DAY 4/5: I HAVE CONFIDENCE

ALLAN:  One of the enduring puzzles surrounding the high point of our trip is, just who in their right mind (apart from us) would want to go on a Sound of Music coach tour? Our pre-trip imaginings have conjured images of a coach full of elderly matrons, handing around Werthers originals as they warble cheerfully through the soundtrack and swoon over the handsomeness of Christopher Plummer.  Or would it be a dark bohemian outing of academics and YouTubers, come to peer at the spectacle through their ironic Louis Theroux glasses?  Or, perhaps most likely of all, the bus might be completely empty except for me and Kate.

In the event it is none of these things, although the truth reveals some deep insights to the human psyche.  For a start the operation is well-oiled, the organisation is slick and the bus is super modern and completely full.  It is immediately clear that the Sound of Music tour is a thriving business. As for the ‘who would go on this’ question, the answer seems to be largely British, American and Australian married couples in their early fifties (although we do meet at least one other father/daughter outing).

Our tour guide is Mitch, whose heavy build and gravelly voice might have suited him for work as a night-club bouncer but who turns out to be surprisingly adept with a patter, crammed with interesting SoM related facts (did you know the real Captain von Trapp fired the first torpedo from a submarine?).  He pitches his delivery perfectly and even raises a laugh with a few risky jokes at the expense of the Catholic Church and Nazis (don’t try this at home folks).

But it is when Mitch puts on the SoM soundtrack that this rolling social experiment begins to come to life. When we look around to find out who is singing and who is not it is immediately apparent that the usually outgoing and gregarious Americans have clammed up tight whilst it is the ‘reserved’ Brits are happily warbling about having confidence and fording streams etc.  Or, more precisely, it is the wives who are singing while their husbands stare resolutely out of the window and dream of visiting the Red Bull museum.

So, there you have it, the enduring appeal of the SoM seems to lie mainly with middle-aged British (and Australian) women with one or two outliers like me and Kate. (We are enjoying ourselves immensely to the extent that we are drawing polite and possibly sympathetic smiles).  This should probably come as no surprise but it is a loyal audience and goes a long way towards explaining the enduring appeal of The Sound of Music.  Overall, the tour is a very well-choreographed piece of camp designed to cater perfectly to this very peculiar breed of insanity.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

KATE: The Sound of Music tour was really all we could have hoped for. I don’t think I’ve experienced pride quite like getting the answer right to “what was Maria singing on the way from the abbey to the Von Trapp villa?” (the answer being ‘ I Have Confidence’). It did feel like an almost spiritual existence seeing the house used to film. Fun fact: two houses were used, one for the front and the other for the back terrace and garden, and yes, we saw both. Perhaps best of all, we visited the church in Mondsee, a nearby town, where they filmed the wedding scene – like any self respecting theatre kid who grew up on Julie Andrews musicals, I felt it necessary to walk down the aisle. I have walked down the same aisle as the woman I worship. I felt another octave attach onto my vocal range. I am reborn.

The next day, we travelled up to the fortress that overlooks the city. It is beautiful and imposing; entirely vertical stone walls with tiny windows, fortified by the walls that surround the Old Town, with view of the river for some fifty miles. The interior is gothically decorated, with dark wooden floors, azurite and gold coated walls and ceilings, and hugely ornate, colourful ceramic stoves once used to heat these rooms. Dad and I concluded that we could rather happily set up camp in the wooden-beamed banquet hall – it would be a rather cosy, isolated home.

The preserved kitchen (complete with a state-of-the-art waste disposal system of ‘hole in the wall to chuck out your waste water and scraps’) featured an information panel which provided information on how to prepare your own Sauerkraut. It is as follows.

If you wish to prepare your own pickled cabbage, boil heads of white cabbage. Take two parts mustard and one part honey, mix this with wine, season it with enough caraway seed and aniseed, add  the boiled cabbage and serve it cold.

