Tom Wiggins, Letter Carver & Writer

I think you should start with a countdown.  Why?  Everyone loves a countdown. There’s a promise in a countdown. Maybe you know what’s expected to happen, maybe you don’t. But nobody knows for sure what’s actually going to happen. The expectation is only part of what makes a countdown so much fun. You become a part of something when you join a group of people in a countdown. It’s a social event of collective anticipation. It’s a singalong of decreasing numbers. An increase in excitement as the numbers decrease. Whatever you are counting down, something is going to happen when it gets to zero, even if nothing happens. Even nothing happening counts as something happening when you had expected something to happen. It is a wonderland of what-ifs that gets answered at zero - exactly the moment you want it to be answered. What if it doesn’t happen? What’s going to happen then? What if someone important needs the toilet? If a Big Red Button has to be pushed, who’s going...

  After an unbelievably enjoyable weekend of reservoir swimming, of parkrunning, of central Edinburgh drink-fuelled tourism, of dog, walking, fish and chip-eating, film-watching and gin drinking, we found ourselves waking up to a new week. Me and my cousin Paul joined my brother James in his morning commute to work. We had a coffee near Edinburgh College of Art until James left for work. Paul left at around ten to board a bus for the airport where he was Stansted-bound.   I spent the morning reading and writing in the College of Art’s cafe, observing the artistic youth of the day. I read an extraordinary short story by A.L. Kennedy called AM SONTAG. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve read before. It really gets into the head of a mentally-ill/psychiatric patient in an open ward. Or at least that’s what I think it’s about. After a quick lunch with James, I caught a bus to the hotel. Having checked in, I had an incredible run around Murrayfield Stadium and down the Water of Leith, ...

I read Kevin Maher's review of Celine Song's Past Lives in The Times at the departure gate at Birmingham Airport.  I was about to fly to Edinburgh to visit my brother and I thought I'd treat myself to a good old-fashioned newspaper.  The review did what I attempted to do yesterday.  It began brilliantly:  Sometimes in cinema a director emerges with a first film and just, well, nails it.   Yes they do.  Like Sofia.   After noting that theatre-turned-film directors often have a lot of success with their debut feature (Sam Mendes for American Beauty, David Mamet for House of Games and Orson Welles for Citizen Kane), he goes on to write brief synopsis of the film and draws a comparison with Brooklyn, a 2015 film starring Saoirse Ronan.  It's a very valid comparison: while the origin country and the time period is different, the two themes are remarkably similar.  I saw Brooklyn for the first time only three or four weeks ago and I'm ama...

Sofia Coppola loves Past Lives.   That’s really all I needed to know.   I was thoroughly on board with the premise of Past Lives anyway, but the Coppola seal of approval elevates it to an absolute essential watch.   It’s probably got strong Lost in Translation vibes, and the parallels don’t stop there.   Past Lives is director Celine Song’s debut feature, as was Lost in Translation for Coppola in 2003.   I’ve been thinking a little bit about Lost in Translation recently because it was the topic of discussion on this week’s episode of the The Rewatchables podcast.   I listened to it straight away.   I didn’t see it at the cinema when it was released but I bought it on DVD and I fell for it hard.   I was obsessed with this film in my late teens and early twenties.   Maybe I outgrew it or overwatched it, but I haven’t watched it in ten or twelve years.   Now that its twentieth anniversary has rolled around, maybe the studio will release a...

I saw Greta Gerwig's Barbie on the last Saturday of July.   I went with some friends whose nine year-old girl went wearing a pink dress.   I looked like the single uncle they invited out of pity.   I liked the film, but I wasn’t gushing with praise when I came out.   I gave it a six out of ten.   Maybe a seven at a stretch.   But what I did love was what it’ll do for Greta Gerwig and female film directors as a whole.   It’s a certified billion dollar movie.   The film has grossed $1.3 billion so far, and it’s still doing good business.    The film that is now inextricably linked with it is Oppenheimer, the Christopher Nolan film about the creation of the atomic bomb.   The publicity that the “Barbenheimer” pairing created was extraordinary.   I don’t know whether the studios pedalled the idea from the outset or whether it was simply a fan-made viral sensation.   Either way, it worked.   Who could have predicted that t...

