Wes, my editor in the States, has just sent over the cover treatment for their edition of Furnace: Lockdown (Escape From Furnace: Lockdown over in the US). How cool is this!!! It's totally different to anything I was expecting, but it's utterly eye-catching and chilling and unique, and just brilliant. I love it!

Let me know what you think...



Anyway, loads been happening, I'll blog again soon!

Yesterday was an amazing day, I got to meet the legendary Guillermo del Toro! He has been a huge inspiration for me, creating such darkly fantastic visions and telling such wonderful stories, and it was so exciting to actually meet him in person. He was signing books at Forbidden Planet, and despite the fact the queue was almost round the block he took his time with each person, shaking everybody's hand and talking to them. He was very impressed by my Flash Gordon T-shirt, telling me that the film had inspired some of his creations in Hellboy. So cool! I also managed to slip him a copy of my book, which I know was a little cheeky but I couldn't really pass up on an opportunity like that, could I? Maybe he'll read it on the plane home and think 'I'm going to make Furnace into a film!' You never know... Anyway, he is a wonderfully personable and friendly man, and I am convinced that he is now my best friend.

It was a really smashing day all round. I finally had the chance to meet up with some intermates who I'd met through blogs and Twitter, including the wonderful Liz and Mark, from My Favourite Books, the delightful M. G. Harris, author of The Joshua Files, three other lovely bloggers, Gavin from Next Read, Ana from Book Smugglers and Sharon from Dark Fiction Review, the charming Matt the Librarian, who I have met before at a Faber event, and the delightful Kaz Mahoney, a YA writer whose first novel is currently doing the rounds. They were a fascinating bunch of people to hang out with, all absolutely obsessed with books, which is brilliant! We all went for lunch at Wahaca, a Mexican place near Covent Garden, and just chatted about writing and publishing and the like. Truly awesome!

Here is everybody:



After that I headed up to the Royal Academy to see the Utagawa Kuniyoshi exhibition, which was just wonderful. His prints are spectacular, especially the ones full of ghosts and skeletons and demons and bloodshed. I was hoping to buy a couple of prints but they hardly had any left, and none of the ones I wanted, boo. It finished today, but if you're in London and at a loose end I'd definitely recommend it. The only drawback is that it was so busy. This was my favourite print, spooky!



So anyway, I haven't blogged for a while, sorry about that. It's been a chaotic few weeks of editing, trying to get Furnace: Death Sentence – the third book in the series – finished. Now I absolutely love writing, the flow of it, the way you feel pulled along by the words, like you're on a raft bombing down a category five whitewater stretch, with periods of calm in between the rapids then moments of sheer explosive drama as you catapult off the waterfalls. I love being on that ride with the characters, feeling out of control, not knowing what's about to happen or who will survive. I LOVE it! But I hate editing. For me it totally ruins the flow, ruins that adventure. Instead of speeding along the river at full pelt feeling the spray in your face and the adrenaline in your veins you are plodding along a pathway occasionally splashing in a puddle or picking dog poo from your shoe. Okay, that's a crap analogy, sorry, but you get the idea. It's just a slow, lumbering, unrewarding process and I HATE it! But at least it's done now, Furnace 3 is wrapped up and ready to go to print, which is soooooo exciting!!!!

And speaking of exciting, Furnace Solitary is now back from the printers!!!! Which is awesome!!!! Seeing it next to Furnace Lockdown on the shelf is amazing, they complement each other so well. I can't wait to see all five in a row! I only have a few copies at the moment, but there are enough to send out to a couple of people and I'll be sure to do so. I imagine another box will be arriving very soon, so the rest of you won't have to wait for long!

Because of the editing I haven't been doing a huge number of school visits, but I did have the pleasure of visiting Monk's Walk School in Welwyn Garden City last week. I had a brilliant time, thanks to all the brilliant Year Nines and especially the enthusiastic Year Sevens who made the visit so much fun (and yes, Abel, I do remember how to spell your name...). I hung around for some lunch afterwards with Adam, the librarian, who is doing some really innovative and brilliant things in the library to encourage the kids to read. And a thoroughly lovely chap as well! Thanks for the invite, it was a fantastic day!



