The Paradox of the Dishy Russian Researcher

I was wondering whether I had something of a plausibility gap in the premise of ‘Burying Bad News’ as I have an MP with an attractive young, Eastern European aide (though mine, Ana, comes from Latvia, which is inside the EU and makes her eligible to work here without a visa). But splashed all over the papers today is something a lot juicier from real life than how my plot is set up. As the Sun inimitably describes the story:

A DISHY Russian who worked as a British MP’s aide is facing deportation as a suspected spy. Sexy Katia Zatuliveter, 25 – employed in the House of Commons as an assistant – is understood to have been detained after a lengthy investigation.

So maybe not so good from the perspective of originality but certainly good for plausibility. It gives me more reason to complete this novel once I’ve done a first draft of The Angel — although the two are connected by literary connecting doors as it is. Sally turned up in The Angel in my reading at the workshop yesterday.

On a politically-themed tangent I’ve just seen David Cameron’s signature in the guest book of our local church. He visited the two local churches on Tuesday 30th November — putting his address as Chequers — which is only on the other side of the hill.

Signature in Church Visitor Book
Signature in Church Visitor Book

I also bumped into the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, on Friday night — he’s our local MP and was in Princes Risborough for the turning-on of the Christmas lights.

Sally Hits Facebook

Inspired by Emily’s suggestion about creating diaries and the like for our characters I’ve come into the modern world and set up a Facebook page for one of mine — except that it’s a bit more complicated as this is something that will probably really happen in the novel. It’s for Sally Hunter — alter-ego wine writer of eco-grunger Sally Edmonds — and she’ll use her Facebook persona to establish her wine-writing credibility.

It’s early days yet — I want to her to become a fan of various wine related things and so on but I’ve had to put in things like education and date of birth. I’ve kept those pretty true to Sally Edmonds’ details. I’ll be interested to see if Sally gets mail (she has her own genuine e-mail address which she needed to set up the account) from people who went to Aylesbury High School or  Birmingham or Birkbeck Universities thinking they remember her. I think if Harry Hill’s Knitted Character can have a Facebook page then so can Sally.

Here’s how she appeared on my page — note her relationship status.

Sally Appears on My Facebook Page
Sally Appears on My Facebook Page

And here are the personal details from her page (or wall or whatever it is)

Sally's Info
Sally's Info

Click on the images to read the info in more detail.

Sally’s only got one friend at the moment so I’m sure she’d love more. You can search for her on Facebook using her mail address sally.hunter@mcnovel.org.uk (note there’s no ‘a’ in that spelling of mcnovel).

In due course Sally’s network will extend to other social-media-using characters who will make friends with her — Ana, Frances and maybe even Robert.