by Julian Ruck
The other day Ed Balls said, “We need to look ruthlessly at how every pound is spent.”
He obviously has yet to travel on the Welsh express gravy train.
Devolution has allowed the ancient Labour enthusiasm for small-town political monopoly and personal fiefdom to run riot – for the impotence of democratic principle and challenge, look no further than Wales with its happy coteries, self-serving cabals and “all the usual suspects” political foxhole mentality.
Like the rest of the UK, there are three sectors in Wales. The public, the private sectors and of course the third Sector which is not for profit and seeks to help citizens in varying and various ways eg health charities, CAB’s etc.
As alluded to in previous “Letters,” Wales is a tax-payer junky, it cannot and will not move away from the divine right of tax-payer subsidy in all things – as least Westminster subsidy that is.
Wales is small, many in Westminster may even think insignificant, its population not even half of London’s. But should this smallness negate any scrutiny by its paymasters? Any accountability?
In Wales, criticism of the ruling party is viewed with suspicion and superior arrogance. The elite potentates of Old Labour carte blanche carry on with a 90 year mandate as if Blair never existed and the unions still rule the ghostly memories of coal and steel grandeur.
London must and always will, pay up.
Dissent is for the birds. Outspoken truth to be sneered at and discredited wherever possible. The Welsh will always vote old Labour.
So why don’t even a minority of the Welsh speak up? The answer is simple. All three sectors are in the tax-payer pocket, in some way or another. Even the private sector relies heavily on public subsidy, although it is debateable whether there is a Welsh private sector at all. To get on in Wales one has to be Old Labour, one has to toe an outdated and defunct Clause IV line and ignore what is going on in the rest of the world.
Speak out? Don’t be silly, who do you think pays my mortgage? Who do you think puts food on the table? In Wales, Labour has become a 24 hour, 5 Star workhouse make no mistake. If the Victorians thought they had it right, welcome to old Welsh Labour’s world!
Allow me to give you just one example (out of many) of Welsh Poor Law gratuity.
Take Welsh academia, now these institutions really are rife with subsidised personal advancement.
Tutors and lecturers Dr Tiffany Atkinson, Dr Zoe Skoulding. Tiffany Murray, Dr Fflur Dafydd, Jasmine Donahaye have all received thousands of pounds from the tax-payer for their own vanity creative writing efforts and note we’re not talking here about academic research or endeavour, we’re talking about their very own poetry and novels.
Multiple awards and bursaries going to the same people are also the name of the game in Wales eg Gwyneth Lewis (ex-National Poet of Wales), Jon Gower, Meic Stephens (ex- CEO of Arts Council of Wales), Tony Bianchi, Robert Minhinnick, Richard Gywn…….. it just depends on who you sit down and have supper with. In London it’s Islington, in Wales it’s Cardiff Bay, the only difference being that the food is rather more haute cuisine in London.
Having a proper day job, like most writers, is of course out of the question.
Only recently, this unassailable and perverse sense of tax-payer entitlement was epitomised so delightfully by one Liki Siencyn, chief executive of Literature Wales.
Following the £100,000 of public money dished out to Dinefwr and Laugharne book festivals last year, she announced with a confidence that would have reduced even Simon Cowell to tears and I quote, “The flourishing publishing industry that exists in Wales today, is defiant in the light of the economic climate.”
Defiant? Flourishing? Well, it would be wouldn’t it.
It depends totally and unapologetically on the tax-payer!
So then, why would anyone wonder why Wales is so cowardly left of left and this includes its academic gamers?
Everyone is living off gold-plated top drawer dole. Everyone lives in each other’s pockets so for god’s sake don’t upset the applecart.
And as for those old chestnuts ‘scrutiny’ and ‘accountability’, I put all the above and much much more in the hands of the Wales Audit Office.
Guess what the reply was?
They are satisfied that correct and proper procedures are in place where the distribution of direct Welsh government allocation of public funds to the Welsh publishing industry are concerned and that quality oversight is ‘adequate’.
Such is the standard of government oversight in Wales.
It is simply absurd.
It is also brazenly dishonest.
Since devolution the Welsh government has blown its trumpets and demolished the walls of progress and any chance of some modest Welsh self-reliance.
Nick Capaldi, CEO of the Arts Council of Wales, was on television earlier this week (BBC Wales News) announcing his support for a Welsh artist’s contribution to an exhibition of the visual arts in Venice – the recording of a man snoring in a telescope.
Cost to tax-payer? £400,000 and I wonder who is paying for Nick’s little excursion to Venice on a PR exercise? I know the price of a cappuccino in St. Mark’s Square will make your eyes water.
The arrogance of entitlement is just plain astonishing. The country is broke but not for the Arts Council of Wales and its apparatchiks it seems. To hell with austerity, Westminster and the tax-payer, a Welsh artist and the CEO of the Arts Council of Wales must come first and money is no object!
