Alex Bell - fantasy author

Well, perhaps not stranded as such, but I am in a Marriott in a little town called Kingman when I’m supposed to be in Flagstaff by now in the Monte Vista.

This morning we went to visit a little ghost town called Oatman. http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/az/oatman.html This was the highlight of my trip so far. I liked Las Vegas, but a person can only take so much of all that glitz. Clark Gable spent his honeymoon with Carole Lombard in Oatman. And if it’s good enough for Clark Gable then, by heck, it’s good enough for me. We had lunch at the haunted Oatman Hotel where the walls of the bar area were entirely covered in dollar bills. We worked out that there must have been several thousand dollars worth there.

After having a wander around, we set off along Route 66 for the three-hour drive on to Flagstaff. We’d been on the road for a while, and I was sat in the back, happily engrossed in Best Served Cold when, suddenly, the car went over a stone and then started making this suspicious rattly noise. We pulled over, and confirmed what we all dreaded - we had a flat tyre. Not a big deal, usually, but no one wants to get a flat tyre when the view from the side of the road is this:

Not only that, but we hadn’t seen another car for a very long time (not counting the rusty, abandoned crashed one we spotted halfway down the cliff). And none of us had any mobile signal whatsoever. Mild panic ensued. Especially when, for a horrible few minutes, we thought there was no spare tyre. Finally, through a gargantuan group effort, we discovered a tyre shaped thing underneath the car. It took another lengthy period to actually get to it, because you had to lift up the drinks holder inside the car and then unscrew the floor, geez, it was like some sort of Chinese puzzle box.

In the meantime, a lovely American family came along in their car and stopped to help us. We did look quite helpless and pathetic, with all our luggage piled up on the side of the road. This is one of the reasons why I love America. Everyone always seems so friendly and ready to help you. It took about an hour to jack up the car and get the spare tyre on but they stuck with us and didn’t leave until we were all set to go. Before they left, they checked our other tyres. This was fortunate as it turns out that there’s a bubble or something (hey, I ain’t no mechanic) in one of the front tyres that makes it unsafe to drive very far on. They said we’d need to get a new tyre at the nearest town.

In the meantime, my Mum was almost killed by a jumping cactus. Well, not almost killed as such, but the prickly little thing attached itself to her leg, and it looked quite horrible. Luckily the American ladies helped us out with that too. Jumping cactuses. Who knew? My brother’s girlfriend pointed out that bad things come in threes. We went to get back in the car, and instantly discovered the dreaded third thing. It was the Ding Dongs. We’ve wanted to try one since watching Transformers. All over New York and Washington we hunted last year, trying to find this elusive chocolate but to no avail. Finally we located a packet in Las Vegas, and had them in the car with us to sample later. Unfortunately, in all the panic and commotion, someone had put the Ding Dongs on my seat before folding the top part down, effectively squashing them flat. They’d also melted, seeing as they’d been in the car in the searing heat for over an hour.

Once we were on the road again, we attempted to salvage the Ding Dongs from their packet, but this endeavour turned out to be what can only be described as a complete debacle. A fair amount of melted chocolate mess was involved, and we were finally compelled to throw them away when we stopped at Kingman to try to get a new tyre. Unfortunately, it turns out that the tyre place we stopped at doesn’t have the tyre we need. Hopefully it will be there at 8am tomorrow morning. Otherwise we may be stuck in this place for some while. And I want to get on to the haunted hotel at Flagstaff, not to mention the white water rafting in Colorado.

Tomorrow I am going to America for the better part of two weeks. We start off in Las Vegas for three nights, then we’ll be road-tripping it. Highlights will include visiting the Grand Canyon to see what all the fuss is about, and white water rafting in Colorado.

