An afterword to book one

There have been suggestions, more or less from the start, that this blog should carry some sort of disclaimer. You know the sort of thing, ‘..all characters are fictitious and bear no resemblance to real personages, alive or dead’. Equally, calls have been heard for an explicit recognition of the writing’s literary antecedence, of its clearly derivative nature. Some have gone so far as to assert it borders on plagiarism and that surely some copyright law must have been breached.

My reply is; ‘Guilty, your honour! Of all charges.’ There is nothing original in it at all. All the words are borrowed, but barring a few half sentences, not used in the same order. I’ll go further and say this is true of all writing, for all time. We are a social species, everything we know has come about as the result of one brain learning from another, a recombination of the thoughts, feelings and ideas of others.

‘So, how did it all come about?’ I hear you ask. Well, one day a few years ago, the thought occurred to me that in writing the Jeeves stories, Wodehouse was deliberately turning the concept of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes on its head! The grim reality of criminality, is replaced by a world of fantasy and fun. The brains are given to the sidekick, rather than the principal, whilst the narrator remains the fool. Sometime later, I found myself cogitating on whether there could be a modern version of the Jeeves, Wooster relationship - after about three days I concluded there could not. However, in the process I was left with those few aspects of their partnership which just might be plausible.

One aspect of the double act, as portrayed in the short episodic form of a magazine serial, which surely would not survive these days, is the notion of individuals having a persistent and enduring character, someone who doesn’t change over time, indeed who appears to stop time itself. Yet in truth, all double acts learn from each other and become more similar over time. The comfort of certainty, just didn’t seem credible today.

The short form of the magazine serial seemed also to have an equivalence with the blogpost. Modern distractibility suggested maximum dialogue with the minimum of description - along with a word limit of fifteen hundred. ‘But from whom does he take his inspiration?!’ I hear you cry. Well, it is my first attempt at fiction, so better to stick to what one knows. And after all, at the end of the day, you can only hope to be humorous if you are writing about what has made you, laugh.

Those of you who know me personally, or indeed those who have read my other blogs, know I’ve spent a time-rich, if not financially rich, lifetime haunting cafes - using them to read, write and socialise. Over the years I’ve struck up a number of acquaintanceships with waitresses. And yes, one had done a degree in sports science, and another was a yoga instructor who was also certificated in various forms of massage.

And of politics and the minor aristocracy seen from the perspective of the nouveau riche? Well, like many ordinary folk of the late 20^th century I’ve seen the inside of more country piles than I care to remember. I was state educated, but as a teenager did do a couple of short summer courses at public schools, the names of which would be familiar to many of you. Again, given what I’ve written elsewhere, I can hardly deny an over familiarity with Waugh, Powell and Greene. As for politicians they’re everywhere, in increasing numbers, in person and in the media - more and more is known about them, at a time when they seem to achieve less and less. Or is that all changing as I write?