On our walk down back to the town centre, we couldn’t resist stopping by Stift Nonnberg, (literally, Nun Mountain)the convent used in the filming of The Sound of Music. It is an an actual abbey and nunnery, in fact, and has been since Salzburg’s patron saint, St Rupert, founded it in 712AD. This makes it the oldest continually existing convent in the German speaking world. To my mortification, I basically had to hold back Dad from asking the nuns for Fraulein Maria. He had also pointed out a wind dial on the abbey roof which read “MARIA” – excitedly assuming it to be a nod to the musical which has dominated our trip, or even the real Maria Von Trapp. I felt the need to rain on his parade and point out that it is, in fact, a Catholic abbey, and thus references the Holy Mary. I think I caused some disappointment.

The abbey itself is beautiful, slightly further down the mountain from the fortress. Its iconic red domed roof with a golden clock built into it sits proudly atop the modestly beautiful Bavarian building, surrounded by winding cobbled streets. The walled gardens are home to a small cemetery and several colourful, well cared for flower beds. As someone who did not grow up Catholic, the splendour of all this Catholic churches and the sheer amount of beautiful golden artwork and imagery they have inside always astounds me. Of course, this abbey church is where the real Von Trapps married. The clock strikes twelve. The bells of the central town’s monastry rings out “Thine Be The Glory” over the city.

That evening, our lovely friend Alicia (who is currently living not too far outside of Salzburg) came to visit. One key difference between us and Alicia is that, while we have been fumbling through some phrases along the lines of “Das tut mir leid, sprechen Sie Englisch?” (“I’m sorry, do you speak english?”), Alicia is highly capable in German. As it happens, everyone was right when they told me that, having learnt the basics of the language from a Berliner, I would struggle go understand the Bavarian accent and dialect. It felt great to stand with Alicia as she ordered us “Punsch” (punch). We drank the sweet, warm, rum-y drink surrounded by jovial locals in the beautifully fairy-lit Christmas market. Life is good.

 

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KATE: I’m not quite sure I can say I have now been to Munich. After a 7 hour train journey from Brussels and a changeover in Frankfurt, we arrived in Munich, well and thoroughly knackered. Consequently, I did not get to see any of Munich other than the inside of my hotel room, as I swiftly fell asleep. Thankfully, this hotel did not require fleeing.

It is strange to think that only yesterday morning we were in Brussels – we have travelled the 446 miles to Salzburg in the interim. Salzburg may well be the most beautiful city I have ever been to; the Old Town (or Alt-Stadt (you have my GCSE German teacher to thank for my entirely helpful translations)) is truly the most gorgeous collection of European architecture, surrounded by towering cliff faces, into which various churches and abbeys are built. The skyline is home to impressively grand, baroque spires, foregrounding a high-on-the-hill tree-surrounded fortress (sorry).

Perhaps you think you have a rough estimate of how much I adore The Sound of Music, given that I am almost always singing ‘I Have Confidence’. You may also have had an inkling given that I am here, specifically to do the tour which I bet you didn’t even know existed. I can assure you, you do not. Not even close. Whatever you think, triple it. Tenfold it. The film is truly my happy place. To have it realised in Mirabell gardens felt like I was walking on holy ground – I could feel the life force of Julie Andrews almost possess me to trill away the final top notes of Do-Re-Mi on the ACTUAL steps they jumped up and down (see the photo). I may have to warm up my high notes before the tour tomorrow to truly embrace my inner insufferable musical theatre kid. (And yes, I walked on the wall around the fountain you can see in the backdrop. I wonder how much CCTV footage they have of British tourists doing that.)

ALLAN: Well, Salzburg is very…nice, is the first word that comes to mind. And clean. And well-behaved. And Christmassy – I guess the Christmas market helps with that but the whole town exudes a sort of year-round christmas-ness so that, even in the middle of July one could imagine it would still be cold and snowy and filled with little shops selling tree decorations, apple strudel and nativity scenes. Spend too long in a place like this and you could suffer a fatal overdose of cinnamon.

Apart from its undeniable loveliness – Salzburg is also home to a major culture war.  On the one hand, as the birthplace of Mozart, Salzburg revels in Mozart festivals, Mozart concerts, Mozart soirees, Mozart tea towels and even Mozart rubber ducks.  In fact Mozart would just about dominate everything to do with Salzburg if it wasn’t for his cultural nemesis.  The Sound of Music!!!!

