Best books of 2012 - part 2

** Edit note: This post was slightly delayed due to me donning my superhero tights and making Cthulu my bitch in order to avert the apocalypse, and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I forgot my password and couldn't publish the bloody thing. 

Let's jump straight back into this shall we - same rules as the first post: these are the best books I've read this past year, no matter their original publishing date.

                                                                  *******************

Ultracool resource of the week - check out the Why Authors are Crazy Tumblr. If you know anyone who writes, you'll end up giggling through these pages.

Richard Herley - The Penal Colony. A futuristic thriller set on an island turned prison. Bleak, dark, and powerful, with more than a touch of Lord of the Flies. The author has a number of books out, and all of them are good, but this one hits the possible genius level for me.

Allyson James - Storm Walker series. Paranormal/urban fantasy with some ultra-steamy scenes. Definitely not grandma safe, but the characters are fascinating and the world-building intoxicating. And the MC like bikes, tattoos, and shares her first name with me. I'm hooked.

Jason McIntyre - Everything. I started with the Night Walk Men a little over a year ago, and it's a deeply disturbing, beautiful little story. None of these are light or easy reading; and if you want something to flip through while your brain switches off this author isn't for you. If you want something that shakes you, with an occasional side of gore and violence, and makes you close the book when you're down feeling slightly stunned, then get everything you can. (Word of warning - if you write, you may find yourself whining at your keyboard afterwards and wondering what the hell you are doing wrong.)

Jason McKinney - Dog World. Still one of the most bleakly disturbing werewolf stories I've ever read. There are no happy endings here, and no cute or fluffy romantic escapades. This is a brutal, horrifying look at apocalypse via werewolf, with a good dose of black humour thrown in, and by far the most unique take on the genre I've read. I can't wait for the sequel.

Darynda Jones - Grim Reaper series. Hysterically funny paranormal romance series with a side order of steam - and the best t-shirt quotes I've ever come across. I hope this series continues for a long, long time.

Stacia Kane - Downside Ghosts series. An alternative future where ghosts are real, and very, very dangerous. Warning on this one - the MC is a junkie, and there is no brushing over the harsh realities of addiction in this series. For me, it's part of what makes for compelling reading. If you have issues reading about drugs, leave it alone. If you take the chance though, it's an extremely gritting, compelling series with a strong horror and romance element.

Lee Killough - Garreth Mikaelian series. Cop turned vampire series with an interesting take and some great characters.

Stephen King - 11.22.63. I preferred this to The Dome, which I struggled to get into. 11.22.63 reminded me strongly in places of The Dead Zone. It has that same sense of nice guy trying to make good in a strange situation, and for me it just rang all the bells.

Naomi Kramer - Deadish. This is one of the funniest shorts I've read in a long time. Lots of strong language, so if you don't like the F-bomb, avoid - but if you want to grab it, it's currently free on the kindle store. Paranormal Ghost humor.

Michael Langlois - Bad Radio. One of the strongest debut novels I've ever read, this is a great take on the immortality trope, with lots of action and very likeable characters. When someone can take a fantasy precept and ground it so strongly in reality it seems utterly plausible, they've got my attention.

Stant Litore - The Zombie Bible series. If you only read one zombie story in the next year, make it one of these. For my money, the first - Death Has Come Up Into Our Windows - is still the best, probably because it was such a unique concept - retelling biblical scenes and characters with zombies. And the ending is simply heart-breaking. That's the thing - these books aren't about the zombies so much as the people dealing with them and it's compelling, powerful story-stelling at its best.


                                                        ******************

That's it for now folks - I'll post the 3rd and final list just before Christmas. In the meantime, happy reading!

We should remember victims, not perpetrators

I was going to do a post on my team Christmas party, which involved laser quest, my tripping over my own two feet, and the best Long Island Iced Tea I've ever had.

This happened Friday night. On Friday afternoon, at work, I saw brief glimpse of a school shooting in the USA, and my first reaction was  'Another one? Sheesh!'  Saturday I crawled out of bed and saw that it was so much worse.

See, the problem is that we are used to high school shootings happening in the USA now.  It seems like every year or so a kid picks up a weapon and decides it's time for payback, and marches into his (or her, but interestingly enough most of these involve young males) high school and shoots the hell out of everything he can find. Then you get talking heads rounded up by the media for their fifteen minutes of fame, and hysterical finger-pointing at everything from movies to video games to music to books to gun legislation, all of which ignore the fact that what it boils down to is someone losing their shit, and deciding to take a bunch of people with them. If you're going to die, might as well be famous, right?

What happened Friday is worse for a couple of reasons. The majority of the victims were small children, and as a species we're hardwired to protect them. (I'm not counting the aberrations of sexual predators or abusers in this.) We protect our young. Simple. End of.
So when a man forces his way into a place where they should be safe, and opens fire with a rifle, every rational person reacts with horror and outrage. (Westboro Baptist Church doesn't count. There is no rationality there, just bile and darkness.)

The guy that did this on Friday didn't even have the dim excuse of revenge on his peers. There were no cheerleaders laughing at him for asking them out on a date; no jocks giving him wedgies in passing in the halls.
I have no idea what the motivation was. Until it is found, discovered, and released, anything regarding that side of things is speculation.

The media have never acknowledged their part in creating this celebrity killer culture. But on Saturday, there were reporters shoving cameras and microphones into the faces of kids that had just been led out of a killing field. Every tear lovingly focussed on by the camera, every bewildered look recorded.
There were media pages devoted to celebrity tweets about the incident. There were interviews with profilers, shrinks, and anyone who could be loosely associated with any of the speculation around what had happened - and this was Saturday, well before the coroner had finished his heartbreaking work, long before the crime-scene teams had left the school.  Every news cast, every web page, mentioned the shooter by name and age, before his ID had even been confirmed.
They've released the names and ages of the victims, but I doubt in 6 months time anyone who didn't live in that town or didn't know them personally will remember who they were. The name of the shooter (which I'm not typing here. Just. Not.) will be remembered for years.

The finger pointing and speculation and misinformation started Saturday. I imagine it will only get worse over the next few weeks. What will be in very short supply is common sense and rationality; emotive perspectives are rarely crippled by either.

News stations will look at the music he liked. If it was metal or hard rock, they'll get at least another trashy headline out of it. If he liked violent PC or video games (and someone please show me an interactive game aimed at over ten year olds that doesn't involve violence), they'll get another few rounds of professional talking heads on. If the guy liked fantasy RPG or anything like that, I imagine the conservative channels will have a collective orgasm talking about family values and Our Deteriorating Society.

And they will all miss the point.

If the shooter was mentally ill, and previously diagnosed (not always as easy as it sounds), then you have 28 people dead because of gaps in a chronically unstable health system.

If he was not mentally ill, then the only blame falls on the person who planned this. The guy who picked up three different guns, a whole bunch of ammunition, and strapped on a ballistics vest. The one who forced his way into an elementary school and started firing.

There is a lot of talk about gun control again. There always is after one of these. The problem is, humans are very, very good at killing. They banned handguns in the UK after a similar massacre in a primary school in Dunblane in 1996. It means that most guns are now carried by armed police and very dangerous criminals. Then they banned carrying knives because there was spike in knife assaults. The problem is, people are still killing each other. Kids are still killing kids.  In the past couple of years in the UK, there have been mass stabbing attacks, assaults with bats, pipes, automobiles and bombing attempts.

Tighter gun control will probably be a good thing, if the USA can figure out how to make it uniform, and legislate it properly. Since every state has different legislation on gun control, how that could be effectively implemented is a different story, especially when politicians will seize the opportunity to oppose anything proposed by a different party or outside influence.

I don't have a solution to this, and I've got no horse in this race - my friends in the USA are safe, my family is nowhere near there, and I don't live there. But for what it's worth, I have a couple of observations.
We are a species that thrives on conflict. We demand it in our entertainment, from books, to comics to movies to theatre. Our media gorges on it. Our politicians revel in it. But worse than that, we find excuses for it. We blame exposure to violent games and t.v. shows for "influencing" the guys that pick up weapons and start using them on others who can't defend themselves, instead of stepping back and realising that most of the time they made that choice. They planned it, they dressed for it, they chose to pick up a weapon and use it on the targets they selected.

Whatever the fall out is from this, the accountability belongs to the shooter. Feeding the desire for fame - or infamy - by remembering his name over those that died? That belongs to the rest of us.

Best Book/Author Round-up of 2012 - Part 1

As promised, I've put together a list of my favourite books from 2012. Some of them are indie authors, some traditional. Some of the indie folks I know through social media like Twitter & Facebook, the rest wouldn't know me if I did the Funky Chicken on their keyboards. Some of them you'll probably know, a lot (I hope) will be new adventures waiting for you to discover them.
Not all of these were published in 2012, but that's when I read them, so they make my list. What they have in common is that I loved their stories. I'd also say that I discovered at least 70% of them through free book uploads and ended up buying everything I could get my grubby little paws on and afford to buy in my budget. (My budget rules are simple - I can't afford to pay more than £4.99 for a book, and that only happens if I'm feeling very optimistic and my bank manager hasn't send me love-letters in pretty red ink for a few months. The average price tends to be lower.)

