New Year new job…

Everyone’s always a bit tight for cash in January – maybe this year even more than others – but what are the factors that govern what you actually get paid or are worth? We were talking about this topic in the office yesterday so I thought I’d throw it up in a quick blog to perhaps start a conversation & in case it helps anyone who’s changing job in the New Year or thinking about doing so.

I’m not going to be able to help you negotiate a better salary and this isn’t supposed to be an exhaustive list or a lesson in regional economics – I’m just going to give you some pointers so that you’re more aware that there’s a bit of science to this & to say that sometimes it’s worth asking a few questions or chancing your arm. My rules also apply more to start-ups or small businesses than they do to giant dinosaur companies – yawn – but if you’re reading my blog you probably aren’t that interested in working for one of them anyway.

1. First up is what I call the scarcity factor – there’s a market rate for what you do in the geographical area where the job is based and it’s fairly easy to determine. Some skillsets are like hen’s teeth right now & those people can therefore charge a premium – which is as annoying as hell for employers. Like all commodities that are subject to market forces, these peaks & troughs do eventually go away as people retrain as something else or as more of the scarce resource moves to the area attracted by the higher pay scales. Unsure what happens at that point to those that have been charging a premium but looking forward to finding out… London & Dublin have traditionally paid more than the rest of the UK & Ireland – comes as a bit of a shock to people when they want to move somewhere else.

2. How the recruitment happened is also a factor – if you’ve come to us through a recruitment agency or we’ve placed a newspaper ad, that’s likely to have cost us between £1,500 & £5k. If you’ve come to us via word of mouth or in response to ads on our website, we’ll be more inclined to err on the generous side with you. So – if you’re looking for a job do a bit of work & approach your chosen target companies before you sign up with a recruiter – you’d probably be surprised by the number of people that end up getting employed this way, especially by small companies who really resent paying recruiters. It also shows initiative on your part. You’d also be surprised by the number of people we already know that are sent to us by recruiters – sigh!

3. What the rest of the “tribe” gets paid is a factor – for example, if the maximum day rate paid to anyone by the company is £300 – you’re unlikely to get £500 no matter how great you might be. Also – if there’s a team already in place, paying you any more than them seriously upsets the apple cart. Sensible employers realise that their people all talk to each other & in terms of remuneration packages – you might as well post them up on the wall. Everyone knows what everyone else gets paid so it makes sense to have a fair & transparent system in place that you can stand over and then stick to it. How much experience a person has does have some bearing on where on that team scale they start. However, once they’ve started work future payrises will depend on a whole different set of factors.

4. Other benefits – sometimes you might be lucky enough to be offered share options in return for a market rate or lower than market rate salary. If you believe the company has a chance, then grab it with both hands & offset a miserly short term gain for who knows what in the longer term when the glorious exit comes. If you don’t understand how share options work – then go & find out.

5. Sometimes with a new employee companies try & offset some of the risk they’re incurring by linking part of the newbie’s overall package to a performance based bonus. My take on this is that people who are up for the challenge know they are as good as their word, take the offer & will probably come up trumps. Anyone that shies away from an offer like this because they want more “security” makes me believe they won’t deliver & I question if they should be in a small business anyway.

6. Anyone that sells for a living gets commission on top of their basic salary. Their basic will generally be much lower than their peers in other disciplines but they should earn more money than anyone else in the company including the directors. Everyone else needs to either get over that or learn how to sell. If you work in sales & your commission is low – you are a mug & should look for another job.

7. Once you start work at a new company, how indispensable you become may in some way influence how much you earn over time. No one is indispensable but some people are far more desirable to keep – this may have nothing to do with their job role – this topic is for another blog…

8. Finally I’m afraid there’s an element of companies paying what they can get away with – if you’re being seriously considered for a £30k per year job & you currently earn £18k for whatever reason, expect them to offer you less money as a starting salary. Linked to this you’re likely to get a better opening offer if you’re already working – expect to be lowballed if you’re out of work & have been for some time.

Couple of pieces of advice to finish. Always negotiate (politely) when you’re offered a job. People think you’re an idiot if you don’t at least try. Women find this harder to do than men – that’s a fact of life – it isn’t me being sexist. Second one – don’t lose out on a great job over a couple of grand. Great jobs in great companies are few & far between & if you’re offered one – you sometimes need to be prepared to make some sacrifices because you spend a big slice of your life at work.

