How to be really, really cool....

This morning there was ice on the pavements that didn't even start to melt until about 10.30.  Freezing cold day! I was watching two schoolboys out of the window.  They were dressed as if for spring, as is the habit of teenage boys in winter because it proves prove how hard and cool they are.  I wrote a very short story about them.

~ So cool he had hypothermia ~

Danny shivered all the way to school.  He slid along the icy pavement, hands in pockets, freezing frosty fingers feeling their way through the material of his not-thick-enough school trousers.  His also-not-thick-enough grey school blazer gave little protection against the 'wind chill factor', whatever that was.  Sounded bloody cold, anyway, and it was.  Under his blazer he wore a white shirt and his school tie, the same as he did in the summer.  His mam had tried to wrap him up in a daft duffle coat type thing and some stupid hat, but there was no way on earth he was going to school dressed like that.  Only the geeks and nerds wore hats and gloves, the sort that handed their homework in on time, were scared to smoke and couldn't get off with any girls. Kids.  Geek chic hasn't reached this part of the North East yet.  Danny was hard and cool, and he lit a tab just to prove it.  His hands were so cold he could hardly light it.


Further down the road he met up with Jake and  Matt. They, too, looked cool and macho in their thin blazers and shirts.  Matt's lips were a weird shade of purple; no, he wasn't turning Goth, he was just cold.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be a Goth, Danny thought - at least they got to wear big black coats.

Jake lit two cigarettes from the stub of Danny's, and handed one to Matt.

"Look at that gay twat over there," he said, teeth chattering, as he pointed at a lad from their class, shuffling along on the opposite pavement, dressed in a parka and a Peruvian style hat, patterned, with a bobble on the top and long flaps over the ears.

"Twat," agreed Danny, though he was so cold he could hardly get the words out.

When they got to the school gates they joined one of the groups standing outside the gates, smoking cigarettes before they went in.  One of their classmates, Oliver, wore a huge padded coat, like a skiing jacket, and one of those warm black Thinsulate hats. He was laughing with a couple of the girls, clapping woollen gloved hands together.

"Your mam get you all togged up for the cold this morning, did she?" Matt said, through lips that were turning from purple to blue, now.

"Aye, did she give you your Ready Brek too?" Jake said.

Oliver looked at him, and laughed.  "It's the middle of winter, man."

"You look a right mammy's boy!" said Matt.

 Oliver raised an eyebrow.  "So caring what prats like you think is going to keep me warm, is it?"

He walked off, arm in arm with a girl called Freya, who Danny had fancied for ages.  


Next morning, Danny wore the coat and hat. 

And the moral of this story is ~ 

a) Trying to be cool guarantees that you aren't
b) Not caring what people think is the coolest thing of all
c) Few things suck worse than being a teenager and having to go out in the cold


(ps: my husband is 47, and still refuses to wear a hat, gloves and scarf....  )

Two Brief Moans.....

Added Sugar

It's everywhere, isn't it?  The other day I was looking at a small carton of supposedly 'healthy eating' beetroot and carrot salad in a supermarket.  On studying it carefully, I found that it contained nearly 300 calories.  How the hell did they manage to get 300 calories into a beetroot and carrot salad?  Of course, the sugar....  it was the same when I looked at many of the fruit juices.  You might as well eat a banana and a kiwi fruit and have a tablespoonful of sugar; at least you'd be getting the fibre from the fruit itself.  And don't get me started on the 'Innocent' smoothie range - you feel as if your teeth are falling out on the first mouthful....


It's a bit like the phrase 'all natural' - yeah, and so are cancerous growths.  Or that 'one of your 5-a-day' rubbish - I watched a documentary on this a while back and there's no legislation governing this claim at all - anyone can put it on anything, even if all it's got in it are a few over processed bits of spud.  


The Perfect Gift

Since about January 25th, everything was being flogged as 'the perfect gift for Valentine's Day'.  My husband had emails from Amazon trying to sell him everything from books to electrical items to garden tools, under the guise that they were just what she or he needed for that day that used to be about secret admirers declaring their love. Now it's the end of February, everything is 'the perfect gift for Mothers' Day' - cue ghastly compilation CDs by sundry crooners that will end up in record shops' bargain bins.  Next it will be Easter, then Fathers' Day, then they get a bit stuck, until Hallowe'en, I suppose.  


