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'The Flaxborough Chronicles': Watson on Television The Flaxborough Citizen About Snobbery with Violence
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A few words from your host 'Snobbery with Violence' is the product of at least a few hours of reasonably careful and detailed work, resulting in the aesthetically pleasing site which you now see before you. It is an effort to bring together in a coherent, intelligible form all that is known of the unjustly neglected works of Colin Watson. Of course, this site cannot bring those titles back into print (at least, not without breaking a few minor laws), but we can point you toward those items which are still available. Please consult the individual title entries for more information on availability. WHY?... 1) Why are you doing this? Who are you? My name is William Nedblake. Originally, several years ago, I started writing small tributary notices about authors who I happened to enjoy for the web, because I was bored with my job and it gave me a way to kill time. Now it has become a multi-thousand pence (or dare I say, farthing?) industry, the fruits of which you now see before you. If you're interested in me, well, then there are other bits about me here and there - try beginning at the beginning. 2) Why the links to Amazon? Are you just a crass materialist, trying to do us out of our brass with your slick gimmicks? Thank you, Mrs Flossie B. from The Grounds, Clatch de Café, Norwich. Yes, I've provided the links at least in part on the off chance that you would wish to support my efforts with your hard earned (or hardly earned, depending) readies. If you do, then lovely, and thank you, it's much appreciated. Currently, my sites are small enough that I don't have to pay anything extra for them to reside on my provider's server, and I'm working to keep them that way (judicious pruning, etc.). However, the odd ten or twenty of your Earth poundlingtons (apologies to SF and HL) every few months might allow me to procure another title for my library, which means that I can eventually add it to the site. I provide links to Amazon, as opposed to other sites, because I've used them myself for years, and been consistently pleased with their service. I was also a great fan of Bookpages, the UK precursor to Amazon, until the latter who later swallowed poor little BP whole. Amazon UK is still a great place for British books, especially if you are four thousand or so miles from home with no ready prospect of return. However, all of this doesn't mean that you shouldn't, if you don't mind getting your books second hand (and most of us, myself included, do not), take a quick jaunt, or even a gentle stroll, to your local second hand bookshop, charity shop, dark alley, or car boot sale. Persistence pays: over time, you can find nearly anything. For those things that you can't, there are sites like ABEBooks (and I don't get a brass farthing for mentioning them, so there you are - altruism). For those of you who actually read the last paragraph, I, of course, in no way recommend attempting to find books of detective fiction in dark alleys. Why tempt capricious fate? MAY I... ...write to you with questions (comments, praise, complaints)? Certainly. I will even try to answer them, time permitting. Please write to thyrsis@excite.com (I'm trying to keep the spam on my home account from battering down the door with its tinny blueness - I'm sure that you'll understand). ...link to your site(s)? Please do, although a note to the effect that you are doing so is appreciated. I like to know my neighbours, after all, even if they don't always like to know me (subtle workplace reference). ...extend a comfortably large salary to you? I would have no objection. Anything for a quiet life. OTHER INFORMATION I'm certain that there are questions which I have not answered, despite my best efforts. If you have one such, then please drop a line. I design my sites on a Macintosh, and have found that there are, again despite almost superhuman effort, some oddities in the coding of html between the Macintosh and Windows based machines - this occasionally results in weird characters. Let me know if you run into something like that, and I'll see what I can do if it's really serious. The font utilised in the header graphics, for those of you who are curious, is Coronet, which I am - surprisingly, perhaps - fairly pleased with. Not that I am, for even one moment, one of those boring people who goes on and on about fonts until the cows come home. UPDATES? Currently, I am completing a cycle of updates to all of the pages that I have somewhat haphazardly maintained over the last few years. It is my hope that, potential major developments aside, they will be able to stand on their own and largely look after themselves once I have finished, so that I can find some other albatross to hang from my neck. Should there be additional developments, then I will endeavour to update as necessary. - William Nedblake, 30 September, 2002 |
This page was last modified on 30 september 2002.