Interested in your comments as always.

Sisters rule ok…

I’m sure everyone’s getting a bit sick of reading everyone else’s achievements & high points of the year that was so I’m going to keep this one short & sweet. Photo above is of me with my fabulous sister taken on the steps inside Stormont a couple of months back. Thanks Trish for all the laughs you give me & everyone else, for all the things you do for me (& everyone else!), for all the advice you freely hand out to me (& everyone else – whether or not they want it), for all the scrapes you constantly pull me out of, for being such great company and for a million and one other things. When I looked at my own top 10 list for 2010 pretty much everything on it has involved you in some way and I don’t know what I would do without you. You’re a sister in a million & you rock!

Hummingbirds truly are the jewels of the desert…

One of the many pleasures of a Palm Springs location is the variety of amazing small birds of every colour under the sun that visit our back garden. Top of the pile for me however without any close competition is the hummingbird, as commonplace here as sparrows are at home. I can still remember clearly the first time I ever saw one. I was with a crowd of engineers in Silicon Valley – they didn’t seem too impressed & I then felt a bit embarrassed for making such a fuss and showing myself to be such a newbie in the Valley. Out here I see them many times a day, but each sighting still stops me in my tracks & I watch them for the few seconds they remain in a single place, feeding or perching. In flight, they’re harder to track than a golf ball on the tv, flying in short bursts at up to 60 mph. They are like tiny bright jewels, moving at a million miles an hour in a blur of iridescent colour & wings, chattering away to themselves constantly.

We’re staying at the historic Ocotillo Lodge in Palm Springs. It’s one of the many examples that still exist out here in the Californian desert of fine mid century architecture. Aloe vera plants line one edge of the champagne cork shaped swimming pool and the hummingbirds seem to love the orange trumpet flowers. The one I’ve been observing this morning is a female Costa’s hummingbird. She’s about 3½ inches long and after feeding on the flowers, perched for a couple of minutes on the fence around the pool so I could get a good look at her. Last week I watched one taking a shower in the raindrops – it sat on the fence during a brief downpour & fluffed up its feathers.

Hummingbirds are territorial & fiercely aggressive for ones so small. They will attack other hummingbirds that are encroaching on their territory (when I’m swimming, I can hear them angrily “buzzing” at each other) and also much bigger birds without hesitation or any evidence of fear.

If you’ve never seen one check them out on Youtube, follow @WeLuvBirds on Twitter and enjoy the great bird photos they post up every day or follow @craignewmark also on Twitter – Craig has a live webcam on his hummingbirds in San Francisco during the breeding season and provides enjoyable daily coverage of news about the babies. Thanks Craig!

My camera isn’t good enough to capture a hummingbird in flight so I’ve borrowed this picture from the excellent feedmyhummingbirdblog.com site – I hope they don’t mind.

Reeling in the Years – a few gig stories

Over the past few weeks, as my journey home from Derry has got longer & longer due to the bad weather, I’ve started to devise new ways to pass the time I spend in the car. A recent ongoing theme has been trying to first of all remember all the bands I’ve seen in the last 35 years and then to put them into chronological order. I managed to remember the first & last bands (the late Desmond Dekker & Robert Plant’s Band of Joy for anyone that’s wondering) but I’ve mothballed the task pending future imprisonment (solitary confinement) or hostage seizure when I may have time to revisit. What the exercise has done is remind me of many, many fun nights out over the years and here are a few of the highlights/oddities:

· I saw all sorts of bands when I was a teenager in Doncaster. My friends & I used to frequent the Outlook Club which sadly (?) no longer exists. It had a very short space between the stage & the ceiling and that meant that Johnny Ramone had to do his entire set in 1977 with his head bowed & his hair hanging down. The Ramones were supporting the Talking Heads or vice versa – that was a good night. I’d never experienced anything like the Ramones. We didn’t have the internet at school in the 1970s, no-one really travelled long distance and New York was to us like another planet. I love the way that other bands have adopted Gabba Gabba Hey as one of their anthems and Belfast band the Sabrejets do a good cover. Hearing those early Ramones songs now always reminds me of pogo-ing at university parties.