I'm thinking of buying a van load of umbrellas wholesale and flogging them as 'the perfect gift for St Swithin's Day'.  US readers, you'll have to look it up!

THE TRUTH ABOUT GETTING OLD....

 Forty is the old age of youth, and fifty is the youth of old age.  

It's not just that you haven't heard of any of the bands/acts in the Top 40, it's that you don't care that you haven't.  (Severe cases will still call it ‘The Hit Parade’) 

Remember these?

Similarly, you see strange words trending on Twitter, click on them to see what they are, and discover they're some band you've never heard of. They all look like children to you. You consider posting a Lou Reed video but don't get round to it... 

In order to get yourself going in the morning, you don’t just need a strong cup of coffee.  You need several - and a can of WD40. 

Remember when you used to hate staying in on a Saturday night?  Now, don’t you hate it if you have to go out?

...your idea of a good Saturday night is probably, like mine, a nice bath, clean bedclothes, and a jolly good film, watched in bed …

To think I used to go and do this sort of thing BY CHOICE....

(actually, thinking of a ‘nice bath’ as something of a treat is another tell-tale sign!) 

D'you remember about fifteen years ago when, if you’d put on a ‘few pounds’, you could just diet for a fortnight and it’d be gone?  Doesn’t work anymore, does it?

In your twenties, you and your friends have phone calls to discuss men and clothes.  In your thirties, it’s jobs, children, weight.  In your forties you discuss ‘life’.  In your fifties, you compare ailments … okay, you tell me about your cataracts, and then we’ll do my arthritic knee… 

The actors you fancy on telly have grey hair and laughter lines aplenty …

You probably speak your mind a bit more … perhaps you're becoming a bit of a dotty old bird, without realising it... this is me and my similarly old and peculiar sister - or is it Wayne's World??

You can now look at fresh-faced young women and admire their beauty, without feeling jealous; they're so far away from you that they might as well be another species.

Look - no sagging jowls!!  (me on the right, aged 30)

You find that you’re more accepted by older, straighter people.  The sort that used to look at you with a faint air of disapproval/envy/discomfort.  This is because you no longer appear edgy, hip, groovy and 'out there'.  Well, not on first impression, anyway....

However many early nights you have, however many AFDs (alcohol free days), you still don’t look as good as you did the morning after a whole weekend of debauchery ten years ago.

It’s so hard to find clothes that look nice without being too young for you or too middle aged, but that still disguise all those bits of you that aren’t as pretty as they once were.... 

You've probably been saying things like 'yes, well, life isn't fair' to your children/step-children/nieces and nephews for about ten years, now - you remember your father saying that to you? 

If you are lucky enough to have parents still alive, you worry about them in the way they worried about you when you were a child 

Do you remember the things your parents used to say when you watched Top Of The Pops?  Now, when you see the currently chart-popular on television, you say all those things, too.  "Why can't she just stand there and sing it without waving her arms around?"  "Why is he wearing that stupid hat?"

Your youth is a magic memory of long ago, when the world was so different, in so many ways...
... and you can bore for England talking about it, too ... 

Isn't it nice?  You take more pleasure in standing and staring; the light in the sky, the leaves rustling in the breeze ~ ~ ~  and you do things like taking pictures of your houseplants to put on Twitter.

Hangovers last days, not hours.  That’s if you can manage to get drunk enough to get one in the first place, without falling asleep half way through, or asking for a nice cup of tea. 

You find it frustrating that younger people don't take your advice.  You thought your dad didn't know what he was talking about as well, didn't you, eh?

Each birthday, you contemplate how old you are and think, how the hell did that happen?!

I'm the one in the white shawl - aged 10 days!

If you go to see your favourite old bands on their first tour for six years (or whatever), the audience is full of lots of grey haired people like you.

You probably look back on all your mistakes, sometimes. I bet you wouldn't change many of them, though, because they've made you the person you are now.  But you might still make mental lists of 'things I wish I'd known at 18'.  This used to be a regular feature in the Sunday Times when I was about 21.  I didn't understand it at the time; I read it, but of course I thought I was immortal, then, like all people of that age, and didn't realise that one day my whole life wouldn't be all stretched out in front of me, waiting to be filled.

