"People Ain't No Good"

Your Cramps title for today.

Soon, I will get back to blogging more than once a week. Soon...

This weekend, we watched Vietnamese film Three Seasons. It tells the stories of several characters - a girl whose job is to pick lotus flower and her relationship with her hermit employer, a cyclo driver and his infatuation with a prostitute, an American GI who is looking for someone, and a little boy who is a street peddlar. It's quite a slight film in many ways, but it's beautifully filmed and really interesting from the point of view of seeing a strange location.

The programme for the Aye Write! festival is now available and here are the crime fiction related events.

Friday 9th March
11am - 12.30pm or 4.30pm - 6pm - Helen Fitzgerald and Sergio Casci - Making the Pitch and Not Striking Out: From Pitch to Published (Creative Writing).
1pm - 2pm - Helen Fitzgerald and Sergio Casci - Book to Film and Film to Book: Adaptations (Creative Writing).
4.30pm - 5.30pm - Christopher Brookmyre - The Making of a Bestseller (Creative Writing)
6pm - 7pm - William McIlvanney.

Saturday 10th March
3.30pm - 4.30pm - Alex Gray and Ian Rankin: New Scottish Crime
8pm - 9.30pm - Panel Debate: Scotland's books - includes William McIlvanney

Sunday 11th March
3.30pm - 5pm - Panel Debate: What's Wrong With Women's Writing? - includes Karen Campbell.

Monday 12th March
7.30pm - 8.30pm - Alexander McCall Smith

Friday 16th March
9.30pm - 10.30pm - Mark Billingham and Christopher Brookmyre are Indiscreet

Saturday 17th March
2pm - 3pm - Gillain Galbraith and Karen Campbell - Ethics
3.30pm - 4.30pm - Lin Anderson and Caro Ramsay - Forensics

I think that's it - apologies if I've missed any!

And, in other news, K T McCaffery reviews Ian Rankin's THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD, and the Sun Sentinel reviews Val McDermid's THE RETRIBUTION.

Irvine Welsh on his various projects, Jame McAvoy in FILTH, and a not particularly positive review of the ECSTASY film.

An interview with Philip Kerr.

Helen Fitzgerald blesses our libraries. And me too. My PLR is nowhere near as large as Helen's, but it took Ewan and I out for dinner at one of my favourite places, where I have discovered the joys of Hacienda de Chihuahua Crema de Sotol. Best of all though, is the thought that all those people were interested enough to borrow OLD DOGS. Thank you library users. That's the best thrill for me.

Finally, a final plea for any donations of books, or anything else for the helpline charity I volunteer for. All donations gratefully received for the charity raffle coming up. Thanks to everyone who has given stuff so far - I could hug you all. x