The title of Ed Balls’ speech at the start of the week was “striking the right balance for the British economy”. He described something called a zero based spending review: “a root and branch review of every pound the government spends from the bottom up”
Let’s see if the Welsh gravy train survives a collision with Labour’s new fiscal reality.
Julian Ruck is the author of the Ragged Cliffs Trilogy and legal thriller The Bent Brief’. He is an FoI campaigner and has made contributions to programmes in both Welsh and national broadcasting
Tags: Arts Council of Wales, Ed Balls, gravy train, Julian Ruck, Letter from Wales, Literature Wales
Sorry – this is barely coherent: so many totally different unproved points being made, false connections, ad hominen attacks on individuals who have crossed Ruck or seen him for the grumbling fantasist he is, and a return to the attacks on artists and writers because he had his own novels rejected by a few Welsh publishers.
Pitiful, and once again I wonder why you publish this bitter narcissist’s drivel.
Dave, I think you’re right when you say “this is barely coherent: so many totally different unproved points being made, false connections, ad hominen attacks” etc. This is hardly vintage Ruck and he has been proved wrong on all points before, so I don’t understand why Labour Uncut chose to publish this. It is getting rather tiresome pointing out the same fallacies and half-truths.
For the record, if you receive a bursary then you must take time off in order to concentrate on your writing. If you are a lecturer or senior lecturer like many Ruck has named, you are likely to be on a quarter of your income during this sabbatical. Good luck with the mortgage. And Lit Wales will only pay out the final installment when they receive evidence that work has been produced. Keep in mind that the amount awarded has been going down every year since 2006 too.
And if the WAO, an independent body, think everything is ok then I am inclined to agree with them. Ruck has provided evidence to prove that he is wrong ! Unbelievable, but there it is in the body of his text.
When it comes to the Venice Biennale, almost every nation on earth is represented and Berate Williams will not be alone in receiving a recompense for his work – almost every artist will be receiving one, including those from England, Scotland and NI. It is the way the Biennale system works.
Despite all this though, Ruck does make a good point on the differences between Westminster Labour and Welsh Labour. The party as represented in London is about as far removed from Webb’s original vision as is possible, and good on Welsh Labour for keeping his dream alive. I would have far more confidence in the governance of Wales if they severed ties with the London party and kept to a loose working relationship in Westminster instead.
I can’t tell if the author is suggesting that these awards were not made in the right manner, or if he is just opposed to all public investment in the arts. I’m not sure that the latter is necessarily consistent with Ed Balls’ speech.
If we are to invest in literature in Britain, why not in Wales?
“If we are to invest in literature in Britain, why not in Wales?”
the answer to this is, apparently, ‘because Julian ruck’s fiction was turned down by Welsh publishers and he’s got it in for anyone who has published in Wales and/or received funding’. This, I’m afraid, is his sole motivation for writing about anything.
the fact that he was turned down by English publishers too, and now self-publishes, is merely an inconvenient truth best brushed aside. As is the fact that England has the same system of funding writers and publishers. Ruck simply hates Wales, the Welsh, Welsh-speakers and anyone who can write or gets published.
Simples.
I just don’t understand your logic. You state that Wales will not move away from is reliance on tax pay subsidy but then say that all this subsidy comes for Westminster. If Wales’ money comes from Westminster – i.e through the Barnett formula- then public spending will be cut in a relative fashion to that across the country. You seem to be insinuating that that this is not the case, do you have any proof of this?
‘Even the private sector relies heavily on public subsidy, although it is debateable [sic] whether there is a Welsh private sector at all. To get on in Wales one has to be Old Labour, one has to toe an outdated and defunct Clause IV line and ignore what is going on in the rest of the world.’
Don’t you think this is a bit farfetched? After all, labour only got 37% of the vote at the last Welsh Assembly Election and in previous assemblies have worked in coalitions with other parties. Hardly a Labour dictatorship.
A breathtakingly cogent, insightful and penetrative analysis. The author’s literary erudition can be seen in every shining word, sparkling sentence and shimmering paragraph. These epistolary delights are fast becoming a cluster of exquisitely cut diamonds standing out protuberantly against the uncut backdrop of Labour politics.
To Joao Morais,
May I firstly point out for the benefit of readers, that you write the occasional critique for Wales Arts Review, a tax-payer funded periodical; I imagine tax-payers would appreciate you appraising them of what your actual circulation/readership figures are, in order that they may decide whether or not they are receiving value for money?
I have asked your editor this question before. Reply? As with all Welsh publishers and the Welsh Books Council – ‘sorry this information is commercially confidential’.
I wonder why?
Of course the fact that Wales Arts Review exists solely on the back of the tax-payer has nothing whatsoever to do with it. What? Be accountable? Don’t be silly, we’re the Welsh literati and above such mundanity!
‘Evidence that work has been produced?’ – your own words.
Well now, anyone can produce a synopsis and a few chapters or the odd stanza or two of poetry, the point is the work doesn’t have to be published or indeed even be in a publishable format – see Literature Wales’ lamentable criteria.