When you were 20, you thought 40 was past it, didn't you?  When you're over 50, though, you realise that even 60 is still alive and kicking..!! 

The best bit about getting old, though, is the fact that you've got there at all.

Amen!

"Since The Smoking Ban...."

The other day on breakfast television I saw an item that made me feel really annoyed.  It declared that 'since the smoking ban, reported cases of childhood asthma had fallen by blah blah percent'.

No, of course I wasn't annoyed by the fall in reported cases of childhood asthma. What annoyed me was the reporting method of this information.

To accompany the spoken report, they showed a man standing outside his house, in the snow, shivering as he drank a cup of hot beverage and smoked a cigarette.  Outside his house.  

Since when did smoking in one's own home become illegal?


The purpose of this piece of film was, clearly, to influence the impressionable public to think that nasty dirty smokers should not even be allowed to smoke in their own houses.  That they should be ostracised and made to stand out in the cold.

I smoke between one and five cigarettes a day.  Since my husband gave up, I do not smoke in the house.  I would not dream of lighting up in the house of a non-smoker, or around children under ten, or in any of the places where it is no longer allowed, including open air railway platforms (ludicrous!).  But whether or not people smoke in their homes is up to them, and should continue to be so.  I think it is far more damaging for children to watch pap on television, to have access to internet porn and the soft porn of many music videos, to have unrealistic expectations about how they should look, to play violent video games, than it is to breathe in the smoke from the occasional tab, yet all these things are legal and actively promoted.

Most notably, the cases of reported childhood asthma were a lot higher in the ten years leading up to the smoking ban than they were in the 1950s and 1960s when everyone smoked, freely, everywhere.  Could this rise have been connected more with all the chemicals in the air, in the foods we eat, and in God only knows what else that we don't know about, than cigarettes?  Most smokers with children didn't smoke in the house, anyway ~ it didn't take an official ban to stop them doing so.

The other day I got ticked off by a 'jobsworth' type for smoking just outside a bus shelter, in the open air.  He told me that 'they' would have something to say if they caught me. 

Smoking is not a crime.  There are very few places left where we can enjoy a fag without having to stand out in the cold; don't try to make people feel as if they are commiting a crime by choosing to have a cigarette in the privacy of their own home - or indeed in the open air.  If I'm having a fag in a pub garden and you don't like it, go and sit somewhere else!

OH MY GOD I'M SUCH A FAT PIG!!

..... yes, it's that time of year!


Last night I looked in the mirror and was appalled by what I saw.  However skillful your make-up, nothing can disguise those chubby cheeks...  and don't get me started on the stomach that seems to the THERE, in my way, whatever I'm doing....

I decided, this morning, that a drastic kick-start was necessary.  Last year, a friend of mine went from being fairly hefty to looking pretty good, by doing one of those diets where you pay someone shedloads of money to send you a load of dried STUFF, then just eat that instead of real food.  Sounds a bit crazy, yes, but it worked, she looks great, and she's kept it off.  

I knew that she'd been on these special 'juice cleanse' things, too, obtained from the same company.  I don't usually go in for that sort of thing, but, as I said, emergency measures are called for, particularly as in two weeks' time I have to meet up with two slim and glamorous friends who I haven't seen for a while!

Aforementioned friend gave me the link to the website for this 'juice cleanse' thingy.  I looked at it.  The cost was £200 for a 5 day course.

Okay, you've picked yourself up off the floor, right?  But I expect you thought the same as I did.  Two hundred quid for five days' worth of fruit juice??? What sort of profit margin do they make on that, one wonders??  I'm in the wrong job!  

So, that one's out of the window.  I shall now go to Morrissons, and buy lots of fruit to make my own.  

On the subject of having to meet my slim and glamorous friends, though, something else occurred to me.  Men don't worry about this sort of thing, do they?  Why can't women be more like men?  

Consider these two scenarios.

Scenario I

Clare, Lucy and Emma meet up for the first time in 6 months.  Clare has put on a lot of weight.

Clare: God, I was dreading meeting up with you - I've really piled the weight on since giving up my job.  Well, you can see I have - okay, I've been sitting on the sofa with the ice cream too...  I feel horrible!