The SoM is, of course, based (loosely) on the story of the family Von Trapp and as the 1965 movie was filmed entirely in and around Salzburg it has been giving the Mozart crowd a run for their money for over 50 years now.  There are SoM tours, SoM plays, a SoM museum and even a SoM puppet show (imagine the bastard child of ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ and Gerry Anderson and you have the general picture). 

Of course Mozart is all very nice and has lots of notes all played very cleverly in the right order, but for a true Von Trapp fan, there can be no comparison to the final bars of Do-Re-Mi preferably sung on the steps of the Mirabell Palace whilst trying to hit a high ‘C’ (at least that’s what most of the tourists here seem to be doing).  Alas, for the Mozart crowd, we have arrived already firmly committed to Team Julie and tomorrow we will reach the high point of our pilgrimage – THE SoM COACH TOUR! (Singing along compulsory). 

I can’t wait – in the meantime, we are drinking coffee and eating crisp apple strudel and there is a real-live nun at the next table. I am itching to ask her if she knows Fraulein Maria

DAY 3: CRISP APPLE STRUDELS

There’s a nun on the next table!
KATE: I’m not quite sure I can say I have now been to Munich. After a 7 hour train journey from Brussels and a changeover in Frankfurt, we arrived in Munich, well and thoroughly knackered. Consequently, I did not get to see any of Munich other than the inside of my hotel room, as I swiftly fell asleep. Thankfully, this hotel did not require fleeing.

It is strange to think that only yesterday morning we were in Brussels – we have travelled the 446 miles to Salzburg in the interim. Salzburg may well be the most beautiful city I have ever been to; the Old Town (or Alt-Stadt (you have my GCSE German teacher to thank for my entirely helpful translations)) is truly the most gorgeous collection of European architecture, surrounded by towering cliff faces, into which various churches and abbeys are built. The skyline is home to impressively grand, baroque spires, foregrounding a high-on-the-hill tree-surrounded fortress (sorry).

Perhaps you think you have a rough estimate of how much I adore The Sound of Music, given that I am almost always singing ‘I Have Confidence’. You may also have had an inkling given that I am here, specifically to do the tour which I bet you didn’t even know existed. I can assure you, you do not. Not even close. Whatever you think, triple it. Tenfold it. The film is truly my happy place. To have it realised in Mirabell gardens felt like I was walking on holy ground – I could feel the life force of Julie Andrews almost possess me to trill away the final top notes of Do-Re-Mi on the ACTUAL steps they jumped up and down (see the photo). I may have to warm up my high notes before the tour tomorrow to truly embrace my inner insufferable musical theatre kid. (And yes, I walked on the wall around the fountain you can see in the backdrop. I wonder how much CCTV footage they have of British tourists doing that.)

What would Julie do?
ALLAN: Well, Salzburg is very…nice, is the first word that comes to mind. And clean. And well-behaved. And Christmassy – I guess the Christmas market helps with that but the whole town exudes a sort of year-round christmas-ness so that, even in the middle of July one could imagine it would still be cold and snowy and filled with little shops selling tree decorations, apple strudel and nativity scenes. Spend too long in a place like this and you could suffer a fatal overdose of cinnamon.

Apart from its undeniable loveliness – Salzburg is also home to a major culture war.  On the one hand, as the birthplace of Mozart, Salzburg revels in Mozart festivals, Mozart concerts, Mozart soirees, Mozart tea towels and even Mozart rubber ducks.  In fact Mozart would just about dominate everything to do with Salzburg if it wasn’t for his cultural nemesis.  The Sound of Music!!!!

The SoM is, of course, based (loosely) on the story of the family Von Trapp and as the 1965 movie was filmed entirely in and around Salzburg it has been giving the Mozart crowd a run for their money for over 50 years now.  There are SoM tours, SoM plays, a SoM museum and even a SoM puppet show (imagine the bastard child of ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ and Gerry Anderson and you have the general picture). 

Of course Mozart is all very nice and has lots of notes all played very cleverly in the right order, but for a true Von Trapp fan, there can be no comparison to the final bars of Do-Re-Mi preferably sung on the steps of the Mirabell Palace whilst trying to hit a high ‘C’ (at least that’s what most of the tourists here seem to be doing).  Alas, for the Mozart crowd, we have arrived already firmly committed to Team Julie and tomorrow we will reach the high point of our pilgrimage – THE SoM COACH TOUR! (Singing along compulsory). 

