I've had a rough idea for a book brewing over the last 6-7 years.
It's set about 30 years in the future, when England is a totalitarian hellhole with a strict caste system. Some bugger gets murdered somewhere and the family can't afford to pay the police to do a proper investigation, so they get their dark-horse cousin in to have a poke around; as he lives across the border in Oldengland (which is pretty similar to the present) and the government doesn't approve of foreign visitors, they have to bribe a highways official to do this.

The Oldenglish cousin, who is the main character in the book, turns up and scares the life out everyone with his strange foreign ways (he's a red-faced heavy drinker and is appalled by the idea of fake tan and cosmetic surgery), but proves to be a good detective even if he does have a tendency to fall asleep at bad moments. The plot is mind-bendingly complicated - at one point he has to die and go into the afterlife to follow a lead - but it's packed with intrigue, laughs, terror and culture shock. Now I just have to sit down, get all the details down on paper and write the bloody thing.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:40, 3 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

Better do it quick before some knob nicks it now!

( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:44, Reply)

Is Oldengland by any chance a rosy view of Scotland, or is it an actually divided England?

(888777555, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:47, Reply)

It's everything in England north of Stoke and Chesterfield.
Also, Stoke is part of a disputed territory, so it's gone from a mere shithole to an actual war zone several times.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:48, Reply)

I recon I can see some socio-cultural bias creeping in here...
Are you subtly praising the...well known political leanings of most Northerners in relation to Midlanders or Southerners, or am I reading into this too much?
Well anyway the idea of being within an Independent South appeals to me!!
(888777555, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:50, Reply)

You are reading too much into this.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:51, Reply)

Freefair
Can you stop being a bellend and reading Tory/ Socialist dialectic into everything? You have neither the wit nor the intelligence to utilise any such methods of textual interrogation into even a brief synopsis of a hypothetical book.

Thanks bbz.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:54, Reply)

There is no need for this, I was just curious, not about to start a row.

(888777555, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:59, Reply)

I don't want to start a row.
And I'm not being that rude. Just pointing out that you don't have the knowledge or the technical understanding of academic literary criticism to tackle even the most basic of textual analyses.

And also that you seem to be hung up on the whole left/ right dialectic when you really don't quite understand that either.

I welcome everybody that wants to take part in things on here, I just think one needs to know when one lacks the critical faculties to actually take part.

hugz4ubbzlol
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 21:08, Reply)

Very, very much this^

( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Fri 15 Jul 2011, 21:00, Reply)

I got told off by someone for saying "p-ass" rather than "parse"
You lot with your "independent South" bollocks can fuck right off.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 21:05, Reply)

The best response to that I've ever heard is "shut up, you twart".

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 21:08, Reply)

I don't even have a broad accent anyway :(
Just my vowels. I fought damn hard not to have a Mancunian accent.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 21:12, Reply)

Hey hey, I'm a Midlander with an accent myself, but If I had to pick sides I know who it would be with.

(888777555, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 21:09, Reply)

I like the sounds of this, it reminds me a _tad_ of Children Of Man.

( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 20:59, Reply)