Lucy: You still look fine.  Honestly, it's not half as bad as you think, and you're wearing the right clothes to hide it.

Emma:  Don't worry.  Happens to us all.  Try the Atkins diet, it's brilliant.  But you look great, anyway! 

Clare goes to loo...

Lucy:  Crikey, hasn't she piled it on!  I mean, she's still pretty, but ...

Emma.  Yeah, but she needs to get a grip.  She told me she's a size 14, but I reckon it's more like 16.....

Both cast an eye up and down each other's forms, to assess which of them is the thinnest. 

Scenario 2

John and Bob are meeting up for the first time in 6 months.  John has put on a lot of weight.

Bob (giving John's stomach a playful slap): Christ, mate, what's all that?  Did you leave any of the pies for anyone else??!

John:  Fuck off you cheeky tosser.

They laugh and retire to the bar for a drink, the subject now done and dusted.

I write the books I want to read - do you?

..... I don't think I could write any other way!  There are certain subjects I LOVE to read about, so I put them in my books, because I love to write about them, too - when I start a new book I always think, ooh, what can I put in this one?  Does everyone do this?  


One of the things I love reading about, in magazines and newspaper articles, too, is women who are diet obsessed - how they feel about putting on weight, how their image of themselves affects their life, the lengths they go to in order to limit their food intake - which is why I created SARAH in 'You Wish'.  

...and I also have a strange fascination with people who can't accept that someone they're crazy about is not interested in them, and who do all sorts of cringe-making things in their self-delusion - PETRA in 'You Wish' was making me squirm as I wrote her!  I suspect it's a bit of that 'there but by the grace of God go I' thing - most of us get real and know when to think, okay, he's just not that into me, but poor Petra is unable to do this...

The general theme of this book is whether our lives are controlled by destiny, coincidence, or personal choice - something else about which I ponder frequently.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Wish-ebook/dp/B006423HGW
http://www.amazon.com/You-Wish-ebook/dp/B006423HGW

I like to write from personal experience too, not as a cathartic thing but just because the writing comes more easily when I really know how something feels.  I know we can't always write about what we know, or no books about zombies or vampires or life after a worldwide nuclear catastrophe would ever be written, but it works for me.  Like many people, I've experienced periods of loneliness in my life; endless Friday nights involving nothing more than a bottle of wine to drink alone, and MySpace!  SHARON in 'Nobody's Fault' reflects much of this - lots of my readers have told me how they really identified with her; I think the lonely bit is something most of us have experienced, especially in this day and age when there are so many more divorces and single people living alone.

I love a grand passion, too - hence ADRIENNE and NICK in 'Nobody's Fault' - the love affair that can't be resisted and causes havoc for all those involved.  Speaking as one who's always followed my heart, I tend to write about people who do so, as well!  I won't say too much in case you want to read the book, but I do like to read tales about people who completely lose it when everything comes crashing down... 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobodys-Fault-ebook/dp/B006VHGWIA
http://www.amazon.com/Nobodys-Fault-ebook/dp/B006VHGWIA


Oh, and now I come to that 'Sliding Doors' thing, which I think about so much!  Thus: if I hadn't taken a job at that office in 1981 I wouldn't have met my friend Angela, with whom I went to that party where I met my first husband Steve, through whom I met Jane, whose spare room I stayed in when Steve and I broke up.  If I hadn't stayed with Jane I wouldn't have done a few shifts in the pub across the road, where I met Alan, who became my second husband, and who insisted we move to Norfolk... etc etc etc!  This is the theme of 'The Other Side', which I first wrote in about 1999; I re-thought it all and re-wrote it last year.  

In 'The Other Side' I've written about lots of other things that I adore reading about, too - self obsessed women who want to 'have it all', bored housewives stuck in dreary marriages, the cut-and-thrust of 1980s Thatcher's Britain, a rock chick or two, the fear that someone is out to steal your man, and the deterioration of people for whom alcohol becomes a serious problem... 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Other-Side-ebook/dp/B00843W6QG
http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-Side-ebook/dp/B00843W6QG


....and lastly, I come to 'Dream On'.  I've known loads of struggling musicians and pub bands in my time, and I wanted to write about them - the guys you see down the pub, the ones who go to all the rock gigs and want to be rock stars, too! Some books I'd read on this subject didn't seem to be written by the people who'd known these guys, so I thought I'd write about them myself.  'Dream On' isn't only about DAVE and the other members of Thor, though (yes, Dave thinks he's a reincarnated Viking), but about the relationship between him and the mother of his son, JANICE - I wanted to write about a real life, ordinary woman, living on her own in a council house with her son, fearing that the man she loves is never coming back.  Janice and the other main female character, ARIEL, are both strong women who don't make a song and dance about it, they just get on with stuff; and they're not at all 'girly'.  The sort of women I like!