I can’t wait – in the meantime, we are drinking coffee and eating crisp apple strudel and there is a real-live nun at the next table. I am itching to ask her if she knows Fraulein Maria

Team Julie

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DAY 2: THE SOUND OF MUZAK

ALLAN: The baroque grandeur of Grand Place is the premier destination for any self respecting tourist and is undeniably beautiful (as well as being home to a life-sized and strangely aryan nativity scene, that sits firmly in the middle of ‘uncanny valley’). And, like so many popular tourist destinations, Grand Place sits at the epicentre of an eczema rash of bad pizza restaurants, dodgy characters and tourist tat shops selling Mannekin Pis (literally pissing boy) corkscrews. Of course, this is exactly where our hotel is located.

To describe this Mozart/Moorish themed hotel as ‘a bit strange’ would be on a par with describing Hannibal Lecter as mildly eccentric. The North-African/gothic theme of my room is alarmingly offset by a giant framed print of the thirteen year old Mozart being presented to the pope. The bed linen looks like it was last aired in the 1970’s and the bathroom is lit by the grimy flashbulb brilliance of a scene-of-crime photo.

Most disturbing of all is the collection of unmoving, semi-catatonic characters who inhabit the lobby, staring blankly into their empty coffee cups but who strangely seem to be in a different location every time we turn our backs. Over a bad pizza, my travelling companion and I confess our mutual bad vibes about the place and, with the sudden life preserving instincts of of fleeing antelope we immediately collect our baggage and check into the reassuringly bland Ibis hotel down the road. It is a good decision – we feel like escapees from a bad David Lynch movie. On the way up to our rooms, the lift plays instantly forgettable european hotel muzak – it is strangely comforting.

KATE: I did warn you all yesterday my writing is not as vivid and colourful as my dad’s, and I’m sure you now see where I’m coming from. My gut feeling isn’t often wrong and my spidey senses screamed at me like a foghorn the second we set foot in this “quirky” place. If I am not mistaken, Mozart was, in fact, born in the city of Salzburg, Austria, our later destination, a mere 446 miles from Brussels. Furthermore, I do not believe he had any connection to north Africa, which the hotel’s décor seemed to attempt to emulate. Perhaps it was the mismatch of theme and décor that set my artistic teeth on edge, but the unnervingly quiet characters in the lobby really did feel like those weeping angels in Doctor Who. Aware that I have a tendency to over-worry and dramatise, I initially dismissed my not-so-vague feeling of uneasiness. But after going upstairs in the world’s tiniest lift that felt like it was built with Mozart’s contemporaries’ ideas of health and safety, and entering my bizarrely dingy room, I hardly felt reassured. I was not comforted either by going to meet dad for dinner, to find him padlocking his suitcase to the bed. After about an hour or so of “yeah it’s weird but it’s *probably* fiiinnnneeeee”, we wandered around Grand Place, amongst the beautiful baroque architecture, in search of a different place to stay. (Don’t worry Mum, we were fine).

Before checking into our new hotel we found the absolute perfect gift for my brother – a little metal bottle opener of Mannekin Pis, with a rather phallic corkscrew. You can imagine Dad’s glee at the cashier handing him a little polystyrene tube as “protection” for the corkscrew. You can’t accuse us of being boring x

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ALLAN: It seemed like a good idea at the time – a shared love of ‘The Sound of Music’ with my daughter Kate was innocent enough when its only manifestation was an annual viewing and singalong on Xmas day. But when this morphed into “we should go on the ‘Sound of Music’ tour” I should have known we were in dangerous territory. By the time we got to “let’s go by train” we were beyond the point of no return and now we have reached, “we should buy liederhosen” I am officially a lost soul.

So here we are in the Eurostar departure lounge – two SoM geeks drawn towards Salzburg like migrating salmon, doomed to circle the Von Trapp summerhouse whilst chanting the lyrics to “the lonely goatherd”. As I always say, there is no such thing as wasted experience and this will be a voyage of discovery – in particular I will be discovering if my legs look good in liederhosen.

