Workers, cheap books and the lottery

22 January 2013

7.30 this morning the alarm woke me and I got up ready for the workmen to arrive between 8 and 8.30.  Here it is. 9.10 and they are still not here!  I've heard some movement out in the front hall but whoever it was they  haven't come here.  A guy has turned up with a delivery of stuff they will need when they do get here though.

Like every writer I dream of being 'discovered' and having my books go best sellers.  If any writer says differently, they dreaming a bit too much or telling porkies.  But I'm wondering just how much money can be made from book writing.  It seems that the writing itself is the easy bit; the hard work comes when you try to market your work.  Right now there arguments about the merits or lack thereof with going with a traditional publisher or doing your own through Amazon.  Even a deal with one of the big six won't guarantee you a lot of sales or a lot of dosh if your work does sell.  Yesterday as I was leaving Asda I saw display of paperbacks.  I would love to support a local book shop but we don't have one. there's Waterstones or Smudges places.  Both do deals on books but nowhere near as good as Asda at £1 a book.  I bought five off the display.  I can't see the writers getting much from that!

Camelot is doubling the price of a lottery tick from some time in the autumn.  That would be ok I suppose if they were doubling the prize money, but that isn't happening.  So where will the extra money go then?  When it first started the main prize was a decent amount, then in their wisdom they decided to begin a mid-week lottery too.  The result was a fall in the sales and therefore in the prize money on the Saturday draw.  Did they really think that by starting a new draw that players would suddenly find extra money to play both games?  They were daft if they did!  All that happened was less money was spent on the Saturday draw, that's all.  Camelot's profit or the good causes pool didn't get any larger though.  £1 to a pinch of salt something similar will happen when the price doubles too!

I've had a strange email come in to my Blackberry.  To get rid of them you have to open them first on there.  OK, the email was from someone I don't know telling that someone else I don't know has died.  I'm now wondering if it's a scam building up.  If I get anymore I shall mark them as junk and leave them alone.  I shall soon see.

The postie has just been and pushed a lot of stuff through the letter box.  Among them are my copies of Birdwatch and Bird Watching  mags.  That's my reading for today sorted then.  There is also another one in a brown envelope that has been redirected which I haven't opened yet.  I think it is a copy of the newsletter from the local birding club even though I am no longer a member.  Their first meeting of 2013 was last Thursday evening but I really wasn't up to going to it to renew my membership.  Hopefully things will be better for next months.

The work man has at last turned up, at 10.00am.  He's from Northampton; the local guy hasn't turned up again it seems.  Ah well; ... ... ...

It's a really nice bright day now and I can't go out and enjoy it.  Damn!!!  So I shall now find a photo ... 

a pochard, a rather pretty duck.

Today's funny I saw yesterday and thought it was great - even if it is well out of date.  But here it is anyway ...

A US army platoon was marching north through Helmand when they came upon an insurgent, badly injured and unconscious.
On the opposite side of the road was a British soldier in a similar but less serious state. The soldier was conscious and alert and, as first aid was given to both men, the platoon leader asked the injured soldier what had happened.
The soldier reported, "I was moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent.
We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road.
I yelled to him that the Taliban were miserable, lowlife scumbags who got what they deserved, and he yelled back that Gordon Brown is a fat, useless, lying one-eyed Jock, and Lord Mandelson is a pillow biting poofter!
So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and ponces about like a frigid, hatchet faced lesbian.
He retaliated by yelling, "Oh yeah? Well, so does Harriet Harman!"
"And, there we were, in the middle of the road, shaking hands, when a sodding bus hit us."