Archive | September, 2016

autumn by aline waites

29 Sep

AUTUMN

Summer’s gone

So now what?

Crisp dry air

Don’t forget your hat

Leaves

Crunching like cornflakes

Slippery when wet

“Dangerous when wet” starred Esther Williams

Way back in the Spring

Now

Prepare for the Fall

Dangerous when Slippery

reviews of A Thing called Joe by Aline Waites (available from Amazon.co.uk)

28 Sep

Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A lovely story and a great read, and who can ask for more than that?
By Terry Eastham on 28 May 2016
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book has two things that really appealed to me. The first was the style of writing. it was easy to read and the mixture of present day and past life stories worked really well to explain the personality and spirit of Joe Tully. He isn’t your everyday literary hero, but is a normal man. The years may have aged him, his family may have deserted him ,but he is an old trooper and never loses his sense of who he is and what he wants.

The second factor is that Joe, and most of the other characters, are all involved in the theatre, which is one of my own loves. The author brings all her experience and love of the theatre into her writing and it really shows through. Her description of the play in the back room of the pub was perfect and is still as true today, where some fantastic work is produced in fringe pub theatre venues, as it was in Joe’s day.

4.0 out of 5 starsJust Joe
By W. Russell on 11 Mar. 2016
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Joe is a musician, a man who plays in the pit at West End shows, composes music, fancies his chances and makes the wrong one, living to regret it. We meet him in his old age dumped in a retirement complex by his daughter and awful son in law after he has accidentally set fire to his flat. Joe may be down, but he is not out. The books takes us back to why he got where he is, and springs some splendid surprises about where he will end up. Aline Wates paints a lovely picture of 1960s London, a vanished world, and Joe is a beguiling if infuriating character who encounters some equally entertaining and not too well behaved people along the way. Great holiday reading – if that is not an insulting thing to say. I almost read it in one go, and that was only because I ran out of time on the first attempt to read it. Could easily be an in one go book.

4.0 out of 5 star musicians `jammed` into the wee small hours in basements in tin pan alley and people loved, laughed and drank their lives away
By Stewart Permutt on 21 July 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
Actress-producer Aline Waites` debut novel is a delightful nostalgic trip into sixties and seventies London, where theatres above pubs were just emerging, musicians `jammed` into the wee small hours in basements in tin pan alley and people loved , laughed and drank their lives away. It also shows quite movingly how time takes its toll on the central characters through a series of vignettes from past to present. An easy but satisfying read.

4.0 out of 5 starsA very entertaining read.
By Angela Mowforth on 11 Sept. 2016
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Joe is a musician and a wonderful character – stubborn – infuriating but such a charmer!
His story is a joy to read.

4.0 out of 5 stars Joe is good
By Londonjerez on 18 April 2016
Format: Paperback
A thoroughly enjoyable read.

The book is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Tell me all about it

28 Sep

The Counsellor says “Tell me all about it”

How can I explain the turmoil that is my mind?
I can say nothing coherent,
Just go on seeking remnants of my loss.
He was me and I was him,
He was the fact of my existence.
Since he has gone my world is fiction
Splintered
Veering between moods and experiences.
Nothing stable
Like walking on the rim of an earthquake
Shifting sands – nothing true.
How does one get re-rooted in fact?
How rediscover the balance in life?

In the gym you can stand on a wobble board
Dipping forwards, backwards left or right
Its conquest allows you to cross
uneven, treacherous land without falling
But a hole hidden by tarpaulin
made me crash to the ground.
outside the hospital

I can withstand the ups and downs of life
wobbles from front to back and side to side
But not the trip that was my downfall
Outside the Royal Free
Nor the death of the person
the one that used to be me.

.ALINE WAITES March 24th 2006
updated September 2016

September 28

28 Sep

Yesterday I went to an FEU training session on bogging, run by the ‘Roguishly Handsome’ William Gallagher. Of course I’ve been doing it all wrong but I am hoping that the lessons have been learned and this will be an example of my future prowess.

The first thing to do this morning was to work on She That Plays the Queen a little, having at last had it read – by Janet Locke of course – and she has made suggestions about some of the names and minor characters involved , linking them up with characters from A Thing Called Joe – hoping for and imagining – probably foolishly –  little cries of recognition from future readers.  So we have put in Fiona Cooper as one of the understudies in Jessica’s first big opportunity and Joe Tully as the piano player who helps her through the numbers.

Of course, there have also been many thoughts about H.B and that is something that needs a great deal of contemplation before it can be started. I have also discussed this with Janet who thinks it must be a musical. But our Star wanted it to be a film – a musical would be too exhausting at his age – is what he said. So I think we shall have to decide on  something to start with. Maybe a straight play – but it would lose a lot not having the chorus girls – or a radio play – more difficult to get put on, but one could use existing songs to illustrate the story. I am lucky to have so much information about H.B especially from his ‘bloggist’ and also a copy of the long speech. It should work, but I am at a loss to know where to start.

I hope this will suffice as a blog for the moment. Having nothing personal to talk about – except of course the ceiling which is being built with huge rectangles of wood – I hope they don’t fall down. That would cause a lot of damage. Will wait and trust.

 

 

A THING CALLED JOE by Aline Waites

27 Sep

An often  humorous, highly unusual love story combining laughter, betrayal, despair and death. Everything in fact that makes life worth living.

Joe Tully, indomitable and a staunch individualist, has spent an adventurous and somewhat hectic life around the world as a professional musician, accompanying vocalists both classical and jazz. Now he is seventy-five and had found himself back in London and pushed into sheltered accommodation by his unsympathetic son-in-law. He spends his time smoking pot, swearing at his cat and reluctantly getting to grips with modern technology. A chance encounter with an old friend recalls the turbulent romances o his youth in swinging London and  he is forced to confront and perhaps understand the events responsible for his current situation.

A Thing Called Joe explores our hero’s heady past and his hopeful present.

Available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com