Photo Diary

This is a short note, folks, just to show what Simon & Schuster are doing with the covers for the new titles.

The first title from Simon & Schuster, number 29 in the series, will be called THE OATH, and I reckon that the jacket tells pretty much what the book is going to be like. What do you lot think?

Been a busy week, but worthwhile. I’ve managed to get the basics sorted with Conway Stewart for a pen, to be called the Michael Jecks, oddly enough. It’s going to be a limited edition pen, a “Winston” in Conway Stewart’s Dartmoor resin, a really lovely dark colour, with gold bands and nib. Very attractive. I’ve also agreed some other interesting projects with them, I’ve mostly completed an introduction to a new series, and now I’ve got a picture for the book to be published in May – and I’ve figured out a whole chunk of book 30 too! Which is good because next week I have two days in London, and a third on 24th, when I’ve a bunch of meetings with my new publishers.

A busy time – but fun!

Let me know what you think of the book cover!

CRB Checks Reviewed

What is the point of them? Will they work?

What really gets to me is, there was a programme last week on this issue. The first thing they learned was, there were no figures on how many children were saved or helped by the checks now in place – let’s not forget: over 11,000,000 UK adults are expected to have their backgrounds checked now. Some because they are trying to gain jobs as teachers, some because they have children in a club and have offered to regularly drive friends’ children to the same venue.

The best that they could do was contact Childline, a UK charity for children to call when they feel threatened.

Childline checked the figures, and found that of 12,000 calls alleging abuse last year, 3 – yes, 3 – could have been prevented with the checks being imposed. No more.

The ISA and CRB checks wouldn’t have stopped Ian Huntley and the Soham murders, for example. He got access to his victims through his girlfriend, and the CRB checks specifically exclude partners and others in the same household. Many offenders are not strangers, but members of the family. CRB checks will not uncover them, either.

It is said that if one life is saved, it’s worth it – but is it? It’s a brilliant piece of political spinning. Automatically anyone who argues is put to the side as a deeply unpleasant person. Clearly all children are ‘innocent’ and should be protected.

Yes, they should be protected. But that does not mean it is right to impose a new bureaucrasy on the nation, affecting millions, without thought. Especially when the actual result may be disaster for hundreds or thousands of children each year.

Because we don’t know how many innocents are accused maliciously and see their careers blighted or destroyed.

It is already all too common in the UK to see teachers accused of inappropriate behaviours by children. Unsupported accusations can cause teachers to lose their careers, to lose their spouses, to see everything they have worked for being destroyed.

How many innocents is it acceptable to see ruined? No need for a court hearing, because these are simple administrative matters. But the long term impact is appalling, especially when the matters do get the attention of the English courts, because then all publicity is illegal and contempt of court. So an accused is not permitted to allow information to be released into the press that could, say, verify an alibi. It is illegal in case the identities of the affected children are released.

So the innocents are assumed guilty, denied the ability to defend themselves, and all on the word of children who may be acting from malice or a frivolous inclination. But those same devastated teachers may have their own children, who can be taken away from a supposed abuser. So, how many families broken apart, how many children ripped from their parents to live with single parent families or adopted because of these accusations, balances the death of the one child?

Worse, perhaps, are the families ruined because of clumsy clerical officers putting allegations against the wrong name. Data entry is inherently unreliable. Humans are fallible – especially those humans paid pathetic amounts to sit at a screen and input data. Incorrect data was logged against names 1,570 times in twelve months in the CRB to March 2009. That is 1,570 people who had to bear the horror of utterly unsupported allegations. Out of that number, how many will never again feel comfortable working in their career? How many will lose their spouse?

The damage done to innocent families outweighs the damage to one child, I’m afraid. It’s sad, but evil things will be done to kids.

No system of checks can work. We now have the most controlled society in the western world. Hitler and Goebbels would have been delighted to see how the English would embrace these new technologies. Computers cross referencing the locations of cars by number plate, checking where any mobile phone owner may have been at any time, the checking systems are pointless, foolish, time-wasting, expensive, and seriously damage our society by creating an atmosphere of distrust.

And now they stop authors from giving talks. Marvellous!

