Alan Williams's Blog, page 9

AudioMo 2022

I taking part in AudioMo again this year – an audio recording of any length each day through the month of June, posted to Twitter with the hashtag #AudioMo.

I’m going to pin this post to the top of the blog for the duration, and update it with a link to each new post (when I remember to do so), so you can find them all on this post during the month.

Day 1

Day 2

May 2022 Update

Dad – late 1940’s

I seem to have fallen into monthly updates here, whilst still posting my FiftyFromFifty newsletter over there.

It’s been a busy month work wise (see below), and also in a few other areas. I’ve had my film camera out again and have been working my way through a couple of rolls of film some of the results I’ve posted here and there are more to come. I’ve been looking at buying some more rolls of film as I’ve almost used up the small stock that I have. Unsurprisingly the prices ...

Coming in Paperback: Light Rains Sometimes Fall by Lev Parikian

Coming to paperback on May 19th is one of my favourite nature books from last year.

You can read my original review here, but now is the perfect time to be picking up this book as Spring moves to Summer.

In his book Lev uses the Japanese system of 72 micro seasons rather than our much broader four, and at this time in the book as this post goes live, is when he first sees Swifts.

This year I’m still looking for my first Swift, I’ve seen Swallows and based on my records I should see Sw...

Easter Weekend Film Project

The weather was forecast to be good over the long Easter weekend, so I decided that I would load one of my film cameras with a roll of film and restrict myself to shooting that roll over the four days. I was up early most days so had some really great morning light, particularly on the first day (Friday). Here are some of the images I took.

As an aside I used a new local (to me) laboratory to process and scan the film. They advertised a 3 day turnaround (from receipt of film) but actu...

Update April 2022

Well April has been a busy month for me, and mostly productive. My work has been focussed on a key project rolling forward and quite a bit of work to do to keep up with developments, it’s not something that I can say very much about but it has taken up quite a bit of work time. When I’ve not been doing that I’ve been sorting through some very large boxes of slides, negatives and photographs that I found while clearing my parents house. I’ve nearly worked my way through all of the slides, and...

Book Review: Dead Burying the Dead Under Quaking Aspen poems by David Cranmer

My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

David Cranmer is probably better known as an author and editor of hard boiled noir and as alter-ego Edward A. Grainger the creator of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. So although not unheard of as a poet – he’s had several pieces included in this collection published separately – this is the first full collection of his poems.

It is both bright and light and at times dark, very dark but these are poems written not from the heart but from the soul. These are life expe...

The Heeding by Rob Cowen Now In Paperback

The Dazzling Paperback Copy of The Heeding

One of my favourite books of last year is getting a much deserved paperback publication on Thursday (31/03/2022). The Heeding by Rob Cowen and illustrated by Nick Hayes was borne out of the weird Covid timewarp of 2020 and 2021 providing an anchoring point for some of the world passing by around us. In original poetry with amazing illustrations it helps us to look at the world around us and to heed what is going on. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes – T...

Update March 2022

We’ve nearly reached the end of the first quarter of 2022, seems to be going about as well as 2020 and 2021, although at least there was only the threat of virus in those two years and not the threat of a virus and nuclear war.

My Fifty from Fifty newsletter seems to be going well and another month has pretty much gone by where all my posts have been via that outlet rather than here.

So far this year I seem to have read 20 books. I’ve mentioned The Marmalade Diaries in a review ...

Book Review: The Marmalade Diaries by Ben Aitken

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

This is really a story of the current age, we’ve all been through the same period(s) of lockdowns and restrictions and have our own tales to tell but The Marmalade Diaries presents quite a heartwarming story of a rather eccentric odd couple.

I was worried starting out, that this book might become a bit repetitive given that it was written under Covid conditions when many of us were living very limited and repetitive lives ourselves. But that is not the case, sure t...

Update February 2022

I’ve just come on here to write up a book review (it’s embargoed until 6th March, so pop back then to read it) and realised that the weeds have been growing a bit in my absence.

This is mostly due to concentrating on my Fifty From Fifty newsletter which has been going for a few weeks now. I’m not cross-posting those entries to the blog as I wanted it to be a stand alone venture which ultimately will come to an end. If you’re interested in reading it you can do so at the link above and you can als...