Quality control is non-existent and you know it, which is why 99% of these works never see the light of a publisher’s day – or if they do, the tax-payer pays for publication as they have no commercial viability whatsoever.
May I also point out that before an English author can obtain a Royal Literary Fellowship grant, they have to spend two days a week teaching at a University without pay.
All I can say Mr Morais, is try your argument on in the Court of Public Opinion and see how far you will get?
Julian Ruck
PS Have you written any more letters to my previous agent, or newspaper editors, or comments on the ‘Julian Fxxx’ blog lately………? You and Mr Abell do try, I’ll give you that.
The chief exec of Literature Wales is called Lleucu Sienkyn. Not ‘Liki’. This idiot can;t even get the names of the people he attacks right.
And still you publish his half-witted, uninformed, ill-written, bitter rambles through the thickets of poor literacy.
All because he had his novels rejected by Welsh publishers and got caught out plagiarising Hitchens.
To Crazy Horse,
You were one of the individuals responsible for the malicious and mendacious entries on the Wikipedia page about me. Not to mention your febrile revenge reviews on Amazon
No attempt was made to defend your vicious attacks, as both myself and advisers knew that you and your fellows would only do the same thing again.
You do nothing but bring the Welsh into unredeemable disrepute.
On this occasion you have kept the reek and hostility of your flagship colours furled up against the Uncut flag-post.
You fool no-one least of all me, and are totally unworthy of any meaningful response.
JR
To Mr Ward,
Please read the transcript of my public talks on these issues – julianruck.wordpress.com
My argument is about the total lack of quality control, scrutiny and accountability that the Welsh literati have been allowed to get away with for so long.
May I also point out that the Arts Council of Wales was hauled before a Westminster Public Accounts Committee back in 1995 following complaints of serious mismanagement and procedural malfeasance.
The evidence against the the Arts Council of Wales resulted in them losing the authority to distribute tax-payers’ money directly to the Welsh writing establishment. Instead, this power was given to the then Welsh Academy, now Literature Wales – unbelievably a quango funded by the Arts Council of Wales!
Need I say more?
JR
Mr Ruck – declare your interest: you were rejected by Seren and by Parthian books, were you not?
You took it very badly and wrote hostile letters to them, did you not.
You ask for others to declare their interest – you must declare yours.
Now, please.
To Julian Ruck,
May I firstly point out for the benefit of readers that Wales Arts Review is an ONLINE PUBLICATION and is not a taxpayer-funded periodical; the only money they have received since its inception was £500 for the hire of a venue and to pay expenses for guest writers and critics to attend a Critics’ Day back in November at the RWCMD. I have never been paid by them nor will I ever – I write for them to further the critical culture in Wales. And if you are complaining about one £500 payment over the 15 months since WAR has been around then I would suggest you get your head examined.
You seem to be under the impression that it is a magazine of some sort when it has never existed in print; if you ask them, they will tell you their ‘circulation figures’ number around 4000 unique visitors per month at the moment. It is not a secret. Julian, if you are going to criticise someone then at least make sure you are not embarrassing yourself in your assumptions first!
“99 % of these works never see the light of a publishers’day” – Absolute rubbish. Have a look through the lists and you will see that the majority of them get published. To receive a bursary is a prestigious achievement, and more people apply for them than are awarded – and unlike you, Julian, some of them are not self-published nor rejected by Welsh publishers.
The RLF grant that you talk about is not the same thing as the Literature Wales bursary scheme. The RLF fellowship scheme is designed to put writers in UK (not just English) universities where they can teach for a few days a week. The RLF website states, ‘In its first ten years, the network of posts has reached every part of mainland Britain, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, Belfast to Brighton’ so it is evident that it is not comparable to what Literature Wales offers (and which has decreased every year since 2006) – what would be the point in them running one, when there is one already available? Cardiff University has a writer on an AHRC fellowship at the moment, which is very similar, but unluckily for you Julian he is published by Picador.
PS as I have pointed out, I have never written to any newspaper editors about you. I wrote to your old agent and I’m glad that I did, because it turns out you added an extra year to your time with them. I have only written on Julian Fxxx once, stating: ‘if you have ever written anything on Julian’s blog only to see it deleted a few hours later, I urge you to comment on this blog [Labour Uncut] as to why he’s wrong.’ I don’t do pseudonyms, Mr Ruck – I’m happy to put my name out there. You will also notice that I refrain from ad hominem attacks on you and instead just prove how wrong you are.
Julian, please do more research before writing your columns as the evidence you present more than often proves you wrong.
Mr Ruck, this is what you wrote:
“Tutors and lecturers Dr Tiffany Atkinson, Dr Zoe Skoulding. Tiffany Murray, Dr Fflur Dafydd, Jasmine Donahaye have all received thousands of pounds from the tax-payer for their own vanity creative writing efforts and note we’re not talking here about academic research or endeavour, we’re talking about their very own poetry and novels.”
