Category: youtube

Better than telly

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videos youtube zero moment

Happy New Decade! And the winners are…

Did you enter the contests to win an advance copy of ZERO MOMENT at themgharris.com or the Joshua Files FaceBook group? Watch the video above to see if you won…

Winners will receive an email/FaceBook message from me soon to ask for a posting address.

For everyone else, Feb 1st isn’t too far away! Meanwhile, I hope this first ever review of ZERO MOMENT whets your appetite…over at the excellent book blog, BookZone4Boys.

Meanwhile, wow, another year. Another decade! I lay in bed last night thinking about things that happened 10, 20 years ago. Once you have kids life does neatly bisect into your pre-kids and post-kids life and I find I rarely think about the pre-kids life, apart from childhood memories. (Like all childrens’ authors I spend a fair amount of time reliving those, it’s kind of necessary.)

So last night I was remembering a visit to Madeira in the early 1990s. A neighbour had come over and talked about spending a couple of months somewhere warm in spring and we started telling him about how Madeira would be ideal. It had been a long time since I thought about that holiday, or the year in which we took it. I could remember a couple of things from work around that time, but mainly the year blurred into the scientific research I was doing at the time and that holiday to Madeira. It was a wonderful time, I could remember the colour of the sea when we swam off the side of a boat, my 3-year old and I, I remembered the moon-like vista of the top of the island, a steak barbeque we enjoyed in the middle of a wood, amidst wild lavender and bees….all that and a great deal more.

For one whole year of my life I remember probably parts of 20 days, no more. Wow. There are ways to dredge up more, I know, but WOW. Once, I could remember everything that happened to me beyond the age of consciousness. Now, well, if I didn’t blog it, I’m not sure I’d remember it!

Then again, it helps to forget bad things. So our leaky minds help us out there.

The moral? Record your thoughts via blog or vlog. But only nice things. Let the hoover of amnesia suck up your sadness – it may be for the best.

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nostalgia raves youtube

Carols and Christmas snow

Yes indeed, Christmas begun in earnest for me last night with the annual Physics Department Carol service about which I have previously blogged. The music included one of my favourites, Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium, and the Coventry Carol, which the sopranos sat out on, deferring the top part to the altos.

During the mince pie and wine party afterwards I managed to possibly find a new trumpet teacher for Little Daughter (whose previous teacher Rob Stevens of the local jazz outfit The Mad Hatters, sadly and unexpectedly died recently). And to discover why the writer and presenter of the brilliant BBC TV series The History Of Christianity looked so familiar…turns out that he too has sung in the choir for years! My pal Becs and I had a nice chat with Diarmaid McCulloch about the show, which if you haven’t watched it and you have an interest in history, watch it now on iplayer! Or wait for the BBC2 rerun.

Apparently Diarmaid’s book on Christianity has sold as many copies as ICE SHOCK! Wow! And that’s hardback at £35, thank-you-very-much, unlike my books’ bargain price entertainment of £6.99.

I emerged into snow, for the first time in 20 years. Like in Dickens! A quick change at home into suitably elegant attire and down to St Hilda’s College for our IT company’s Christmas party. A really lovely evening, and nice to see the boys in black tie. Especially our co-founder Mark who only owns one suit!

Charlie from Inlight and I chatted over the merits of various Disney rides. I mentioned to him that I wrote the first ever review of Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris.

I may have had some wine. I can’t exactly remember…

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Joshua Files youtube

Meet Inlight!

The Oxford-based indie/anthemy band INLIGHT have been making an advent calendar for their fans. Videos, interviews, Christmas recipes, scurrilous gossip and impromptu recordings to amuse you day by day. It’s kept me entertained on the few days this month that I’ve actually managed to get near my computer!

Here’s their acoustic version of Icarus, which features on the new Joshua Files series trailer.


 Inlight’s frontman Charlie also moonlights for the IT support/networking company that I co-founded back in 1997. We’re having the company Christmas party tomorrow (Monday), a formal affair with tuxedos and fine wines.  I’ll be checking in with the guys…

Meanwhile foreign editions of Joshua continue to be posted into my house, *glee*. I have now assigned all my advance copies of ZERO MOMENT, with a extra copy for surprise ONE runner-up in the Christmas 2009 ZERO MOMENT competition.

