Timothy Balding
@TimothyBalding
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Author, humanist. Out now, 'The Spectator', on the poisoning of a nation's psyche by tabloid media. All published novels at
France
Joined March 2017
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"If you're looking for something in literature that, artistically and philosophically, shows you that we have free will, 'The Spectator' is for you!" A "satirical murder mystery" reviewed by a philosopher.
To acquire the book:
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@RobinBrooksIIF
@rafael313blue
I've travelled the world my whole life, been to a thousand restaurants, many of the greatest, and have come to one certain conclusion: German food is the worst on the planet, even worse than the British.
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2K
@marycjackson
@a_lossfor
Bravo. I started at 57, finished at 60, was acquired at 62, published at 63. So, for your debut, you have one year on me. My second novel will be published in June and I'll be 65.
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An author speaks about his writing. And a few other indiscrete aspects of his life.
If, old friend or new (or, indeed, complete stranger!), you are curious to hear me talk about my existence as a novelist, I offer you this Youtube video interview.
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@danielleloucamp
Worst acting, worst screenplay, worst editing, worst directing. And it wasn't in the slightest bit funny - though that is a matter of personal taste. It's all a pity, because it was a first-class idea and a great plot.
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@RealMJolliffe
This, by a wide margin:
When I am laid
Am laid in earth
May my wrongs create
No trouble
No trouble
In thy breast
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@SethAbramson
Maybe yes, maybe no. From what I've seen, she suffers from the same malady as Trump himself. A complete inability to judge herself, no self-awareness at all. These kind of people die with smiles on their faces, profoundly convinced that they were right, despite all evidence.
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Anyone else here live on the flight path of the migrating cranes? It's like being in a Hitchcock movie for five or six weeks; screeching birds day and night, never ending. I love it! 250,000 of them are said to pass through my valley. My house is surrounded!
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@g_gosden
What a humiliation for the UK. A stumbling Minister who allows himself to be interrupted in such a manner. Embarrassing.
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Horses in the mist. The view from the back of my house this morning. I've never seen horses up there before. They could even be wild, since there are a lot of those around here.
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@philosophytweet
Hannah Arendt - who denied being a philosopher! She was right. Her talents as political theorist and, indeed, psychologist, are immense, unequalled in a century, but her main book of philosophy, 'The Life of the Mind', is a complete mess, with little or nothing of truth in it.
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@philosophytweet
It's amusing that no one has mentioned the living female philosophers. There are many of them in the US. Martha Nussbaum appears to be the most prominent. It shows that philosophy has disappeared from our daily lives (except in France, where everyone can name a dozen of them).
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@u_go_grls
@nmfa17
@peltzmadeline
Freud had a hand in that suspicion too. His father sexually abused Freud's sisters and, perhaps, him too. That rather coloured his view about such things, I think.
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@seamusjw
To 'reach out', meaning call, contact, meet, help, or whatever. Even UK Guardian journalists have started using this appalling Americanism which was coined by AT&T as an advertising slogan and mindlessly adopted by that whole nation.
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A picture today for those of you who read my recent account of the dramatic attack by vultures on a new-born foal in the field behind my house. The lucky youngster is doing very well, as is the mother, and the vultures haven't been back.
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@BobRae48
The next country to shoot off a nuclear bomb isn't going to ask anybody for approval first, least of all the UN.
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@dancoonanauthor
@mmirandaalaine
Nice to hear. You're ahead of me, though. I began writing my first novel at 60 and it was published at 63. It's like a new life, you're right.
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Does anyone else struggle with their conscience about how to reply on X when someone talks twaddle?
Between:
- "With great respect, I do think that what you say can be questioned, not least on factual grounds."
and
- "What a lot of bollocks!"
I find it's a daily dilemma.
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@TheRealAlSnow
@abbythetweet
Meanwhile, Norwegians are celebrating the end of 6 foot social distancing. They have gone back to standing 12 feet away from each other.
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@CockertonMark
You clearly haven't understood anything. They will be trained to pick fruit for four months, then drive trucks for three months, then practise medicine for the rest of the year.
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@mollykh
I'm tired of hearing the latest problems of publishers. Let's get on with writing great books. What happens to them is out of our control. Authentic authors don't choose the length of their novels anyhow. The stories choose their own length.
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@egabbert
The Brothers Karamazov. It's the only book I've ever read and then thought: 'Truly, the whole of life is here.'
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@Carolyn40911932
@DonLew87
As much as I too admire Jesse Owens, this story is invented and was constantly corrected by Owens. He said that Hitler actually gave him a "friendly wave" and smiled. ""Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."
