If You Don't Read The Squirrel That Dreamt of Madness You're As Mad As a Mad Squirrel Who is Mad Beyond Madness!

Do you ever wish you could quit your mind numbingly tedious job? Do you feel like you may be dangerously close to telling your employer precisely where you’d like them to lodge their pay freeze and patronising school type rules? Well now you need not have to follow through thanks to one guy who already did (well, he did the former). No voluntary redundancy was this but rather voluntary homelessness as Craig Stone set up ‘home’ in a London park in the guise of main character Colossus Sosloss armed with a 450 GSM sleeping bag from Argos, a pad and a pen. A rip roaring wondrous actual laugh out loud funny adventure ensues as he chronicles the days that followed in The Squirrel That Dreamt of Madness.

Reading the blurb on Amazon and a few of the reviews sucked me right into the world of Colossus and was enough for me to buy the book and find out more of what it was all about. I thoroughly enjoyed the white knuckle ride through Gladstone Park it whisked me off on, meeting such richly woven colourful characters along the way like the midget park keeper who ‘looks like two pillows tied together with old rope stuffed into a bag with a worried face drawn onto it by a gorilla with arthritis.’ There’s Moonface, ‘a fat ginger man up a tree that looks like a space hopper with anger issues’, not to mention Dorangel Vargus and PC Whirled amongst many others. There’s even a cameo from the voice of Stephen Fry as a human sized fox wearing a lab coat.

There should be a warning on the cover about reading it in the presence of others because you will end up laughing raucously at the turn of almost every page. A worthy example is the discussion about how it seems to be common for superheroes to turn bad in their third movie outing. Colossus asks if, ‘In Lassie three, will Lassie grow a beard, smoke cigarettes and push kids down wells and lock them in abandoned mines?’ The imagery this paints is a pure delight. And I can’t imagine anywhere else you’ll find a list of ways to kill a budgie some of which include, 'cooking them in a sandwich, drowning them in a bath (with weights), explode them and kick them in the balls.' From Colossus sized carrots to the intricately detailed description of how the animals communicate when trying to decide how to deal with the animal murderer stalking the park are simply sublime.

Humour is not all Craig has in his sprightly bag but trust me if it was he does it so well it would be more than enough to propel you all the way to the end still wanting more. When I could finally get my laughter under control I found poignant stories invoking feelings of sadness and pity. It was wonderful to have my emotions toyed with in a way that can sadly be missing in stories today. There are wonderful moments of philosophical clarity and observational genius. Other moments have a feeling of existential reflection about them which left me thinking, ‘Wow, this guy is so good!’ These moments echo thoughts on issues resonating with many of us as we tirelessly try to find our own place in a heavily saturated trend loving routine laden world; a world where anyone with an original personality is often pigeonholed as a geek, an eccentric or even a weirdo.

There is a flawless flow to the whole story demonstrated by the effortless way Craig goes off on several tangents while keeping the writing so eloquently cohesive. Not a word is out of place. Here is a writer with a unique voice, both distinctive and original making this not only a ‘must’ read for all but an ‘if you don’t read it you will pay for it bitterly in the afterlife (whether or not you believe in an afterlife is immaterial)’ kind of book.

Whilst a fast paced book one could happily read in one to a few sittings the overall vibe created made me want to savour it for as long as possible. Since completing it the withdrawal symptoms are worsening so much that if I don’t start a second reading soon I might just end up hitting that F8 key myself. Park wardens beware. Old ladies with missing dogs stand clear. Budgies….well just don’t leave anything in the cage with which your budgie may hang itself.

Just when you near the end and think it couldn’t possibly get better you’re faced with, what for me was, an interesting if unexpected twist. It really finished it on what was already going to be a mountainous high.

Come on people get clicking fast and buy this book because at such a bargain price for a cracking read why wouldn’t you? Then Craig can launch his next book which I’m now so eagerly awaiting.

'Better to live dreaming than dream of living,' and The Squirrel That Dreamt of Madness brings the dream right to you. I read a lot of books so it's fantastic to come across one so refreshingly new. Unfortunately I rarely have time enough to give books a second read but this is one I'll definitely be making an exception for.

So if you want to discover how Colossus ended up getting beaten up while dressed as a fish finger sandwich I urge you to buy this book! To wrap up I'll use the words of his landlord Ali who told him when he packed up his belongings and moved out, 'I will miss you Colossus Sosloss colossally.'

PS - Any writer managing to include the longest word in the English dictionary in their story ensuring it has a worthwhile place deserves all the success in the universe!!




