News & Tour Dates, November 2008



Having slept at our desks through the whole of August, September and October, we have recently woken up to find all kinds of incredible developments in the World of Rhodes. Since we last posted, GOLD has been nominated for the World Book Day ‘Spread the Word’ competition. You can vote for it by clicking here. Because of a series of legal injunctions, the girls in the IT department way down on the 23rd to 27th floors have had to abandon their plans of hacking the site and manipulating the results in Rhodes’ favour, so it really is up to you to see that GOLD attains the victory it so richly deserves.

And that’s not all. Rhodes fans in Denmark and Spain, your wait is over – Gold is now available in your languages, published in wonderful and gigantic editions as Guld by Tiderne Skifter and as Oro by Alfaguara. Here they are:

Rhodes has also received two celebrity endorsements to add to his growing archive.

Here’s Danny Wallace in the Daily Express. Rhodes has also recommended Wallace’s work in print before. It’s surely only a matter of time before they record a duet of Islands In The Stream.

And here’s bearded TV jokester Justin Lee Collins, in New magazine:

So what else has been going on in recent weeks? Our network of informants tells us that Rhodes has:

·CEMENTED his reputation as the hardest working man in showbusiness by finishing the 2008 leg of his Tour Without End after an exhausting four and a half readings spread over three countries, three cities and a village. Far from putting his feet up, Rhodes has already pencilled in a staggering two dates for 2009. More news as it breaks.

·MISSED the screenings of Victor Solomon’s bootleg Anthropology films at the Reading & Leeds Festivals.

• PAID a small fine after failing to get a copy of JG Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition back to the library on time. This is great news – we love a bad boy.

• RECEIVED the final payment for last December’s communal plumbing disaster. Harmony reigns in his building.

• DECLARED Mr Methane and Martin Kelner’s double act to have been the best thing he saw at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.

·BOUGHT a ticket to see Magazine in Glasgow.

• PAID a small fine after failing to get a DVD of Fassbinder’s Veronika Voss back to the library on time. Is it just us, or is it getting hot in this skyscraper?

• DENIED that he has started selling carpets in Peebles. We trust Rhodes implicitly, and can only assume that this photograph has been tampered with:

That’s all for now folks. We’ll be back in a month or two with some thunderously good news for Rhodes fans the world over. Whatever could it be…?

Until then, happy reading.

So here we are, back after a two-month hiatus, and we’re already getting ready for another two-month hiatus. Two months is a long time in the world of Rhodes, so there is plenty to report. First of all, GOLD is not only still in the shops, but it has made yet another appearance in Heat magazine’s Top 10. Here it is - hard evidence that Rhodes is a better writer than Penny Vincenzi, but not quite as good as Kerry Katona:

Once again Heat gets it pretty much spot on.

GOLD has also been picked as one of The Independent’s 50 Best Summer Reads. “Lovely,” they say. “Charming stuff”. But you knew that already, didn’t you? If it turns out you didn’t, that you’ve not yet read the book, then please correct this immediately.

These days you’ve not made it in showbiz until you’ve had your intellectual property rights trampled underfoot, and Rhodes is no stranger to having his work commandeered by pirates. The latest culprit is one Victor Solomon of San Francisco who, without so much as a shred of permission, has filmed several of the stories from Rhodes’ early masterpiece, ANTHROPOLOGY. Usually this would be our cue to tip-off Rhodes’ legal team and stand back as the perpetrator is sued into lifelong bankruptcy, but this time we’re hoping they don’t find out, because he’s done a fine job and they deserve to be seen. The best place to watch them is here, but lower res versions have been posted on Youtube by somebody in Taiwan (we’re saying nothing...). Find them here, here and elsewhere.

STOP PRESS:Naughty Victor Solomon will be screening the films at an Anthropology party in San Francisco at 8pm on 20th July (not the 28th as we said before – sorry kids). It’s at D-Structure, 520 Haight St.. It’s free – just turn up.  

There’s more Anthropology action here. If you haven’t bought the book yet, then isn’t it time you did? Every home should have several copies.

So what else has Rhodes been up to? Our network of informants tells us that since our last update he has:

• CO-BUILT a magnificent wooden deck.

• DISMANTLED two abandoned bicycles.

