Here's the cover of my new e-book, Exercises in Song, splayed out in that way that your parents always told you off for doing to perfectly good books because it breaks the spine:
You can download it for free in all major e-reader formats; if you know me personally, and ask me nicely, then I can send you a print copy too: they're quite limited in number, but I can always order more.
For the past few years I've been writing and then sitting on over a hundred variations on the old drinking song Show Me The Way To Go Home. Why? you might ask. Well, yes: you might well ask. My only defence is that I'm writing in something of a tradition of such nonsensical pursuits.
Back in 1947, Raymond Queneau wrote Exercices en Style, ninety-nine retellings of the same rather banal story using different idioms and other odd formal constraints, like swapping or inserting letters. If you don't get why that's interesting, then you might not get my book! Queneau himself was a founding member of the French Oulipo group, an abbreviation meaning "the workshop of potential literature", and they did lots of things like Exercices, and automatically generated sonnets: long before actual computers were around to do the hard work for them.
My own book takes the traditional song and then both follows Queneau's structure and also (very slightly) extends it: I implement his original 99 variations, then add a dozen of my own: some based on literary classics, some a homage to Queneau himself.
Not convinced? Well, here's an example suited to this blog (try humming it to the original tune, seriously!):
Logical analysis
Show; way home ? show the way home
Fatigue; will ? fatigue engenders will
A drink; an hour ? I had a drink, an hour ago
Feeling; ill ? I'm feeling ill
Whether; sea, sand or sod
? whether on sea, sand or sod
You have ears; this song ? you will hear this song
Demonstrandum erat quod.
Either that's intrigued you, or it's put you off completely. But if you are interested, then please do download it, read it, pass it on, share it with your friends etc. And it's just in time for the season of Christmas gifts too!
