Stiff Little Fingers and Chelsea at The Hippo

I've just about got my voice back after a week. I'm still typing this in, though - my voice recognition software is a but "mazed" as we say round here. Stiff Little Fingers delivered the goods again at The Hippo last Friday (March 27th) and although I was succumbing to the snots I was determined to see them - that's SLF, not The Snots. It probably wasn't a very wise thing to do but when did common sense come into rock'n'roll. I wouldn't have missed it.

Our party numbered about thirty in the end and we all met up beforehand in The Union Rooms on Union Street in Plymouth. As we approached The Hippo we could see groups of people being turned away. Many of them asked us if we had tickets. Fortunately, we did although my mate Martin, who came down from Exeter, must have got one of the last ones. He picked it up on the door and drew many envious glances.

The Hippo has recently been refurbished but, to those who new it, it looked just the same. I'd never crossed its threshold before but the atmosphere was brilliant - crowded but brilliant. It holds between 250 and 300 I suppose and there were at least that crammed in. And some of them had been at The Middle Aged spread - it's like Growing Up Spread but for the more mature punk rocker - so its was really packed.

There were some almost full length mirrors by the bogs that caused some confusion. Some friends of mine (you know who you are) emerged from the Ladies to be faced by a sea of bodies. They noticed what looked like a low wall nearby and went towards it to step over it and take a short cut but - just at that very moment - another pair of girls emerged out of the crowd on the other side of the low wall and came towards them. Hilary and Tania (oops their names slipped out there) took steps to avoid them only to have these vaguely familiar newcomers step to the same side. After a short jig, the four of them noticed everybody else was laughing at them and realised their mistake.

I've done the same thing once before in a night club. I've even seen one bloke demand of himself "What are you lookin' at?" not unlike Travis Pickle in Taxi Driver. But he (and Hils and Tan) had been at the pop - I was sober.

We missed Mad Dog MacRae - I'm not really gone on Pogues-like music - but I'm glad I saw the other support band. I'd never heard of Chelsea before. Those in the know didn't rate them but I thought they were good and I find myself tempted by their back catalogue or even some of their more modern stuff. A large part of Chelsea went on to be Generation X and their line up used to change frequently. Over the years they've stabilised and enjoyed something of a renaissance as Old Skool Punk becomes classical music - I always knew it would.

Anyway - how many other punk bands have had a football team and a posh London suburb named after them?

Stiff Little Fingers blasted the crowd with songs as topical as ever after the latest violence in Northern Ireland. That's why this gig was so popular. Everyone was there to enjoy themselves, sing along and wave and point fingers at the appropriate moment.

But it was hot. It took me back to my student days in Coventry down at The Dog & Trumpet. I reckon the best way to keep cool is to dance but cool is a relative term in such an environment - by the end of the evening the walls were running with sweat.

After the traditional Alternative Ulster as an encore, the DJ span some classic ska songs so we didn't want to go home. In the spirit of self parody the ladies piled up their handbags and the rest of us formed a circle and went One Step Beyond on the very slippery dance floor. I could have danced all night.

The only thing that could have improved the evening was SLF doing Listen. Perhaps it was just as well - staying quiet during that song is impossible. I doubt my voice would ever have been recognised again by man or IT equipment.

Maybe next time though guys?

Giving something back to the reader

Here is Mark George with his very own copy of The Wormton Lamb. That's my reflection in the window behind him with the camera and we are on the 0734 commuter service from Liskeard to Plymouth.

Why's he got a copy when it won't be out until Easter? Mark was one of the very first people to read The Wormton Lamb. Readers are very important for writers and now that I have copies of The Wormton Lamb to distribute to people, the first one has gone to Mark George.

Much of The Wormton Lamb was worked out on the commuter trains from Liskeard to Plymouth. Although I'm a confirmed piston-head I enjoy commuting by train in the morning. I'd already begun scribbling down my ideas in old diaries during the journey and it wasn't long after that I started to string together some sentences in Microsoft Word and printed them off so that I could correct them on the train. Whenever the train was late, out would come the early drafts.

On more than one occasion, this provoked comments from my fellow would-be passengers pn the platform at Devonport station, something along the lines of, "What do you think you're doing? Writing a book?"

When I explained that -- funnily enough -- I was indeed writing a book, some of my fellow would-be passengers expressed an interest in reading it. I think they were being polite and probably were a bit bored. However, after passing round some of my sheets, they wanted to see some more and, eventually, two of my fellow commuters got to see the vast majority of The Wormton Lamb. One of them was Mark George.

I encourage my readers to make comments and provide feedback and what I received proved invaluable. For instance, Mark would pencil comments in the margin. Sometimes he would say "I didn't understand this" or "I didn't see the point in that". At other times, he would say "I really like this!" or "This made me laugh."

This kind of feedback must have had a significant influence on my development as a writer. Eventually, my regular readers saw all of The Wormton Lamb apart from the very end. I did it on purpose. At a critical point in the narrative, I handed out a questionnaire and asked them what they thought was going to happen next. I wanted to see what sort of promise I had made to my readers and, using the results of this little questionnaire, I reworked The Wormton Lamb and made sure, as far as I could, that the ending delivered what I'd set them up to expect.

Unfortunately, both my readers stopped using the trains before I've finished the complete story. I had sort of kept in touch with Mark George over the intervening years. He had moved away to work and, although his family stayed at home in Roche, he was "up the line."

I e-mailed him to keep him abreast of developments with my writing but imagine my surprise when one day, a few weeks ago, I saw him grinning at me on the train. It was just like old times. He'd come back down West to work -- which is just as well because he has something like 15 children. It might be less but they seem to get about a lot.

The timing couldn't have been better.

And today I was able to give him the finished product, a signed and numbered copy of The Wormton Lamb. It's a small token of my appreciation for all the help he gave me in the creative process. He had a quick flick through and recognised some of the names but the last time Mark read anything of my work was three years ago.

Mark George is also a published author. He actually beat me to it for his dissertation for his Ph.D. came out a couple of years ago, although I like to think that I might have outsold him by now.

Anyway, he's now got a copy of my book with my thanks.

I hope he likes the ending.

What I want to do before Christmas, is find my other reader. I know he lived in St Germans and maybe next weekend I shall make enquiries a post office and turn up on his doorstep with something he probably isn't expecting but I hope that he'll like.

Bob Blackman interviewed in The Herald

Today I featured in a Little Interview in The Herald, The Voice of Plymouth. I only just qualified for inclusion as I live in Liskeard but when I pointed out that I work in the dockyard Features Editor Martin Freeman relented and sent me his questions.

What was particularly instructive for me was that only one of my publicity photographs was of a suitable size and quality for reproduction in the paper. So no scary pictures of me blowing up oil refineries like there are on my blogs.

I'm pleased with the result, though, and had to restrain myself from showing everybody on the train this evening my picture in the paper. I might one day manage to be blase about this kind of thing but even if I could I doubt if I will. I still think it's something to be excited about.

Click on the adjacent pictures to see larger images.