For a long time now I have been working on The Book.

The only problem is that all the work takes place in my head and I haven’t made a serious attempt to put it on paper.  Or should I say hard drive?

I have made a few false starts but other things have distracted me and I have never gone beyond a few thousand words.  I have decided that something must be done.  I have been incubating my wee tale for long enough.  I really must make a serious attempt to rid myself of that fucking storyline that has been worming around in my head for so long.

The problem is that I have to rid myself of other distractions, and one of my biggest distractions is this fucking site.

I’m not quitting, so you can all please stop having heart attacks.  It is just that this place will be knocked off the top of my priority list, and occasionally I may forget to scribble here altogether.  So if any of you would like to volunteer to poke me in the ribs occasionally and remind me to dish out a soupçon of vitriol then feel free.

There are reasons why I haven’t given The Book more attention in the past while, but I hope those reasons have disappeared.  There is only one way to find out and that is to try.

Why do I have a funny feeling that I will change my mind within the next week?

This doesn’t surprise me because every fucking day is World Somefuckingthing Day, so I suppose books must get an elbow in at some stage.

I received my first cheque from the publishers a couple of weeks ago for my Magnum Opus.  Quite an occasion?  I brought it to my bank to lodge it, and there were the usual embarrassing scenes where the manager came out with the champagne and cigars [whereupon we had to go outside to smoke ‘em in the rain, which wasn’t exactly the ambience he was trying to create?].  He started plying me with leaflets telling me all about their fantastic investment schemes, and I told him to fuck himself, that the money was already spoken for to pay the balance on that island in the South Pacific.  Did he honestly think I was going to hand my money over to a fucking bank to mind?

Anyhow, I digress.

Apparently, World Book Day is a day for encouraging people to read, and there is an emphasis on reading sessions in libraries.  I have already contacted as many libraries as I can find and have received promises from them that my book will be on the reading list for the children’s sessions.  It’s wonderful what a simple threat of arson will achieve?  I didn’t particularly like resorting to threats, but I consider it my mission in life to broaden people’s minds, and where better to start than with the young?

I see those fucking publishers have dropped the price of The Book a tad, which means the next cheque will be a bit smaller.  Bastards.

If you want to get your orders in for Mother’s Day [assuming you really hate your mother?] then you had better hurry – Amazon in the US have only five left, and there are just two left in the UK.

I see there is a new review on the US site.  It’s long and rambling, but reasonably flattering.  They end up with the paragraph:

Head rambles is a delightful read which makes you stop and laugh at the small things that make Irish life unique. The random order of stories and topics makes the book feel how it was meant to; like a witty, grumpy old man venting his frustrations about everyday life to the world.
You can almost see him sitting at the laptop with a cup of tea and his pipe. Highly recommended.

I wouldn’t object to this apart from the second last sentence – “You can almost see him sitting at the laptop with a cup of tea and his pipe”.  What the fuck do they mean by that?  “You can almost see him”? 

Are they implying that it’s all a figleaf of my mind?

Do they think I am making it all up?

Fucking nerve!

The concept of having a book published and then forgetting about it may seem strange, but with my memory, anything is possible.

Back at the beginning of the year there was a lot of hype and a little publicity over it, what with radio and newspaper interviews and the like, but since then, it sort of slipped my mind.

An old friend called around a couple of weeks ago.  He hadn’t been here in a year, and he commented on a yoke Herself had hung on the wall.  It was a full page article about the book launch, and my friend commented on it.

“What’s this?” says he, reading the article.

“Oh!” says I, and to my own surprise I found myself telling him that I had had a book published.  I had forgotten about it.

After he had gone, I took a peek into the page in Amazon to see how I was ranking on the grand scheme of things.  Wow!  2,795,545th in the list of book sales.  I’m in the top three [million]!!

I also found that someone had stuck in a review.  It was rather flattering. 

Head rambles is a delightful read which makes you stop and laugh at the small things that make Irish life unique. The random order of stories and topics makes the book feel how it was meant to; like a witty, grumpy old man venting his frustrations about everyday life to the world.
You can almost see him sitting at the laptop with a cup of tea and his pipe. Highly recommended.

They obviously hadn’t read it…..

I must get in touch with Mercier.

