28 December
Bernard Cribbens
Someone on Twitter says that Bernard Cribbens is 93 ‘today’ and would people like to wish him happy birthday? Of course I would. I love his early songs, his inaccurate chiselling of ‘public’ in A Home of Your Own, and his portrayal of the stationmaster in The Railway Children, not to mention performances in Fawlty Towers and various Carry On films of yesteryear. So I wrote:Happy Birthday! I’d buy you some winkle pickers, but perhaps you would prefer bootees. Does anyone reading this know what that means?
12 October
Made my day
Sometime before my birthday in August I noticed that no. 7 of my SFBC collection was missing. Horror! No. 7 is Asimov’s I, Robot and I anticipated trouble getting hold of a replacement. No family members were up to the task, so I searched around... ... and searched around... ... and eventually discovered a copy up for sale through Abe Books from somebody putting it up for sale in Australia. Well, I ordered it and hoped for the best (having already ordered what appeared to be the right edition from somewhere else, and it turned out not to be). And today it arrived in the post, all the way from Australia! Now I have a complete set, from number 1 (Earth Abides by George R Stewart, SFBC edition 1953), right up to about number 300. Seeing the parcel sitting in the porch covered with about a million stamps made my day.
11 October
No Comment
Until no. 2 son finds the time to fix the problem (probably 2030, and I don’t mean half past eight), the facility to make comments to these posts is disabled. Why? Blame crawler advertising bots who kept posting comments promoting all sorts of weird things, or just making purely nonsense comments, for what purpose I can’t imagine.
27 September
English as she is spoke
Lots of irritating speech blips nowadays. A long time ago, it was people always saying ‘y’know’ in every sentence, often more than once in a sentence. Some people still do it, but it’s not as prevalent as it used to be. Now we have people who start sentences with ‘so’.’Did you have a good day?’ ’So it was all right, could’ve been better.’ And then, probably the same people run out of steam, pause and say ‘yeah’, and start repeating themselves.’So it was all right, could’ve been better, but it was warm and the rain held off and...yeah, it was all right...’ Grammar is also getting a battering. I texted son no. 3 to ask how his swimming competition panned out. His reply? ’Yeh, it went good.’ Oh well, I suppose that was only a text. I’m going to lay down (sic) now and try and (sic) get over myself.
19 September
To watch or watch out for
Because cinemas have been largely closed for what seems like ages, there are films out there I haven’t yet seen, and other upcoming films that I don’t know if I’m going to be able to see, especially as sitting in a cinema for more than two hours wearing a mask doesn’t fill me with great joy. Note to self: keep an eye open for the following: No Time To Die, Dune, Eternals, Spiderman: No Way Home, The Matrix Resurrections. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Widow, The Suicide Squad andThe Green Knight. No doubt reviews of these films will appear in the list over to the right, in due course.
20 August
Coming in September
I have just learned that Wheel of Time is being filmed (has been filmed) by Amazon, and will appear in the UK in September. Can’t wait. ‘What’s Wheel of Time?’ asks son no. 3. ‘A sort of cross between Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones,’ I say. So in due course we will be able to watch LOTR, GoT and WoT. And, of course, D. If you don’t know what D is, be ashamed of yourself.
25 July
Nerd typos
So I have not long read this:
Before the advent of the Big Bang, physical theories were necessarily limited…
to which a colleague replied that an early FORTRAN manual apparently included this gem:
The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
Heh. I can only assume FORTRAN was originally constructed in Indiana.
19 July
Driving to Glasgow
Sheesh, I think my car will probably drive to Glasgow all on its own now. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I went up to Tollcross every day, as Boy 3 was swimming in a competition there. (He did ‘about as well as could be expected’, given that this is the first competition for well over a year.) Of course, parents weren’t allowed inside, so we all sat outside in our cars and those without convertibles no doubt broiled, ha. And now today, Monday, I’m off again, this time to meet my publisher at Sparsile Books. Excitement would reign, if it were not so hot. But I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be in this position, and also not to have to worry about marketing and suchlike, at all of which I am hopeless.
23 June
PUBLISHED!
So Kindred Spirit is finally ‘out there’. I received my author copies the other day, and jolly good they look too. You can get a copy by ordering at Waterstones, from the Kindle store, or from Barnes and Noble. I have a feeling the publisher is going to add some other outlets in due course, too. You can see all this sitting nicely on the Sparsile Books website.
28 April
Sparsile Books (4)
So I have seen the proofread manuscript and I’m now awaiting a hard copy for final approval. In the meantime, Kindred Spirit has been promoted on Twitter, and is now available to pre-order from Waterstones and Foyle’s. Here is the Waterstones link.
Not long now to launch - 21 June, to be precise.
10 April
Electric car
Both Hyundai and Kia have refused to say how many miles their cars will travel on a charge, driving in winter on a motorway. Hyundai dropped their estimate from 300 miles to 220-240 in cold weather, but neglected to say this included motorway driving and, when pressed, declined to make any projection. Kia just didn’t give any figures. So we won’t be getting an electric car just now, after our sad experience with the Corsa e. We will find a cheap petrol car to lease for three years, during which time I am sure more electric cars will come onstream.
26 March
Sparsile Books (3)
Sparsile Books are making progress with publishing Ghosts. For a start, the title has been changed to Kindred Spirit, which is an improvement. My inked-in portrait is now on the Sparsile website, for those brave enough to look for it. The book cover is also now visible, along with a blurb. In short, the ground is being prepared. Right now the book is being proofread (ooh-er). Once that’s done I shall be able to see the result and presumably typesetting will follow. Getting there!
21 March
Corsa e (2)
After a few emails back and forth, I eventually persuaded Arnold Clark to take the car in to check it for themselves. This might or might not have been influenced by my threat to tell everyone I knew what a difficult time I was having. But to give them their due, they kept the car for two weeks and then reported that the results were ‘variable’. Translated, this means I was right all along. So the dealership has taken the car back (and made the consequent refunds). We are now looking for a replacement e-car that will do a little better on the range front. No doubt a report will follow in due course.
01 March
Corsa e
Last year we decided to start saving the world and buy an electric car. My ‘red line’ was to be able to get to Edinburgh and back (approx 140 miles), and since the Corsa e advertising blurb promised 211 miles, that seemed ideal. Of course, we didn’t go anywhere for a while, because of lockdown, but on Christmas Eve we ventured up to Glasgow to do a Father Christmas drop-off expedition, only to find that the car couldn’t manage that far. We had to turn around and come back home. I calculate I might have got 80 miles on the full charge, but it would have been a close thing. Needless to say, I am in what might be called a vigorous discussion with Arnold Clark (Ayr’s Vauxhall dealership) about this. Trading Standards are also interested. We shall see what we shall see over the next few weeks.