In other news, my good friend Tim has just had his first book published, which is actually a book about getting published. It's called 'We Can't All Be Astronauts', and has the hilarious subtitle 'Your friends are successes. You're a failure. One last chance to reach for the stars...' It's one of the funniest books I've ever read, and also very poignant too, and very frank about the Publishing Dream in a way that I think all authors should understand. But mainly just laugh-out-loud funny – I was getting some very strange looks on the train yesterday as frequent snotty chortles burst out of my nose. It's also pretty cool that I'm mentioned in the book, albeit as one of Tim's 'talanted, spawny, b*****d friends!' This makes more sense when you know that the jist of the book is Tim's lifelong quest to be an Author, and the fact that quite a few people in our friendship group got there first, including me, as Tim writes: 'Gordon, whose first novel came runner-up in a national televised competition, then got bought for an advance five times the size of the winner's – a book that he wrote in a week.' I really can't praise this book enough, and it is worth reading by all writers, published or unpublished.

Another bit of fantastic news lately is that I am now a godfather! Me, a godfather, who'd have thought it?! My great friends Luke and Sally have just had their first baby, a very healthy boy called Aidan John Wright. I'm so thrilled for them, and I can't wait to meet my godson and start teaching him bad habits! Thanks guys for the honour of making me godfather, I'm stoked!

What else... I guess most of my free time of late has been spent hanging out with the gang and doing fun stuff during half term. My cousin Allie was down for the week as well, which is always brilliant as he's a total star. He's a musician, and his latest tracks are just stunning. I'll see if I can get permission to post one here. We went to see Coraline 3D, which is superb, if TERRIFYING. We went to see Night at the Museum 2 as well, which was disappointing. I loved the original, but this just felt remarkably flat and unoriginal. I hated Frank Azaria's cheap jokes most of all, I think, and the whole script and performance just felt lazy. Having said that, Lucy loved it, so that was cool. We also went to the beach, which was gorgeous in the sun, although I think in retrospect it was maybe a little too cold for swimming in the sea...

I'm bound to have forgotten something that I meant to blog about, but never mind. I'll try and stay more regular in the future, I bought some fig rolls yesterday so they should help... With the editing now over I'm going to try and get back into the swing of writing, as it's been a good long while since I did any. The trouble at the moment (not that it's any trouble at all, actually, it's wonderful) is that I've just got too many ideas and I want to write them all, so I start something, then start something else, then something else, and nothing gets finished! But I'm going to pick something this week and stick to it!

See ya soon!

I recently guest blogged over at the brilliant Trapped By Monsters, thanks to an invitation by tremendous author Sam Enthoven. Here's my post for those of you who missed it!

For your further edification I present the following tale of woe. Prepare yourself, gentle reader, for the grisly saga of Alexander Gordon Smith (author of the awesome FURNACE: LOCKDOWN, reviewed here) and his valiant, imaginative yet sadly doomed attempts to rescue us all from captivity.

His last words as he disappeared head-first into the bucket of monster solids were “It reads better if you imagine The Two Ronnies singing it.” Let us hope these cryptic words don’t prove to be this terrific author’s epitaph.

NOW READ ON…

ESCAPE!
by Alexander Gordon Smith

-

Eight intrepid authors met up one winter night,
To write a book of horror lore and give the kids a fright.
It was meant to be a tome of monster pain and slaughter,
A terrifying nightmare for our nation’s sons and daughters.
(Yet soon it would be these poor souls who found out about torture!)

-

Trapped by monsters in a cave, so far beneath the ground,
That even when they screamed for help we could not hear a sound.
Forced to do their captors’ bidding in their cells of slime,
Made to write – dear god forbid – poetry that rhymes!
(And doomed to serve their beastly masters till the end of time…)

-

They’re only let out now and then to spread the monsters’ word:
“We monsters truly aren’t that bad” – it’s really quite absurd!
On such a day, in London Town, I met Sam Enthoven,
And nervously he challenged me to come up with a plan.
(“Get us out, for heavens sake – just save us if you can!”)

-

Now I really am no hero, I’m the opposite of brave.
“There is no blooming way,” I said, “I’m going near that cave!”
But then I watched as poor old Sam was dragged into the drains,
By a brutish beast with forty toes that loved inflicting pain.
(And then I vowed: “Sam don’t you fear, you’ll see the sun again!”)

-

My first plan of action was to blow up all the doors,
So I packed my bag with detonators, fuses and C4.
I’d blast their prison open, my brilliant plan was flawless!
Until I went and realised that the bloomin’ cave was doorless…
(The cells are locked up tight with goo, it’s really quite a raw mess.)

-

Plan B: trick the monsters, it couldn’t fail to work!
“Sam,” I said, “just dress up like an ogre gone berserk.”
Sam spread himself with bogeys, an incredible disguise,
He was so convincing that the monsters let him by!
(Until Gwyneth took a fancy and made herself his bride!)

