Dugdall in the Duchy...

When I was a kid, I hated Sundays. The seventh day would yawn ahead of me, defined only by boredom and roast beef. No shops, no plans, nothing doing. Hitting my teens, the day only lifted at 5pm when the Top 40 boomed from radio and I could amuse myself for two hours trying to capture songs on tape without any of the DJ’s chatter, a test of my digital dexterity on the `pause` and `record` buttons.

But then the world changed. Shops started to open, no-one bothered with tapes anymore, and the weekend finally had function.

That was many moons ago, but I find myself again thrown back into that Sunday feeling. On my first Sunday in the Duchy I had no idea of the time-warp that had happened overnight, until I arrived at the door of Auchan to find it shut. To my open-mouthed horror, even IKEA was closed.

Deciding to take advantage of forced recreational time, we took a family trip to Little Switzerland and discovered a wonderful walk starting at the dramatic and steep Wolf Gorge then winding around sleepy villages and dramatic rock formations, following the meandering stream back to the car, By then our stomachs had started to grumble, but we couldn't find any place selling dejeuner, no pretty café or bistro. Subway was open, but that wasn't exactly the authentic experience we had in mind.

As we munched on our Hearty Italians, walking through the picturesque villages, it felt like everyone else was snoozing. Could it be true?

Embracing once again the Sunday feeling, last week we went to MUDAM. Now, what I love best about modern art is its accessibility. It doesn't stare at you from the wall, challenging you to study your art history’ no, modern art is what we make of it. I’ll never forget seeing Tracey Emin’s tent, embroidered with the names all the men she’d ever slept with. So simple, so fascinating.

And MUDAM didn't disappoint. Lee Bul’s work especially grabbed the attention of the kids, who sat rapt in front of the dozen or so retching dogs, a homage to the artist`s own pet and lovingly re-worked in the same pose using various materials. “I like the one with cotton wool.” “Nah, I like that one, covered in tape!”

I think Ms Bul would have been delighted to see how engaged, how thrilled, we all felt by her work but sadly the security guards weren’t so delighted. They flinched every time the kids moved.

In the mirror instalation we discovered earphones that made everything around sound dream-like, so we had great fun taking turns with the headset and shouting at each other like we were in a coma, “Wake up! Don’t follow the light!” Until we were told off.

I’d love to have had Lee Bull with me at that moment. She is a woman who dressed like a human squid for 2 weeks in TOKYO airport, so I don’t think she’ d have had any truck with officious guards. However, as a rather more timid creature, I whispered to the kids to hush and resolved that next Sunday maybe we'll visit a cathedral.

Afterwards we drove home, via a garage for milk and provision, and then had an afternoon snooze. When in Rome….

Just Landed!

I’ve just landed in Luxembourg, and it’s been a bumpy entry. Was it really less than one month ago that I was in Felixstowe, that seaside town on the very edge of England, packing boxes, saying goodbye to loved ones? If I could turn the clocks back just two weeks I’d tell myself this:

Bulbs. They aren’t the same here, and your removal men will take yours from your lamps and standard lamps, leaving you stuck. Buy a supply.

Plug adapters. You know when Blockbuster closed down they had a huge box for sale and you bought eight, thinking you’d done well? Think again. Hairdryer, mobiles, laptops, EVERY lamp (even though they don’t have bulbs!) Buy the whole box because you won’t be able to get any here for love nor money.

Be prepared to go offline for a while. A long while. Think of it as an Internet holiday.

Diet. Get that weight down because it sure as hell won’t go down once you’re scoffing fresh pain and fromage. And drinking encore le vin.

Speaking of which, be ready to be told your French is bad and please can you speak in English so you stop confusing people.

The good news? All of this is normal. So says my `Living in Luxembourg` guidebook, which also helpfully pounts out that organised people who are used to being in control will find the early months especially disconcerting. Oui? Cest moi!

The kids, though, are fine. Ducks to water. Speaking of water, and also speaking of those extra pounds, in the past two weeks I have become a gym whore. I thought I might have found the perfect place, basically because they offer a class that promissed a svelte figure tout suite, but sadly the instructor hadn’t heard of women’s lib and spent the whole class referring to double ds and derriers. Pa pour moi, sil vous plait.

My next attempt seemed to be going much better until I ventured into the sauna area, to be confronted by naked men en masse. Very Britishly, I fled in panic, not even doing the correct thing and checking my bracelet over the switch to exit, but ducking under the barrier. My French was simply not up to the lengthy explanations needed at the reception desk, so I paid the extra suppliment for the 30 minutes (according to my bracelet) that I’d spend in the sauna. As if I’d dare! I don’t even think it was a mixed session.

