Harry's Blog

The most observant of you may notice that there's a new category in my blog menu - that of The Ballad of The Chocolate Teapot. This is the title of a novel I've been writing for what seems like half my life.

It originally began when I was 16 and was called Underwhirled. Essentially it was a humorous rant based on my atheism, increasingly bewilderment with the work of Tom Clancy and some jokes about nobs.

I actually wrote quite a lot of the book but it hasn't aged well. There was a long gap in my progress, which was then resumed after I graduated from University. When I resumed I added a chapter about a globally successful rock band called The Chocolate Teapot. In doing so I felt I had created some characters much better than the dire novel in which they appeared.

From that point I developed a short story about the origins of the band and soon after ditched Underwhirled entirely. While I still have no love for the work of Tom Clancy, I'm no longer in tune with the spiritual aspects of the book.

For the last few years, in drips and drabs, I've been working on The Ballad of The Chocolate Teapot as a novel. Some elements of Underwhirled - the funny ones - are being reused, but on the whole, it's mostly new material.

Yet progress has been slow and I've all manner of other story ideas I wish to pursue. So rather than wait to try to get 'Teapot published, I've decided to place chapters of it here on the blog. Over the next few months I'll post chapters for your perusal and I'm hoping this will spur me on to finish the work and get it out of my system.

The first chapter is likely to appear here later today.

I hope you enjoy it. If not, well it's your boss' time you're wasting, not your own.