-

Next I thought I’d bake a cake and smuggle in a file,
Those eight pour souls could saw right through their windows with a smile!
But I passed the cake to Gurt Theeg, that wretched bad luck goblin,
And the goblin gobbled it down his throat, even with the file in!
(And judging by his groans of pain it’s filing his intestines…)

-

“Ali, why don’t you charm them with some of your poetry?
Sing them a nice lullaby and make them go to sleep.”
She composed a masterpiece and sung it to her guard,
But when he fell asleep she didn’t manage to get far.
(The beast had fallen on her and squished her with his a*$e!)

-

I started watching prison shows to get some fresh ideas,
And thought of drugging monsters with some chloroform tortillas.
It would have knocked them out for hours on that cold cave flooring,
But Joe scoffed all the poisoned snacks, it really was appalling.
(He’s been asleep for three weeks now and hasn’t once stopped snoring!)

-

“Why don’t you try and sneak out through the prison laund-er-y?
Jump into the trolley and then soon you’ll be home free!”
Andy followed my advice, he thought he had a chance,
But ended up beneath a pair of slimy monster pants.
(He needed to be rescued by a digger and some clamps!)

-

I told Mark and David: “You can get out through the sewer!”
Not knowing that inside it was a world-class monster poo-er.
As soon as they dropped through their loo they found it overflowing.
Are they still alive down there? There is no way of knowing!
(Except for the occasional sound of something human groaning…)

-

“Tommy, try to start a fire and set off the alarms.
You’ll be evacuated before you all come to harm.”
But the instant that he lit a match and held it to some dry rot,
A monster aimed his snozzle in, extinguishing it with snot!
(And now poor Tommy’s covered, there really was a lot.)

-

“I know what to do,” I cried. “Tunnel through the walls!”
But when Barry tried to do so he found there was no wall at all –
His cell was a vast stomach, a gooey gloop of guts,
Belonging to a monster who had tried to eat him up.
(“Argh, the only way I can escape is crawling out its butt!”)


-

Yuk!

-

Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear, I thought, this isn’t going well,
All I’ve done is make those writers sleep or sink or smell.
If I’m going to break them out I’ll have to risk my health,
Sneak into the prison, take those monsters on myself.
(And hope that I’m rewarded with a great degree of wealth.)

-

So that very afternoon I ventured to their lair,
With every single trembling step I’d offer up a prayer.
With stakes and silver bullets, and holy water too,
I stepped into that cave to do just what I had to do…
(Although quite how to do it? I didn’t have a clue!)

-

The moment that I entered, I came under attack,
I knew I was in trouble but there was no turning back!
My weapons were all useless, the beasties were too tough,
My holy water scared them but it just wasn’t enough.
(Though it did manage to make them smell a little less like guff!)

-

Then just when things seemed futile, when I thought that I was dead,
I threw down all my weapons and tried something else instead.
Monsters do love poems, perhaps they’d like this one?
And whilst I read it out to them my dear old friends could run!
(And somehow we would ambush them as soon as I was done.)

-

So I began to read aloud, the monsters crowded round,
The writers slipped out of their cells, they didn’t make a sound!
As soon as I had finished I said, “Now it’s time to fight!
Come on writers, finish this… Let’s give these beasts a fright!
(Er… Hello? Is anybody there? Please don’t leave me behind!”)

-

Guys?!

-

Guys!!!!!!!

-

Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!

Last night I went to the launch of Radio Head: Up and Down the Dials of British Radio by my good friend John Osborne. It was a really great evening, with John reading from the book and also performing a hilarious poem about Pat Sharpe in his wonderful, inimitable style. It's a brilliant read, and well worth buying, especially if you are in to radio, but even if you're not! Here's the blurb:

John Osborne has long been a fan of radio - from late night sessions of John Peel to Test Match Special at dawn, he has always enjoyed tuning in to the riches of our best broadcasts. When his dull temporary job became drearier than ever, John decided to remain attached to his headphones all day to listen to some of Britain's more unknown stations as well as revisiting the mainstream to fully experience the breadth of our radio output. The result is a funny, disarming ride through aspects of Britain that are uplifting, informative and sometimes plain bizarre. Throughout his month of intensive radio listening, John flits through talk radio, sports shows, dips into the mainstream and the minority, exalts in specialist music shows, comedy and local radio before expanding his mind with an experimental arts channel. It seems there is something for everyone at the turn of a dial, whether that is the ranting of the permanently enraged, the gentle tinkle of a string quartet, West Indian stomp or the sound of frozen peas being thrown around Elephant and Castle underground station.John also gets under the skin of the radio business by interviewing presenters such as Mark Radcliffe and Nicholas Parsons as well as industry insiders. John's daily life is directly affected by his radio habit as he finds himself organising a poker night during exposure to The Jazz, and Zane Lowe's energy on Radio One goads him into cooking his stir fry at the same speed as Morecambe and Wise prepared their breakfast. Finally, John decides to turn his life around and radio becomes his saviour.


