The BEEB, a printer and a killer

31 July 2013

The BEEB has finally got the forecast right!  They forecast rain all day and that's just we've had.  Good job we hadn't planned anything for today then eh?

While I was in Devon Jan went off to see her sister again.  She came back here with an Epson continuous ink printer/scanner/fax machine.  I spent some time yesterday trying to get it set up.  It has installed but the disc with the Windows 7 drivers won't load.  I shall try again soon but if not I shall have to go and get me a new one.  This Epson is 4 years old anyway. 

The News has a sad story in the front page this morning; sad and sickening!  A 57 year old lady living in a flat just off the town centre was attacked in her home and killed - with a garden folk.  The killer then walked off around the town centre, bought himself a fast meal, drew some cash out of his victim's bank.  He later told a number of people of what he had done.  Anyway, he was found guilty but couldn't be sentenced cos he was ill and couldn't travel to court.  Now he has to wait till September to find out what sentence he will face - unless he pulls another sickie that is.

I've been enjoying Peter James's Roy Grace novels.  He has Grace watching suspect's eyes during interview and the claim is that depending which way his eyes go when he answers is an indication of if he is telling the truth or not.  It's all down to left and right sided brains, one being a creative side, t'ther being the factual side.  To make sure he knows which side is which Grace asks a simple control question, something like, "What is your name please?"  It all sounds good in the novels, but just how real is it.  To try to find out I have bought Psychology for Dummies  and Teach Yourself Psychology in an attempt to find out.  If it right, then I hope the crims don't pick up on it and try to use to fool the cops.  That would be a sad day.

Today's photo is of a MG ... 

It seemed to catch the mood for a lot of women did this car.  I say that guardedly in as much as I don't remember seeing many men driving one.  Same happened years ago with the original BMC wedge, the A 45.

And another short funny today ...            

A lady inserted an ad in the classifieds:
'Husband Wanted'.
Next day she received a hundred letters.
They all said the same thing:
'You can have mine.'

Simon's blog, dogs and two gold fish

30 July 2013

One of the blogs I read on a regular basis is this one by Writers Bureau tutor Simon Whaley  http://simonwhaleytutor.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/one-of-those-weeks.html   Yesterday's blog was about how life in general get's in the way of all writers and their plans.  In Simon's case, it was all to his benefit - eventually!  One such item was his writer's copy of his latest book The Bluffer's Guide to Dogs.  It struck a cord with me.

I love dogs, all dogs; big or small, hairy of bald, yappers or woofers, dogs are just simply great.  Yet we don't have one, so why not?  Well, two reasons really.  One is that we are just not able to care for a dog now.  While I was able to walk and clean up after a dog we were OK; but now I can do neither of them and it's wrong to keep an animal you can't care properly.  The second reason is that we now live in a one bed roomed ground floor council flat.  It we had a dog when we first moved in then we could keep it but we couldn't replace it at any time.

In the past we have had a few dogs and cats.  All of the cats managed to pick up infections and die from them.  Not a happy state of affairs at all.  As for the dogs, two stand out for us ... 

Sally-pup at the sea side, and ... 

Cindy-pup.

As an eight week old pup Sally looked just like one of the Andrex bog roll pups.  She was great dog and loved to be out and about.  I walked around a lake in Bed'th twice a day and off she would go - all of about 20 feet from me and then stop to make sure I was still there following her.  She never tried to run off anywhere. 

Cindy was as different again; not only was she a Yorkie Duff and therefore a lot smaller that Sally, but her personality was totally different.  Here's another shot her in her favourite spot ...  

Cindy was Jan's birthday present but very much my dog.  We're sure that when she died at three and half years old, that she knew what was happening.  She lay with Jan hidden under a blanket and by the time we found her she was well gone.  Both of us were heartbroken to lose her.

Now of course we sort of adopt every dog we see on the streets; just for a few minutes of course so we can give them a fuss, which most of them love.  Do we have any pets now?  Well, yes, we have two gold fish and few little minnow like fish.  They don't need to be taken for a walk - thankfully ;-)))

I also like vintage cars and bikes.  I found this one ... 

at the Ponderosa Cafe at the top of Horse Shoe Pass in Wales the other day.

And now for a funny ...

At a cocktail party, one woman said to another,
'Aren't you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?'
'Yes, I am. I married the wrong man.'      

Magazines, writing and things to avoid?

29 July 2013

Here we are, 29 July and in this morning post my copy of Writing Magazine arrived.  No problem there of course but it's the September issue!  It seems all such single subject magazines work the same with both my birding and photo mags arriving well in advance.  I can see the sense in it with some of them.  Like the photo mags writing about autumn shots a couple of months early.  It allows the photographer to do any research of sites they might want o visit.  It's a similar thing with the birding mags.

Writing Magazine does a similar thing but is more idea focuses by publishing a column called Editorial Calendar (page 20 in the new edition).  Here they list a number of anniversaries and dates months in advance to give an idea as to what to write and when to write.  This new mag even has two dates for 2015!  Now that what I call advanced planning.

