Petrina Binney's Blog, page 68
March 7, 2019
Book Review – Every Last Psycho by Zarina Macha
First published, July 2018
This book is a collection of two novellas, Every Last Thought and Psycho Girl, both of which feature young, female protagonists with very dark thoughts.
I found the descriptions of mental illness, as experienced by Tess, the teenage main character in Every Last Thought, really interesting. I felt very deeply for her, especially with all the horrors and trauma she goes through. And I liked the character of Ed, best friend of Tess and the love of her life. I enjoyed the unrequited nature of the love story at the centre of Every Last Thought, and felt it balanced some of the darker themes pretty well.
In Psycho Girl, Evelyn is a spoilt brat who thinks she’s better than everybody, feels entitled to an Oxbridge education and a selection of men to use for her own entertainment, and I couldn’t bear her. She tries to tear down a rival by manipulating the girl’s intellectual insecurity, and I thought, although unlikeable, Evelyn was really well-drawn.
As much as I liked the writing, particularly in Psycho Girl, I did find some of the themes – schizophrenia, sexual violence, substance abuse and rape – very harrowing. Although I’m pleased I read the book, the gravity of the subject matter makes it a difficult one to recommend in general terms, without reference to the trigger warnings.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1983316067
http://www.zarinamacha.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/zarinawriter
http://www.twitter.com/zarinamacha
http://www.instagram.com/zarinamacha
http://www.goodreads.com/zarinamacha
Day #66 Irish Wisdom and Mythology
From what I remember, and I’m delving deep into my brain for this – there was a section about how people are always said to be made of clay. Not literally, of course, but in the sense of being mouldable, occasionally breakable and… I don’t know, can be reworked if adequately damp?
Regardless, man is made of clay. And no piece of clay is alone. Clay, in its natural environment, might fill a huge amount of land. Thus, the concept of The One doesn’t have to feel so limiting, because it doesn’t have to be one perfect other. Whatever size of clay we might take to represent a person, there will be many others all around it. Dozens. Hundreds. There are many Ones.
There was a concept called fite tríd agus isteach i ngach ceann eile meaning ‘woven through and into each other’, and which refers to all kinds of spirituality being part of day-to-day life. Just hanging out the washing, or taking the dogs for a walk, there’s something other on the periphery, and that’s really not something to be frightened of, but rather, something to be mindful of. I rather like that.
But the best thing of all, the finest, most delightful thing, was the description of the hierarchy of ancient Irish society. Where now, the upper echelons of society are the playground of the surgeons and the lawyers, probably a fair few money-men, in ancient Irish culture, the highest point in society was occupied by the poet.
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I was born into the wrong time. I always knew it.
Now, you might have noticed, I’m having to remember what I’m talking about. This is because when my sister last visited, I loaned her the book. She had every intention of reading it and then using its return as an excuse to come back to Blighty.
That was ten years ago.
She hasn’t brought it back yet, and I haven’t wandered Stateside. And I know what the answer is: international book tour. It’s so obvious.
Incidentally, the sale continues, Book One – ‘Sex, Death & Canapés’ – no charge, but not for much longer.
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Click away:
UK: https://amzn.to/2MXOaXL
USA: https://amzn.to/2olxxHK
March 6, 2019
Day #65 Home Decor
Now, I’m the first to admit, my kitchen could do with some sprucing up. The trouble is this: I like a super-glossy surface. I really love that sort of worktop that looks like, if someone decided to heave themselves up, to sit on the sheen, they’d slide right the way down the length of the kitchen and go flying through the window.
My kitchen surfaces were plastic wood veneer, now painted in black with sparkly bits.
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But what I’d really like is that glossy coat that looks like its had four or five layers of varnish slathered over the top. But not here. It wouldn’t fit here.
I live in a bungalow. The sort of place that is, occasionally and affectionately referred to as a cottage. Realistically, I think it would only estate agents who would call it a cottage, in order to increase the house value and bump up the commission.
The house is firmly rooted in the countryside. We have trees. Big ones. And there’s a stream. Horses clippety-clop along the side of the road in the early morning. Birds sing at all hours of the day and night. There’s an open fire in the sitting room. There used to be beams across the ceiling, but they were only for effect – and looked too thin to support so much as a string of paperclips, largely because they were totally surface and held no weight.
I lost the crazy-paving fireplace surround because it was hideous but I can live with the woodchip wallpaper.
I could have coffee-table-books that never make it off the coffee table. It’s that kind of place. Country cottage. An Aga would not be out of place. It is a house of character.
And character cannot bear the sharp, crisp lines of a counter-top that threatens to hurl people from the building. Maybe in the next house…
But moving will wait for another day, when I’m not in the midst of a sale on Book One, ‘Sex, Death & Canapés’ – entirely free. It’s still there. Go and find it. I can wait.