'Dream On' is full of characters drawn from people I've known - the funny Geordie drummer, the completely bonkers 'artiste' GLYNIS who runs a 'creative workshop', the womanising guitarist SHANE, 'chav' MELODIE with her hair extensions, whose life ambition is to appear in Hello! magazine - and, never mind the TV talent show, I LOVED writing the bit where one of the characters ends up being forced to go on The Jeremy Kyle Show..!

On a more serious note, I've dealt with the issue of Alzheimer's sufferers and their carers in this novel, too - my mother has this, and I hoped that anyone else who has experience of it would want to read about it in a novel, as I did.  I like the way that the subject sometimes features in soap operas; the problems surrounding this are getting more attention these days, I am happy to say.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dream-On-ebook/dp/B0094WNOF8
http://www.amazon.com/Dream-On-ebook/dp/B0094WNOF8


I'm in the process of writing the sequel to 'Dream On', as I felt the stories of Dave, Janice, Shane and Ariel were not yet finished.  (Note from Sept 2013 - Full Circle was published in April) In this one I've written about more things I love to read about - the problems facing someone whose spouse is an alcoholic (and the shame of the alcoholic who's made a complete fool of him/herself!), jealousy, the anger people feel when they realise they've been lied to, the pretensions of those who feel they are intellectually superior to others, and the joy of giving them their come-uppance ....  it will be called 'Full Circle' and I hope it will be ready for publication soon!  

After 'Full Circle' I am going to start writing another novel, about another favourite subject of mine - stalkers.  I touched on this a bit in 'You Wish', but this time it will be the main theme of the new novel - title as yet undecided.  It will also be about the way people are affected by feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, another topic that interests me greatly.  It won't be as light as 'Dream On', though it's been said that I manage to deal with quite heavy subjects in an easily readable way, so it won't be much of a departure from the norm. (Note from Sept 2013 - this has just been published, and is called 'What it Takes')

I hope you've enjoyed reading a bit about what I like to write about - and what I like to read about, too - all suggestions to add to my ever growing 'to read' list are welcome!

To Go Free Or Not To Go Free? That Is The....

I've read quite a lot lately about whether or not one should offer one's books for free. Many people feel that to do this cheapens not only one's own work but also the market as a whole.  There are many arguments for and against, and I daresay you might have seen one or two of them yourself.  I was reading one on the blog of Geoff West yesterday....

http://geoffreywestdotcom.wordpress.com/

...which you might like to look at, too, as both the blog and its comments feature both schools of thought.

What do I think?

About three years ago, when I had written much but had not yet heard of Amazon KDP or even Kindles, I was browsing my local library.  I came across a book entitled 'Mutiny On The Bounty' by John Boyne, which I imagined, rightly, to be a fictional account based on the true story.  I love this genre anyway, and have always been fascinated by the tale of this famous mutiny, so I got the book out.  

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mutiny-On-The-Bounty-ebook/dp/B0031RS6FA

It was marvellous, unputdownable.  I then went on to read the rest of John Boyne's books, and extol his genius far and wide. I will add that he was good enough to accept my friend request on Facebook, and seems to be a thoroughly nice chap.  

Now, John Boyne is an internationally acclaimed author, anyway, and you could argue that he didn't need my approval. Indeed, he could probably live without mine alone.  However, the approval of thousands like me, as a group of people who love his work as much as I do, has got him where he is today.  I probably wouldn't have bought 'Mutiny' if I'd seen it in a shop. But I had the chance to try for free the books of this author about whom I knew nowt.  I wonder how many of his other devotees discovered him in the the same way?

