An agent on the horizon

This is a post from my "Only Writing" blog - but it's part of my current story, so it belongs here too!

In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions, that a minute will reverse     TS Eliot

For the last few weeks I have been wrestling with GATD and not finding the experience consoling.  I am so desperate to meet my self-imposed deadline of the end of June that I have not thought about much else.  As a results of my very slow progress (lots of editing, not much forward movement) I have only got to 25,000 words.

Temptation!

In this period, the resurgence of right-wing, racist/xenophobic politics has made me feel more politically engaged, additionally the resignation of a number of Labour councillors, creating vacancies and seats to be fought next year, has made me think "Surely I could do better than that!".   A lack of progress, feedback, response and a general sense that my books are still "not good enough" had been lapping around me, making me decidedly despondent.  However, I seemed to be absolutely excelling myself in political arguments.  Clearly there was an alternative career to be considered.

It would be quite immoral to go into local politics for the money - on the other hand, the attendance allowance would be a lot better than nothing - which was what I was earning recently.  And they would certainly get their pound of flesh out of me.  So, I have joined the Labour Party - with the intention of turning up at the next open meeting - to see what I can see.

The Isle of Fannet: my manor and the glans of Kent!

I also know that my fantasy careers are often grim and unpleasant - after all, I might not get elected/selected, and the horror of having to argue with stupid people, and getting to grips with all aspects of local authority business would be at best slightly dull and probably mind-freezingly tedious.  Nevertheless, in something of despair about the writing, I decided that if I didn't "get an agent" or better, the prospect of publication by the end of December I would definitely put myself forward as a local councillor.

Query agents

Last night, as it was the New Moon and according to my Steiner practice of sowing at New Moon, I sent off 2 submissions to US agents.  I wondered about the second one, I found a rather ugly woman who looked likeable - but she was very insistent she didn't want any "Christian" content - now The Ash Grove is not a religious novel - but it definitely does have "Christian content" in the broadest sense of the word - since the hero is a clergyman.  And he does pray occasionally.  And take services.  So, although I liked the cut of her jib I thought I was wasting my time, so I moved on to the next one on the list (these are Tweets from Literary Rejections with details of agents who are looking for writers).   I found a woman at a large NY agency I'd looked at before, although I hadn't looked at her before, but I noticed she was keen on historical novels.  So I sent it to her too.  Last night I received an automatic reply from the first agent, and this morning I saw an email from Foreword, so I assumed that it was their automatic reply - I opened it, to check, and saw a two line email which was conversational and intelligent commenting on something I'd said in my letter and saying "I like your writing so send me the whole thing as a word document."

GOBSMACKED

Actually, it was more like this

Now, my inner critic tells me that The Ash Grove's  pace and quiet unfolding will make her lose interest by chapter 3 - but...what this has done is restored my faith in myself - briefly.  It also means that I don't have to become a Labour Councillor - and that I can carry on writing for a bit longer.  When I last had an agent interested it kept me going for ages, and certainly gave me the essential dose of self-belief that kept me buoyant.  I am really interested to hear what she will say - because no one has read TAG apart from me and Mark - despite a number of kind friends taking it away with them.

GATD
Due to this delicious event I have freed myself from GATD angst, and given myself a day off, in the course of which I have done one good, useful thing, and then devoted myself to pleasure.   M and I went out to lunch at Peens, and I had 2 large glasses of wine, did some shopping, went to the Albion had a cool drink on the terrace, left my shopping there, then had an ice cream at Morellis (chocolate cookies and raspberries) - and couldn't finish it - it was too much!   Then I did some shopping and came home, and I am ludicrously happy still, even though I am convinced Jen K will turn me down.  But a US agent - if she took me on and found a publisher...the sales potential is much bigger in the US... just hope they wouldn't want the sequels too soon.  Anyway, I will try and do some GATD work - it might be months before she gets back to me!

Manston Airport - what next?

Despite the protests of the not enormously economically savvy local afficionados, Manston is likely to remain closed.  It is selling its equipment to Lydd apparently (Lydd is another whole can of worms - owned by the Sheik Fakeh al Athel - perhaps for another blog).

