K. Morris's Blog, page 767

I Am Sailing

As those of you who follow this blog will know, my name is Kevin. Yesterday I received the following text from a friend who was, at that time on his way to France via cross channel ferry,

“Just leaving Harbour. Where told the captain’s name is Kevin. Should I be worried?”

My friend’s text made me smile as, being blind there is no way in which I could hold down the job of captain. However, giving the matter a little more thought I arrived at the following brilliant solution to how a blind man might captain a ship. My guide dog, Trigger is trained to avoid obstacles so why not teach him the following additional commands:

Bark once for rocks dead ahead.
Bark twice for another vessel dead ahead and
Let out a continuous howl when the boat strikes submerged rocks or an iceberg.

Does anyone have the contact details for shipping companies please? I’m taking time out from my writing to apply for the position of ship’s captain. God save me and anyone else who sails with me!

 

Kevin

Author Interviews – A Great Way For Authors To Promote Their Work And Readers To Learn About New Writers

Kev Cooper (no relation to yours truly) offers a great (free) author promotion service. Kev’s Author Interviews allows authors to promote themselves and their work by answering questions supplied by Kev. The interviews also act as a great way for readers to learn about new authors. For further information please visit http://kevs-domain.net/author-interviews-and-contact-information/

For The Good Of Humanity (satire)

For the good of humanity we must sacrifice the paltry joys of the here and now for the ultimate bliss of tomorrow.

For the good of humanity we must abandon the selfish goal of individual fulfilment for the common good.

For the good of humankind we must place freedom on the backburner for we are building an earthly paradise where “the people” shall rule.

Yet Eden remains, floating, somewhere forever out of reach while “the people” shrug their shoulders, and smile or weep.

 

Written after reading an article on North Korea).

 

Abandoned

Rain sodden corpse, in a churchyard. Abandoned, unclaimed, slowly decay setting in.

Once you wowed audiences. Your music had couples dancing, romancing. Many a love was born as you filled the air with melodies sweet.

Now your heart is still. No more tunes will eminate from your once mighty chest.

An old piano, your notes immovable, choked with rain water, you stand by the church, sadly waiting to be taken away.

 

(On Thursday 2 October my mum, her partner and I came across an abandoned piano, in the church close to my home. When first discovered it still worked. However due to heavy rain the piano’s notes are now immovable. How the instrument came to be in the churchyard I have no idea but, at time of writing it remains there).

How Newspapers / Magazines Deceive Readers

drewdog2060drewdog2060:

Nielsen report that ebook sales constituted only 22 percent of book sales in the first half of the year with both paperback and hardbacks outselling electronic publications. As the author of this post says 22 percent appears to be a somewhat questionable statistic. I would be interested to hear your comments. Are ebook sales only around 22 percent of book sales in your opinion?

Originally posted on Savvy Writers & e-Books online:

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A Joke? Statistics about the numbers of e-Books versus print books – taken from companies that sell only print books? Yes, that’s right – or have you ever purchased an e-book at WalMart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Target or K-Mart?
.

.

Flawed Survey, Sloppy Research, No Fact-Checking…
“Print Books Still Outselling e-Books” or “Print Books Outsold Ebooks In First Half Of 2014” are the big headlines these days at newspapers and magazines, from PublishersWeekly to GoodeReader and Huffington Post.
“According to Nielsen’s survey, e-books constituted only 23 percent of unit sales for the first six months of the year, while hardcovers made up 25 percent and paperback 42 percent of sales.”

.
What’s NOT Included in these Articles:

The fact that NielsenScan covers a maximum of 75% of the US and UK book market
From which book retailers and which publishers – trade and / or independent publishers?

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Notice

Yesterday evening my friend, Brian told me about the following sign he had come across in the disabled toilet of a well known coffee chain. It read,

“On pulling the red cord staff will enter the toilet immediately”.

The above conjures up images of a trap door flying open to admit the intrepid rescuers who, with great courage and selflessness parachute in landing in …!

I think, perhaps there should be some form of punctuation in the above mentioned sign!

‘To Autumn’ by John Keats

drewdog2060drewdog2060:

One of my favourite poems and highly appropriate for the time of year. I am lucky enough to live next to a park where I can appreciate the seasons as they come and go. The poem is followed by an insightful commentary on it’s meaning. Enjoy!

Originally posted on A poem for every day:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head…

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Managing The Online Distractions

Many thanks to author Linzé Brandon for hosting a guest post by me, on time management, (http://linzebrandon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/managing-online-distractions-guest-post.html). Please do check out Linzé’s other posts and, of course her books which can be accessed here, (http://linzebrandon.blogspot.co.uk/).

Ghost Train

Phantom table moving in time with the darkened train. My hand resting on the table summons a ghostly hand reflected back in the window. The unreal hand moves, or is it mine? Solid table, ghostly object mingle in the black night. What is real? What a dagger of the mind?

National Poetry Day 2014

drewdog2060drewdog2060:

A reminder that today is National Poetry Day in the UK and Ireland, together with a poem from Ali which I greatly enjoyed reading. Kevin

Originally posted on aliisaacstoryteller:

In the UK and Ireland, today is National Poetry Day. There is a full program of events lined up for the days surrounding this popular annual event in Ireland.  Just use the tags #thinkofapoem and #nationalpoetryday to tag your poetry related events and join in the fun. This year’s theme is ‘REMEMBER’, and so without further ado, I present to you my poem for National Poetry Day 2014.

Remember

We jump in the car on a whim, and drive

back to the places of our past,

to the days when spontaneity

was the only way we lived.

We are heady with remembering,

drunk on nostalgia,

and it’s a subtle rebellion,

this abandoning the now and all that’s in it

for the sake of what once was.

*

But on arriving, we sit quiet.

Memories flare, vivid…lurid.

The minutiae faded by time,

dulled with age,

is not the gift we’d…

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