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Superheroes and Villains

One of the advantages of a multi-author site is in the variety of posts. While we may not like all the flavourings, there’s still much to savour. We all have our areas of expertise and they should be respected as such. We have specialists on a wide range of topics. Some of them maybe not as important as others. This doesn’t matter, you never know when a useless piece of information can come in handy.

One of my strong points is my wealth of knowledge about the graphic comics world, specifically Marvel Comics, particularly the 70’s and 80’s; referred to in the industry as the Bronze Age of Comic Books. I may have lost the frisson on the reading of a Marvel nowadays but I still possess Galactusian information about the brand. You know how it is. Sometimes you can process certain data and recall it with astonishing ease depending on whether a subject interests you or not. The exciting escapades of the costumed characters captivated me through childhood. N.B. Stan Lee loved his alliteration. Continue reading “Superheroes and Villains”

A Spaghetti Westcentric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=secH1UUUiMA

You could tell it was going to end in trouble. Let’s have a Mexican night, said one of the gang. So there we were- sombreros, ponchos and Zapata moustaches sitting in the back garden swigging tequila from the bottle waiting for the senoritas to bring us our grub. It was just as the jalapeno poppers stuffed with cheese and crab was placed on the table that this dangerous specimen crawled out of the woodwork.

Continue reading “A Spaghetti Westcentric”

The shortest horror story ever written

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

This terrifying tale, Knock, was written by Fredric Brown based on a plot by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. It’s a little story with a big history.

Seeing this yarn as a challenge to myself because I do write exceedingly short stories I wanted to outdo or out little perhaps Brown’s vignette. The bin was overflowing with discarded foolscap of inferior text and threatening to drown me with paper. Struggling to breathe over the sea of A4 at last I finished my saga.

I tap your shoulder. Boo.

These five little words are cinematic in their scope. Consider it, how many times has the camera frightened the audience by giving them a sudden jerk by revealing quickly an unknown entity in their midst. This trick is called in the game- the jump scare. My “jump scare” short story may be filmed, we’ll have to wait and see. The text is frightening enough what will it be like accompanied by creepy music?

http://youtu.be/mAf2a_poeqw

My publisher informed me that Quick Books are interested in my work. Quick books are a new company that specialise in condensing major pieces of fiction making them accessible for readers that don’t have time to complete the full novel. Therefore they will be printing an abridged version of my tour-de-force. I am quite happy to re-print the Quick Books adaptation here for your delectation.

Boo.

At the end of the page

What I don’t understand is why anyone would want to own or read The Mystery of Edwin Drood or The Love of the Last Tycoon. These unfinished masters are best left alone just as it’s wasteful listening to a rough uncut demo from a rock band; this is not the polished diamond of official recordings. Schubert’s unfinished symphony is another case in point. Only two movements long (personally I think one movement is enough but that’s another story) it doesn’t last the formal distance. These incomplete bodies of work leave too many questions dangling as to their ending. It can be Continue reading “At the end of the page”

Westcentric grub

Eating out is not my natural environment. Ordering, lavish décor, waiting to be served, polite conversation, slow eating of ordered food, ambient atmosphere, the tip- it’s really not for me. I’m far happier in a rowdy public house. Nonetheless, it was a special occasion so Mrs W and me had a night out at a popular eating place in town.

After the pre-ordering ritual we waited for our starter for ten. It duly arrived and no complaints so far. Halfway through the first course is when I had an inkling this was going to be one of those nights. “Is everything OK?” asked the waiter. Oh yes, delicious, tasty etc. etc. Continue reading “Westcentric grub”

Oh! Canada

This stared out as a comment on Christopher’s post about his recent visit to La Belle Province, but it got so long and convoluted I decided not to clutter the comments there with its length.

I worked in Canada from mid 1969 to late 1978 living first in Ottawa then nearby across the Ottawa River in the Province of Quebec.  I worked for a subsidiary of Bell Canada (the telephone company) and my wife worked, first in the public service (Department of Finance) then on Parliament Hill for a couple of MP’s.

There had been festering discontent in Quebec regarding separation for years, probably ever since Confederation (1867) even the choice of Ottawa as the capital (1857) was flavored by the divide and was one of those many English compromises that almost worked.  Choosing Toronto (the largest and a very English city) would have put the capital too close to the US border and memories of “Manifest Destiny” and the unpleasantness of 1812 were still a factor, choosing Montreal would seem to be giving control to the French, also remembered for their recent aggression in Europe, so Queen Victoria herself announced that the capital would henceforth be Ottawa (formerly Bytown, named after Colonel John By who built the Rideau canal system as a defense against the US in 1812).  Ottawa was conveniently located almost exactly halfway between Toronto and Montreal and as a wag of the day reported was “a slumbering sub-arctic lumber village”.

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Winners, non-winners and losers

I am an epicurean. Or at least that is how I think of myself, based on a quick perusal of the Wikipedia page that deals with epicureanism (not the Freedictionary definition). (It’s a topic I would be happy to pursue if anybody is interested. But that is not what I want to write about just now.) My lifestyle affords me the freedom to visit bookshops and browse a range of publications covering a variety of topics. One such book that I came across today and subsequently purchased, is titled, somewhat confusingly, ’50 Ideas you really need to know the future’.

One of the ideas discussed is that of ‘Gamification’. I confess that when I saw the title I envisaged a discussion on the merits of the hanging of pheasants: 1 day or 7. Of course it was nothing of the sort.   Continue reading “Winners, non-winners and losers”