Dance – Nicholas Walker

Autobiography of a Short, Fat, Ugly Man: A Kind of Immortality

Nicholas Walker — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 01:01:26 +0000

Apologies: I could read when I was three. It’s not unnatural, some children just seem to teach themselves to read, we think it’s by a process of copying adults and interpreting pictures. From the age of about six I was reading a book every day, that is finishing a book every day…a practice I have continued all my life. I’m not saying I read War and Peace in one day but I tend to finish an average sized adult’s book most days. When I was eight I was reading James Bond and books by Alistair McLean and Neville Shute. Mind you I was still reading all the children’s books as well, still do now: Bunter, William, Jennings, The Famous Five and all the others. I read all the heavy stuff in my teens and now regret wasting so much of my time digesting crap like Wuthering Heights and Tom Jones…give me a break. There is nothing in those old fashioned dirges that you cannot find ten times better in a modern book…literary insight my ass. Most of them were written by middle class virgins who knew nothing of life and the only reason they got published was because there were so few people writing during the last century. I took a year to read: The Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire, then there was Boswell’s Life of Johnson both of which were okay. Then there were all the Nordic folk tales and stuff like that. By the age of fourteen I had read the whole of Kingswinford Library half a dozen times. Then when I was thirty eight I was at Exeter University and a professor told us we should read the Aeneid if only in translation, I had always avoided it like the plague because it was in Latin. But I knew about the Aeneid from the Bunter books so I read it and wasn’t that impressed but while I was reading it I had a kind of revelation: I was reading words written by an ordinary bloke some 2000 years ago! A living, breathing man who maybe had just had an argument with his wife or had an upset stomach or was just feeling ticked off with the world. He was communicating with me over huge scans of time and appearing on my page as alive as he had ever been…the thought took my breath away, anything I read or indeed wrote was not limited by the mere lifetime of a man, it could go on forever…it was a Kind of Immortality!

Dance With an Angel

Nicholas Walker — Sat, 29 Aug 2020 01:40:27 +0000

‘So we’ll need to film the video next Monday,’ said Andre Lehmann. ‘Then we can upload the video to YouTube a couple of hours before I go on,’ said Peter. ‘Can you be ready that soon Viv?’ ‘Yes,’ she said immediately. ‘You mean we’ve still got it?’ Leon said incredulously. ‘You’ve still got it,’ Peter said, ‘but only because you look so good together.’ He turned to Angela. ‘That start is brilliant, and the innocent look is just what I was after.’ ‘But for your sake, girlie,’ the manager said, coming up behind Peter, ‘I hope the innocent look’s genuine…’ he looked Angela in the eye, ‘because if I find out you’re lying to me, then you’re finished in the dancing business before you’ve ever begun.’

Dance Academy

Nicholas Walker — Sat, 29 Aug 2020 01:28:24 +0000

The long awaited sequel to the best-selling mass market novel Jazz Dancer. Author, Nicholas Walker, actually went to one of the major dance schools for three months and joined in all the classes to experience the dedication, the crippling workload…the pain and the joy of being a professional dancer. It is a year later and Leon has followed Angela to The Academy and both are doing well but Angela is having problems coping with the pressure. Then Leon is expelled after being arrested by the police and goes to live with his best friend Tina. After months of searching for work, choreographer Andre Lehmann, offers Leon the most thankless job in dancing: the part of Tweedledum in his new production Alice. Leon starts to dance with the beautiful Lace for this new rock musical and is introduced to the magical word of professional dancers but will this finally destroy his love affair with Angela? This book rips the top off the world of dancing and introduces the reader to the real blood, sweat and tears of the cut throat industry of professional entertainment. This is how it really is where thousands of young people strive every day of their lives for that one break that might lead to employment…or total failure!