· My friend & I hitchhiked from Nottingham to Leeds in 1982 to see the Rolling Stones in Roundhay Park. It was a sunny day & we managed to get near the front. We got a lift home with a VW transporter van full of hippies – which was great until the girl driving asked whether there was anyone else in the van who could drive but hadn’t dropped any acid. Ah well – she was a trooper & managed to get us home ok without any mishaps.

· Blondie played our Fresher ball in Lancaster – none of us had ever heard of them but they were good on the night. Saw loads of great bands at university and some awful ones too (Bob Geldof’s dreadful Boomtown Rats stands out) but as it was the late 70s, there was always a lot of other stuff going on in parallel – mainly fighting it has to be said between the “posh” uni students & the punks from Preston who used to come up for gigs. I kept out of the fighting but it always caused a lot of “noise”.

· My friend sent me money in 1985 to buy Tom Waits tickets at the Dominion. I failed to realise how popular Tom was likely to be & left ticket purchase to the last minute. There were none left. Obvious to me now! I put upon all my London friends to ring everyone & anyone they knew with “music biz” contacts. There were no Tom Waits tickets to be had for love or money. It was ok though – I didn’t tell my friend, we turned up on the night of the gig & I blagged us in at the Dominion – although we had to stand at the back. Yep – I must have always been manipulative.

· Think the most surreal has to be Jayne (formerly Wayne) County at the Fridge in Brixton. The men on the stage were naked except for policeman’s hats and they were dancing energetically. As we were at the front that resulted in a lot of “movement” right in our eyelines. We were truly spoilt for choice in Brixton between the Academy & the Fridge. Mick Jones’ dad used to drink in our local in Brixton Hill. Conversation went like this “My boy’s in a band – you might have heard of him”; us to middle aged man, “oh yeah – who’s that then?” (thinking to ourselves it was gonna be someone awful & we’d have to pretend whoever X was was ok) “It’s Mick Jones – he plays a lovely guitar – he used to be in a band called the Clash – have you heard of them?” Silence fell as we gazed at the father of one of our gods…

· Seen the late Link Wray at the Garage in London & self nominated King of the Surf guitar Dick Dale a number of times in various locations; also went all the way to Spain to see Davie Allan & the Arrows – which completes that particular holy trinity. Caught both Slacktone and the Neptunes at a Hillbilly Surf Stomp in San Luis Obispo during the week following 9/11 when I was stranded in California – most memorable thing about that day apart from the music was the number of Americans that asked me why people in other countries hated them so much…which was a hard question to answer tactfully.

· Saw Mark Lanegan & the Screaming Trees at the Astoria & attended the after gig party. Whilst the band was on stage, someone had stolen all their credit cards. Ah well – kept Mark out of trouble for that one night at least. Along the same lines, we were on the guest list for Faith No More at the Astoria and one of the bouncers came by and told us we’d have to give up our seats if Eric Clapton showed up. Lucky for him he didn’t as we weren’t for moving.

· More recently moved furniture with Jonathan Richman when he was in Belfast, rubbed shoulders with Leonard Cohen in the Do-Lab at Coachella (he was the only person formally dressed), met Steve Earle in Derry with some of the Learning Pool team (that’s us all in the photo – Steve Earle looks almost like part of our team in this pic) and travelled down to Dublin with Janet Harkin to see Robert Plant’s Band of Joy.

Every one of them a good night – hopefully there’ll be many more. Looking forward to reading your gig stories in the comments.

Pitching for investment any time soon? – some dos and don’ts

Yesterday I was part of the IntertradeIreland Seedcorn judging panel chaired by Intertrade’s CEO Liam Nellis – that’s a photo of the two of us taken last week on the steps in Stormont. Also on the panel were Taxback.com’s Terry Clune, Xing’s Bill Liao & e-synergy’s Fergus McIlduff. Over the course of the day we watched 6 pitches as if we were an investment panel, then scored the companies & selected winners to go through to the next stage of the competition.