Music of the moment:


1.) Whitestar kindly sent me two of their CDs through the post which are superb. A review will follow soon. Listened to the album From the Gutter to the Stars so far and loved it.


2.) Elliot Minor's self titled debut album - loved it when it came out and love it still.


3.) Also just listened to the One Cure For Man EP again. Top quality tunes.

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And so it begins...

Come with me now on a journey through time and space………well okay maybe not quite a journey that exciting but come with me anyway and perhaps one day we'll make it to some distant planet. To a world populated with big elbowed aliens. Big elbowed aliens who can use their big elbows to all link together as one once a year for their own odd version of Auld Lang Syne (hands up anyone who actually knows any of the words to this drab excuse of a celebratory song? (Knowing the title does not count, people)). It really should be dropped by now shouldn’t it? It’s more of a national embarrassment than a part of our heritage. If indeed it is classed as part of our heritage then I think this is in need of a drastic rethink.

Anyway, I digress which is something you’ll have to get used to I’m afraid. I registered on twitter (where you’ll find much more digressing going on) a little over two months ago and I now feel completely hooked on this particular social network so much so that if it were taken away from me suddenly, my withdrawal symptoms would be unbearable. I'd always imagined the actual style of twitter would never suit me. I thought it was for those who were ceaselessly connected to the internet via an umbilical chord that was never severed in the form of a wireless router or smart phone. How wrong was I? Or perhaps I have become one of those people myself as I open my tired eyes in the morning wondering where my phone is so I can check through the night’s tweets. I find it almost mesmerising which is perhaps a little sad but I'm at a loss as to how else I can describe it. I've had some interesting and truly wonderful people start following me before I've even followed them. I don't believe it's a case of an ego boost with regards this but more of an 'OMG people must actually find me just a little bit interesting.' For some people anyway. Then there are the spam bots which I have to say are getting rather irritating. Although I did have one this evening that I clicked on just to check the 'person' and tweets. I was not expecting to be faced with detailed information on the most common of vaginal infections.

The need to tweet is infectious and I do have to hold back on just continually updating the multitude of thoughts that collide through my mind or I imagine my followers would start to dwindle, drastically. How long before our brains are interfaced with computers via the use of say, some microchip through which whatever we want to tweet can be instantly fed through to our account? Granted it will be some newer more highly developed social network by this time but with the same intent.

The help one can get from followers was demonstrated early on for me when I stated how in light of the New Year blues I was feeling the need to consider 2012 holiday destinations, citing Norway as somewhere I've always wanted to go. Lo and behold one of my followers replied advising tips of how to get there, what to do and where to stay. Needless to say these tips from someone who has been there and knows what they're talking about is invaluable. Tips I would never have received had it not been for twitter. Thank you goes to @michaelwailes.

I’ve also been introduced to the kindle app that was available for my smart phone thanks to being interested in the book of one author and another who mentioned the actual app. This is a book that everyone should read. Download it now. Do it today or your life will be worthless! (The Squirrel That Dreamt of Madness by Craig Stone) I’ll post a review once I’ve finished reading it and then you’ll see. Through that I’ve been followed and in turn follow a number of other e-book authors so my Amazon kindle wish list is growing at a phenomenal rate even before owning an actual e-book reader, my phone aside. Reviews and mentions will follow as they will for other books of note and interest.

And the sheer amount of new music I'm being introduced to. I thought my list of artists and bands I need to check out, buy albums and find gigs for was long but now I've actually had to start a whole new list. My desktop is covered in post it notes so much so they're in danger of totally obscuring the lovely background of Henry Cavill as the new Superman (which reminds me I had a dream last night in which I was actually Superman). Being into live music and particularly indie/rock bands and singer songwriters I’m overwhelmed with the number of new artists I’m now trying to work through. Before this I was getting worried at how many gigs I wanted to attend this year but twitter has almost doubled this already.

I urgently need some kind of cash injection to afford it all. Oh and time. I drastically require more time in which to do all these things. A towering and ever growing mountain of books (now with added e-books too) to read, two long lists of music to check out, a list almost as long of gigs to check and buy tickets for not to mention the novel I started writing last November. This was for National Novel Writing Month and it requires a lot of work before being anywhere near okay but at least after six years of thinking, planning and writing about it I’ve actually made a proper start from some kind of beginning to the story.

Okay, enough with the rambling I hear you say. I’ll get to work first of all by running through a quick overview of gigs I attended in 2011. This will follow shortly.