I was watching the news last night, saw the item on the French magazine’s photos of Kate Middleton and I was disgusted. It’s bad enough when people are intrusively photographed in public places on the pretext that it’s ‘in the public interest’. But when you’re on the deck of a private home, 500 yards from …
Category: This occurred to me
On having a Story Rejected
I had a friend on the phone over the weekend. She’d written a great story, offered it to a market, and had it rejected with a few rather unkind remarks. She was considering writing them an email pointing out how wrong they were. I emitted alarmed cries of protest. As I said to her, two …
Lance Armstrong and Rape.
Yes, that’s a provocative title but I’ll connect it in a minute. As just about everyone will have heard by now. Lance Armstrong has stopped fighting allegations that he’s a drugs cheat. And those attacking him have taken that as an admission of guilt. Hang on a minute. What he’s said is that the very …
Fishpond has me baffled.
It occurred to me today to check if my latest book, QUEEN OF IRON YEARS, is around in New Zealand. I googled, and find that Fishpond is selling it. That is, they have the correct cover, publisher, author, book size etc. details on the physical book. What they don’t have right is the blurb – …
On Modern Travel
It occurred to me while tearing from home to Auckland to Melbourne and back home again recently, how much we now take travel for granted. I was driven to Palmerston North, a trip that took us an hour by car. By horseback it would have taken my ancestors several days. I flew to Auckland, also …
Noises Off
It occurred to me you can translate sounds into the familiar without realizing they actually aren’t. I was in a Melbourne hotel last Tuesday morning and woke to hear a positive gale in the trees outside. I winced. In another four hours I’d be flying home. If the wind was that bad would the flight …
NZ PO and the Paper
It occured to me recently – but doesn’t seem to have dawned on the major newspapers as yet – that if NZ post do as they say they are considering doing and drop postal deliveries to three days a week, this will massively impact on newspapers. Why buy a newspaper subscription to have the paper …
Going Out With a Bang
I came back from a bookarama the other week with 41 books for $37.50, including a cartoon book on Old Age. It had a section that suggested ways in which you could die more dramatically, interestingly or irritatingly (to annoy the kids.) One method was to line your do-it-yourself coffin with explosive and demand cremation. …
Let the Re-Cataloguing Begin.
Moan! In some ways, finally getting all my professional writing sorted into categories – Books, Stories, Articles and Poems- listed chronologically on files and uploaded to my website is going to be a horrendous amount of work. I’ll be doing some of it but the majority, about three-quarters, will be done by a friend. (Thank …
About To Be Busy
I had a letter the other day. It said that a certain National institution didn’t have a copy of one of my books, and, whereas they were charged with having copies of every professional item written by a kiwi, they felt the lack here. I’ve sent them a copy to fill their gap – but …