I thought whilst it was in my head – because I know a lot of my friends & associates are entrepreneurs who are no doubt entering these sorts of competitions or pitching for investment – I would scribble out a few dos & don’ts for anyone that’s interested:

· Work hard to distil your value proposition & get it out there early in your preso – remember that the investment or judging panel will be seeing loads of companies, often in a short space of time

· If you have a tangible product & have brought samples, pass them round early in your pitch

· If you turn up with a colleague, which is a good idea, only one of you pitch – it hardly ever works to try & share the pitch between you so let the person who’s best at presenting do it; also do try & behave as if you are a team

· Don’t ramble & do stick to your allotted time – it’s annoying when people go over time because they either haven’t rehearsed enough or because they spend too long telling you irrelevant stuff

· Use some pictures or graphics in your presentation to bring it to life

· Don’t use a video that’s longer than a minute

· If you’re very early stage, think about your sales and marketing plan – it isn’t enough to state the market opportunity – you need a go-to-market plan that hangs together

· Don’t argue with the panel – it just makes you look bad

· Be honest when answering questions

· Know your numbers back to front and the assumptions behind them – expect to get asked about anything that isn’t self explanatory

· If you’re referring to high level numbers in your presentation, make sure you have identified what they are – are they £s, people, units

· Include some innovation – you don’t have to be an inventor – it might just be something unusual about your business model or your presentation that makes you stand out

· Keep your pitch consistent with any business plan you’ve already submitted

· Finally – don’t use corny or gimmicky presentation techniques unless you are very certain of your delivery capabilities – they can be excruciating to watch (think Angelcot woman on Dragon’s Den insisting on singing…)

I know there’s a lot out there about this stuff for entrepreneurs but I thought I’d take 5 minutes out to share my take – interested in your comments so keep ‘em coming.

Find Time to Give

I’m proud to serve my local theatre group in Derry as a voluntary non-exec director. I find it satisfying to convert some of my free time to serving the local community that Learning Pool is based in and I live in. It’s also a lot of fun. The photo above is of me with the Millennium Forum & Derry Theatre Trust’s wonderful and inspiring Chairman, Martin Bradley, & Ed Vaizey (Minister for Communication, Culture and the Creative Industries) – it was taken at the party thrown by the theatre the day after Derry’s success in bidding for UK City of Culture 2013 was announced.

I only wish I had enough free time to serve as a councillor but my working life is just too demanding right now – maybe later…

So what made me apply in the first place? My first three years living in Northern Ireland were spent working in one of Belfast’s busy high tech start-ups. Our customers were based predominantly in the Bay Area & Japan which led to a very long working day – start early to catch Japan before it went offline and stay late to welcome the Californians to their new working day. By the time the company was sold, I was close to burnout and wanted to be involved in a project that was enjoyable but also included an element of “putting something back”. I decided to join the theatre board because they were seeking someone with a commercial financial background. Seven years later I’m still on the board and the benefits I have enjoyed during that time have been many fold:

· I’ve met lots of interesting new people

· I’ve been able to satisfy some creative leanings in some small way

· I’ve helped the theatre flourish by working with the rest of the Board and the executive team to improve governance and financial management – the theatre’s creative direction didn’t need any help as the executive team have always had that side well covered

· I’ve been able to re-use some specialist experience and that was satisfying

· I’m proud that Derry is going to be the first UK City of Culture 2013 and glad that our theatre will be a key player in that.

My day job didn’t get any quieter. Indeed quite the opposite…it got busier. But I have no regrets about volunteering and figure I must have got better at managing my time.

If you don’t currently put something back, I urge you to have a rethink and consider what you could do for your community, however small. I promise you it will be fun.

A Whole Lotta Love…

That’s certainly what the audience was feeling for Robert Plant and to be fair the rest of his fabulous Band of Joy on Monday night at Dublin’s intimate Olympia Theatre. Janet Harkin and I were there too – diehard Led Zep fans both – and we had a truly momentous evening – even though we had to run from the theatre via the back door on the stroke of 10.30pm like a couple of latter day hard rock Cinderellas (last bus back to Derry was leaving Busaras at 11pm and we needed to be on it – even though it did appear to have a bullet hole in the front windscreen). We did stop briefly on the pavement outside just to jump up and down on the spot for a minute with excitement and remark to each other how buzzing we each were from the gig.