I must find out if they managed to sell any or all of the fifty copies that were printed. 

I must find out if they have any spare copies.

I might buy a couple to give as presents.

I can give them to the Lads down in the pub, and really piss them off.

There were a few sitting there all right, and my first thought was that the recession has definitely bottomed out, and we are on the way back to normality.  I know this, because they were offering me 80% off Viagra, but this has steadily been decreasing to 75%.

There was also a mail in there from the editor of The Irish Book Review in America.

He announced that The Book is their Book of The Week.

This annoyed me.  For a start they should have nominated it as Book of The Month, and also there were a few typos in the extracts they had published.  I told him my thoughts.

He neatly side stepped the issue and started pouring on the flattery.  He told me how funny the book was [I knew that already] and how it well deserved to be Book of The Week [I knew that also].  He asked me to write them an article about the Irish in America [I said I’d think about it].

But he then made the mistake of telling me how he got the book for nothing, as the publishers had sent it to him.  Now that really pissed me off.  I hate people who freeload off the back of my blood sweat and tears.

I got another email from him -

He has promised to pay for the book.

Some people just have to learn the hard way.

Don’t mess with Grandad.

Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and started making out my case.

My case is very simple – they have gone and photographed my house again, and once again they didn’t warn me beforehand.  As a result, the lawn looks shabby; my special crop of tobacco is there for all to see and worst of all, Herself had just hung her knickers out to dry.  So I am suing them for breach of privacy and publication of obscene material.

Imaging my surprise then when I got a letter in the post, giving me the latest progress on my class action against Google.

I know that a class action is when a lot of people gang up together to sue someone for a common complaint.  I have seen ‘Erin Brockovich’.  So had my neighbours all been complaining about the knickers too?  I can’t say I would blame them.  It is a pretty horrendous sight.

But it transpired that this class action was over Google robbing the contents of books and publishing copyright material on the Interweb.  So apparently myself and Stephen King and a few other of the lads were bringing Google to court.  Nice one.

I rang the people who sent me the letter to ask when I was getting my millions.  They said there had been a little mistake, and that a settlement had been reached a couple of days before my book was published and therefore the settlement didn’t apply to me.  Bollox.

But they then went on to say that apparently My People are still suing Google’s People in an ongoing case.  Brilliant.

I wonder what I will do with the millions when I win?

I must post Herself’s knickers over to the case as additional evidence.

I’ll have to label them as ‘Toxic Waste’.

I was sniffing around the Interweb just now and came across this.

What the fuck is that about?

The little bollix goes off without a word to anyone and makes a unilateral decision that affects all of us.  The little shit.

It’s all right for him.  He can go off mincing around doing his gardening and his knitting or whatever poncy things he likes doing but what about me?  I have serious commitments that require funding.  I have Guinness and tobacco to buy, and ammunition to purchase.  How am I supposed to manage now?

This really is serious.  Like the banks, I need capitalisation and funding.  My adventures cannot continue without liquidity [more Guinness].

I am loth to put up one of those Donate Here buttons because that would turn me into a beggar, and God knows you can’t walk for ten steps these days without tripping over one of them.

There is only one solution.

Get out there and buy the fucking book!  I need sales in the hundreds of thousands to afford my simple lifestyle, so push the book like mad.  Buy copies for your neighbours.  Buy copies for your friends.  Buy copies for your enemies.  Get me on Oprah or whatever the bint is called.

Nuclear missiles aren’t cheap, you know.

Even on eBay. 

Did you know that the submarine U-105 was a type IXB and was built in 1940?  I bet you didn’t know that.

It sank in 1943.  It was hardly worth building.

So why this sudden interest in submarines?

It started with a phone call on Monday.

A lovely young lass phoned me and asked if I was up for it.  I of course replied that I was.  I’m used to that type of call, you know.  The girls around here just can’t keep their hands off me.

Anyway, it transpired that there was a bit of a misunderstanding, and what she really wanted was for me to do a radio interview.

I said I would, and asked what radio station she was from.

That’s where the submarine bit comes in.

She said she was from U 105.

That is when I did my research, and that’s when I discovered that I had been talking to a young lass who had been talking to me from a submarine that sank 69 years ago.  Weird.