• BAKED an only partially successful fake cheesecake.

• DROPPED his computer. From some angles it is now the shape of a banana.

• ADDED ‘Why Does Herr R Run Amok?’ to his list of all-time favourite films.

• ACCEPTED that every gym he ever joins will close down.

• SEEN Howe Gelb for (we think) the 20th time in 17 years.

• TURNED DOWN a bunch of invitations to read at Summer festivals, in favour of finishing his next book. How much he will come to regret this will probably depend on the weather.

• BURNED with fury on being told by Dotmac that they will no longer be supporting iSync for his operating system. We have no idea what this means, but our IT department, way down on the 23rd to 27th floors, tell us that this is a particularly cretinous move on Dotmac’s part, and they are all cancelling their own memberships in protest.

• WATCHED a heron eat an eel.

• REFUSED to comment on rumours that he has been sub-contracting the writing of his next book to underpaid child workers. As his biggest fans we would like to give him the benefit of the doubt in this matter, but even we have to concede that this picture leaves him with some explaining to do:

Tour dates:

EDINBURGH, 15th August. Although officially off the road, Rhodes is proving himself to be an unstoppable touring machine by making what we calculate to be his 74th consecutive annual appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival. It’ll be a Bookslam event from 6.15 until 8.15, with Alan Bisset, Patience Agbabi, Roddy Woomble, Luke Wright, and maybe some others. It’ll sell out so book now, Rhodes fans... Rhodes’ attempt to get the mighty Barry Yourgrau on the bill crashed and burned in a blaze of unfortunate timing. There will be a bar. Good. This will possibly be Rhodes’ final reading of the year, and as he’s not officially on tour who knows what he’ll get up to? We’ll be there - we’re currently queuing in shifts at the visa department of the Scottish embassy here in the heart of downtown Taipei. If you see several hundred achingly gorgeous Taiwanese girls down the front, that’ll be us – come and say hi!

Although Rhodes won’t be there to see it, stories from Anthropology are going to be read out on June 18th at the Theatre of Campo Alegre in Portugal. This is apparently a poetry event – who knew Rhodes was a poet? Not us. Not that we’re complaining – anything that gets people reading his books is fine by us. (We’ve just realised that this will be up too late to plug this event, but we’re leaving it here anyway, just to illustrate the extraordinary global reach of Rhodes’ work, and also to remind you to buy a copy of Anthropology if you don’t already have one – preferably first hand so Rhodes makes some money).

This update we have made a couple of risible changes to one or two other parts of the site, namely bunging some of the more ancient news on its own page, and putting up the Internet’s most pointless Contact page. Maybe a proper update will happen one day. We just don’t know.

That’s all for now. We’ll be back in a couple of months, hopefully with some explosive news. But probably not. Until then, happy reading.

Old News & Tour Dates – April/May 2008

Hello everyone. Another update, another first for danrhodes.co.uk - this time it’s a two-for-one bonanza as we merge the months of April and May. We are planning on spending the next few weeks doing very little apart from giggling and brushing each other’s hair, so the chances of us getting any new stuff up here before June are zero to negligible. So here goes.

We’ll start by lazily repeating two bits of news from the last update, both of which we think are worth re-telling:

1. GOLD is now out in a brand new paperback edition. As well as looking magnificent, it is also free of the endearing printing errors of the first edition.

2. GOLD has won the Clare Maclean Prize. Yet another reason to read it.

With the new edition out, there’s been another round of reviews. Let’s see what people had to say this time:

Gold is a funny little novel, both humorous and strange... There’s real fun to be had. The Observer.

Any good? Oh, very. Hilarious – complementing the jokes is a lovely strain of melancholy. Sunday Herald

Rhodes has a quirky talent for teasing the comic out of the mundane in this engaging, witty novel. Daily Mail

Even The Guardian’s Saturday Review section has made a confident stride towards redemption following their incomprehensible babbling of last year: Gold adroitly mines the potential of a remote community with its range of idiosyncratic residents. Rhodes has created a memorable cast of oddities. And just in case it all gets too whimsical there’s nothing like the threat of incipient heartbreak to inject a sense of realism.

So there you are. More reviews live here. If you still have no intention of reading Gold, we suggest you find the nearest mirror, stare deep into your empty eyes and ask yourself ‘Why?’