Last time I saw Robert Plant was in Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California. He was next to me in the audience, jigging about & singing along to Wanda Jackson’s version of “I Saw the Light” – and shouting out “Worcester” when Wanda asked “Where y’all from tonight?” Just a normal guy enjoying a night out at a local music venue admiring the legend that’s Wanda. I chatted to him of course & listened to him talk to the musicians in the band after the gig, which he did at length.

There’s no doubt he’s a force to be reckoned with and a legend in his own lifetime. When I think about all the bands and performers I’ve seen in the last three or five years (and believe me there have been a few) Robert Plant and Leonard Cohen are the two that for me have ridden the waves of time most successfully…Cohen because there is such substance to him as a poet and Plant because he keeps going on to do new & interesting projects. The Band of Joy’s certainly one of those. The gig was like being at a party where a few friends pick up some string instruments, start jamming and find out they’re actually quite good together – so they keep going and it gets better and better. It was like peeking in at a gang of good friends having a great night together or it was like dying & waking up in Hillbilly Heaven. Buddy Miller & Patty Griffin were as good as we hoped they would be and Plant didn’t hog centre stage all night – when it was someone else’s turn he was happy to blend into the background, sing backing vocals & play his harmonica. He also told stories, entered into a bit of banter with the audience and even answered a few of the comments that were shouted over to him. I liked his story about how he and his friends at school in the West Midlands in the 60s used to listen to Howlin’ Wolf and the Reverend Gary Davis – it was all Motown and northern soul by the time I went to school.

So – the big question – did they play any Zeppelin songs. They did – but not in a way you would straight away recognise – they Nashville-ised them and played Tangerine, House of the Holy, Misty Mountain Hop and Gallow’s Pole – Plant parodying his 1970s on-stage persona a little – curling his still impressive mane into ringlets with his finger. Everyone in the audience sang with him – it was like being part of a religious experience – and you really could feel the love – you could almost reach out and touch it.

Robert Plant – thank you and long may you reign. Nothing else is getting a look in this week in the Fig – Band of Joy is all I need.

Kitten love is good love…introducing Jellytot

In the midst of today’s miserable CSR10 announcements & in view of the bad press there’s been recently about people putting cats in bins etc I thought I’d give you Jellytot’s story today – I know it’s a bit different from my usual blog but I figure everyone could do with cheering up & with a different type of news today. Some of you already know the story – but you’ll still enjoy the pictures!

Just over 2 weeks ago, I was driving home after dropping my goddaughter off. I was taking the back country roads as a major new bypass is under construction between Dungannon & Ballygawley – so I was way off my usual well-trodden route. Driving along I spotted a small black kitten crouching on the road – he had enormous big luminescent eyes & seemed to be in a catatonic trance. I pulled over next to him in the Fig & looked at him out of my window, wondering what I should do. However, there were a few houses back from the road & I thought – maybe he does this all the time. 50 yards further on around the next bend, I saw what I believe to be his mother lying dead on the road – she’d been hit by a car probably moments before.

You can guess the rest – I turned the Fig around in short order & went back. I knew if I didn’t pick him up the next car along would take him as the next victim and I wasn’t prepared to have that as the outcome. I scooped him up & he sat next to me on the passenger seat – looking up at me with those big eyes. He was a tiny scrap (vet said he was prob 4 or 5 weeks old) as you can see from the pic of Olivia holding him.

I just photographed him again now – relaxing on his blanket – belly full of treats & kitten milk – still staring straight at me. The bond is strong already & he ain’t going anywhere – tiny menace that he is – this is one kitten who’s landed on his feet.

Entrepreneurs are story tellers…so says Doug Richard

I’m so glad that I took yesterday out to attend Doug Richard’s excellent “Starting & Growing a Successful Business” lecture in Letterkenny. Learning Pool’s now an established business (when do you stop being a startup I wonder?) but most entrepreneurs have one eye on the next opportunity – it’s part of our condition…

Doug’s a man I could listen to all day. He sounds exactly like the wonderful architect Frank Gehry (a Toronto man who’s also lived in LA for a long time) and he doesn’t mince his words. I knew a bit about Doug already & I expected him to be like his reputation – ferocious, blunt to the point of rudeness & flashes of vitriol. Instead – he’s a caring pussycat trying to impart his vast experience of being an entrepreneur to those folks that are just starting out. Impressively, as part of his School for Startups social enterprise, he’s spoken to 7,600 entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs in the last 2 ½ years. He says he does it to show it can be done & to prove the government wrong – he thinks the way UK government supports & starts new business stinks. I think most startup businesses we network with (and there are an awful lot of those) would wholeheartedly agree with him. So – he’s a sort of energetic entrepreneurial avenging angel.

