Arthur Meek

We are doing Clarkson’s Farm meets Startup Podcast for the arts. But it sounds like two writers having a drink in the pub and me having to fetch my own damned sauce for my korean fried chicken wrap (£5.95 incl alcoholic beverage).

Then the waitress inexplicably delivers us a bag of nuts.

Was she saying sorry for making me fetch my own garlic chilli sauce from inside over by the toilets?

Or did she just give it to us by accident when the nice dutch man on the next table had ordered it and had to watch us eat every last nut?

Spoiler from Steve (after I ran for the bus)

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I’ll be building it on the page and on the stage over the next few months. It’s going to be wack.

It’s hosted by Peak Arthur Meek - the inorganic sentience (he prefers that to ‘AI’) that my descendents will upload to the feed before travelling back in time to colonize history at the helm of the Erewhon Association.

Sounds a lot like me. So the genes are strong.

If you want to know what the future holds for you and your loved ones, and life on planet earth, you’re going to want to hear this.

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I’m doing my Masters in Creative Writing at the very cool University of East Anglia part-time, a delightful day a week.

It gets me thinking in different ways.

Here is a short story I wrote pretty quickly after overdosing on Kafka and Borges.

I performed it as part of the New Writing Live! series which has made a welcome return to Dorothy’s Bar in Norwich, .

Have a listen; it’s a lovely way to experience it, or of course the text is below. Enjoy.

The Book in the Mall.

Have you seen the book everyone’s talking about? The one at Chantry Place? The Mall? If you haven’t you should get down there, honestly. It’s the biggest story in books right now. And it’s happening right here in Norwich. That’s why we’re all here eh? Why we chose to live in Norwich, UNESCO City of Literature. Cos we know books matter. Well, this one matters more than most. For those of you who don’t know, the book is a real doorstopper. It’s sitting high up on a steel ledge on the inside of the main entrance to the mall, that’s the one across from Wagamama. So, it’s sitting high up on a steel ledge. You can only see the front cover by craning your neck on the way out. Almost everyone’s started doing that, after it went viral on BookTok, but before that, no one seems to have noticed it, but security camera footage shows it’s been there for as long as they store security camera footage, and now everyone’s posting images showing that it’s been there for years, perhaps from prior to the construction of the mall, hovering in the air, but there is no way to confirm or deny the authenticity of these. Cos AI. The point is that until recently, no one had noticed it, and now that it has been noticed, no one is quite sure what to do. We know the name of the book. You can see it with binoculars. It’s called Works Additional to the Complete Works of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka. A book that has no ISBN. You cannot buy it on Amazon. You cannot find it at independent bookshops. It only exists on that ledge. So we can see the front of it, but not the back cover material, if there is any. That’s obscured by the nest of a protected form of seagull which has somehow made its home behind a row of pigeon spikes. From the front and sides we can see it’s hardcover, bound in cloth and comprises 743 uncut pages. Like I say, binoculars have been used to verify all this. It’s impossible to gauge the weight because no one has ever picked it up. Which should make us wonder about all those pronouncements about the weights of far away planets. The book is very like an extraterrestrial planet, in fact, in that we can’t get to it. Health and safety regulations. None of the people who are certified to work at height can get qualified to handle rare books and none of the people qualified to handle rare books can get certified to work at height. A maverick window cleaner had a go, but obviously all his equipment is about abseiling down the outside of the glass and this book, as I’ve said, is on the inside. Probably for the best. No one wants to risk damaging the book, which may be extremely valuable. All in all it’s an extremely niggly situation. Those who want to leave the book in place as a tourism draw far outnumber lovers of literature who would like to read it. It’s got to the point where bringing down the book would bring down a pilgrimage economy that’s bringing more people to the mall than Zara. It’s even spawned a literary festival of sorts where parodists gather to speak aloud their best guess as to the contents of the book of which this very story that I’m telling you right now won the inaugural competition in six weeks time. So as far as anyone can tell this story is in the book and it’s not by me Arthur Meek at all. It’s written by Franz Kafka. What an honour for me to be namedropped by Franz Kafka. All in all I reckon it would be a downer to take it down. So up it stays, and it might be there forever, but it might not, so if I was you, I’d get on down to the mall, look up and check it out. If you choose to eat at Wagamama, by the way, tell them Arthur Meek sent you. I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.

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A verbatim account of a former client of mine at Pitch Gym - a successful serial entrepreneur who's appeared on Shark Tank. I interviewed him about his next venture capital raise - the one that I helped him on. It didn't go well. It reveals a lot about his noble character. I transcribe our interview, anonymise revealing details, and read it aloud in my voice. This is a maybe project of audio portraits. Tell me if you dig it and I might publish some more.

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Voices of Gallipoli is a remembrance project.

Its purpose is to remember the experiences of kiwis at war by speaking their words out loud at Anzac commemorations and events. This is the voice of Hartley Palmer, spoken aloud by Stuart Devenie.

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Join me for my next live video in the app

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arthurmeek.substack.com

Join me for my next live video in the app

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arthurmeek.substack.com

An unsolicited Christmas present to the world.

