K. Morris's Blog, page 783
May 11, 2014
Love For Sale Elvis Costello
Originally sung by Cole Porter and performed here by Elvis Costello, this rendering of Love For Sale is sad and beautiful, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt4HS1ce8Hs.
May 4, 2014
Who Will Remember Me?
A plethora of books, a degree, when I cease to be, who will remember me? Laughter with friends, me caught in the lense, who will remember me? These thoughts in my head, gone once dead, who will remember me?
The Playground
Life is a playground. We play our pleasures entrancing us the livelong day. Caught up in shallow joys we boys play with our broken toys. Our joys, fleeting give way to weeping come close of day.
April 27, 2014
Islamification Of Birmingham Schools
The Telegraph reports on the ongoing investigations in to whether Islamic radicals attempted to islamify Birmingham schools. The Office For Standards In Education (OFSTED) is investigating claims that teachers who voiced opposition to the alleged plans where passed over for promotion in favour of more compliant colleagues. Other allegations include pupils being suspended for holding hands and girls being treated as second class citizens with some teachers favouring boys over them. If true this is deeply worrying.
For the article please visit http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10790441/Guide-to-school-Islamisation-by-ringleader-of-Trojan-Horse-plot.html
April 26, 2014
Ring Around Rosie By Emily Pattullo Book Review
It isn’t often that I read a book in one day but, in the case of Ring Around Rosie by Emily Pattullo, this is what I did, all 299 pages!
Ring Around Rosie deals with the issue of child trafficking and is aimed at the young adult market, however Pattullo’s novel can be read by all ages (12-13 upwards). Rosie, a rebellious 14-year-old leaves London with her parents and brother Ted to escape the temptations of the capital. Following a group of men she finds they are engaged in criminal activity but before Rosie can slip away she is captured and finds herself on the way to London in a truck full of children.
Rosie is drawn into a world of child prostitution, one in which “respectable” men pay for sex with trafficked children in their homes or in exclusive member’s only clubs. Pattullo deals sensitively with rape. The reader is aware that abuse of children is taking place, however the writing isn’t graphic, many abuse scenes being hinted at (not described in graphic detail) which makes the book suitable for the young adult market.
Pattullo shows how victims can become dependent on their captors and even bond with them in a perverse manner.
Rosie’s brother Ted is distraught at the plight of his sister and goes to London to rescue her. Will he succeed before Rosie is lost to him and their parents forever? The ending is not what the reader is expecting.
Ring Around Rosie can be purchased as a Kindle download for £1.99 at Amazon, http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009T5W4TC/ref=pe_364691_36330161_M1T1DP
April 24, 2014
Is this the month self-publishing becomes respectable in the UK?
Good news for self published authors.
Originally posted on BRIDGET WHELAN writer:
The Guardian newspaper has joined with publisher Legend Times to offer a monthly literary prize to the best self-published novels written in the English language – translations are also eligible. Submissions are first read by a panel of Legend’s readers who will draw up a shortlist of up to 10 titles a month. The prize is respectability and exposure – the winning book will be reviewed in the Guardian. Claire Armitstead, the newspaper’s literary editor , explained why they had decided to launch the prize:“the phenomenon of self-publishing over the last couple of years has become too big for any of us to ignore”.
Submissions will be open for the first fortnight of each calendar month. The book must have been self-published after 31 December 2011 and should be sent to self-published@theguardian.com with “Self-Published Book of the Month Submission” in the subject line. Find out more here.
Without quality…
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From Book Reviews to Interviews
I very much appreciated the time and care Kev took in presenting my author interview. As he says it isn’t easy to review a book if you are acquainted with the author even if your relationship is confined to the online realm.
Originally posted on Kev's Blog:
I never properly explained why I started doing Kev’s Author Interviews. I basically just said, ‘here’s the deal’ and explained what I was going to start doing. Not once did I say why. So, here it is:
I’ m bloody crap at doing book reviews. It’s not that I can’t do them or even that I couldn’t be good at doing them. I’m just plain crap at it and don’t like doing them for the following reasons:
There are so many books that I just cannot get into. I’m not really interested in them, they are not the right genre and the authors haven’t even tried to edit them. Oh, and just because I’m a guy, it doesn’t mean I want to read smut lit in the guise of fiction and fantasy where the author thinks that (filth)sexual scenes cover up bad writing.
These kinds of books actually give self-publishing…
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Hitler’s Liverpudlian Half Brother
As a Liverpudlian bborn and bred I was interested to read the below article relating to Adolf Hitler’s half brother in respect of the 1911 census, http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/2014/adolf-hitlers-liverpudlian-half-brother-in-the-1911-census/. There are those who claim that the infamous Adolf actually spent time in Liverpool although so far as I have been able to ascertain there exists no historical evidence to substantiate this claim.
I remember, many years ago reading a fictionalised account of Adolf’s visit to Liverpool. There are, almost certainly a number of books written along similar lines but I can not, for the life of me remember the title of the one I read.
April 21, 2014
Shed A Tear For The OED
As a child (a precocious one at that) I owned a Braille edition of The Little Oxford Dictionary of Current English which ran to some 16 volumes in Braille. As a small boy I recall having the idea that one could assemble a library encompassing all the knowledge available. I possessed a vague idea that The Little Oxford only contained a tiny portion of that knowledge but, somehow I believed it was possible for me to know, at the very least, a little about everything.
I know longer cherish the erroneous view that one can ever comprehend all there is to no on a single subject let alone on the ever expanding knowledge base which exists out there. Despite the fact we can never know everything I felt a sense of regret when I read that the next edition of The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) may well only appear online due to the sheer vastness of the project and the prohibitive cost (for many) of £750) of purchasing the print edition. The ever evolving nature of language is, no doubt better suited to an online work of reference hcapable of being easily updated, rather than the many paper volumes which will be out of date as soon as they leave the printing press. None the less I feel a sense of regret at the passing of the OED in it’s traditional printed form. There is something reassuring about holding a real book in one’s hands and I regret the demise of that sense of permanence, however illusory that undoubtedly was. For the article please go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10777079/RIP-for-OED-as-worlds-finest-dictionary-goes-out-of-print.html
