Friends – Activity – Barry Walsh

RichardB started the topic Susie in the forum Blogs 6 years ago

When you’re in your mid-thirties with three young children, when your life, which not so many years before was right on the edge of falling apart, has finally settled down, just about the last thing in the world you could possibly need is to fall in love with a barmaid fourteen years your junior. But then, Susie was no ordinary barmaid.

A…[Read more]

RichardB replied to the topic A Want of Discipline: Abergele, 1868 in the forum Blogs 6 years ago

That, of course, is because, while ”snwcr’ is one of the many words the Welsh have borrowed from English and re-spelt (rather entertainingly) phonetically in Welsh, ‘heddlu’ (hethly) is a real Welsh word. But the Welsh for policeman is ‘plismon’, and for policewoman – wait for it – ‘plismones’.

RichardB replied to the topic A Want of Discipline: Abergele, 1868 in the forum Blogs 6 years ago

Ath: ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’, Grenfell Tower…

Libby: When we first moved to Wales we did a Welsh language course for a couple of years. It’s a hell of a hard language to learn (for example, there are at least a dozen ways of turning a singular noun into a plural and there are no hard and fast rules, so you have to remember each noun’s…[Read more]

Athelstone replied to the topic A Want of Discipline: Abergele, 1868 in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

Fascinating, Richard. Rich’s words may have been ahead of their time, but that serves to emphasise how persistent the root causes of these disasters are. We still do it, even with our modern safety culture. Sadly, there are forces working to erode what gains have been made. The “Health & Safety Gone Mad” slogan may not belong to a formal campaign;…[Read more]

RichardB started the topic A Want of Discipline: Abergele, 1868 in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

Up until the grouping of 1923 the London and North Western Railway, whose principal route was what is now called the West Coast Main Line from Euston as far as Carlisle, was the giant of British railways: indeed, at one time it was the largest commercial undertaking of any sort in the world. It was also, in its origins, one of the oldest,…[Read more]

Jules replied to the topic A gasp escaped me! in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

Pretty sure Stephen King now has a team of fact checkers. But yes I imagine the tone of those letters is gleeful. What I’ll say for King is that even though he’s writing speculative fiction, he portrays characters who’ve had life experiences he has not respectfully. The same cannot be said for Boyne! One of the big problems with The Boy in the…[Read more]

Sandra replied to the topic A gasp escaped me! in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

Ah, yes. I take your point Athers. My ignorance obscured it earlier.

Athelstone replied to the topic A gasp escaped me! in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

There are degrees to this and a dependency on the type of book being written. I am not searching for an artificial precision in moral culpability. I am not saying that there are some absolute rules at play. I am saying that if you bend the truth to suit your story, while at the same time maintaining that what you write is authentic, then there are…[Read more]

Sandra replied to the topic A gasp escaped me! in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

Athers, I’ve not read Boyne, so took the passage you quote as from a fantasy novel which, in my understanding, means anything goes in the way of made-up words and facts.
On the subject of ‘proper’ research; at Newcastle Noir a couple of years ago, one crime writer told of being asked how many specialists he had on call to help him with research,…[Read more]

Sandra replied 6 years, 1 month ago

There’s an article in today’s Telegraph referring to this, and mentioning it seems to apply less to film-makers, e.g. Braveheart where kilts were worn 500 years before in use “because they looked better”. Artistic licence, innit?

Athelstone started the topic A gasp escaped me! in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

This is a lightweight blog.

I was just settling down after reading about the astonishing performance by George R R Martin at the Hugo awards, when my son approached brandishing his phone.

‘Look at that,’ he said.

I looked. My son has been a fan of the Zelda video games since he was little. I played a few along with him in the last few years,…[Read more]

Libby replied 6 years, 1 month ago

I didn’t gasp – too world weary – but I can see why you’re annoyed, Ath. On a lighter note I was disappointed, having hoped to learn something more about nightshade! Woody nightshade grows in our garden, is pretty and you could imagine the berries being used for dye. It’s also poisonous. But when I got a bit further I’d have switched off if you h…[Read more]
- Libby replied 6 years, 1 month ago
  
  Here’s a review of the book https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/06/a-traveller-at-the-gates-of-wisdom-by-john-boyne-review-an-ambitious-era-hopping-epic
  - Athelstone replied 6 years, 1 month ago
    
    Thanks, Libby. A really interesting review. I hadn’t realised that the Zelda mistake was one amongst many. Aside from characters deep in history musing about their peers in the language of C20th psychology, we have ‘…kimonos and obis to the Chinese, igloos to the Norse Icelanders, and steel and horses to pre-Columbian South Americans. Potatoes…[Read more]
  - Kate replied 6 years, 1 month ago
    
    That makes me flippin mad! All the hard work we put into our MSs, and he just… 😫
    - JaneShuff replied 6 years, 1 month ago
      
      Absolutely agree. I accept that the ‘worlds’ we base our stories in have a lot of the unlikely and improbable in them but there is a big difference between that and not bothering to do proper research.

RichardB replied to the topic The $2,000,000 Guitar in the forum Blogs 6 years, 1 month ago

Sadly, I have heard today that Peter Green, without whom this blog wouldn’t have been written, has died at the age of 73.

RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Literary Byways: The Beginning Place, by Ursula K Le Guin in the forum Blogs 6 years, 2 months ago

Not too challenging, Kaz, if you do what I did and go to abebooks.com. When I looked there were quite a few copies available from various sources.

As for fantasy speaking to human reality, a lot of the tide of stuff that’s come pouring out since LOTR opened the flood-gates simply doesn’t. As a matter of interest here is Le Guin herself’s rather…[Read more]

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