Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Candy and the Broken Biscuits
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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Candy and the Broken Biscuits (Candypop #1) by Lauren Laverne Lauren Laverne: 'Let's face it, TV's not brain surgery' F or the last couple of hours, Lauren Laverne has been ensconced in a photoshoot in the penthouse of the Sanderson hotel in London, and when she emerges into the bar, six months pregnant in a purple leopard-print top and still in full make-up and false eyelashes, she is holding a half-eaten apple. "It's, like, a really weird thing to bring down," she says, and laughs, placing the apple core self-consciously on the corner of the table. "But you know when you can't tell what's a bin and what's not? This is one of those places, isn't it?" Irreverence is Laverne's calling card. She's smart as a whip, bright as a button, with a sense of humour that seems to bubble up through the gaps of her conversation. She found fame early, in 1994, as the lead singer of teen punk band Kenickie – four A-level students from Sunderland who wrote brilliant, brittle songs about the joys of youth, nights out and lo-fi punk. When the band ended four years later she moved seamlessly into television, hosting music programmes, appearing on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Have I Got News For You (where she famously labelled the Spice Girls "Tory scum") and later becoming a presenter on The Culture Show, before moving to host one of the most popular shows on 6 Music radio. She was the face of the BBC's Glastonbury coverage this year, writes a weekly column for Grazia magazine, and has just published her first book – a teen novel called Candypop – Candy and the Broken Biscuits. Just as her songs with Kenickie distilled the adolescent experience, Candypop returns her to the world of the teenager; her heroine is 15-year-old Candy Caine, who dreams of being a rockstar playing the world's biggest music festival with her band, The Broken Biscuits, and along the way hopes to stop her man re-marrying, and track down her real father. Laverne's voice is instantly recognisable on the page. "When I was a teenager I wasn't really into teen fiction," she recalls. "At the time I suppose it would have been Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley High that was around, and that wasn't something that I was ever going to be into. I suppose writing this I wanted to write something that I would've liked to read when I was that age. And also now, having god-daughters and stuff, you look at the choices that are around — you look at your Hannah Montanas and everything, and that's OK, but I believe there's another thing, something that is funny and enjoyable to read, makes people laugh, and is also reasonably smart as well. Because I think a lot of stuff that gets written for teen girls now has this tone of sugar." Certainly, Candypop is uncompromisingly smart. There are references to Stalin and medieval manuscripts as well as a host of satisfyingly knowledgeable musical nods, from Ginger Baker to Twisted Sister, via the Television album Marquee Moon and Andy Williams's Can't Take My Eyes Off You. "I suppose when they took me on, they knew what I was all about, I don't think they would expect anything really vanilla," Laverne explains. Still, for all her publisher's conviction, she was a little daunted by the challenge. "You hope that you can do it, and everybody seems to think you can," she says, "but then you get all the way to the end, and it's like, 'Oh! I seem to have written a book!'" She pulls a surprised expression. "The whole way through I didn't tell anyone I was writing it, not until I got to the end. Partly because I didn't know if I'd get to the end, and partly because I didn't want to be the person who says, 'Well actually, I'm writing a book . .' And I still have to say it's 'a story' rather than 'a novel' in case I sound like I think I'm Nabokov." Laverne is now 32, and the world of the teenager has of course changed immeasurably since she was the same age as her characters. One of the most amusing sections of the book sees Candy looking through a set of photographs posted on Facebook by Kylie, one of the most popular girls at her school; the photographic descriptions and teen-speak are impressively perfect. "That bit was easy to write," Laverne admits. "It was just ripped off my little cousins' Facebook pages." But she believes that, technological advances and fashions aside, the essential teenage experience remains the same. "Being a teenager is one of those weird things, because you're very much of your time – every teenager is not going to be the Molly Ringwald archetype. But the thing I found out when I hung out with my cousins, which I did when I started writing the book, was that actually the essential issues never change. And that every teenager is different. Candy is quite a serious, wise 15-year-old, which is what I was like." Even at 15, Laverne stood out. "I think I was different, you know? I was always funny and I was always confident. I had plenty of friends and I would never have been bullied – because I was quicker than everybody else, if you got into an argument with me I would usually win." But for all her friends and back-chat, she never really fitted in. "I was really tall, and there's a bit in the book about Candy getting dressed, and how the things that she wears make her even more of a freak than she is already, and she's trying not to be herself, but it's like holding your breath – you can only last so long. And I remember being like that: going to school and desperately wanting to be one of the quiet people in my class. But I could never stop myself from spilling out. My school wasn't a great environment for that." How does she mean? "Erm . ." she says, and hovers diplomatically. "I went to a convent school, very strict, and the time I was growing up it wasn't cool to be an indie kid. I was a bit of an outsider, a slightly different personality than was allowed at the time." She skived off quite often, yet still managed to stay in the top stream for everything and, as she puts it, "got plenty of GCSEs, but left as soon as I could". Which explains why she was a touch amused recently to receive an invitation to open her old school's new building. "I can't go anyway because it's September and I'm having my baby, but I wrote back to the headmistress – who wasn't there when I was there – and said I was extremely flattered but also surprised because one of my keenest memories of my last year [there] was when the bishop came to open our new swimming pool, and being specifically told not to come in that day, because they thought I looked a bit weird." She laughs. "I said I was taking it as a sign that at last I was doing something right." It was in music, and later in broadcasting, that Laverne found the place she fitted in. She talks passionately of her work on 6 Music. "It feels like home, like the place I should have been put a long time ago; I think there's still that element of not being able to keep myself in, of spilling out. And partly that's because I'm in my element; the listeners, I feel like I know them, I feel like I get what they're all about and what they want to hear." But the station is currently in a precarious position; earlier this year the BBC announced that, following a review by the BBC Trust, it might well cease broadcasting in 2011. There has been a considerable outcry from listeners, musicians and, of course, the station's DJs – Laverne herself has been a vociferous objector to its closure. It was, she says, shows such as John Peel and the Evening Session, then on Radio 1, which opened the world of music to her as a teenager, and later supported Kenickie. There are few places now, beyond 6 Music, that share the same commitment to new music. "We get sent a lot of listener demos," she says. "There was a great band from Glasgow called We're Only Afraid of NYC, and we gave away one of their tracks as a free download. I think they were quite surprised, but we listened to it in the office and said, 'What is this? It's amazing! Let's give it away today!' Other stations would probably stop and say, 'Should we? We should probably make a feature about that and run it next week . .'" Her first presenting job was a show for Play UK that she did largely for fun, but she enjoyed it so much that with the end of Kenickie in 1998 she took more opportunities in TV. "I was still making records," she recalls, "and I was with a very indie set, and they didn't like the TV presenting, they thought it was quite uncool.