I wonder if like me writers get stumped for names for their characters.  I've made one up for my new Fred Cooper novel.  An elderly lady and her son are called Tubman.  But I do wonder at times just how far we writers can go in making up names.  It seems that there is no limit seeing as there is an actor called Rip Torn!  So I wasn't all that surprised when I read of a local man with the surname Badland in today's News.  Now I suspect that is one I wouldn't have thought of.       

And talking of Writing Magazine ... I've read in there at various times some of the ideas that we shouldn't use.  One of them is introducing a twin in the twist at the end of story.  My House of Pain has a twins in it; but at least the show up right at the start and it's made clear what is happening with them.  So I wonder how Peter James gets away with it in his Roy Grace novel Not Dead Enough.  It's not a bad story but it fairly obvious that there is an evil twin at the root of one the problems of Brian Bishop, one the main non-cop character.

Not so long ago there was programme on telly about Ian Rankin and how he gets his ideas and what he does for research.  We see him start to write his next book, and later he has the full print out of the first draft.  That book is called Standing in Another Man's Grave.  I saw it at the M5 services I stopped at a couple of weeks ago.  I bought it and one other - there was an offer on, buy one and get one half price.  The other one I bought was a John Grisham.  Whatever, I've read the Rankin and it's a good read.  Looking forward to starting the Grisham after the James I'm currently reading. 

In 1997 we bought our first computer, a very low spec Packard Bell which we got from Currys.  Soon after that I enrolled for a couple of computer courses at the local college.  Now all the way through those courses, and I've done more than few, I was taught that at the need of a sentence comes a full stop followed by two spaces.  Now I've read that in publishing you only leave one space, not two.  Trying to change after so many years is hard and I keep forgetting.  I wonder how other feel about it?  Ah well ... ... ...

So now to find a photo ... ah yes ... 

the girl of my dreams in Barmouth.

And an Irish funny ...

 
A large woman, wearing a sleeveless Sundress, walked into a bar in Dublin, Ireland. She raised her right arm, revealing a huge, hairy armpit as she pointed to all the people sitting at the bar and asked, "What man here will buy a woman a drink?" The bar went silent as the patrons tried to ignore her. But down at the end of the bar, an owly-eyed drunk slammed his hand down on the counter and bellowed, "Give the ballerina a drink! "The bartender poured the drink, and the woman chugged it down. She turned to the patrons and again pointed around at all of them, revealing the same hairy armpit, and asked, "What man here will buy a lady a drink?" Once again, the same little drunk slapped his money down on the bar and said, "Give the ballerina another Drink!" The bartender approached the little drunk and said, "Tell me, Paddy, it's your business if you want to buy the lady a drink, but why do you keep calling her the ballerina?" The drunk replied, "Any woman who can lift her leg that high has got to be a ballerina!"               

Work, a day of rest and a possible change

28 July 2013

Sunday is meant to be a day of rest, yeah, I bet!!!  So far I've managed to sit still for half an hour to have a coffee.  And yet there is still a lot to do really.  I suppose that I should be used to this seeing as it's nothing new.  Still, I wouldn't have minded going for the day, but I got up late - again!!!  There's a full line of washing out on the line and I'm trying to keep an eye on that too in case it starts raining.

I was quite pleased with things yesterday; I managed to get around 2,000 words done on the new Fred Cooper novel.  That's the first in several weeks, and makes the total so far 25,000 words.  And guess what?  There's no murders yet!  That might change shortly though seeing as one of my characters has disappeared with a hippy-type character.  The cops are looking for him anyway.  That's enough for now, can't give too much away.

I've been thinking about my first novel, The Mission.  At one point I have something happened that could with changing.  It's all to do with falling rocks but I think a laser pen light would work better really.  I'll think it through a bit more first.

How much printing do you do?  I don't do all that much really so when my last Epson gave up the ghost I bought another sub-£100 inkjet, a Kodak one that produces some very good photos and a text documents.  Jan went to see her sister a couple of weeks ago and came back with a bloomin great big Epson continuous ink printer and four large bottles of ink.  It belong to her brother-in-law Keith but he doesn't need it now.  See, they are up-sticking and going off to Thailand to live.  I haven't set up the printer yet but I have got as far as moving the Kodak over to Jan's workstation for her to set up and use.  I suppose I will have to get on with it and get it all sorted out sometime today; see, yet more work to do!

 
Today's photo then ... 

is not very sharp but it's a shot of two randy wood pigeons. 
 

And today's funny ...

Nurses aren't supposed to laugh....

'Of course I won't laugh, said the nurse. I'm a professional. In over twenty years I've never laughed at a patient.'
'Okay then,' said Fred, and he proceeded to drop his trousers, revealing the tiniest 'man thingy' the nurse had ever seen.
Length and width, it couldn't have been any bigger than a AAA battery.
Unable to control herself, the nurse started giggling, then fell to the floor laughing.
Ten minutes later, she was able to struggle to her feet and regain her composure.
'I am so sorry,' she said. 'I don't know what came over me. On my honor as a nurse and a lady, I promise it won't happen again. Now, tell me, what seems to be the problem?'
'It's swollen,' Fred replied.
She ran out of the room