back up blog

The thing is, is that when you’re sick, nobody gives a shit. Being sick and seeking out sympathy is akin to having a bad dream, and verbosely trying to tell everyone at breakfast that Harry from One Direction beat up your baby, tried to kiss you after you ran away, and forced you to explain how it would be impossible to have a relationship with him because you don’t like watermelon and anyway, is that a dancing meerkat over there or is it just you?   Life lesson: You kinda had to be there for it to be interesting. Except, your imagination has standing room for one only, so you can’t really bring anyone else along. Ever. Dreams? I don’t care. Ill? Die quietly and in the corner, please. I’m busy . Oh, except for when they are my dreams and it is me that is sick, in which case PAY ME ATTENTION AND STROKE MY HAIR AS YOU WHISPER “IT’S OKAY, SWEETNESS, YOU’LL FEEL BETTER IN THE MORNING.” Also: yes, I would like a little whisky in my honey and lemon. Thanks. You may kiss my forehead now. ...

Back in October, I got an email from the Commissioning Editor of non-fiction at Penguin.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!) The man in charge of buying manuscripts in the Michael Joseph imprint of the Publishing House Of My Dreams said he’d seen the website I ’d set up to impress t hem , and was interested. Liked the extract, he said, had watched the YouTube video; seen the effort I’d gone to in order to say HEY, UNIVERSE. I’VE WRITTEN A BOOK AND NOW SOMEBODY IMPORTANT SHOULD PUBLISH IT. He was that somebody important. He told me I deserved to be read, and to send over what I’d got. I said I’d buy him lunch, if he liked. He told me to come to the Penguin offices for a coffee. I threw up in the loo at work and then took three days to reply to the email because I needed everyone in my life to check the punctuation in my response, lest he sudd...

Darby & Joan  are the quintessential middle-aged British couple, characterised by knitwear, hours of scrabble, and a penchant for staying in on Saturday nights. Darby and Joan are, in fact,  @calummcswiggan  and me. Read the Darby and Joan back catalogue here . Dear Darby, So I was in the kitchen with my brother on Monday night, being good. Good as in, you know, not being out. On a school night. With stolen champagne or inappropriate boys or, ohIdon’tknow the backdrop of an accidental last-minute New York trip , say.   And before I tell you the rest of the story, you’ll already be laughing that I inferred anything about “being good” because as you, and I, and everyone else in my life know and accept, traditionally November is drunk. And maybe a little bit randy. In fact, so intense have my Novembers become that two years ago Hannah The Photographer and I declared SNBATWOMOS: Stop November Being A Total Write-Off Month Of Shame . Because WHAT IS IT ABOUT NOVEMB...

“So, what do you do then?” he asked me as he leaned into his jacket, liquorice-papered roll-up in hand and flame of a match wavering in the wind of a particularly chilly night. He lit mine, and then his own. Early disclaimer? R.e. The No Smoking Thing , Internet, I’M TRYING, okay? “I write,” I replied.  “Writing? Difficult market,” he said. “Competitive,” he said. “I’m still young enough to be a romantic,” I said. Beautiful as he was, Mr. Cigarette was obviously old . World-weathered. Sad-seeming. Forty-seven isn’t ancient if you still believe, but he carried his cynicism around like an old friend and it added decades. It took me less than the time it takes to get down to the butt of a smoke to figure out that this guy had died at 30 and has been waiting to be buried ever since. Disenchanted doesn’t come into it- he was miserable . Life lesson from the womb? Miserable people are determined to make everyone else feel exactly the same way too. What could have been an entertai...