One of the best resources for new indie books has been Scot over at Indie Book Blogger. Be warned, once you click that link you're going to lose a few hours, but it's very much worth it. The blog is constantly updated with give-aways, author interviews and guest posts, and it's put me onto some truly amazing authors.

So - I'm going to try to keep this alphabetical by author surname, with a brief description of the genre and what hooked me about the series or book. I'll try to link straight to Amazon.com on the author name (bear with me, gentle reader, for I have the uncanny ability to nuke the internet and/or my computer, but I'll try. Ahem.)

I'm also trying to keep it only to the very, very best (all my opinion) which means a few very good books might not hit the list, but if I don't, I'm going to be writing this list until 2013. So I'm selecting the
books that grabbed me by the heart and mind and often, funny bone, and made me wish I'd never reach the end of the story.

Part 1 of the list is below for you - Part 2 coming soon.

                                       ****************************
Ben Aaronovitch - PC Grant Series. This is an urban fantasy series set in London, with a great wallop of humour, moments of darkness, and a fresh take on the genre. Addictive.

Ilona Andrews - Kate Daniels Series. Post-magic-apocalypse action with some real laugh-out-loud moments. I've picked on the Kate series because they are just some of the best out there, but I've never read a book or story by these guys that didn't totally rock my world.

Thea Atkinson - Water Witch. A nicely dark fantasy tale, with elements of romance and a good deal more gore than I expected when I started. I've referred to Thea Atkinson elsewhere as one of the most elegant writers I've ever come across; this story points out why beautifully.

Philippa Ballantine - Order series. I picked up Geist and was blown away. Creepy, dark and gorgeous world building. There is nothing cute and fluffy in that first book, and I loved every word.

C.L.Bevill - Bubba Series. This series falls under comedy mystery, I guess. It's a great feel-good series, with characters I thoroughly enjoyed.

Naomi Clarke - Deva Chronicles. Urban fantasy with a good dose of mad scientist action thrown in, plus strong romance elements. The main character is flawed, headstrong, and great to follow.

Charles Colyott - Randall Lee series. Mystery series following an acupuncturist and martial arts expert who seems to fall into trouble a lot. So far, only two books in that series that I can find, but great reads.

Richard Crawford - Soul Mate. As of right now, that first book is free. Hit that button if you like spooky, intense stories that linger.

Joseph Garraty - To Rule this Broken Earth.  Garraty  took a step away from his previous horror, sci-fi and urban fantasy mode and went into fantasy with guns blazing. There's a strong element of what I'd call cowboy fantasy in this, and it just floored me. (By cowboy fantasy I meant the feel of outdoors, rough-and-tumble-Wild-West with magic, not Brokeback Mountain.) Once again, I'd recommend everything you can get your hands on by this author. Strong language warning, but it's dark, gritty, Oh-crap-I-didn't-see-that-coming stuff, and in between he can break your heart in a single sentence.

Kelly Gay - Charly Madigan series. Great alternative reality/urban fantasy cop series. Fun sense of humour and high stakes make this a must read.

Glynn James - Diary of the Displaced series. If you like dystopian fiction/nightmare alternative reality, get your hands on everything you can.

Amanda S. Green - Nocturnal series. Following a cop who gets turned into a shapeshifter, this is a great ride. Often stories about shifters "passing" as human are clumsily done; this one makes perfect sense and a lot of fun to boot.
 
                                                                     ***************


There you have it folks - the first part of the best of 2012 list. I'll post part 2 in about a week for you. In the meantime, if you have recommendations you'd like to share, mention them in the comments.

I did promise a quick review of my writing plans for 2013, so here goes:

The WolfSong follow-up is starting to shape up nicely (several re-writes down the line). Although I'm not going to make my Christmas deadline (sob), it's the first book I'll be releasing next year. Apologies for those of you waiting for it, but I want to make sure it's worth the read, and hopefully you'll think it was worth the wait in the end.
In the meantime, and if my PC co-operates and remains on the planet for the next few weeks, I'm hoping to release a new collection of short stories very soon.

The next Blue Moon Detectives book is called Fur Thing. I'm aiming for release of that one in the second quarter of the year, between April and June. There are another two Blue Moon books planned over 2013 as well, beta readers willing and happy.

Overall, 2012 was a great year for me. A few nasty migraine attacks & other assorted Moments of Life mean I didn't hit my publishing schedule as planned, but that's not always a bad thing. If it means the final writing product is better (and I think it will be), then that's actually a very good thing.

Until next time folks, when if I can figure out how the GIF thing works I can present highly public evidence of my ability to fall over my two feet. Stay tuned...

Festive stuff

Since I'm spending this festive season at home for the first time in years, I decided I wanted a tree. Since I never get the point of killing a living tree to stash the corpse in my lounge (not to mention the mess as it sadly sheds needles all over the place), I decided fake was great.

It arrived Saturday. It's short, black and slightly lop-sided. It has built in lights and runs off a battery pack, so I won't add to the electric bill which is a very good thing - if I could figure out how to generate my own power in a rented flat, and fork two fingers up at the utility company, believe me, I'd do it - and my cousin has sniggered at it ever since. I love it.

Last Sunday we headed up to HobbyCraft. They've just opened up a branch in my little town, which bodes ill for spare money in the future. I ended up under-spending on my budget, which was a first for me, so I left feeling slightly virtuous. I grabbed some cinnamon sticks and a twig wreath base, and some pop-up glitter stickers which I think are actually for cards, and I made my own little Yule wreath:

Despite the fact that I ended up discovering why my mother never let me play with glue much (I had a butterfly stuck to my ear at one point. No idea how. They have sticky pads, and I swear I never put it near the blasted staff.) I reckon it came out quite well. I got the little berry bundles from the cheap shop across the road because it just needed a touch of something, and stuck them through the twig base. Then I sprinkled it with a few drops of essential oil - clove, cinnamon and orange - and it's now on top of my little dwarf tree:

I'm going to wrap a box in some bright paper and stick the tree on it, so I feel a little less like Alice in Wonderland when I stand next to it.

I've got my eggnog ingredients and my meat pre-cooked, so all I'll need to do is fix the gingerbread sauce and vegetables on the day.

                                               ***********************************

It was snowing this morning - no photo's of that, because I was too busy trying to find my ice-grippers (no idea where I put them). I hauled out the snow boots and used those, but because I'm utterly useless at walking on snow, the normal 7 minute walk took me nearly twenty. On the way to the train station I got passed by two little old ladies (one on a walker), and elderly gent who appeared to be wearing slippers, and a guy walking his dog. I'm pretty sure the dog was laughing at me.

I still did better than my first year of navigating the snow in London, which consisted of:

1) Lurch

2) Swear a bit

3) Wall

4) Lurch

5) Lamp post

6) Wander how the hell everyone else is doing this?

7) Lurch

8) Postman

Thankfully it was the first day of snow that year too, and the Postie took being dive-tackled at waist-height by a shivering, swearing, apologetic South African rather well. He picked me up (after some persuading - by this time I was hugging his knees and whimpering), and got me to the edge of the road, and rather sweetly explained that I needed boots with a decent tread in them.

 

Today, all I kept feeling was walker-envy.

The commute was horrendous. By the time I got to work I had been snowed on, stood on, and dive-bombed by a pigeon, all of which equalled one grumpy little worker growling at her PC this morning. The trip home was slightly better, apart from the kid that had an accident in the carriage on the way home. (Said accident being of the unbelievably smelly variety. Which he announced, by screaming, just in case everyone's nose was malfunctioning.) Unfortunately, this occurred three stops from where I had to get off, and the now squalling toddler was headed to the same station. I've rarely been so grateful for fresh air, never mind how cold it was.

The snow had totally melted so although the pavement was cold, it was navigable, and I got home, discovered that fried cauliflower is bloody amazing as a hot-dog topping, and defrosted in the bath.

                                                               ***************

                

Next post: I'm going to do a round-up of some of the best books I've gotten my paws on this year, and some of my own book plans for 2013. 

Moments of Oops (Part 367,0000)

We live in an old Victorian house that has a lovely little shop on the ground floor, below our converted flat. The fun part about our area is that its built on clay, so when you get a lot of rain, which the UK has had for the past couple of weeks, everything gets waterlogged.

This includes our front door, which I'm personally convinced has demonic powers and hates me. I can't open it, because it swells shut. I can only close it by repeatedly slamming it, and during very rainy periods, I can't get it closed enough to lock it from the outside without repeated screaming, rude words, and periodic chanting.