KATE: I am not the professional writer my father is, however, I am certain my love for a 60 year old musical exceeds his (though he will certainly contest this). As an act of tribute to the woman I perhaps admire the most on this earth, Julie Andrews, (sorry Mum), I have quite perfected my Maria Von Trapp, and by completing this tour I intend to become reborn as a musical fanatic.

There was much debate between us as to whether we should have watched the film before we departed, to freshen our minds of the beautiful film’s every whimsical scene and showtune, or to save it for our annual Christmas viewing, when it will be extra special this year. Upon realising that, between us, we could probably unironically recite the first half of the film, script, songs, harmonies et al, we decided on the latter: when you’ve reached the point of dedication where you are travelling across the continent to do a bus tour where singing ‘Do-Re-Mi’ is mandatory, you tend to know your subject matter rather well.

OVERHEARD CONVERSATIONS DAY 1

 “I mean, I don’t go to a nursery if I want a drink, do I?  So why do they bring their kids to the pub?”

“I’ve met S-Club 7 and Stacey Solomon – she used to work at Stonehenge.”

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Personally, I think no one should feel embarrassed about chasing a late payment – after all, if your employer didn’t pay your salary into the bank this month, you’d ask them where it was, wouldn’t you?  Providing a service as an author is no different and you are entitled to chase late payment.

For many writers, issuing invoices and following up payment presents no problem and, if you are one of them, this article is not aimed at you.  However, for others, the process of carrying out author events and being paid for them may be the first time they have experienced what it feels like to be self-employed or to run your own business.

In my muggle job, I have spent a fair proportion of my time chasing late payments.  This need not be a traumatic process; handled correctly it rarely reaches the point of unpleasantness or legal action and a few simple precautions can reduce or eliminate the most common causes of late payment.  So, if this sounds like it might be useful information then this article is for you.

Firstly ,know you are in the right:  We’re a weird lot, writers.  We spend so much time on our own and questioning our self-worth that it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that you are not worthy of being paid. However, at the risk of sounding like a Marxist treatise – everyone has the right to be paid fairly for their skills and labour.  You wouldn’t leave a restaurant without paying would you? (for appearances sake please say ‘no’ to this question) – well this is no different.  Start with a mindset that says you are fully entitled to be paid an agreed sum for what you have done – know this in your heart and, if necessary get a little pissed off.  Grr!

Second, agree everything up front:  Contrary to common belief, invoices are rarely paid late because the other person is deliberately trying to cheat you.   Far more likely is that there is a misunderstanding somewhere down the line.  So, be very clear at the outset of any school visit what you will do, what conditions you will apply and what you expect in return.  It’s easy to assume that the librarian you spoke to on the phone caught your passing reference to your fees but you don’t really want to find out after the event that the head teacher didn’t get the message and thought you were working for free.  Set out the terms of the visit in writing.  This needn’t require you to call Saul; my own terms and conditions are a few simple paragraphs that set out, what I will talk about, which year groups I work with, how long I will talk for and what my fees will be.  It also sets out any special conditions, like what expenses I expect to be paid and how long you will give them before an invoice is ‘overdue’.  SCBWI has some excellent guidance on this and it’s worth its weight in gold.  As a colleague of mine used to say – “you never need a contract, right up until the moment that you do.”

Third – avoid the common pitfalls:  So, let’s say you’ve got the contract, done the gig (they loved you) and you are ready to issue an invoice.  What will increase your chances of being paid promptly?  I’ve found that the following can solve a lot of problems before they begin:

