I’m here to declare victory over the assorted clutter. Not that the stuff is completely vanquished as much as stacked neatly in various corners. Much of it is the kind of stuff I know I should throw away but, at the same time, wonder if I might need it. For example, I have a dock […]
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Double meaning of today’s blog post. Yes, I’m back to work but I’ve also developed a bad back. I thought it was the kind of bad back you get for sitting around too long, so after I’d finished writing an article this morning (not sure if it will appear), I thought I’d rearrange my room. […]
Continue ReadingRuth Bader Ginsburg
Every night I think I’ll get to bed early, perhaps even finish the Don Winslow which, I admit, is now turning into a struggle. Lately, I’ve been managing neither. US news always breaks late and I end up staying up to watch it, avoiding the book which, frankly, in its last 25% details constant atrocities […]
Continue ReadingFrieda
Thank Frieda it’s Friday. It has been a very long week; a whole seven days since my mum’s neck began to cause problems. Today, I thought I’d write but having read a couple of things to drive me slightly loopy with frustration, I think I’ll have a day with my nose buried in a book. […]
Continue ReadingLooking for books…
It’s been five crazily difficult days and today my ambition to come bouncing back to my usual work fell a bit flat. I’m just knackered and want to do something that helps me relax. I might draw a cartoon. I also want to find the next fiction I’ll read, preferably sci-fi. Last night, I finished […]
Continue ReadingThe Pros and Cons of Sheltering
Okay, the title is a bit clickbaitish. There’s nothing good to say about sheltering. We need rid of it and we need rid of it as soon as barely-trained medical practitioners are ready to stick ruddy big needles in my arm/neck/buttock. Yet, as I’ve written so many times over the past months, some good has […]
Continue Reading111
I’m sure anybody reading to my blog regularly (unlikely, I know) wants more of the political stuff, rather than the personal. Yet, occasionally, the personal overwhelms whatever is happening in the outer world and I haven’t had time to absorb the news. Which means on a day like today, I write about the stuff that […]
Continue ReadingVenting
Just as the writing begins (19,135 words), I remember why I moved into cartoons. It’s because I have days like yesterday and today… My mother has a bad neck. We’ve known about it for years. She has arthritis in it, which occasionally flares. It’s been fine for months but this week she’s had symptoms which […]
Continue ReadingBombshell
Surprisingly deep sleep last night yet it is now days since I had my last hayfever tablet. I guess it was an exhaustion sleep. I’d had a pretty long day and topped it off by watching Bombshell into the early hours. Looking at the IMDB this morning, I can’t help but feel it’s a grossly […]
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Day three, I think, of my new drive to write more and I’ve hit at least 1000 words a day, though today had an added 1000 because I wrote about Trump/Woodward for Reaction. Wordcount so far (including some deletions in order create a clean re-start: 17,571). In other news… The Moonshot. It is, of course, […]
Continue ReadingDune
I read Dune many years ago as a teenager and, then, I think I read it again. It’s a nailed-on sci-fi classic and was instantly one of my favourite books. The whole mythology of the fremen, the blue eyes, the spice, the worms… It was so good I remember immediately setting out to read the […]
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It’s always been an ambition to write a proper novel. I say “proper” because the novels I have written have never been, in my estimation, properly done. Even the first, which I technically sold to a publisher, wasn’t ideal. There are others, in various states of revision, in files on my computer or printed out […]
Continue ReadingToxic News
I didn’t blog yesterday and don’t entirely feel like doing it today. I guess putting the old What & The Why website into legacy mode by transferring it over to Google’s free Blogger service feels a little like the end of an era. Plus tomorrow is the last day I can hear from Private Eye […]
Continue ReadingAbbott
Spent too much of my Friday filtering my rage through a Microsoft cartoon strip which I might post later today. My anger at Microsoft hasn’t been helped by today’s emails which contain quite cheerful posts from them telling me all the great things I can do with my “new” Surface Pro. I had another email […]
Continue ReadingWhy I Wish I’d Never Bought A Microsoft Surface Pro…
It’s so typical of my luck this year… It’s only a couple of weeks ago since I wrote a piece in which I defended Bill Gates against all the toxicity that’s being directed at him and his charity work. I said at the time that I didn’t consider Microsoft one of those “bad” companies and […]
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