Oh and according to a Vietnamese blog article, Invisible City is on the Top 10 Bestseller List there! Can it be true?

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youtube

I am a sad YouTube addict

Well it’s true. And the YouTube is doing something to my brain.

I had a chat with a really smart guy the other day, at a party, I was only a tiny bit tipsy from the rum and coke and we were kind of shouting above the music, but even so, this young graduate student, a very clever guy  (yeah man, you know who you are if you’re reading this), was holding forth about Aztec Codices and books that had been written about them, and the disgrace, the understandable yet upsetting disgrace of the fact that the ancient knowledge of Mexico now mainly resides outside of Mexico.

Well, I felt the gaps in my knowledge, I did. I know a bit about Mayan stuff, not much really, but I have neglected the Aztecs. I felt I should go away right then and read about them.

But instead, I spent my free time on YouTube. You’ll be glad I did. I’ve compiled a little playlist of some of my favourite funny stuff, not too long. If you’re a keen YouTuber you’ll have seen these before.

Diary stuff…in case you aren’t a FaceBook friend or linked to me via Twitter http://www.twitter.com/mgharris).

I joined with some fellow children’s authors to compete against kids from Yrs 7&8 in the 2009 Kids Lit Quiz. The teams I was on were beaten in the London and Oxford rounds. At least the team from Wheatley Park School who beat us in Oxford went on to win the UK National finals!

I met with my agent to discuss the first 10,000 words of Quite Secret New Project but then had to change the agenda for our meeting at the last minute because a New And Possibly Ace Idea occurred to me and I didn’t want to break my concentration. It takes a lot to nurture a new idea to a certain stage.

What will I write next? Not Joshua 5 – I need to do something different in between or it’s three Joshua books in a row, which isn’t the best way for me to write. I like to refresh the palate with something different in between!

The next few weeks will be decisive.

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appearances raves writers youtube

MG – highlights from Hay-on-Wye 2009

Spent the latter half of this week at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, the UK’s biggest celebration of books.

Highlights:

1. Lovely as ever to meet readers young and old, and to interest new people to the world of Joshua. I had to rush the signing slightly because pretty much everyone wanted to see Anthony Horowitz next. One day I will do a signings in a leisurely way and chat to everyone…

2. Saw terrific author events with Robert Muchamore (funny and frank), Anthony Horowitz (funny and hyper), and Andy Stanton (funny and MAD. 6-9 year olds go crazy for Andy and his books!). Andy is a former standup comedian and described by the Guardian as ‘one of the best performers on the children’s literary circuit’. (I’d agree)

It made me wonder if I should attempt to be funny but yanno what? No. I’m a girl, not a blokey boy like those three guys. Hard for girls to be funny unless you have way more energy than me. So you’ll be getting the laconic archaeology lecture for a bit longer until I can get away with telling childhood anecdotes.

I have already lined up the anecdotes, will save that for another post. First will search for photographic evidence, muahaha.

3. Andy Stanton and I hung out at the Kind of Blue jazz concert. Jimmy Cobb, former drummer with Miles Davis, played on that hugely influential album and now leads a very tight band of tenor sax, alto sax, trumpet, bass and piano. Oh man. Imagine hearing that music…then seeing Jimmy at breakfast at the Swan Hotel in hay next morning! I mentioned to him that Kind of Blue is an important reference for Josh in ‘Joshua Files’. ‘Very interesting’ nodded Jimmy. ‘Write the name of the book down so I can find it…’.

Yeah. Cool, huh?

4. Also chatted with Julia Eccleshare and her charming son George. Good luck with the exams, George. Hope you make those 3 As!

5. Ate much cake and wine with the fab Sir Philip of Ardagh, who agonised about leaving the party atmosphere at Hay for the genteel spa-town charms of Cheltenham. ‘I want to stay here and hang with my homies’ he complained.

6. Philip, Andy and Anthony are soon to be our little daughter’s new favourite authors. I don’t believe a child should live on Roald Dahl and nothing else. Weaning started tonight, with Anthony’s ‘The Switch’.

7. Mr Horowitz gave me a discarded page from his first draft of the new Alex Rider, signed over to my niece and nephew in Oz who LOOOOVE him. I gave Anthony an Invisible City postcard. Anthony swiftly moved to deciphering the code without a single key word!

Code crackers, watch and learn…