1. Is your invoice correct? Does the invoice have the right fee on it? Have you submitted expenses in accordance with what was agreed?  Are there any mistakes/ errors; have you included receipts, a purchase order number or an accounting reference (if you have one).  No matter how trivial an error may seem, there are a lot of accounting departments who will automatically reject any invoice with an error.  Often, they will then sit on it until the hapless supplier questions where their money is.  It may seem devious but many accountants simply regard this as good accounting practice – whatever your feelings, be aware of the problem and pre-empt it.
2. Have you sent it to the right person? Simple enough. Don’t assume that the nice assistant librarian who met you at the door and made you a coffee is the person you should send your invoice to.  If you don’t know who it should go to, ASK!  The last thing you want is to find out your invoice has been languishing in the inbox of a supply teacher who went backpacking in Vietnam when it should have gone to the accounts team.
3. Have they acknowledged receipt? Simple enough this one – ‘Did you get my invoice?’ can save weeks of waiting later.
4. Have you been clear about the payment terms? You’d be surprised how many invoices don’t say when they are due.  Some unscrupulous accounts departments (and there are a few) might assume they have forever to pay.  Be clear about when you expect the money.  My own invoices say they are due immediately on presentation although, in practice, I generally give people about four weeks before I start to chase.

Start chasing:  OK, so say you asked for payment in 30 days and it’s been longer than that.  It’s time to start chasing.  Bear in mind that the majority of late payments are due to forgetfulness and admin cock ups so don’t start with all guns blazing.

1. First step: Gentle reminders – “Dear Miss XXX, thank you so much for hosting my author day last month, the children were a joy to talk to and a credit to the school (lay this on as thick as you like).  I wonder if you could help me regarding my invoice:  I submitted this on (date) but haven’t received payment yet.  I am concerned this may have been lost in the system, I wonder if you could follow it up for me?”  – The truth is, your invoice has probably been forgotten in the bottom of Miss XXX’s briefcase and she will be mortified – but because you gave her a ‘get out’ she will blame the admin team and sort it out this afternoon.
2. Second step: Insistence – If this persists for, say, another couple of weeks you may want to be a little more direct.  “Dear Miss XXX – I still don’t seem to have received payment for my invoice – as this is now X weeks overdue I’d be grateful if you could arrange payment this week.” Not rude, not unprofessional but a little more steely than the last message.
3. Third step: Talking – Fact: People are harder to ignore than emails.  Ring them up – talk to them directly.  Often it helps to fabricate a reason for calling.  “Mary, I have an advance copy of my new book/ bookmarks/ limited edition moist towelettes that you might like for the library – shall I send them over?  Oh, by the way, my invoice still doesn’t seem to have been paid, is there someone I should escalate this to or are you able to help me?”  Trust me, it’s a shameless person who is not prepared to respond to this immediately.
4. Fourth step: Get to the root of the problem – Alright this has gone on long enough, it’s time to get to the reasons behind the delay.  A frankly worded email is often best.  “Having checked my account I see my invoice has still not been paid – can you tell me if there is a problem with payment that I should be aware of?  As you know, payment was due X weeks ago and I am reluctant to escalate the issue, but I am not sure how else to expedite (good word, sounds vaguely legal) the process.  Please let me know when I can expect payment.”  This may prompt a spontaneous confession from the librarian that they put your fee on the 3:15 at Kempton Park but more likely there’s enough implied threat here to unstick the payment.
5. Fifth step: Escalate:  Still no money?  Alright, however nice this person is, they are jerking you around, or useless, or both.  You have a right to be annoyed, you have a genuine grievance and you are entitled to be paid.  Start moving up through the organisation – who is this person’s boss?  The head of department? Head teacher? School governor?  Time for another polite but firm letter stating the problem – remember this new person may have no knowledge of the problem and may be mortified that it’s got this far – I find the right tone is usually firm and polite with top notes of mild embarrassment at having to bring it up.

If this fails then you can keep escalating, until you get to someone who is prepared to help (I once petitioned the Chairman of a major multinational about my unpaid invoice while he was in bed with a slipped disc).  I felt a bit bad about that one, but he paid the same day.

However, if an organisation is genuinely rogue and refusing to pay then you may have to think about legal action.  For something like author visit fees then the small claims court is probably the best vehicle for doing this – it’s quick and relatively easy and needn’t involve lawyers.  As a process it’s designed to help small operators get quick legal redress and guidance on the process is easy to find on line.

That’s it – be persistant, be polite and know you’re in the right (a little bit of pissed-offness can help you find the right attitude).  Above all, the best solution is prevention – making sure that you have the terms of the gig and the subsequent payment clearly agreed up front is the best insurance against late payment.