It never ceases to amaze me just how successful my friends are, and how many of the guys I went to university with have already got book deals. John is already working on his second, for Simon and Schuster; Tim Clare is about to have his first book published by Ebury, We Can't All be Astronauts; Joe Dunthorne reached the giddy heights of literary fame with his first novel Submarine; and that's just the tip of the iceberg!

Anyway, enough gushing. Well done, John, I hope the book is a huge success!

While I've been busy strutting my stuff on the dance floor at weddings, Kate and Simon have been photographing the cast of Stagnant. Although we've decided we're only going to film the trailer this year, and use that to pull in funding for a feature in 2010, it's great to see the cast all lined up! From left to right, Marc Kerr as Manny, Jack Cramer as Alex, Dan 'Spike' Price as Heff, Carina Birrell as Ellie, Matt Milne as Tom, James Ball as Steve, Jamie Biddle as Nick.

So cool!

It's been a pretty grotty week as I've been bedridden with flu. I thought it was Swine Flu at first, then I realised that it was something even worse: Man Flu! The most horrible kind of flu ever to be diagnosed. So it's been a week of lying in bed blowing my nose at least five hundred times (where does all that snot come from?! Surely it's impossible to generate that much fluid in your nose!!!) and overdosing on Lemsips. Normally I quite like being ill because it gives you an excuse to lie there and not do anything (it's usually the only excuse I'll ever give myself to stop working). And I certainly did have a lazy week, most of which was spent either playing Professor Layton on the DS (which is AMAZING), or Civilisation 4 on the laptop (which is simply the best game ever for people like me who dream of one day being Emperor of the World). But I've got so much work to do, and now I'm really regretting taking so much time off!!!

It wasn't a total loss, though, as I did manage to get the copy edit of Furnace 3 finished and sent off. Luckily there wasn't too much to change, just a nip and a tuck here and there. Trevor, the excellent copy editor, also thought the ending should change a little, which at first I resisted, then realised it would be so much better the way he suggested it. That's the one thing I love about the editing process, the fact that for the first time somebody who isn't you gives the book a good once over and spots things with fresh eyes. You don't have to change everything they suggest, but at least hearing what they have to say makes you think 'actually, this isn't as great as I thought it was, and maybe...' and it bumps you out of the rut that you often fall into when you've finished writing. Especially when you're stubborn like me and think that once a book is written nothing can or should be changed! Uncle Frank also read through it and produced his usual invaluable list of suggestions, thanks Frank!

Anyway, I was starting to feel a little less snotty on Friday, which is just as well as my friend Joel was getting married on Saturday. I thought I'd probably better try on my suit, knowing that I've, er, maybe put on a pound or two since I last wore it. My worst fears were realised when I tried to pull on my trousers and they wouldn't get over my butt. Argh! Luckily I'd left the jacket in a pile upstairs and it was creased and absolutely covered in orange sawdust, so I had another excuse to go out and buy a new one. I opted for pinstripe this time because I'd never had a pinstripe suit before and it looked like something a gangster would wear. I got a black shirt, red tie, and, to make myself look even more like a gangster, a belt buckle shaped like a bloody cleaver. Cool!

It was a great wedding, even though we totally did a 'Four Weddings' and got there late. It wasn't my fault, Sally had forgotten a prop that Luke needed for his Best Man speech, and we had to nip back and get it. What followed was a series of 'Wildest Police Chases' style car maneuvers as we tried to bomb out of Norwich to the Sprowston Manor Hotel. Luckily we were only one minute late, and everybody was standing up as we entered so only a few people noticed. I'm glad we didn't arrive just a few seconds earlier, as then we'd have walked in with the bride, which would have been awful! It was another great bash, though, with all the old uni crowd present. I don't see many of them very regularly, so it's always fun catching up. And it's so good seeing Joel and Fran get married, as they really are a darling couple. Congratulations!!!

I just wish I'd been able to wear my kilt again!

Anyway, I've got so so so much to catch up on, not least writing a new book, so I'd better get on!

And the diet definitely starts today!!! I ate a whole large bar of fruit and nut yesterday, in about half an hour, and had a MacDonalds for tea (with an extra burger). I'm going to eat myself into an early grave at this rate!