About a month ago my cousin got tired of rescuing me from the Wooden Door of Evil, (probably brought about the day when I stubbornly refused to shout for help getting ye Portal of Darkness open. So I planted my feet on the wall next to the door and pulled. I moved backwards. The door didn't budge. She peered around the corner at the moment I was air-born. Let's just say the landing was undignified, shall we, and leave it at that.) and fixed a large handle to the inside of the door. It worked great for about a week, and then the rain started again.

By Tuesday, I had my own Door Opening Ceremony:

1) Growl at door
2) Insert key
3) Turn key, whilst either (a) kicking bottom of door hard enough to loosen it or (b) shoulder charge door very hard to get it open.

Tuesday night, I was carrying an extra bag, and it was raining. I choose option (b).

What I didn't know, because my cousin had forgotten to text me (and yes, this was pointed out to her. Repeatedly.), was that Chris from the shop had come in to get something that morning, and spent twenty minutes doing his own version the 'Close, you bloody thing' dance.

Chris being a friend, and an absolute genius at handy work, popped back in the afternoon and fixed the door.

It now opens like it's on oil-slicked ball-bearings. Smooth as glass.

Unfortunately when you choose option (b) on the door now, (and you're me) the Door Opening Ceremony has the following additions to the program:

4) Make anticipatory "Oof" noise as your shoulder connects with door. Note: To get into this position requires you to be standing on the door step. Your entire body weight is aimed at the door.
5) Barrel through door, slightly breaching the sound barrier. "Oof" turns into something like "OooooooH!"
6) Realise you are heading straight for boxes in hallway containing very expensive and breakable thingies. (No idea what they are. They tinkled, ok?)
7) Somehow change direction in mid-air, and aim for very hard carpeted hallway instead.
8) Realise in mid-air that your hand-bag is still sitting on the doorstep, holding the door open so that the entire commuter train-load of people trudging down the road behind you get their evening entertainment. Beats the hell out of Survivor.
9) Face-plant.
10) Consider staying there for the night.

I finally got up when I realised that nothing was broken, the only real damage done was to my pride (Ha! I write as a part-time job. I ate pride a while ago), and apart from the raging headache I had no side-effects. I do however, need to vacuum that carpet. That didn't taste good at all.

Beating up the Common Sense Fairy - again.

This week, the Church of England managed to shock everyone who hadn't realised the institution was run by a bunch of misogynistic dinosaurs by rejecting the idea of allowing women bishops. In other news, apparently Saudi Arabia is now notifying male "guardians" when their women leave the country via a text message alert. It makes you wonder just why certain males are so terrified of acknowledging half the species as capable, functional human beings.

Since I'm lucky enough not to have been born and raised in a society which appears to give females slightly less rights than the average domestic animal, I'm going to concentrate on the first issue. It applies to the second, but since the only way to get someone that hysterically terrified of an empowered woman to listen to reason might require either a major miracle or a medical lobotomy, I'm going to leave that alone right now. It just slaps reason in the face repetitively until it gives up and sulks in the corner.

As for the CoE thing - well, apart from alienating any parishioners with ovaries and a functioning brain cell, as well as good many with testicles and a functioning brain cell - what, exactly, did this achieve?

An institution that begs and cries for support from the public, and beats its breast over waning support happily swapped its comfortable slippers for a pair of good strong boots, and kicked the Common Sense Fairy's teeth down her throat. Well done, there.

To be perfectly honest, the whole thing bores the hell out of me. Why? Because this should no longer be an argument. This should no longer be a debate of any sort for reasoning human beings.

It's the same stupid, condescending reasoning behind designing little pastel pens for us "dewicate wittle flowers", or special needs laptops because we can open the latch without spoiling our manicure - and ooooh, look, a scrap-booking app, because girls like that kind of stuff, right?

*crickets*

It's boring because by now it should be perfectly obvious that females are capable of functioning, and even talking in public without fainting on demand.

It's obvious because if you trust females to be teachers, nurses, doctors, pilots, sports players and journalists, not to mention CoE priests, why do you have an issue with a woman performing any other function on the planet?*

Why was this even a bloody debate/vote to start with? And what, exactly do women need to do to prove their worth as intellectual equals? Go into space? Been done. Play sports traditionally associated with males? Done that. Start their own successful business? Done that too. Run a country? Check. Fight for their country? Yep. Become serial killers? That's been done too.

Defining someones ability by their genitalia makes as much sense as allocating them jobs based on their zodiac sign. Just because some people believe in it, doesn't make it valid. It's about as smart as deciding someones worth based on their religion, race or sexuality, which shouldn't ever be tolerated or condoned.

Unfortunately bias almost always has its roots in fear. Now, I have no idea what the males in the CoE synod are afraid of, and I've never understood the threatened masculinity argument. (Check your pants, sunshine. If you have dangly bits you're probably male, and by definition masculine. It's not going to vanish if you clean a plate. I don't think they make dishwashing liquid that works that well.)

Is it an ego thing? Once again, not sure of the argument here. It's a pretty big planet. If our bodies still fit on it, the egos probably will too. All of them. Girls and boys.

There is no logical argument to exclude women. There is no logical argument for treating a female as a possession instead of a person, or a mentally deficient child that needs to be rewarded with pretty shiny things for dressing up and talking without dribbling down her chin. There is no logical argument for attempting to remove a woman's control over her body, thoughts or emotions. And yet it happens, day after day, all over the world.

Why? No idea. The Common Sense Fairy still has concussion, and couldn't give me an answer on this one.




*Arguing that a woman should know her place will result in me pointing at you and laughing. I know my place. It's anywhere I want to be, on my terms and in my time.

The little mugger that wasn't

So the Weekly Moment of Mortification was a bit different this time around.

I was walking from the tube station to work, and not paying as much attention to my surroundings as I should have. My body was stomping along the pavement, my ears were being treated to some pretty good old Queens of the Stone Age, and my mind was trying to catalogue everything I wanted to do when I got home from the office.

QOTSA gave way to The Killers, and I was absently humming along to it (as you do), when a large gloved hand descended in front of my face. (It's pretty easy for anyone's hand to do this to someone who is smaller than the average twelve year old. Just saying.)

My reaction? Raised back-fist to push the hand away, and pull my other hand round to punch my would-be mugger - who turned out to be our fairly new team-member, looking horrified and making squeaky "Nonononono!" noises. Ahem.

On the bright side, as I pointed out to him once he stopped dancing all over the pavement, I never actually touched him. I never threw the punch either, since I realised who it was almost immediately. (The other bright side would be that as he's over 5'10", and I make 5'3" by the skin of my docs, I'd have to be standing on a box to actually do severe facial damage. He didn't look convinced.)

I apologised for nearly smacking him, and advised him firmly never, ever, to do that again. He just looked confused, because he didn't understand why my first reaction was to get physically defensive. He's a really nice guy, and I didn't have the energy to explain the whole lone female on a street dynamic, because I think this is something I could tell him until I was blue in the face and he still probably wouldn't understand it.  Most nice guys wouldn't. In case any of you read this blog, this is why:

As a female walking alone on a street, you are always aware that you are vulnerable. It's not so bad in daylight, surrounded by people. After dark, unless you are cataclysmically inebriated or utterly stupid, you are hyper-aware of this. And even surrounded by people, you never lose that sense of vulnerability.
(If you really want to understand what this feels like, strap a couple raw steaks to your shirt and wander through any large group of dogs, cats, or carnivorous beastie. I don't recommend wild-life parks for this one though. I'm not trying to say males are like any of these, btw. I'm trying to say this how vulnerability feels. Alternatively, you could walk down your main street naked, which will get you arrested, but might get my point across without someone screaming about me comparing them to a beast.)

So when a very large, very male hand enters into your field of vision unexpectedly, obviously headed for your shoulder or neck, and you are a female walking by yourself, your first response is fear. That's it, in the simplest possible way.

My only concern was not letting that hand land on me; it was moving fast and I'm a small girl. You don't need to punch me to knock me off my feet; an open-handed slap would do just fine.  When you're looking up at a descending limb it's hard to discern the difference between a potential slap and someone waving to get your attention.
Quite a few women would have screamed at the top of their lungs when that hand appeared. (Personally, I prefer saving my breath for running like hell - which would have been the step immediately after delivering that punch I was winding up for.)

The thing is, I don't think that most guys can comprehend the fact that someone they know - a friend, a colleague, a relative - can ever be afraid of them. They might "get it" on a logical level, but when they tap a woman they know on the shoulder and she jumps, or shrieks a little, or steps sideways and raises her arms defensively, their reaction is puzzlement. Because its them, and they know you. Most guys don't go through life knowing that there is a portion of the population who sees them as prey, as easy pickings.
Most women never forget this, because forgetting it will get you hurt or killed.

So guys, here's a bit of advice: if you see a female friend by herself in the street, don't run up behind her and grab her arm or shoulder. Call her name. If she doesn't hear you, walk until you're in front of her, in her field of vision, and get her attention that way. The response is likely to be a lot friendlier.

Why we remember

One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I do not remember my maternal grandfather. There are photo's of me being bounced on his knee as a baby, but I'd love to have known him as an adult, or at least a child old enough to have known him.