UK: https://amzn.to/2MXOaXL
USA: https://amzn.to/2olxxHK
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March 5, 2019
Day #64 Crosswords
My parents would be in their eighties now. Neither of them went to university but almost no one from that time did. They went into work, marriage, children, building a patio, growing geraniums, all that stuff.
Of the drinking buddies I have at the Legion who fall into the same age bracket as my parents, only one went into higher education. Times have, of course, changed, and now everyone and their mother has a degree.
But, having not gone to university, and knowing very few people who’d got as far as A-levels, my parents thought the best sort of preparation for my higher education was starting me on the Telegraph crossword from around the age of six. Possibly earlier. I’m sure there were fewer clocks in the eighties.
Anyway, as time moved on, I got very good at the Telegraph crossword. As previously reported, my mother tried to teach me French, with freckles of Norwegian thrown in for good measure. When I was a teenager, she bought a Test Your Own IQ book and had me try it out at different times of day – in order to discover that my IQ ranges from 129 and 168, depending on my caffeine intake.
In my early twenties, my uncle used to visit quite frequently and he would do the crossword with my mother. In the morning, with a cup of tea, it was all very polite and my mother would bite her tongue in order to let her brother get as many clues right on his own as possible. After twenty or so minutes, I’d come in with a strong coffee, slightly blurry-eyed, and finish the last few clues for him.
I never did go to university, but I think my mother was quite proud of how quickly I could polish off the crossword. And having this kind of brain does help when the word is elusive.
And the sale is still on. Have Book One, ‘Sex, Death & Canapés’ for FREE this week only…
UK: https://amzn.to/2MXOaXL
USA: https://amzn.to/2olxxHK
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March 4, 2019
Day #63 The Act Of Giving
The ebook of Book One – ‘Sex, Death & Canapés’ – is ENTIRELY FREE for five solid days, starting today!!!
That’s right, ladies and gents, you can snaffle your copy for zero cash, without any thought to Kindle Unlimited or the Binney Retirement Fund, from right now, 4th March, until 8th March 2019. All the way through, five solid days, no let-up.
Have at it.
Now, since I’ll be giving away this book, on which I spent nine months of my life, during which I drank well over three-thousand cups of coffee, I suggest you wander on over to Amazon and get it for free while you can.
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Come Saturday, it’s going back up to £2.99. I know, it’s hardly naked profiteering but, I wouldn’t argue with totally free.
Do go forth and tell the world.
I’ll just be sitting here, working on book four.
And this is a positive post because… I’m hopeful of taking over the world with five days of freebies. Naturally, if there’s a TV producer out there who likes a bargain, I’m right here.
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Go on, give us a click:
UK: https://amzn.to/2MXOaXL
USA: https://amzn.to/2olxxHK
March 3, 2019
Day #62 Daydreaming
I have spent the greater part of my life inside my head. It’s a happening place to be, if I do say so myself.
A lot of the work of writing, the day to day work of it, is staring off into the distance. I spend more time thinking about my characters than almost anyone in my real life. The actual sitting down and typing side of things is quite a small part of my day.
Once I’m up and filled to the brim with coffee, I do whatever simply must be done, blog like a fiend, check my notes, and consider book four until it’s time to start typing.
Generally, I type from midnight to five a.m. If I’m using Aimée’s laptop, I’ll usually make some good progress, a couple of thousand words and an inkling of which direction the story is going in. If I’m using my old laptop, I’ll get distracted by Solitaire and lose a couple of hours. (I only use my old laptop when Aimée’s is throwing a hissy fit and failing to move beyond the Apple logo.)
On my way to bed, I leave notes for myself. Little things I should have thought of while I was typing: which character should be going to pieces, which one has gone silent, which one is planning an escape or an affair or some minor meltdown.
Most of my night-dreams are like anyone else’s, except they take place during the day. Now, because I am aware that other people’s dreams are really boring, I won’t explain too much, but the fact is – I’m often the hero in my head. However, over the last couple of years, more often than not, the contents of my sleeping brain have revolved around Amberleigh.
And then, once the coffee cup is drained and the day is ready to start properly, I fall back into the daydream, until it’s time to write it down.
‘Daydreaming’ is also the name of an A1 rap song by Dusty Springfield. Now, I know what you’re thinking.
Dusty Springfield, as in ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’, Dusty Springfield? Rapping? Surely not.
It was the early nineties. Everybody rapped.
Here’s the proof…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlXmclEYWpI
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Happy Sunday, everyone.
March 2, 2019
Day #61 Swimming
My mother’s father was a great swimmer. When my mother and her younger brother, Craig, were children, they used to hold onto their father’s shoulders as he swam in the sea on family holidays in the Westcountry. It was an abiding memory from my mother’s childhood which she shared with me countless times, I suspect, to urge my own father to learn to swim, just in case he should want to avoid drowning. He never did learn to swim, but as a land-lover who didn’t risk enormous mugs of tea, he never felt the need.