Having watched 21 recently (card-counting film with Jim Sturgess), I feel that as soon as I sit down at a gaming table, I will have the almost irresistible desire to lean back in an overtly casual manner and cross my arms behind the chair . . . Fortunately I intend to do most of my gambling at the slot machines. I played the slots in the casino onboard the ship we cruised on last year. It was the first (and, so far, only) time I’d played them, and I won the jackpot on the I Dream Of Jeannie machine. All these masses of quarters came pouring out, and I had to get a second bucket to carry them all, and everyone gathered round to watch, attracted by the ching ching ching noise. It was great. My agent, however, tells me that this does not always happen when you play the slots. Hmm, I have to say I’m not too sure about that. I can’t help thinking that I will win the jackpot again. And if I happen to spot another I Dream Of Jeannie machine, then I will be sticking to it like glue.

Whilst we’re in Las Vegas we’re also going to do those crazy scary rides at the top of the Stratosphere skyscraper. I’ve never backed out of a ride yet but, having seen the pictures, I do have plans to get very drunk after these ones. Or possibly before. Perhaps before and after, just to be on the safe side.

I’m not entirely sure what the food is going to be like on this trip. When we go to Disney World in Florida there is always plenty for me to eat because the parks cater for vegetarians. In “real” America, not so much. During the New England road trip we did, I ate mostly mozzarella sticks. And twinkies. Now, I like mozzarella sticks and twinkies as much as the next person but, after two weeks of it, my taste for them diminishes somewhat. I also tend to skip breakfast when I’m on holiday because I don’t eat eggs unless I know they’re free range. So, whilst the rest of my family piles on the pounds, I will probably come back somewhat thin. An occupational hazard of being a vegetarian is that you do tend to lose weight on holiday. But perhaps I’ll just make up for it with the American-sized desserts . . .

Anyway, I now have to go pack. But I’ll be back in two weeks. Unless I get dragged off by a Laurence Fishburne type for card-counting; or I plunge to my death from one of the Stratosphere rides; or get washed away during the white water rafting. In which case, I won’t be coming back at all.

This weekend I am in Cornwall with Moose. My parents were going off to stay at their house in Looe and asked us to come so I decided that me and the Dinky Dane would go along so she could get a bit of a seaside holiday.

It was quite a long drive but Moose was fine apart from being sick about an hour after we set out. I’m sure the shriek of: ‘Ew! There’s puke everywhere!’ probably wasn’t the sort of thing my Dad wanted to hear coming from the back seat - especially as it was his car we were driving in.

But a fine time was had by all once we finally got there. It’s taken us ages to get anywhere because most of the people we’ve passed wanted to give Moose a fuss. I’d say about half of them recognised that she was a Great Dane. The rest thought she was some kind of Dalmatian cross, or even a Dalmatian. This always surprises me because Moose doesn’t just have black spots, but big black (and some blue) splodges all over her coat. Besides which, there would have to be something very wrong with a Dalmatian puppy for it to have a head that shape, and paws that big. One woman actually had the audacity to suggest that she was a ‘little bit of everything’! A mongrel no less!

‘Madam,’ I replied coldly, ‘I’ll have you know that this dog is fifteen hundred pounds worth of pedigree, show standard, harlequin Great Dane!’

But, these slurs on her breeding aside, Moose has had a lovely time. She walked on the beach and came into pubs with us, and met lots of people. There’s something nice about the fact that people will always come up to you if you’re walking a puppy. I’ve answered so many questions about Moose during the last week. And the fact that people want to come up and see her makes me warm towards humans more than I would usually.

Before we came I went to the pet shop to buy her some new things to take on her first holiday. I came out with a whole load of new chewy bones and some toys, including an evil looking crocodile, and a big fluffy rope monster, of which I’m rather fond. I love buying Moose stuff. Especially when I get a new thing out of the bag, and she hears the rustling, and looks up at me with that sweet little face. She’s also becoming a bit of a lap dog, which I suppose could be a problem when she’s big . . . But what the heck - Loki sits on my lap just fine, and he’s a fully grown Doberman. Besides, I’d sooner cut my own hand off than tell her she can’t get on my lap for a cuddle when she’s tired - even if she does happen to be covered in sand at the time.