My grandfather served in World War 2, in the Seaforth Highlanders. He went through Europe and came back home and never set foot in a church again apart from weddings and funerals. For a presbyterian Scot raised in the earlier years of the century, that's huge, and startling. My mom said he would never talk much about the war and what happened, but he'd mentioned seeing a camp - I'm not sure if he was seconded to a separate regiment involved in liberating one, or if he was captured and interred, as a number of the Highlanders were - and what he saw there destroyed his belief in any kind of benevolent god. The war broke his faith, but from what I've been told it couldn't change his basic decency and belief in doing the right thing.

My great uncle on the paternal side was involved in those hellish beach landings in Normandy. He was an absolute character in daily life, and thought nothing of an hour-long walk. He also loved his whiskey and headed up to his local club almost daily. He was a short man, but dynamic - he went through life with an impish twinkle in his eye and the willingness to laugh at almost anything. And at night he'd scream.
I stayed with him the first time I came out to the UK, and hearing those noises was heart-breaking. The first night, I thought someone had gotten into the house and was attacking him. When I pushed open the bedroom door (armed with a poker, of course), he was weeping in his sleep.

I went back to bed and had a little cry myself. In the morning, he asked me if I'd slept all right, and mentioned that he sometimes got "a little restless". He looked horribly embarrassed. I made us both a cup of tea, and lied to him. Slept like a brick, I said, and watched the relief flood his eyes.
Then I visited his daughter and found out what had happened - her dad had suffered nightmares since he came back from the war.
That's one lie I have never regretted, and never will.

Because of men like my grandfather and uncle, Hitler was stopped. Because of people like them, we have the freedom to walk the streets of our countries without wondering if the state will kick our door in and drag us to hell because of our ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. Despite all the faults of Western countries - and they are myriad - we can state our disagreement with a politician without facing a firing squad.

So this is why we remember the men and women who serve - and often die - on our behalf. They fought, and still fight, and whether you believe in the reason they fight or not, they serve their countries.
Whether they come back physically whole or not, none of them come back unscathed; the scar tissue on hearts and minds still twists and contracts. It still hurts, even when you are 70 and winking at life.

They held a gun, so I do not have to.
They faced horror, so I didn't see it's face.
They suffered the nightmares so that I can sleep in a safe bed.

Thank you.

New hobby - whoop!

I got stuck into making some hand-cream this past week-end (blame Naomi Clarke for this one, her blog posts and tweets had me remembering how much I enjoyed this stuff years ago) and I'm hooked all over again.

So far I've made a bergamot, rose-oil and cinnamon version, which was snatched up almost immediately by friends and my cousin, and another version with rosemary in place of the bergamot. Bonus side effect was some relief for my hands - they usually swell up and throb in wet weather, to the point where I look like the Stay-Puff Marshmallow dude, just in short, grumpy female form. Monday I woke up and could flex my fingers with hardly any swelling, so I'm seriously in love with that blend. I'm going to play with a few similar ideas that are a bit gentler smelling, since although I like cinnamon there are a lot of folks who don't. Should be interesting.

Then I went a bit nuts and ordered a bunch of scents and equipment and tins for the stuff. The plan is to make a bunch of lip balms and hand creams for presents. If nothing else, the flat will smell pretty fine for the next few weeks.

So far; excitement for the week has been nearly getting run over crossing the road at work, because some dahlink didn't think the red-light applied to him, and having the lift doors close on me today - not a fun experience, and it happened so blasted fast I didn't process it until afterwards - but there were a few seconds of getting hugged and squeezed by two giant metal doors, and the guy inside who'd pushed the close door button as I was stepping in looking horrified. (And yeah, to repeat - I really would have haunted your ass.)

I'm not sure if the lift doors count to my tech malfunction talent, but I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be a sensor thingy that stops things like that happening.

On a definite tech malfunction note - I now have a new iphone (refurbished - sooooo much cheaper) and got my sim today. Excitement reigned! I made squeaky noises! And then upon inserting it - no signal. *sigh*
Hopefully the IT gods at the shop can figure this one out, because my brain just melted out of my ears.

Amazon censorship & the saga of entitlement - a rant

There were no posts last week because in my usual effect on tech, blogger wouldn't let me log on. No idea why, it just decided it hated me. *sigh*

Be warned, since what follows is going to develop into a bit of rant. There will be Strong Language, because this whole unnecessary situation, plus a certain author, has frankly pissed on my battery.

There's a very unsatisfied rumbling amongst indie authors right now - because Amazon is removing reviews posted against other authors books. Check out Joe Konrath's blog here for a run-down on it. There's even a petition being started.

There has been mudslinging from some the authors behind the NSPH story (some of whom are now bewildered as to why they've lost reviews), and I can say that a glimpse of certain twitter feeds makes certain authors come across as self-entitled brats, with a side-order of issue. The folks concerned seem to have developed a hysterical loathing of indie authors, which would be funny if it wasn't so sad.   It's like the publishing equivalent of Burn the Witch. More on that later.

My issue with Amazon removing reviews is slightly different. One of the reasons given to authors who've queried why their reviews was removed is that you cannot review a product you are competing with, as a published author. I have a couple of problems with this.

First of all, I don't consider other authors as competition.  I'm a very small fish is a very big pond. There's plenty of room in this pond for authors - viewing someone as the enemy and developing a "Kill!Kill!" mentality is just plain silly. Other authors sales do not hurt me. In fact, I think other authors sales probably help me, especially if my books are listed under the "other customers who bought this also bought..." list.
(Sure, there are people out there who view anyone else who writes in their genre as foes worthy of hidden land-mines and nuclear reviews. These are probably the same folks who scream at reviewers who don't give them five stars and have their mothers write fifty slavering praise-ladden reviews on their work. Not my problem. Their sales have no correlation to mine. They also quite possibly wear their underpants on their heads. Again, really not my problem. It's pretty hard to start an internet war with someone who simply couldn't be bothered with that level of silliness.)

I actually keep hoping I'll get a few low star reviews on Amazon, because a large amount of the buying public now views books with only 4 or 5 star reviews with great suspicion. I'm definitely not complaining about the high starred reviews; because I'm not a moron, but I do wonder why they are all high. There has to be a few readers out there who read my stuff and thought 'meh.' They just don't seem to be posting reviews. The point is, low star reviews are part of doing business. You don't take them personally, the same way you can't let your ego bloat of high star reviews.

Secondly - as a reader, I've posted a LOT of book reviews on Amazon. A lot. These range from traditionally published authors to indies. Some of them I know, through social media or other places, the majority I don't. I've reviewed everyone from Tess Gerritsen (who I'm pretty sure doesn't know I'm on the planet) to Joe Garraty (who does) and both of whom write the kind of stuff I dream of achieving.

I'm not just an author, I'm a consumer, and a pretty avid one. I have a monthly book budget, for crying out loud, because without reading I would probably go utterly nuts on the daily commute and strangle the moron next to me with the soul-excrutiating techno version of Metallica pumping out of his ipod so loudly my teeth rattle.

So removing my reviews, which I've been posting since well before I became a self-published author on the kindle store, insults me as a loyal customer. I take time over these reviews. I try to make them coherent, and point out why I either liked or didn't like parts of the book, and if this new rule means I lose that ability, that's a pretty sharp slap in the face. You are telling me that I do not have the right to my opinion on goods I bought and paid for - and where I haven't bought them, I state so. Whether I bought them or not, my opinion is still valid.

On a cautionary note, I have no idea whether Amazon has removed any of my written reviews or not. I know they've removed some reviews on my books, which is ironic because it's made my star average increase, and I didn't know who the folks were that published those reviews. So in this case, Amazon have removed genuine reviews, written by people I do not know and have never met. I'm not sure how their programme decided those were unacceptable reviews, and to be totally honest, I don't really care.

What I do care about is that this seems to be an arbitrary form of censorship, brought on because of a vocal minority whose publishers actually have, and continue to, buy reviews, and the media that happily climbed on the bandwagon and turned a fifteen minute wonder into competition for Everest.
I care because your demands to police free-speech, dear NSPH authors,  have resulted in my right to said free-speech being compromised, to my being treated like my personal opinions as a reader are the equivalent of typhoid, and you are now whining because this has impacted you as well.

Right now, my personal feeling is that you ought to shut up and take your medicine with the rest of us. You asked for it, you got it, and I have zero patience for you right now.  What the hell did you think was going to happen?

As to the comments made by a certain author on twitter about being "pissed off because we can't pimp each others books any more, and there  still being plenty of places to pimp each other to hell" -  whether you aimed those comments at particular indie authors or not, you've got a history of utter disdain for this section of the writing community - who the blue fuck do you think you are? **

You've just compared a couple of authors to a section of industry that has zero relation to writing. (On a side note, that particular industry makes a lot more money than any of us.) Why? What right do you have to look down your pontificating, self-righteous little nose at anyone? Especially considering the published blurbs on Amazon from other best-selling authors for your books. This not only makes you arrogant, this makes you hypocrite, and shows you as having all the integrity and moral ethics of a hopped-up weasel. Well done. Your publisher and agent must be so proud.

