I occasionally treat myself to tea from the wonderful tea shop in Lincoln, Imperial Teas on Steep Hill. This time they had a new blend dedicated to the Dambusters 617 Squadron; Lincolnshire has strong links to the bomber squadrons of the Second World War, and especially Lancaster Bombers. It sounded interesting, so I sent off for it, and I've just opened the packet to put the tea in my tea caddy.
On the back of the packet, the blurb says that the tea is a blend of a strong, smooth Assam, and a "very special tea that adds a touch of honey, sweet tobacco and malt to the flavour. It also has an intriguing appearance."
They can say that again! It's got bouncing bombs in it! Made of tea!
I'm looking forward to my first cup of it.
Sunday, 29 April 2018
Friday, 16 March 2018
Stephen Hawking
It was my day off when Stephen Hawking came to visit the Hay Cinema Bookshop, but I did see his wheelchair in the distance around town, surrounded by his entourage. He came when the Lion Gallery had some scientific sculptures in the window - very precise wood and metal structures showing, for instance, the structure of a black hole, and I know he stopped to look at them.
He also spoke at Hay Festival - I missed that, too, because I was working.
I did read A Brief History of Time, though, and I actually understood it - while I was reading it. Trying to explain it to someone else afterwards was a different matter!
He was a passionate advocate for the NHS, which saved his life, and another sad loss to the world.
Monday, 12 March 2018
Ken Dodd
Another part of my childhood gone!
A cousin of mine went to the stage school in Blackpool (she was later Miss Blackpool), and whenever Doddy did a show there he would use the kids from the stage school as his Diddymen - so my cousin was a Diddyman!
More recently, he appeared at Hay Festival. That year the main marquee was set up on the Castle gardens and, part way through the act, he suddenly left the stage. A few moments later, he was back - but he actually had food poisoning, and had been throwing up in the bushes at the back of the marquee!
He wasn't just a stage performer, of course - he had his own TV shows over the years, and was also a very good Malvolio in Twelfth Night, as well as Yorick in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (in a flashback, obviously!).
And he was in Doctor Who, in the Seventh Doctor story Delta and the Bannermen, which was set at a holiday camp.
A cousin of mine went to the stage school in Blackpool (she was later Miss Blackpool), and whenever Doddy did a show there he would use the kids from the stage school as his Diddymen - so my cousin was a Diddyman!
More recently, he appeared at Hay Festival. That year the main marquee was set up on the Castle gardens and, part way through the act, he suddenly left the stage. A few moments later, he was back - but he actually had food poisoning, and had been throwing up in the bushes at the back of the marquee!
He wasn't just a stage performer, of course - he had his own TV shows over the years, and was also a very good Malvolio in Twelfth Night, as well as Yorick in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (in a flashback, obviously!).
And he was in Doctor Who, in the Seventh Doctor story Delta and the Bannermen, which was set at a holiday camp.
Sunday, 11 March 2018
Kate Wilhelm
I've just heard that the SF author Kate Wilhelm has died.
Now is probably a good time to recommend Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang to anyone who hasn't read it. She wrote a lot more that that, of course, but it's probably the most easily available of her works.
She also did a huge amount to mentor and encourage new authors, so this is probably also a good time to recommend Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop.
Now is probably a good time to recommend Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang to anyone who hasn't read it. She wrote a lot more that that, of course, but it's probably the most easily available of her works.
She also did a huge amount to mentor and encourage new authors, so this is probably also a good time to recommend Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop.
Sunday, 4 March 2018
Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective
I've been doing a bit of writing (the further adventures of my Steampunk spy, Li Bic), and got to a point where one character is reading while he waits for another character.
But what could he be reading?
I started looking for novels written before 1896, but I didn't want anything obvious, just something light by an author that might be forgotten now, but which would also shed a little light on what the character doing the reading is like.
And what I found was Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective, by Catherine Louisa Pirkis, a series of short stories published in the Ludgate Magazine. Even better, seven stories have been collected in a modern paperback, published by Wildside Press.
The Victorian young lady on the front cover looks a bit too pretty to be Loveday, who is a sensible woman of around 30, and of fairly non-descript appearance according to the first story, The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep.
But the stories are quite good fun. Loveday works for a London based detective agency, and is sent around the country to investigate a variety of crimes, including murder.
Country house burglaries seem to be a popular crime - in one story the local Detective Inspector mentions that one local country house has Electric Lighting, and supposes that, if all country houses did likewise, the burglary rate would drop almost to nothing. Loveday isn't so sure. The author's description of the electric lighting also gives the impression that she has no idea how it works, though she knows wires are involved (she says the electricity is stored in jars, in a little 'engine house').
What the stories do very well, though, is give a flavour of the period, from a woman's point of view. Loveday travels alone, and stays in local hotels when she is not pretending to be a relative of the housekeeper in the country house she is investigating, or taking up a position as a secretary who lives in the house. The butler in one story "treated Loveday in an easy, familiar fashion, evidently considering that an amanuensis took much the same rank as a nursery governess - that is to say, a little below a lady's maid and a little above a house maid."
I'm about half way through the book at the moment, and enjoying it very much - though the author does cheat, compared with later mystery writers. It's impossible for the reader to try to solve the case, because she conceals vital clues until the big reveal at the end.
But what could he be reading?
I started looking for novels written before 1896, but I didn't want anything obvious, just something light by an author that might be forgotten now, but which would also shed a little light on what the character doing the reading is like.
And what I found was Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective, by Catherine Louisa Pirkis, a series of short stories published in the Ludgate Magazine. Even better, seven stories have been collected in a modern paperback, published by Wildside Press.