Another trip to Chipping Norton.   I went in a bit later today because I wanted to do a bit of cleaning around the cabin.   Also, I had to wash out the wheelie bin because it was crawling with maggots.   On Monday I foolishly used it to dispose of a dead rabbit whose entire top half had been eaten by either man, wild beast or spritely but ferocious lickle miniature dachshund we call Juno.   Juno, bad dachshund!   We’re mad-not-mad.   Here, have a treat!  Oh, you're full up?  I wonder why!    Poor rabbit.  It'll be teased to high heaven by all his dead rabbit friends if it turns out that Fluffy was ripped to shreds by a dog some ladies carry around in their handbags.   I picked it up by the foot – a rabbit’s foot is meant to be lucky.   I’ve never really thought about it, but it’s only lucky for the human in possession of it.   Like a blood diamond, a rabbit either died or forever hobbled in the making of this lucky ...

  I’m torn between saying ‘Hell, I’m not getting anything done’ and ‘Today has started slowly.’  But I did run four miles this morning and driven into Chipping Norton so it's not all that bad.  And and and: I did read another excellent P.G. Wodehouse story called Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo and it was just as dazzling as The Spot of Art.  This one’s about a ‘very young and extremely pale’ curate called Augustine, and to add to that description, a rather sickly and meek curate at that.  His superior, the Reverend Stanley Brandon, is a tempestuous former boxer and a big personality. Augustine happens to be in love with his daughter and the feeling’s mutual.  That’s the set up and the story doesn’t let the reader down.  The Bishop, whom the Reverend has known since school, is due to visit to give his former classmate a dressing down over the excessive embroidery on his cloak.  Stanley Brandon is gearing up for a terrific argument with his superior.  ...

 I've almost finished FUNNY HA HA.  I'm at W for Wodehouse.  I read one of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster books years ago and it didn't make a huge impression on me.  I can't even remember which one it was.  Sometimes comedy classics misfire when it's not quite your humour and I thought it would be the case for this one.  I thought I'd plough through it anyway.  Page 568: The Spot of Art.  It really is a masterpiece.  I was so, so impressed with it.  It's simple, it's exceptionally well-paced.  Some of the best stories just feel right and I eased into this one like I was sliding into a warm bath.  And the dialogue.  My Lord, the dialogue really zings.  I didn't want it to end and I'm a restless reader at the best of times.   Here's an extract to give you an idea of the quality.   A bit of backstory: Wooster has set his sights on Miss Pendlebury, an artist who has just painted his portrait. ...

 This FUNNY HA HA book has become my bible.  So many great and funny stories brought to my attention.  I’d come across some of the writers already: Saki (he’s still my favourite), B.J. Novak (purchased by mistake – I was meant to buy a book called The One Thing but ended up with One More Thing, Novak’s book), Muriel Spark (The Portobello Road is a masterpiece), Leonora Carrington (I read her short story The Debutante in the book Angela Carter’s Book of Wayward Girls earlier this year).  I was really amused by Flann O’Brien’s story ‘Two in One’.  I hadn’t read any of his stories before but it definitely piqued my interest.  Jacki, my writing mentor (yes, I’ve got a writing mentor!) sent a picture with a stack of short fiction recommendations, one of which was The Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien.  I called into Witney Library yesterday with zero luck.  Flann O’Brien, no.  Pam Houston, no.  Amy Hempel, no.  Carol Shields, no.  Jack...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making my way through “FUNNY HA HA”, an anthology containing “80 of the funniest stories ever written”.  The village librarian recommended it to me and it has not disappointed.  Having read the first half a dozen or so stories (including Kevin Barry’s “Beer Trip to Llandudno”, which I was completely blown away by), I thought the book was being front-loaded with all the best stories.  It turned out that no front-loading was taking place.  The stories were in alphabetical order according to author.  That was a real wow moment.  So the whole book is likely to be this good.  Mind blown.  Every now and again, the housekeeper gives me cash. ‘Tom, I give you £260.   You pay into Barclays.’ ‘Okay.’   I’ve accepted this as one of my unofficial jobs.   It means I accumulate a lot of cash.   I saw that the Halifax in Witney would be open today so I headed over there just before lunchtime.   ...

‘I’m terribly sorry to disturb you,’ I said. ‘But aren’t you Gregory Peck?’  ‘Yes, I believe I am.’   It had taken me six laps of the cloisters to build up the courage to ask him. He was wearing an immaculate dark grey woollen suit and was sitting legs crossed on my favourite bench in the garth, the garden in the centre of Gloucester Cathedral’s medieval cloisters.  ‘Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?’ He asked. It sounded strange in his accent. The scene was so quintessentially English that it made him sound more American.  ‘I’d love to.’ I sat next to him as he produced a flask and two cups from his bicycle basket. He saw me looking at his bicycle as he poured the tea.  ‘I know it’s not allowed, but cycling inside a cathedral is a real thrill. I’ve done more laps of these cloisters than you have.’  I smiled at him as he passed me my cup and, remembering the tradition, tapped the rim three times with my finger nail. I watch the steam...