General musings

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The Tenerife hills are alive with the sound of… just about everything

Friday, June 20th, 2008

Living in the hills of Tenerife, the sights, sounds and smells seem amplified to epic proportions. Whether it’s the pungent smell of a dozen goats’ bottoms, the distant howling of my psycho neighbour, or the slap-in-the-face, poke-in-the-eye, boot-in-the-balls astonishment at the night sky, I LOVE LIVING HERE.
I used to live down there (he says pointing [...]

Wow! Is that REALLY Tenerife?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

<>Stop what you’re doing and watch this video straight away. THIS is the way to market a hotel in Tenerife. Had me chops drooling, eyes popping and body swaying - and not a lot does that to me now I’ve reached the ripe old age of 43-and-a-bit. Well, except perhaps when Michelle Pfeiffer pops round [...]

Get your signed copies of More Ketchup than Salsa: Confessions of a Tenerife Barman

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

In a blatant bout of self-promotion, you can now order a personally signed copy of More Ketchup than Salsa: Confessions of a Tenerife Barman (voted Best Travel Narrative 2007 by the British Guild of Travel Writers) direct from the author. Otherwise known as Me. Click here to find out more.
That link will also take you [...]

Taking Tenerife to task - not a hope in hell

Monday, May 26th, 2008

There’s a lot to be said for the mañana attitude still so prevalent in Tenerife. Urgent tasks are re-classified as tomorrow’s duties, ‘priorities’ tossed into the same to-do-basket as everything else. Result - stress removed, but mission usually unaccomplished. Lists help, but are rarely accomplished.
Yesterday morning I stared apprehensively at such a list that my [...]

Casting call in Tenerife

Friday, May 16th, 2008

Just a quickie…
Anybody with a beautiful bod (rules me out) aged 18-30 (rules me out, again) and European-looking (non-Latin). There’s a casting for a big photo shoot at Las Teresitas soon. Don’t worry, it’s not seedy, it’s clothes-on, commercial and involves beach volleyball. It also pays well for those who pass the casting. Males and females [...]

Tenerife’s first sitcom Re-writers

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Well, he of the red pen, returned our sitcom efforts with a commendable amount of red scrawl, and the potential was deemed as neither yay, nor nay, but a solid maybe. Which is better than a slap in the face with a wet carp, but not quite as good as a letter from the Director [...]

Tenerife’s first sitcom writers?

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Life is pretty exciting at the moment. Sometimes it can be a plain bore, a never ending succession of menial features to write, facts to check, chores to avoid and kid’s toys to mend. At the moment though, it’s EXCITING. Sorry, I shouted.
I’m currently awaiting the verdict on a sitcom that I’ve co-written with a [...]

Have you got The Nerve?

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

In a bold and audacious move, I have signed up to be an executive producer at Nerve TV, the world’s first crowd-sourced media company. All sounds very grand, but what the heck does it mean?
Well, it means I can now bounce around ideas I have for TV programmes with similar like-minded people and industry insiders. It also [...]

The Tenerife malaise

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Note to self: You’re 43 years of age, a parent of two toddlers and a professional writer. It’s time you got organised.
Now I know I recently had a rant about the shambolic organisation of the Elton John soiree but I’m putting myself in the stocks here. If you want to throw things at me, please [...]

Writing tips

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

I seem to be getting quite a few emails from people in the UK recently asking how you go about becoming a writer. Funny how things like this come in batches. My first thoughts when I get two or three enquiries a day is that it’s a friend winding me up. I spend time on answering and [...]

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