So, shall we do the book thing, then?!

Sorry – briefly distracted by things in the real world! I’m hoping to employ some more monkeys to stop it happening again.

So, this book idea seems to be gathering momentum. We have an extraordinarily generous offer to stick a real chunk of cash into it, John has very kindly put his hand up to do the cover, so I reckon the last piece of the jigsaw we need is a good typesetting/layout person. Anyone know any likely suspects?

It would also be nice to have a proper editor, although I think we want to leave most of the internet-jumbled warp and woof of it all more or less as is. The monkeys are happy to take care of this, but they tell me it would be more elegant if we could find a human editor – so do please have an ask around if you know anyone who might enjoy it.

When we have a mock-up ready, we can probably speed up the legal challenge (and/or complaint to the police!) by sending a copy straight to Julian and asking him if there’s any redaction he’d particularly like to suggest.

Weren’t you expecting something in the Daily Mail, Julian?

You did say towards the end of the week, didn’t you? I only mention it because we’re looking forward to the traffic so much – the stuff from the local rags is starting to dry up, and Google will notice that we’re getting less popular. Come on, we’re relying on you!

Oh, talking of Google, have you Googled yourself lately? The last we checked, you’d been knocked off top place by one or more of David Hewson, John Abell and ourselves (depending on whether you use .com or .co.uk) – so if anyone decides to check you out after hearing you rant about something, they’ll get the kind of balanced view of which you’re so very fond…:)

Incidentally, the monkeys and I don’t hate you in the least. We know you’ve got some pretty aggressive, unpleasant views on a range of issues, and we know you don’t behave like a gentleman, but our only concern is to defend both commas and readers. In other words, we just want to make sure that if anyone Googles you, toying with the idea of spending 1p on one of your Amazon listings, they’ll have a fair chance to see that some educated readers think you write excruciatingly badly.

And thanks to Google, the truth is out!

P.S. We’ve had a couple of days now where our viewing figures have been just under 1000. Your busiest ever day was just over 1000, wasn’t it, Julian? We think it helps to show just how far this teacup isn’t reaching if we reveal that our 964 views on Tuesday were generated by 104 visitors. Our 992 views on Wednesday came from only 92 visitors. Your ‘33,000 views in a year’ sounds lovely, but they probably come from fewer than 100 regular readers.

What was that you were saying about readership again, Julian?!

Julian also doesn’t read…

You may remember, dear reader, that we established a while back that Julian Ruck hasn’t read ‘War and Peace’ (because it’s too long) or ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (because, er, it’s too literary) – and now it turns out that he also hasn’t read any R S Thomas.

I mean, really – an ‘R S Thomas bucolic paradise’?!

My (imaginary, Julian!) monkeys and I might be wrong, of course – Julian might just have confused ‘bucolic’ with, er, dystopian?

Julian, RS wrote things like this:

It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me; not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.

Powerful, yes. No incorrect commas, yes. But bucolic paradise?! Strewth.

Next, you’ll be telling us about Dylan Thomas’s sober piety, Gerard Manley Hopkins’s prosaic gloom, Joseph Conrad’s comic optimism, Ernest Hemingway’s long-winded waffle and Shakespeare’s hatred of neologisms.

Honestly, Julian, what do you read? Is it only ’50 Shades of Grey’?

P.S. To any students considering using the brief list above as a cheat sheet for an exam – don’t!

In which I go visiting monkeys and Julian has a Huhne…

It’s beyond parody – I go visiting imaginary monkeys in a particularly real zoo for a couple of days, and Julian has his very own Chris Huhne moment, listing his various absurdities in a surprisingly honest piece of writing. At least, it’s honest until it gets to point 5, where he offers his books and his blog as evidence that his writing can’t be all that bad! Yes, the very same evidence we’ve been using to argue the opposite point of view. From there on, it goes downhill.

But Julian isn’t just having a Huhne moment – he’s gone into overdrive, sending press releases to all and sundry claiming that a bunch of imaginary monkeys are going to throw dog shit at his house, and that he is consequently living in fear.

