If you want an idea of what it feels like to try and organise my life right now, here is a perfect example.

My partner arranged a Christmas party at her cafe. I wrote “Christmas Party” in my diary.

A few weeks later, some old school friends of mine (who are all dads and therefore notoriously difficult to pin down for a good time) wanted to arrange a Christmas get-together. I went to write it in my diary, saw that the date said “Christmas Party” and assumed I had somehow predicted it.
In truth, I don’t know what I thought had happened. I was just pleased I didn’t need to put anything additional in my diary.

A few weeks go by. I get invited to a Christmas party for creatives, freelancers, lovies, you know the sorts. I go to write it in my diary. My diary already says “Christmas Party”. Still, nothing about this triggers as being odd to me. I accept the invitation and tell them I will be there.

I’m now in a situation where I have made plans with three different groups of people for, in case it wasn’t very obvious, the same date in December.

I am doing my best to be organised but even that can sometimes fall to pieces.

While I have been told it makes me look like a Facebook Mum saying “too many snakes xx” and waiting for the deluge of people to ask “what’s up, hun?” only for me to say “I’lll DM you, babes”, I have some big news. News so big that I’m not going to talk about it until the ink is dry. Ink dries fast in 2025 right?

At the start of this year, E and I declared that it would be our year. It’s seen a lot of mad shit happen including the publication of my novel in Italy and Spain and her opening her first business.

Now, some news has come along that absolutely blindsided me. I’m going to dangle that possible carrot in front of you all for a little longer. Just know, I’m a very happy boy.

We are home and getting back into the swing of things. Well, we are awake at 3am because of the time difference but that’s basically the same thing.

For the last couple of weeks, we have been lucky enough to explore Vietnam, from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi. After a pretty full-on year, it was wonderful to do something that felt like such a break from the norm. We met some lovely people, had incredible food and the sights we got to see, god, I wish you could have been there.

Starling out in HCM/Saigon, we had a wonderful dinner as soon as we landed. I had Vietnamese steak and eggs (bò né) which were out of this world. The name literally means “dodging steak” because it’s served on a hot skillet and spits at you.

The next morning, we went for a bike tour of the city. We then had lunch at an experimental organic restaurant that trains kids in the service industry, teaching them to cook and serve food. Everything we had was exceptional.

We also got to tour the Cu Chi Tunnels, used by the Viet Cong to defend their land against Americans. As someone who is very interested in 20th century history, and previously studied The American War (as it’s quite rightly known there), it was a deep stare into how difficult that life must have been and the casualties from the period. Their use of tunnels and traps was fascinating.

Next up was Hoi An where we had our first banh mi – one of Vietnam’s most famous foods, a baguette (thanks colonial French rule) filled with beef, pate and fresh greens, that blew us away.
We had a tour of the old town including visiting a traditional house and several temples before finding ourselves getting measured up in a tailors. I’ve never had anything tailor-made before so the opportunity was much appreciated.

For lunch, we visited Oodles of Noodles, a project that takes kids from disadvantaged backgrounds and teaches them to cook. They taught us how to make different types of rice noodles and we had an incredible lunch with the students there.

We then went on another bike tour of a nearby organic farm where we were able to have a go at watering the crops with the traditional setup. The herbs were fresh and smelt incredible. It’s easy to see how Vietnamese cuisine is amongst the best in the world.

Later, we got taken out on coconut boats across the river. In recent years, these have become mandatory for any backpacker looking for an Instagram post. It was fun but very heavily driven towards tourists, which I recognise that we are. It had the integrity of It’s A Small World.

The next morning, we visited a yoga studio and coffee shop (because this is very much a busman’s holiday) and then visited the Banh Mi Queen for lunch before a bus ride via the cold water lagoon where pearls are collected and on to Hue.

For dinner, we turned to Anthony Bourdain for advice. In 2017, he visited Hue as one of his cities in his series, Parts Unknown. In particular, a woman working in Dang Ba market who makes bún bò Huế – a dish consisting of rice noodles with slow-cooked beef shank, crab meat dumplings, pig’s feet, and blood cake. It was absolutely out of this world. We made friends with the locals who were dining on low chairs in front of this incredible woman who has been making the dish since she was twelve-years-old.

The next morning, we got up early and went for a run. What struck us (during early morning outings and bus rides in and out of cities) is that a lot of people were up between 5am and 7am, exercising and enjoying their local open spaces. It’s normal for people to go for a run, use the free gym equipment in the park or join a tai chi class. In the west, we could never. Maybe we don’t deserve nice things. It wasn’t a massive distance but we had a good run along by the water.

