t’s quite a few years now since I hit on the title Tales from the Snig’s Foot for the blog I started for writing about my novels. From time to time, though, I’ve wondered whether perhaps it’s not entirely appropriate when writing about what I might think of as more serious stuff. The Snig’s Foot, after all, was a somewhat seedy pub in Cheshire where my Grandad, so I am told, would get drunk with his pals and rack up his gambling debts.

But then I think of a piece of advice my Dad once gave me when, as a young man, I told him that my main ambition in life was to be a writer. “If you want to be a writer,” he said, “you should go and listen to the babble in the bar. You’ll find lots of inspiration there.” And, of course, he was quite right – anyone reading my first published novel, Bunderlin, will see that I did indeed follow my Dad’s advice. So, is Tales from the Snig’s Foot an appropriate title when writing about my non-fiction interests?

Yes! Of course it is! I think back about the many and varied conversations I’ve enjoyed over the years in bars throughout the country. Conversations with all sorts of folk from petty criminals to world-class academics, from total strangers to TV celebrities. The babble in the bar can – and does – include everything from telling jokes and tall tales, to conspiracy theories or scientific research topics.

So here’s my rule of thumb for the appropriateness of a topic for my blog: if I could tell you about it over a drink in the bar then it belongs on my blog as yet another among the Tales from the Snig’s Foot.