The Gravy Train

In these hard economic times when the arts are suffering cuts and redundancies there are still individuals who know how to milk the sacred cow, make hay while the sun shines or, rather, dig their greedy little piggy snouts in the trough (Three clichés in a row, whatever next?) There are bankers, industrialists, big business men, con-artists, politicians and, in this particular instance, I am referring to a lady who has herself been a part of the Arts Council and has in consequence reaped a rich reward. Who cares what is happening elsewhere and who’s to say she shouldn’t ride the gravy train? (Another cliché for you.)

The lady’s name is Andrea Stark who left her job with the Arts Council on a Friday, picking up a six figure redundancy cheque and on the Monday started a £95000 a year post as chief executive of High House Production Park, a workshop for the performing arts! Do I hear someone mention the glass ceiling here? As I read it for six months she had been on a fully paid sabbatical from the Arts Council while at the same time doing the High House job.  She knew she was in line for that magnificent pay-off and, sabbatical or no sabbatical, remained a member of the Arts Council long enough to ensure she got it.

Now she has obviously done nothing illegal but pardon me if I can’t help wondering whether our modern society is going stark staring mad and just where does the morality lie in her type of behaviour? If what I have read is true the facts speak for themselves. If I am in error perhaps Ms Stark would like to put me right and I will apologise.

In the meantime I will continue to think of her as a not very nice human being. That’s the mildest way of putting it. I could think of more explicit adjectives. Fortunately there are still those for whom money, more than they need, more than they can possibly use, is not the be all and end all in life. (More cliché?) I think of those who give large chunks of their fortunes to charity and on a smaller but equally praiseworthy scale someone like David Headly, owner of Goldsboro Books who has turned down the chance of making £100,000. He bought 250 signed copies of JK Rowling’s book before she was revealed as the author. They are signed “Robert Galbraith” and, once the cat was let out of the bag, (cliché’ again – you’re getting bored with this aren’t you?) They’ve been selling on e-Bay for over £1000. The shop had sold 130 signed books before Rowling was unmasked but the remaining 120 were sold at the cover price despite being worth about £120000.

Headly kept four copies, one for himself, the others for his staff. Now I have no doubt there will be those who consider him to be a total klutz for not grabbing this opportunity but I for one, in comparison to the lady above, have nothing but admiration for him and it’s a great pity there aren’t more like him.

Christopher Beeching has criticised my Blogs. He says I just sound like a querulous old man so my books must be the same and no one will want to buy them. Well no one’s buying them anyway but I’m sure it’s not because I’m a querulous old man but because there is no incentive. Rowling’s thriller sells like hot cakes (cliché) riding on the back of Harry Potter. Would it have done the same signed Robert Galbraith? Somehow I doubt it no matter how good it might be.

Well I am here to tell you my books make no pretension of being literature but they are (well the Thornton King series anyway – comedy thrillers) light, witty, entertaining, pacey, and fun; ideal summer beach reading and those who have bought them and found reading them on trains and planes, buses and trams, have been considered slightly mad laughing out loud. What more do you want?  Comedy thrillers are hardly likely to be intellectually demanding.

Unfortunately my website is well out of date. I have just looked up books by Glyn Jones on Amazon to discover there are ten thousand four hundred and sixty eight Welshmen of the same name, all scribbling away and the only book of mine found among that lot is my autobiography NO OFFICIAL UMBRELLA. I have recently started to use my middle name, Idris, as I haven’t discovered another Glyn Idris Jones though more than likely one is lurking somewhere. I should have changed my name years ago – too late now.

Well, if anyone’s interest has been piqued (second definition) these are the Thornton King Private Eye titles:-

DEAD ON TIME, JUST IN CASE, DEAD ON TARGET, THE CINELLI VASES, CELLULOID & TINSEL and the latest, written but not yet published, MEN AND THEIR TOYS.

Maybe Mister Headly would like to stock them at Goldsboro Books?

