There’s nothing that the citizens of Kanadoodle love more than watching a good political punch-up in ‘Murica. Ronald Rump, the Grand High Imperial Twitterbug in ‘Murica right now, has more detractors in Kanadoodle than any politician in living memory – including candidates from either side of the border. The GHIT just seems to go against …
Memories
The older we get, the more we realize how fragile are the tendrils of our memories. How many episodes from childhood do we have, still hidden in our memories, waiting for a trigger that will release them after being submerged for decades? I’ve mentioned before that I collected first edition children’s books for many years, …
So Many Blogs, So Little Time
One of the blogs I follow, PoojaG of ‘lifesfinewhine’: https://lifesfinewhine.com/2020/06/12/5-ways-to-keep-readers-coming-back-to-your-blog/ offers tips on expanding the number of ‘followers’ you have. There are, apparently, those who attempt to carve out their life’s work in blogosphere and the bigger the following, the more likely you’ll attract advertisers willing to pay you for the privilege of gracing your …
Collecting Roald Dahl – Pictures Pt. 2
If you avoided the last blog, this is yet another you should skip. I'm continuing with pictures of magazine covers where the first publications of Dahl's articles or short stories are to be found/collected. This is actually proving to be more difficult that I first imagined. I discovered that a number of my photos, taken …
Collecting Roald Dahl Pictures Pt. 1
Collecting Roald Dahl – Magazine images I have been a great fan of the late Roald Dahl for a lot of years. I’ve written about collecting his books in this blog and, with the encouragement of another Dahl fan, Kristine Howard who runs a Dahl website - https://www.roalddahlfans.com/collecting/where-to-buy/roald-dahl-a-collectors-guide-to-his-first-editions/ I’m planning to enhance the earlier blog …
The Perfect Margarita
Those loving hot weather with a cool beverage in hand may find a margarita an irresistible temptation. Forget about clunky glasses rimmed with salt and sickly sweet mixes that detract from the delights of the real thing. The original ingredients are quite simple: 2 parts tequila, 1 part lime juice and 1 part Cointreau (i.e. …
Preparing Church Music in the Age of COVID
My wife has been a church organist for over fifty years. Like most churches in the early age of COVID, hers closed its doors and wrestled with how to do a service on-line, something that up to now has been the domain of the TV evangelists. She was encouraged to provide an account of how …
A Book Contest – Evaluating the Evaluation
I’m sure most of us have the experience of writing a government-sponsored exam. It may not be one of our favorite memories. However, not many of us have experience in marking any of these dreaded exams. Over my thirty plus years of teaching, I had several opportunities to work on marking teams for provincial writing …
For Sale – Four Horses and One Apocalypse
“What is wrong with those people?” I happened to be wandering by the Corral when I overheard the conversation between four of the old hands who’d just ridden in after a hard day in the fields. The one speaking was shaking head as he turned his red horse to face the other three, sitting sadly …
A Book Contest, Prizes and Reviews – Part Two
In my last blog I outlined the BookLife Prize for authors with unpublished/self-published books. If you need the criteria for the contest, it’s in my last blog, where I mentioned entering all three of my novels for evaluation: ‘The Odin Incident’, ‘Punto’ and ‘Punto and Me’ (all these novels have excerpts in earlier blogs if …
Continue reading A Book Contest, Prizes and Reviews – Part Two
Richard's Left Bank 