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Nothing and Everywhere by Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon
NOTHING AND EVERYWHERE is a contemporary comic thriller shot through with a dash of romance and mathematics. John Smith is a 30-something, poverty-stricken aspiring novelist searching for a publisher. He has written screenplays and tried his luck in LA but without success. John has split up with his girl-friend and things are not going at all well for him. One fine day his run-down north London house is invaded by two masked and armed gangsters. Strangely they go by the names of Nothing and Everywhere. Strange because this is the name of the novel John is writing. They rob him, removing the object in his life, which is most important to his filthy, clapped-out and battered PC. Why? It’s old and heavy. It’s not worth anything. It makes no sense. The big problem for John is that the novel he is completing is on the machine and he has no other copies of the book. He has to get it back. This is the story of his quest to reclaim his baby. Along the way he teams up with a motley gang of a stunningly beautiful young American mathematical genius from Kentucky called Susie Bellavista, Hungarian-born, ex-RAF Regiment sergeant called Biro and another still struggling, older writer and one-time political activist called March Klossowski, Susie’s uncle. Two hand guns, some ammo and a lot of cash falls unexpectedly and unsought for into their hands and their astonishing and exciting road journey begins, ending in a firefight in a mansion on the west coast of Scotland where the group come face to face with the gang behind the robbery and where they discover why John’s PC was stolen. Along the way John and Susie move steadily closer as they fall in love. As the group travels northwards they explore the landscapes and the power and wonder of mathematics in the beautiful world of number theory and in fractals. It is Susie’s mathematical insight which solves the mystery of the robbery. As one reviewer has aptly put ‘Nothing is as it seems and nothing is subject to the usual laws of reality in this book, peppered by snippets of advanced mathematics, deep spiritual truth and cosmic science, as well as a whole belly-full of hilarious action and real laughter’.
Paperback
First published December 12, 2011
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About the author
Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon
19 books14 followers NIGEL LESMOIR-GORDON
I came into this world in the midst of the Second World War, appearing among the soaring academic towers of Cambridge – the last outpost of ‘civilisation’ before the black-soiled, windswept fens ran their endless way up to King’s Lynn and The Wash. I grew up in the austere and reactionary spirit of post-war England. People felt lucky to be alive. So many had died and there were shortages. Most of our ships had been sunk and we lived under the heavy-hanging threat of nuclear annihilation.
By the time I had made it into my teens Cambridge had blossomed and become prosperous and I grew up in a privileged world. I was 13 when I went off to board at Oundle School and Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel burst incandescently upon the world. I began writing at Oundle and published poems and short stories in the UK, the USA and in France. I toured the UK performing with my poetry & jazz group. My interest in film took me to the London School of Film Technique in 1965. When I left Cambridge to go to the school I moved into a flat in Cromwell Road, South Kensington – the infamous ‘101’. When David Gale wrote about 101 in The Independent he recalled:
“As the 60s began to generate heat, I found myself running with a fast crowd. I had moved into a flat near the Royal College of Art. I shared the flat with some close friends from Cambridge, including Syd Barrett, who was busy becoming a rock star with Pink Floyd. A few hundred yards down the street at 101 Cromwell Road, our preternaturally cool friend Nigel was running the hipster equivalent of an arty salon. Between our place and his, there passed the cream of London alternative society - poets, painters, film-makers, charlatans, activists, bores and self-styled visionaries. It was a good time for name-dropping: how could I forget the time at Nigel’s when I came across Allen Ginsberg asleep on a divan with a tiny white kitten on his bare chest? And wasn't that Mick Jagger visible through the fumes? Look, there's Nigel's postcard from William Burroughs, who looks forward to meeting him when next he visits London!”
During a weekend spent in Cambridge with old friends as part of my experimental work at film school I shot the now cult-movie classic Syd Barrett’s First Trip.
When I joined the industry as an editor I worked for Hugh Hudson, director of Chariots of Fire, on TV commercials and documentaries. The film Performance was produced from his Chelsea studios. In 1968 I was commissioned by Mick Jagger to co-write a screenplay with Christopher Gibbs (the set designer on Performance) called The Quest. Marianne Faithfull writes about this project in her biography Faithfull. Mick, Keith and Marianne were already cast and keen to make it. The script we wrote drew on Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology and romantic poetry. Donovan had been writing music for the film and was disappointed when the project stalled due to other Rolling Stones commitments. To make up for this he suggested that I produce and direct a film of him making music sailing through the islands of the Aegean Sea with a small acoustic band. The band was called Open Road and the completed 30-minute film was There is an Ocean.
I then moved to the BBC as an editor, cutting dramas and documentaries for two years. I went on to work with Pink Floyd, 10cc, Squeeze, Rainbow, Joe Cocker, Big Country, Wings, Paul Nicholas and Leo Sayer amongst others in the 70’s.
I concentrated on commercials and corporate videos throughout the 80s. I wrote and directed Regiment a documentary about the Royal Air Force’s Infantry Regiment before I made the award-winning television documentary The Colours of Infinity, presented by Sir Arthur C. Clarke with music by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd in 1993. The Colours of Infinity has been broadcast in over fifty territories. It brought the Mandelbrot set and the subject of fractals to the attention of the general public for the first time.