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Publication date now fixed for my 2nd novel, 'The Impostors', a wicked comedy about love, lies and betrayal: 21 June, the summer solstice, a Midsummer's Dream! Epigraph? "When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies..." Shakespeare.
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A question for the
#WritingCommunity
. Rather than, 'Why do you write?' (asked 1K times a day): 'What impact do you seek to have on your readers?' To make them laugh? To vex them? To make them think? To inform them? To shock them? Or do you not think about such things?
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@JoshuaPotash
Hardly. Rome stood for 1,000 years, America has only begun its history. And the US doesn't even have an empire to take care of.
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A table, a chair. A computer. A manuscript. No Internet. No reason to go to this place at all. Except to write. This will be The Writing Room in my new home. Now, I eat, drink, read, play music, sleep, surf the Internet - and also write. That life is over.
#WritingCommunity
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@EveKoguce
I have no especial reason to trust the opinion of famous authors any more than the opinion of my plumber. Fame is not a gauge of anything at all.
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@positiv07652695
It doesn't necessarily mean that it's not up to European standards, but certainly that the producers don't want to be arsed to go through all the tests and checks and paper that are now required for UK exports to the EU. This is my theory. If you don't like it, I have others..😄
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@Dr2NisreenAlwan
You have to understand that the aversion to facemasks has nothing to do with facemasks. It would have been the same if they had been asked to wear pointed hats or a false noses. People who are rather weak in the mind department think they are asserting their freedom by refusing
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Here's a bright idea: From October, the French can get a subsidy for having their clothes or shoes repaired! 7 Euros for a hole; 8 for glueing a sole; 15 to fix a zip, and so on up to 25 Euros. It's an ecological measure to dissuade people from throwing out their old garments.
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@KevinMKruse
That medal ranks as one of the very greatest scandals of this Presidency, in my estimation.
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@JCraigStiles
@aprilinparis01
@danielleloucamp
It was extremely difficult to 'miss the whole point' of the film. Congratulations to anyone who managed that. It was just a lousy movie, completely without genius or originality. Anyone who wants to see great satire should rewatch Dr Strangelove.
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@BrexitBuster
@InlimboV
I remember those days. A man goes into a food store in Moscow to buy sausages. He finds the shelves on the 3rd floor completely empty and asks the manager: "What, no sausages?" "No, no," she says. "This floor is no bread. No sausages is up on the 5th".
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Sound the trumpets, beat the drums! A novel is born. Here's the cover. 'The Spectator', a contemporary social novel on the poisoning of a nation's psyche by tabloid media. Design, Rui Ricardo, Porto. Do you like it,
#writers
? Available shortly (ebook already up for order...)
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@14storiesCA
@RepClayHiggins
Is this Morse Code? For the Russians or the Chinese? I understand it means: "I hope you guys got to copy the stuff behind the shower curtains. It was the most important."
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@RoseAmante3
No. Just puzzled why anyone reads it. You don't read crime books when you're a criminal. You don't read war books when you're a soldier. Why would you read erotica? Is it, contrary to these others genres, because something is missing in your life? I'm sincerely curious.
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@CatsInFrance
It must, in any case, be the most shockingly unjustified appointment to the House of Lords in British history. How the British people swallow it is beyond me.
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Down the lane from my house, a dog barks senselessly into the night. Across the valley, another barks back, so he starts all over again. I count the barks: 2? 2 in reply. 4? 4 in reply. A 5-bark rant? 5 come back. This stupid dog is having a barking match with his own echo.
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@garfilmd
@danielleloucamp
Quite the opposite. It is generally adored, world-wide too. Standards are dropping.
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The extreme right has been deprived of power in the Thuringia regional election in Germany, despite being favourite, and has been kicked out of the Finnish Presidential election in the first round, again against predictions. Tonight is a good night for democracy in Europe😃
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@TomMcTague
Life is so wonderful in France precisely because the French 1) Think everything is better everywhere else and 2) They are never satisfied. It's in countries like the UK, which consider themselves 'the best in the world', where creativity dies and things sink into mediocrity.
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@implausibleblog
Pompous hypocrite. "One day, I shall be foreign secretary, so I think that I should start prevaricating and lying now, don't you?"
A great demonstration of what is wrong with politics today and why people are completely sick of it.
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@sarahchurchwell
@LightHealing
I've no idea what 'privilege' and 'entitlement' have to do with it. Johnson is where he is because of the gross stupidity of his colleagues and of his electorate. Blame the people. That's democracy.
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Now we know why. Those very annoying people who go to bed early and leap into life at dawn, all ready to face the action of the day, have more Neanderthal genes in them than the rest of us lazy, slow starters and night people. I always suspected it! 🤣
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@RobBfromDerby
I didn't know one was allowed to stand that close to a King. He's breathing in his face. How disgusting.