Here's another story.  A couple of years ago, my sister read a book that had been a free giveaway in some magazine; it was called 'The Big Picture' by Douglas Kennedy.  She had never heard of Douglas Kennedy, and nor had I.  She read it, then phoned me and said "You MUST read this book!"  Since then, she and I have both bought and read all ten of his books, and extolled his virtues ... ditto the above, re John Boyne (minus the Facebook bit!)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Big-Picture-ebook/dp/B005KKWC4C

I discovered Emily Barr in a second hand shop.  Well, not her in person, but her book 'Plan B', for about a quid.  Need I say more?  
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plan-B-ebook/dp/B004JHY89Y

Speaking of Emily Barr, I was delighted to see that my book 'The Other Side' now features in the 'Customers also bought' lists of several of her books on Amazon!  How cool is that?  Now, this wouldn't have happened if I had never put my first book, 'You Wish', out there for a three day free promotion.  I'd still be selling about six books a month, like I was when I first started!  The free download opportunity gave people the opportunity to try out my novels without spending a penny.  

Yes, I do value my work.  I value it so much that I want as many people to read it as possible, which is why giving out free copies is something I am happy to do.  It's only the same as having them in a library.  Of course I want to make money from writing.  I have international bestseller fantasies, the same as anyone!  But the main reason I write is because I love it, and I want other people to love what I do.  The more people who read my books, the more are likely to do so.

Oh, here's 'The Other Side', by the way!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Other-Side-ebook/dp/B00843W6QG/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1

What do you think about all this?

Writing six weeks later....  I just wanted to say one thing, though....  since Christmas the amount of books that are on free promotion at any one time seems to have quadrupled - which makes me wonder if anyone actually need pay for a book ever again.  There's an air of desperation about it ~ writers seem to be putting a book out on sale for a month, then, when it doesn't become an instant bestseller, shoving it on for free, in the hope that it will boost post-promotion sales.  Thus, the free promotion no longer has the effect it used to, because everyone's doing it.  Ah, well.  All markets flood, eventually, I suppose.  My thoughts on the rest of it, as a principle, still stand, though, and I will still put my books on for free from time to time.

It gets right on my nerves, it does.....

....just me talking about things that annoy me again!!

'Are you ready for Christmas?'  
     Have you had your first one yet this year?  I got mine yesterday.  I don't expect the person who asked me this will have a very good one, as I was forced to cut her head off.

Why is it always so HOT everywhere?  
     Since about the end of September this year, every time I go into a doctor's or hospital waiting room, or on a train, I feel about fit to pass out because the heating is always turned up full blast. Don't the people who recklessly whack up the thermostats in these places realise that most who visit them will be wearing coats?  
     Shops are as bad; until I get to the chilled section in Morrissons I have to walk around with my coat hanging over my trolley, thus revealing that I couldn't be bothered to change out of my bleach stained leezurewear t-shirt before I came out (my fault - I should learn). In early October I went into Marks & Spencer to buy a winter coat, and the mere activity involved in trying a few on actually made attractive beads of sweat appear on my face.  I mentioned it to one of the shop assistants; she said, 'oh yes, it's awful, isn't it.  I just try to move around really slowly.' 
     Taxis are usually dry and airless, too - and some people's houses - what happened to wearing a jumper?  I haven't worn or bought one for years.  Can't be healthy, being so artificially hot all the time, can it?

Talking of shops, I'd like to say this:
     I want to buy the bottle of shampoo I've just brought up to the counter.  I don't want to top up my mobile, buy stamps (postal, saving or otherwise), invest in an aftershave gift set for 'just' £12.99, add a family sized bar of chocolate to my shopping list, get that DVD for half price because I've spent over 50 quid (and, presumably, because it isn't selling at the normal price), change my house insurance or anything else you're offering me.  
     Yes, I know it's not the fault of the sales people who have to offer all these things.  I feel sorry for them having to say it two hundred times a day.  I usually hold up my hand to stop them as soon as they launch into the speech;  recently, one young chap in Savers thanked me most profusely, saying that his mouth was permanently dry and it made him feel like a right idiot. Sales promotion 'experts', listen to your staff and customers!


     How come women who are more than three stone overweight are no longer just 'fat', 'big', or the ghastly 'curvy', but, apparently, now 'sassy', too?


