With all the talk of Wimbledon and grass (a very important subject if you’re a Wimbledon player, official, or fan), I thought I would post about a very different form of lawn.
If you think “The Camomile Lawn” is the title of a book by Mary Wesley, you’d be right. Out of her novels, it’s my [...]
Archive for the ‘Britain’ Category
Walk with Fragrance
Posted in Britain, Sharon Bidwell, life on June 29, 2009 | 10 Comments »
Grass!
Posted in Britain, Fiona Glass, History, life on June 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Talking of the green, green grass of Wimbledon, there’s a fascinating blog post about lawns, their history and their uses at Mark Easton’s blog on the BBC Website. It seemed too appropriate not to pass it on!
Anyone for tennis?
Posted in Britain, Sport, TV, events on June 22, 2009 | 8 Comments »
It’s that time of year again: strawberries, rain, athletic young folk leaping about in whites, and the gentle thwack of balls. Tennis balls, that is. Yup, Wimbledon is here again. Two weeks of joy for tennis fans, two weeks of fuming and searching the tv listings for *anything* that isn’t tennis for those of a [...]
A Sign of the Political Times? – #bbcqt
Posted in Britain, Marc Nobbs on May 21, 2009 | 2 Comments »
It must be a sign of the interesting times in which we live, but the BBC have moved their ‘flagship’ political debate programme, Question Time, from it’s regular Thursday night 10:30pm (after the news) slot to a prime time, before the news, 9pm slot. I don’t know if this is a permanent change or not [...]
What the *@#%* is a radgepacket?
Posted in Britain, Fiona Glass, writing on February 25, 2009 | 9 Comments »
The mysterious radgepacket…
I’m in a slightly weird position here. A few weeks ago I had a short story accepted by Byker Books for their latest anthology, which has the utterly unforgettable title of ‘Radgepacket – Tales From the Inner Cities Volume 2′. Of course, I was delighted – but I was also slightly baffled. And [...]
A Father at 13? Surely not.
Posted in Britain, Marc Nobbs on February 16, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Okay, you need to go and read this article from Friday’s The Sun newspaper in the the UK then come back here and read what I have to say.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2233878.ece
Right, read it? And you came back. Good. I’m going to try and not over react to this but I’ll say from the outset that it will [...]
Apostrophes on street signs
Posted in Britain, Fiona Glass, language, life on February 4, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Birmingham City Council has been getting a lot of stick lately for its decision not to use apostrophes on street signs.
As a writer part of me does worry about this. It’s yet another erosion of the traditions of our language and grammar, and yet another blow to the trusty old apostrophe, the use of which [...]
Change of Plans
Posted in Britain, Erastes, Scenery, writing on December 31, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Ok – made some kind of decision about my next novel, “Hangingstone Hill.”
I had originally planned it to be set in Dartmoor but I’ve changed my mind. This, for a start, will make the name redundant as that’s a place name of a tor in the Dartmoor area.
It seems silly to me to live in [...]
The Devil’s Whore
Posted in Britain, Erastes, People of Britain, TV on November 21, 2008 | 8 Comments »
Shown on Channel Four this week, I sat down to watch “The Devil’s Whore” with a great deal of interest. My next novel is about the English Civil War and having invested so much research into it, I was curious to see how Channel Four dealt with it. Was it going to be something along [...]
Happy Halloween, and a blessed Samhain!
Posted in Alex Draven, Britain, Society, events, life on October 31, 2008 | 4 Comments »
This is one of my favourite times of year, and I’m posting today, talking about Whitby.
What do I mean, Whitby?
Whitby.
1) A small seaside town and fishing port on the north east coast of Yorkshire, famous for it’s jet.
2) An important medieval abbey. See also St Hilda (Abbess)
3) “a gathering of as many goths [...]
