Celebrating The 4,458th Day of Awesomeness
Added on 20 April 2011
Incredible to think, but today marks exactly the 4,458th day since The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson was first published. To mark this auspicious occasion, we're having a day of celebration here at Long Midnight Publishing HQ in Bandar Sera Begawan. All the staff are dressing up as characters from the book, and it's safe to say that for the first time in many years the fancy dress shops of the Brunei capital have run out of Dour Middle-Aged Glaswegian costumes.
As part of our day of parties and festivities, I've been tasked with tracking down some of the most famous celebrities in the world and asking them for their recollections of the book, of the first time they read it and what it meant to them and their careers.
Later today there will be a party at the Royal Brunei Hilton, brimming with A-List celebs - everyone from George Clooney to a guy who was in the third series of Big Brother in the Netherlands - and tonight there will be two shows on BBC television. At 10.35 on BBC1 there will be a documentary on the writing and publication of the novel entitled THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED FOREVER, IN A GOOD WAY, featuring interviews with author Douglas Lindsay, and other major figures in the publishing business, such as Jamie Oliver, Katie Price and the guy who writes the Highway Code. Earlier on BBC3, beginning at 9pm and lasting four hours, will be a cracking show entitled THE 100 MOST SHOCKING BARNEY THOMSON MURDERS hosted by Richard Bacon. This will be followed by a four minute show entitled THE 100 MOST SHOCKING BARNEY THOMSON JOKES introduced by Ernie Wise.
There can be little doubt that the publication of The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson dramatically altered the publishing landscape, a fact not lost on almost all of the celebrities with whom I spoke earlier today. Here now are just a few of the people who were more than happy to go on record concerning their passion and love for this iconic barbershop death junky serial killer thriller.
Katie Price: I have never in my life read such a book. Actually, I've just never read a book.
Oscar Wilde: The only thing worse than being an absurd barbershop comedy with lots of bodies in a freezer, is not being an absurd barbershop comedy with lots of bodies in a freezer.
Bernie Madoff: It's not what you think.
Forest Gump: Mama always said The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson was like a box of chocolates. You never know who's going to get murdered next.
Queen Elizabeth II: The most incredible work of fucking genius that one has ever read. Shagged someone in the back of a motor in Edinburgh indeed! I ask you. Such fun!
Philip Larkin: Extraordinary, extraordinary. Extra-extraordinary. Pride and Prejudice meets The Godfather. Really, it was that good.
James Cameron: A big influence on what was eventually to become Avatar. Big. Huge. Reading this book is like watching a movie unfold before your eyes. It's Love Story meets The Three Amigos, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets The Magic Roundabout. I'm in awe... Is that what you wanted me to say?
With 2011 sales up more than 753% on last year, with the blockbusting Hollywood movie slowly lurching its way out of development hell, and with Barney Thomson being inadvertently elected MP for Barnsley in last month's shock by-election, it seems that The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson - 4458 days old and still striding the corridors of the crime literature world in a pair of blood-stained boots - continues to cast a mesmeric spell over the publishing firmament.