Whilst walking around Looe, Moose met a fully grown blue Great Dane called Hamlet. Even for a Dane he was a very big boy - and extremely handsome with it. But although he was just five years old he was already starting to go grey around the muzzle. The one downside of Danes is that they don’t live very long. Eight years is the average but some only live to six. When I look at Moose I can’t bear the thought of her living such a short time. But for now I’m taking comfort in the fact that when we went to visit the breeder we saw Moose’s great-grandmother, and she was eleven years old. Moose has to be long-lived too, because I love her so much. She’s the best thing to happen to me in quite a while. She makes up for all the bad stuff - as animals very often do. And I will love my publishers, Gollancz and Headline, until the day I die for enabling me to buy her. Ditto for every single person who bought a copy of The Ninth Circle - even if they thought it was shit. Doesn’t matter so long as the book was bought (but obviously I would prefer that they didn’t think it was shit). Still, I got a Dinky Dane out of the book deals. Can’t complain at that.

If you would like to help keep Moose in toys and dog food, or, possibly, contribute to the next animal in my menagerie (I really want a sphyinx called Gretel and a bull terrier called Daddy), then feel free to buy a copy of Jasmyn, and Lex Trent Versus The Gods, when they come out. Heck, buy copies for all your friends and relatives too, and then perhaps I will be able to get Gretel and Daddy!

Well, I am now back in the good old United Kingdom. Hello Marmite and Branstone (smooth) - the two things I miss the most while I’m away after pets, relatives and friends (in that order, obviously). Since I got back yesterday my little Siamesey has hardly moved herself from my lap.

I had a great time in Disney World. This is mainly - although not entirely - because of the fact that they have a lot of silly hats there. I love silly hats - yes, I do, and I ain’t ashamed to say so. Mr Devereux demanded that I obtain a picture of myself wearing Mickey ears. I don’t quite have that, but I do have a pretty good substitute:

And this:

That’s a chocolate martini I’m drinking there. Er . . . not as nice as it sounds, actually. You can probably tell from the expression on my face . . .

Obviously I didn’t spend the entire ten days with silly things on my head but . . . well . . . I suppose I spent most of the trip that way (hey, if you can’t do it in Disney World, then where the heck can you?).

In other news - anyone who knows me personally is aware that I have struggled with the fact that one of my Dobermans died shortly before I went away. My Mum (who also happens to be my best friend) has had to endure rather more of my (slightly tipsy) sobbing over the bottle(s) of wine than anyone should really have to deal with in such a short space of time. But because she is an eminently classy lady (and always has been), she put up with it and leant a sympathetic ear, (or got a little bit drunk with me, as the occasion demanded) - which has helped quite a lot.

When we got back from our holiday yesterday I may have acted just a little bit pathetically at the fact that only one dog was welcoming us home rather than two. I really wanted another one, and my plan was to ask my parents for a Great Dane first, then plead for another Doberman if that didn’t work, and then - if even that wasn’t successful - beg on my knees for a chihuahua. Look, I’m a poverty-stricken author so I’m still living at home (and am very happy there as my parents are almost as eccentric as I am), so I am a bit at their mercy where adding more pets to our menagerie is concerned. But to my shock, they agreed to let me have a Great Dane at the first pitch (I am earning a bit of money from the writing now, after all - and we do have quite a lot of land).

A Great Dane! I’ve wanted one since I was about six years old and first saw this movie:

Seriously, these dogs are the size of lions! What’s not to love about that? What is not to love? They’re freakin’ huge! Even bigger than Dobermans!

So I’m writing it all down here on my blog because, for various reasons, I’m probably going to have to wait until August to get a puppy, and I don’t want my parents changing their minds in the interim. But now that I’ve recorded the agreement here it effectively constitutes a binding legal contract . . . er . . . despite the fact that there’s no intent to create legal relations, no consideration whatsoever (even of the peppercorn kind), no offer & acceptance, no meeting of the minds . . .

Look, I used to be a law student - trust me, it’s binding - binding, I tell you! That Great Dane is as good as mine already . . .

(And I really love my parents right now - seriously, this would be a very good time for them to ask me for favours . . . )