You have named a series of writers who have been published by publishers who turned you down, and who received grants to write books, which they wrote, which have been published and received critical success, been shortlisted for prizes and reviewed in the UK national press.
That looks good to me.
They key word here is ‘vanity’, which you use to smear them – you who are a self-published, i.e. vanity-press, author who was rejected by the very publishers you now attack.
Admit it please.
To Joao Morais,
To receive a bursary ie a tax-payer bung, is a prestigious achievement! Are you serious?
So a work that has no chance of publication or success under normal commercial rules (apart from the odd one or two) and wherein the writer can only action publication by virtue of tax-payer largess, is ‘prestigious’??
I’m sorry but to use modern parlance, what planet are you on? If a book needs the tax-payer to pay for it, what does that say about the quality of the book?
JR
I am serious, Julian. More people apply than get them and if you look through the list then it is people of high esteem.
In your second paragraph you are mixing up the bursary scheme with publishing houses – not the same thing unfortunately. You are confusing the issue once again.
Your thoughts on grants by the WBC are well documented, please remember that this is your opinion and not fact, and your opinion is no doubt clouded by the fact you have been turned down by publishing houses which have benefitted from this system.
I take it that you have now changed your opinion on WAR and the RLF fellowship scheme, now that I have pointed out how wrong you were on these points?
Off down the pub with Monsieur Abell, will respond to you (if you have anything more to say) tomorrow.
JM
PS You’re welcome to join us, Nos Da, Riverside, Cardiff,
PPS I’ll get you a pink gin,
NB John will get you the second.
Julian, a little bird has told me (aka your tragicomic blog) that you have been sacked from the Llanelli Star? The local rag in which you plagiarised Christopher Hitchens!
http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/julian-ruck-plagiarist-by-steve-mosby.html
Shameless.
When it comes to your opinion of Wales and the Welsh, I again allude to your email exchange to Darren Montague Bentley, it makes for a rather amusing read!
http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/dear-mr-ruck-i-thoroughly-enjoy-your.html
JA
PS The offer of a pink gin is still there
PPS Do not bring any of your ‘novels’ as some my friends have particularly sensitive nostril.
NB How badly did your ‘column;’ affect the Llanelli Stars already ailing circulation figures?
Can’t help noticing that Ruck avoids the directly questions about his on rejections and why if he’s disapproved of grant aided publishing he tried to get published by them m
Answer the direct question Mr Ruck.
To Joao Morais,
I’ve just taken another look at your comment. ‘Taking time off to concentrate on your writing’.
Dear God, you are defending a Welsh writer’s right to be given a lump of glorified dole to stay at home and wallow in what can only be described as an exercise in self-indulgence!
An exercise that is never likely to be read by anyone, or if it is published by the tax-payer, will be lucky to sell 100 copies – see Nilesen Book Data for the sales of subsidised Welsh titles.
I defy you to publish them on Uncut.
Now it might just have escaped the agonies of your trite artistic bubble and ‘Welshosphere” parochial musings, but Welfare Benefits are being cut on a grand scale, the Welsh health service is in free fall, Welsh education is knackered and the country generally is skint.
And you have the effrontery to defend people being paid by the State to stay at home and scribble out their delusions of literary genius, regardless of whether said genuis ever sees a book shop shelf?
You are insulting the British people and you are insulting the socially aware readers of Uncut.
JR
PS And note, 99.9% of writers/authors still have to do day jobs in order to sustain their love of language. But forgive me I forget, Wales is of course a ‘special case’.
what won’t Ruck admit in open forum that he was turned down by these publishers, and why won’t he admit that he himself tried to get published by taxpayer-aided Seren and Parthian?
To Mr Abell or Dave or Dave Rodway or Welshnot or Alan Jones, or Mr Bentley……..,
Would you like to confirm whether or not you are in gainful employment and who your employer’s are? Because you seem to have an inordinate amount of time to persue your obsessive, relentless and I must say fantastic, ‘Hate Ruck’ campaign?
Also, have you and your artistic efforts ever received a tax-payer handout? I am sure readers would like to know, although I suspect that by now they are extremely unlikely to believe anything you say.
You do after all enjoy minus zero credibility.
Oh and as for my being ‘sacked’ by the Star. Utter nonsense but keep trying if it makes you happy.
JR
I nearly spat out my pizza reading this convoluted nonsense. Talk about not knowing your thin crust from your deep pan! Put it this way: I’ve eaten hundreds of thousands of pizzas from all over the world and if this article was served up to me I would be left with no choice but to return it to the so called chef and have it replaced with something that falls into line with the trade descriptions act. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d still eat the pizza (aka this article) but I wouldn’t enjoy it; in the average time it takes me to eat a pizza (3 minutes) I would be able to assess the quality as this:- rambling, incoherent nonsense served with topping that can only be described as gutter sludge. The author of this nonsense needs to go easy on the anchovies and replace the brazen lies with some hand sliced olives.
