On Whatever

You reach a point where the bullshit has to stop. You make investments - money, time, emotions. This is nothing new, of course - you've been here before. You knew what to expect. But this time it's different, because you realise it isn't a game. It's your life.

Doing a Reading

Here's some videos of me reading from Drive!

Terry has a rather large problem. His father wants to destroy him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4LgSK4KDlY

Meet Terry's father, The Reverend Kinlochleven. He's an ordained Minister of the Church, but fancies himself as a bit of a gangster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWrTemfhQnI&feature=related


Sammy plays the drums in a band called Drive!. He's good, but he's not Clem Burke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLLdj6CAKvk&feature=related

Book News

"...the great achievement of the book is its depiction of the pub and club-centric music scene in Edinburgh in the 80s...anyone who was there is sure to be enthralled by this fascinating debut novel." The Skinny

Just a reminder that Drive! is still available at the following links:


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Andrew-McCallum-Crawford/dp/9609929605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292833867&sr=8-1


http://www.edinburgh-shop.com/bk-007.html

Good Neighbours

There is a barricade of shoes
blocking access to our door.

They are not our shoes.


There is a barricade of shoes
blocking egress from our flat.

They are not our shoes.


I pull the laces tighter
on my MA1s;
manly leather grips my shins.
I cut a swath through
Bulgarian Adidas, Nike
and Hong Kong Prada.
Plastic and faux-pigskin
bounce off the walls - I miss the light
by inches.
Diplomacy
of the size 9 boot.
A language that respects no borders.
A proportional response.

Review of Drive! by Andrew McCallum Crawford - The Skinny, December 2010

Here's a review of Drive! in the December 2010 issue of Scottish events magazine The Skinny.

http//www.theskinny.co.uk/article/101204-drive-by-andrew-mccallum-crawford

Flower of Glenalmond

I can see him now:
the young man,
who was really just a boy.
It was almost summer.
It was a foreign country,
Scotland,
but not then.
He had removed his shirt,
as if it would make a difference.
He had a piece of paper
flattened on his knee.


Three weeks left in this oasis.
(he always wrote of people)
Sunday bells appealing
across a billiard lawn,
tolling the knell of this parting dream
in which I find myself
so willingly immersed.
Three weeks of borrowed time.
Flower of Glenalmond.
How true.

He was trying to understand something,
that would-be poet.
(his words remained hidden for years)
Self-inflicted wounds also heal,
I want to shout,
and
Things had run their course.
I know this now.


As I watch,
the boy turns
and raises a hand to his ear.
Is it a sudden breeze he feels?
Or is it hindsight
whispering garbled words of comfort
from an undreamt-of middle age?
Another language, almost.
Words from a foreign land.
Not Scotland.
Not now.

Ephemeral

The seed took root
beneath the box.
The seed, in fact, was there
before the box was lowered.
No confusion, though.
The shoot, blind,
knew which way to go,
and curled easily round the wood
up through the loose soil
to the surface.


It was a beautiful flower,
but it didn't last for long.
The wind blew,
scattering petals to
I don't know where.
The flower died, of course.


In the grave,
all that is left of the root
is a feeling,
as the seed,
well compressed,
sprouts poetry.

Agent

And here's your starter for ten. How does the Dux of the school end up in the white slave trade?

Ah, old Bamber, God love 'im. One of those bastions of TV quiz shows who fell by the wayside as the years progressed. Bit after my time, though, his demise, I mean. My trusty Guardian informed me that he was replaced by none other than Jeremy Paxman, and what do we know about him? Newsnight? Giving politicians a hard time? If the truth be out, and it soon will be, I couldn't really tell you. I'd already fled the country by the time he was elevated to the status of Quizmaster, albeit on a show whose audience is in a constant state of bafflement. Which raises the question - why do they watch it? I'm all for audience participation. Well, I would be. I'm a teacher. Or was, until I came across this little earner. But what's the point? 'Sulphate compounds carry how many oxygen atoms?' Who cares? I mean, it's even worse than the specialist round on Mastermind.

The truth has to be faced. University Challenge was one of the essential low points in the series of events that led me to...well, here.

Let me explain.

The Hotel Continental, Thessaloniki, 1st December, 1989

It was 21 years ago today that I came to Greece to 'be a writer', whatever I thought that meant. I was twenty four years old. I thought I knew it all. Of course, I knew nothing. My ticket was the cheapest I could find, from a dingy office in Oxford Street. It was one way.

The Hotel Continental, Thessaloniki, 1st December, 1989

The first night
of a new life.
The street is called 'Komninon',
if I have deciphered correctly;
it's a while since I did Greek at school.
Is it a flower? I wonder.
Or a mountain?
I have no idea, but
Komninon is here,
and so is the Hotel Continental.

