If The Drought was a movie... Part 2: Douglas Booth (@DouglasBooth) as Rob Devlin

Let's face it lads, we all know a guy like Rob Devlin. He's the type of guy who wakes up in the morning and without a hair out of place. The type of guy who makes getting a girls phone number look as routine as an England World Cup exit.The type of guy you'd love to bloody hate if he wasn't so frickin' cool!

Rob is not only Dan's best friend, he is the Vinny Chase (from Entourage) to his group of friends. He's the grenade they throw into enemy lines (or groups of girls) and once the explosion goes off, they are there to feed on the scraps left behind.

Yep, there is no denying that a guy like Rob is a useful weapon to have at your disposal. Once you finally accept that your role within the friendship is to sneak in and chat up the friend of the girl that happens to take Rob's eye. The best you can hope for in that situation is that you don't come up against that classic hot chick/ugly chick combo (the one where good looking girls pair themselves off with facially challenged friends in order to enhance their own looks), because we don't mind playing the wing-man to our good-looking pal but not at the expense of constantly being paired off with a girl who looks like Luis Suarez with long hair.

So the type of actor I'd like to play Rob in the make-believe-world of The Drought being made into a movie would clearly need to have the looks and charisma, but he'd need to mix it with a little bit of lad arrogance. In other words, he needs to be able to carry himself as one of the chaps.

It took me a while to think of someone who would do the part justice. For a while I kept coming back to Rob Pattinson, but for whatever reason he didn't quite feel right. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all I could think of was Twilight and then I'd stab myself in the eye with a dull butterfly knife.

So I went back to square one and Googled young male actors.And then something happened that I wasn't expecting.

My wife checked my search history, looked at me funny, broke down in tears and through her sobs asked me why I had hidden my gay tendencies from her for all these years. It was an awkward moment, which didn't exactly get any better when I explained I was searching for actors to play a character in a film that will be never be made things were all good in the world again. The tears stopped but the funny looks didn't. Oh well, one out of two ain't bad.

After 10 minutes or so of searching I found my Rob in Noah actor Douglas Booth. At first glance he looked the part and certainly matched the appearance that I had of Rob in mind and I thought he'd pair off nicely with Alex Carter as Dan. But what about his personality? Did that match?

How the hell do I know if the personality matched?! I don't know the guy and to be honest, this whole search for the perfect actor to play Rob had already resulted in my wife going from thinking I am gay to thinking I'm just an oddball spending too much time on pointless activities. As far as I'm concerned, this task hasn't exactly done me any favours so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and go with Douglas Booth. Don't let me down sunshine!

Three bites and you're out! Luis Suarez is at it again as he bites back at the World Cup!

Can you frickin' believe it? Luis Suarez is up to his old tricks again. They say it comes it three's and it seems as though Suarez is no exception to the rule as it is believed he has bitten Italy's Giorgio Chiellini during their World Cup match this afternoon. You couldn't make it up. This is the third time the Liverpool striker has bitten an opponent on the field of play - they should use the three strike rule: three bites and you're out! Ban him!

If The Drought was a movie... Part 1: Alex Carter (@alexcarterltd) as Dan Hilles

Dan Hilles
Dan is main character in the story; the unfortunate chap who happens to be experiencing a rather stressful lack of sexual activity, hence The Drought. I'm sorry to say that Dan is loosely based on a rather testing period in my life (and by loosely I mean mean 90% is based on fact and by testing I mean a nightmare eight month period where I couldn't get a sniff of any action!) so I have a certain affinity with him.

And clearly if Dan is based on yours truly then we are talking about a rather special leading man to take on the role. I've plundered a lot of my own characteristics into this guy so clearly we are going to need someone with immaculate style, a hefty dose of panache, a classy guy who oozes charisma and of course is blessed with the type of rugged good looks that would leave David Beckham feeling a tad envious.

Step forward mister Kit Harrington. I'm sure you'd agree it's the obvious choice... sorry, what was that noise you just made. For a moment it sounded like stifled laughter. No, wait. It's not stifled laughter. It's quite clearly a rip-roaring trombone howl of laughter. Okay, so maybe I'm not exactly like the Game of Thrones actor; in terms of both appearance and personality. Granted, he's good looking and bloody cool, whereas my alter ego Dan is fairly average looking and funny in a down on your luck type of way. So this selection is best taken out of my hands and given the choice by the people who know me best, and I'm fairly sure they'd opt for Alex Carter, better known as Lee Hunter from Hollyoaks. Is that stifled laughter again?!