I didn’t expect to hear any more from them as they must have drowned by now.

To my amazement, she phoned again yesterday and handed me off to a bloke with a soft Norn Iron accent, who promptly compared me to Victor Meldrew.

Just to be on the safe side, I recorded it.

This Interweb is a surreal place.

I had a phone call this morning.

“Hello!  Is that Grandad?”

“It is, indeed,” I replied.

“This is John from Limerick and I just wanted to apologise for this morning, but I ran out of time.”

“That’s no problem,” I said.

Now who the fuck was John from Limerick?

The only person I know of in Limerick is Bock, and he is merely a fig-leaf of my worst nightmares, so it wasn’t anything to do with him.

I know the only thing they do down in Limerick is shoot each other.  It used to be known as ‘Stab City’ but since all this Celtic Tiger shit, they went upmarket and got themselves guns. 

Maybe John had been asked by a Grandad to shoot someone, and had phoned the wrong Grandad?  But as far as I am aware, I am the only real Grandad in Ireland.

I was pondering all the permutations and combinations of the various possibilities, when John interrupted my train of thought.

“Is there any chance you could do the live interview next Saturday?” he asked.

The penny dropped.  It must be a radio station. 

Then I remembered that next Saturday is the Irish Blog Awards, and I am travelling down to Cork on that day.  I told him about that.

“No problem.  We can do the interview at seven in the morning.”

Now I know they are a bit wanton in Limerick, but what kind of fucking looper listens to the radio at seven on a Saturday morning? 

“Can you make that a bit later?” I said in my best ‘I’m a celebrity; don’t fuck with me’ kind of voice.

“No problem,” he said.  “I’ll phone you a few minutes before nine.  Next Saturday then…”

Now I didn’t realise they had radio stations in Limerick.  I wasn’t even sure they had electricity down there, but apparently they have.

One thing is for certain though.

I’ll be wearing my Kevlar vest at nine on Saturday.

I was sitting here quietly on Sunday, having a few whiskeys and tearing bits out of the papers to throw at Minnie, when I came across this in the Sunday Tribune -

Click to embiggen

Who the hell does he think he is, calling me names?

Headcase? How very fucking dare he!

What’s worse, he is trying to garner sympathy for Herself!  Jesu Christi! Is the man insane?

I have been on to my solicitor, and the papers are being served.

I’ll sue him for every penny he has.

Or else I’ll force him to do a guest blog.

I like his style.

I got some library books out last November and they were cluttering the place, so I thought I had better return them.

On the way, I called into the local shop to get the paper. 

I was greeted with a big grin – ‘We have got your tobacco at last, Grandad’ he said.  Five fucking weeks and he expects me to be grateful?  I thanked him anyway and told him his wife and children would be released unharmed.

This did cheer me up a bit so I sang quietly to myself as I drove into town.

I managed to get my usual spot right outside the library.  It’s one of those places with a sort of weird wheelchair thing painted on the road but it is always empty.

I returned my books and took a saunter around the stacks.  No sign of “Headrambles” anywhere, so I complained to the head librarian. 

‘It’s on order’ says he.  ‘There is a waiting list for it.  Do you want to be added?’

’Nah!’ I said.  ‘I have already read it.  It’s not much good anyway’ and I left.

I decided to take a stroll up to the bookshop for a laugh.

The first thing I saw when I entered was a big display.  They were flogging a book by Barack Obama.  Now, it would be nice to have a best seller on my hands, but I’ll be damned if I am going to get myself elected as President of America just to get one.  That is just too high a price to pay, and I don’t fancy living in The White House anyway.

I checked the best seller rack anyway, just in case.  No sign.

I checked the new releases rack.  No sign.

I checked the Irish releases rack.  No sign.

I checked under fiction, hobbies, gardening, science and children’s.  No sign, so I asked the assistant.

She brought me to the humour section for some reason, and there it was.  ‘You’re in luck’ says she.  ‘There is one left.’

Fuck that.  I came to photograph a nice block of books, not a single copy.  It looked sort of sad there stuck between “The Mega Book of Useless Information” and “Bad Cat”.

It wasn’t an entirely wasted journey though.  I was getting very tired of our shopkeeper’s wife and her constant bitching.

I’ll be glad to be rid of her.