P.D.R. Lindsay's Blog, page 7

Where's the year vanishing to? Oh bother! the virus is o...

Where's the year vanishing to?

Oh bother! the virus is out in Auckland and it would be the UK quick spreading version. We knew it would happen but the moaning and grizzling is a pain to listen to. What's more life threatening? A struggle to keep a business open or watching people die of the virus? Beat the  virus then we can sort things out. Things  have to change. Our far too much reliance of tourists means that there are too many little cafes, restaurants and small business aimed solely at th...

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I’m a fickle reader. My favourites change with every bo...

 

I’m a fickle reader. My favourites change with every book I read and I read one a day. I have a set of old friends I reread, loving both the writing style and the characters. Patricia McKillip, Rosemary Sutcliff, L. M. Boston, J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, Cynthia Voight, C.J. Cherrhy are a few of these. I need old favourites, comfortable reads with character friends to send me to sleep or my dreams are full of the terrible things happening in this nightmare time we are currently living thr...

August Sadness

Oh no! Our lovely safe bubble of no more corvid 19 virus is over. We'd been so looking forward to making our virus safe bubble extend to Australia, where many of us Kiwis go for a brief winter warm-up holiday. The Australians come to us for snow and skiing and it's been a profitable exchange. Then Melbourne was hit with a sudden outbreak of the virus, caused by slack quarantine control from just a few officials and now they are in Lockdown again and there's no bubble for us. We are trying to wo...

It seems to me that:

The world's still crazy but we seem to be safe in our little bubble here in New Zealand. It’s scary listening to our medical experts who warn us that this is only  one of many pandemics we are bringing on ourselves I wonder what the world will be like in 10 years time and feel we are slipping back a few centuries to be like our ancestors who feared the various forms of plague with no knowledge of what it is or how to conquer it. Just like today really as our experts are struggling to find out ho...

Justice at St Luke's

Questions for the Vestry to ask:

Why was the attacker not spoken to after his first attack?
Why, when the vicar was asked to speak to the attacker after the first attack, did she not do so?
Why was the victim banned from the church and not the attacker?
What did the vicar say to the bishop to get him to agree to banning and trespassing?
Why has the vicar acted as she did?

There's whole church community stunned and upset and wondering what happened to the Christian love and kindness they once...

#StLuke's What is the New Zealand Anglican Church coming to?

An elderly female parishioner is attacked during a church service by another parishioner, a younger male. This is the second attack and the vicar had been asked to speak to the attacker but does not. This time the elderly woman tries to defend herself and there's a bit of a racket, but a lot of the congregation see what happened. Much indignation as the woman is pushed out of the church and later is banned and trespassed off the church property. The attacker smirks and is returned to his pew...

#StLuke's What is the New Zeakland Anglican Church coming to?

An elderly female parishioner is attacked during a church service by another parishioner, a younger male. This is the second attack and the vicar had been asked to speak to the attacker but does not. This time the elderly woman tries to defend herself and there's a bit of a racket, but a lot of the congregation see what happened. Much indignation as the woman is pushed out of the church and later is banned and trespassed off the church property. The attacker smirks and is returned to his pew...

I Hate Microsoft Word

It seems to me that there must be another sensible and serious word processing programme out there somewhere. If there is, can someone please let me know?

I've been quiet on this blog for a while - nearly a year I'm shamed to say - struggling to make my new computer work. The old one blew up noisily at the beginning of last year, just when I was at an exciting part of my writing. Now I hate computers at the best of times, but this was a disaster. It took seven weeks to sort out insurance and...

Review of 'Book of the Dead' by Patricia Cornwell

I always enjoy the tight, present tense, analytical style of this series. The characters are old favourites who grow and change. The writing, plotting and conclusions are always polished and satisfactory. I enjoy being required, as a reader, to think and read intelligently.

In this novel, Kay Scarpetta has moved to Charleston, in the southern States. There is some hostility to her presence and she has to sort the trivial from the serious. And serious it becomes as it appears there is a killer...