To Mr Abell and all your other aliases,
An afterthought, but I am compelled to ask that for a literary critic of such outstanding talent, would you please advise readers of your own stellar publications – apart from your erudite anthropomorphisms on various blogs, wesbites etc etc?
Many thanks,
JR
To Kim Filling?
Sadly I am not a pizza gourmet, so your expertise in this culinary endeavour is a trifle abstruse where my mashed up Welshcake brain cells are concerned.
I would point out however, that neither you nor any of your fellow crusaders have been able to challnge me on one solitary fact as stated in my ‘Letters’.
To date all you have been able to do is indulge in puerile insult and feeble abuse.
Your analogous slice of pizza fatuity, hardly addresses the issues I raise or indeed my polemic, does it?
But then no doubt the informed readers of Uncut have come to expect nothing less from the amateur repertoires of both you and your tortured, inadequate friends.
JR
Julian,
Thanks for the laugh – you are absolutely the most delusional person I have ever met. You are like a stuck record. Your points have been met time and time again yet you espouse them as if you have all the answers. Shall I just start copying and pasting the many hundreds of responses you’ve had that prove you wrong? Would that go some way towards displacing your narcissism?
‘An exercise that is never likely to be read by anyone, or if it is published by the tax-payer, will be lucky to sell 100 copies – see Nilesen Book Data for the sales of subsidised Welsh titles.’ Dear Rucky O’Hare! What absolute nonsense! It is so easy to see through your lies – it has been well documented that the lowest one was Talfan Davies’s book, which you quoted as selling 176 copies, which didn’t take into account the publisher’s figure, which was four times that – why do you continue to lie so brazenly?
‘Welfare Benefits are being cut on a grand scale, the Welsh health service is in free fall, Welsh education is knackered and the country generally is skint.’ – yes, the WBC grant of 4.4m is REALLY going to cover all that! Despite the fact that it costs 628,000 GBP to run the NHS in Wales every hour. I still can’t believe you are arguing over a trifling sum of money.
‘I would point out however, that neither you nor any of your fellow crusaders have been able to challnge me on one solitary fact as stated in my ‘Letters’.’ Rubbish again! You’ve been defeated on just about every point you’ve made. You must be the only person in the world who cannot see how embarrassing this is, and how much of a pillock you are making yourself out to be. The moderators of Labour Uncut must be having a right old laugh whenever anything gets submitted!
Julian, as it happens I have never received arts council grants myself, or applied for them.
I have never written a book, but this year I have illustrated two, due out this Autumn! I am particularly excited about diary of a dead officer.
I have only ever corresponded with you via one alias, and that was Darren M Bentley. As the results were rather amusing, and reveal your hatred of the Welsh, here they are again http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/dear-mr-ruck-i-thoroughly-enjoy-your.html
I am not welshnot, dave, dave rodway or crazy horse. I am John Abell. That is it Julian, just John Abell.
Joao has challenged you on fact a number of times, as have many others. Your crappy letters are just the bitter conjecture of a failed and spectacularly awful, vanity published writer. Dinefwr printers! Hahahahaha you make me laugh Julian!
Parthian and Seren, two houses that have turned you down, Welsh publishers as well as English have seen through your talentless self and said no. Thankfully the Llanelli Star decided to sack you, frankly they should have done it after your wholesale plagiarism of Christopher Hitchens. You are an idiot, and a talentless one.
No offence Mr Ruck but I am here just for a hot slice of political commentary. There is sonething haphazard about your articles and your responses, it makes me think of a pizzeria owner who gave some great advice; study the pizza, make the pizza, serve the pizza. To this Englishman and Labour supporter, you appear incapable (substitute pizza for writing a cogent article) of following this recipe. Making pizza is harder than eating pizza (don’t believe me? I’ve eaten in excess of 2 million), perhaps you should think about this?
To Mr Ruck
When you mentioned Wales Art Review producing periodicals, i think you meant New Welsh Review.
New Welsh Review has been central to the Welsh literary scene for over twenty years. Its focus is on Welsh writing in English. It is Wales’s foremost literary magazine in English.
The magazine is published quarterly in Aberystwyth with core financial support from the Welsh Books Council. In addition, it receives sponsorship from Aberystwyth University, the University of Glamorgan, and Cardiff University.
The present editor is Gwen davies. A former of editor Parthian Books. She managed the Welsh-language children’s publisher, Cymdeithas Lyfrau Ceredigion, before becoming Literature Officer of the Arts Council of Wales in 1995.
Parthian Books receive financial support from the Welsh Books Council in the form of grants, they are also responsible for publishing the Library of Wales series, which is a Welsh Assembly Government and Welsh Books Council joint initiative.
Mr Origami
To Joao Morais,
I was wondering how long it would take for you to sink to personal insult.
I will say one thing for you and your friends, you never disappoint.
