The performance of our national anthem after every gold medal won by Team GB in the 1912 Olympics was a national disgrace: timid, feeble, unsure of itself, it could have been bettered by any town band of yesteryear. Only one musician has ever made a dramatic event of it, and that was Sir Thomas Beecham. The rattle of a snare drum to grab your attention, the cymbals crash coinciding with the opening chord, the measured tempo in which every note was accompanied by a drum stroke, the crescendo leading to another almighty explosion of cymbals as the last phrase began fortississimo, then a rallentando leading to a grandly exaggerated tenuto on the last note, which I swear lasted all of six seconds. You knew you had heard something unique. The recording is still available. It would have been possible to make a modern recording using the same arrangement. Sir Simon Rattle might have summoned up the required flamboyance and the deep sense of drama. A great opportunity was missed.

IN PRAISE OF THE E-BOOK The writer and creator of the Inspector Wexford series, Ruth Rendell, has had a seat in the House of Lords since 1997, and is a very grand person indeed. Writing in the autumn issue of the ALCS newsletter, she puts her finger on what she calls 'that awful Catch 22 situation' that seems designed to discourage young writers rather than encourage them. Simply, it is that you can't get published without an agent, yet you can't get an agent until you are published. Agents and publishers seem to be asking themselves not 'Is this a good well-written book?', but 'Has this book a chance of winning the Booker?' It is one further step in the book trade's slow funeral march towards the grave of extinction. I hope I am not being unfair. Some excellent books do manage to make it into print, but the conditions of publication are too restrictive for health. There is a similarity to the fashion industry, where all the participants, from the models to the journalists who write about them, speak an arcane language intelligible only to those who work within its narrow confines. The majority of us are never going to wear those outfits or read those books: they are not attractive enough. An answer is at hand: the e-book. The book trade, unsurprisingly, is wailing about a 'lowering of standards' and 'opening the floodgates of mediocrity', but to me and to very many others it is an escape route from the Catch 22 situation mentioned by Baroness Rendell of Babergh. It does not mean that any old rubbish can be self-published. Amazon (who sell six books of mine on Kindle) do have the power of veto. And it does mean that their range is very much wider, for the simple reason that with no outlay to speak of, they do not have to ask themselves the question at the back of every hardback publisher's mind: 'Are we going to cover our costs?' Their policy means that their selling price can be a fraction of what it would be in hardback, and the author's royalty higher. I went for the self-publishing option after numerous rejections within the traditional industry. Obviously my books are never going to win the Booker Prize. I do not regret my decision. I only wish the Kindle had come along sooner.

The Thunder and Lightning Man

This, my first Sci-Fi novel, has been out of print for some time. It is now published in e-book form by Amazon Kindle, in a new and very slightly revised edition, at the reasonable price of £2.99. The Press reviews were mainly complimentary. Here is a selection:


‘[Colin Cooper] complicates the time element ingeniously by making his characters learn of a coming alien invasion through a last-century crank with a premature knowledge of wireless. It makes a convincing thriller, with a cracking surprise when the “visitors” arrive’. (Michael Hogg)

‘A lighthearted yarn excellently told with a vein of seriousness that becomes more pronounced as the story approaches its exciting conclusion.’ (Times Educational Supplement)

‘An unusually well written story, accelerating from a very leisurely start to a devasating crunch. Warmly commended. (Methodist Recorder)

‘Containing plenty of well-planned surprises, this thriller [...] is excellent entertainment. Suspense is cleverly maintained, and for once the principal characters are entirely likable. If all science-fiction were as readable as this it would have a much more popular appeal.' (Scarborough Evening News)

‘Unusual science fiction mystery with a surprise ending which even the most expert armchair detective will find difficult to solve before the final chapter. An extra bonus is that the tale is enlivened with some wry sex, lightened by humour.’ (Manchester Evening News)

A promising start to a literary career, you might think. So what happened? The guitar, that's what happened.

The Death of Guitar?

A CONSEQUENCE of sharing the name of this centuries-old instrument with the loud electrical instrument that takes pride of place in a typical pop group is that the uninformed sometimes confuse one with the other. How else can you explain this recent YouTube comment?

‘Just had a listen to X. Sounds like the death of guitar to me.’Now, X is a well-known and hard-working professional player whose work is highly respected in music circles. The writer clearly did not know what he was talking about, but that didn’t stop him from giving his opinion. You can call it blinkered – i.e. an opinion based on restricted vision – but it will find plenty of supporters; any human being, they will tell you, has a perfect right to say what he or she likes about anything in the world. And so, in theory, they have.