CRB CHECKS

For some months now I have been negotiating with Caerphilly Library Service to go and hold a Medieval Murderers event with Bernard Knight for them.

It was to be a great little gig: Bernard and I always enjoy working together, and both of us like visiting different areas, but this would have been much more special. We were going to hold it in Caerphilly Castle. A great location for a talk, being atmospheric, scenic, and, most importantly for me, it’s one of the scenes for my next book. Number 29 will have a large chunk of action in and around the castle, because it was not too far from there that King Edward II was captured. Yippee.

But the show has been cancelled.

In the past I have cursed our modern nanny state and the way that there is an overriding presumption of guilt that pervades every aspect of life.

When I was a boy, I started carrying a penknife with me from the age of about nine. I cut myself many times, and learned to be more circumspect in the way I handled knives, and when I was (once) stopped by police as a teenager, my reason for owning the lock-bladed knife in my pocket was accepted by the officers involved – I used it to clean my pipe. Yes, even then I was a rebel and preferred a pipe to cigarettes.

In recent years, the number of stabbings has increased. Therefore, the government has made it illegal to carry knives with blades longer than three inches. Even folding penknives with locking blades are now illegal unless you can show you need it for work, or some similar excuse. I think it’s nonsense, but it does at least have the benefit of some logic. Knives can hurt people, so stop people carrying knives.

But the new laws don’t stop there. Now all adults, especially males, are looked upon as paedophiles in waiting. We are all suspects. And that is why I am fuming here as I write.

Because Caerphilly is cancelled, not because of anything I have said or done, nor because of Bernard – but because the Council has a “Corporate Policy” of demanding that all performers have a CRB check.

So now, CRB checks are to be used to prevent authors from going on a stage in front of consenting adults.

Well, it’ll leave the field open to a number of other authors, because I for one will not agree to paying for someone to go through my records and keep yet another reference to me on a database for no purpose.

Angry? Moi?

An interesting question from a reader last week – and I’ve been intending to get round to answering. Today I did, but it makes a good topic for the blog, because it is something I’m asked fairly often nowadays. There seems to be a belief among readers that every attitude in my books must reflect my own. Well, no, they don’t. My job is to get inside the heads of other people and explain their thoughts and motives. In the same way that I don’t have to experience the joys of killing other people to write crime,

Why do I have so much misbehaviour in my books?

Because it’s what happened. Seriously.

I’m very happy with the church generally. I’m proud to be able to call the Rector of Crediton a friend. And, in my defence, you have to bear in mind that in my books I use characters like Peter Clifford, Abbot Champeaux, Bishop Walter II, the Dean of Exeter, and God knows how many others who are all decent enough guys. The bad ones tend to be a rarity, really. If you add up all the good monks, the pleasant clerics, the recorders and clerks, you’ll find plenty of amiable, patient fellows.

However, you have to bear in mind that when an organisation directly or indirectly employs somewhere in the region of a third of the total male workforce of the country, there will be some bad apples.

The cases I use are generally from documents.

So the Parson of Quantoxhead is genuine;   the Exeter Canon who broke into a house and stole goods is genuine (John Dyrewyn);   as is the case of the priest ( John de Thorntone) who kidnapped a woman, raped her, ransomed her, and then kept both woman and ransom without making restitution.  The case of the eleven who broke open St Buryen Church and beat the Dean and attendants so harshly that their lives were feared of was true, as was that of the three priests of Crediton guilty of gross immorality. As was the story of Stapledon breaking into the Dominicans; the misbehaviour of the nuns at Belstone (culled from the cases at two other Devon convents recorded in Bishop Grandisson’s rolls); the robberies, the extortion, all the cases I’ve given are from the records. As is the story of the Mad Monk of Gidleigh – except he was called the Mad Monk of Haldon Hill in the court records.

And in case you think Devon folk were uniquely venal, don’t forget that it was at this time that the Crown Jewels were moved from Westminster Abbey to the Tower of London because the monks at the abbey were complicit in a theft of the jewels in 1303!

I do see my job as being moderately impartial. I like to show how things really were, not either as a rosy-tinted view of ye olde England, nor as a repellent neo-Marxist tale of grim, unrelenting misery. I try always to tell it as it is.

