New Year's Resolutions - Bovine Avoidance

I've just come back from a week in Northumberland. We stayed near Lindisfarne and, in such northern climes, my thoughts naturally turned to the simplicity of Celtic Christianity - the uncomplicated life, the closeness to nature - and to Basil Bunting. Here is the great man's advice to aspiring poets:

I SUGGEST

1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose impetus.
3. Use spoken words and syntax.
4. Fear adjectives; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape

Put your poem away till you forget it, then:

6. Cut out every word you dare.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.

Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.

We could all do to remember such advice in the coming year; and maybe take time out to visit places like Holy Island, and get away from the bull that seems to be endemic in our culture.

Happy New Year.

The Black Death Audiobook

My book The Black Death has just been released as an audiobook. It's available on Audible here. No one told me that this was out - it seems the author is usually the last person to know!

The Templars' Lost Treasure

A bit more info about The Templars' Lost Treasure - including a photo of three out of work actors wearing costumes - can be found here.

For those who may miss it, you can sleep easy: it's being repeated almost immediately! (And I kid you not.)

Deus lo volt, indeed...

The Return of the Philosopher's Secret Fire

Just a quick plug for a book I love: Patrick Harpur's The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination has just been republished by the good people down at The Squeeze Press.

It will make your Christmas a far more profound affair than may have otherwise been the case!

The Templars' Lost Treasure

I will be appearing in a National Geographic documentary entitled The Templars' Lost Treaure, which will air on 21 December 2009 at 2100 in the UK. Apparently it will then be repeated over the Christmas period.

All I can tell you at the moment is that it is a French programme that has been recut for the UK, with myself and Helen Nicholson being inserted as the English-speaking experts/voices of sanity.

I'm not sure whether to add zut alors! or merde! at this point. But anyway, the interview - conducted in St Pancras Old Church - was fun to do. I'll post more info when I have some.

The churchyard, incidentally, was used by the Beatles for the photos that appear on the inside cover of the Red and Blue Albums.

New Templar Documentary

I am being wheeled out again in front of the cameras to hold forth on our old chums, the KT. This one's for a major broadcaster - I've been warned to not say the name - and will go out sometime before Xmas. More into when the Bishop allows...

Meanwhile, the Channel 5 programme, Secrets of the Cross: Trial of the Knights Templar, is now out on DVD. Avail yourself of a copy forthwith at yon vendor. (Click on 'Templar Documentaries' in the menu on the left.)

Radio 4 Appearance

I was featured in a Radio 4 programme yesterday together with fellow Westonian Nick Harding. Weston's New Pier recounts the story of... Weston's new pier, after the last one burnt down in the July of last year. The programme is still up on the Radio 4 site, and can be listened to again here if you missed it. Nick and I appear about halfway through. I attempt a Watney's Red Barrel rant about sunburnt holidaymakers eating saveloy and chips on the Beach Lawns, but I think Eric Idle would have done a better job...