Good luck

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With artwork and illustrations by the brilliant Stuart Bache it is a great read for adventurous middle graders – I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

The After School Detective club is available now, in print and e-book formats – Christmas is coming so grab a copy and stand by for more adventures in the New Year!

https://geni.us/SmugglersKindle
https://geni.us/SmugglersPaperback

Books Covered Self Publishing Formula #markdawson #stuartbache

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The result is the first in a brand-new series, ‘The After-School Detective Club’ which tells the story of Lucy, Charlie, Max and Joe who, together with Charlie’s faithful dog, Sherlock, solve a series of spooky happenings in their home town of Southwold.

The first book in the series, ‘The Case of the Smuggler’s Curse…” will be out shortly before Christmas.  With illustrations by the talented Stuart Bache, the After School Detective Club is an adventure mystery in the best traditions of Enid Blyton and Scooby-Do.  Stand by for more news on this exciting project in the next couple of weeks!

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The theory goes that we will be disciplined.  We will wash clothes as we go and we will hang them to dry on the all-purpose, elastic travelling clothes line that no serious adventurer leaves home without.

This is a fine theory and one that goes wrong almost immediately.

The first problem is that we are consuming dry clothes at a far faster rate than we can replace them.  Day long treks across the plains in the sweltering sun leave everything sweat sodden.  And shin-deep mud pools and mountain streams in full flood reduce our sock supply to used rugger kit.

Secondly, and forgive me if this seems blindingly obvious, laundry facilities in the jungle are a tad sparse.  Jungle streams turn out to be muddy, infrequent and, when you finally summon the energy to wash some stuff, inconveniently located.  It dawns on us rather quickly that four pairs of socks are really not going to cut it.

Within a few short days, our clothing has been reduced to four piles.  First there is ‘clean stuff’.  This pile presents no storage problems because basically there is no clean stuff.  Secondly, there is ‘clean-but-not-dry’ stuff.  This is a growing pile – whilst we studiously take every opportunity to go down to the stream and bash our laundry on the rocks, drying it is a different matter altogether.  For one thing, this requires that you remain in one place to hang stuff out during sunlight hours.  However, in practice, this is generally the time when we are stalking through the jungle, making stuff filthy again.

When we finally do get to hang stuff out, the jungle atmosphere resembles a continental steam bath  which adds more moisture than it takes out.  The ‘clean-but-not-dry’ pile is therefore repeatedly repacked into plastic bags and hauled on to the next site and, in a few short days it has developed the unmistakeable odour of a swimming costume long-forgotten in a sports bag.

Lastly, there is ‘the-bag-into-which-we-no-longer-go’.  It is an evil presence in our rucksacks.  These are clothes that have been through the clean-wet-dry-dirty-semi clean- wet cycle at least three times and which are now beyond redemption.

These clothes are caked in mud, yellow sand, clay and grit that has been ground deeply into their fibres. Multiple applications of cold river water and shampoo have simply served to redistribute the sweat and the filth evenly throughout each garment.  They look like flood damaged Oxfam stock and they smell like a donkey sanctuary in the rain.  I would gladly dispose of their foul-smelling presence without hesitation except that I can think of no ecologically sound way of getting rid of them without creating some sort of fish-killing, bio-diversity-unbalancing eco-catastrophe.

At the end there are there are no more bags and no more piles.  Clothes are designated as either ‘jungle clean’ (i.e. can be worn but not near people) or ‘iredeemable’.

On our return to civilisation we stop at a shop and buy new socks.  We are reborn!

So, what have we learned from our stint in the jungle?  Is it the glories of nature in all its forms?  A greater appreciation for the lives of others or a better understanding of our true nature arising from our inner journeys.

No – it is this.  Take more socks.  Seriously take a lot more socks.

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If you know a small person who loves science fiction, fantasy and adventure then this is for them – more details to follow including an exciting cover reveal but, in the meantime, here is some cover blurb to whet your appetite…

For Adam Starless and Finity Black, the future’s not what it used to be…

As the youngest member of the crew of Gargantua – thirteen-year-old, Adam Starless is leaving Earth for a life amongst the stars.  But instead of discovering a new world, Adam wakes from cryo-sleep to find his family missing and his space ship sold to the scrap yards of Primus City.  Worse still, if the ship’s mission clock is to be believed, Adam has been asleep for a very long time indeed.