After breakfast, we biked out to the citadel and then visited a pagoda for a vegan lunch, which again, was incredible. I’m going to run out of adjectives for the food we had. After going shopping for supplies, we then got the overnight train to Hanoi, sleeping in bunk beds and making ourselves bowls of ramen and being gently rocked to sleep with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino (in Heat) on in the background.

The train got into Hanoi at 5am and we then got a bus into the mountains for a home stay in Mai Chau, a village of 350 souls, plenty of dogs and infinite rice paddies. We went for a hike that ended in a wonderful downpour, prompting us to sing Natasha Beddingfield on a loop. That night, the grandmother of the house cooked a wonderful dinner for us. We had the most stressful Thai massages of our lives and fell asleep happy and fulfilled, with the triple threat white noise of a fan, rain and crickets to contend with.

Took a bike ride out to the next town and had a lesson in using a traditional loom, used to make blankets and clothes. We also learnt some traditional dances, and laughed a lot. The hills and mountains were impossibly green which made cycling as far as we did a feast for the eyes. It was like living in a desktop background.

After a bus back to the city, we had a food tour with a local guide which included bun cha, a sweet pork broth with rice noodles, banh mi, coconut ice cream and an egg coffee. Some may be sceptical about egg coffee but until you try it, you don’t understand how close to a tiramisu it is possible to get a coffee. We finished the night on Train Street, a garishly-lit influencer nightmare of a place, where beer is at least three times the cost of anywhere else and you’ll be put in the back row if you don’t pout hard enough. Saying that, it was another must-do and when that train came by, you know I was pouting and flying the peace sign like my contemporaries.

After a drive to Halong Bay, we spent a night on a converted junkboat, sailing out amongst the nearly 2,000 islands. We took a kayak out to explore further.
After an incredible dinner came the karaoke. With the sound bouncing off the water, I hope my versions of Sweet Home Alabama and Country House made it far and wide. Slept like a baby.

The next morning, we went swimming in the sea then back to Hanoi for our last night. Stopping in a bar, we asked the barman for his recommendation on places to eat. He sent us to Phố Tống Duy Tân where there were a number of street food places. We sat amongst locals and tried different dishes – a black chicken with medicinal herbs, crispy crab spring rolls, pork dumplings and then a post-match banh mi for the walk back to our hotel.

The more we saw, the more we wanted to see. It felt very whistle-stop but inspiring at the same time. The people of Vietnam were so warm and welcoming. Given how “developed” we consider our part of the world to be, it’s interesting that the majority of life at home can seem so overwhelmingly fraught and drab when those we would perceive as not having a lot seem much happier. It was a lesson in gratefulness and the limits that abundance gives. While I appreciate we were there as tourists, it was a refresh of what is important. What a gift that is.

Last week, I gave my mum away.

Wait, that should be, we gave our mum away.

That seems a little obtuse.

Better still, our mum got married. My brothers and I had the absolute pleasure of giving her away. Not because it was nice to get her off our hands (which it obviously was and best of luck to him) but because she’s found a good man and it’s so nice to see her happy.

This is weird to write because it’s likely she will read it, and possible my dad will read it. Put it this way if you do happen across this, Simon. The stag do we threw you was a lot more hedonistic than the hen do we threw her.

A year ago, my partner (E) was asked to cater the wedding. We were honoured to be asked and it seemed like a lovely gift. Food being the music of love after all. What followed was one of the most stressful weeks as we fought against the clock to get everything in place for the event. Even with my partner’s incredible mum (also a chef) moving in to our apartment to help us, it was tight. But fuck me, did they pull off a buffet that we will be talking about still when my niece gets married.
Listen up Pixie, we aren’t going to be catering that!

All I had to do was pack up the food, drive the food and unpack the food, staying out of the way as they did their magic. That was enough to give me an ulcer on the inside and a hernia on the outside. I have no idea how anyone works in the service industry, catering or anything else where you have to deal with the disgusting public. I take off whatever hat I’m wearing to you.

It was only when I got a message that my mum and brothers were in a car on the way that I ran into the toilets to get changed. The worst Superman quick change you’ve ever seen in your life (although still very Jewish).