Oh, wait - those blurbs were obtained by your publisher? Obviously that pulls you out of the pimping category, since you don't sell yourself. Someone else sells you instead. Well done on that. We couldn't accuse you of being a pimp. Not at all.

Get over yourself, dude. Seriously.



**Yes, I'm well aware that the authors concerned do not need my being defensive on their behalf. I'm not actually being defensive at all, what I am is annoyed, and not on their behalf.  I'm annoyed by the fact that a jacked-up, self-righteous hypocrite thinks it's fine to snark any other writer in this way on social media, because they are not published with the big 6. Irony here is that the authors concerned probably outsell this jack-ass on a regular basis, and used to have traditional contracts. They dropped their publishers to make more money.

Easy Caramel Tart Recipe

This is pretty much a quick, ultra-rich sugar fix. You can make the caramel the long way, but the key words here are quick and easy.

Shopping list:
Ginger biscuits - 1 pack is fine
Butter (2 x tablespoons for the biscuit base)
Tin of Caramel mix (I used Carnation brand)
Salt
Vanilla bean pod
Coconut cream
Ground Nutmeg
Ground Ginger
Ground Cayenne Pepper
Chocolate (1/2 family size bar)

Pre-heat the oven to around 150 C, and oil a small pie tin. A dab of butter works fine. Make sure you do the sides as well as the base, otherwise the result will be a very sticky mess and you won't get the tart out of the tin.

Biscuit base:

Melt the butter and crush the ginger biscuits. I used about 3/4 of a pack, and crushed them by running a rolling pin over them a few times. If you want a very fine crumb, you could blitz them in a food processor, but I like the texture of coarse crumb in this. Mix the crumbs together with the melted butter. You should end up with a damp, but not too wet, mix that holds its shape for a few seconds if you scrunch it together in the palm of your hand.

Press the crumb into the base of the oiled tin, packing it down firmly. You want a depth of around 10mm here, to give the caramel a decent base to rest on without turning into mush.

Pop the crumb into the oven for ten minutes, then leave aside to cool. I put mine into the fridge to cool it down faster; do not add the caramel until this cool.

Caramel process:

Combine the caramel and a teaspoon each of the salt, nutmeg, ginger & a pinch of cayenne pepper. Scrape about an inch of the vanilla pod seed into the mix. Using a fork to mix this is fine.

The caramel mixture will have thinned quite a bit due to the mixing, so let it rest for a few minutes before moving onto the next step.

Add the caramel mix to the biscuit base, and pop it straight into the fridge while you get the topping ready.

The salt and spices just add a bit of dimension to the caramel; you still get an incredibly sweet taste but it knocks it slightly away from just being glorified condensed milk.

For the chocolate topping:

Break the chocolate apart and melt it over a low heat. I used white chocolate, but this is purely personal preference. (*Smart tip - place the chocolate pan over a pot of boiling water - it's way too easy to burn chocolate on direct heat, and that's a horrible thing to do to chocolate.)

As the chocolate melts, add a tablespoon of coconut cream. You could use dessicated coconut here as well, I simply had the coconut cream in my cupboard as it's brilliant for savoury sauces. Scrape out another inch of vanilla seed and stir it into the chocolate.

The chocolate mix is ready to drizzle over the top of the caramel. You can lay it on in a thick coating, but be warned that this will make for a messy experience when slicing the tart up later - the caramel will  remain slightly liquid, and ooze up through the chocolate layer - and will also make the tart almost too sweet to eat. Once the chocolate is on, place it back into the fridge until you're ready to serve it. In this case, serving portions definitely follow the less is more rule.

I meant to add mint to my chocolate mix, but honestly forgot all about it - I'll try that the next time I make it, and see how it goes.

In the meantime, you've got a yummy, sticky treat to try - the ginger biscuits add a texture that cuts through the caramel sweetness, and the base holds up surprisingly well.

Hope you enjoy it!

The End of the Spawn

Well, the eight-legged Spawn of Satan is now an ex-Spawn. I'm arguing extreme provocation due to lack of sleep, severe arachnophobia, and the discovery of the bugger on yet another suit jacket at 7 in the morning. The last one appears to be unsalvageable.

I'm not sure if arachnicide is a word, but it'll do.

Last night was me, myself and I, all trying to get to sleep and failing miserably. I haven't had a bout of insomnia for a while, and I'm not a happy camper without enough sleep.

I got dressed. Got a few visitors to the office today, so I went to grab the suit jacket - the cheaper one, that hadn't, until this morning, been desecrated by spider silk.

The positive here is that I didn't grope the Evil One by accident this time. I moved the hanger back, and there it squatted, wrapped in white fuzz. It looked like the face-hugger from Alien, wearing a negligee. All it needed was fuzzy slippers and a hair net.

And then it - it lunged at me. The Spawn of Satan lunged at me. It had hi-jacked my wardrobe - again, mind you - and now it was acting like something out of a bad creature feature.

In hindsight, this turned out to be a fatal mistake on the part of the Spawn.

I stayed spider-free because I moved backwards pretty damn quickly, and also because it was so tightly wedged into the bundle of silk it couldn't move more than a couple of centimetres. The part that did move appeared to be mostly composed of fang.

I stood in my room, watching my biggest phobia struggle to wriggle free of it's cocoon, still aiming those fangs at me, and then it got the first pair of legs out.  At which point, dear readers, this little author lost her shit.

I don't often lose my temper. When I do, the results are, em. Interesting.

This morning was interesting to the point of me bouncing repeatedly on Spawn with a pair of heavy boots, shouting at the top of my lungs.

Considering said shouting consisted of a whole lot of "Die! Die! My SUIT!" (and other words that will not be used on this blog, because there are limits to what is fit for public consumption, and also, my mother would kick my ass), I'm mildly surprised the neighbours didn't call the cops. Explaining that one to the Flying Squad would have been awkward. I left the house feeling slightly insane.

I spent the rest of the morning with shaking hands, and I've been skittish - every time something moves too fast around me, I jump. You don't want to know what happened to the first cup of coffee I tried to drink.

So the Reign of the Spawn has ended, with the final chapter involving the Dyson and the ceremonial Ew, Don't Touch the Carpet with Your Bare Feet Dance.

At some point over the next week, I'll probably feel guilty. But right now, I'm just glad that damned thing's negligee weighed it down.

Bleurgh.

I haven't been on-line for a couple of days since I've got a lovely dose of the flu/plague/just-shoot-me-now that's being going around the office. Not to mention the tube, train, and my own home environment since my cousin has been lurching around the flat like a fully made-up extra from the Walking Dead.

It's annoying, since this is the second time in two weeks I'm down with something. Dear Immune System, all is forgiven. Please call me soon. 

Right now I can't really talk, because it hurts, but the headache seems to have backed off for a bit and I can look at a screen without whimpering. This is progress, although most of my body feels like it's been systematically beaten by an enraged leprechaun armed with a lead pipe, and every gland in my body appears to have tripled in size, including the one on the back of my head and neck. (Yes, this is a real thing. Google it before you scream at me in the comments, because right now I lack the energy to point and laugh.)

I look like a short and very irritated rugby player, with jock-itch. This is not a good look for me, dear reader. I'm hoping that that particular swelling goes down and I can actually get into work on Monday, because being unable to put on your trousers does not bode well for your working day.

To add to my misery, and probably because the only reason I'm eating once a day is because my cousin is dragging me out of my Lil Pit of Doom to feed me, tonight my p.j. bottoms decided to try and become ankle warmers. This is particularly distressing when it occurs on your way down a couple of stairs, holding dirty plates in one hand and cutlery in the other. Nothing says "I've lost 5 pounds" like a groin grab while holding a fork. Also, it's a good way to realise you can still swear in Klingon. Apparently the husky, dulcet tones I applied gave it extra depth and dimension.

No recent sign of the Spawn of Satan. Maybe the piteous whimpering has driven it to quieter pastures?

In the meantime, if you're a Walking Dead fan, have a giggle at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vAvmyTvFJ4

The follow up, which ends with one of the funniest pay-off's I've ever seen is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzulf0vO3Gk

Also, if you're a fan of urban fantasy, Ilona Andrews is running a weekly serial that's pretty addictive. If you haven't read their stuff (this is a husband and wife team) you're missing out on something pretty good. That link should take you straight to their website.

And Richard Shury has just released a new collection of shorts on Smashwords called Wading All, which looks to be as hypnotic as the rest of his stuff, and for $1.