Now Adam must learn to survive in a future where he doesn’t belong, where the machines are in charge and an unwary boy can get mugged for his kidneys.  His only hope of finding his family lies with a distant cousin – a fourteen-year-old droid hunter, named Finity Black, a girl with a big gun and a bad attitude.

‘Starless and Black and the case of the perfect girl’, is the first in a new series of science-fiction, detective stories from Allan Boroughs.  A classic sci-fi adventure that will appeal to fans of Philip Reeve, Jonathan Stroud and Douglas Adams.

Since you’re here,why not sign up to my email list on the home page – I promise not to bug you too much, but I will let you know when I have new stories coming out or when I have free offers, competitions or other goodies.  AND –if you sign up before the release of STARLESS & BLACK…and the case of the perfect girl, I’ll tell you about how you can get your own copy absolutely free!  If you know a small person who loves sci-fi as much as me then this is for them.

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THE BEST!

It’s difficult to draw up a shortlist as so many great writers and directors have managed to be so uncannily accurate in their predictions.  However, here is a list of my personal favourites starting with…

• DRONES! – Yes drones, those annoying little flying things that regularly invade public spaces and occasionally shut down airports – but do you remember where you first saw them? No neither do I but it might well have been thirty years ago in ‘Back to the Future’ where a startlingly modern-looking drone makes an appearance as roving TV reporter.
• VOICE ACTIVATED TYPEWRITERS: The concept of a typewriter that would type out your words as you spoke turned up a few times in Star Trek but made its first appearance in George Orwell’s 1984 – predating speech recognition software by about sixty years.
• SELF-DRIVING CARS: These turned up pretty regularly but the first time I saw one in a sci-fi movie was in the original version of TOTAL RECALL – starring Arnold Schwarzenegger – who remembers the ‘Johnny Cab’?
• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The idea of a machine that speaks is not new but IMHO, the best and most chilling portrayal of a smart machine is still Stanley Kubrick’s HAL, the homicidal computer in 2001.  (Fun fact, the film was made in 1968, a year before the moon landings which made many suspect that Kubrick had a hand in faking the whole thing.)
• THE iPAD: The idea of a tablet-style computer turns up a few times in different films, not least in 2001 where the astronauts are shown taking video calls and watching movies on them.  However 2001 was made in 1968 and it was two years earlier that I saw my first iPad in the hands of none other than CAPTAIN KIRK!

THE WORST

The worst predictions in sci-fi?  Well there are a lot but I realised very quickly when I started writing  that I was actually compiling a list of “things-we-were-promised-in-sci-fi-movies-but-which-never-turned-up”.  So, here is my list of stuff I’m still waiting for…

• A CURE FOR ALL KNOWN DISEASES: Well yes, it would be nice wouldn’t it – predicted many times over in episodes of Star Trek as well as Cities in Flight, by James Blish – however, as I write, most of China is in lockdown with Snake-Flu, so this one is a definite fail.
• MOONBASES: So, after we got to the moon in 1969 moonbases were a given.  We were all going to be living/working and even holidaying on the moon in twenty years, right?    Who knew that we weren’t even going back there for 50 years.  I spent most of my childhood watching Moonbase Alpha, 2001 and reading the novels of Robert Heinlen, Arthur C Clarke and Ursula LeGuin – all of whom included moonbases in their stories.  I’m still waiting people.
• JET PACKS! So where is my damn jet pack?  All my life I have faithfully watched Lost in Space, Boba Fett in Star Wars and Buzz Lightyear – confident in the expectation that I’d have one of these babies before I die.  So where is it?  (Alright I know jet packs do exist but if I can’t buy one on Amazon they ain’t real)
• THE HOVERBOARD: Who didn’t watch the hoverboard sequences in ‘Back to the Future’ and think ‘That’s gonna be so cool’.  Unfortunately all of us who watched it first time around are still waiting (and probably too old by now to be honest).

 Since you’re here,why not sign up to my email list on the home page – I promise not to bug you too much, but I will let you know when I have new stories coming out or when I have free offers, competitions or other goodies.  If you know a small person who loves sci-fi as much as me then this might be for them.

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