Absolutely no one has ever asked me for the lyrics and guitar tablature for the Lonesome Buckwhips Christmas song. But that’s what you’re getting as my gift to you. You lucky, lucky subscribers.

The Tab is better formatted in the Substack article at arthurmeek.substack.com.

But if you're trying to play from shownotes... knock yourself out.

SANTA KING OF THE JEWS

by The Lonesome Buckwhips.

Tablature by Miri Buckwhip

Verse:

D A G D

On the twenty-fifth day of the holiday month Santa was born

D A

He had red pajamas and black gumboots

F G D

And a big white beard like God

Three wise men came a knock knock knocking

And gave him a sleigh

Said you can do what you like for the rest of the year

If you just work this one day

Bridge:

Am Bm

So Santa took his sleigh from Bethlehem

C D

To the heart of the cold north pole

Am Bm

Where he wrote the bible and made some toys

C D

Died on the cross and saved our souls

Chorus:

C D

Santa Santa Santa

C G D

Santa King of the jews

C D

Maybe the world would be a better place

F G D

If all the muslims knew about you

Verse:

Santa’s words are crystal clear

Matthew three verse six

He’ll rise from the dead to destroy the world and

Bring all the children gifts

Some smart arse kids round the age of ten

Think it’s cool to deny our man

But santa wipes that smile right offa their face

With the back of his jolly fat hand

Bridge:

Some might believe in invisible gods

Who might not exist at all

But you can see Santa from eleven til two

Down at your local mall

Chorus:

Santa Santa Santa

Santa King of the Jews

If it wasn’t for you, all I’d get for Christmas

Is a day and a half in lieu

Rock!

Benny’s solo

Miri: Hey

Gary: Said Mary…

Arty: Ho ho ho ho ho

Gary: Said Joseph…

Arty: Brrrr

Gary: Said the donkey

Arty/Gary: Hey ho hey ho, ho ho ho aHHHHH!

Chorus

Santa holy Father Christmas

Ho ho fricking ho

Sit on his knee and give him your heart

Because Santa Christ is lord.

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I’ll write more about how this one-season wonder came to be.

But for now, just enjoy it. Context free.

Though I will say I got to make it with my hero, and now fellow Substacker - Matt Heath.

And/or RESTACK this thing. Restacking is a new and better commenting, because it goes into the Substack network and might get seen by people other than me.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arthurmeek.substack.com

I’ve always had a way with words. Today, Substack is my way.

You’ll find a great variety of things here. They’re all connected by my generative curiosity, and two short, clear and actionable ways of thinking.

Poets wish either to profit or to delight; or to deliver at once both the pleasures and the necessaries of life.

Horace, Ars Poetica

And one that I think comes from James Joyce, but I can’t find it, or anything like it attributed to him when I google.

A writer’s job is to experience epiphanies, and describe them.

What’s in it for you?

FREE SUBSCRIBERS

You get everything, the minute I’m ready to publish it - sometimes earlier. We’re doing each other a favour. I’m trying to work in a faster, freer, less fussy way. I’m trying to be open to inspiration, and surprise myself - and you. I have to unlearn some ways of writing I picked up for other formats. They caused me to slowly and methodically ‘edit’ over the course of a couple of years. ‘Edit’ basically means undo and redo. Better? Or just different? We’ll never know. Anyhow, not here. Not now. I’m playing with the possibilities of Substack. So that’s our deal. It’s free. It’s a bit more experimental. The publishing schedule is erratic. I have a couple of lists - you can get emails from one or both. Profit & Delight is my artistic one. Substackery is the technical, behind the scenes stuff I’m playing with to have a better reading and publishing experience on Substack. Both of them will be interesting and full of play. The keys words for what you can expect as a free subscriber are experimental, inconsistent and frequent.

PAID SUBSCRIBERS £5 A MONTH/£50 A YEAR

You get LESS. That’s right. It’s a counterintuitive idea, but hear me out. I want to provide you with a less busy experience of my work. Less frequent emails. I’ll say that again. You get LESS. You’ll get one post a week, or more precisely, one a weekend. It’ll be a simple omnibus that beautifully collates what I’ve published on Substack this week - alongside some of the more interesting ideas that I’ve encountered. It’s a more digestible, more considered way of experiencing my writing, and discovering other stuff you might like. I’ll leave out the things that I don’t think are worth your while. You won’t feel anxious to see tons of unopened stuff from me pile up in your inbox or in your app.

PEN PAL £500/year

I don’t expect many people to do this. But those of you who do this are in for a very cool experience. We’ll write to each other by hand. Or rather, I’ll write to you and I guess you can choose whether or not to respond. I’ll send postcards, and longer letters, maybe even a book or two, and play with a form of novella as letter. You can respond as you see fit. There’s nothing mass produced about this, and I have limited time, so we won’t let this group get too big. But it means I can introduce you to each other, too.

If you read me in the app already then great! If you don’t you can try it out now by hitting the button below.

Welcome.

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