No other news, apart from the fact that my junk mail is currently being targeted by people who think that I:
1) Need viagra (fairly sure I don't have the right equipment for this one. Maybe the fork incident scared it away?)
2) Really want to watch bad porn (*sigh* Not really. Watching an idiot in a bad wig have sex does nothing for me.)
3) Am American, and entitled to a variety of credit cards (Nope. Got a few friends there, but pretty sure I need to actually live in the country)
4) Am still owed PPI repayments (Oh, boy, do I wish that one were true)
5) Am over 50 and desperately need health insurance (Bwahahahah! Of course, if I actually make it to 50, talk to me then. Right now that feels a bit optimistic)
6) Am jewish/christian and desperate to date like minded people (No, no, and hell no. Dating someone with a mind like mine would probably result in some sort of time-warp, and/or planetary destruction. No.)
7) Have won three different non-existent lotteries in the past week. (Could we try something that doesn't insult my intelligence, just once? Please?)

Still, I guess it's nice to be popular, even if the spambots have sadly misread their data. The Nigerian scam fund emails seem to have eased off a bit since I offered two goats and an Oyster pass in marriage, though. Maybe I came across as a bit desperate, but it's been a while.

Moments of Aarrgh!!

This might have been one of the most frustrating weekends ever. I made the horrible, horrible mistake of updating my iphone (mainly because the Apple reminder kept shrieking at me, and it was driving me buggy. It's like an attention-seeking 3 year old, bouncing at me every time I looked at my screen). It's a pretty old iphone - 3GS - but it works. I use it for twitter, to check mail, to torture little green pigs - what more could a girl want? It hiccuped at me every now and then, but considering the life expectancy of most tech around me, it's lasted pretty well.

All of my music promptly quit playing. When I checked the iTunes store, it told me that the only thing I had was Pumped Up Kicks.
Now, I love that song, and I had indeed bought it. What I hadn't done was buy 15 versions of it, which my itunes store insisted I had. I found a lot of my music in the trash bin (Apple, WTF?) and moved it back. It vanished again. Then I realised I had it backed up on a removable drive, so that was sorted.
Still no joy getting the music to play - if I moved into my playlists the songs just scrolled by on the screen, like demented puppies on acid.

I deleted the playlists, but couldn't actually delete the songs - puppies on acid again, with extra helpings of "Bite me, Technophobe."
So I decided to bit the bullet and do a restore. I figured I had the weekend to return the apps & get the music sorted out.

Ahem.

iTunes decided I didn't have a sim card in my phone. The one that had been functioning perfectly well until then. I took the sim out. I put the sim back. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

The phone itself won't move past the activation screen, because it says the server is down. iTunes still reckons the sim card is a figment of my imagination. My imagination is pretty Apparently the iphone now has no capacity, no software version, and no serial number. Um. WHAT????

The only solution I've found on-line is to abuse the emergency services number, and I have no real urge to phone my mother from jail next weekend.

Author say naughty word.

Author check warranty. Warranty pretty much keeping company with the pterodactyl.

Author say naughty words in several languages.

If anyone wants to buy a funky buzzing paperweight, let me know. It doubles as a mood-destroyer, supplies ambient lighting when you least expect it to, and is large enough to club yourself repeatedly on the head. The intermittent vibrating noise (must be plugged in) might be good for teasing your cat.


                                        ***************************

In other news, although the 8-legged spawn of Satan that destroyed my suit jacket has not (yet) re-appeared, I had two close encounters with mini-spawn.

One committed suicide by bouncing in front of my nose and onto my kindle (I tried to get it off gently and it broke. the spider, not the kindle. Cue guilty moment.) and the other one scrambled over my face. Bitch-slapping yourself as a reflex is not recommended, by the way. I evidently slap quite hard, judging from the lovely red welt I left on my own cheek-bone. I either missed that mini-spawn altogether, or I pulverised it so finely it left no trace. I'm hoping for the miss, mainly because I don't think spider-guts are considered effective beauty treatment in any culture.

Both of these, by the way, while howling at iTunes until the early hours of the morning. Neither one has helped my temperament, or my writing this weekend.

Sadly, folks, until I either get this sorted, or win the lottery and can buy a new phone, I'm going to be scarce on twitter during the day. I promise to try and catch up in the evenings and on weekends though.

In the meanwhile, tips, hints and sympathy will be gratefully acknowledged and appreciated.

Pardon me, I seem to have lost my cat ...

This morning had one of those events happen that makes me view my life as a random series of strange (and frequently entertaining) moments. (I get these a lot; they just happen to be linked by happening to me. Often.)

I got to the barriers at the last tube stop, and couldn't find my Oyster card. For any readers not in the UK, this is the card swipe system that lets you travel on London public transport. You can get them as weekly, monthly, and annual versions, all at an eye-watering price that is the equivalent to TFL (Transport for London, the darling pirates running the system) bending your bank account over a chair without any KY.

After ten frantic minutes of slapping, then digging into, every pocket and pouch I had on my bag and jacket, a member of the tube staff wanders over to me. By this time I'm trying to not to whimper out loud.

TFL guy : Are you alright there?
Me (not-quite-wailing) : No - I can't find my Oyster!
TFL guy : Where did you get on?
Me : Walthamstow. (Technically Chingford, but you need to swipe through when you change at Walthamstow, so I knew I'd had it then.)
TFL guy : Let's have a look.

At which point I had the fun experience of describing my Oyster sleeve to him.

Me : White, with a bald cat holding a lightsaber.
TFL guy: A what with a what?
Me : It has a grey robe on. The cat, I mean, not the Oyster.
TFL guy starts edging carefully away...
Me : Didn't you ever watch Star Wars? Obi-Wan? I AM YOUR FATH - no?
TFL guy moves faster, shaking his head. The British transport cop who's been watching our exchange starts towards us.
And then - I see something lying in the corner, next to the escalator. It's white and grey and has a bright neon yellow streak of colour that winks up at me. With a joyful squeal, I stampede past TFL guy, swoop on it, and wave it triumphantly in the air at both him and the cop, who must have moved VERY fast when I made that cooing noise and dived at the floor.

Cop : Alright here?
Me : We're great! I thought I'd lost it!
TFL guy : Me too...

I went bouncing through the barriers and down the road to work. It was only afterwards that I realised that the TFL guy (who is probably 3 times my size both vertically and horizontally) was actually a bit unnerved by me. I'm guessing the Darth Vader impression didn't help.

Food!

This weekend has seen me cooking my little heart out - we have a new chest freezer, and the plan is to spend a weekend cooking and freezing meals so that when I do the zombie-shuffle in from work, I actually eat something.

So far I have a bunch of chicken, lamb in ginger, lime & coconut, lamb in garlic, rosemary & hoi-sin sauce, lamb curry, & the ultimate broccoli & cauliflower cheese. Best of all, apart from a bad moment when I thought I was going to asphyxiate myself with the curry spices, no actual incidents or bad moments. No setting fire to anything or dropping anything important, so at the moment I have meals for the next three working weeks. It means a little bit of extra time to write.

Anyway, I promised a couple of twitter buddies recipes, so here goes:

Note : the big, big secret to this not taking for ever is to have your stuff ready to drop in the pan. Do the chopping, slicing and dicing before you start cooking. Also, a word of warning - I have a fairly unique set of taste buds, and I cook to suit them - change or substitute to suit yourselves.

Lamb Chops with ginger, lime & coconut:

Ingredients:
2 - 3 tbs creamed coconut (I use the cream version because the last time I got a whole one, I eventually rode the car over it to crack the bloody thing. This is a LOT more convenient.)
2 tsps freshly chopped or 2 1/2 tsps powdered ginger
2 tbs lime juice
splash of lime cordial (yes, I know. I'm a barbarian. Live with it.)
1 tsp of sugar
Salt & pepper to season
Oil to fry in - I use olive oil, but use what-ever floats your boat, as long as it won't clash with the lamb taste.

Method:
Heat oil and place lamb into it. Season with salt & pepper and let caramelise. After a minute or so, turn lamb over, and add the other ingredients - start with the coconut and work your way down the list. The sauce breaks down in a thick, creamy light brown sauce with the ginger adding bite and the lime juice giving quite a bit of tang. It can be quite acidic until the sugar and lime cordial is added. This works really well with couscous as well as rice.

Ultimate Cheese Sauce:

Ingredients:
1-2 tsp butter
A handful of flour (I use cornflour, some folks use normal flour. Others skip the bother & use a packet mix. Do what works for you.)
1/2 pint of semi-skimmed milk (We're going to add a lot of cheese to this - full cream is just to rich, unless you're aiming for heart-attack-on-a-plate moments.)
2 tsps mustard (French works well in this one & adds a lovely tang to the sauce.)
1 cup cheddar cheese (grated unless you're happy to whisk for a very long time)
1 cup wensleydale cheese with cranberries
Salt & Pepper to taste
Splash of balsamic vinegar

Method:
Start on a very low heat, otherwise your sauce will split, or get lumpy. Unless you've been smart and gotten the packet mix, this part is a bit time-consuming.)
Melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Whisk until you have very fine paste. Start adding the milk a little at a time, whisking each time until the sauce is smooth. Whisk in the mustard, some of the salt, and the pepper. (I don't add all of the salt until the very end since the cheese & mustard will add quite a bit of flavour. It's very easy to over-salt at this point.)
Add the cheese little by little, whisking gently. Once the cheese has all melted, taste & add more salt if it's needed. A splash of balsamic vinegar at this point adds a lovely depth to the sauce.