It's definitely that time of year again, lots and lots of weddings. Now I have to confess I'm not a huge fan of them, I mean it's great seeing two people in love, and wonderful that everybody can have a day of partying and celebrating, but I'm just not good with crowds and end up going a bit loopy after a few hours. Having said that, I do love a good shindig, and a wedding is certainly that!

The first wedding of the year was yesterday, my Uncle Brian's, and it took place in Scotland, which is where most of my family still live. And the best thing about a Scottish wedding is... the KILT! I absolutely love wearing a kilt, I would do it every single day if I thought I could get away with it. They are just so comfortable, and smart, and Scottish, and, well, kilty! Here I am in mine:



Oh yeah!!!!

It was great being back in Kirkcaldy. I haven't been there for a few years, ever since my grandparents died, and it was so wonderful to see everybody again under better circumstances. I always forget how BIG my family is: my dad is one of ten brothers and sisters, which means I also have about thirty cousins, and some more second cousins. It's a huge clan, we totally overflowed the groom's side of the room during the service and had to squat in the bride's! But they are all fantastic and great fun to be around. I'm definitely going to try and get up to see them more often, hopefully when I'm up for the Edinburgh festival this year. Anyway, it was a lovely wedding, with a great band and lots of dancing. And well worth the 16-hour round trip train journey! It was also great to hang out with Dad, who I see about as seldom as my relatives in Scotland!

Oh, and I just have to express my relief that nobody made me dance the Gay Gordon!

No, not Buckingham Palace, Crystal Palace! Today I was down in South London at Alex Milway's wonderful Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival, which he has set up from scratch for the first time this year. Now, setting up a whole festival is no mean feat, it takes a huge amount of work and passion and creativity, and is, from what I've heard, pretty much a full-time job. But Alex is perfect for that job, as he does have oodles and oodles of enthusiasm and creativity. He decided to set up a festival, and he just went ahead and did it! And what a fantastic job he made of it too.

There were a series of workshops throughout the day, of which mine was one. I headed down on the train (well, trains, as there were bloody ENGINEERING WORKS so one train became about three hundred, but then that was the only bad part of the day so I can't really complain) and went straight to Upper Norwood Library, run by the lovely Fiona. I was about five minutes late, so when I arrived I saw that my workshopees were already waiting – mostly kids, but also a couple of adults who thought it was an adult workshop (one of which, I realised later, was Cristy Burne, winner of the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award for her new novel Takeshita Demons, which looks amazing)! They were all great, and we cracked into some exercises straight away, including how to build the foundation of a horror story by looking at your worst fears. An hour later and there were some terrifying plots for horror stories doing the rounds, and I hope that everyone who was there goes off and writes a scary story! Many thanks to everybody who came, it was great meeting you all!

Afterwards I went for a delicious (but very hot) Thai lunch with Alex and some other festival folk and we chatted about books and writing and films and all sorts of other things, which is always lovely but especially so once you've finished a workshop and can relax. Thanks to Bookpirate for footing the bill! After that we waddled contentedly up to The Bookseller Crow for an afternoon of readings. It was a fantastic lineup, with Alex reading from his new Mousehunter book, then the marvelous Sam Enthoven reading from TIM Defender of the Earth, then me, then Sarwat Chadda with his first ever reading from his new horror Devil's Kiss. It was the first time I'd met Sam and Sarwat, and they were both brilliant. I'm really looking forward to reading their books. Incidentally, I discovered that Sarwat's mother-in-law lives about one minute from my house in Norwich, how weird is that?! After some signings from the DFC illustrators we headed over to Smash Bang Wallop, a lovely gallery, and enjoyed some well-earned drinks. I met tonnes of other talented people there, including Sue Eves, although I didn't get to meet her wonderful dog.

So all in all a perfect day, and Alex should be immensely proud of himself for pulling it all together so expertly. Hopefully there will be another one next year!

And I just have to say that out of all the places I've ever been in London, Crystal Palace is by far the nicest. Where else can you be walking down the street, turn your head to the side and be blown away by a view like this (which, if you can't make it out, is the WHOLE of London):

Yay, 10!!!!

We had a day of shopping yesterday to celebrate, and I treated Lucy to a DSi, which are actually pretty cool. The cameras, and photo editing software, are the best thing about them, so much fun! After shopping we met Lyns and had dinner in Pizza Express, which was yummy. I really should do something about my expanding waistline though...

Anyway, have a great birthday week, Lucy!

