Month: May 2020

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How Not To Appeal To Hollywood!

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Why Sam Mendes thought that he could impress Hollywood with a perculiarly British take on World War One is beyond me. For any war film to make it in the US, it must adhere to Hollywood’s formula – Action, Action and Action. 1917 is largely devoid of this crucial element. Plus, relying on two unknowns to star in any film is simply asking for trouble!!! Not forgetting the fact that he cast two well known actors – Benedict Cumberpatch and Colin Firth in bit parts! I gave it three stars. Why? Because of the camera work – not the acting…

BTW – I sent this review to Amazon.co.uk. Ordinarily my reviews are accepted. This one wasn’t. Funny that…

PS – it finally appeared yesterday. The delay must be the electronic version of ‘social distancing’. 😉

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So who is still working?

More from Jim 😉

Jim Webster

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There has been a lot of talk about going back to work. But personally I think this is standing things on their head. Obviously in agriculture a lot of us work from home and self-isolate compulsively because we’re a miserable lot of beggars. Indeed the only people who cannot manage social distancing instinctively are Sal and Billy.

It’s not just us. Not only has agriculture been working pretty normally, but so have the ‘support industries.’ Whenever we’ve picked up a phone to order feed, parts or whatever, it’s been answered and the stuff has been delivered into our yard just as it normally would.
When it comes to selling, apart from a ‘hiccup’ when all the catering venues shut, things have rumbled along. Some dairies took a hit, especially those who had a lot of the catering market. But whilst things aren’t ‘right’, milk is being picked up and apart


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New Book!!!

Love Bob’s writing!!!

Have We Had Help?

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My good friend the award winning Flemish writer Bob Van Laerhoven has a new book out. It is a collection of five dark short stories. Here is my review and one other:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping Tales

28 January 2018

Format: Kindle Edition
Whether or not you are aware of it, whenever you take the time to read a book or in this case a series of short stories, you are entering its author’s psyche. Heart Fever is a collection of five dark tales by the award winning Flemish writer Bob Van Laerhoven. From beginning to end each story gripped me. I hope they also grip you

5.0 out of 5 stars As deep in a heart of darkness as anything Joseph Conrad ever dreamt of in a nightmare

20 January 2018

Format: Kindle Edition
No one writes quite like Bob Van Laerhoven. Though his novels stories often


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Can You Feel The Love Tonight
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Can You Feel The Love Tonight

More from Drew…

The Lonely Author

Can You Feel The Love Tonight

Plowing through messages, emails, texts, as I receive tons of phone calls. I have prepped myself and fridge for my recovery after Tuesday’s procedure. Sorry if I am late getting to your blog posts and replies.

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Behind every great man
..blah, blah, blah.

Never liked that quote. If he is a great man, he would have his woman beside him and sometimes leading the way.

That has been my personal experience.

During the past 6 months of uncertainty, there were lonely nights. Days of feeling unloved. Nights where I swore to never write another line of poetry. Moments in the darkness asking God to have mercy and let me breathe my final breath.

Every one of these moments was met with a message from an amazing lady of WordPress expressing their caring thoughts. Little did these women know, they rejuvenated my heart, breathed oxygen


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Some Career Tips Which Might Help You More Than They Helped Me!

Peter’s career tips…

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Owing to a natural lethargy this will be a short article, written in those small gaps I leave myself between rising from my bed, a mid-morning nap, luncheon and the afternoon snooze. Still, in the brief time available, let me slip a couple of life-tips out into the blogosphere! The question is, how does an undirected, unambitious individual of moderate ability, that is most of us, make anything of themselves in this complex and driven world?

I’ve no idea, of course, but lack of knowledge never stopped anyone giving advice so lets plunge in with two ‘low-effort goodies’ which helped get me within sight of the mountain top at my county council health and safety department ; a pinnacle of achievement unhorsed, to mix my metaphors, when a rogue hair dryer electrocuted a visiting dignitary and my head rolled in the customary manner, leaving me free to offer my advice


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I just had to share this with you…

Despite positive reviews, is Autumn 1066 a runaway success?

Have We Had Help?

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Autumn 1066 isn’t even ready for publishing quite yet. But that didn’t stop one of its beta-readers Martin Bradley from feeling he had to not only write the pre-publication 10 – 12 word advertising review I asked for, but also a full length one.

Here is what he said:-

In Autumn 1066, author Jack Eason gives a great sense of ‘place’, of detail. The reader is right ‘there’ in that poignant year, marching, shivering with September cold (as ‘
no warming fires were allowed lest ‘enemy spies would soon spot their approach.’) From the very first few lines, Eason, practising his unique drycraft, begins to weave his particular brand of magic on his reader. Eason glamours with well-crafted dialogue, drawing his reader into the time and into the action. To accomplish this, the author proffers a gentle blend of informative nomenclature coupled with familiar speech, to ease the reader into his


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En Plein Air

Catching up with Stephie…

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How long had we been looking forward to May 4th, the day of the lockdown ease in Italy? Two months. A long time indeed. What shall I remember most of this period? The singing on the balcony every evening at 6.00pm right after watching the daily bulletin of Covid-19 victims or the frightening number on my scale as the result the absurd amount of food I have swallowed in these months, mostly carbs – and I can distictly see them all deposited right here đŸ˜±- ? Now that I am thinking about it, I have to say that my time has been spent in the company of screens mostly, whether it was that for smart working/on line lessons or the tv screen. I have watched the 200 and more episodes of “How I  met your mother” (brilliant), four seasons of “How to get away with murder” (super), “Unorthodox”(great), 3 seasons


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It was a long time coming…

Love positive reviews…

Have We Had Help?

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but well worth the wait. Here is what the Flemish author of the award winning crime novel Baudelair’s Revenge – Bob Van Laerhoven, had to say about my extremely short historical novella Autumn 1066.

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As a Fleming, I knew that my knowledge of Britain’s entry into the Middle Ages was sketchy before I started reading Jack Eason’s Autumn 1066, but, after having read his novella, I must admit that it was also based on clichĂ©s and vague concepts. Autumn 1066 remedied this thoroughly. Eason has the gift of condensing and presenting historical facts in such a way that, although manifold and thoroughly researched, they hinder in no way the suspense of his war-story. Eason paints a clear portrait of the growing tensions between various factions competing for the throne, and the leaders of  various armies, but also of the common soldiers, ordinary men who were forced to fight


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Isaac Newton and Samuel Pepys, or what did YOU do in isolation?

The new situation normal…

Joy Lennick

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It is fortunately not often that millions of people on our planet find themselves in such a similar, dire situation, except in wars and epidemics, and so many, brave individuals have, in this present, horrific coronavirus situation, paid the ultimate price for their unselfishness in caring for the sick and dying. We should feel eternally grateful and humbled. I am.

NASA_newton4048_regHarking back to the truly dreadful plague of 1665: it was said that a five-year-old boy named John Morley was found dead at his home in Cambridge with black spots on his chest in July 1665 and became the town’s first bubonic plague victim. Townspeople started to isolate, and a young scholar at Trinity College named Isaac Newton fled to his home farm in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire to study. In the two years he was there, he studied calculus, created the science of motion and unravelled gravity, or so it was


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