A WRITER RETREATS

I have always wanted to write. You know, be a writer. I’m still not there although I have practised (in the sense of practising as one does with, say, the piano not in the sense of practising law or medicine) for … well, I used to say years but now I’m … older … I find myself saying decades. So I’m always interested in opportunities to improve myself in the writing sense. Not in the social sense. I’m quite happy with my position in society and I’m likely to keep it - just so long as I don’t open my mouth too much. Or even, perhaps, just as long as not too many people read me too much.

The inner me says, ‘Just take a look at that opening paragraph. You need help all right. Right?’.

I subscribe to the Spectator. Not because it makes me stand out amongst my fellow men, although it does. I don’t know anyone in my social swim that reads the Spectator. No. I read the Speccie (that’s what we regulars call it) because I learn things from it. I once read a piece there by a woman who had met the German doctor who slipped Hermann Goering the cyanide pill. Can’t recall her name but there was something going on with Boris J. when he was editor. Anyway, how many people do you know who know that? I mean about the cyanide pill.

I met Boris J. once. The Speccie ran a writing competition and I sent in a piece and, to my great surprise, I found that I was a contender, a finalist. All we contenders - there were about 5 or 6 of us - were invited to go to the Doughty Street office (that’s London, by the way). We met some of the staff including the woman that we later learned was knocking it off with David Blunkett and she was disturbingly beautiful and I remember, later, thinking that he was a lucky sod. Boris wasn’t there. I can’t remember her name either – but it’ll come back to me. Then he turned up and he was like a great lighthouse of beaming geniality. He shook our hands, we contenders. He made a brief and witty speech in which, with that disturbing frankness for which he is famous, he virtually admitted that he hadn’t read any of the entries. Then he announced the winner and it bloody wasn’t me. Boris then went off. We drank a little more champagne. We received little certificates … I still have mine … signed by Boris. Then goody bags containing inter alia some male fragrance called MontBlanc. MontBlanc was the sponsor of the event and a MontBlanc fountain pen was the winner’s prize. Big, fat thing that it was, that pen. I still can’t see the connection between pens and pongs. Who needs it? I said to myself, thinking of the pen, as I was in a bit of a peeve. Then it was all over.

I can recall her name. The cyanide pill lady. Petronella Wyatt. Nice one Boris. And the other one, Kimberley something or other. In your day that Speccie office was a right old hotbed of nookery, wasn’t it?

To return to the writing and my wanting to … up the standard … if you know what I mean. The inner me comments at this stage, ‘Well, you could up the standard, as you call it, if you stopped dropping in these three dots as though you were scattering corn’.

A couple of weeks ago the Speccie took one of its own full pages (in colour, mark you – advertising must be getting hard to pull) to announce a one week Writers’ Retreat, to be held in March at the Sandals Royal Plantation in Jamaica. Well now! Isn’t that just the sort of thing an aspiring writer like me would jump at? Participants ‘will dedicate three hours to their manuscript each morning while in their suites at the luxurious Sandals Royal Plantation and can then while away the afternoon at one of the property’s two pristine white beaches with butler service, in the freshwater pool or at the Red Lane Spa. Afternoon tea will be taken on the terrace after which writers who wish to discuss the progress of their work will have the opportunity for time with Mary, Philip and Jeremy. Our writers will be on hand to offer guidance and encouragement during a daily session to discuss the day’s work in a group session or on a one-to-one basis. The group will then congregate for dinner before an early night, to be ready for the next morning’.

Comment: I wouldn’t use the word ‘while’ twice in the same sentence, would you? Go back to the first sentence in the bit I’ve quoted. (See it? I’ve marked it up in red. That’s something you can do in a blog). It’s not good. Who wrote this stuff?

Now, this trio of writers, Mary, Philip and Jeremy. They are Mary Killen, who is a columnist and writes the Speccie’s Dear Mary, up-market agony aunt column – and she’s very good at her job. Then Philip Hensher who writes for the Speccie but is a top-of-the-bill novelist and who has taught creative writing at the University of Exeter since 2005 – no problem there. And Jeremy Clarke, to whom I shall return.

The cost is just £2,499 (their words); that is per person and to get it at that price you have to find someone who is also prepared (a) to pay this sum (b)who wants to improve their writing and (c)is willing to share a room with you – perhaps even a bed with you if they run out of twin rooms. A tall order, let’s say no more than this.

Comment: ‘just £2499’. Just. Just is what you say when you can buy a two course meal and a bottle of wine from M&S for … just £10. It is fully inclusive ’though. All meals, premium brand spirits and Beringer pouring wines (what else to you do with wine before drinking it?) plus stuff like golf are inclusive.

Put the matters of price and value to one side. Let us consider the likelihood of my returning from this week … a better writer. One who does not scatter three dots around as though I were scattering corn. (This repetition is deliberate. It is mildly amusing isn’t it? Oh, you didn’t notice?).

Now I am going to return to Jeremy Clarke, who is one of the trio of tutors, and I’ll bet by the immutable Law of Sod, the one I would most likely to get stuck with. He writes the Low Life column in the Speccie and for the past few weeks has devoted his column to his sexual relationship with a woman he met through some online dating outfit, a woman he calls ‘Cow Girl’. In Low Life Mr Clarke has chronicled his encounters with Cowgirl; they meet often in a hotel where they seem to share an enthusiasm for sex and they have got to the point where they think to get married. In the very issue in which the Speccie promotions staff are trying to hook and haul in customers using Mr Clarke as one third of the bait we learn from him that Cow Girl has changed her mind about marriage but she would still like to see him ‘for sex if that was OK’. They meet in the hotel and he drinks too much. He describes what happened next.

‘I became petulant, then angry, then aggressive and finally nihilistic, ordering and knocking back Cosmopolitans (No, not the magazine obviously. It’s a cocktail of vodka, cointreau, cranberry and lime juice) as fast as they could make them. I remember whacking my nut on a low beam on the way back from the gents and seeing blood on my hand. And the next thing I knew it was morning. I was back in the room, lying on my side on the bed. My glasses were standing up in a pool of sick next to the bed. Cow Girl was gone …’.

(Note: the use of three dots to imply that there could have been more to follow is acceptable. I chose not to continue, for reasons of good taste, and so I chose to employ my signature three dots).

Just imagine what fun it could be for us all at the Jamaican Writers’ Retreat. Every morning when we participants are working on our manuscripts what do you think Jeremy Clarke would be doing? Three hours with nothing to do in a hotel where all the booze is free – including premium brand spirits and pouring wine? I can see us at lunch, talking about serious matters such as my signature three dots, and over there, slumped across a table is this strange man calling out for Cosmopolitans, ‘as fast as you can make them, please’ in a strangled voice. And I am in his group this afternoon! What of the other participants? What of the ladies? How will this drinksodden, sexlorn man behave when he sees other potential Cow Girls? How will he react when he realises that there are men about who are potential rivals? How will he stay awake? What will we do if he throws up? ‘Twill all end in tears, trust me.

All I can say is that it would offer some good material for a writer …