I think he may be playing to the gallery ever so slightly here – perhaps unaware how absurd it looks. But just in case – Julian, if you have ANY genuine, honest concern that the joke about monkeys volunteering to throw dog shit at your windows meant that I myself, the estimable Mr Fuck of Fuck Towers, would be willing to dress up in camouflage, hide in a bush and throw things at your windows myself, let me put your fears to rest.

I would and will do no such thing.

Nor will the monkeys – on that point, you have my word. They are, after all, imaginary, Julian. Ooh, look at all those lovely commas! Do you know why each is where it is? But I digress. The monkeys, being imaginary, will throw neither dog shit nor dreadfully written books at your windows. I myself, being of sound mind, will likewise refrain from any such energetic behaviour.

But enough, enough – mercy, Mr Ruck! Your wonderful control of the media is crushing us. Why, only yesterday we suffered 964 views – the thought of all those people reading what we have to say about your use of commas fills us with delight, er, sorry, I mean despair. Hey, 964 is almost as many as the busiest day ever on your blog, isn’t it?

Does that mean, by your own logic, that I and my imaginary monkeys are almost as good a writer as you are, Julian? Praise indeed!

Grammarly bids to rescue ‘The Bent Brief’

Oh, Ju-u-lian! My lazy (and imaginary, old chap!) monkeys just ran the first chapter of ‘The Bent Brief’ through Grammarly – definitely worth you having a squint at what they’ve got to say.

For those of you who haven’t yet indulged yourselves by reading at least several sentences of the opening chapter of Julian’s Briefs (not many people can stomach more), here it is:

http://www.julianruck.co.uk/books/the-bent-brief-chapter.html

And here’s what Grammarly has to say about it:

Pause for thought, Julian. Pause for thought.

Although personally, I suspect that Grammarly is erring on the side of kindness.

New ‘best ever’ number of views

We seem to be getting a new ‘best ever’ number of views pretty much every other day at the moment.

I put it down to Julian’s tireless efforts to promote this blog via press releases, interviews and of course complaints to the police. He’s achieving wonders for our traffic, and deserves some sort of award.

Google may be part of it too, of course, but Julian’s doing his best to lend a helping hand there as well, by leaving comments in his own name on this blog. His kindness and generosity know no limits.

Julian, quick, have a look at this – Grammarly!

This is what Grammarly thought of one of Julian’s own occasional attempts to tell other people how to write:

Forget reams of descriptive baloney, might sound good but your average reader couldn’t care less if weeping leaves reflect their agony to eyes that see nothing or trees that whisper wispy sweet somethings to a greyness that has forgotten time and place while little fairies of forgotten imagination strut their sparkling limbs across moonbeams replete with drastic love and memories of so much that could have been………. You get my drift.

We can all yell words, they are pretty cheap after all, but it’s the story-line that matters and the written atmosphere that the reader can feel and touch, without being suffocated.

Oh, those wispy-whispering trees! Oh, that atmosphere that the reader can feel and touch! O tempora! O mores!

But look, Julian – if Grammarly can catch as much of the tripe in that little piece as it did, it’s got to be a sure bet for curing your problems with commas. Puppy’s right – give it a go!

Either that, or do please stop using commas entirely. They shouldn’t have to suffer so.

Google vs Julian Ruck

One of the main reasons the (non-existent, officer!) monkeys and I decided to start this homage site to Julian was a very real concern that people who encountered his muscular self-promotion without any context might be lured into parting with their hard-earned cash for one of his eye-wateringly badly written novels.

It gives me and my (imaginary!) monkeys no little pleasure, then, to see that Google has joined us in the quest for critical balance. A search for Julian Ruck on Google now gives first page prominence to this blog (variously in third or fourth position), John Abell’s analysis of Julian as a comic creation, Steve Mosby’s analysis of Julian as a plagiarist (via John Abell’s blog) and David Hewson’s report on Julian’s ‘car crash’ of a festival in Kidwelly.

