I'm Philip Holden and this is Ideas in Writing - the podcast where we talk to people about words and books and the how, why, when and where of writing. The guests bring along a word and so do I...it's all downhill from there on...
In this episode I talk to the award-winning writer David Quantick whose TV credits include The Day Today, So Graham Norton, Harry Hill's TV Burp and Veep for which he won an Emmy. he's also written and presented shows on radio and TV and has now written several novels and books about the craft of writing.
Given that I was speaking to a comedy writer, there is a spectacularly badly judged and poorly delivered joke at about the 1 hour mark..from me. If you are of a sensitive disposition etc etc...
The word David brought along was wednesday not in itself an interesting definition, but it leads on to the curious word 'hebdomad'. My word, absurdism isn't there, but absurd and surrealism are both so you can explore these words at the fun Visuwords dictionary just by clicking them. Take a look at the links below to order David's books or some of the other titles we mentioned.
Ideas in Writing is produced with the support of Mr Books Bookshop in Tonbridge - the home of inspiring, imaginative and intelligent books, gifts and conversation. They're on Twitter too @mrbooks_ton. But most importantly of all, eventually you will be able visit them (in the lovely market town of Tonbridge in Kent) for a browse any Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm...eventually...
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CREDITS & links
If you're interested, you can check out the words we contributed by clicking these links through to the Visuwords dictionary. Wednesday may not seem very interesting, but it leads on to the word ‘hebdomad’. Check it out.
Absurdism isn’t in the dictionary though absurd is so you’ll just have to make do (or you could look up surrealism I guess),
You can click on the links here to order any of David’s books (though some are due to be reprinted to keep checking)
Night Train is his latest and David has thoughtfully provided a link to his Night Train playlist on Spotify!
David's other recent novels are here - All My Colours and The Mule.
For help and inspiration in your writing try David's How to be a Writer or How to Write Everything.
David talked about NF Simpson as a forerunner of the Goons and Monty Python. Ian Greaves has edited a recent compilation of some of his work entitled Most of What Follows is a Complete Waste of Time.
David was also reading the Elizabeth Jane Howard Cazalet Chronicles. There are five books in the series so you can read them in order...
Jonathan Meades Peter Knows what Dick Likes isn’t currently in print (though I’m sure we could track down a copy) but his Pedro and Ricky Come Again : Selected Writing 1988-2020 is published in March so you can order it now.
George Saunders Booker winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo had A Swim in a Pond in the Rain published in January.
And there are lots of memoirs, poetry and collections of writing by Clive James. David recommended Cultural Amnesia : Notes in the Margin of My Time which can also be ordered just by clicking on the link.
All the books you order through these links help support Mr Books and this podcast and, if you can't find exactly what you're looking for, just visit the Mr Books webiste at www.mrbooks.co.uk and we'll do our best to track it down for you.
Ideas in Writing is recorded and produced by Philip Holden using Zencastr and Acast.com
The Ideas in Writing theme \"Farting Around\" is by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The \"Light Easy March\" sting is by ...dog http://www.besonic.com/dog
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