1a. Finish correcting / editing the book. 1b. Make an effort to get it published…and then stick on Kindle. 2. Sort out flat (including cleaning carpets which, in a strange way, excites me) 3. Sell all my unused chattels on e-Bay. 4. Watch pile of DVDs that have never […]
…I set off to cycle to Brindisi. Just thought I’d let you know. Click here to read about what I thought about it at the time…and click here to read about some of the journey in extracts from the forthcoming book. If you like what you read, there […]
Writing the book about my journey along the Eurovelo 5 has taken over the posts of this blog in recent times (I am still at the red pen correcting stage by the way and haven’t made much progress in the last couple of weeks) but the time is approaching […]
This could be worth a fortune one day… How much do Shakespeare’s First Folios go for? If it is, I’ll sell and donate the proceeds to my employers who have (unknowingly) paid for the ink to print it. They will thank me, I’m sure. Evening update: quite scared […]
It’s not every day you can say this, in fact I’ve never said it before in my life but I have written a book! It’s finished; 1 book, 302 pages, 998 paragraphs, 10,546 lines, 112,850 words and 498,698 characters. Goodness that took some counting! I started on the […]
This is what the book currently looks like, all 42 chapters, 294 pages, and 107,835 words of it. It doesn’t look like a book when it’s all put together like this does it? The last couple of rows of pages are those that have yet to be transformed […]
What is it with cyclists also tending to have good taste in design and photography? I’ll let you make your own mind up about my taste in design and the qualities of the photos you can see on here but so many cycling-adventurers have cracking websites that have gorgeous […]
Here’s a man with a film waiting to be made about him; John Adrian Short. He has just posted a comment on The Book section of the site about his cycling journeys (presumably prompted by the discussion between my cousin Richard ‘Bill Bryson’ Birkby & me about Portugal). John […]
This may be an idea… unless you make me a better offer 🙂
Street View is a great tool for fact checking. As I write the book I have to piece together bits of information from many sources; the original blog, comments on the blog, photos, maps, books as well as my own memories of course.* It can be frustrating however when […]
Have a read of the following short extract from the book. Pay particular attention to the final sentence and bow down to the small inoffensive (French) word ‘en’. It is number 100,000 in the book… My short break also allowed me to look at the map in a […]
I did one of these for the blog when I returned home to the UK last summer after the long cycle to Brindisi along the Eurovelo 5. The blog words totalled about 30,000. Now they are in the process of being re-written and I have so far got […]
Now available online for reading! Click here or follow the links at the top. Pisa to Siena was mosquito-ridden and the signs were not on my side either. The evening of the 12th August was a bit of a low point… Read on.
I think last time I mentioned this I was at number 15. I wonder why I don’t have a ‘proper’ title like the other blogs mentioned? Perhaps it’s in the WordPress settings somewhere. That said, does this blog have a name? Perhaps it should… I’m still not that […]
Thanks to Simone (now in Venice, not Pavia), I have updated the Part 2, Cycling Day 18 extract from the book. There were a few factual errors and things that needed clarifying. It does make me wonder how many other such errors and omissions I have made elsewhere… […]
Now available online! Comment is, as always, free, so please do so. Follow the link above or simply click here to read the latest draft chapter of the upcoming book about my Eurovelo 5 journey… Day 18 was a guided cycle from Como to Pavia through the northern […]
Yet another sample chapter from the book now available to read for free (!) online. Just click here to enjoy a wet romp (if indeed you can romp on a bike) in central Switzerland. If the climbing the Alps was the high point of the trip, my day […]
‘Mattie’ in the Channel Islands is planning a trip from St. Malo to Athens. He asked on one of CTC’s forums for advice as to whether to take the Italian route (which would potentially use part of the Eurovelo 5) or the Balkan route (which would use part of the […]
Another sample chapter of the book available to read online. A little bit shorter than previous ones reflecting the shorter cycle from Dabo to Strasbourg. Read it here or by following the links at the top of the page. Feedback welcome!
I really enjoyed that. Only the most hardened of cynics would fail to do so, even the republican ones. The whole thing was beautifully done, especially the music in Westminster Abbey and the bit at the end with the classic Aston Martin. Nice touch. It was the perfect […]
Another sample chapter is available online! Click here or follow ‘The Book’ link at the top of the page. Day 6 was when the rain started as I cycled from Maubeuge to Charleville-Mézières in the north-east of France. Feedback welcome and if anyone knows a publisher… 🙂 Update @ 3pm: […]
The rich ones have the Pacific crashing upon the shore next to their Malibu beach houses. I have this… I really should do some work for going back to school tomorrow but I feel I have at least one chapter in me this morning, perhaps two… And then […]
You are probably getting a little bit bored of the mention of this book I’m writing so pass over the following if that’s indeed the case. It is quite addictive though. I’ve now written just under 20,000 words and have got as far as the end of the third day […]
I’m at risk of getting a little bit ahead of myself here. Not only have I located my place on the bookshelf at Waterstones, but I have now attempted to design the cover of the book itself! I’ve only written half of the thing so far (and most […]
Not me. Not yet. I was just in Waterstones and located where my yet unnamed book could be slotted in the travel section. It would be in good company, just to the left of Paul Theroux’s ‘The Pillars Of Hercules’ (which I have on my bedside table poised […]
I wrote about 4,000 words this afternoon. Once I started I couldn’t really stop. It’s great having a story to tell. I can’t imagine how I would ever write fiction. But writing non-fiction is easy. Must try and join my sentences together however. And add a few opinions. […]
Carlo Levi wrote a book entitled ‘Christ Stopped At Eboli’, Eboli being a town on the west coast of Campania in Italy, south of Rome. The book title comes from a local saying and is referring to the poverty and exclusion ‘from the full human experience’ in southern Italy […]
Here it is in its raw state. All 39,153 words and 168 pages. Set in Georgia 18pt (italic for the blog entries), justified. Now all I need to do is transform it into a best seller, which may take a bit longer than the time taken simply copying and pasting […]
My book is now standing at just under 10,000 words and has 39 pages. OK, I admit it, I’m cheating just a little bit as most of those words are not new but text copied from the posts I made along the way. To begin with I didn’t […]
I Tweeted this morning that “I need to write that book about cycling from Reading to Brindisi last summer”. The thought may have been forgotten, as most thoughts on Twitter are, had @No_More_Beer responded within the hour Tweeting “Yes you do! Worth a read”. So I have started […]