Prospective readers will now have every chance to consider alternative views of Julian’s literary merit – and if we’ve saved even a single innocent reader from wasting 1p on Amazon, then all the monkeys’ hard work will have been worthwhile.

And if you need a little extra delight with your coffee, consider this – Julian’s own unimaginative, bullying and ad hom comments on this blog have helped us improve our ranking for the term ‘Julian Ruck’. Now that looks a lot like poetic justic!

Hints to Julian: how to get more comments

I know you’re a fan of WordPress stats, Julian (and I’m sure both you and I enjoyed seeing that JewelsfromJulian is one of your highest referrers!) – so I’m sure you’ll be a little disappointed with how few comments your posts get compared to how much discussion we have here at Fuck Towers.

Here’s the secret sauce: don’t censor them!

No, really, it’s amazing how much people will contribute if you don’t try to censor them. Since you stand shoulder to shoulder with Martin Luther King in the great struggle against oppression, I’m a little surprised you hadn’t already worked that out.

Julian threatens the police on our non-existent monkeys

Just when you thought it wasn’t possible, Julian Ruck has sunk even lower than before, in a tear-jerking attempt to bully some non-existent monkeys into silence. Here’s his contribution in the comments of a previous post:

‘By way of information to both the creator of this blog and those who have been contributing, particularly those of a malicious and threatening inclionation; you are all presently being investigated by the Dyfed Powys Police Authority – (Crime Reference No. AZ4/0556/3001201301H).

The Authority has already issued a Press Release, so be in no doubt as to the probity of this communication.

Further, over the weekend I have given a number of interviews to the Press -first article to appear in the Evening Post tomorrow, the Daily Mail, Telegraph etc later in the week and of course, the Llanelli Star, no doubt other media outlets will follow.

Your true indentities will undoubedly be revealed in due course (if, as you claim Welshnot, you are a teacher, I hope you have an understanding Board of Governors), and I will also be pursuing an extremely expensive, for you Mr Jewel, civil action for breach of Copyright.

Julian Ruck.’

If the monkeys still existed, I’m sure they’d want to draw Julian’s attention to some fairly painful abuses of the comma in that little rant – since they don’t, I’ve answered it more soberly myself:

Julian, you are an absolute delight – the gift that never stops giving! Have you really gone to the trouble of giving interviews to help attract readers to this blog? Most people don’t seem to realise how generous you are, but the monkeys and I are enormously grateful.

I do wish you all the best with your civil action – will you be flirting with the old adage about a lawyer who represents himself, or will you be looking for a representative who hasn’t read the CDPA? If you want to save your pennies, you might like to cast an eye over section 30, chapter III.

I’m afraid I do doubt the probity of this communication, though, Jules old chap. Perhaps you think that probity is just a fancy way of saying truthful – but it’s a bit wider, as it happens, implying an adherence to the highest principles and ideals. You’ll struggle to convince me that an attempt to bully a critic into silence adheres to the highest principles and ideals!

I’d love to see a link to the Dyfed-Powys press release – it’s not on their latest page. No doubt you’re crossing your fingers that the police will get excited about the possibility of monkeys throwing your own books, or dog shit proven by photograph to have come from your dogs, at your windows – but the sad thing, Julian (don’t tell anyone!), is that there aren’t any actual monkeys. They’re made up, you see. So (to labour a point you seem to have missed) it can’t have been a serious suggestion, since there are no monkeys to do the dirty. My non-existent monkeys and I rather suspect the police will work this out for themselves!

Now, I know you’re not a fan of answering questions, but maybe you’ll humour me just this once – you know when you said that you’re not fearful of ‘those who would surpress (sic) and censor the truth’? Does that mean you think censorship is a bad thing?

You can see Julian in full flow on this latest ride here:

The Welsh literati, Welsh Nationalist and Welsh language extremism – now it’s the Police.

It tells us a lot about Julian that he is convinced that criticism of his writing could only come from ‘Welsh Nationalists and Welsh language extremists’! Actually, Julian, people who love English (a group which includes myself and my non-existent monkeys) are by some distance the most likely to take offence at the many and manifold ways in which you abuse that poor language.