And today, at a brave third attempt, I tried biking in the water. Yes, aqua aerobics! Now, forgive me fellow Brits, but in the homeland aqua exercise is for those who are expecting, or look as if they may be. Not so, here in the Grand Duchy. These women were fit. They pounded those bikes into the ground, and if there had been wheels involved they would have won yellow shirts. But, more impressive to me, they wore the cutest outfits. Bows and silver clasps and sparkly bits. The water shone with cubic zircona.

So, if you spot a Brit in a one-piece, it just might be me. But in a few months, when I’m fully intergrated, I expect to be sparkling in the water, or the water sparkling on me as I brave that sauna with no sense of shame. Bon Chance!

Marshal Zeringue's My Book, The Movie Blog

MY BOOK, THE MOVIE

They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it. --Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

 

Friday, December 20, 2013

Ruth Dugdall's "The Sacrificial Man"

Ruth Dugdall is a British crime writer. She has a degree in English and Theatre Studies from Warwick University and an MA is Social Work at University of East Anglia, and has worked as a probation officer dealing with high-risk criminals for almost a decade. She is the author of The James Version and The Sacrificial Man.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of The Sacrificial Man:

To see one of my novels on the big screen is one of my favourite daydreams. For many writers, especially crime writers like myself, a movie deal is the Holy Grail.

But then the crunch question – who has the icy demeanour to play my uber-controlling, beautiful but brutalised Alice?

Alice is the central character in The Sacrificial Man, and she has agreed to kill a man, and eat him. She does not see herself as a criminal, but as a romantic heroine; she believes she is in a love story, that in helping her lover to die she was performing an act of devotion. Imagine Julie Christie, as she was in Doctor Zhivago, but with a knife.

Julie Christie being a bit too mature now, I think Nicole Kidman has a suitably frosty and fractured demeanour. I’d enjoy watching her reveal Alice’s motivations, but I’m not sure she could motivate the audience to empathise. An actress with a track record in making unpleasant people sympathetic is Charlize Theron. Even her Dior advert brings me out in goose bumps!

My other female lead is Cate Austin, the probation officer with the thankless task of writing a sentencing report on Alice. Cate has to delve into the dark side of life, and she sometimes struggles.

Cate is my everywoman, so I imagine a warmer, girl-next-door actress. My background is as a probation officer, so Cate has inherited some of my traits; she’s a petite redhead, rather serious-minded. I think Carey Mulligan would play her well (though she’d need some henna).

My dream director is Jordan Scott, Ridley Scott’s daughter (I bet she hates that everyone adds that, as if she has no identity in her own right). In fact (confession time) I e-mailed her after I watched Cracks because the themes seemed so close to what I hope to achieve with my writing, and I just thought: “she would get me.”

Learn more about the book and author at Ruth Dugdall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

From the Legend Press Advent Calender

Legendary Advent Calendar - 19th December

Each day on the blog we will be posting a special festive offering, as we interrogate our authors about Christmas. Today's answers are from Ruth Dugdall, author of The Woman Before Me and The Sacrificial Man.
What do you love most about Christmas?
I love Christmas smells: mulled wine, fir trees, brandy butter. Also the cosiness; it’s the time of year to get the fire crackling in the hearth and sit cosily watching DVDs. Naturally, a bonus with this time of year is the food. I’m a sucker for mince pies (so long as they’re warm) and anything with marzipan.
What makes you a Christmas Scrooge?
But one thing that makes me a right Christmas Scrooge is `lists`. And people who ask for gift vouchers / money. The whole point of the perfect gift is to find something unique, something that is specific to that individual and shows how well you know and care about them. This is not an item that anyone could put on a list, as hopefully they haven’t even thought of it.
It should not be useful or functional, but pretty or unique. Last year I got my husband the marble arm from a statue. The previous year I got him a resin skull used to train surgeons. Now, I ask you, who would prefer socks?
Not all the family understands this philosophy. One year I got a steam cooker (from a person who will remain anonymous) because said item was reduced at Currys.
How do you fit your writing around Christmas, or do you make sure you have a break?
Christmas is a great time to write because there is so much inspiration, so many family tensions, so many opportunities for alcohol-fuelled scenes of indiscretion.
I jest. But only to a point; any season with such emotion attached to it is ripe for an author. This is not just about happiness and excess, but also any sad event is magnified. If a writer is sensitive to this, there are stories everywhere. In fact, something happened just this morning at my son’s Christmas concert, which will go straight into my next novel! (Must remember to change the names).
What is your favourite Christmas film or book?
My favourite Christmas film is `It’s A Wonderful Life`. My goodness, I could cry just thinking about it…
”Why must you torment the children so?”
The house with broken windows…
If you don’t know what I’m talking about then go order a copy. You won’t regret it.
What are you hoping for under your Christmas tree this year?
And this Christmas, what would I want in Santa’s sack? A publishing deal for My Sister And Other Liars. I’ve been working on it for a long, long time and I want it to make its way in the world. And I’ve been so good this year.

