30 May
My right
hip began playing up again yesterday again. At least we hadn’t made any plans
to go anywhere. I’m due to visit Vampire Hall up at the Hussy at 8am for a
fasting blood test tomorrow morning. We looking forward to that cos we don’t do
early mornings. Still, it gets it done out of the way I suppose.
Facebook
again; I’ve come across another writer here in Dorktown, Robert Southworth.
Robert writes historical fiction and the one I’m reading on my kindle right now
is Spartacus, first in a set of
three. A lot of us older folk are perhaps used to seeing Spartacus dying on a
cross at the end of Kirk Douglas film. Robert however keeps our man alive and
sends him off on a mission with a Roman guy. There’s not much trust between
them to start off with, but it does come slowly.
And that
is where I am trying to get to – at what point does historical fiction stray
into the world of fantasy? As far as I am aware, Spartacus is a myth anyway, so
all the books that say differently are a fantasy too. This is the first such
book I have read, and it’s not a bad read either, so I can only judge this one.
It certainly shows to twisted and cruel Romans in a bad light, but there again,
we already knew that anyway. The events on the story take place over two millennia
ago, so it’s fairly safe to play with the history. But what of other closer
times? There are fiction stories already coming out from the second Golf War
and Afghanistan. Are they fantasy, or they just adventure novels? In the end I
don’t suppose it really matter if you enjoy reading them.
Remaining
on Facebook for now then … one of the groups on there I’m a member of is for
the Army Catering Corps. I know a few of the guys on there at least, but
although the Corps was small, the number of soldiers who served in it is quite
large. Anyway, one of our members posted a photo of a 24 hour ration pack.
These packs were given to soldiers when they were an exercise in the filed for
the full 24 hours. I’ve seen a lot of those packs my friends, but the one in
that photo was issued after I left the Corps in 1979. It had Oxo cubes in it,
along with Spangles (remember those?) and Rollos too.
Those Oxo
cubes got me thinking about the ones we have in our kitchen cupboard and how
many of them get wasted after they have gone hard and are difficult to crumble
up. After a tip on Facebook, I now crush them while still in their foil
packaging. So much easier. Now though, we only buy the smaller number boxes,
usually 12 cubes. Only to cut down on the waste though. I used to have one crumbled
in a mug with the hot water as a drink, now I don’t, I wonder why?
We
writers are advised to keep a notebook to hand for whenever an idea comes to
us. Then we can make a note of it, like this morning while sat here typing
this, a thought came to mind, I made a note of it before I forgot about it.
There’s quite a few notebooks around here right now, like the one sat here beside
me, they get a lot of use. What’ve notice however, is just how few of those
notes actually get used. The three subjects mentioned here this morning are all
listed in my note book, so they have been used. I’ve just looked back through
it and I can see just how few of them do get taken up and used.
In this
notebook, I found the start of a story I had noted down. Its start is based in
a pub with a man found dead in disabled toilet. He was carrying a copy of Michael
Connerly’s The Poet, and the lead investigator
shivers when he sees that the deceased had made a note of one particular
passage in that book. That passage was just six words; ‘Out of space; out of
time.’ I was reading the book when this idea came to my mind and those six
words gave a nudge to make a note of it. So yes, some of the notes I make do
get used.
Today’s
photo …
A much better shot of Maxi that Jan got yesterday.
Today’s
funny …
Because they don't have pockets to put things in.
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