Gathering round the old wireless...

Just Because was reviewed on ruddy radio 2 this morning!! Yowser!

Was an absolutely bizarre experience sitting at home in my pyjamas, slightly hungover, and hearing Aled -'We're-Walking-in-the-Air'-Jones talking about me on the wireless with Kate Saunders. Anyhoo, have slapped a few pics of the illustrations over it and whacked it on youtube for y'all to enjoy.

Yay!

Fat thumbs and plums

Crikey O'Reilly - Just Because is only having a ruddy book launch - yay!

So if you find yourself in the lovely Bury St Edmunds area on Thursday 19th August twiddling your bored fat thumbs and staring into space - come and join the party!

11am at Waterstones in the Arc shopping centre where it'll be child-centric with a book reading, showing off some of the original artwork and hopefully some live illustrations of the Clemmie and Toby characters, followed by a drinks reception at Benson Blakes Bar (kids more than welcome here too!) from 12.

Free drinks, live illustration, a personal appearance from Clemmie and Toby, me making a plum of myself in public, what's not to like?

See you there then.

Ok, bye bye now.

Bye.

Why? Just because, alright?

It's all the rage now, so it would seem, for authors to record a video of themselves talking about their new release. So here I am.

Ok so I sound and look like a pillock but hey, there was no getting around that and Lion Publishing asked me to record the following (so blame them):



(oh, and it will feature on meettheauthor.com in a few days)

Angry Sprouts

Yowser, it's been hot of late and as a result little Toby's moods are a-swinging more than ever with a bewildering array of passionately excited yelps, concerned 'o-oh's, distraught cries, adamant 'no! s', hysterical giggles and frantic 'Mummy, mummy, mummy...'s all occurring each and every minute. It's exhausting.
Clemsie on the other hand is as chilled and serene as ever, although you have to feel for her little chubby legs in those plaster casts - the little hero. I have at least adorned them with flowers so they don't look quite so depressing any more.

And speaking of things not seeming quite so depressing any more - I always had our road down as a rather sad and lifeless little place full of drab people with sensible jobs or at least sensibly filling out their benefit forms but no! I was fabulously excited to see a 'Suffolk Open Studios' sign proudly placed in a neighbours window, decided to visit and it turns out that astounding artist Mike Wiggins lives just a couple of doors down with his arty wife. Check him out here.




And in other news, if I may pull down the old hunting horn and blow my own trumpet for a mo, it would seem that the launch of Just Because next month (helped by my lovely PR lady at Lion) has already generated a little press interest. Ok, so it's hardly the cover of Vogue or Time Magazine but hey. Have a look here.

And me and Cee continue to plan our exhibition in October - if you know any super-duper cheap framers please let us know.

And finally I was lucky enough to be invited to a local primary school to help them design a program cover for their East Feast and was, as always, blown away by the natural unhindered creativity of younglings. And I think the cover is a thing of beauty (I can't remember which kid decided to write 'angry sprouts' on their artwork but they are clearly a genius in the making).


So that's it, bye for now (which reminds me that we're very proud this week that Toby, a bloke of few words, has finally started saying 'bye' which is great except for the fact that his 'b's come out as 'd's making it more of a sinister parting threat than a cheery farewell.)