Non Fiction News
The real Rev Richard Coles
An excellent early play by Tom Stoppard was called ‘The Real Inspector Hound’. This was a clever spoof on Agatha Christie style-dramas. Last week I gave you a ‘spoof’ version of the interview with the Rev Richard Coles. Now here’s an non-AI version.
The interview by Dean Catherine Ogle in Winchester Cathedral on 22 June covered Richard Coles' life – in a pop group, as a gay vicar, in the media at the BBC, and now as an author. Richard and Dean Catherine first met when she was the Vicar of Huddersfield and he was sent on placement to her church as part of his Theological College training.
He has had a number one hit single as a member of The Communards and also a number one book in the Sunday Times best-seller list. Indeed he recalled that a nephew discovered The Communards on YouTube and surprised himself by enjoying their music. However he reported that the videos showed his uncle revealed “a vicar trying to get out”.
As far as authorship and crime writing he DID admit that he was known for writing cosy murder mysteries. But he added that there is “Nothing cosy about murder - the effects stay with people”.
He said that he had always been a writer - journals, sermons, newspaper articles. So writing a thriller followed a natural trajectory of his experience.
Best quotes from the interview
These included:
“Now I’m retired, I’m one of nature’s freelancers. We never turn down a job.”
“Vicars go round smiling at people and that’s ok. If you do that as non-vicar it’s sinister.”
On his life as a Christian and a vicar, I liked: ‘'The enemy of faith is indifference".
“Institutions demand your love and expect sacrifice, but they can’t love you back.”
“The duties of working in the Media and being a priest are related”.
“The church is an organisation for the benefit of non-members.”
This was an enjoyable and successful evening which reminded me not be discouraged at the knowledge that a man like Richard Coles has a rich catalogue of a lifetime’s experience to inspire his plots; and also that celebrity inevitably brings its rewards in terms of book sales. The rest of us have to work even harder. But that’s OK.
Faked or faithful
Most of last week’s newsletter was concocted by AI. What did you make of it? My personal view is that AI has no soul and can never have one. Its attempts to create text are taken from billions of bits of online data, so they are bound to lack depth and originality.
I’d love to hear if you preferred this current newsletter to last week’s: “What we can learn from the about cosy crime from the Rev Richard Coles”.