I also directed The Bobby Charlton Story
I came into this world in the midst of the Second World War, appearing among the soaring academic towers of Cambridge – the last outpost of ‘civilisation’ before the black-soiled, windswept fens ran their endless way up to King’s Lynn and The Wash. I grew up in the austere and reactionary spirit of post-war England. People felt lucky to be alive. So many had died and there were shortages. Most of our ships had been sunk and we lived under the heavy-hanging threat of nuclear annihilation.
By the time I had made it into my teens Cambridge had blossomed and become prosperous and I grew up in a privileged world. I was 13 when I went off to board at Oundle School and Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel burst incandescently upon the world. I began writing at Oundle and published poems and short stories in the UK, the USA and in France. I toured the UK performing with my poetry & jazz group. My interest in film took me to the London School of Film Technique in 1965. When I left Cambridge to go to the school I moved into a flat in Cromwell Road, South Kensington – the infamous ‘101’. When David Gale wrote about 101 in The Independent he recalled:
“As the 60s began to generate heat, I found myself running with a fast crowd. I had moved into a flat near the Royal College of Art. I shared the flat with some close friends from Cambridge, including Syd Barrett, who was busy becoming a rock star with Pink Floyd. A few hundred yards down the street at 101 Cromwell Road, our preternaturally cool friend Nigel was running the hipster equivalent of an arty salon. Between our place and his, there passed the cream of London alternative society - poets, painters, film-makers, charlatans, activists, bores and self-styled visionaries. It was a good time for name-dropping: how could I forget the time at Nigel’s when I came across Allen Ginsberg asleep on a divan with a tiny white kitten on his bare chest? And wasn't that Mick Jagger visible through the fumes? Look, there's Nigel's postcard from William Burroughs, who looks forward to meeting him when next he visits London!”
During a weekend spent in Cambridge with old friends as part of my experimental work at film school I shot the now cult-movie classic Syd Barrett’s First Trip.
When I joined the industry as an editor I worked for Hugh Hudson, director of Chariots of Fire, on TV commercials and documentaries. The film Performance was produced from his Chelsea studios. In 1968 I was commissioned by Mick Jagger to co-write a screenplay with Christopher Gibbs (the set designer on Performance) called The Quest. Marianne Faithfull writes about this project in her biography Faithfull. Mick, Keith and Marianne were already cast and keen to make it. The script we wrote drew on Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology and romantic poetry. Donovan had been writing music for the film and was disappointed when the project stalled due to other Rolling Stones commitments. To make up for this he suggested that I produce and direct a film of him making music sailing through the islands of the Aegean Sea with a small acoustic band. The band was called Open Road and the completed 30-minute film was There is an Ocean.
I then moved to the BBC as an editor, cutting dramas and documentaries for two years. I went on to work with Pink Floyd, 10cc, Squeeze, Rainbow, Joe Cocker, Big Country, Wings, Paul Nicholas and Leo Sayer amongst others in the 70’s.
I concentrated on commercials and corporate videos throughout the 80s. I wrote and directed Regiment a documentary about the Royal Air Force’s Infantry Regiment before I made the award-winning television documentary The Colours of Infinity, presented by Sir Arthur C. Clarke with music by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd in 1993. The Colours of Infinity has been broadcast in over fifty territories. It brought the Mandelbrot set and the subject of fractals to the attention of the general public for the first time.
I also directed The Bobby Charlton Story
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 1, 2012
A mystery, action-adventure tale that features a beautiful female character who can't quit explaining the most esoteric aspect of mathematics got my attention fairly quickly.
There's something erotic about a lovely lass who smells of a meadow and as a conversational gambit opens with, "And what about pi, John?" Irresistible. Not limited to higher math, the love interest in this fast paced novel, which often reminded me of John Buchan at his best, can also riff on Nicola Tesla and classical music. It's no wonder that John Smith, our protagonist, is smitten within minutes of meeting Susie Bellavista. All the characters in this very cinematic quest to find a lost computer are interesting including the two handguns that take on philosophical importance. The Sig and Beretta are crucial and play an important role. Clearly, the author has a wide range of interests and experience that play out in the action, conversations, digressions, dreams and discussions that make Nothing and Everywhere: A Moral Tale a lively, entertaining read. I sped through it in a single sitting which is the highest compliment I can bestow on a writer.
There's something erotic about a lovely lass who smells of a meadow and as a conversational gambit opens with, "And what about pi, John?" Irresistible. Not limited to higher math, the love interest in this fast paced novel, which often reminded me of John Buchan at his best, can also riff on Nicola Tesla and classical music. It's no wonder that John Smith, our protagonist, is smitten within minutes of meeting Susie Bellavista. All the characters in this very cinematic quest to find a lost computer are interesting including the two handguns that take on philosophical importance. The Sig and Beretta are crucial and play an important role. Clearly, the author has a wide range of interests and experience that play out in the action, conversations, digressions, dreams and discussions that make Nothing and Everywhere: A Moral Tale a lively, entertaining read. I sped through it in a single sitting which is the highest compliment I can bestow on a writer.
Displaying 1 of 1 review