes from outside, and enables those who need power – the unions, left wing political parties - convince the people that this is a war between us (the french) and them (the anglo-saxons). It's called xenophobia.

But like all bipolar thinking, the us and them attitude towards Monetarism blinds the French to the truth of the situation which is oh so much more complex. Their terms of reference meak it impossible for them to see clearly. The truth is that the French, and the English, and yes, even the Americans, live in a complex mix and match of Monetarism and Welfare state.

Take healthcare.
The biggest employer in the UK is the state, and the biggest department within that government is the National Health Service. Yes, the UK is one of the few countries in the world to have a soviet-style, free at point of use, nationalized, egalitarian health service. In fact the French system, where GP’s, nurses, support workers, surgeons and laboratories are all self employed or employed by private clinics is far closer to the American monetarist healthcare system than to the British one. In France there is a national health scheme – the CPAM – but it has no healthcare employees. It is simply a national health insurance policy.
What does this mean? Well, to see a doctor in France you’ll be needing your checkbook. To go into a decent hospital you’ll be needing a decent bank balance too. Sure, the CPAM will reimburse some of the fees (a small and diminishing part in reality), but get away without paying? You must be joking.
Yes, there are free point of use hospitals – but you won’t want to go to them. And if you’re skint and you need to see a doctor? Well, you can visit the emergency clinic of the state hospital. Sounds a bit like the American system? It is.
But mention any of this to French people, and they say, “ah yes, but our healthcare system is so much better. I can choose my own doctor. I can go see any specialist I want as long as I can afford it. I can get branded beautifully packaged medicines.” Incredible that they never realize that they are defending the most savage excesses of monetarism – that those who can pay get whatever they want, and that those that can’t can go die in a corner.

3. Precarité.

When the French talk about the fight against “precarité” one would think that precariousness – the possibility in an economy of one losing one’s job, is a new thing, shipped in from overseas (inevitably from those evil Brits and Americans).
In fact précarité is as essential to the human condition as breath itself.
Man the hunter, man the gatherer, man the farmer, has always has an element of precarité… it’s what defines a life, the striving for plenty, for safety, the challenges of dealing with unexpected bad, and good, luck from the weather, wild beasts, famine…

The origin of employment – which is often forgotten – is that one man needs help with a task that cannot be done alone – and barters with another man to help him achieve his ends. In exchange he will give him something in exchange. Precarité – the fact that once the task is done, or even if the man “paying” for the task thinkis it isn’t being done properly and would rather someone else did it instead, is as inherent in the process of employment as employment itself.
The invention of money has significantly simplified the process of barter – When I need some spaghetti, I’m pretty glad I don’t have to carry a pile of books around, and find, say, a gay, English speaking book reader who happens to have some pasta for swaps. And with the invention of money, employment has become the exchange of money for time, and “precarité” the end of the contract for the simple reason that the person paying no longer wants to pay.

The idea that employment should be “guaranteed for life” was born in the soviet era, along with eight year plans, and factories designed to churn out Trabant cars for the next hundred years.
And those societies did, indeed, remove “precarté” from their citizens lives. The soviets knew where they would work every day, and they knew what they would eat, and where they would live. For ever. What the soviets are criticized for is the lack of freedom those citizens had, but a lack of freedom is inherent in a society without precarité. The suppression of precarité must, by definition, mean the suppression of freedom, creativity, adrenalin, fun, - removal of the possibility of fucking up - in short, everything that makes life worth living.
And thus it is with the French. The ideology of the Communist era has never been shaken off - employers are seen as evil capitalists exploiting the poor proletariat, and successive governments have fought to protect them. So unbalanced has French labour law become that while an employee can leave a job at will, it is virtually impossible for an employer to get rid of an employee, no matter what the reason. The French employee cannot fuck up.
The result? Employers terrified to take anyone on, an economy stuck in recession for the last 10 years, and unemployment so high that employees simply cannot leave a job – not a job guaranteed for life - no matter how much they hate it.
Yes, as the precarité of the employee has diminished, his freedom – to move around, experience new things, and enjoy his working life, has also vanished, with a result that all French companies I have worked in have been full of people who quite simply hate their jobs.
In a society with full employment of course, precarité matters not a jot – that’s the thing the French don’t get. People in the UK aren’t scared of losing their jobs. There are plenty of jobs.
It’s French employees who are terrified of unemployment – and the lack of precarité – the lack of jobs, of mobility, is the reason they need to be scared.
And what of the precarité of the unemployed? Do the unions give a damn about them? It would appear not… When anything suggested that might reduce unemployment is fought tooth and nail.

So I may not be Anglo-Saxon, and I may not be a Monetarist - I'm actually pretty left wing - but please shut up about precarité. It’s what makes life worth living.

18/06/2006
Here it comes, finally!!
In reply to all those who have been asking when the follow-up to Sottopassaggio is going to be published, the book has finally moved into the proofing stage.
Yes, I'm actually sitting here in the sweltering weather we're having here in Nice putting the final touches to my third novel. I can hardly believe it myself.
It's always a terrifying thing to release a new novel into the wild, no matter how good you feel about the finished result, and no matter how many times you read-re-read and correct it...
but Good Thing, Bad Thing, (which has taken nearly nine months to write) has had a great reaction from my faithful test-readers - thanks be!!!
Good Thing, Bad Thing tells the story of Mark and Tom as they head off on holiday together for a fresh set of adventures and will be available through major retailers from December 2006.
Advance copies with personalised dedications are also available for purchase at standard retail prices for dispatch in mid August, so please visit the BIGfib Books Online Store if you are interested in ordering one.

Here's the blurb -
On holiday with new boyfriend Tom, Mark - the hero from the best-selling novels, 50 Reasons to Say Goodbye and Sottopassaggio - heads off to rural Italy for a spot of camping.
When the ruggedly seductive Dante invites them onto his farmland the lovers think they have struck lucky, but there is more to Dante than meets the eye - much more.
Thoroughly bewitched, Tom, all innocence, appears blind to Dante's dark side... Racked with suspicion, it is Mark who notices as their holiday starts to spin slowly but very surely out of control - and it is Mark, alone, who can maybe save the day...
Good Thing, Bad Thing is a story of choices; an exploration of the relationship between understanding and forgiveness, and an investigation of the fact that life is rarely quite as bad - or as good - as it seems.
Above all Good Thing Bad Thing is another cracking adventure for gay everyman Mark.