What impressed me most was his ability over the course of the day to really add value & give advice completely on the spur of the moment to people in the audience with businesses as varied as stainless steel catering equipment, online bridal directories, health clubs, micro-breweries, logistic businesses & distributors of artwork – so it must be true – business really is just business and entrepreneurialism can be learned – you don’t have to be born to it.

Doug’s written plenty of stuff & there are loads of good & free resources on his School for Startups website including his excellent blog – so I’m not going to regurgitate all that stuff again here in my blog, Instead – I’m going to give you the quotes from Doug that I liked enough yesterday to write down – just to give you a flavour of the day and a flavour of Doug Richard. Here we go:

Entrepreneurs are not born; babies are born

Some businesses can simply not succeed; entire industries exist that do not make any money (example he gave was the airline industry with the exception of our friends at Ryanair)

Some industries are harder to make money in; you need to know what industry you are in

A brand is a residue of what’s left; it’s a promise – you need to have a promise that you’re offering

Simple businesses are the ones that are most likely to succeed; but everyone does too much in their business – it’s human nature

You should make your promise accurate & narrow – how narrow can you get?

The story you tell as a young business is the most important thing – often you have nothing else

Entrepreneurs are defined by the story they tell

Risk & reward walk up together in a perfect continuum

Look elsewhere for tomorrow’s today (advice to go & check out other countries when looking for a business idea)

Government makes the measurable important instead of the other way around

You must delight your customers & exceed expectations – even by just a little – this will create word of mouth

If you’re building product, think about how you can include whimsy (he used the example of Apple’s “bounce” when you scroll to the end of the menu – utterly unnecessary but Steve Jobs felt it should exist)

Your family & friends are there to support you when you’re wrong so don’t ask them to appraise your new business idea

There is no conversation with a prospective customer that is too long, they are all too short

Every company should write a short profile of who their customer is – write it as a story – give them names

Most business expenditure is not driven by need but by ego (e.g. company cars)

Adults should only be rewarded for accomplishments, not for trying hard

Entrepreneurs are on a journey of discovery not invention – all the answers are already out there

Don’t stop at Page 1 of Google when you’re doing market research – there’s value in the long tail

You make more money from having an innovative business model than you do from having a great product or service

Business models matter & you should think about yours

Don’t overlook affiliate marketing (if this is your bag, Doug runs an 8 hour class on this alone)

Take the first offer – it might be the last offer!

Product doesn’t have to be better, it just has to be different (example used was skype – although of course it is also free!)

Just ask your minority customers why they don’t buy more from you (what a blindingly obvious idea – thanks Doug – we’re doing it)

A patent is not protection, it’s a hunting licence to protect (talking about the costs of defending patent breach)

No-one has ever started a company in Silicon Valley & ended up with what they thought they would – they are all Plan B companies

In an entrepreneur, resilience is so important (as an aside – in the very first conversation I ever had with Paul McElvaney many years ago, I asked him how resilient he was. It’s something we as business partners return to from time to time to make sure we’re still resilient as – yes – you really need to be)

It’s a very, very rare business that succeeds with just one person – there needs to be a team

You have to be optimistic to be an entrepreneur

There were a few “funnies” as well that I noted – please be warned that there’s a small bit of bad language coming up:

I don’t speak “local” – when he couldn’t understand a few of the strong accents in our Donegal audience

I’ll take better, I’m good!