Unfortunately (or, rather, fortunately since I’m a crime writer!) there are just a vast number of cases of misbehaving nuns and monks and clerks and priests and all the rest of them!

It’s why Medieval England was such fun!

DSC_0094, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

Idyllic picture. Taken on the Friday morning of our last day on the moors. Beautiful morning, made slightly better by the fact that the rain-filled stream did not quite rise high enough to engulf us. It rose above its banks and headed west towards Keith’s tent, but didn’t make it the full five feet – it stopped two feet short. He was lucky.

However, there is a tale about this picture. You see that hill in the background? The big one? Yes? There’s a bit of my bloody watch up there!

On all that walk, I had only a few stumbles. Three times into a boggy patch sticks in my memory somewhat. But that pales into insignificance beside tripping over a lump of granite on that hill.

The little tracks on the moor can be very sunken, with shoulder-high furze all around, and a path that’s six inches wide and eight deep; OK usually, but when tired . . . There was this rock in the middle of the track – and I just didn’t see it. So I tripped, put out my hand, and clobbered the little rock’s bigger brother. There was a crunch. It hurt. The nail on my thumb was ripped back. That hurt. So much, in fact, I didn’t notice the other pain on my wrist, where my watch had been. It had been wrenched from my wrist, and dangled floppily. The stainless steel bracelet had been broken, with a tiny piece of metal, less than an inch long, yanked off.

So today I phoned around for quotations. FIrst of all I asked for the cost of the bracelet. Hahahahaha. No. Then I restricted the quotes to only the clasp. And it STILL hurts as much as having my thumbnail ripped off!

Still, it was a fun walk!

It is terrible to hear about the guys shot at Fort Hood. I’ve no idea why the man decided to murder his own colleagues. It seems inexplicable that in an organisation built on mutual trust and support, a man could go berserk against his own kind.

It’s been suggested on the BBC that he was a moslem himself, that he has railed against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and had just heard he was going to be sent to Afghanistan.

I am sure that the BBC is regurgitating information being given in good faith – but whether this story’s true or not, is irrelevant. If the man wanted to make a protest, he could have refused to go as a conscientious objector. He’d have been dishonoured, but no more than he has been. More to the point, if he wanted to punish someone, the people to punish are those in government, especially the ones who have profited by contracts on security, rebuilding and others in which they have an interest.

The only guys entirely innocent in this are the poor fellows this madman killed. They had nothing to do with it. They were to be sent there, like him. It’s shocking to think that a trained soldier/doctor could do such a terrible thing and my thoughts go out to the families of the soldiers killed  - or wounded – in this week before Armistice Day.

Last week I was happy to be able to write about the delightful gentleman who wrote on Facebook to enquire whether I was related to an unhappy Mr Jecks who had died a little while ago, and perhaps I was the heir to his millions. Sadly, I felt I should decline his generous offer to send me the money.

Today I’ve been working moderately hard, and YES I FINISHED THE DARNED THING!

At 150,000 words, it means my estimate of 120,000 was slightly out – but the story needed the extra length, I am afraid. Some big topics in this one. Still, I was lucky enough to be saved from terminal time-dislocation by the arrival of several nice little emails.

They’re private, so keep them secret, won’t you?

First was from a very helpful lady, Amanda Mcclain (sic), of Parcel@dhl-usa.com. She had to ask me to collect my parcel personally, by printing the label at the bottom of the email in the handy Zip file attached. I didn’t feel I had time to look further.

Then, there was the nice Mr Ibru Valentine, who had to send me a FINAL NOTIFICATION, and asked me to contact Mrs Anita Dada immediately. Mr Idi Amin Dada’s widow, perhaps? I was intrigued. But no. Apparently, I am a “Friend”, and my ATM card has been deposited with “below courier company for safe keep”. The company was Del Courier Service, and they sounded very reputable. Where are they? Bp 1009 Ste ceciles carreffour, Cotonou Republic of Benin. Well, I’d like to contact her, to supply her with “more information’s/clearification”, but I did have the book still to finish. Ach, shame, but decided against. There was something about Mr Valentine’s email that put me off. It was mribru@ekolay.net. Don’t fancy food poisoning via mail, thankyou.