Goodbye to Felixstowe

I was in Body Pump class this morning, pulsing to the beat and staring at the cold sea in the distance, Harvest House peering over the cliff like an eccentric old Aunt, and suddenly I felt sad. So sad I thought I might cry, right there and then, with 10kg of weight on my shoulders.

 

It was a taste of grief, a moment when I realised that I’ll soon be leaving this town I love.

 

Felixstowe isn’t swanky, it’ll never be a town to host Waitrose, but it has a beauty beyond even the most fashionable seaside towns. A sandy beach, Edwardian houses, the Spa Gardens. It may be faded and unfashionable but this place is my familiar, my safety, my rock.

And the people of the town, not always warm to newcomers, are the lifeblood. As I left the gym I saw the guy who works at the local supermarket.

 

“How’s it going, babe?”

 

I couldn’t lie. “I’m a bit stressed. I’m leaving town in January. Scary.”

 

“Yeah,” he agreed, “Everything’s scary once you leave `Stowe. Come in and say bye before you go, yeah?”

 

My heart melted at this small offering as I thought, this will not happen to me in Luxembourg. For starters my French isn’t good enough.

 

But if Felixstowe is my husband, I want Luxembourg to be my lover. I want to fall, and hard, for its beauty. I want to be so bowled over that I forget the cosiness of the familiar, forget the cinema where you can order cheesy chips, forget the smell of salt in the air as I sit in my beach hut and watch the waves.  

 

 

 

Deep breath. Moving date is January 24^th. No going back now.    

 My favourite haunts.

Scary decision! I'm moving to Luxembourg

When I resigned from my career to try and make it as a writer Andrew was 100% beside me. Over the years there have been many, many times when I doubted my decision and he has been the one to re-assure me: "It will happen! Just keep going!" And all of those other things that writers need to hear often to keep our fragile egos in-tact.

I have been incredibly lucky, and his support meant I have had the time to write.
So, now it's payback time. Andrew has a new job. IN LUXEMBOURG!

Now, I hate change. I put this down to moving from Yorkshire to Suffolk when I was a  7 year old  kid, a move which devastated me. I've grown to love Suffolk but more than that I love my family and friends. I love going to the shops and seeing faces I know. I love the fact that the guy in the paper shop knows my name, that the woman in the cinema knows the kind of films I like. This is a community and I relish a sense of belonging, something mourned losing when I was 7. I honestly thought I would never leave this town.

If I was still a probation officer things would be different, but I work at home and I can write anywhere. So I've agreed to the move. How could I stifle Andrew's career when he has done so much to support mine?
I'm scared. But I'm going to embrace the possibilities and roll with the changes (I hope!).

And the start of it will be this blog. I'm not great at blogging but now I have a purpose. Hope a few people come along for the ride! 

Felixstowe Book Festival

I am so excited about the upcoming Felixstowe Book Festival, the first ever that the town has known.
The line-up is impressive and there are events to suit everyone, including children.

When I was approached by Meg Reid, the Festival Director, about doing a slot I suggested a panel of crime writers and decided to approach Michelle Spring and Sophie Hannah with the idea. I am delighted to say that both agreed, and our event is entitled:

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE
Why, for female writers and readers, murder can be so satisyfing!

Like it? It was my idea, and a bit tongue in cheek, but it is a good question: with most criminals being male and most victims female, why is the genre so attractive for women. Are we mastering our own anxiety? Are we trying to re-claim a typically sexist arena?

Come along and join in the discussion on June 16th (my birthday! What a way to celebrate...) at 2-3pm, The Orwell Hotel, Felixstowe.

More information about the Book Festival can be found at:
www.felixstowebookfestival.co.uk
info@felixstowebookfestival
01394 279783