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@ShaikhSahab__
@CalltoActivism
Just bear in mind that 74 million of them voted for him again after seeing him 'in action' for four years and knowing absolutely everything already about his character and appalling behaviour. That's the size of the problem.
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@AlastairMorgan
They have a big problem with this, the Tories. David Cameron, 'educated' at Eton and Oxford, was humiliated on American television (takes some doing) when he confessed that he hadn't a clue what Magna Carta meant 'in English'.
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@nicktolhurst
Strange photo. It looks like the elegant couple on the left are being overtaken by pair of random yokels in a hurry to get first to the bar.
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@Arron_banks
Do tell us about 'the revolt' in the ballot box in France. The only party now actually proposing EU withdrawal received 0,51% of votes in the last Parliamentary elections and 0 seats. The Brexit fiasco killed the temptation of the others, extreme right or left, for a generation!
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@SisterQuill
There is far too little humour. Sex is one of the very funniest and ridiculous (and wonderful) things in human existence and should be accompanied with great laughter, particularly when it is romantic.
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Moving home is like completing a novel. All feelings and emotions are gone; emptiness eats at our guts. Here's what I see from my new Writing Room, where I must begin again. After 6 years - and 3 books - staring at the sea. Do you also need a view to write
#WritingCommunity
?
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@danny__kruger
No, no, you are too kind! The whole text?! A minute's clip was really quite enough, you know, to learn what kind of evangelical fruitcake you are.
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The
#WritingCommunity
enjoys confessing the simple words we have to look up in the dictionary every time. One for me, today - a person who writes plays? A 'Playwrite', of course. But no, Sir! 'Playright?'. Wrong again, you fool! 'Playwright'...
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@sarahchurchwell
@BBCNews
He is, though. As in many countries, former Presidents retain their titles for life. Here in France, for example, it's still 'President Holland', 'President Sarkozy'. In the States too, I understand.
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@jodyjsperling
I do not have one-tenth of the courage, dedication and energy necessary to personally replicate the considerable work invested in my books by my publishers. If I had not been traditionally published, I would not be published at all.
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@christhebarker
I hope I live long enough to see the Mail headline the day the royal family are divested of their positions and power.
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@mmpadellan
@AuthorKimberley
Why the reporters? Jesus, we shouldn't blame them for reporting, doing their job, after all. In this case, all the serious media have taken many precautions to give the case a fair hearing, while simultaneously balancing this with the denials. What if they had remained silent?
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@PiercyRohase
Except when you try to grab the dog's arse. As someone condemned to handrails when climbing stairs (I've fallen down far too many for my safety), this is beautiful but impractical.
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Anyone else going crazy with the massacre of 'that' in the language.
Example: “But the BBC understands neither the government nor Mr. Johnson’s team can access messages on the phone.”
A typical case of a sentence you have to read twice to grasp because of the missing 'that'.
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@timolarch
Did you try it the other way, yet? I went to send a book to the UK; the postoffice lady invited me to go home and print 5 forms from the web and come back with them completed.The whole place broke into guffaws. The local idiot spluttered: "C'est ça, Brexit!" to general hilarity.
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Even if we go up in flames tomorrow (1 May), know this, those of you who struggle to understand French politics: The politician in whom the people have most confidence right now? Far right Le Pen (36%)? The top conservative (27%)? The far left Mélenchon (24%)? Non! Macron, 39%.
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@nicktolhurst
First of all, we have to kick Händel's corpse out of Westminster Abbey. Bloody German. Then we have to deal with the English national anthem 'I Vow to Thee My Country', music composed by a certain Gustavus Theodore Von Holst. Not very kosher, that.
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Your last Christmas with Trump? Amuse yourself, your friends and your family with the gift of my new political farce, now available for order at
#WritingCommunity
#bookreviews
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Like a Good Conspiracy? Here's the 'Wackiest Yet!'
'A profoundly funny parody of the Trump White House... international gamesmanship, banana republics, tin-horn dictators - and vegetable farming..'
The latest, loveliest review of 'The Zucchi Conspiracy'
#booksareessential
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@AmandaMarcotte
Very well said. They're all excellent students of the President. Do not believe what your own eyes have seen.
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@JoelTaylorhack
They haven't forgotten anything; they simply do not care any longer. It's a worldwide phenomenon. Orban in Hungary, a role model for Le Pen, has just been triumphantly re-elected, for example. Free media? Who cares? Human rights? Who cares? Independent judiciary? Who cares?
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@mattduss
@chrislhayes
For the moment, Trump is a mere amateur in his anti-Muslim policies. I'm sure that Modi and India taught him a thing or two.