Local fury has turned on Mrs Anne Gloag.  Famously not a very nice woman, with large Bette Davis eyes and a withered visage which sits oddly with her youthful blonde bob.  She is 70-something, and like other determined business people (Rupert Murdoch springs to mind) shows no sign of letting up.  Strange that they are both apparently Christians yet both so nasty - would they be Christians in the Mrs Thatcher (The Good Samaritan was only a good thing because he had MONEY) mould?   So, I am not a fan of Mrs Gloag.  Unfortunately, public opinion in this tiny province of the Empire, is now so polarised that anyone who is happy the airport is closed, is immediately assumed to be an adherent of hers.   The idea of a nuanced position is not well-understood here.

Mrs G bought the airport for £1 last year and, as I suspected, bought it for its land bank.   It is effectively the biggest brownfield site in Thanet.  Unfortunately, many local people didn't understand this - they thought the Bus millionairess had bought it for some other reason - perhaps to invest even more money in it and turn it into Kent's answer to Gatwick.   Oh, you think I'm being cruel to the simplicity of local people?  I assure you that is fair comment - bear in mind that we have some of the lowest levels of educational qualification and skills in the county.

Mrs G has now closed the airport.  She is going to put housing on it.  I think that is pretty much inevitable.  It would take about 20 years to return the land to agriculture, it could be used as a solar field perhaps in the mean time - but honestly, realistically, in this climate, turning it into housing is the answer.    So my argument is, if there is to be housing there, let's make damn sure that it is decent, high quality housing, with a good portion of social housing, high ecological standards, plenty of trees to offset the carbon used in the construction, open spaces, facilities, planning gain!   Of course, knowing TDC this is a bit of a pipe dream.  This is a local council which doesn't seem to understand about planning gain.

There was considerable opposition to the housing idea from the Manstonistas - many of whom, to judge by their comments, must be UKIP supporters - comments on the lines of "we don't want sink estates" (as if - this will be expensive stuff - that's where the money is), "we don't want everyone being emptied out of London coming down here"  "25 families from Brixton have already moved here " (Brixton is code for "black").  The little Englander is alive and well.  I don't totally love the idea, I like the open spaces, the flat windswept ridge, I don't want to see it covered with houses - hence my longing for trees!  But I recognise that there are economic realities.  TDC could deny her planning permission, but she will take it higher and eventually be granted it by the Minister - so why bother? Get control of the situation now, impose conditions - make sure it will be an absolutely fabulous place to live.

Unfortunately, there is now a massive hare running that Mrs G is going to apply for "Garden city" status for her proposed development.  Cue mass hysteria.  And I would object to that, because (a) it will be harder to impose planning conditions (b) it won't be a garden city that Ebenezer Howard would recognise (c) there is talk of it extending to embrace the "Science Park" on the Pfizer site - in other words it would take in Cliffsend and swallow hectares of agricultural land along the A256 to Sandwich.   For heaven's sake!  Unfortunately, to support any housing is seen as support for the Garden City scheme - so I am anticipating some weeks of vituperation and irrationality.  Deep sigh.

I am hoping the Garden City hare is just a strategy to make us all relieved an grateful when it just turns out to be 1200 houses on the airport site.

Manston Airport - a short history of the struggle.

For the benefit of the far-flung audience I should explain - this is my local airport - originally a military site, it finally became a civilian airport 15 years ago.  Although it has been a commercial airport during the years of low-cost air travel and a vast increase in popular casual tourism, such as European city breaks, it has never made money, or attracted any of the major low-cost airlines to use the airport.

A brave, but very badly planned, effort to start a low-cost airline that would fly out of Manston was abandoned within a year I think.  The flights were only cheap on weekdays during term time - and flew to a decreasing number of destinations.   Since then we have had flybe flights to Manchester, Belfast (rapidly cancelled) and Edinburgh.  These ceased last year I think.  Apart from a few charter flights, the majority of the business was freight - carried in dreadful, aging 747s which travelled above our house, so low that you could count the rivets.  In the past there were Antonovs that made the plates rattle - but that was pre 2003 when I moved here. Apart from being a Mecca for dodgy carriers with poor safety records, Manston didn't really seem to be much of a business and was known to be losing about £3-4m p.a. The owner's solution to this state of affairs was to say that if they could have night flights the airport would be viable.