I rushed out to meet them and walk Trace in. She looked beautiful. After all the cacophany and the chaos, it dawned on me how much of a big deal it was. Not just because Dawn, our cousin, was taking photos as we pretended to share a joke so she could catch the magic faux-ment (faux moment) on camera. This was a big deal. This is what father’s do. Other than when it comes to Herb, our pomeranian, I am not a father. My brothers both are, to human children.
On my wrist, very loosely in fact, was a silver bracelet that had belonged to my grandfather. It was for him that I was named. Not Paul. That was because of Paul Newman, and someone that my mum was shtupping in her erstwhile twenties, but my middle name. Martin.

A man who used to call us his “three geniuses”.
A hero to few.
A grandpa who once told me that I should marry a woman with small hands because she’d be grateful and so would I.
A wry comedic genius who introduced me to The Goons, Marty Feldman and Jerry Seinfeld.
A weekday golfer who taught us how to drive off of the tee – only giving us the single shout of “shot” if we sent it straight and true down the fairway.
A gent of a particular era that meant he was always immaculately put together to the extent that we assumed he had “connections”.

He should have been the one honoured with this role. Instead it was passed down the line to boys with anxious disorders, varicose veins or kidney stones. We felt like the baby from the Velvet toilet tissue advert – “soft, soft, soft” – dressed up in suits and with fat bald heads. We had jumped up the wedding running order. This wasn’t supposed to be for us.

I love being silly with my brothers. There wasn’t going to be any exception. By the time the celebrant asked for the ring bearers to present the rings, I had my Doc Martens up on the table to show my brothers my socks. The whole congregation (obviously not that word, because it was a non-religious ceremony but it evokes the idea) was staring at our table.

Then the three of us helped E and her mum cart food out for eighty people. Well, we carted out food for 40,000 people but there were only eighty there. E was finally able to get out of the kitchen. We danced together alongside the first dance and then sat and ate – the first thing we had been able to put away that day. There’s nothing quite like the sweat and panic of a day’s hard work in service where you can’t bear the sight of food only to sit down with a job all done to try and stomach something. It’s the best/worst appetite suppressant I’ve found.

It was great to see old friends of my mums and to catch up with my cousins and extended family but it was far too brief. Before I knew it we were sweeping food off of the tables again and trying to work out what could be salvaged. Wrapping the evening in foil and clingfilm to put it all away again.

We drove home exhausted and vibrating from the energy of the day.

I am very excited to announce that El falsificador de Auschwitz is now available in Spain. I will be forever in debt to my agent and my Italian/Spanish publisher for getting me to this point.

Whenever I post something about ironically taking over Europe, the next question from my friends and family is about the UK publishing. I promise that there are ongoing conversations on this. I’m very excited about where it’s all headed and the support that I have had; from Watson Little, from Newton Compton, from Italian readers and bloggers and now Spanish readers and bloggers, means the world to me.

For my little story to have taken on this life of its own is incredible.

Thank you for everything.

While all of this is going on, I’m working on what comes next. I’m very excited to be able to share it with you soon.

Today I was lucky enough to spend the day editing my next novel at Metal Southend. They’re offering desks to writers all through June overlooking Chalkwell Park, and if you squint, the estuary.

I’ve been editing this fucker for about six weeks and am close to completing the first edit – which is just reading it through and making sense of the world I have created. What I realised today is that I should have kept notes on the bigger structural changes so I can approach them next time around. Instead, I’ve made it slightly more readable and cut 5,000 words. It is showing itself though. I think there’s something good in there.

It was good to have some dedicated time to it, even if I massively overestimated how much I could do in a day.

It sounds like a song title by The Wombats but last weekend, we were lucky enough to visit The Wild Retreat. It’s a lovely little woodland hideaway on the edge of the River Stort. What made it all the better was that we took our son with us.
Our son is our 18 month old Pomeranian by the way. And yes, I will refer to his age in months like he is a human baby.

During our time there, we were lucky enough to go wild swimming, enjoy the sunshine and take part in a gong bath. I’d never had a gong bath before, or been to a gong bath before. It’s hard to work out the language around it. There was once an ill-fated attempt by some friends to gong bath while high but that never came to pass and I won’t reveal their names.
A gong bath, and the enthusiasts in the chat will have to forgive my ignorant terminology here, is a form of meditation where you lay down and close your eyes and someone plays a series of gongs and singing bowls which then resonate through the body? I’m still not sure.
It’s worth saying I can be a little cynical about certain practices and was worried that I’d be stretched out like an insomniac while everyone around me reached nirvana.

