Mar 20 2012
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China

Guangzhou

I’m back at the hotel after a 14-hour, 360-kilometre round trip between Hong Kong and Guangzhou via catamaran, bus and train. As a few of you know, one of the main reasons for this trip was to visit Guangzhou (or ‘Canton’ as it used to be called by early Western visitors) to research the novel I’ve been writing. It’s been an interesting and exhausting day.

The first leg of the journey was an hour’s journey by passenger catamaran to Shekou industrial zone which sits along what used to be (and still pretty much is) the Chinese / Hong Kong border.

Here I am, waiting at the boat terminal at Hong Kong Central. This is around 8am this morning and as you can see it’s a little misty…

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Mar 19 2012
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China

Hong Kong!

So here I am at last. Hong Kong! I’ll keep this brief as I need to get my head down for some sleep because I’m off to Guangzhou tomorrow and I have a 6am alarm set.

The 12-hour flight over here was great. Better than most of the flights I’ve had to holiday destinations that lasted half the time. I’m not sure whether this is a Virgin Atlantic thing or just long-haul, but after getting airborne and eating some food the lights were turned off and the cabin crew closed all the window blinds. The cabin stayed dark and quiet for a good six or seven hours, and I think I probably managed five or fix hours sleep during that time, albeit in chunks of half an hour or an hour or so. Not perfect. But pretty damned good.

The photo above was taken with my phone. I think this was about an hour after we flew over the Russian/China border at about 7am UK time, 3pm Hong Kong time.

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Mar 09 2012
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My Writing

I, Editor

The submissions window for cutaway magazine closed just over a week ago, so a couple nights ago I met up with fellow editor Dave Schofield to finalise the last of our acceptances. It still feels strange to use a word like ‘editor’!

This is part of an ongoing process that started back in January. We didn’t want to hang around until the end of the submissions window to start reading, so we got busy as soon as they started to arrive.

OK, I have to be honest, Dave was much more at this proactive than I was! But starting to read this early meant that we were able to send out six acceptances back in February before the submissions window had even closed.

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Feb 04 2012
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China

China

For a while now I’ve been threatening to make a trip to southern China, specifically Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Well, earlier this week I finally got around to booking my flights and hotel. I’ve calmed down a bit now, but I was really rather giddy a few days ago!

I’ll be flying out to Hong Kong during the third week in March and using the island as a base for a brief three-day visit where I’m hoping to see a little of Hong Kong and Kowloon as well as making a trip further inland to the city of Guangzhou. I’m hoping to blog on a daily basis whilst I’m out there and I’ll be uploading plenty of photos (hotel WiFi allowing). So watch this space!

In the last few days I’ve been asked by several people whether this trip is research for my writing, in particular the novel I’ve been writing.

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Dec 23 2011
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My Writing

‘Doctor’s Surgery’ Now Available at Structo Magazine

To round off the year I have a piece of fiction called ‘Doctor’s Surgery’ about to be published in Structo magazine issue #7.

I’ve just received my contributor copies, so it should be available to buy in the next few days from the Structo website or from Rough Trade East in London, The Albion Beatnik in Oxford, good old Cornerhouse in Manchester, the Gallery in Milton Keynes or Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. Or how about a subscription? Structo is a gorgeous magazine chock full of nifty fiction with an interesting newspaper format. A literary and visual treat all rolled into one.

‘Doctor’s Surgery’ is a rather experimental piece. Pure dialogue. No tags. Let me know what you think if you get the chance to have a read. Merry Christmas everyone!

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