And just for the record, the Guardian had to correct Gwyneth Lewis’ original statement of the ‘true figure’ in relation to Davies’ autobiography, to the ‘publisher’s figure’. Now why do you suppose that correction was made? Seren Books refused to give the Guardian any verifiable evidence of sales that’s why.
Also Lewis’ line ‘so much for the quality of Ruck’s information’ had to be removed as Lewis implied I was lying and therefore being libellous. The Guardian quite rightly checked my data before making this retraction.
The Guardian also had to include the fact that Lewis has received multiple tax-payer handouts of £11,000 which she conveniently omitted to mention in her personal attack on me.
If for one moment you wish to question the veracity of the above, then do please contact Barbara Harper, Readers’ Editor at the Guardian, I am confident that she will confirm every word of the above.
NB This refusal to provide any evidence of sales figures by Seren is the endemic response by all Welsh publishers, when asked for such verifiaction. Believe me I know, I have made umpteen requests.
The reply as always? ‘This information is commercially confidential’ – albeit that they are all tax-payer funded. As Margaret Hodge MP (Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee) recently observed, “Those who receive public subsidy should not be allowed to plead commercial confidentaility. This is totally unacceptable.”
A brazen liar? I think not, but then such accusation appears to be all you have. I would also remind you that the Western Mail’s own survey concluded that 79% of their readers agreed with my argument, a mere 21% didn’t.
You have lost the war, now please leave the field gracefully and desist from being so hateful and bitter.
You are harming only yourself.
JR
To Mr Origami,
You are quite right. My mistake and thank you pointing it out. Frankly there are so many bizarre tax-payer funded books, magazines, periodicals etc in Wales I lose track!
JR
To Mr Origami,
Please see below, a typical response from the Welsh literature establishment. Only last month too.
Dear Mr Ruck
Thanks for your message and for calling our office. In response to your query: for reasons of commercial confidentiality, we don’t publish our circulation figures; however, we are required to, and do, provide that data to our funding body, the Welsh Books Council, on a regular basis.
Sincerely
Gwen Davies
Gwen Davies
Editor/Golygydd
New Welsh Review
PO Box 170
Aberystwyth SY23 1WZ
Office days: Mon & Tues
Work days: Mon-Thurs am
Tel: 07790 402781
Courier address: A2, Hugh Owen Building, English Dept, Aberystwyth University, SY23 3DY
“…99.9% of writers/authors still have to do day jobs in order to sustain their love of language…”
I believe the Society of Authors can provide a more accurate figure.
To John Abell,
And who are the publisher’s?
JR
To you all,
You seem to be getting rather exercised by my so-called rejection by Seren Books and Parthian. First of all, I can only feel rather flattered that this is all you apparently have in respect of my heinous antecedents.
Allow me to enlighten you. Both my submissions to Seren and Parthian, some years ago it must be said, were also accompanied by my remarks that it was doubtful that they would be able to do anything with the m/s ( I can’t even remember which m/s had been submitted) as it was out and out commercial fiction.
I was fully aware that it would not fall in with tax-payer subsidy guidelines. As the WBC states clearly on its website ‘grants will only be available for titles expected to run at a deficit’.
In other words, a Welsh publisher will only receive tax-payer subsidy for books that are expected to fail. Crazy I know, but it’s all there on the website.
As for your sorry attempt to try and discredit me, I can only point out that ‘rejection’ by publishers is par for the course as any agent or author will tell you. Even Harry Potter was rejected 18 times and I’m not even going to start on all the other best-sellers.
You silly people quite obviously have no idea how the real London publishing world works – hardly surprising as none of you have any experience of it.
As for all this self-published nonsense you seem so obsessed with, for the last time I self-published my first two novels Ragged Cliffs and Inheritance Lost back in 2006 and 2007 respectively, which sold about 5000 copies in Wales alone and incidentally are still selling (the WBC can no doubt confirm this, feel free to check with Elwyn Jones, the CEO) and the last two were published by Dinefwr, who are also printers – but then so is Gomer Press – who by the way has received 1.4 million from the tax-payer over the last couple of years.
Not one penny has been paid by me to Dinefwr for An Equal Judge or The Bent Brief and I defy any of you to prove otherwise. Neither has Dinefwr received any public subsidy to publish them.
So even if all my books had been self-published, so what? It’s the name of the game these days. Many mainstream authors are now doing it.
Finally, do please go and find something better to do.
Why not try a George Brown and bore your partners to death instead of me?
JR
Mr Ruck, thanks for that- you do provide evidence to damn yourself, don’t you? Your sales figures are certainly impressive, even more so for a self-published author. Thank you for confirming this, and your rejcted submissions to parthian and seren, I’m sure I don’t have to point out (again) that they have had commercial successes and would have no qualms about publishing something that they would expect to sell and which is of a high enough quality…
First, there is a spelling or grammatical error in every one of Julian’s comments in this thread – shocking, given that this clown purports to lecture us on education and literacy. Second, he van’t get his facts right, gets the names of people or publishers or, even, magazines right, and in his first ‘letter’ on education appeared not to know that the English education system was not in fact changing.
