I have to admit that it does me a power of good
when I discover fellow members of The Illuminati who what are involved in
detailed scientific research like what I do.
It just proves to me that The Illuminati are not, as often reported in
the press, a bunch of power hungry business oligarchs but intelligent, considered,
serious people who will be well placed when we achieve our objective of world
domination. Yesterday when I was
conducting an inspection of certain blogs I noticed that Professor Laurie
Buchanan has actually produced a detailed scientific research paper concerning
The Hurl Principle. This, and forgive me
Professor Buchanan for attempting to explain such a detailed natural phenomenon
in so few words, but basically any cat or dog who wishes to involuntarily
regurgitate a meal they have just eaten, will, when given the choice, deposit
their stomachs content on a carpet or rug, despite being surrounded by a sea of
easy clean tiles or wooden floor surfaces.
I can see many of you are already reaching for
your pens and slide rules as such an exciting project does indeed get the old
creative juices flowing. My immediate thoughts
were Newtonian, to say the least. In
fact when I read Professor Buchanan’s paper I could think of nothing more than Newton’s
third law which as you all know states that every action has an equal and opposite
reaction. The reason I thought of Newton’s
third law was because if I ever experienced a natural act, which I now know as
The Hurl Principle, I would instinctively incur Newton’s third law with an
opposing force which is more commonly known as a boot in the arse for the
animal involved. So well done Professor
Laurie Buchanan I’m sure we will see your name in lights soon if not at the Nobel
prizes.
I of course cannot spend as much time as I
would like involved in my own specific area of scientific research as I have
the day job to contend with, which is basically trying to entertain you
lot. This does involve me coming up with
a succession of ideas which strangely enough can be fun rather than hard
work. I would agree with the great American
author John Steinbeck, who said that, ‘Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple
and learn how to handle them and pretty soon you have a dozen.’ And so it was way back then when I was struggling
to become the world’s greatest ghost writer, farming ideas for a living, like a
rabbit farmer but without the protestors.
It would have been nice to have some of the electronic goodies that are
so prevalent these days to help me along.
The ultimate in electronic help back then was the Apple Mac computer and
the telephone, which still wasn’t very mobile.
The telephone was the main tool used for
setting up business deals and chasing people to set up deals. Jeffrey was very good in keeping me informed on
the progress of all our projects but I was still having to travel up and down
to the local college to put my work onto disc and print manuscripts, as and
when required. I do remember Jeffrey calling
me once explaining that he had the magician Paul Daniels and his wife Debbie
Magee sitting in front of him at his desk, would I be interested in writing a book
for Paul Daniels? It was nice to see that
the work could flow both ways, but I respectfully declined the offer. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before something
would happen and then, especially with all the work that I had competed, there
would be an avalanche. One of the things
I used to do to entertain the children would be in the evenings, as they would
be having their tea, I would replay them the tape recording of the ‘famous’
people I had been speaking to that day, the children were impressed, I
think. One of the telephone calls I
received, and that is still on tape, was from Frank Bruno, the heavyweight
world champion boxer. Frank was quite
excited and asked if I had heard the news. ‘What news?’ I asked. According to Frank, Jeffrey had managed to
secure a publishing deal for our project and was presently out celebrating and
discussing our deal with Frank’s accountant.
Frank was over the moon and couldn’t thank me enough for approaching
him, which I thought was a little over the top until he told me how much the
advance was.
In the world of books and publishing when money
is being discussed normally a small equation is worked out by those involved. You will no doubt have heard of authors
advances, the really huge ones are sometimes nothing more than a gamble and a
one off payment but normal advances, usually represent one third of what the
publisher expects the book to earn. As
they are experts in their field they are normally correct. So when Frank Bruno told me what our advance
was I immediately multiplied by three, except I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing. Frank told me that we had been
given a six hundred thousand pound advance.
Frank couldn’t stop thanking me and praising me and wondering if, and
how quickly, we could get another book out.