In the summer of my eleventh birthday, I was very busy. I learnt to ride a bike, having been excessively nervous for two solid years beforehand because of the impending Cycling Proficiency Test at school. It wasn’t until that last year, the term before the test was to take place, that we were told it was not compulsory. I was furious. Two years of solid fretting and I felt rather annoyed that I was not going to be made to mount a bike and immediately fall off it in front of the entire school.
Anywho, in the summer between primary and high schools, as previously mentioned, I was busy. We went on holiday to Canada. I learnt the entire soundtrack to ‘The Bodyguard’. I learnt to ride a bike. I started ju jitsu classes. I went horseriding. I went fishing. I learnt to swim.
I got pretty good at swimming. I don’t remember what distance I could cover back then, but I know I had a good number of certificates to prove it.
There was a moment, a few weeks back in the painfully early hours of the morning, when a thought popped into my head.
“I must go swimming.”
Now, it was not, “I must go swimming at some point. Perhaps when I have a costume, maybe even, dare I say, goggles?”
Neither was it, “I must go swimming once I have learnt the opening times of the nearest leisure centre with a decent-sized pool and some lanes marked in those floaty blue things.”
It was more, “I must go swimming. Now.”
Luckily, I can tell the difference between me-determined and me-overtired, but I think a time will come when I will have to locate the late night opening times for the nearest leisure centre.
I imagine their version of late night will differ wildly from mine, but still, I think I will go swimming. After all, I love it.
March 1, 2019
Day #60 London
Day 60, and a little later than usual on account of where I’ve just been.
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London.
Oh, how I love London. How I swoon at its giant, sprawling majesty. Its art galleries, shops, museums, marble and stone.
I love its grit, its lights, its honking horns, the dirt in the air melting into the scent of fourteen different kinds of cuisine.
I love walking quickly along the pavement past two dozen languages that, when mixed, sound like someone passed out on the keyboard.
I love the patchwork rooftops and sporadic, heaving parks. I love the twinkling lights, and knowing that behind every window is a person with their own thoughts and talents and moments of happiness.
I love every ounce of London. I love the taxi that took us past Buckingham Palace and through to St Martin’s Lane, and the beating heart of the West End.
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And I love Gillian Anderson as Margot Channing. She was incredible. It was incredible. I want to go back.
February 27, 2019
Day #59 My Favourite Word
Okay, here goes… a confession. Another bit of Fiona that’s entirely me.
It’s usually on TV. Something intellectual, or at least not-stupid, comes on the telly, and there’s a little chatter about a person’s favourite word. It seems to be the go-to question when people have run out of conversation.
Usually, when people want to sound ethereal and educated, they go with ‘serendipity’.
When there’s a little more substance there, they might mention a pet-name from childhood, or something that pulls them, just from the mention of the word, back to a time that mattered. I suppose those are my favourite answers.
If they want to challenge their linguistic skills and lip/tongue control, they might try ‘hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia’ which is the fear of long words. I quite like that one, too.
But my favourite word is the same as Fiona’s, as noted in the third instalment. And the danger of the word is that it makes me either stomach-stirringly sweet or a little bit tragic.
So, am I going to tell you what the word is? Maybe.
In the meantime, here’s a self-quote from the week:
A chap I know to wave to told me he’s ordered my third book.
I clicked my tongue and winked, “And you are in for a treat.”
And there you have it. Day 59 of 365HappyDays – My Favourite Word.
(Okay, fine, it’s Darling. I know. It’s devastating how cute I am.)
Day #58 The Perfect Comeback Line
When I was a teenager, I went with a group of friends to a comedy gig in Axminster on what might have been a Thursday night. Certainly, it felt like a Thursday night.
My friend Joanna’s mother drove us. She had an Aga and read the Guardian, and was a very nice lady with a sensible length of skirt.
When we got to Axminster, we were a small crowd, perhaps five fifteen year olds, and Joanna’s mother. We spilled into a village hall, and sat somewhere towards the back of the room. Within moments, the spotlights circled the stage and hit upon the reason we were there.
The grown-up crowd thundered to their feet, hooted and hollered and bruised their hands with clapping. My friends and I stayed standing a little longer than everyone else, being, as we were, only a shade over five feet tall, and unable to see over everyone else.
And there she was.
Jo Brand.
Why she was playing Axminster, I don’t pretend to know, but we were delighted from the moment we saw her.
I suppose it happens everywhere. Certainly, I’ve been to a fair number of comedy gigs in the years in between, and I’ve seen it happen again and again, but I don’t know what possesses a person to heckle a comedian. Anywho, my first experience of heckling was at that gig in Axminster.
Some bloke in the front row called out to Jo Brand. Within moments of her coming out onto the stage and saying, “Good evening,” some man we couldn’t see shouted out, and called her fat.
Repeatedly.
He must have said it three or four times. My heart nearly stopped.
Not so, Jo Brand.
She wandered over to his side of the stage, smiled, and said the finest and most revolting thing, I’d ever heard:
“I’d sit on your face but I’m not on my period.”
Swish.
Day 58, the Perfect Comeback Line.
