Spizz outside the Tate Modern, Aug 6th 2008

I went up to London today.  As I always do, if possible, I started off by visiting the Chunnel Bar in Lower Marsh for a breakfast and to catch up with gossip from my old workmates.  I also popped into the old office to say hello, but the real reason for re-living the hell of commuting by train was to meet up with Spizz to discuss a project.

I didn’t know whether to mention it here at all, but since I have not been sworn to secrecy I thought I might as well – no such thing as bad publicity and all that – but Spizz asked me if I would be interested in helping out with his autobiography so we were meeting to go over some details.

Obviously it is not, strictly speaking, an autobiography if I help out but he has never shied away from the unconventional.  It turns out that he does not want a ghost-written autobiography anyway, hence the fact that I am happy talking about it.  It could be interesting to have two voices in the book I think.

Not sure how the mechanics of it all are going to work out.  We might do quite a few taped interviews for me to work from, and that opens up some possibilities: sometimes our conversations take odd directions which might not be usable or appropriate for the book, but might be fun to have as podcasts supporting it.

Doctor Spizz says "Cough!"

I think there are two reaons why I was asked to help out.  One is that I am now used to writing prose on a regular basis – it was actually one objective of this blog to get me into the habit of writing regularly.  Another reason is that Spizz reckons that if he did it himself he would keep procrastinating and never finish.

And that is another reason why I mention it all now: actually admitting in public that I am writing the book will put the pressure on me to not dither about too much. I don’t like to jinx projects by writing about them while they are still in the embryonic stage, but I need the extra pressure to get me motivated.

Already there is a sort of deadline to get a decent sample chapter and outline together to show the publisher.  Time to get to grips with that Word 2007 I installed last month I think.

I hope I can do the topic justice.  I have heard several of Spizz’s anecdotes in the past and there is an interesting story to be told about life on the fringes (and sometimes at the centre) of the punk scene.  If nothing else I’ll try to get the full details of his brief relationship with Valerie Singleton in there somewhere.  We are being realistic and not expecting to be a bestseller get a Richard & Judy Book Club sticker – but I will expect the Bradford Uni branch of Waterstones to be putting in a respectable order!

Next year is the 30th anniversary of Where’s Captain Kirk? so it would be good to tie in with that.  But before that there is the small matter of a London gig and a Brighton gig this year…  Details forthcoming once they are confirmed.