More than once I've been likened to the fictional yet hapless and unlucky-in-love soap character, and given a few tweaks to his TV persona I reluctantly conceive that he could be the man to take Dan on. Granted the Oldham born actor would need to adopt a London accent, but his personality fits the bill perfectly for Dan who suffers more than one indignity as he attempts (and fails) to woo the opposite sex into bed.

The part of Dan calls for it's fair share of comedy moments and Carter, who picked up the Best Comedy Performance gong at the 2004 British Soap Awards, fits the bill perfectly in that respect. Plus his Lee Hunter character wasn't exactly a hit with the ladies either so he already has something in common with Dan! Whether it's situations where Dan gets so blind drunk on a first date that he ends up dancing like an octopus that had only two tentacles left and was trying to compensate for the missing six or the part where he gets beaten up by a barmaid, I'm confident the boy Carter would deliver with great comedy timing.

Okay, one down, three to go! Tomorrow is Dan's best friend Rob...

Game Of Thrones Bad Lip Reading presents Medieval Land Fun-Time World - Funniest thing ever?!

I've been a little late to the Game of Thrones party but having spent the last couple of months fully immersed in series 1-4 it is fair to say I'm a bit of a fan.

But not nearly as much of a fan of the brilliant YouTube sensation Medieval Land Fun-Time World. How the hell did I miss this bad boy?! This might just be the funniest thing I've seen since Jimmy Fallon presents Brian Williams rapping Snoop Dogg style!

There isn't too much more to say other than watch and laugh your little heart out...!

If The Drought was made into a film which actors would be in it?

Okay, so I'm sitting here the other night a little bit bored and something pops into my head: If The Drought became a film, which actors do I think would play the main characters? 

I accept that I'm getting a little ahead of myself (it would be nice for the book to sell a few more copies before I start thinking about film rights, or any rights for that matter) but it didn't stop my little brain wandering none the less. I guess the idea stemmed from an early review The Drought received when it was compared to The Inbetweeners and what with the second movie installment of that brilliant show coming out this August, why not dream a little big?

So this week I am playing casting director and will be posting four daily blogs starting tomorrow as I pick the four actors I think would be brilliant to bring the main characters alive in The Drought. It'll be fun to think of who I'd choose as most of the characters are based on people I actually know!

First up tomorrow is the main character Dan Hilles...

Maxim Tsigalko voted best Championship / Football Manager player of all time!

Last year I posted a blog listing my Top 10 best Championship / Football Manager players ever! Alongside the blog I ran a poll asking people to vote for their favourite CM/FM player of all time and last week the voting officially ended and we have a winner!

Maxim Tsigalko - take a bow son as the ex-Belarusian international took 19% of the vote to fend off competition from Andri Sigporsson (14%) in second spot and Tonton Zola Moukoko (9%) in third. And I guess it shows how much I know because I didn't even have Tsigalko in my top 10! (Perhaps the reason for this was because he often struggled to get a work permit in England...)

The former Dinamo Minsk striker was a revelation in the CM 01/02 version of the game - the version many consider to be the best in the series - banging in goals for fun to the point where his computer game adventures are given a special mention on his Wikipedia profile. It shouldn't be a surprise, with near perfect stats in the striking department, the boy from Belarus was always destined for greater things!

For the modest sum of £2m you could buy the poacher and have him lead your line for a good 10 seasons, easily topping the scoring charts each year if deployed correctly. Even the fact the guys at CM spelt his name incorrectly (it should be spelt 'Maksim') didn't matter because if you instructed Tsigalko to man-mark the goalkeeper (one of those completely unrealistic tactical gems that were fantastic when you stumbled across them) it would not be unrealistic for him to score 100 goals a season!

Alas, Tsigalko never lived up to his CM exploits in real life as his career was cut short due to persistent injuries which forced his early retirement in 2010 at the age of 26. But he will forever be remembered as a footballing legend for many a gamer and his name (even though we can't pronounce it properly) will live on forever!

Fun Fact! Tsigalkotwin brother, Yuri, still plays as a goalkeeper for Shakhtyor Soligorsk.

The Drought no longer available in paperback and latest update on The Flood!

Last week I got word from the team at Pen Press that they had ceased trading, which means there is a good chance The Drought will no longer be available in paperback. I am working on this but it could mean the lad lit novel might only be available in eBook format from now on.

And that leads me on to an update about the progress of my second novel The Flood. Way back when I was planning a summer release but it's looking unlikely now. The good news is that I'm about 80,000 words in and hopeful to have the eBook published on Amazon within the next three months.

The Flood picks up where The Drought left on and sees our hero Dan experiencing a bit more luck with the ladies this time but how will he juggle multiple women? Only time will tell! There will be plenty more lad laughs in this one again - watch this space!