April has also seen the publication of Kulta, the Finnish edition of Gold, and a handsome volume it is too:

Apart from Canongate, Rhodes’ Finnish publisher, Sammakko, are the only people on earth to put out all his books, and in honour of this he has written an exclusive Finland-only passage. Rhodes is refusing to say where this passage is in the book, but way down on the 19th floor we have a team of linguists frantically learning Finnish, so we’re hoping  to find out before too long.

In other news, Rhodes has set a promotional pretend pub quiz. If you get 10 out of 10 there’s a chance you’ll win a free copy of the book. As Rhodes will not receive royalties on any copies given on prizes, he has made sure one or two of the questions are properly hard. Click here to play the GOLD quiz.

In other competition news, the Waterstone’s Win Your Weight In ‘Gold’ competition has closed, with a staggering 10,000 people taking part (we’re not even joking – 10,000 people really entered). Hard luck to any morbidly obese entrants – the people who won a pound of money per pound of body weight came in at a respectable 180, 196 and 139lbs. Congratulations to them.

Tour Dates:

There’s nothing in the book at the moment. The early 2008 leg of Rhodes’ World tour has come to an end, following appearances in Manila, Glasgow, Laugharne and Edinburgh. Rhodes has exclusively contacted us and asked us to thank everyone who came along to these events. So that’s it for now. Officially he’s off the road until he’s finished writing his next book, but one or two more dates will probably sneak in before too long. We’ll be surprised if he doesn’t show his face at the Edinburgh Book Festival for a start, if only to get his hands on the free booze in the hospitality tent.

So what else has been going on in Rhodes’ world? We’ve been using the very latest surveillance technology to track his every movement, and we can report that since our last update he has:

• SOLVED the problem of his washing machine backing up into the dishwasher.
• DECLARED the best book he’s read so far this year to be Dial M For Merthyr by Rachel Trezise.
• MANAGED to recover all but one lot of £20 owed to him by his neighbours for getting a communal drain unblocked.
• FAILED to revive his touring partnership with DBC Pierre. Their dramatic reunion was scuppered by an administrative breakdown.
• OVERCOME the problem of having an unventilated toilet by installing one of these miraculous energy saving/air purifying/ionising lightbulbs.
• DECIDED that his Song of the Year so far is Blue Plastic Bags by Malcolm Middleton.
• RECONFIGURED his toilet seat in such a way that it now stays up.
• WRITTEN a reasonable amount of his new book. As he’s hoping to finish it this year, this can only be a good thing.

It’s photo time. If you’ve ever wondered what Rhodes looks like from below and from the side at the same time, you need wonder no more. Here he is at the Edinburgh launch of the Gold paperback upstairs at the Waverley:

He didn’t change out of that shirt for three days after this photo was taken. And here he is at the magnificent Laugharne Weekend, on his way to see Patti Smith, who was on fine form. But is he taking time out to relax? No he isn’t. Always on duty, he is deep in discussion with his Director of Global Expansion (excl. Canada & The Cayman Islands), Arthur Rhodes. We can’t say for sure, but it looks like they’re still thinking of ways to crack Albania.

That’s all for now. We’ll be back in a few weeks, possibly with a more extensive update of the whole site. But more likely we won’t get around to it. As Rhodes is currently in ‘writing’ mode, it’s safest to anticipate that the next update will be little more than a list of his further adventures in DIY. Until then, happy reading everybody.

News & Tour Dates – March 2008

We promised we would be back in March with some momentous news, and when have we ever let you down?

Here goes:

GOLD has been published in a magnificent new paperback edition from Canongate. See above. It’s hitting the shops right now. Needless to say it’s a must buy for everyone (even, this time, people called Siân).

As if this wasn’t news enough, GOLD has been announced as the winner of The Clare Maclean Prize for Scottish Fiction. Having spent weeks practising his Gracious-in-Defeat face, Rhodes had not thought to spend any time on his Delighted Winner face, but he muddled through somehow. The other nominees were AL Kennedy, Alasdair Gray, Ali Smith, John Burnside and Iain Banks, all of whom will probably keep trading in spite of this setback. Read all about it here.

