KazG

  • As we are in imminent peril of being swamped with things-AI if Mr Starmer and our present government are to be believed, I thought I’d bite the bullet and give ChatGPT a whirl. As an experiment, I thought I’d try for a summary of my WIP. Since that’s something I will have to wrestle with when I come to submit, I wondered whether it might be…[Read more]

  • Regrettably late to this – and non-participant – but what a joy to catch up with those that did make the effort- thank you @ Richard and @Terrie

  • Hmm… this time of year tends to call to mind themes of new beginnings and fresh starts, but that’s a bit of a cliché, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been done before. So let’s look at it the other way. New Year also marks the end of the old year, so please give me up to 500 words on whatever the phrase ‘the end’ calls to your mind.

  • Thanks, Ath. I should maybe point out that ‘the protagonist’ is in fact me. The brief didn’t say it had to be fiction, and my effort isn’t. I really am building, slowly and very carefully, a huge model car.

  • Oh Lord. Two entries. Both very different from what I expected. Not that I expected anything in particular, but I know what I mean. Both excellent. Richard’s engrossed me, as the protagonist was engrossed in the model. Terrie’s made me laugh out loud. There’s no winner or loser here, because it was a virtual toss of the coin. Richard, choose us a…[Read more]

  • Athelstone posted an update 1 year, 3 months ago

    Anybody thinking of entering the last Monthly Competition of 2024? Still plenty of time for a few hundred words, but it’s getting closer.

  • RichardB posted an update 1 year, 3 months ago

    Christmas spirit was alive and well at our ‘local’ this morning when we turned up for a drink on the house ‘as a thank you to our regulars.’ The landlord (yes, really: it’s a free house) was wearing a teeshirt saying ‘You scumbag’ and the landlady one saying ‘You maggot.’ Pity I didn’t catch them side by side…

    Merry Christmas, all, what’s left of it.

    • And to you. We’ve just waived 14 guests away after hosting a Boxing Day buffet. I enjoyed it, mainly, but glad it’s done.

  • Athelstone started the topic One Christmas in the forum Coffee Shop 1 year, 3 months ago

    Back on the WordCloud I started a group called Advent for Christmas-related posts. It was slightly popular, but back then we had an active wall and plenty of other groups, so it never flew especially high.

    I posted a short children’s story. It needs a good edit that I might give it one day, but i think it’s quite fun, so if you’re in need of some…[Read more]

  • Athelstone replied to the topic Happy Christmas in the forum Coffee Shop 1 year, 3 months ago

    And many thanks to you, Libby, and to the other happy few who make this place worth keeping. A very happy Christmas to us all.

  • I salute you, Ath. The last time we had a kitchen makeover we had it done professionally, though to be fair to myself that was an intregal part of the deal. To show my respect I am actually responding to your prompt, for a change.

    Modelling Therapy

    I’ve always been a sucker for a nice model. In my youth I used to build plastic kits (Airfix and…[Read more]

    • Aha! Yes, having it done professionally was always part of my view of things as well. Then we both agreed to spend more than we probably should on the various bits and pieces. The chap in the shop said, in confidence, our fitting is expensive and you might want to get your own fitter. He hit some keys and offered us in excess of £4.5k for…[Read more]

      • My God, i salute you again. Fitting tiny bits together that are already the right size, as in my entry piece, is one thing, but I’ve never had the skill to do DIY to such fine tolerances. Now I’m old and can usually find the money to pay for work to be done professionally I try to avoid DIY altogether, though I did manage the other day to mend a…[Read more]

        • I think it was the number of surprises that wore me down. We looked at finished units in a showroom and it never occurred to me that the various pieces wouldn’t be supplied ready to fit. So when the parts arrived it was a shock to see several 4 metre lengths of aluminium lying amongst them, together with endless bags of anonymous and unexplained…[Read more]

          • You are right Ath, paying for installation is rather expensive so I’ve opted for Christmas at daughters and have been gutting the kitchen myself. Also sourced some of the new items myself, although, like you, have gone for integral fridge and dishwasher.
            So far I’ve emptied the cupboards and removed all the upper ones the extractor fan…[Read more]

  • Janette posted an update 1 year, 4 months ago

    Phew, Winter comp story posted. Hope it may be forgiven that this is an old monthly comp entry that I have torn apart, expanded and reassembled. It is all I could come up with given my other obligations, and I now hope errors and amends don’t leap out at me!