We ascend in silence,
the concierge and I.
The lift is vintage,
a concertina door,
not a creak as we rise, slowly,
hoisted by elastic bands nearing their last.

We splash through puddles of second floor Domestos,
or the local equivalent.
At least the place is clean.

Then alone in this small, cold room.
The bed, the table, the chair.
Through closed windows, a partial view of old men playing billiards,
the angle of shoulder, elbow and cue,
and laughter I can only see.

I find (despite the bleach) what I knew would be there.
I knew it all along.
My cliche: the squashed bug on the wall.
On closer inspection, two bugs,
superimposed,
still wet.
The previous guest,
reviled by their twitching copulations,
has recently voted with his shoe.

I sit at the table.
This is why I came.
The first words of my new life.
Full of insight.

My God,
what have I done?

I look to the window,
but the billiard room is dark.
No more silent laughter.
I stare back at myself,
my pencil poised
in a hand that isn't mine.

Drive! by Andrew McCallum Crawford - Interview in Omikron Magazine (Greece), Issue 23, November 2010

Here's an interview I did over here for Omikron Magazine. The original text, in Greek, can be found at the link at the bottom of the page.

A Scottish Writer in Ptolemaida
by
Sokratis Moutidis

Every afternoon for two years, Andy McCallum Crawford could be found sitting in front of his computer in a cafenieo in Ptolemaida. Some people asked what he was writing. Andy's stock answer was 'Just work'. Other people thought he was planning lessons for the school where he teaches English. Even Babbis, the owner of the cafeneio, and an old friend of Andy's, had no idea he was putting the finishing touches to his first novel, Drive!

The book went through numerous drafts over a total of ten years before Andy was happy with it. "The characters were always pushing and shoving each other, trying to grab the limelight," he says. " I had to decide whose story it really was, and go with that. It took a while to get it right."

Terry, Sammy and Dug are the three central characters in the book. Sammy plays the drums in a rock band, while Dug tries to be best mates with Terry, even though they live in different worlds. Terry, the rich kid, has everything - money, women and good looks - but his relationship with his parents causes him to rebel. Drive! is Terry's story, the story of his revolt against his father.

"Most of the characters in the book have no parental guidance in their lives," Andy explains. "This is especially true of Terry; his father, in fact, wants to destroy him - he has done something his father considers unforgiveable. Just what that is - well, you'll have to read the book to find out."

The father/son relationship forms the core of the book, but there is also an exploration of hypocrisy in the protestant church. Terry's father is a staunchly Calvinist minister (something which makes Terry's life very difficult) but he is also raking it in as one of Edinburgh's top slumlords, renting substandard housing to the city's unemployed. Terry wants to expose his father for what he really is, so he joins a rock band, Drive!, in the hope that he will find a platform and an audience of willing listeners. He fails, and is soon faced with the question of what he is going to do with the rest of his life. After being rejected by the financial world, he finally decides, fully realising he is scraping the bottom of the barrel marked 'Desperate', to join the RAF. They don't want him, either. At this point, he vanishes, and no one, not even the reader, knows where he is until the surprise ending of the book.

Andy has lived in Ptolemaida for the last fifteen years. He has been writing since he was a student in Scotland. The parent-child relationship he explores in the book is something he found challenging. "Greek parents have a completely different relationship with their children compared with parents in Scotland," he says, "in that they will do anything - anything - to help their children. In Scotland, children are expected to leave home when they're eighteen. Of course, that doesn't mean that Scottish parents love their children less than Greek parents, it's just that they feel that their kids should be able to stand on their own two feet as soon as possible." Andy comes from an industrial town in East Central Scotland, which, he says, has more than a little in common with Ptolemaida. "We're ten kilometres away from the mine here, aren't we? I grew up in a town just over the back from an oil refinery."

Drive! is not autobiographical, although there are a few scenes that are based on actual events. The book is very Scottish in its language and tone. The story is set in 1986 Edinburgh, and there are lots of references to music from that time. All of the songs in the book have been collected together on Andy's page on Facebook, for those who would like to listen.

Drive! has been out since May this year. Andy has already completed another two books, both of which he hopes to publish in the near future. His second novel is set half in Scotland and half in Greece, while the third is set wholly in Greece. "I like that feeling when I start a book of not knowing where it might end up," he says. "Sometimes it's nice not knowing what's going to happen."

Drive! by Andrew McCallum Crawford
Skepdek Publishing, 2010

Available from:

Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Andrew-McCallum-Crawford/dp/9609929605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290549536&sr=8-1 (excluding Greece)

and

edinburgh-shop.com
http://www.edinburgh-shop.com/bk-007.html


The original article in Omikron Magazine can be found here:

http://http//issuu.com/viperagp/docs/omikron_magazine_no23?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fdarkicons%2Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true