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“Power is the ability not to have to please” ~ selfishness versus selflessness

“Power is the ability not to have to please” ~ selfishness versus selflessness A few years ago I bought a small pendant shaped like a stylised goddess figure to hang from a leather thong; on the...

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Chinese menus, books, Harvey Wall-bangers and our lost sense of adventure

Chinese menus, books, Harvey Wall-bangers and our lost sense of adventure When I was growing up, Chinese food was considered really rather exotic and adventurous but these days, most people consider it...

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Balancing peripheral characters with main characters ~ or how to stop...

Balancing peripheral characters with main characters ~ or how to stop Sideshow Bob murdering Bart Simpson.     One of the few novels I never actually finished was Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I was set it...

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A haunting house ~ how setting for a story matters

A haunting house ~ how setting for a story matters   Have you ever read a story where the setting makes as big an impression on you as the characters or the plot? Where the place of the story is as...

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Fifty Shades of Worried ~ meme or Zeitgeist?

Fifty shades of worried ~ meme or Zeitgiest? You’d have to have been living under a rock or otherwise out of touch not to have noticed the phenomenon that is E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy....

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Bullying, practical jokes and the abuse of power

Bullying, practical jokes and the abuse of power There’s been a lot about bullying recently and I’m both glad and sad that this is the case. Glad because it needs bringing out into the open, sad that...

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The Journey Home Begins With ‘Sorry’ ~ on reconciliation and relationships

The journey home begins with “Sorry” ~ on reconciliation & relationships I’m a great procrastinator when it comes to Christmas things. I object to anything remotely Christmas themed until at least...

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Janus, the two faced god ~ looking backwards and forwards at the same time

Janus, the two faced god ~ looking backwards and forwards at the same time Anyone who knows me even a little knows how interested I’ve always been in Roman culture; indeed, that love of all things...

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Four Years on…Celebrating Blogging.

Four Years on…celebrating blogging.   Today is a special day for this blog. Four years ago today I made my début into the world of blogging. I’d been feeling a sense of stagnation in my online life,...

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A Very British Blog Tour

A Very British Writer blog tour I’m quite a reserved sort and it always discombobulates me to be asked to participate in various events. I’m the wallflower, standing at the side hoping no one asks me...

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Ice Age Art ~ the arrival of the modern mind?

Ice Age Art ~ the arrival of the modern mind? Last week I went to see an exhibition of Ice Age art at the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ice_age_art.aspx The subtitle...

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Stationery P*rn ~ or the lure of perpetual possibilities

Stationery p*rn ~ or the lure of perpetual possibilities. (Do note the careful expurgating of a certain word in the title. If I have a post go viral I’d rather it did it for the right reasons.) In the...

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Is escapism harmless?

Is escapism harmless? Can you can tell when times have got tougher by the kind of books and entertainment people choose? I’d love to see a proper study done with graphs and spreadsheets and...

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Tampa, banned books and why I am happy to have missed that boat.

Tampa, banned books and why I am happy to have missed that boat. A couple of months ago I was alerted to the probable publication of a novel that had as a central theme one that readers of my novel The...

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Mirror, mirror on the wall ~ reflecting on failings

Mirror, mirror on the wall ~ reflecting on failings I don’t like mirrors much. I suspect not many honest people do. Mirrors are unforgiving. They don’t airbrush out the bags under your eyes. They don’t...

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Moths, Mistakes and Other Miscellaneous Matters

  Moths, Mistakes and Other Miscellaneous Matters This is almost a kind of Dear Diary sort of blog post, a catching up of news and recent events. There’s been a lot going on, though most of it is...

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Six blade knife ~ what my writing is to me

Six blade knife ~ what my writing is to me Your six blade knife can do anything for you Anything you want it to One blade for breaking my heart One blade for tearing me apart Your six blade knife-do...

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There’s no such thing as a free lunch ~ on the rightful exchange of energies.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch ~ on the rightful exchange of energies. I’ve seen a good deal lately about free books. If you buy e-books, you’ll probably have gathered a few freebies. Amazon...

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Tales of Amber

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I would write an article for Women Writers, Women’s Books It took me a week of letting my mind go blank, letting it off the lead before it came back with the ideas for...

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Dear Diary ~ Life without Dexter (six weeks on)

Dear Diary ~ Life without Dexter (six weeks on) It’s been a little over six weeks since my throat was cut, leaving me with a seriously impressive scar that looks like I got bottled in a bar fight, and...

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