The Victorian young lady on the front cover looks a bit too pretty to be Loveday, who is a sensible woman of around 30, and of fairly non-descript appearance according to the first story, The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep.
But the stories are quite good fun. Loveday works for a London based detective agency, and is sent around the country to investigate a variety of crimes, including murder.
Country house burglaries seem to be a popular crime - in one story the local Detective Inspector mentions that one local country house has Electric Lighting, and supposes that, if all country houses did likewise, the burglary rate would drop almost to nothing. Loveday isn't so sure. The author's description of the electric lighting also gives the impression that she has no idea how it works, though she knows wires are involved (she says the electricity is stored in jars, in a little 'engine house').
What the stories do very well, though, is give a flavour of the period, from a woman's point of view. Loveday travels alone, and stays in local hotels when she is not pretending to be a relative of the housekeeper in the country house she is investigating, or taking up a position as a secretary who lives in the house. The butler in one story "treated Loveday in an easy, familiar fashion, evidently considering that an amanuensis took much the same rank as a nursery governess - that is to say, a little below a lady's maid and a little above a house maid."
I'm about half way through the book at the moment, and enjoying it very much - though the author does cheat, compared with later mystery writers. It's impossible for the reader to try to solve the case, because she conceals vital clues until the big reveal at the end.
Friday, 9 February 2018
Daddy Issues
I was given the latest season of Arrow, season 5, for Christmas, so I've been slowly enjoying it, and got to the last episode last night.
And it struck me how many characters have problematic relationships with their fathers. I've noticed it before in American TV and film, though it seems to be quite a rare thing in British TV and film, but in Arrow, there's a whole tangled web of difficult father/son and father/daughter relationships.
It starts with Oliver, of course. He became a vigilante in the first place because of his father's notebook, and feels guilty because his father killed himself so that Oliver would survive after their boat went down.
The main bad guy of the fifth season, Prometheus, is totally obsessed with making Oliver suffer because Oliver killed his father.
Then there's Thea and her relationship with Malcolm Merlyn, Talia and Nyssa al Ghul and their father Ras al Ghul, Felicity and her dad, and the Lance family. And Oliver is a dad himself, keeping well away from young son William to keep him safe.
And then there's Star Wars, with "Luke, I am your father...."
And over in the Trek universe, Spock and Sarek have huge problems with their relationship.
And in the Marvel universe, there's Tony Stark and his dad.
It's even in Princess Bride: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
When the Doctor Who TV movie was being made, one of the script ideas (that they thankfully rejected) had the Doctor going to find his father. I mean, he's hundreds of years old, and has never been interested in finding his father before....
It really does seem to be a thing that American writers have a particular interest in - and I'm sure there are lots more out there that I'm unaware of.
And yet, in Britain - nobody cared who James Bond's father was until Skyfall, the twenty-third film in the franchise!
Roj Blake's father is completely irrelevant to the action of Blake's Seven - and none of the other crew members have any problems with their fathers as far as I can remember either.
In the new Thunderbirds series, dad Jeff Tracy has disappeared, and there are a couple of half-hearted mentions of trying to find him, but then the brothers just get on with the rescue of the week.
The fathers of Captain Scarlet, Troy Tempest, Colonel Straker of UFO's SHADO, are likewise irrelevant to the plots of the various series.
And Arthur Dent's father was blown up with the rest of the Earth, and never even got a mention.
And it struck me how many characters have problematic relationships with their fathers. I've noticed it before in American TV and film, though it seems to be quite a rare thing in British TV and film, but in Arrow, there's a whole tangled web of difficult father/son and father/daughter relationships.
It starts with Oliver, of course. He became a vigilante in the first place because of his father's notebook, and feels guilty because his father killed himself so that Oliver would survive after their boat went down.
The main bad guy of the fifth season, Prometheus, is totally obsessed with making Oliver suffer because Oliver killed his father.
Then there's Thea and her relationship with Malcolm Merlyn, Talia and Nyssa al Ghul and their father Ras al Ghul, Felicity and her dad, and the Lance family. And Oliver is a dad himself, keeping well away from young son William to keep him safe.
And then there's Star Wars, with "Luke, I am your father...."
And over in the Trek universe, Spock and Sarek have huge problems with their relationship.
And in the Marvel universe, there's Tony Stark and his dad.
It's even in Princess Bride: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
When the Doctor Who TV movie was being made, one of the script ideas (that they thankfully rejected) had the Doctor going to find his father. I mean, he's hundreds of years old, and has never been interested in finding his father before....
It really does seem to be a thing that American writers have a particular interest in - and I'm sure there are lots more out there that I'm unaware of.
And yet, in Britain - nobody cared who James Bond's father was until Skyfall, the twenty-third film in the franchise!
Roj Blake's father is completely irrelevant to the action of Blake's Seven - and none of the other crew members have any problems with their fathers as far as I can remember either.
In the new Thunderbirds series, dad Jeff Tracy has disappeared, and there are a couple of half-hearted mentions of trying to find him, but then the brothers just get on with the rescue of the week.
The fathers of Captain Scarlet, Troy Tempest, Colonel Straker of UFO's SHADO, are likewise irrelevant to the plots of the various series.
And Arthur Dent's father was blown up with the rest of the Earth, and never even got a mention.
Saturday, 3 February 2018
Celebrating!
I sold two books on Smashwords today!
Someone bought The Secret of Saynshand and The Ministry of Unladylike Behaviour at the same time!
I am now celebrating with a bottle of Adnams Ghost Ship pale ale.
Someone bought The Secret of Saynshand and The Ministry of Unladylike Behaviour at the same time!
I am now celebrating with a bottle of Adnams Ghost Ship pale ale.
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