What exactly is meant by the freeflow style? Author Iain Brimswall has explained his understanding of freeflow in the following way. “You sit down, you write. That’s all there is to it. The barest storyline floats about in the head. If it’s any good, it trickles down to the fingers and on to the paper.”

There are of course risks to the method when applied to satire. One is that material can date quickly. The item prized at the writing, doubtlessly drawn from current events of the time, may not be contextually recognised when the book is read. Another peril is the story tends to meander among disproportionate chunks of raw theme. These drawbacks are made manageable by the adoption of a rigorous editing regime during the draft review stages (note the plural). A writer’s compass helps, too – early recognition of a dead end is a great time saver.

Freeflow is best employed only for entertainment value. Lack of structure hampers any greater ambition. Satire in the freeflow style is fun to write and should be fun to read. That’s it.

Apparently, the spark for blrlnd came on 10th January 2006. Publication in book form was on the first day of the following September. The release date is listed by some online bookstores as 9/1/2006, thereby suggesting publication a day before conception. Other catalogues have difficulty with the title, a wholly lower case vowel-stripped rendering of Blairland.

The novel has no designated chapters and adopts a slightly unconventional typography. Back cover blurb is supplied by characters, not all of the comments flattering. As regards the story’s setting, a Blair period parallel universe includes borrowings from other eras, including the future. Presumably by way of acknowledgement, reference to Alice in Wonderland is made between the two adventures undertaken by the protagonist, Janice Annison. The latter, it should be said, is no young girl but a middle-aged spinster.

The first of Janice’s adventures may be regarded as a sampling of the domestic social landscape. Despite working as a tourist guide showing foreign visitors round the permitted sites of the Euphoric Kingdom, she has never before left the capital (called Capital) and has hardly any idea of what lies beyond. A combination of adverse circumstances prompts her to make a journey of discovery. She observes the marketed paranoia of Commuter Fortress; has a near-fatal brush with some psychopathic aristos at Splatter Hall; and stays awhile in the town of Grim-up-North, from where she calls in at nearby Islamic Republic. The curiosity sated, she returns to Capital.

A supporting character is established by this stage. Early in the tour, young salesman Arden Keen allows an exhausted Janice to shelter in a showhouse of his employer, Inflatahome. Because of his clean-cut looks, Arden shortly afterwards is chosen by the burgeoning company to be the public face of home ownership. But his new-found celebrity status does not prevent his being required to fight in ME (Middle East, military engagement, take your pick). Through a misunderstanding, he believes Janice to be an Inflatahome high-up. He seeks her out and appeals to her to save him. To no avail – he is dispatched to the trenches. Soon, however, he is secretly sent back to Capital and presented as the public face of army recruitment.

When Janice sees an image of Arden against a (fake) desert war-zone backdrop, she feels impelled to go out to ME and comfort him. Her second adventure begins. She doesn’t find Arden of course but does get to meet the most wanted man in the world. In his office behind a cave shopping mall, Teri al-Tori – held responsible for globular Terryism – introduces Janice to a new point of view. “Sometimes our people feel the urge to throw the shit back over the wall.”

Janice once more returns to Capital. The rest of her story leads to her unwitting precipitation of one of those nasty events everyone will always remember.

Add some vowels and give it an upper case start, and the title produces Brownland. It’s another single chapter satirical novel in the freeflow style, but with one or two differences. For example, the greater part of this story runs close to the implied subject (the Unprimed Minister is an active character). It’s more political. Tighter.

The doughty Janice Annison sets forth again, changing her name in order to distance her sense of guilt from the reverence bestowed by a nation who believes her heroically dead, to Jane Amieson. If in the previous tale her travels were geographical, in this the movement is of an altogether different kind. After ten years of incarceration in a lonely cell, and via a spell working in a rather dubious comfort establishment frequented by sillies (civil servants), Jane is persuaded to take a job in Downer Street as adviser which, as things turn out, leads in effect to her running the country.

No final judgement of Janice’s/Jane’s endeavours to save the nation is possible because the story is still being written. Publication will not take place until after a certain forthcoming election.