It is hot. It is so hot, a large tin of ham in the pantry exploded and, of course the meat was off. Such a waste. What cans of meat were still in the pantry have been transferred to the fridge just in case. That, by the way, “Just In Case” is the title of the Thornton King book, sequel to “Dead On Time” which hopefully will be published this year, “Just In Case” that is. “Dead On Time” came out last year. Strange thing about titles, the fact that they are not copyright but which are, according to all the experts, so important, I had no sooner decided “Just In Case” was to be my title when I read a review in the DAILY MAIL on a Friday that some lady had just had her first novel published and what was its title? You’ve guessed it, but I was buggered if I was going to change a title that so obviously suited the story just written. As for “Dead On Time”, there are at least five books with that title. If titles are SO important and give off so much information, often being the difference between success and failure, what does “Glengarry Glenross” tell you? I still haven’t a clue on that one.

Back to the heat. Could it really be global warming? I’m not in the least surprised. It’s not just factories and fossil fuels causing too much carbon emission, it’s another problem caused by this little old world fast becoming so overcrowded. Just over ten years ago, when we decided to move to this beautiful island, estate agents hardly existed. There was Jannis in Rethymno and a company called Contract in Xania, hidden away in a little office on the fourth floor of a building on a little side street. Advertising for property was there none. Suddenly in the small seaside town of Kalyves there were no fewer than fourteen; land was being flogged off everywhere on the Apokoronas, the roads saw a constant stream of builders lorries and concrete mixer trucks, builders and builders merchants have been having a field day with houses and shops going up as though there were no tomorrow. I wonder how many olive trees have been uprooted to make way for this excess of building, and these are not just holiday homes, many are for permanent residencies. The Cretans, who had never seen so much money in their lives, were selling off their heritage at the rate of knots. When asked why, the answer went something like, “My children will no longer have to pick olives and farm for a living but can go to university and become doctors and lawyers.” The first few thousand immediately went on a top of the range BMW or Mercedes.
Much of the problem was created by the fact that the price of British property had become totally ridiculous and gone through the stratosphere so that people could sell expensive there, buy here cheap, and have money left over to last them the rest of their lives. “Your dream home in the sun” was the slogan, fostered by cheapo television programmes but in some instances they, the estate agents, and the builders were selling false dreams. People bought without doing their homework, without thinking. They came out in the summer when the weather was hot and dry and they could laze away their days on the beach. They didn’t think that Crete also has a winter which, although short, can be wet cold and windy. They were in cheap houses with no heating (that’s extra), no insulation, damp, cold, and miserable. There was nothing to do but get pissed in the local taverna and regret their move. Bored and miserable because they had never thought out what to do with time on their hands, now it was time to sell up and go back home but, alas, for one reason or another, nobody wants to buy their dream home in the sun and they are well and truly struck. They don’t want to learn a foreign language. They expect the locals to all speak English and they don’t want to participate in any of the local customs. There interests lie in booze, karaoke and curry nights. One woman I knew actually said, “I can’t stand church bells, I hate sheep, I don’t like the Greeks.” In which case the question is, why on earth did you come out there and why on earth are you staying?
This scenario does not apply to everyone of course. There are those who have just been unfortunate and suffered because of developments and the passing of time. For example, some friends bought the most charming old house in the small and very quiet village of Drapanos. They are both ex-school teachers, intelligent, funny, and generous, and obviously adored both their new home and living in Crete. They no longer live in Drapanos but have rented an apartment in a different village because their beautiful house, which appears to be unsaleable despite enormous reductions in price, is now surrounded by actual housing estates. There is no doubt that with everyone trying to jump on the bandwagon, the whole thing has come off its wheels and one cannot help but ask, when is the bubble going to burst? Is it going to burst before more of the countryside is spoiled? There is no doubt the Crete we came to just over ten years ago is not the same and not for the better. The horrid increase in crime is an indication. Our dear old friend Anna just a couple of doors down the road who died some years back aged 93 used to say, “Why is all of Europe coming to Crete? Soon there will be no more trees, only houses, only houses.” Dear Anna, she should have lived to see this. It’s true the Greeks have a love affair with money and concrete.