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@GodlessLiz
This is true. I'm always surprised that people go around loudly labelling themselves 'atheists'. This is to give far too much credit to the other side. Why should we position ourselves in relation to their superstitions and fantasies?
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@realeverywriter
In the blink of an eye. They can mangle it royally too, for all I care. After all, we never hold against any author that his/her book has been fouled up by a film version. On the contrary, even. And think of all those who see a film, good or bad, and rush to buy the book!
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@g_gosden
'Deliver', five times in less than two minutes. My God, that word makes me nauseous.
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@philosophybites
France (where I live) is one of the few countries where philosophy is obligatory at school. I think it works well, since the French do often have a fine critical sense. There have been some wonderful experiments even in kindergartens here. One's never too young to start thinking
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@Vitaliy_Klychko
@Klitschko
Spot the one who isn't a former world heavyweight boxing champion.
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@KarazazuN
@PippaCrerar
Because they - we - don't cease to be British abroad, with all that entails. The French have the best system, though - they've sliced the world up into constituencies. My son, who lives in Denmark, has an MP in Paris who represents the French expats in northern Europe.
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@SInow
@BoydADavis1
Actually this is false information. A dress code will be 'considered' for 2020 and beyond. So she can wear a batwoman outfit next year if she wants.
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@GeekyGrlfrnd
Written, directed, produced and starred in: a whole bunch of Ida Lupino films. Her 'The Hitch-Hiker' was the first Hollywood film noir to be directed by a woman. Not bad for an English girl from a London suburb.
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In my native UK, 'one swallow does not a summer make'. Here in France, it 'does not make a spring'. Here's one in my garden today, though. All the way from India, most likely, a red-rumped swallow comes to us to breed. Good weather for it: 23ºC today.
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@tanyabyrne
@lindasgrant
@BernardineEvari
Hopefully, because they don't consider an author's colour before making the award.
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Banned from Linkedin today. With no explanation. I assume that it's the result of complaints by trolls, stooges and apologists for the Uighur concentration camps in China about which I post. A few likes and retweets to show the victims and me your solidarity?
#HumanRights
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@Ferpelper
@RobinBrooksIIF
@rafael313blue
😃That's inviting trouble for me. But here goes:
1. Belgian - incredibly enough, I know
2. French
3. Japanese
4. Georgian
5. Chinese
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Like Diogenes, strolling around town with his lamp in broad daylight in search of an honest man, I wander the byways of the book market looking for the famous 'target audience' for my novels. With 'The Spectator' soon to appear, another approach - Find my kindred spirits! You?
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I posted this elsewhere (while serving a Twitter jail sentence) and people yawned and said everyone knew it. But I didn't and I find it fascinating that I've assimilated it without being taught. Can you think of counter-examples (apart from everything in Hemingway, of course😄)?
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@shesbonky
In Spain, a recent new law on male-female equality is now in force allowing women to go publically topless where it is permitted for men. This applies, for instance, to all public swimming pools. That would really upset the Christian fundamentalists in the US, I guess.
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@SavageKairn
One of the absolute highlights of my childhood was to eat cheese and tomato sandwiches three or four times a week. I feel obliged to lodge a formal complaint against your slur.
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@OhHowByronic
Here where I live in France the big shops and supermarkets are empty between 12 & 2pm, which is when I go. Having lunch is so sacred in my region that no one wastes this time shopping.
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@jasonprovencio
There are many libraries with bars here in France. And even more bookshops with bars & restaurants, of course. Here's a library/bar in Toulouse:
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@ProofreadJulia
As far as news media are concerned, the age of proofreaders and copy editors is long since gone. Alas. That's why online journalism is rife with the most awful errors.
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The language ethics and moral standards here are strange. 'Fuck' has become completely acceptable in all its grammatical declensions, but not 'Id*ot'. I've been saying 'fuck' a lot recently, but when I cited Dostoevsky's 'The Idi*t', I was told to 'think again' about posting it.
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@E__5n_
The problem with Charles is the same that we've had with generations of royalty now - a distinctive lack of grey matter. They are all rather thick. I have not seen a single exception.
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#WritingCommunity
Do you slip other authors into your novels, named or not, obliquely or directly? From memory, some of mine (epigrams aside): Camus, Hemingway, Twain, Dostoevsky, Waugh, Böll, Shakespeare, C. Marlowe, Hamsun, Lowry, Hesse, Kant, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Plato...
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@tammy_blakley
Back and forth, upside down, left to right and right to left. Absolutely anything goes for me on the condition that the writing is great! And as the late filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said: Every story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But not necessarily in that order.
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