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March 10, 2006
Insomnia
Things have been a little busy around here over the past few weeks and to keep that candle burning at both ends, I admit I have been dowsing it in caffeine, which means that when I do stumble into bed at God-knows-what hour, my body cannot move but my mind is still darting about hither and thither.
I keep my Virago bookshelf as close to my bed as possible, they seem safer there from any feminist book thief that might descend upon my house in the middle of the night and steal my signed Sarah Waters. Anyway back to last night, there I was counting Virago authors instead of sheep and listening to the Radio at the same time when on came a new story that destroyed my chance of sleeping for the rest of the night.
Wayne Rooney Gets a 5m Advance for a Book He is Not Going to Write.
Yes that would be Wayne Rooney, poet extraordinaire, who already earns more per week than most of us could spend in a lifetime. I pity the poor ghost writer who has to turn that drivel into something remotely readable. Talking of which the article links to an interesting piece on ghost writing.
And then to add insult to injury, in a completely unrelated issue Mr Joe Public phoned in to discuss the great authors of the past few hundred years and he reeled off a list of about ten names, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hemingway and so on. Not one female got so much as a passing mention, it was as if the Virago bookshelf disappeared into a mist.
I know I know I should’ve phoned in and let off a tirade about all the forgotten (and the not so forgotten) women writers out there but this is me we are talking about here and I don’t do phone ins, well not without a chance to perfect my radio voice anyway. So instead I seethed about it for the rest of the night and at least he shut up eventually (for they do tend to let Joe Public drone on too much on these night time shows) but every hour (coming to think of it, it might have been every half hour I know it seemed like a lot) on the dot the headlines with Wayne Rooney and his excessive book deal came back round to taunt me. I’ve never been so glad to hear my alarm clock I can tell you.
Only three mugs of coffee today.
Posted by purple elephant at March 10, 2006 10:02 PM