Well Jordan stormed out of the jungle after eating a kangaroo’s anus.  A low point, surely?  Or maybe not.  You decide.  Then the king of the jungle got arrested for killing a rat.  Hmm.  A sign this show has outlived it’s usefulness, perhaps.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, my inimitable agent Teresa Chris and I were invited to Harper Collins HQ to see the cover of my  3rd novel – title now confirmed at NEVER TELL (thanks to everyone who had an opinion, even if I was outvoted, as usual.  I still think The Noise of Spiders is kind of cool…).  The design is very contemporary and I liked it a lot, which is always a relief.  It’s amazing to realise how much work goes into getting the look of a book right, and how many people are involved.   The final proof will be in the pudding, or at least, the readers who are drawn (fingers crossed) to NEVER TELL when it’s released in April 2010 by the cool cover, clever quotes the team have picked out, snappy shout-line etc.  In this case it’s “YOUR PAST WILL ALWAYS CATCH UP WITH YOU” – and don’t we all know that’s too true…

Which is why I’m relieved I was very well-behaved at last night’s CWA Christmas party (and I’m not always, believe me.  On Saturday night it was 3am before I realised my dress was on inside out.  No joke).  Christmas is coming, which usually means one party too many (and one too many swigs of sherry, mentions of Spidermen accessories from the kids, and Quality Streets-at-the-end-of-the-barrel-that-nobody-else-wants-but-I-always-manage-to-finish.  Wouldn’t be Christmas without utter over-indulgence, would it. Not in my house anyway).  I helped tot up my total by scooting along to the CWA party last night, held – ironically?! – in the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London’s Baker Street.  Elementary, my dear Watson etc – though there was no sign of the great man.  Still, it was good to see so many familiar faces, and to meet new ones, including Tom Harper who’ll be the new Chair, taking over from Margaret Murphy in April, and who is a Bright Young Thing with lots of ideas – and a nice line in fish sauce (a private joke between him and author Lindsey Davis, entirely over my head.) I was also glad to meet Lizzie Hayes of Mysterious Women & Ayo Onatede from Shots Magazine properly – and to wish Merry Christmas to Natasha Cooper, Sheila Quigley, Barry Forshaw, Mike Stotter, Laura Wilson, the Crimefest guys et al – you know, the usual suspects.  Great name for a – oh yeah. Someone did that already.

Finally, a few weeks ago I recovered from my probable-swine flu long enough to hear the compelling Dreda Say Mitchell talk about her latest book Geezer Girls at Lewisham Library.  Perhaps it was her teaching background but she had her audience eating from the palm of her hand, even instructing them on where to sit – don’t think I’ve ever dared tell anyone at my events where to go – though sometimes – well, the man who snored loudly in the front row throughout my Waterstones talk last year, well, I had an idea of where he could have gone …although I’m always so delighted that people have ventured out into dark and stormy nights that it’s a pleasure to see them, even if they are sound asleep.

Zzzzzzzzz

My latest thriller – currently in final edit stages, working title NEVER TELL (good title?!) – is in part about an art dealer with a shady background (though some might think art dealers are by nature shady…) The central character in NEVER TELL, journalist Rose Miller, visits his house where he has all sorts of art on display, including a Damien Hirst. Rose isn’t a fan of Hirst, and though of course she isn’t a mouth-piece for my own views (ahem. It’s fiction, isn’t it?!), I was intrigued to read Hirst’s interview in Saturday’s Weekend magazine – here – where the artist asserts that “anyone can be like Rembrandt..with practice you can make great paintings”.

Really? If this was true, everyone would be practicing like mad, no? and turning out Rembrandts left right and centre? And we’d all also be able to write plays like Shakespeare or Marlowe, poetry like TS Eliot or Emily Dickinson, novels like Austen or Dickens etc etc. Of course art and literature are so subjective, and diversity absolutely necessary: what floats one person’s boat so often sinks another’s. But it’s maybe just a little unwise of Hirst, currently basking in some, um, not-very-good-reviews of his own exhibtion of oil paintings, to make such claims. It only draws attention to the fact that he, for one, has not managed to paint anywhere near as well as Rembrandt.

As king of the bad boy YBAs and a multi-millionaire, Hhirst can do pretty much what he pleases artistically – and of course he always has a mouthpiece for his ‘rebellious’ views – so what does he care? His penchant for spots, skulls and sharks might mean some claim his work is quite crass (and yep, I might just join them) and that he’s made his fortune by latching onto a good thing. But does it matter? Perhaps that’s what art is? Does art have to be truly good from a technical point of view to be successful? Does it have to be beautiful or skilled? Or merely innovative and shocking…Whatever, I’d rather have a Rembrandt than a smelly old shark hanging from my wall, any day. Just look at the lines….

Finally, I saw five minutes of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity last night. I didn’t recognise anyone really, apart from Sam Fox, whose eyes lit up at the sight of a Strictly Come Dancing dancer in gold sequins. “You look lovely” Sam breathed. Great get-up for the jungle, Camilla. George Hamilton, still a tiny little bit suave, said “Wow, on a yacht with lovely ladies”. He was at that moment quaking in the shadow caused by the giant Kim from How Clean is My House fame. I too would have asserted ‘lovely ladies’ in that instance. Sam Fox dived into the ocean no doubt dreaming of the gold sequins. Jordan was nowhere to be seen…yet.

Quite soon after that, I switched off and went to bed.

Hello out there!

This feels a bit like shouting into the abyss: I finally have a blog, which must make me very 21st century – does it? If anyone is actually reading this, well, it’s jolly nice of you to drop by. Being a bit of a technophobe, it was the lovely ladies at my publishers, Harper Collins (or Avon to be exact) who gently coaxed me into the land of the blog. OK, perhaps it wasn’t so gentle – maybe they actively pushed me! I also tried Twittering but so far I’ve only been followed by some very pneumatic porn-stars – slightly scary – and I think I might leave it for a while…though if Ashton Kutcher is around and twittering, well, it might be a different matter.

I’m currently in the final edit stages of my 3rd novel – working title FALLING/ SOCIETY X – due for April 2010 publication, which is very exciting. It’s the story of investigative journalist and mother of 3, Rose Miller – whose apparently perfect life is disrupted when her past comes back to haunt her. Once a member of a rather decadent secret society at Oxford, Rose and record-producer-husband James have so many skeletons in the closet it’s positively rattling… Which reminds me that it’s Halloween tomorrow and I have a small vampire and an even smaller ’skelington’ downstairs waiting to light the pumpkin.

As I polish off the edits, it’ll soon be time to start thinking about my next book, in which DI Silver from my debut novel LULLABY will make a reappearance. He has quite a few female fans; some readers got in touch with suggestions of who might play him in the film of the book. Daniel Craig was one, and I certainly wouldn’t put up a fight. Mr Craig, if you’re out there and you’re taking a break from all that shaking not stirring , what do you reckon?

Anyway – having flown around subjects like skeletons and porn stars and 007, it’s time to return to the land of SOCIETY X and dotting the last i’s.

Happy Halloween