China Belle (Brian May)

 

I’m fairly pleased with the work on my next e-book so far. I have a title, which includes the words ‘Another World’; of course, and have an idea for the cover. I would’ve liked it to have been a collaboration between me and different writers, but I haven’t found any who can produce anything right now. Thus I’ll continue alone in this venture – let’s see if anything else changes. It doesn’t bother me much at the moment – I still have ideas, which I hope can be realised in this series of stories.

At least there’ll hopefully be a story book for re-release of Brian’s second album – by necessity totally unofficial - although we don't know the release date yet, and I may find that my book has to come out later.  

Appropriate for the forthcoming Chinese New Year (Spring Festival), this weekend I’ve been working on a story for ‘China Belle’, who’s described as living in ‘Old Beijing’. As we’re entering the Year of the Tiger, an idea concerning this enters the story. I thought this may be one of the easier stories to compose, as I have first-hand experience of living in China (mainly 1981-2 and 2017-9), which I recount in my book, ‘Bohemia Place’.

However, I’ve had to do some research on pre-modern China, as I feel this era best fits the description in the song. There are very few vestiges of the old residential city of Bejing left, but you can still see what remains of the hutongs, those winding alleyways where there was always a lot of activity of many different kinds: shopping, refreshments and leisure.

I was intrigued about some information I found online concerning the status of prostitutes in high-class Shanghai brothels in 1917. I’ve transposed the story (but adapted, ie not lock, stock and barrel ) to Beijing, to fit the song. The idea in the song that she ‘ain’t love for sale’ fits perfectly. I was also intrigued by the ‘diamond on her finger’ and I’ve elaborated on the story around that idea. There’ll be a little twist at the end, which befits a short piece. At the same time, I shan’t keep to all the ideas in the song - there are too many. I've also had to rewrite the story from my original plan, so it isn't quite finished yet. 

 Also this week the CBBC programme featuring Brian’s acting debut as the ‘Godfather ofRock’ was aired. It struck me that there was a story within a story here, and I’m thinking that I could adapt it for ‘On My Way Up’. I can’t think of any other title on the album to which it could belong. The whole idea of the Odd Socks rings true: particularly now, as I’m a writer on Instagram – that makes me an Odd Sock more than a lot of other things, I should think!