Clockers

Last night I watched a movie from 2006 on DVD called Red Road, directed by Andrea Arnold. The film is set in Glasgow, and tells the story of a CCTV operator named Jackie (played by Kate Dickie) who spends her time monitoring the city and reporting anyone in distress or committing a crime to the authorities. One day she spots a man from her past on her monitor, the last man who she wants to see, and who she thought was in prison. Jackie becomes preoccupied with following the man's actions and eventually finds herself compelled to confront him and her own past. The film is intriguing and very well-made, although almost unrelentingly bleak and grim. The title comes from the name of a quite notorious area of Glasgow.

This morning I went out and got my groceries for the week. After I had had my lunch I headed out to the Filmhouse and met up with my friend Chris from work. We were there to see a special screening of the film Clockers. The movie was made in 1995, directed by Spike Lee and based on a novel by Richard Price. The film is set in the housing projects of New York and tells the story of Strike (Mekhi Phifer), who is a "clocker" - a low-level drug dealer. When a rival dealer is shot and killed, Strike's brother Victor (Isaiah Washington) confesses to the crime, however veteran homicide detective Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) smells a rat and determines to find the truth. The film is lurid but gripping. The film was followed by an audience question and answer session with Richard Price, moderated by crime novelist Ian Rankin.

Afterwards Chris and I went to look around at the record and DVD shops. I got a book called Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. After that we went to the Edinburgh Book Festival and had a drink before going in to see David Simon, who has written a couple of non-fiction books and co-created the TV series The Wire. As would be expected from his work, Simon was very clever and funny. After the talk we managed to meet him and he signed my copy of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Coincidentally, Richard Price also wrote for The Wire.

Finally, Chris and I went and had a whiskey and listened to a band play a couple of strange jazz style easy listening songs, before we went our seperate ways.

Neil Gaiman

This evening I went out to the Edinburgh Book Festival to see Neil Gaiman and crime novelist Ian Rankin discuss graphic novels. Ian Rankin has just launched his first graphic novel, Dark Entries. The event was really great and both writers were very interesting, engaging and very funny. After the event there was a book signing which was really good. I got my copy of Fragile Things signed by Neil Gaiman. I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan and he is kind of a hero to me and so it was really great to see him in person. He was a really nice guy and he seemed genuinely touched when I told him how much I loved the audio CD version of Fragile Things (which I do, I listen to it at work a lot). He wrote in my book "Robert - Fragile Wishes - Neil Gaiman".

Apparently the signing he did yesterday took three and a half hours and he signed for five hundred people. There didn't seem to be as many people there today, and I was only waiitng for about forty five minutes, but I was prepared for a long wait. It was a great evening.

For the past few days my internet has kept randomly freezing up. It's very annoying.

Irvine Welsh

I had another day off work today and went up to the post office to mail a letter and on my way back I went and had a haircut. It's probably the shortest now that it's ever been.

Later on I went out to the Edinburgh Book Festival to see Irvine Welsh. He was reading from his latest novel (Crime) and answering questions from the audience. He seemed quite ambiguous about the huge success of Trainspotting saying that while he was happy that the book was successful and made a lot of money, it did become something of an albatross for him that he could never really get away from, despite the fact that he thought a lot of his later books were much better. However, Irvine Welsh has written a sequel to Trainspotting and a prequel is in the works. I saw him at the book Festival ten years ago, when he was promoting his book Filth. After the talk there was a signing session and I got my copies of Trainspotting, Crime and If You Liked School, You'll Love Work signed.

Chuck Palahniuk

Yesterday was eventful. I left my home at around half past four and made my way up to the Edinburgh Book Festival grounds to meet Katie and her friend, Taylor. We headed out to get some dinner, originally stopping at Ryan's Bar, but there was sport on the TVs there and it was just far too loud, so we went into the Rutland and had a burger with cheese and chips, which was really nice. After dinner we went back to the Book Festival to see Chuck Palahniuk.

It was really good, we were in the front row. He started out by throwing inflatable sex dolls into the crowd, and whoever blew up their doll the fastest got a horror movie DVD as a prize. Then he read a story that he had written specially for the event called "Loser" about a college fraternity pledge who takes part in a TV game show while tripping out on LSD. We were given the choice as to whether we wanted to hear the new story or "Guts" (the one which had become notorious for causing people to faint or vomit at readings) but I guess it was kind of old news now and the story is published in Haunted. After the reading there was a Q and A session, and whoever asked a question got a DVD and a doll. After that there was a signing, which took a very long time, Snuff got a chance to have a quick chat with Palahniuk. He did put on a really great show and was very, very funny, and he also came across as a really cool guy. It was a really good time.because the first few people had the chance to dress up as pirates and have their photos taken with Palahniuk. I didn't get a chance to dress up as a pirate, but I did get my copies of Rant and Snuff signed.

I got home at around half past ten and watched the first hour and a half or so of Starship Troopers before getting bored and putting on an REM CD.

Today I went out to my parent's house for my Sunday lunch, as usual. So that was good. I'm back at work again tomorrow for two days and then I'm off for the rest of the week to do Festival stuff and anything else that strikes me as being particularly entertaining.