    • I hope you may be forgiven too, because my entry was conceived in a similar way. I don’t even have your excuse of being too busy, but the story asked to be written and so I wrote it.

      • I look forward to reading yours, Richard.

      • Me too to a large extent. My entry very much a side/back story of two or three other comp entries all of which stemmed from one or more of my ‘Love triangles with murder series. I did hope for something different but the characters have taken up permanent residence in my head.

  • RichardB posted an update 1 year, 4 months ago

    Just had two days without power, courtesy of Storm Darragh. By yesterday afternoon the house was so cold we were wearing our outdoor coats indoors. The mobile network went down too, so what with the landline going digital we were completely isolated. The power finally came back on just before midnight, and the house is still warming up. The mobile…[Read more]

    • Afterthought: when ‘they’ were planning the change to digital landlines did they consider the possible consequences of running the system via broadband routers, dependant on the national grid, or did they simply not care? If I’d had a heart attack or something during those two days I would have died. We had no way of calling an ambulance.

      • I hope things are back to normal now, Richard. The lack of means of communication is frightening.

        • Yes thanks, we are okay now, though the boiler had to work non-stop for 48 hours to get the house back to normal temperature.
          Our ‘local’ pub (about four miles away) were in the same fix. They had hundreds of people booked for Saturday night dinner and Sunday lunch, and the guvnor had to drive five miles to a supermarket car park to get a signal…[Read more]

  • I did the first one of the year. Here’s the last. I’ve been fitting a kitchen. Plumbing, carpentry, stuff to a standard I’ve never managed before. Came close to giving up once or twice.

    Up to 500 words on doing something really difficult.

  • Thanks Seagreen. Glad you laughed. Well, Terrie, there’s a coincidence. I’ve barely been able to write for the last month having been fitting our new kitchen. Completely new from top to bottom including having to rebuild joists under the floor and fit a kitchen to an accuracy of 1mm per metre. As I’ve never done anything to that accuracy except by…[Read more]

  • Sea,  I well remember, a couple of years ago admiring your shorter haircut when you picked me up at Markinch station, Promise I wasn’t thinking of the competition we might meet at Craigievar! I did hope to do something more inspired for this great prompt, but ran out of mental space, so well done Ath.

  • Anyone else got ???? Supposed to be a smiley face 🙂

  • Sorry for being so late with this…

    Sandra and Ath, thanks for entering – and both with a hair-related topic! ???? Alex, no worries. I’ll catch you next time.

    Sandra – your chosen article left me gobsmacked. Clearly, I have been a victim of this. Brainwashed into keeping my hair short because my good looks are a threat to other women. I’ll be on…[Read more]

  • I’m not surprised by this. For some time there have been AI editing features available with Prowritingaid, Grammarly and so on. I have the former, and although I seldom use the AI features, some of which are behind an additional paywall, I have given them a spin in the past. What you get from one of the reports does appear to be a reasonably…[Read more]

  • Argus 26 November 2024

    Brighton man grows hair for five years for special reason.

     

    I remember the blonde hair on the windowsill. My hair’s brown, so it must have come from Taz. Her hair is, or was, I should say, long, and rich, and blonde. Curious, I ran my fingers through my hair a few times and then examined what had come loose. Not a lot,…[Read more]

  • Yes, it’s rather chilling, isn’t it?

    One doesn’t tend to think of Roald Dahl as a sci-fi writer, but he foresaw something like this. Over seventy years ago one of his early adult short stories, The Great Automatic Grammartizator, told the tale of a nerd who invents a machine that generates stories at such a prodigious rate that he takes over the…[Read more]

  • Load More