If you believe that it is more positive to point out the virtues of what you love than to condemn the faults of what you hate, you will find too much negativity in contemporary comment. It’s time the balance was restored. Every time someone tries to tell you that the guitar is dead, a more positive assessment should come from someone who knows better. Imagine Vlad the Impaler after seeing a performance of Hamlet: ‘A lot of impaling, but so inexpertly done that it cannot be taken seriously. Looks like the death of impaling to me.’

Tales from the Lake published by Amazon Kindle

This collection of short stories was written in and about Italy during the time I was living there, from 1992 to 2001, and then until 2009 for a large part of the year, after which health – particularly eye problems – suggested a return to the UK and closer proximity to Moorfields Eye Hospital. Not that I do not have the greatest respect for the Italian health service; it is just that most people feel more comfortable discussing their medical problems in their own language, and I am no exception.

The stories concern themselves mainly with the interaction between expatriates and the indigenous population. Around Lake Trasimeno (The fourth largest lake in Italy and the biggest on the peninsula at 11 miles by 8 miles) there are said to live 2,000 British people. Together with expats from Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Sweden, the Philippines and various other countries, they come to live in Italy for a number of reasons, the high quality of the food being one of them, the stunning landscape another, the (usually) agreeable climate yet another. No one comes because they think the Italian government is better than their own, but possibly incompetence and incorruption are less unacceptable when clothed with the exoticism of a foreign language.

If you live in Italy, there is always a lot to do, most of it in the open air. In Italy the sun is the defining element. There are cold days, wet days, days in which you trudge up to the post office against a biting east wind that has travelled unchecked from the Urals, only to receive a postcard from a friend in Britain saying ‘How I wish I was in warm, sunny Italy, like you.’ There is also plenty to write about, if you are any kind of a writer. But there always seem to be better options – harvesting the olives, buying wine from a newly recommended vintner, driving down to the town in the valley (where there is a big weekly market), eating fresh fish at a lakeside restaurant, driving to Assisi, Siena, Gubbio or Arezzo to see masterpieces of Renaissance art, or to Pienza for some wonderful cheese. Or even just to wander up the mountainside with the scent of thyme in your nostrils, keeping an eye open for vipers, wild boar and the seldom-seen porcupine. Often, in the late afternoon, it was our pleasure to take our little boat across to Polvese island, there to swim or, in the early autumn, to walk round the tiny island amid a sea of wild cyclamen, stopping to pick delicious porcini (if the fishermen didn’t get there first, which they usually did).

With all these delights at hand, it is a wonder a single word ever got written. But it did; and Tales from the Lake is the result.

Best Bent Wire

BEST BENT WIRE, a novel by Colin Cooper, is now on Amazon's list of e-books, and is available on devices such as Kindle, iPhone, iPad, PC and Mac. The UK price is £4.59, including VAT.

This is the description given to Amazon:

"Set against the background of international interest in the Iranian oilfields 60 years ago, this novel is concerned with the ultimate futility of most military operations, and how it affects the life of one young British conscript in the Suez Canal Zone in 1946. For one thing, he is not suited for the job of intelligence agent. For another, he violates the then-prevalent code of military conduct by falling in love with an Egyptian girl, an involuntary action that leads to the cancellation of the operation and a prison sentence for the young man who has put emotional fulfilment before his military duty. Many years later, he tries to trace the girl he was prevented from marrying.

It could be a sad story, but the author chooses to stress the comic aspects – which are never very far away when the armed forces are involved."

James Fenimore Cooper and Berlioz

'GREAT chief! We are pledged to exchange tomahawks. Here is mine. It is rough-hewn. Yours too is plain. Only squaws and palefaces love ornate weapons. Be my brother; and when the Great Spirit sends us to hunt in the land of souls, may our warriors hang our tomahawks side by side at the door of the council chamber.' – Berlioz exchanges conductors' batons with Mendelssohn in 1843.

Mendelssohn died four years later, at the early age of 38. Berlioz, six years his senior, died in 1869, aged 66. James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans was published in 1826 and had achieved enormous success across the world. Berlioz knew about squaws and tomahawks, and clearly Mendelssohn did too; they may even have discussed the book together when they met in Rome.