We don’t use the phrase “poison chalice” in the USA (talking about being Chairman of the Tory task force to review SME support in the UK)

I’m saving you an entire MBA today

Thanks for the validation…I was a bit concerned. I know I’m obnoxious (to a member of the audience that told him he believed he was right about something)

On software development – Imagine selling a fridge where in v1 it just holds stuff

On Google rankings for your company – Do you know what we call the second page? – Siberia

On competitors – It’s not that you’re paranoid, they’re after you; they want to rip off your head & piss down the hole

On being an entrepreneur – Resilience, overcoming adversity, survival – they all pale into insignificance if you’re an asshole

In conclusion, a fab day where we learned a lot and Doug even made up a word – perfical (a perfect vertical). Don’t miss him – he’s brilliant, warm & very well informed – and he’s running one of these again in Dublin on 16 Feb & a Belfast date is to be announced. Come along with your questions & expect him to challenge you – he isn’t your mum & surely you’d rather know if your baby’s ugly. I guess you want to know what I asked him don’t you? I asked him how he decides on the one investment he chooses each year from the 3,000 business plans he receives. He was candid & admitted that there isn’t a “one” from the 3,000 – he decides what the next big thing is & goes hunting for a company to invest in. All I can say is I hope he has an urge to invest in a public sector online learning community – come talk to me if you do Doug!

A night with James Ellroy, demon dog & foul owl – are you scared yet?

Last night Dave Briggs & I went to the Bloomsbury Theatre to see famous American author & self proclaimed genius James Ellroy – check us all out on the photo below. I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this blog entry you’re already familiar with Ellroy (LA Confidential, American Tabloid, etc) and I’m therefore not going to go back over all the much hyped information that exists about him. This blog is about some of what James Ellroy had to say last night.

A confession first – I’ve seen James Ellroy at a book reading event in London before and am a fan – I like him because he’s unusual as well as incredibly talented. I think it was in 1996 when he was promoting “My Dark Places” – another book about his mother, speaking more or less completely in jive talk and very much in love with his pet bull terrier. 14 years on he was less “daddio” and even more off the wall than I remembered him to be.

There’s no doubt he’s an entertaining & engaging public speaker – he stands legs wide apart like a wild man rock guitarist playing at a lectern & he uses his distinctive low & booming voice like a musical instrument – he’s an easy man to listen to and he doesn’t disappoint in terms of the shock factor – ever. He even told us last night – “laugh with greater fervour – it’s funny MFs” and he uttered the immortal deVito line from LA Confidential – Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush – in “that” voice.

Also before we start – I was touched that Ellroy said he’d like more women to read his books. He’s sometimes painted to be a pervert and a woman-hater. I tend to think he’s a bit maligned on this score and instead read him to be a hopeless romantic caught up in a never ending loop of seeking THE ONE, finding her, discovering he was wrong and moving on to looking for the next ONE. He rather weirdly claims to be able to remember with clarity features of women’s faces that he met or saw 50 years ago. Dave & I weren’t sure that was credible – and he did then go on to freely admit that he “makes up shit convincingly & makes sure all the people he’s writing about are dead” – with one exception – Don Crutchfield, real life PI that Ellroy claims he paid $40k & promised not to depict as a “fag or a ponce” in “Blood’s a Rover”.

It was fascinating to hear from the author about the methodology he uses to write. He starts with a detailed outline which he keeps beside him & this framework enables him to then control his story whilst permitting improvisation on scenes he is writing. He spends a lot of time in the dark thinking about & planning his story and then writes in longhand at his desk, working in silence and with no music or distractions. He reads his work out aloud to himself as he writes and rewrites. If he ever gets fed up with writing crime fiction, I’ll offer him a job as a project manager any day (although I might worry about the effect that would have on his colleagues).

These are the soundbites from last night that we liked a lot:

· LA is where I go when women divorce me; I can earn money there to pay my alimony and I know where stuff is

· She had eyes of no shit non hazel green

· My riposte to book critics worldwide has been “fuck you all”

· Says he has a “benign form of megalomania rewriting history to his own specification”

· I am a genius and George W Bush is not

· Whatever I can conceive I can execute (I like that – a lot)

· England = the moors, thatched cottages & baying hounds

· Movies you want to see like LA Confidential; movies you want to flee like the Black Dahlia

I’ll be back to post more on this when I’ve had more chance to think & digest. He’s in Belfast tonight & tomorrow night & folks – James Ellroy is unmissable – take your chance to go & see him whilst he’s over here. Comments & questions welcome.

Mary McKenna's Blog

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