Charles Buchanan - an a rare visit from a BA plane to Manston - this was to suggest success.

Another factor to be considered is that it is sited on a peninsula - with a very limited footfall.  When I moved here I was surprised that the estate agents were promoting it as an attraction - I couldn't see how it would work financially.  The final project was 3 daily KLM flights to Schipol - from where Thanetians could fan out into the rest of the world.   These soon reduced to 2 daily flights, and might have dwindled further if events hadn't overtaken them.

HOWEVER

it appears that the majority of local people - especially those who didn't live under the flight path (and some who did) loved the airport.  For one local councillor it was apparently a badge of pride "Other councillors say "Oh - you've got an airport".  Personally I wish they were saying "Oh - you've got a university."  Many people feel emotional about it because of the WW2 connections - I can understand that.

For some years there has been a division between people who were fighting against night flights, and those who believed the Airport Manager, Charles Buchanan's assertions that allowing night flights would create "thousands" of extra jobs.   At its peak the airport employed 150 people - how 3-4 night flights a day were going to multiply jobs was a question for the wise.  However, the Chair of the local Chamber of Commerce, David Foley, who is an intelligent man with considerable knowledge of the local economy, back up this ludicrous claim and many local people believed that it was true and that all that was standing in the way of massive progress and full employment, was a handful of posh blow-ins (DFLs - Down from London) like me, with our ludicrous demands for sleep.

In addition to a profound local belief that the airport is viable, there are gangs of people from Folkestone, Whitstable and Rochester who are devotees of having a local airport - so that they don't have to use Gatwick  (only not so local that they actually have to hear the planes, or breathe the polluted air).  Even in their wildest dreams, Manston was never going to provide the range of flights and destinations of Gatwick - so unless these supporters dedicated themselves only to going to the destinations Manston could offer, going to Gatwick or Heathrow was still going to be a reality for most of them.  Of course they could have flown to Schipol and then waited 7 hours for a transfer to Athens or whereever... is that really preferable to a couple of hours on the M25?

This was the state of play until May 14th (or was it 15th?) when the airport closed.  I will write a further post to bring this issue up to date.    Is it significant that the airport closed on a Full Moon? No, but quite symbolic.

June

Here are the stars for June - presumably any June? - from the Guardian

June is usually a rather stressful month - too many family birthdays, friends' birthdays to forget and festivities. At the end of the month the students start arriving.  We are still not rich enough to drop that task, so I should really be spending June creating vast tons of chili and shepherds' pie base and cakes and so on for the freezer.  First difficulty this year, we have an Arab student for 3 weeks - but no real worries - just 3 pork-free weeks.  Hope he'll stay and be nice, and not be one of the rather superior ones who despises us kaffirs!

But before all that, there are 3 pieces of work for Mark - could the business finally be coming back - or is it the marketing burst he's done?  Firstly a few days in Cambridge, then (probably) a job in Ramsgate - then finally a few days in Bedford.  We won't be paid until late July -  but then I think things will be looking up quite a bit.

Before all that excitement, Mark has an interview with the company who make Coast for the BBC to talk about the WW2 defences at Pegwell Bay - it isn't guaranteed that he will be on the programme - but it's a good prospect and there will be a small fee - equivalent to about a day's work I guess. It would be a useful contact for him if he wants to pitch a documentary idea to them about elephants.

The UKIP manifesto

I must confess I haven't read the UKIP manifesto - but there was a rather good brief version of it - focussing obviously on the less caring aspects - in a local website - I reproduce it here as an aide memoire for future use in the General Election perhaps.  I haven't heard yet whether Farage will stand here.  Do hope not, but we'll see.

Well done UKIP voters - did you actually know what you were voting for? 
He's a wee list for starters:-
- scrap paid maternity leave
- scrap paid holiday entitlement
- cut education spending 
- increase military spending 
- decriminalise marital rape
- withdraw from the Human Rights Act
- cancel all current house building projects
- abandon baking regulations - risking another banking 
crisis
- stop all renewable energy projects
- halt climate change action
- promote fracking
- privatise the NHS 
- abolish the Scottish Parliament 
and that's just some of their intentions!