He turns 50 today!!! I do quite like having a friend who's old enough to be my dad, it makes me feel better whenever I start worrying about the fact I'm 30... I popped out to join him for a drink at the Adam and Eve, which is the oldest pub in Norwich. I brought my Uncle Frank with me too, which was great as he lives in Aberdeen and we hardly ever see each other, or even speak to each other, let alone go out for a drink with each other. It was great being able to have a good chat with him about writing and life, especially as he's one of the main reasons I wanted to be an author. He once wrote a series of stories about a dragon called Whispy, who couldn't blow fire, and I'll never forget reading them as a kid and realising that these stories hadn't just magically appeared in books, they had been written by somebody I know, and if my uncle could write stories, then I could too! Not to mention they were brilliant. Go on, Frank, write some more!

I've just sent off the final proof edit for Furnace: Solitary, which feels great. It is a terrifying, spine-chilling, bowel-loosening feeling, though, sending a book off for the final time. I mean even in this final read-through I found some more typos. Frank, my uncle and a great proof-reader (and writer), found one where I'd written 'nose' instead of 'noise'. How do these things slip through?! There are bound to be some typos in the finished book, but I guess that's just life. And it happens to everyone. I recently read on the wonderful and mega-famous Darren Shan's blog that his latest Demonata book had a whopping great big typo on the last page where the publisher had run some text on from the last line. Which is awful!

Anyway, Furnace 2 is now done and dusted, and it's now straight on to the copy edit for Furnace 3. Copy edits are less stressful than proof edits, I find, as you know you'll have a couple more chances to change anything further down the line. However, they are a lot more work because they often involve some big and complicated structural edits, and sometimes rewrites of entire sections of the book. But I've only got until Friday to get this back to Trevor, the fantastic copy-editor, so I'm hoping it won't be too bad...

Before I crack on with that, though, here's a quick rundown of the highlights from the last few days:

Thursday: Lynsey, Lucy and I went to Yarmouth for a quick visit to the Sea Life Centre, which was fab. There are loads of great fish and other sea creatures there, some of which you can touch. I even prodded a starfish, although was told afterwards that I'd actually poked it in the bum (which is right in the middle of its back). Nice! The highlight of the place was the octopus, which was only small but which was truly mesmerising to watch. They are so graceful, and so alien, and so beautiful. And they're as clever as dogs, cleverer actually as they can unscrew jars if they want whatever's inside, and I've never seen a dog unscrew a jar! After that we walked along the seafront playing on the arcades and eating fish and chips and doughnuts. Great fun! The only disappointment about the day was that Jamie didn't want to come. He wanted to go into town with his friends and buy World of Warcraft. Oh where has my lovely little brother gone?!

I popped into town afterwards to meet up with some friends, Luke, John and Nathan. But by 10 we were all knackered, and Luke, bless him, had actually fallen asleep in the bar. It's terrible getting old.

Friday: Lucy was at a sleepover so Lynsey and I went to see Let the Right One In, which is an amazing Swedish vampire film. I won't say too much about it, other than that it is remarkably atmospheric, and terrifying. The two main actors, both children, are fantastic, and the film instantly catapulted its way into my top five vampire films of all time. Go see it! I'm going to buy the book as well, as apparently it's also really, really good.

Saturday: My good friend Joel is getting married in a couple of weeks, and to celebrate his Stagness we decided to do something outdoorsy and adventurous. Luke booked fourteen of us at Go Ape, which is a massive assault course set 35 feet above the ground in Thetford Forest. I've been before, and remembered very little about it except for being covered in cold sweat and shaking like a leaf by the time I'd finished. It seemed a little better this time round, but it's still bloody hard work. It's all climbing rope ladders, crossing tiny bridges, swinging over the ground on Tarzan swings, struggling up rope nets and speeding down ziplines, which was all terrifying but great, great fun. By the time I'd finished I was definitely at least 3% more of a man than when I'd started. After that it was curry then beer, although I managed to get away with only having four pints and a cup of tea, and as a result lost the 3% gain in manliness that I had accrued earlier than day. Never mind.

Sunday: I was on the radio, see below!

Monday: Kung Fu again, and we're all really getting into it now. We've finished learning the first form, and plenty more to boot. So much fun! And Jamie seemed much more himself today as well, rather than the sulky teenager we've got used to. It was fun watching Lucy and Jamie playing around crazily like they always used to!

So that's about it for the last few days. I'd better get on with the edit now, wish me luck!

Sorry about the lack of posts, it's been a crazy week of editing – just finished the final, last-minute, heart-attack-inducing proof edit of Furnace 2 and about to begin the copy edit of Furnace 3 – but I did have time to go on Future Radio yesterday to chat with the lovely Simone about films, horror and lots more. Podcast here!