Tour Dates:

EDINBURGH: Thursday April 3rd. Rhodes will be launching the new paperback of Gold with a hometown reading upstairs at The Waverley on St Mary’s Street. It’s free to get in, but you’ll need to get a ticket from Waterstone’s at the east end of Princes Street, or by calling their non-demonic phone number: 0131 556 3034/5 (n.b. the demonic phone number that was up here was wrong – apparently everybody who called it was in fact voting for Suzanne Shaw to win Dancing on Ice, hence her victory). Tickets now available. Doors 7.30, showtime 7.45. Books will be on sale.

LAUGHARNE: Saturday 29th March at 1pm. This is part of the Laugharne Weekend, and will be alongside Rhodes’ old touring partner DBC Pierre, and Willy Vlautin. Other acts at the festival include Patti Smith, Patrick Wolf, Keith Allen, Morrissey’s best friend Mike Joyce, Helen Walsh, Niall Griffiths, Rachel Trezise, Tristan Hughes... The list goes on. Rhodes and pals will be followed on the big stage by Richard James, whose album The Seven Sleepers Den has recently been declared by Rhodes to be the finest of the entire extended Mynci canon. High praise indeed.

More dates to come as the year unfolds.

Also, Rhodes' publisher, Canongate, and his former employer, Waterstone's, have teamed up to give you the chance of winning your weight in ‘Gold’. If you’re super-morbidly-obese and feel like making an outrageous amount of free money click here. Or if you’re normal size and fancy making a more modest sum you could try too. Ends 7th April.

So what else has Rhodes been up to since our last update? Our network of informants tells us that he has:

• MADE his Asian reading debut, at Fully Booked in Manila. According to eye-witness reports it was a lot of fun. Read all about it here.
• SEEN Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (terrible name, wonderful music) at Nicensleazy in Glasgow. You can find some of their songs free and legally here. And there’s more on their own website.
• BOUGHT a ticket to see Leonard Cohen.
• FAILED to recover £40 of the £120 owed him by his neighbours for a communal drainage episode.
• WATCHED every episode of Flight of the Conchords, and very good it was too.
• MISSED the stage version of Don’t Tell Me the Truth About Love, which by all accounts was a resounding success. Bah.
• WRITTEN a bunch of stuff for his next book.

That’s all for now. We’ll be back in a few weeks. Maybe one day we’ll even get around to doing a proper spring clean of the site. We just don’t know.

Happy reading.

News & Tour Dates – January 2008



STOP PRESS

Here’s a quick late January update.

SHORTLIST FRENZY: Gold has been shortlisted for the inaugural Clare Maclean Prize. Click here to read all about it. Rhodes will be attending the ceremony at the Aye Write! Book Festival in Glasgow on 15th March. He will endeavour to maintain his composure as the prize is handed to somebody else.

DTMTTAL ON STAGE: E.U.T.C. have adapted a bunch of stories from Rhodes’ first book, Don’t Tell Me The Truth About Love. See the results at Bedlam Theatre in Edinburgh from 12th-16th Edinburgh. Details here. Next stop Broadway…

Since our last update, we can confirm that Rhodes has:

• HAD a haircut. And not before time.
• LOST his gym membership card.
• READ ‘The Best of Smash Hits: The 80s’ and declared it to be a work of wonder.

And that’s about it. He doesn’t get out much these days. Hopefully we’ll have more to report in our next update.

OK, after two updates in one month we’re off for a long lie down in a darkened room. I doubt very much we’ll be back before March, but when we are it will be with all kinds of monumental news.

Happy reading, everybody. Here’s the real January update:

Hello everybody. First things first - don’t forget that Gold is still very much available. The US edition has just had a glowing review by Eric Banks in the New York Times Book Review. “Laconic and likable,” he says. “Affecting and affectionate”. All good stuff. We even learned a new word – “analeptic”. If you’re still not convinced, you can read your way through a mountain of further praise for it right here.

More news below, but first:

2008 Tour Dates:

After a hectic 2007 Rhodes could be forgiven for spending the whole of 2008 slumped on his sofa watching and re-watching the Sabrina The Teenage Witch Season Two box set he got for Christmas. But no, he is a human dynamo and has already announced an astonishing two new dates. They are:

9th February at 4pm: PHILIPPINES. Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street, Metro Manila. Rhodes will be kicking off his 2008 tour with his first ever reading in The Philippines. Make sure you don’t miss this historic event. At the time of writing we are unable to confirm the rumour that if this reading goes well Rhodes will start thinking seriously about running for president.

