Many thanks to author Linzé Brandon for hosting a guest post by me, on time management, (http://linzebrandon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/managing-online-distractions-guest-post.html). Please do check out Linzé’s other posts and, of course her books which can be accessed here, (http://linzebrandon.blogspot.co.uk/).
Phantom table moving in time with the darkened train. My hand resting on the table summons a ghostly hand reflected back in the window. The unreal hand moves, or is it mine? Solid table, ghostly object mingle in the black night. What is real? What a dagger of the mind?
A reminder that today is National Poetry Day in the UK and Ireland, together with a poem from Ali which I greatly enjoyed reading. Kevin
My mum and her partner will be visiting from tonight until Tuesday 7 October and, of course we will be doing lots of family things together which I am looking forward to! This means that I won’t be blogging (well not quite so much) over the next few days. However don’t break open the champagne just yet. I will be back, like it or not from Tuesday. You have been warned!
London is a melting pot with people from all parts of the world living, working and sometimes loving together. The lady who assists me in formatting my books and other administrative tasks is black British. Her boyfriend is white. This is, to me a sign of progress, that love and friendship can overcome racial and other differences.
Unfortunately not everyone thinks in the same way. Yesterday evening as I sat in my favourite Indian restaurant enjoying a curry I overheard the following snatch of conversation
Man, “Enoch Powell was right”.
Fellow diner sitting on an adjacent table, “Yes”.
Back in April 1968, the late Enoch Powell (a member of Edward Heath’s Conservative Shadow Cabinet) delivered what has come to be known as “The Rivers of Blood” speech, so called because of the line
“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like
the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.'”
Powell was referring to the racial conflict which he believed would flow from allowing non-white immigrants into the United Kingdom. He called for “voluntary repatriation” of non-white immigrants and opposed the introduction of anti-discrimination legislation.
The speech lead to Powell’s dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet and is, to this day still sighted by opponents of a multi racial society.
I have known the owner of the Indian restaurant for many years. He and his staff are wonderful, kind, charming people and it is particularly sad that a customer chose to invoke Powell’s views on race in an approving manner in that restaurant. I wonder if the speaker considered the irony of his support for Powell’s sentiments as he sat enjoying his curry in an Indian restaurant which (had Powell had his way) would, in all probability not have existed. I doubt that this gentleman has much capacity for self examination so the answer is, almost certainly no.
Ultimately love and friendship cut across racial lines and Powell’s views are, thankfully slowly dying out.
For information on Powell’s speech please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech
The baby nestled in your loving hands. Your soft caresses elicit no response from it’s dead, metallic body. You fall asleep and dream of texts, the phone grasped in your warm, cyborg hand.
An interesting post (although I must add that I have no personal experience of any of the presses mentioned here).
Author and e-Book Builder Deena Rae wrote in one of her blogs:
“The world of publishing has always been filled with scammers, and top of the list are vanity publishers. To those who have been in the world of publishing a vanity press used to be a bad thing, but with Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and even Harlequin getting into bed with AuthorHouse / AuthorSolutions to form so-called subsidiary presses. Now there is a sheen of “respectability” to vanity publishing…
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Want to know which vanity publishers I personally find the worst? This is based just on my own research, observations and studying of lots of “publishing contracts”. Top of the list are the ones that are operating under so many names and changing them so often, one can barely keep up with listing them:
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An Autumn evening. The park deserted save for me and my dog. A solitary birds sings. Entranced I stand, his song bringing thoughts of sorrow comingled with joy. Beauty, pain and happiness, contradictory emotions stir within my breast.
The lonely bird continues to sing, his voice filling the darkening park.
Distant sound of traffick. I linger, reluctant to break the spell.
Later, the pub full of noise. Yet, through the din I fancy, dim and distant, the singing of the birds can be heard.
We have all done things in life which we later regret. As a child (teenager) I owned a Braille edition of The Little Oxford Dictionary Of Current English. I regularly consulted the dictionary (all 16 braille volumes of it)! To ascertain the meaning of words with which I was unfamiliar. It was an invaluable resource and, in retrospect I can not, for the life of me recollect why I decided to donate The Little Oxford to The National Library For The Blind in Stockport (UK). My decision to donate was no doubt connected with the proliferation of online dictionaries (why retain a dictionary which occupies a whole bookshelf when one can ascertain the same information by logging onto Google or another internet search engine of your choosing)? However I now regret my hasty decision, and wishing to obtain an updated replacement I logged onto the Royal National Institute Of Blind People’s (RNIB’s) website, only to discover that the Dictionary is no longer available in Braille.
Why the desire for a paper dictionary? Online dictionaries are convenient in that they do not take up shelf space. In addition an internet work of reference can (unlike it’s print counterpart) be easily updated. However online dictionaries (the free ones at any rate) tend to be chock full of advertisements (I hate wading through ads to find what I am looking for). Additionally I dislike being online while writing. The ideal, for me at least is to turn off my mobile, log off the internet and close e-mail thereby ensuring that I can concentrate, 100 percent on my writing. Also, to be frank I like leafing through paper dictionaries, perhaps at the age of 45 this love of traditional sources of reference is ineradicable. I suspect that in years to come paper dictionaries will become quite collectable. It will be a talking point when someone has on their shelves a copy of the last print edition of The Oxford English Dictionary but, in the meantime I still regret the loss of my 16 volumes!
http://newauthoronline.com/2014/04/21/shed-a-tear-for-the-oed/
I posted on 17 September regarding my idea to raise money for the Guide Dogs For The Blind Association (GDBA) by producing an anthology of stories and poems, (http://newauthoronline.com/2014/09/17/possible-anthology-to-raise-money-for-guide-dogs/). Many thanks to everyone who reblogged and agreed to provide material. I have now received the first story from Sally Cronin, (http://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/), – Many thanks Sally! A big thank you also goes to Dave Higgins for his kindness in agreeing to edit the anthology free of charge.
The anthology is still in need of contributors. If you haven’t already agreed to contribute and would like to do so please contact me at newauthoronline (@) gmail . com (the address is rendered thus to try and defeat spammers).
Many thanks,
Kevin