I worked on, and a little later, there was another email. This was sure to be good. Third time lucky, after all. It was from Bruce Jacobs. Hmm. Don’t remember him.

This one was really good. It said, “Congratulations Beneficiary”. A good opening, I thought. And you know what? Wow! The United Nations Organization (UNO) has selected 3000 lucky individuals from the 30 member countries . . .” Hold on. I don’t remember any part of the UN’s mandate as authorizing a lottery from their recent “economic empowerment programme”. Still, it was for “Six Hundred And Fifty Thousand Five Hundred Great British Pound Sterlings each”. I liked that.

What was really nice was, my mail came from the “United Nations Trust Funds, United Kingdom Department of Humanitarian Affairs, Baley House, Har RoadSutton, Greater London SM1 4te.

I think this should have read Bailey House, Harrow Road. Oh, and there is no lower case in a post code, but hey – they live over here, so . . . oh, hold on. They want me to respond to their “corresponding office in the (AU) African Union”. Oh. And another Oh. They want my name, address, date & place of birth, phone numbers, next of kin, sex, occupation, marital status, nationality, and, just in case, a copy of my ID card and passport.

I think I can give that one a miss, too.

Which leads me to wonder just how successful Africa could be, if these fraudsters, scammers, crooks, liars and thieves would actually spend a little time trying to make a living by working rather than trying to thieve my hard-earned dosh.

I wonder who’ll be writing to me tomorrow, though!

There are a lot of people out there who’d love to steal your money. Seriously. They would ideally like to have to do no work for it. No, really. Luckily you’re not daft, eh?

But a lot of people are. And they are scammed. Regularly.

The usual one follows the lines of a private mail I got today. Here it is:

Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur October 30 at 5:30pm Report

Are you in anyway related to Mr. Stephen Jecks, an American Businessman who died together with his entire family in Ghana four years ago from a ghastly car accident?

Since then his bank has tried hard to get in touch with his extended family members to claim his 27.9 million Ghana Cedis which is approximately US$18.6 million.

In any case, whether you are related to him or not, let me know; perhaps with my influence, I will ensure the money is transferred to the US or any country of your choice in your name — after all, you have a similar surname.

For security reasons, send me a mail via amissah.arthur@yahoo.com

Once I see your reply, I shall send you details of Stephen Jecks.

Where’s the harm in contacting this fellow, eh?

Well, the harm comes from talking to these arses at all. Because they work on the basis of (supposedly) feasible stories. You respond, they ask for some simple stuff, you respond with little things, and then they ask for a few dollars to bribe an official to get the money out of their country to you.

It won’t arrive. Soon, you hear that they need more money to pay another official. You pay. You still see no money. They will keep asking for as long as you keep paying. It’s a standard fraud, called 419 in the Nigerian criminal code, which is where it gets the name.

However, it’s getting worse now. Because of the lovely possibilities, the scammers aren’t only getting interested in your money, now they also want your ID. If they can get enough details on you, your home address, your bank details, anything, they may be able to pretend to be you. They may be able to, for example, redirect your mail to their own address and apply for a credit card in your name. You never see the application or the confirmation letters or the bills. They have all been redirected. But you are probably liable when the bailiffs are sent to visit.

But that’s a long way from this fellow. Dear old Kwesi (who won’t look like his Facebook photo, I suppose) is no doubt looking for me to pay him to bribe someone in his country so that he can pocket my cash. The great thing about this scam is that the police will probably have a good laugh at you.

Why?

Well, what you are doing is agreeing to get involved in fraud yourself. He is asking you to help him to bribe government officials, yes? Not in your country, perhaps, but carry on: you are agreeing to commit a crime, and you are doing so in order to commit a greater crime, because you are attempting to get into money laundering.

That means that any money you send off is gone, baby, gone, no matter what you think of the nasty man who committed a crime in taking it from you.

After all, you were robbed while trying to commit a crime yourself. Doesn’t win you any friends in the police.