Thanks to Jen for making a little Gordy boat montage:

The wonderful site Trapped By Monsters is running a poetry challenge which is well worth entering if anyone enjoys silly verse! The rules are the poem can be no more than eight lines long, must include the word Bobbly, and must answer the question: Is there any chance it snapped off by mistake? Here's my rather dismal effort!

The Short Saga of Slobbery McHorribly
There once lived a beastie called Slobbery McHorribly,
Whose slippery snout was all nobbly and bobbly.
He would wheeze through the forest sniffing everyone smelly,
Leaving them covered in bogeys and nose jelly.
Well one day the monsters grew tired of his schnozz,
And snuck into his snotnest to cut the thing off.
When dawn came the monsters said to old Slobbery:
‘Must have snapped off by mistake, but at least you can breath properly!”

Hmmmmm...

After a stressful morning of film stuff yesterday (who would have thought that making a feature-length movie with no money and no experience would be so difficult?!?!?) I was in desperate need of some fun. Luckily for me the Easter Fair was on in Chapelfield Gardens! I went and met Lucy and Lynsey, and their friend from Manchester, Nicky, at the Red Lion and wolfed down a gorgeous Sunday Lunch, then we swung by and picked up Jamie and headed into town for some seasonal fun.

I very quickly began to regret having eaten so much for lunch...

It wasn't so bad to start with. Jamie and I had a go on all the gun games (as boys are wont to do), and won Lucy a fair few cuddly toys to add to the ones that the girls had won on various other games. We got a bit obsessed with the hoop games too, and came painfully close to victory so many times. I've been a bit nervous of carnies (are we allowed to call them that?) ever since we had a carnival at university, and my friend Luke was bold enough to ask whether the hoops actually fit over the things they were supposed to fit over. The only response he got was in the form of the stall owner vaulting over the counter and chasing him across a field. Which kind of answers the question, really. But the lady at the Easter Fair did show us that a win was achievable, and indeed we managed to add to the little posse of cuddly bears and elephants and other creatures that Lynsey was lugging around in her bag.

After that it was the Dodgems, which I absolutely adore. I think we went on five times in the end, and we all must have had severe whiplash by the time we staggered off. I've got a huge bruise on my knee where Lynsey and Nicky rammed me!

After that I was feeling a tad green, but Jamie was adamant that I joined him on some horrific spinny contraption that looked more like a torture device from the Inquisition than something you'd do for fun. I held out as long as I could but then gave in. Now, I used to go on these rides all the time when I was a kid, sometimes twenty times in a row, and come off feeling as fresh as a daisy. But I'm OLD now! I swear, when that thing started I honestly thought I was going to have a stroke. You know that feeling when you're at the train station and a high-speed one shoots past and you try and follow it and you feel like somebody has pulled your stomach out of your bottom? Well that's what it felt like, but it wouldn't stop! After a minute or so I got used to it, then for the next couple of minutes it was actually okay, then I started to feel like I was going to chunder, and was eyeing Jamie's new jacket as a way of getting revenge for making me ride the ride. But fortunately it stopped soon after and I managed to sway back onto solid ground. I was so ill that I only just managed to eat a hot dog and some candy floss, which for me, at a fair, isn't very much at all!

After that the girls went off to watch 17 Again, which I thought was probably even more likely to make me hurl than the fairground ride, so Jamie and I went home. A great day though!

Today I'm recovering after a day on the boat. Not my boat, obviously, but a day hire boat. Kate, Simon and I hired one out for a location scout on the Broads. The weather forecast promised rain, but it was glorious sunshine all day (apart from the ten minutes where we were mooring the boat when it rained so much and so hard I thought we were going to sink), so much so that I'm currently burned to a crisp! It was absolutely beautiful out there on the rivers and broads, I can't believe I haven't done it since I was a kid, especially considering it's less than half an hour up the road and cheap as chips.

We took our little picnic boat out at Wroxham and chugged along the waterways through Horning and up to Ranworth. Here we met Jen (the director), Tania (the DoP) and Nathan (who had nothing better to do), grabbed some lunch in a nearby pub, then set sail (well, set engine) and travelled a bit further downstream. There are some magnificent locations – including an old 14th Century Abbey which is supposed to be haunted by a monk who was skinned alive and nailed to the door, nice! – and we're definitely hoping to use some for the film. The week on the boat is the one I'm most excited about, as hopefully it will feel like one big holiday!

The best thing about the trip, though, was the birds. There were so many of them – grebes, coots and we even saw about ten herons – and it was so wonderful to see them. Yes, I know, I'm starting to sound like my dad... The coots were my favourite. When you throw bread for them they stretch their wings and run along the water to catch it, it's such a funny thing to watch:



It's funnier when they're not in slow motion, but that's the only video I could find! And wouldn't it be so cool to be able to do that!

