Fort Edward to Whitehall – June 23 2013

Short day today, Sunday innit.  Made it to the end of the Champlain Canal (lock 12).

Just below us here is the start of the lake, it starts off as a narrow winding cut through high hills but opens out into a decent lake, about two hundred miles long North to South and twenty miles wide.  We need to get to the Northern end at the Quebec Border.  Rouses Point, might take us several days to get up there.

Memories of my time  in Canada even down here, I did sail Lake Champlain a bit but it was an awful long time ago, probably all changed.

Also  a triangle of towns on the lake,  Plattsburg, North Pole, Burlington one of the few US TV stations we could get in Ottawa  pre-internet days “WPTZ – Burlington, North Pole Plattsburg”   Hard to believe we lived hundreds of mile North of the town of North Pole.

Continue reading “Fort Edward to Whitehall – June 23 2013”

Chinese hospitality

I am assured this hotel brochure is not a spoof:

“Getting There:
Our representative will make you wait at the airport. The bus to the hotel
runs along the lake shore. Soon you will feel pleasure in passing water. You
will know that you are getting near the hotel, because you will go round the
bend. The manager will await you in the entrance hall. He always tries to
have intercourse with all new guests.

The hotel:
This is a family hotel, so children are very welcome. We of course are
always pleased to accept adultery. Highly skilled nurses are available in
the evenings to put down your children. Guests are invited to conjugate in
the bar and expose themselves to others. But please note that ladies are not
allowed to have babies in the bar. We organize social games, so no guest is
ever left alone to play with them self.

Continue reading “Chinese hospitality”

Mechanicville to Fort Edward – June 22

 High point of the trip so far, in sea level terms, from here on to the St. Lawrence River we will be going downhill.  Locking down to Lake Champlain and points North.

 Tied up tonight just North of Lock 8  listed as “Quiet rural setting.  We do have an audience, but they seem quite friendly.

cows s

Continue reading “Mechanicville to Fort Edward – June 22”

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?

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.

Mandela

From the front page of my daily read this morning.

It would appear that the ANC are preparing their supporters for bad news. I liked him, may his last days (if that is where we are) be comfortable.

Dark forces?

Just 10 days ago, Mrs J and I were shopping quietly as usual. At the checkout the machine said ‘Card cancelled’. (!)

Checkout : Close-up of a teen woman paying with her credit card

Within half an hour we arrived at our local bank. They had no idea it had happened or why but the chip had been deactivated by ‘somebody’ and a new card was duly ordered post haste. I sent a WTF message to the netbank ‘system’ in the hope of enlightenment and received a strange reply, to the effect that the bank had been advised by the Tax Office that I did not have an address in Denmark and that the card had been duly cancelled.

That’s strange because in this police state my address is clearly recorded in the ‘folkeregister’ and accessible to banks and other institutions. And a quick phone call to our friendly local taxman confirmed that the records showed nothing which might have prompted any call to the bank. So now I await the assistance of the bank’s CEO who, I hope, was suitably underwhelmed by my experience and ready to investigate. Not holding my breath.

Splendid bit of aggro going on in Brazil.I

Splendid bit of aggro going on in Brazil.

I really don’t blame the Brazilians,who have notoriously poor public services, protesting vigorously against the use of their funds for the ludicrous aggrandisement of a few sports fans.  Plus all the associated graft, corruption and backhanders to officials.

I have never been able to understand why public money in any country should be wasted on providing stadia for exceptionally rich football clubs to make further profits.  Any outfit that can afford to pay their moronic employees millions per year can afford the grounds should they want to.  Why the public should subsidise any voluntary activity is beyond me.  I include the Arts, Opera, Olympics etc.  Those that want them should pay for them, not the rest of us!  I’ll add other people’s brats to that list too!

With any luck all these events will be cancelled in Brazil.  It is a great pity the UK didn’t respond likewise to the Olympics last year and save the country a great deal of wasted money.  It is high time, if these events are wanted, that the moving and shaking officers located permanent arenas world wide and shared out sufficient contributions to the relevant participants to maintain such, rather than sucking at the public teat.

And send the bloody Olympics back to Greece with sufficient funding to keep it there forever. Think of the backhanders that will no longer have to be paid.

Well done the Brazilians.

PS I derive a degree of sardonic amusement re the current disintegration of the NHS and that appalling mawkish nonsense in the Olympic self stimulating mish-mash last year showing ‘tender angels of mercy ministrating to the sick’.  More likely bumping them off any which way they can!!! i remember many here actively defending the NHS, I wonder if they are still quite so insouciant and trusting in their attitudes to the NHS?  Had the money wasted on the Olympics been spent in the hospitals instead I doubt things would have come to quite such a pretty pass.

Oh, if only for a good revolution, any revolution, the UK sorely needs it. Never seen such a mess made in all my life.

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”