Off To Bournemouth

Lots of rushing around to do, shopping tidying, packing, before I kiss the wife and kids goodbye and head off to Bournemouth for the third residential. This one will cover writing for television, and more about t'industry.

Looks like grim travelling conditions. An icy easterly wind's blowing up a huge surf here in Teignmouth. I can see the spray from waves hitting the sea-wall from here. Yikes, I'd better leave earlier, rather than later. Don't really want to be driving after dark if I can help it.

30 minute drama now completed. Not 100% happy with it, but will stop fussing and send it out for some peer review. Well, after I've fussed with it just a little more.

My whole trouble with this one is the mismatch between the great promise of the characters and the weakish delivery of the story. Very frustrating to see it spark into life in places, but not as a whole.

But Bournemouth! Yay. Got a cheap deal at a posh seafront hotel. I can pretend I'm at the Hotel Magnificent in Roald Dahl's The Witches. That's set in Bournemouth, isn't it? Look at me, pretending I don't know The Witches backwards and forwards, from reading it aloud at least five times.

Now there's a good ending.

SPOILERS! BELOW! READ NO FURTHER!

The ending of the Witches:



It's touching when the boy realises he's been permanently turned into a mouse, and will probably live only a few years more. Mice have short lives, and even mouse-boys can't expect many summers. But he finds comfort in the knowledge that Grandma, at her age, and with her cigar habit, probably has about the same time left. They will be together. One will not have to live long without the other. They will spend their remaining time on the planet battling witches and stealing their treasure.

Roald Dahl may sell more than his share, but for this book, and Matilda, and a couple others, he is justly celebrated as a national treasure.