     And don't start me off on 'rocking' - "I'm currently rocking this really cool suit"; "Next time I'm rocking down to the supermarket..", etc etc.  Only acceptable if you're in Van Halen, otherwise it just makes you sound like a prat.  Still, at least the people who are currently saying it will have jumped onto the next bandwagon in a month or so.  That moment when..  Just sayin'...


     Clicking 'like' on someone's Facebook status update about people with an incurable disease/bad treatment of some monkey or other doesn't 'raise awareness' of it if you don't know what that disease etc is, and have forgotten all about it two minutes later, anyway.  
     It just makes you feel as if you've done something good.
     Guess what - you haven't!
     Even if your awareness is momentarily raised, this still doesn't actually do anything about it. Copy-and-pasting the actual Facebook status update doesn't do a great deal, either, unless you're actively involved in fund raising or spreading the word about new solutions for whatever it is. I think it was a journalist in the Guardian who invented the word for people who do this - Clicktivist.  Nice one!


Taxi drivers:
     Generally speaking, if people sit in the back of the car and answer your questions in monosyllables, it means they don't feel like talking. 


     Anyone else weary of the overuse (and often misuse) of these words? Genre.  Generic.  Exponential. Demographic.  Iconic.  Literally.  Ironic.


     I really, really hate the way that someone being sick on a television drama/soap/film is portrayed so graphically these days.  We don't actually need to see it coming out of their mouths, or, indeed, the remnants as they are wiped away.  Gross me out!


     Similarly, can't people ever kiss on telly/films without the sloppy, squelchy sounds???


     This isn't annoying, just something that amuses me. On films in which someone is going to confront a dangerous person, or in which a group of teenagers are going away for the weekend to some cottage in the hills where, inevitably, there will be a resident psycho waiting to pick them off one by one, have you noticed how, within the first ten minutes of the film, the fact that there is no mobile/cell reception is always established via one of them trying to make a phone call to their mum? Producers of such pictures must have cursed the advent of the mobile phone.  
     'Hey, Mr Huston, I don't like to mention this, me being just a lowly stage-hand an' all, but while he was hiding in that attic with the knife wielding maniac mooching around below, couldn't he have just called 911 on his cell?'


     Perhaps I just watch too many crap films!

A solution to the endless 'dodgy five star review' problem!

This isn't another moan about not-very-good books having five stars and the reviews all being from their mates, incidentally.

I've had my say before on this one  

http://terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk/2012_09_01_archive.html

....so I won't repeat myself.  I'd just like to say this - reviewers, please look at what the stars actually mean before you post a review.  If you hover over the stars on Amazon and on Goodreads, they show you what they indicate.

Anyway, whatever happened to the 3 star review?  That quiet little cheeky one twiddling its thumbs, minding its own business in an average kind of way, in between 'it was fab' and 'it was crap'?  Don't see many of these little fellas, do you?

Let's hear it for the 3 star review!  Let's hear it for, "it was very good in parts, but I skip-read some of it, it wasn't quite my thing, but someone who loves this particular genre might lap it up.  If it was given a professional edit I might have given it four stars.  It was okay, fine, something pleasant enough to read on the beach that afternoon."

There, that's okay, isn't it?  It doesn't mean the author will hunt you down and set fire to your house, or unfollow you on Twitter, does it?

Now, the solution!


I think this would be for Amazon to introduce more stars.  I finished a book last night.  I read every word, read it quickly, found it fascinating, but can't quite give it five stars, because that would put it up there with my favourite books, wouldn't it?  Wish I could give it four and a half. So, how about a seven star scale?  Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it be good if you could give six stars on the seven star scale - equivalent to the four and a half star review?  Because that is what I think some five star reviews often are.  I would give four and a half stars to the book I finished last night.  So I'll give it five.  Because it was better than a book to which I would have given four.

Amazon's new scale should be:

7 - Amazing, loved it, didn't want it to end, right up there with my favourites
6 - Seriously good stuff, will recommend, but not quite up there with my favourites
5 - Good, I enjoyed it. 
4 - Good, a few dodgy bits, but on the whole it was pretty fair.
3 - Skip read it a bit.  Not too bad if you like that sort of thing
2 - Boring, not very well written, hardly managed to struggle through to the end
1 - Badly written shite, gave up without finishing.

There!  Wouldn't that be better?