I'm going to try and get out on a boat a few times this year. My friend Tom, who runs Gatehouse Press, has just bought one, so I'm hoping to go down and take that out for a spin...

Just call me Captain Gordy!

Mind you, it was so knackering, even though you're just standing around doing nothing. Nathan, Jen and I came back to mine afterwards (after bumping into Lynsey and Lucy, coincidentally, and giving them a lift home, it's a small world) and we were going to watch a film, but we were all drifting off at about half nine. We just about had enough energy for a curry though :-)

Easter fair today, yay!

Just got back from seeing Monsters Vs Aliens 3D... Again! Jamie couldn't come with us last time, so I promised I'd take him again. I wanted to go and see Fast and Furious (saaaad, I know) but he was insistent. I checked out how the 3D system worked before going this time, and it's such a clever thing. Jamie loved the film, and I have to say I really enjoyed watching it again, but it's definitely the 3D that makes it. And I gave in to Jamie's demands for a Dominos for tea, even though I know it's going to lodge itself in my guts for a week and stop me from sleeping... Nice!

It was cool to spend some time with Jamie though, what with his skateboarding I hardly see him these days!

Yay, we made it today! I managed to talk Lynsey and Lucy into it, and Lucy brought her friend Lauren, and together with two teddy bears we all drove over to Banham Zoo for the afternoon. It was so much fun! There is a great selection of animals there, from exotic ones like tigers and giraffes to more mundane things like, well, sheep. Actually it was one of those mundane ones that really stole our hearts, the cutest little goat kid in the world!!!

I really loved seeing the giraffes – so tall – but the real highlight of the day was watching the cheetahs and tigers getting fed. I know they're safely behind bars, but there's still something absolutely amazing (and terrifying) about being a metre or so away from a big cat. When they look you in the eye you still feel that instinctive fear, that knowledge that you wouldn't last two seconds in the wild if you were nose to nose. And yet at the same time they're so cute! We fed the sheep and goats ourselves, although the way the goats were going for my fingers I thought they were turning into carnivores too!

It's incredible seeing just a fraction of the huge variety of wildlife out there, from spoonbills and marmots to spider monkeys and wolves. And don't forget the meerkats, and the seals! I do have mixed feelings about zoos, especially when you see some of the smaller compounds (and especially especially when you see the birds without room to fly properly), but I guess you've got to remember that so many of these species are on the verge of extinction, and zoos with their research and breeding programmes are a great way to ensure that doesn't happen. And it really does make you appreciate your place in the magnificent mix of nature.

No monkeys throwing poo though :-(

I think I might adopt something. Any suggestions? It would have to be one of the unpopular animals that nobody else adopts. Like a camel. Or a pig.

Anyway, debating whether to go out and see Knowing, don't know if I can be bothered to see Nicholas Cage overacting. Again.

Oh, and I wasn't sure what these were, but they were very cute.

I thought since it was such a nice day yesterday we should all do something fun, and I suggested going to the zoo. I haven't been to the zoo for years, and I do love looking at all the animals. But could I convince anybody to go? No! Jamie, now 13 bless him, only wants to skateboard, and despite being covered in bruises and having a huge gash on his face from a recent faceplant he still insists on foregoing everything in favour of whizzing around on a plank of wood attached to some tiny wheels. I don't personally see the attraction, I mean maybe if it had a V8 engine attached to it... I asked Lynsey and Lucy, but they inexplicably chose to stay at home and watch the Chuckle Brothers. Thanks a lot, Barry and Paul.

So instead I decided to catch up on some mail, and managed to post off a load of parcels to people which I'd been meaning to do for ages. And I also finally got the nail pulled out of my car tyre. It was actually a huge screw in the end, god only knows how it got in there. Which was all very fun, but hardly as good as watching monkeys throw poo at each other.

The day was saved in the end when Jen rang and asked if I fancied a McDonalds with her and Nathan, which I didn't, really, but I thought I should force one down in an attempt to be social. It was delicious, although I got a Crunchie McFlurry not realising that they had Cream Egg ones, cheated! After that we got some beers and spent the next five hours running people over in Grand Theft Auto. I don't know what it is about that game but it turns people into monsters! So much fun, though...

Anyway, I'm about to try my zoo plan again today, even though it's raining.

I've just pasted all my old blog posts on the new blog, which was nice as I got to read back over them all – something I'd never normally do. It really has been an exciting couple of years. Unfortunately some of my old posts seem to have been lost in the cyberether, which means I have to rely on my highly unreliable memory to recall them! Never mind.