Autobiographical
-
On waiting and waiting rooms
I think about medical matters lots, and not just because I am a hypochondriac. My sole scientific qualification is an A level in biology (my degree was in philosophy and literature) but in my twenties I worked for a charity fighting for compensation for those with industrial diseases such as asbestosis. Around that time, one…
-
What You Look For
My short story What You Look For has just been published in Horla. The story is loosely based on a house I shared as a student in Leamington Spa — with what I hope is a horrific twist. I did once see what I think of as a ghost, which appeared as I describe in…
-
First night tonight at The Marlborough
So the first night of our double bill, We Three Kings, and A Glass of Nothing is tonight at the Marlborough Theatre. Till the evening comes, I feel in limbo. We’ve had long rehearsals over the last few days. Our tech rehearsal was last night. It certainly focuses your mind and clenches the bowels when the stage…
-
Omega day
Long ago I decided that the last day of the year should be treated with the sort of extreme caution owed to a snake in a sack. And at this time of year I often think about The Omega Man (1971) a film starring Charlton Heston and based on the enjoyable novel I am Legend by Richard Matheson…
-
More reflections on Chad
A month or so has passed since I returned from what was a particularly intense experience in Chad. I spent a day this week sitting with filmmaker Brad Bell tweaking the edit of some of the shots from our trip so I found myself reliving some of my experiences. Some impressions take longer than others…
-
‘Defenders of Guernsey’ now on kindle
I have revised ‘Defenders of Guernsey’. This second edition, for an 8-to-adult age is now available on Kindle. As a child my grandparents lived in a road in Guernsey called La rue des Grons. When I lived there as a child, and then stayed with my grandparents on every school holiday the few streetlights went off at…
-
Remembering Chris Squire
Chris Squire, the legendary bass player with Yes had died. I have few heroes, but during the gawky isolation of mid-teens when I listened to Yes obsessively, Chris Squire was my absolute hero. He was born in Kingsbury, north west London where I happened to live as a teenager. He sang in the church choir of…
-
Writer’s limbo
An Eeyore of a week. I was invited to talk to a writer’s group on Monday, who simply weren’t there when I arrived at the appointed time and place, which was fortunately a pub. The meeting had been cancelled and the email telling me of this went astray into that clown’s pocket in cyberspace stuffed full of messages…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 