Featured Blogger

Gosh! What can I say?  I return from an unwelcome yet necessary lope to Blighty to find I have my moment as “featured author”.  Thanks, Bearsy, but I rather hoped to be adopted as DNMT’s erudite, tame (I draw the line at “pet”) wolf, rather than the fangs and claws image sometimes displayed on t’other side when something stupid makes my fur frizz. Not that anyone should ever ignore my carefully cultivated lupine image, though.  😀

Oz

And the Turgid Tide Surges On…

Surprise, surprise; more Parliamentary sleaze…; there always seems to be another twist.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8580183.stm

Is there no end to the thick smelly corruption in which this once fine country finds itself mired?

If this sticks in your craw, don’t forget the ‘golden goodbye’ resettlement expenses and fat pensions this lot voted themselves. And they want MORE?

MORE?

What would Mr Bumble say about that? ‘

“The country’s in need of a pauper’s burial, Mrs Bumble; so it is.”

Reminiscences

Inspired by Pseu’s reminiscence on her training days, a little anecdote from my Army days. I have three good friends from those long-ago days. Of course, I have many friends from my time with the colours, but, by good friends, I mean the people who, if they say, “I need…,” I would answer, “OK,” before asking, “What?”

Whenever we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain, we always go out to eat, and the venue must be outside. Why? Like to know?

Dum, da-dum, da dum dum dumdum, dumdum….

A friend of mine has just started ballet lessons. She’s pirouetting and pas-de-deuxing like crazy and developing the firm, lithe legs of her youth – which isn’t that far back.

She’s signed up for a second course of lessons. What makes it really worthwhile now, she says, is that the other women in the class have loosened up and are friendlier and up for a quiet giggle.

“In the beginning, they were so serious. I was embarrassed to be the only one to find it funny when I went wrong,”she said.

A healthy attitude. Going wrong is what we all do when we fling ourselves headlong into the uncharted territory of Expression Through Dance and laughing is so much more becoming than puffy-faced snivelly-nosed misery. Continue reading “Dum, da-dum, da dum dum dumdum, dumdum….”

21 years a-publishing

I’ve been working in publishing for 21 years, almost exactly. I went to London in early 1989 and fairly soon managed to get a job as an editorial assistant with The Institute of Metals (now The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining), at 1 Carlton House Terrace … a wonderful and historic location near all the sights of the West End. I liked that.

I shared an office with two very agreeable people from whom I learned much, and between us we produced the quarterly journals Surface Engineering, Powder Metallurgy and British Corrosion Journal … not very glamorous, but perfectly good in their way.

After a year or so I got a better-paid job as production editor with Thomas Telford (the publishing arm of The Institution of Civil Engineers), working on exciting journals such as Steel Construction Today, Advances in Cement Research and Magazine of Concrete Research, and also on books – I produced the book that the ICE published to mark the centenary of the Forth Bridge, for example.

Again I had some great colleagues; we had plenty of fun and quite a lot of beer, though working under pressure to deadlines. That was on the Isle of Dogs – a world and a Docklands Light Railway trip away from the West End.

When my wife was pregnant we decided to move back to Ireland. I worked for a couple of years as a production editor with an educational publisher, while doing some freelance work for Thomas Telford. Eventually I decided to go fully freelance and work from home … I’ve been doing this for 17 years now.

It has had pros and cons, like most jobs. Of course there’s no commuting, and one can live anywhere; but there is also no sociability … which is perhaps why blogsites are tempting. I’ve always had plenty of work, from the likes of Elsevier, Routledge, Psychology Press, McGraw-Hill, Johns Hopkins University Press, The Royal Society of Chemistry, Longman, and numerous others, including some Irish publishers.

These days I work mainly on psychology books and journals. I do copy-editing, proofreading and indexing, and also some writing, rewriting and substantive editing.

It’s not a bad life, really. I don’t think I fancy doing it for another 21 years, though.

Optimist or Pessimist?

I have just been looking back at old posts on ‘another site’.  All comments gone.  Can you fill them back in please?

I always thought of myself as a bit of an optimist. I always try to see the positive in people. If there is a difficult situation I try and find a positive solution.
“Everything will be all right” could be said to be my motto.
But I think I’m changing as I get older. (Am I changing into a grumpy old woman?)
I’ll give an example.
We were running late. I hate being late. (Another oft repeated phrase.)
“It’s OK,” said the Cyclomaniac. “We have nearly an hour before we need to get there…”
I looked at my watch,
“Only just over three quarters of an hour,” I said. “We are going to be late.”

Are you a glass half empty or a glass half full type of person? And does it change with age?

http://pseu1.wordpress.com/

Reunion

http://pseu1.wordpress.com/

It was thirty years since we met one Sunday afternoon, in a rather stark nurses’ home, where we lived at the start of our training. We were part of a set of 60. (Other ‘sets’ also lived in the home, including the ‘God-Squad.’) No men and no male visitors were permitted in the rooms after a certain time. We had a night porter and a home matron. We had to be adults on the wards and were treated like children in the home. Continue reading “Reunion”

Red Bicycle

We bought a red bicycle to my son. To let him keep the balance, we went to the repairer to add two little wheels to the back. “Nevermind the extras wheels”, said the old repairer, “If you help he will learn within an hour, otherwise it will take months to get rid of the spares, Don’t mind even if he falls, that’s the way to do” We took the advice and began the first exercise. I told how to push the pedals, how to squeeze the break, how to sit on the saddle on balance. Continue reading “Red Bicycle”