So far, it’s the usual crap.
However, something important has happened: Julian has admitted that he did in fact submit to Parthian and Seren, after many months of lying outright about it and claiming, in his blog and in responses, that he never did. This is significant.
So: we have a rejected author attacking the publishers who rejected him, and also the authors who are published by those publishers. He does so from sour grapes, and the fact that he needed to lie about never having submitted shows just how sour these grapes are, and what sort of deceit we’re dealing with.
Add to this the plagiarism of Hitchens, also denied until proved, and we’re dealing with something whose motivation is as clear as it is repellent: envy.
For the record, Mr Ruck submitted his ‘novel’ to Seren and Parthian in 2009 and 2010, i.e. less than 18 months before he started hounding them.
All credit to both publishers for not announcing this and showing Ruck up for the sour grape merchant he is.
On your website, you say that your 2 novels sold ‘8000 copies in Wales alone’. 5 or 8? Where are the figures. Can you even keep track of what you’ve said?
To Mr Ramsey- Campbell
I will look forward to receiving their figures from you, although being a member of the Society myself, not all authors and writers are registered with them as you well know.
Frankly 99.9% or 80%? Does it make any difference? You know full well that it is only about 2% of authors who achieve any kind of commercial success.
You are splitting literary hairs again, Mr Ramsey-Campbell. Do please address the substantive issues raised in my Letter, readers of Uncut I am sure will be better for it.
JR
Ruck writes:
“The Guardian also had to include the fact that Lewis has received multiple tax-payer handouts of £11,000 which she conveniently omitted to mention in her personal attack on me.”
And yet you, Julian, did not declare to The Guardian that you had been REJECTED by, and written angry letters to, the same publishers you used your article to attack.
Why did you keep that back, while you freely attacked and accused Lewis? Is it not relevant that the writer of an article naming and attacking two Welsh publishers has been, in fact REJECTED by them less than 18 months previously?
Of course it’s relevant – now you’ve admitted you WERE rejected by them, why don;t you declare it every time you attack them and their writers? After all, you wanted to be one of their writers, and got pretty cross and vindictive when you didn’t make the cut. Will you now admit to writing them angry letters when they rejected you?
And why did you spend so long DENYING that you’d been rejected by them?
Answer please – because if you think being published by Welsh publishers disqualifies people from contradicting you (which they do, generally, wittily, literately, and with facts rather than smears and conjectures at their disposal), then surely being REJECTED by same publishers is, at the very least, an important piece of context for your rants.
Am I wrong, Julian? You who want full disclosure, answer me: am I wrong?
Julian –
“Even Harry Potter was rejected 18 times”.
A minor point, but are you sure about that, and where did you get the figure?
Carwyn Jones and his “Webbian” spirit – “Arts before health and education!”
Carwyn Jones the man who refused to cross the picket line to defend himself in the Welsh assembly.
Arts before the health service……Cymru yn Fenis.
Dear Mr Rucks, I am new to your presence so have read up on you. As a self-professed campaigner for freedom of information (is this the same as an open-oven policy on pizza toppings?), please can you answer the following questions:
1) Which political party(ies) do you vote for?
2) Which writers influenced your own journey as a writer?
3) What is your favourite pizza?
4) Why have you been unable to find a publisher who you did not have to pay to print your books?
I came into this new, like a stuffed crust circa 2005 if you will, so please forgive me if I am asking obvious questions.
KF
“To you all,
You seem to be getting rather exercised by my so-called rejection by Seren Books and Parthian.”
‘So-called rejection’? Ha hah ha ha… It wasn’t ‘so-called’, it was a rejection. I.e., you sent them something hoping they’d publish it, they rejected it and you got angry and have been pursuing them since then, and their authors.
I fail to see what is ‘so-called’ about a straight, final, complete and thoroughly traditional rejection, for which the only word is: ‘rejection’.
Can’t you see how silly you’re making yourself look?
Ah, now it comes to me: you also used the phrase ‘so-called’ about your ‘so-called plagiarism’ of Hitchens. Here too there was nothing ‘so-called’ about it: it was plagiarism, in which you passed off another writer’s work as your own.
You can;t just stick ‘so-called’ in front of something (especially after denying it in print for so long!) and hope thereby to make out it wasn’t really a rejection. Or a plagiarism.
This is just pitiful.
Talking of , ‘crap’ what a lot of crap Julian’s ‘Letter from Wales’ has unleashed particularly from ‘dave’ and Joao.’
And why don’t they get their facts right btw. THE WALES REPORT – BBC Wales last Sunday with the celebrated journalist Huw Edwards highlighted only too clearly the Welsh ‘Third Sector’ of which Lit .Wales & WAC are major recipients and those, “usual suspects” -writers, academics and many others who have no vocation other than that of building up their bank balances at the taxpayer’s expense.
Such people claiming they need ,”enabling grants” when in full – time employment and continually , the same old names scoop up the grants, bursaries , readings and trips abroad int eh name of ‘art’ : what a laugh that all is.