YOU DID CHECK THAT OUT BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR CROSS IN THE BOX, DIDN'T YOU?? 

Those are clearly the worst bits... 

UKIP

I don't really want to write about UKIP - I've been writing and arguing about them intermittently today on Facebook.

Anyone who thinks Facebook is all kittens and video clips doesn't see my pages.  There are very tough political slogging matches going on.  It's been lucky that I've had a good friend who shares my views doing a lot of the heavy lifting - and in some cases it was her statuses that provoked these fights.   Part of me just wishes that UKIP supporters would just shut up about it - but they've won the majority of the seats - they feel entitled to gloat - those of them who were more discreet before the results are now strutting about and going for fitting for their new uniforms (I jest!).

Although UKIP strenuously tries to distance itself from neo-fascist groups such as NF and BNP the more it protests, the more we are counting the spoons.... the fact is that it has attracted their supporters (as well as many disaffected Tories and Labour voters) is a small thing, the worse thing, I think, is that it has enabled people who are pretty racist to find an outlet and to express their opinions.

The people who say "I'm not a racist but...." mean that they probably wouldn't use the N- word - but that's now the only definition of a racist - feeling alienated from foreigners, unable to make them welcome - yes, it's xenophobia - but it often covers a racist set of beliefs.   These xenophobes are Ukippers - they aren't educated, cosmopolitan or sophisticated.  Are they nice, kind, decent people?  Perhaps - to their own kind - they would probably help out if they saw a foreigner in trouble - wouldn't they?   They aren't monsters surely.

Nevertheless, I am feeling as alienated from them as Nigel Farage would from a household of Romanian men - Ukipophobia... Sadly, I have rather exhausted my energies on them on Facebook - but my overall view is that this victory is voters who perhaps don't really understand how Euro elections work voting for people who aren't going to work in the European Parliament - so rather a waste of time.  Probably some voters think if they can get enough UKIP MEPs elected they will be able to change European legislation - well yes, but...

Apparently UKIP are going to overhaul their policies - at present they are trying to present themselves as a party of the politically marginalised working classes - who are ignored by the media and Westminster.  If the working class took a close look at their agenda and manifesto they might wonder how getting rid of sick pay and the minimum wage was going to help the working classes exactly? This is because UKIP are not of course a working class party - they are a Poujardiste petit-bourgeois small business persons' party.... their interests are limited to making themselves richer and letting the weakest go to the wall.  Again not something most ordinary British people are totally enamoured of - we are famous for liking under dogs - I don't think we've lost that yet.   Perhaps we are safe.

I certainly don't believe they will make significant gains in a General Election in 2015 - barring some unforeseen horror... However, Nigel F is making the most of his victory - crowing that it is the first time a third party has won a "national election" for a 100 years.  Pas grand chose really - EU elections are not exactly national elections - correctly it should be "won a majority in the national section of a Europe-wide election".  But the truth isn't always a good sound-bite is it?

Claims Direct scam

Claims Direct scam

This afternoon I was called by the usual sub-continental, saying he was calling from Claims Direct.  He was not brushed off easily and started telling me that there was money owing to us from our bank, which had overcharged us for services.   I began to believe him, since I think half our debt to them is a result of charges and the interest charged on their charges and so on - even without the PPI - which we never had because it's futile for the self-employed.

I told him I was uneasy, he was very persuasive - and said they were being supplied with information by local law firms.  Because they used the name Claims Direct I began to think that this was a reputable company which had outsourced its call centre to Bangalore... he began to ask me for details (M's first name) and asked me to confirm our address.  Then I realised he was working towards the "give us your bank details so we can send you the money" question.  He said "Wait, you can speak to my supervisor."
His supervisor "Kevin" had even worse English and an even thicker accent... I told him I would call Claims Direct in the UK and rang off.

While I was looking for the number "Kevin" rang back - "Why you put phone down Madam? We not finished..."  I said "I just want to verify what you are telling me."

When I googled Claims Direct I didn't see anything about a scam there - which is why I am posting this.   I called Claims Direct - they have a "no cold calls" policy - so it wasn't them, and this is a new scam.  I couldn't get their number by dialling 1471.

Sad, I could have done with a couple of thousand.