Breakfast Blogging: Opinion(ated) Scribbling for No Apparent Reason
I’ve just found this amazing list of literary quizzes, so guess what? I’ve broken out the notepad and pen (always fountain) and I’m scribbling like crazy.
I know the results are likely to range from mediocre to humiliating, but that’s me – always with the mind-sharpener. Cheers!
Oh, by the way… this is the kind of music to listen to when working out the grey matter like this.
I wish I had a pic to show you, but the product is brand new and there wasn’t one to be found even on the Boots site.
Let’s take it from the top:
Boots are great. Their free loyalty card, combined with their free clubs, offers the most privileges than any other marketing incentive I’ve come across. But they are bent on pushing the ‘be well’ aspect as well as the ‘look good’ and ‘feel good’.
The Meal Deal is a fab lunch option, offering one’s choice of sandwich, drink and snack for £2.99 (or even less), plus one free for every five bought within a calendar month. And, as if that weren’t enough, they throw in a stylish mini tote bag to complete the look. A baggie made of recycled plastic bottles, which costs only £1 and will not be an embarrassment to take out at lunchtime.
I’ve bought myself one, even for toting little items home without getting a carrier, and if I worked and needed to get myself lunch, they’d definitely have my money.
Read more here.
I love Blogthings. From time to time, I get hooked and spend days doing every single test on there. It helps that they keep adding more.
I also love Springwatch, and I’m looking forward to this year’s run. At least I hope they do one. Bill Oddie is hilarious (remember his advert for the Post Office?), although I can see why others may find him supremely irritating. But above all, it’s about cute little animals caught au naturel. What’s not to like?
Put the two together, and you have my result to the latest Blogthing.
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You Are Chirping Birds |
 You are a very caring person. You especially feel for innocent beings, like animals and children. You are keyed in to the world and very peaceful. You believe that everyone is connected. You remain focused and in the moment. You are not easily distracted. |
No, I’m not going to blog about yesterday’s birthday boy – TMI, people!
What I have in mind is the way some books suggest their own soundtrack. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who clicks pieces of writing with pieces of music to go together forever more. Like this.
The book is Sword & Sorceress II, the second in the line of anthologies of fantasy short stories with female leads that Marion Zimmer Bradley edited, out in 1985. I have only read the first five, but this is my favourite. Up there is Ilene Meyer’s dreamy cover, and inside are some excellent stories by, among others, Diana L. Paxson, Charles de Lint, Deborah Wheeler, Jennifer Roberson and Vera Nazarian.
Below is the musical piece I have forever associated with that book, and the balmy summer I read it (1992, if I’m not mistaken). It’s ‘Lucky Guy’, originally performed by Todd Rundgren, but taken over and made all shiny and new by Kim Wilde, on her 1988 album Close. This is only an amateur piano version, but its almost heart-wrenching beauty is still there; I suggest you hunt it down and download it (the song, if not the complete – excellent 80s power-pop – album).
Kalomira has taken a lot of flak. First it was the fact that she emerged out of Fame Story, the Greek equivalent of shows like The X Factor and American Idol. Then it was her wobbly Greek (hardly suprising, since she was born and raised in the US), and her chatty, bubbly nature that marked her for an airhead. Even after her solid performance in last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, that gave Greece third place for the third time this decade, people kept bitching that she’s a Britney look- and sound-alike.
Well, so what? She may be a dork, but she’s an adorable one all right. (We’ll deal with the identifying differences of nerds, geeks and dorks another time). And a great show-woman too, and here’s proof: The show that she put on for this year’s Eurovision qualification event, mixing Lady GaGa, the Pussycat Dolls, and her own ‘Secret Combination’ (Master Tempo remix). Enjoy, while the waffler is taking tomorrow off to celebrate spousal unit’s birthday.
My writing forum is having an outage at the moment. Although that’s way frustrating (I’m on messenger with a co-writer at the moment, who just lost the post he was about to make on our story!), it gives me time to think about what I’m doing there, something that I can’t usually do during normal hours because I’m so busy actually writing.
I’m very happy with what I’m doing there. I have 13 stories running, more or less consistently, and always negotiating more. Yes, it’s an adult community, but if you think it’s just mindless smut, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Smut there is, and a fair amount of it at that, but adult doesn’t equal triple-X’ed. It’s more about being NC-17 and beyond without fear of any hue and cry.
I’ve written all sorts of characters. Male, female, heroes, villains, dominant, submissive, human, nonhuman, and quite a lot inbetweens. I’ve written all sorts of genres and situations. High fantasy, urban fantasy, sci-fi, romance, BDSM, explicit sex, graphic violence. Anything from hey nonny nonny to blood all over the place. I’ve written about things I’d never want to do or have done to me or anyone else, and enjoyed it immensely. I’m having my limits stretched and my creativity stimulated constantly. I look at my first stories, a scant six months ago, and I’m amazed at how much my writing has improved with such practice.
Looking for a suitable pic for this entry, I came across this site. Please don’t read if you’re eating or drinking anything, or you will either a) short your keyboard with spluttering, or b) need the Heimlich maneuvre performed on you. Should I volunteer to contribute?
Not to be confused with Mother’s Day, but that’s exactly what’s happening.
Mothering Sunday is in fact a day in honour of the Mother Church, and in medieval times people would go to their old parishes for the day. Of course, since the old parish was likely where their family lived, they got to see their mothers as well… Later on, servants were granted the day off to go visit their mothers. It is the Sunday closest to Lady Day, the feast of the Annunciation. From there it’s just a hop, skip and jump to declaring it Mother’s Day. All that in the UK.
Most of the rest of the world still celebrates Mother’s Day on the Anna Jarvis-appointed second Sunday in May. The same is true in Greece, but doing a bit of judicious research, I found out that in the Greek Orthodox tradition, Mother’s Day is supposed to fall on the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (2 February). Well, whaddyaknow.
Still, I got my card and flowers, thinking fondly ahead to my little man actually giving such to me. Whenever you think it’s time to honour your mother in your neck of the woods, just do it. Better still, do it every day.