Seriously, I used to know a guy who received one of these scams years ago. He was very tempted, and when he was asked for twenty thousand pounds in order to release some millions, he was so delighted, he began contacting people to try to form a syndicate. He was a bright man, professional, running his own business, and he swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Because people are greedy. We all love the thought of money for nothing, don’t we? I know I do – it’s the only bloody way, as a writer, that I’m ever likely to be able to retire!

But the old, old rule applies, folks. If it looks too good to be true – it’s a scam! Always. Seriously. Like the lottery tickets that have won, when you haven’t bought the bloody thing. These are scams. Don’t fall for them.

BUT – if you like a laugh, and want to see how other people behave with these scams, look at this:

http://www.419eater.com/

It really is worth a look. Hilarious series of true stories.

Don’t forget – if it looks too good to be true . . .

And here he is!

Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur

What a nice man!

I’ve been collecting these scams for years now. Originally I was so attracted by their inventiveness, I thought I’d use them in a story (plagiarism of an attempted fraud rather appealed to me!) but now I think I may just copy them here. What do you reckon?

Take care, folks.

DSC_0010, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

I’m almost there now. I know I have minimum seven more scenes to write, then it’s down to drawing maps, writing the author’s note, and editing, which means hopefully end of next week all will be done.

But it’s the last finessing that matters, I find.

I have to write fast because I always find that the story starts to take me over personally. The excitement of the story comes across, I hope, partly because I find it really exciting to write. If I was to write a thousand words a day, each of them carefully crafted and mulled over, I’d forget what the hell I was writing about quarter of the way into the book.

In fact some years ago I learned that the worst thing I could do while in a book was take time off. If I went away for a weekend, I would invariably forget where I’d put in all the red herrings and cleverer twists of the plot. I learned that if I had a weekend off, it would take up to a week to read myself back into the story. That’s not good!

Nowadays I work flat out, for about two months per title, putting the whole thing down on paper. Each day I read through much of what I did the day before, as well as prior scenes to remind myself where I am and why, and then I work. Usually I will achieve a minimum of 5,000 words. Sometimes I will manage 7-8,000 – but never more. If I get to that sort of level, it’s better, I find, to stop, and do something totally different, because if I continue I will achieve nothing the day after. I’ll be too tired.

After the first draft, I rework a little. Usually I need another clear week for this. It’s the finessing part, where I get the characters’ voices to be coherent and consistent scene to scene, where I make sure that there are no major plot holes, no missing red herrings or loose ends to be tied down.

And then it’s the scary period – the time when agent and publisher get their mitts on the thing.

Well, this time I don’t care. Because I’ll be going for a good, long walk. Hopefully in weather like that in the photo. Up to the stone row, then down to the south side of the moors to the longest stone row on Dartmoor – it’s over two miles long!

P1020191, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

I am sitting down still, trying to finish 29 while the weather outside is so good (David Hewson’s just back from Canada saying he’s found the summer’s returned), and all I really want to do is get outside with a tent and sleeping bag and walk some of the longer paths over the moors.

This one, courtesy of my brother Keith, was taken in August when we undertook our three day march from north-east to south-west. That walk was bloody good fun, especially with views like this, down near Burrator.

They say that the early crosses were installed to help people navigate. So many used to die trying to cross the moors that it was decided by the monks at the three monasteries to install crosses at specific points, each in view of the next, so that walkers would only have to aim for the next cross to be able to follow the track. However, I’m a little suspicious of that. It is not usually so easy to see from one cross to the next when the weather is bad: if a cloud comes down, visibility is reduced to a few tens of feet, not half a mile or so, which is how widely spaced these crosses could be. So perhaps there was an assumption that a man should know roughly the right direction, would set off, and then hope to come close-ish to the next? Or was it a built-in safety feature, so that if you couldn’t see the next cross, just give up until you could?

Anyway, thank God in a few weeks I’ll be out this part of the moor again, wandering all around the southern parts with my brother, and my brand new Alpkit PD600 sleeping bag. Light, tiny, and incredibly warm. I’m very glad with that. So, provided we have enough hot food, smoked meats and other basic supplies, we’ll be having a fantastic five day walk in the middle of November.

And as soon as that’s done, it’ll be time for signings.