If I'm making this for cauliflower or other vegetables, I usually place the already cooked veg straight into the sauce and give it a stir for a minute or so. It works brilliantly as a sauce for chips, steak, or a yummy addition to mashed potato.

If you still have lumps in your sauce, you have a couple of options. Blitz it for a few seconds in a food processor, or strain it through a fine sieve or muslin. If you take your time in the beginning stages, the odds of needing to do this are greatly reduced. (I'd recommend taking the time, especially since I tend to do special things like not putting the lid on the processor properly. Cheese sauce stains on the ceiling seem to upset the average landlord, and it's an absolute pain to get out of your hair.)

Let me know if you try the recipes and like them, and if you'd like anymore. In the meantime, I have a lemon-sauce & duck leg I need to get out of the oven.

Little Miss Muffett has Issues

Today involved a fairly important meeting at week. I have a suit jacket I wear for the important ones, and I thought today pretty much fit the bill.

So. I reach my fingers into the wardrobe, and for some reason grasped the sleeve instead of the coat-hanger. (It was early, and I hadn't had any coffee yet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

My fingertips brushed against cloth and then encountered something strange.

I stopped.

I turned the sleeve over.

A flat black spider about the length of my fore-finger peered back up at me.

Me: ...

Spider: ?

Me: ...

Spider: ...

Me: Oh, you have GOT to be bloody kidding me!

Spider: *snigger*

I dropped the sleeve and bolted backwards, then watched the little bugger scuttle around the sleeve, peer out at me again - and then scuttle UP the arm of the suit.

And since it was getting late and I had to leave for my train, I leant forward, and told the quivering fabric that if it was still there when I got home, There Would Be Trouble, and It Would Involve The Suction Hose of Doom, also known as the Dyson that I can't really operate very well.

Then I had a train ride and most of the day to ponder the fact that I basically issued a death threat to a creature that probably isn't quite sure what all the fuss was about, and was having a nice cosy morning lie-in when it suddenly got felt up by a total stranger, and What The Hell?

I don't want to kill a spider for being a spider. Killing because we fear things is something humans do too fast and too easily, and it causes a great deal of utterly avoidable crap with ourselves and the rest of the planet.

Still, I had threatened, so I pretended to look for it in the wardrobe when I got home. I couldn't bring myself to touch the jacket.

There is webbing all over the side of the arm, and it was a pricey jacket that I can't replace easily.

I am arachnophobic to a fair degree - a couple of emergency room visits and hot tar bandages due to spider bites in S.A. gives me pretty fair basis for the phobia - and considering the size of said little bugger, I'm impressed that my reaction was more along the lines of WTF than hysterical screaming.

At some point I will need to get the jacket to the dry-cleaners, if I can bring myself to touch it again. 

In the meantime, unless the little arachnid of doom scuttles around in front of my nose on a day when I'm not feeling quite so live and let live, or dances over my pillow while I'm on it (there are limits, and that is definitely one of them), I'm going to pretend it escaped out of my window after I left the room, and is telling it's friends about the awful experience it had this morning.

I still say it sniggered at me, though.

Update: About 90 seconds after I'd posted this blog and climbed into bed, my carpet moved. A small section of it that looked remarkably like the spawn of Satan that has already trashed my suit sleeve charged over towards me. I made a noise like a very unhappy helium balloon, and had some trouble getting my feet to meet the floor this morning. I do believe I've just had war declared on me. Good intentions or not, I'm currently hunting bug bombs on Amazon.

The Taming of the Dyson (how not to do it)

So today was a massive clean-up/wardrobe switch-over day. The clothing switch had to be done, because Summer marched off in a strop about two weeks ago and is unlikely to come back. She's too busy flirting with the Southern Hemisphere right now. The average temp in my little part of the world has varied between 12 -15 degrees C lately, so the short-sleeved shirts and summer weight clothing is now bagged, vacuum-sealed, and tucked away for the next few months.

The cleaning part... Let's just say that I'm not domesticated, shall we?

I cook. I love to cook, and I can do some pretty good things with food. I'll dust down things when I start tripping over dust-bunnies, and the kitchen and bathroom are kept clean, but in general, vacuuming my bedroom is something that happens to other people, or when the carpet moves. It is not my idea of a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Vacuum-sealing the clothes bags was an experience: I had a few fun moments of getting the long pole thinga-ma-jiggy that apparently is an integral part of the handle to detach. The first bag had a hole in it, but it took me awhile to realise I was attempting to vacuum the oxygen-system of an entire room using an object not really designed for that.

By this stage my cousin was supplying a very entertained audience of one.

The second one ended with me jerking the hose nozzle while it was over the vacuum lock, and wondering why the vacuum went from making a satisfying WHOOOOM noise to ACK-ACK-AAAACKKKKKK! Turned out I'd somehow managed to get the top of the vacuum lock attached to the nozzle, and detached from the bag itself. *sigh*

Stacey took the vacuum away from me, got the lock off, patted the vacuum until it felt better, and helped me with the other bags.

Eventually three bags were done, whipped into a suitcase, and said suitcase zipped into submission before I could do anything else too strange in that area.

Then I tried to vacuum my room. Stacey took a seat on the stairs so that she could watch, or rescue the Dyson if I abused it too badly, or possibly take notes for What Not To Do.

Stacey: You need to undo the cord.
Me: *pause* I knew that.
(Two minutes later, I am still trying to get the blasted cord off the hook. Stacey is trying not to laugh, and is turning red.)

The Dyson handle at this point is upright. Even I know that to use it a slight angle is required. This being a Dyson, there are about 8 yellow buttons in various places on the infernal machine, none of which seem to make a difference in angle when pushed, prodded, or sworn at.

Eventually I pushed a button that I still say I'd tramped on repeatedly by then. The bottom of the cleaner promptly folded up like a traumatised porcupine.

Me: ...
Stacey: Go on.
Me: Is it dead?
Stacey: *unable to talk due to strangled whooping noises*

Then I pulled a muscle in my butt moving drawers out of the way. It's made sitting down this evening an experience.

So, to summarise my findings for the day:

* I appear to have discovered the fabled hidden graveyard of the lonely single sock. This shy, retiring species has decided that the bottom left corner of my bed, right where the duvet hides them, is the ideal final resting place. Either that or they've started a breeding programme.

* Throw away moist dusting wipes are really cool. For some reason the cheaper versions from the 99p store are tougher and smell better that the more expensive brand.

* Vacuuming over your toe by accident hurts a surprising amount.

* Looking pathetic while doing housework can result in unexpected aid and assistance from your house-mate. Granted, you get laughed at hysterically during said aid and assistance, but it's still a bonus.

*Dyson do not have a switch ANYWHERE on the bloody model that says "On/Off". Nowhere. Also, if you start frantically pushing every yellow button in sight in the hopes of finding the one that makes the machine go Vroom, things fall off it. Your house-mate at this moment in time will be pointing and laughing, having lost the ability to speak several minutes ago.

* Housework is something that will keep happening to other people.

My mother, the Werewolf Tamer

I've mentioned the utter strangeness and entertainment value I get from my dreams before on this blog. I usually enjoy them a lot, unless they are truly horrific, in which case I spend a couple of days out-of-sorts and trying to forget them.

Painkillers seem to give me even stranger than usual dreams though, although the last couple have been strange in a very amusing way.

 It's pretty jumbled, in the way the interesting ones always are, but the basic plot boiled down to the last home I lived in with my parent, with said parents, myself, and Norman Reedus, wandering around the back yard. No idea how Mr Reedus got there, and to my intense disappointment no motorbike or crossbow was involved.
At some point it turned out I was a werewolf, or werewolf-in-training, which the parents took remarkably calmly. Except... my mom was convinced I was going to dig up the garden, and my dad wanted me to sniff out some critter that had been coming over the back wall at nights and wandering around the place.

So there I am, suddenly in desperate need of Nair, or a 6-bladed razor with a lot of replacement blades, my dad is asking "Can you smell it? What is it? Is it dangerous?", Norman is dipping a toe in the swimming pool, and mom is tapping me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper and telling me not to even think about going near her rose-bushes.
This little monster may need therapy.


So I mentioned this during our Skype chat this afternoon.