With his enthusiasm and excitement I knew we had picked the correct candidate
to front the project.
Of course six hundred thousand is quite a nice
figure but please remember I would only get half of that so, that’s only three hundred
thousand and then Jeffrey takes his ten per cent and then there’s the tax
man. Well; the tax man would not be
chasing me, for I was off to Ireland, as at that time in the Republic any money
earned from the arts was allowed to be tax free. So to come from struggling to write two or
three hundred words each and every day to actually being in a position where I
could consider buying a house for cash all the hardship and knockbacks seemed
to be worth it. It wasn’t long before Jeffrey
telephoned me and explained the deal to me.
Yes Frank Bruno had been correct and Jeffrey had secured a decent advance
for us, all the publisher wanted was thirty thousand words, I could structure
the book any way that I wanted.
I don’t know if there had been any influence from
the report by Jeffery’s children’s literature expert but truthfully I didn’t care,
I was on my way, all I had to do now was write the book, although I have to
admit the size of the advance did put me under a little pressure as this was
not about enjoying myself anymore but about producing professional work. I decided to write six, five thousand word
long, ghost stories, it was me maintaining my simple approach. As Jeffrey had been trying to set up the deal
I had spent most of my time reading and re reading children’s ghost stories and
felt that I had read almost every classic ghost story ever written all I had to
do now was produce six of my own. I
seemed to fall in to a routine of producing one story every three days. It would only take one day to write a story
but another two to edit and polish it.
I sent off the six completed stories and went
and stood in a dark corner, for a lot was riding on them. Jeffrey read them, telephoned me and apart
from saying how good he thought they were, wanted to know ‘how I did it.’ I hadn’t a clue, but like the teaching staff
at my children’s school my thoughts were I don’t know what I am doing, but whatever
it was, I was going to keep doing it. Jeffrey
returned the stories to me with any suggestions or corrections, which as normal
were minimal. I then sent the stories off
to the publisher and once again waited.
It was a few days later when the publisher telephoned me and said that
they thought the stories were wonderful, that they were lovely, misty, classic Scottish
type, ghost stories, but could I produce something more modern. They wanted modern ghost stories with
computers and television and some of the electronic gadgets that were becoming
more common.
I found myself back at the keyboard and
rattling away again and again falling into a routine of one story every three
days. Again after Jeffrey had inspected
my work the stories went off to the publisher and we waited. They telephoned me again and complemented me
on my work saying they were fantastic modern ghost stories but they felt that
each story should contain Frank Bruno. So,
could I get together with Frank, talk about his life, and then write six ghost stories
that could have occurred to Frank during his life, implying that the stories
had been experienced by Frank and were true.
By now I had written thirteen stories but still sat down at the keyboard
to produce another six, five thousand word long, ghost stories each claiming to
have happened to Frank Bruno.
Once again I fell in to the three day per story
routine and still managed to thump out six stories, but for some strange reason
I came up with a seventh idea and it was for me anyway, quite exciting, I felt that
it would be the best of all the recent batch of stories, so gave myself another
three days to write and edit it. Being a
generous fellow I send the seven stories off and waited to hear the outcome. So I had produced twenty ghost stories in all,
but you have to admit, the pay day was worth it, especially with another two
similar pay days to come. It was Jeffrey
who telephoned me to give me the news.
It was the sort of thing you only see on the television or in
films. “Have you seen the news Peter?” asked Jeffery.
“No,” I said, switching on the television. “What’s going on?” “Frank Bruno’s wife had just secured an
injunction against him as he was constantly beating her up. The publishers don’t think that Frank is the
sort of fellow who should be promoting children’s books, they’ve pulled out. We’ve lost the deal.” As I watched Frank Bruno walk out of the High
Court in London, on my television set, I didn’t know whether I would invoke The
Hurl Principle or Newton’s third law, but one, if not both of them, seemed an appropriate
response.
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