I’ve just had the great indulgence of three long days secreted away on trains travelling the length of the country, keeping myself deliberately out of communication by phone or email. Hours and hours lost in books! Bliss.
You may remember one of my New Year resolutions was to acknowledge brilliance when I found it. This week [...]
Thanks to my daughter’s vigilance, I’ve just found an amazing website, tailor made for people like me who don’t get round to noting programmes about ethical issues until it’s too late, or who forget the ones they’ve seen. If you share my obsession about ethics you’ll probably know about it already. But just in case [...]
Wow! I’m so impressed by the skill of some writers. Amazing imagination, incredible ability to hold strands of plots together and weave them into a coherent pattern, stunning empathy with characters experiencing life’s challenges, facility with words that takes me deep into the world they’ve created.
I’m particularly thinking today of Peter James whose Dead Tomorrow [...]
Well, I’m still here! Transpennine Express got me safely to Manchester and back even though they didn’t think it important to have any heating in February now the snow’s gone. And there was no coach E, so my seat reservation was a tad meaningless. But I found a seat anyway and got Direct Red by [...]
So, JD Salinger – he of Catcher in the Rye fame – has died without repenting of his decision to become a recluse. For 45 years he’s hidden from reporters and photographers, and since 1965 he’s refused to publish any more of his work. Rumours are now circulating that he’s left a raft of books [...]
What a week since I last posted a blog! The news has been a positive playground for medical ethicists!!
IVF clinics reported to be destroying embryos with minor conditions; a ‘genetic breakthrough’ which could help treatments for breast cancer to be tailored to individual need; a mother who forced her son to fake illness being [...]
There’s nothing like a major disaster for putting things into perspective, is there?
Events in Haiti this past week have shown a tragedy on a scale beyond imagining. And they totally eclipse some of my current concerns – final editing of my forthcoming book; safety on the icy roads; wallpapering our staircase. When thousands of people [...]
I’m a writer in search of an idiosyncrasy. The range of mannerisms and quirks people adopt is truly amazing – see I Thought I Was Crazy! Quirks, Idiosyncrasies and Meshugaas. And yes, somebody really did do a research project on the subject. Imagine getting paid to ask people about their bizarre habits and behaviours. Brilliant!
But [...]
Continue reading about Wanted: one idiosyncrasy, previously unused
Well, what an amazing beginning to the year 2010!
Temperatures up here have sunk to minus thirteen – minus sixteen a bit further north. It’s snowed every day except one for three weeks now. We’ve slipped and slithered to a few events – the ones that weren’t cancelled – but the roads have been deadly. [...]