Finally WHY, if the bloggers above have such a contempt for the views of Mr.Ruck why are they constantly, day & night engaged in this barrage of ill – informed tosh?
Mr Abell sounds like he wants to publicly confess he is stalking Mr Ruck.
To the cyber bulying gang here, we understand that you dislike Mr Ruck and would prefer not to read his books. Your point has been made. If you are mature adults, could you stick to the points in Mr Rucks article.
Did Lucy Jenkins say: ““The flourishing publishing industry that exists in Wales today, is defiant in the light of the economic climate.”
If so, would you like to produce supportive evidence?
I would suggest the flourising publishing industry revolves around grants.
Is there a market for the books in this flourishing industry? Who is doing the accountability? Let the Arts Council for Wales produce figures openly, so the public can decide.
It’s tax-payer money….tax-payers from Wales and England have a right to know what is happening with their money.
Julian now admits his ‘so-called rejection by Seren and Parthian’. Can he tell us what is ‘so-called’ about that rejection? Either he was rejected or he wasn’t.
Mr Ruck,
I am sorry you feel the need to attack me, I think I asked a valid question and I think it would be decent to at least to offer to answer it instead of insulting me. I have not made any malicious entries to your Wikipedia page, I simply flagged it as I don’t feel you are notable to have a page and the Wiki community agreed with me. It was not meant to be necessarily an attack on you, it’s just, with all due respect, you are not an established writer and so I feel you don’t meet the notability guidelines for Wikipedia. If you could offer any proof that you are a bestselling author, I’m sure Wikipedia would reverse the decision to delete your page.
Best
I do also have one other question.
You state repeatedly that you and your publisher have never applied for or received a taxpayer hand out, but one of the first stories that comes up when you put in you published name is a story about it getting a marketing grant administered by Carmarthenshire Council.
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Publishers-want-novel/story-12431795-detail/story.html#axzz2VfvTpm9l
This grant, like the vast majority of the public expenditure on the arts, came about through the pairing private sponsorship and public money to create employment opportunities and increase the activities of an arts organisation- something that I assume your books benefited from. Therefore, in a sense you are criticising the very funding structure that has supported you. Don’t you think that is a little hypocritical?
I really don’t mean any of this to be a personal attack on you, just healthy debate.
http://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/carwyn-jones-is-being-questioned-about-accusations-of-theft/
To Crazy Horse,
Whilst I am reluctant to respond to someone who has more faces than Janus, let me assure you that whatever Dinefwr received by way of marketing grant from CCC it most definietly went nowhere near An Equal Judge.
I did all the marketing, full stop.
You people really do get more and more desperate by the day don’t? And I note, you Mr Mosby are back on the scene.
Hasn’t your petty spite exhausted itself yet?
I write novels that sell in the thousands (which none of you have been able to produce any evidence to the contrary), I am invited on to mainstream national media, I write for newspapers and I now write for Uncut.
A writer of drivel, a liar, a pillock , a pig…….I don’t think so.
Now please, there are are plenty of aspiring Pol Pot’s and Saddam Hussein’s out there for you to hate, so why don’t you all go and exercise your defiant pin-prick silliness elsewhere.
You are making complete and utter fools of yourselves.
JR
To Crazy Horse,
For the last time, none of my books have even remotely benefited from any kind of public subsidy support.
I arrange all book signings, my publicist does all the public relations (whose fees I pay), Dinefwr pays for printing and distribution (not the tax-payer, not one of my books has been the subject of any grant) and that’s that.
Oh and before you try and pervert the fact that the WBC has distributed some of my books (actually thousands of them), this has been done under normal commercial distribution rules ie they receive 5-10% on each and every copy sold.
I MAKE THE TAX-PAYER MONEY, a rare event in Wales.
No subsidy, no tax-payer handout and certainly no ‘support’.
You might not like the fact, but I am one Welsh writer who has achieved some modest success without one penny from the public purse and through my own hard work.
People also seem to enjoy reading my novels too, oddly enough.
Now do go away and I leave you with a wheeze from Kipling:
So it comes that Man, the coward,
when he gathers to confer
With his fellow anonymous braves in council
dare not leave a place for him.
JR
PS You will further note, that these days I rarely do a book signing in Wales (see the Events tab on my website, which I paid for).
To Crazy Horse.
PS Your antics on Wikipedia were an exercise in pure mailice and vindictiveness, nothing more nothing less. No attempt was made to defend your Welsh language nationalist attacks (you do have form), as myself and advisers concluded that you and your sorry playmates would only keep on doing the same thing ie making mendacious and vicious entries on the page.
As for your ‘notoriety’ claim, you know as well as I do, that there are thousands of auhors et al on Wikipedia, whose profiles are far less modest than my own.
Do continue with your futile Welsh language nationalist agenda along with its profound cowardice of anonymity but I repeat, you have lost the war, now get over it.
JR