Anonymous screens and breakfast cereals

Here’s what Julian thinks we’re all eating:

The monkeys, in particular, are tucking in with relish. They’ve decided that since they’re imaginary in the first place (and thus could only throw imaginary dog-shit, Mr Policeman!), they don’t mind helping themselves to some imaginary porridge.

Personally, a breakfast like that would send me into carbohydrate shock, so I’m continuing this weary life on the run, ducking and diving like a ducky-divey thing, jumping at every shadow and trying my level best not to let the police know that I’ve hidden myself appropriately on the island of Foula.

Oh, damn. Monkeys, pack your bags again!

Now, on to more important matters.

Julian, my computer screen is not anonymous. It says ‘DELL’ on it, quite clearly – even someone with your limited interest in reading should be able to make the letters out.

And on that note, it’s time for me to reach for my marigold gloves and take up my well-thumbed copy of Buggered Clots once again. How far had we got?

Ah, yes. Page nine.

We lost three good monkeys there. They just couldn’t work out where to begin. Julian puts so much of himself into his writing – take, for example, ‘At first Lise was constantly faced with weird looks and despair each time she spoke.’ Oh, the humanity. Julian knows exactly how she felt. I mean, it takes a lot to make someone plunge into despair just because you’re talking to them, but Julian holds public meetings (and other people come to some of them) – he’s fine-tuned his art.

Incidentally, ‘at first’ and ‘constantly’ don’t play very well together, Jules – because they both describe time, you see. Just a little ‘heads up’ for you there.

‘There were the occasional smiles though even if these were tainted with narrowness and ignorance.’ Er… even if these were tainted with narrowness and ignorance what? It is tragic (or do I mean bathetic?) that on one of the few occasions when Julian does what we would like him to do more often, and leaves the commas out entirely, he so desperately needed a couple. ‘There were the occasional smiles, though, even if these were tainted’ would be intelligible, Julian. You want the ‘though’ to be an interruption – if you allow it to become part of the following phrase, you get ‘though even if’, which then requires some kind of a conclusion.

‘Early on she decided that her son would receive all the initial years of learning he required from her.’

So, Lise is going to teach Kristian herself.

‘Although she had little faith in the rough and basic schools on offer, she insisted he attend.’ What, all of them? Er, so that his mother can give him ‘all the initial years of learning he required’? Was she moonlighting as a teacher in some of these rough and basic schools, then?

A suspicion is brewing in the minds of my beloved monkeys.

The kind of suspicion that is no sooner uttered than it becomes a raging certainty.

Julian doesn’t just avoid reading books by real authors.

He also (and entirely understandably) avoids reading what he’s written himself.

We should have another poll.

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!

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!