Mom: You were a what?
Dad: Did she say werewolf?
Me:  Yes. Werewolf. And you kept spanking me on the nose with the newspaper because you thought I was going to dig in the garden.
Dad: Bwahahahahah!
Mom: Well, of course I would!
Me: You wouldn't be upset that I was a mythological hairy beastie? Because you took this very calmly.
Dad: *Incoherent snorting*
Mom: You know very well what I'd say to you if you turned into a werewolf! (side note : No. No, I really wouldn't know. I would, however be hiding the silver and anything that could be used as a weapon.) And if you touched my rose-bushes you'd regret it.
Me: Mom, you realise hitting a werewolf with a newspaper is probably not a good idea?
Dad: *hiccuping in background*
Mom: I don't CARE! If it touches my garden, it'd better watch out. Nobody messes with my garden.
Dad: Exactly. *pause* So what was I trying to get you to smell? Do you know?

And that folks, is one of the many reasons I adore my family.

The 5th Horseman Carries a Dental Drill

So - this will probably be a short post, since I'm also rocking gently and waiting for the next load of painkillers to kick in.

I had to go for an extraction this morning. This has been a bit of an ongoing saga, since my regular dentist managed to snap this one off at the gum, used every instrument she had but stopped short of a hammer and chisel, and at one stage was kneeling on the chair with me, and finally gave up saying that the root had bonded to the jaw-bone.

I love the way that I always get the special weird medical stuff happening. *sigh*

To say I was not looking forward to this would be an understatement, but since I've had quite a bit of pain from the exposed bit that's left, I know it had to be done.

My cousin came with me, which is good, since it stopped me crawling under one of the chairs in the waiting room and howling. She ended up making soothing there-there noises all the way to the surgery, and never laughed at me even when I'd stop chattering (nervous habit) in the middle of a sentence and just whimper. She sniggered a few times, but never laughed outright.

We sat in a waiting room with a few other people, including one toddler from hell, who crawled over the furniture and tried to knock a few pictures off of the wall.
When I got called through I was ... pleasantly surprised.

The dentist was a tall, very good-looking chap who obviously recognised a nervous patient and joked his way through the aesthetic injections. He was smart enough to give me three of them off the bat, so I'm not sure if my normal dentist warned him - I've had two situations already when the legal amount of anaesthetic resulted in a numb tongue and lips and did absolutely nothing to stop me feeling the drill - and I lurched back into the waiting room feeling a lot more cheery. Getting the actual injections still hurt like hell, though.

And then....

Picture this: there are three people in the waiting room. Myself, my patiently waiting cousin, and a blonde woman who looks nervous. My hands are shaking, but they also do when I go to the dentist; I tend to vibrate like a gently tugged bowstring.

Me: This guy seems brilliant.
Stacey: That's good.
(Blond Lady looks a bit perkier.)
Unknown voice from down the hall: Aaaargh! Awoooo! OW!

The three of us look at each other, startled.

Unknown voice, continuing: Oh god! God! Oh, god, NO! GOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD!

Blonde Lady turns as pale as the white wall she's leaning against. I'm wondering if it's too late to break for the door.

The nurse appears in the doorway, and Blonde Lady gets beckoned to her doom.

About six minutes later they called me back in, and I sat in the chair, sweating gently.

In under twenty seconds the tooth remnant from hell was out of my mouth.

I checked with the dentist and the receptionist on my way out, and I'll probably be coming back to this particular dentist from now on - he's about 2 hours closer than my old one, and anyone that can get a tooth out with that amount of speed and accuracy and lack of trauma is on my wish-list.

Unfortunately as the anaesthetic wears off and my body figures out that I've Done Something and It Doesn't Like Me right now, some fairly serious painkillers are in order.

Dentists are in my top 5 phobias, hence the title of the post - but I think I've just found a  good one. Part of me is relieved, and the other part of me hopes it's a very long time until I see him again, no matter how good he is.

Here's hoping.

The Industry That Ate Itself

There's been a lot of hysteria in both the standard media and all over the interwebz the last week or so about Authors Behaving Badly, or at least, Not Up To The Standard Distinguished Gentlefolk Should Maintain.

We had the John Locke issue, where it was revealed that the author paid for reviews. Shock! Horror! (Explanation for sarcasm slightly further down this post. Pace yourselves, folks, I'll get there.)

Stephen Leather came under fire for daring to thumb his nose at people who were doing the same to him, and using fake accounts to do so. The cheek of it! How dare he not simply bend over and ask for more KY? It's really not done, old boy.

And R.J. Ellory got busted leaving somewhat lavish reviews of his own books and firing what would appear to be small nuclear devices consisting of 1 star reviews at his competition. Out of the three, this one puzzled me the most, but let's look at them in order, shall we?

Locke paid for reviews. I have a couple of responses to the outrage over this one, and the first is: if you think that he is the only author ever to do so, I got a bridge I'd like to sell you. It's all purty and old and stuff. Londoner's have thrown up on it for several hundred years, but they cleaned it up for the Olympics so it smells a bit better than it used to.
Furthermore, if you think that standard publishers never paid for reviews, whether through advertising in the media that employed their reviewers, or by funding things, or even directly (book reviewers need to eat too; I'm fairly sure they don't eat the pages of books they dislike so real food is probably welcome), you've passed the world of naivety and shouldn't be allowed to play with any money that doesn't belong on a Monopoly board.

What Locke did, despite the howls of outrage blowing through the internet, makes sense from a business point of view, and what Locke is, before he ever decided to write, is a pretty successful businessman. It's also worth pointing out that he could afford to pay for these reviews, and a large amount of said howling comes from folks who cannot. (Personally, I looked at the price it's claimed he paid and just about choked. That's a whole bunch of coffee and rent money right there.)

About the only grumble I have is that he never offered it as full disclosure in the book he published about how he achieved his sales. That said, although the reviews might have helped him, I doubt they were 100% the reason for his success; folks read his books, liked them, and carried on buying his stuff.
Screaming about Locke's sales being unfair because he bought reviews is about as useful as a toddler sticking grapes up his nose. It makes you look stupid, and eventually it's going to hurt you.

As for Leather - dear internet, for the love of green cheese, grow up. That news is old. It's also been pretty much an open secret for years; there was chatter about him doing this before I published WolfSong, and that's going on almost two years now. And some of his chirps are pretty damn funny, but maybe that's just me.
Also, dear screaming indignant fans, you can't have it both ways. If an author responds to anything remotely negative, with anything no matter how polite, they'd have a slighter better life expectancy if you strapped a raw steak to their back and dropped them in a shark tank. They'd probably also having a slightly better quality of life at that point in time.

Unfortunately, since authors are not emotionless robots that only live on your bookshelf or in your kindle, and since most of them like other humans don't always have the maybe-I'd-better-not-do-that filter on permanently, sometimes they respond like humans. The danger of the mob-the-author mentality is that it gets to the point where authors cannot say or do anything that might be slightly controversial once they reach a certain visibility, and that is dangerous. That's the whole stick-em-under-the-stairs-so-respectable-folks-don't-see-em vibe that pushes all my alert buttons, and it needs to stop. Don't ask me how - humans sometimes seem very good at tearing others down, and then standing around shuffling their feet and wondering why they don't have anyone left to play with - and I have no idea how to change that mentality. I don't understand it, and all I can do is try to avoid it.

Then there's Ellory, and as I mentioned earlier, this one had me scratching my head a bit. He's not the first author to be busted this way, but he is one of the biggest. That's not what has me puzzled, though, as I mentioned on twitter last week. What does confuse me is this : where did he find the time to do this? And why did he do it?  This isn't the standard jealous indy author with an axe to grind - this is a respected, traditionally published, award winner author, with multiple books to his name. (M&S, eat your heart out.) I have no idea why he did this, and of the three, it's the only one that really irks me, because leaving nasty reviews simply to disrupt someone else's sales is a shoddy move. It's something I associate with people who think pulling the wings off of flies as being high entertainment. Leaving love-letters to ones self in the form of an Amazon review, while cringeworthy if caught is one thing. It's embarrassing, and the authorial equivalent to that scene from American Pie, but it's not quite as, well, dickish as trying to hurt fellow writers and being too cowardly to use your own name.

And for all my points on that, he is still entitled to free speech. The one star review system is abused by people with their own agenda on every site that uses it. I'm not saying what he did is nice, but he is as entitled to do so as everyone else. Case in point - there are now a couple of 1 star reviews against his books by people who posted them because of him being exposed. So what makes any 1 star vendetta more righteous than another? To me it just highlights the fact that review sites and the internet makes it very easy for mob wars to start, for people to be vindictive for whatever weird sense of satisfaction they get from being pretty dickish themselves.

But I really want to know how he found the time. Writing a review takes a bit of thought and effort. Writing multiple reviews using multiple accounts (at this point my mind always starts wailing "How? How do they set up multiple accounts when I can hardly get one to work? Whah!" and then goes and sulks in a corner) and jumping onto the forum boards using those same accounts? While still writing books and living life and getting awards and stuff? My only explanation is that he has access to a real-life version of the Tardis.

Dear Mr. Ellory:

I'd really, really, like to take a ride in your time-space bending machine. I  promise not to ding it too badly and will bring it back once I've sorted out the lottery and kicked my high-school nemesis in the soft parts.

Love,
Me.