29/30th March: WALES. The Laugharne Weekend. Yes, Rhodes will be back in Laugharne. Glory be! His precise slot will be confirmed closer to the time, but it’s looking set to be the UK debut of his borderline-legendary touring partnership with DBC Pierre. They could well be joined by Willy Vlautin out of Richmond Fontaine. But maybe not. Anything could happen. Other acts will include Patti Smith, Helen Walsh and stacks of others. We’re hoping Richard James will be back, as he was magnificent last year, despite having just accidentally almost killed a dog. The full programme will be up soon, and tickets are available via Ticketweb from February 8th.

More dates will be announced as the year unfolds.

Other News:

Edinburgh-dwelling Rhodes finished the year in a blaze of glory, being chosen by the Sunday Herald as one of Scotland’s Brightest and Best in an eccentrically punctuated supplement. So what has he been up to apart from defining nations? Since the last update he has:

• SEEN the first foreign language edition of Gold published by our friends at De Bezige Bij in the Netherlands. Click here to see how his name has been reversed in an attempt to appeal to the Dutch market. If this works, maybe in the future he will publish everywhere as Rhodes Dan. More foreign editions to follow – watch this space.

• RECOMMENDED a bunch of books in an end of year round up. They were Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson, Eye Mind – Paul Drummond’s book about Roky Erickson and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators and, somewhat predictably, Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards. Rhapsody is at last out in a new edition, complete with material unseen for decades. If you like reading exemplary books, which you do, you should buy it here right now, and marvel at the quote from Rhodes which is punctuated in such a way as to make it seem as if Rhodes himself, and not the book, is funny, creepy and strangely beautiful. Not a bad description, now we come to think about it.

• REQUIRED hospital treatment after slicing his thumb open on a tin can at the recycling banks at B&Q. There was blood everywhere. Rhodes has been officially recognised as an Eco Martyr, and is currently waiting to find out if he is eligible for a grant from the Al Gore Foundation.

• FOUND OUT that Faber & Faber have cursed the new Amelie Nothomb book, Sulphuric Acid, with an unauthorised quote from him taken from something he wrote about her a while back. Beware of this – Rhodes was recently overheard saying that he thinks Sulphuric Acid lacks Nothomb’s usual lightness of touch and is a bit on the dreary side. This is NOT a first degree recommendation. He remains a fan though, and is looking forward to her next one. She probably just needs a holiday.

• SPENT a day on his knees scooping gallon after gallon of his neighbours’ dirty water into a bucket with a tupperware pot as it backed up into his flat. William Boyd would just have got one of his footmen to do this, but not Rhodes – he keeps it real. Ever tried finding a plumber in a hurry in the days before Christmas?

• LOST his no claims bonus and a bunch of money after someone drove into his car and sped away somewhere near Kegworth. This is good news for us – our team of hackers way down on the fourteenth floor have told us that his bank account is in a sorry state. Hopefully these mishaps will force him to pull his finger out and finish his next book.

• FAILED to send anything like an acceptable amount of Christmas cards. He didn’t even send us one this year.

• FINISHED the 2007 leg of his Tour Without End at the always excellent Crossing Border festival in The Hague. Rhodes wound things up in his customary style by loudly singing selections from the REO Speedwagon songbook in a hotel bar.

• WRITTEN quite a lot. This is a surprising development. Sources close to Rhodes say that he is hoping to finish his next book in 2008 and get it in the shops in 2009. However, seasoned Rhodes-watchers will know not to hold their breath. Rumours are also spreading that this next book is likely to be just as professionally suicidal as ever. We can’t wait!

Finally, a recent photograph of the author has come to light, in which he can be seen deep in discussion with Dan Rhodes PLC’s new Director of Global Expansion (excl. Canada and the Cayman Islands), Arthur Rhodes. Here they seem to be brainstorming strategies for cracking the all-important Albanian market on what appears to be a corporate team-building orienteering weekend:

We’ll be back in a few weeks with more news, tour dates and, if we can get our act together (which is unlikely), updates of some of the dustier corners of this here site.