What we didn’t know was how Herb (the Pomeranian) would take to being forced to sit still for a prolonged period of time. He’s a very active little guy. We recently had to fill in some paperwork that included his Last Wishes (that’s another story for another time) and my partner suggested it would be for us to throw his toy doughnut one last time.

As the gong bath was run, I’m attempting to compare it to a bubble bath here, Herb settled between my legs and finally chilled the fuck out. You’re talking about a kid who wakes me up at 5am by repeatedly tapping me on the head so I can throw his toys across our bedroom. Herb stopped. He finally was at rest. He got onboard, understood what the occasion called for and got real zen about things.
I’d love to know what he thought about while we were nesting there. If he’s as much like me as I hope then it was the idea of selling all our worldly possessions and moving under that tarp in a field so we could cleanse with a daily gong bath, paying our way in the world with some gentle labour.

In truth, we both discovered something about ourselves in that gong bath. When you stop chasing after the doughnut and listen to your body, that can be enough, even if it is just for a short while.

Now that I have caught up on my sleep and had a chance to think through some of my decisions, I wanted to write a little on the Southend 48 Hour Improvathon (2025).

This was the sixth Southend Improvathon and I was delighted to be asked back once again. I don’t do a lot of performing at the moment with everything else that I have to focus on but you can bet your life I will forgo an entire weekend to dress up and be silly with my friends.

For context, the Southend Improvathon is now a 48-hour show, held at the Park Inn and comprised of an incredible cast and crew who perform, improvised, for an entire weekend. This year’s theme was a wizarding school which meant leaning into the cliches and watching as many films and shows as I could for research.

I started out playing Armitage Shanks, the school PE teacher and ended up as the Dark Lord, Nifor. It was really important to me this time around to lean into the character work more and not break from the emotional depth to get a quick gag in. That goes wider than improv and is something I am actively working on when I have the opportunity to do so.

Across 48 hours I danced, sang, joked and dug deep alongside an incredible cast and an amazing team of crew who looked after us. Watching everyone else’s scenes serves as a lesson in what is possible. They were all so quick, witty and charming in their deliveries. We ventured to a new world and took on something that felt like we were collectively getting into it.

Along the way it meant a lot to have real people to check in with. My partner was there for the opening episode and returned with my mum and her partner. It was great to see Jon, Sarah, Charlie, Drew and everyone else who came by and lost themselves in our created world for a bit. Thank you to Cat for the comfort and constantly running errands for us. I also really appreciated hugs from her, Jen and Andy when shit got dark.

Most of all, props to Ali James and John Oakes for creating the event and continuing to allow us to play. It’s an honour to do it and to be asked back. Looking forward to next year.

Today represents the start of a fantastic journey.

For as long as I have known her, Emily has been passionate about cooking, about food and about coffee. I’ve watched her try and find her place but something has always felt amiss. What she really needed was to run the show.

From this moment on, she gets to do just that. nOm is a vegetarian/vegan cafe on Short Street, Southend serving breakfast, lunch, coffee and sweet treats to the masses. Having tested everything on the menu, I can confirm that it is absolutely exceptional and I cannot wait to see it blow up as the latest local spot.

We have been overwhelmed by the support from friends, family and local businesses as she steps into this new endeavour. Angela at The Yoga Factory, Ian and Sam at Little Fin, Ames at Lennys and Ella at Sababa have all offered incredible advice. Thank you to our first batch of customers and to everyone online who has shared nOm’s posts.

Emily has always been the biggest supporter of my dreams so to see her achieving hers is wonderful. 2025 is our year, baaaaabyyyy!

You can find nOm inside The Yoga Factory at Unit 8, Short Street.

Il Falsario di Auschwitz has been available in Italy for two months now. I have been told it charted and that it continues to be well received.

I am so pleased that it is finding an audience and that the characters that existed in my head for so long have found a home. The comments on the relationship between Georg and Rose really mean a lot as I based so much of it in the relationships of my grandparents. I wanted a classic love that seems pure despite the circumstances they are surrounded by.

As far as the UK goes, I had a great call this week with my agent but am sworn to secrecy on what happens next. It’s really exciting though and I can’t wait to be able to share.

If you have bought a copy then I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Currently writing something new that is in the same space while being a different story altogether. The Schiernecker Cinematic Universe (SCU) continues to expand.