Jo Robinson's Blog, page 108
November 27, 2013
Foul Play
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Nigella Lawson programme that I didn’t like, and I’m sure I’ve seen most of them. I really enjoy spending time in the kitchen. Cooking is a favourite hobby, and so is watching foodie programmes on TV. I love Gordon Ramsay’s toe-curling rudeness and Guy Fieri’s anaconda-like ability to unhinge his jaw and pop massive burgers in his mouth.
Earlier this year I really felt for Nigella when I saw the photos of her husband, Charles Saatchi, throttling her and horribly twisting her nose for all to see in a restaurant. Such appalling behaviour, and justifiable by absolutely nothing. He originally attempted to condone this unforgivable behaviour by saying that she regularly did these things to him. Sorry lovely guy, but nobody’s going to be able to picture Nigella throttling anyone. Now, in the true form of gentlemen everywhere, he’s calling her “Higella” and trying very hard to completely trash her reputation by spreading the word that she’s some sort of rotten, spaced out, drug addict who encourages her daughter Cosima to snort cocaine.
He laid charges against her two personal assistants, Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, last year after he found out that they’d been having a ball with his credit card – to the tune of £300 000. They used various reasons for their thievery, including the fact that they used some of the money to buy up piles of his own books – on HIS instruction – to give them a boost in the league tables. WHAT?! Then, after not mentioning a word until about a month ago, Mr Saatchi receives notice of a new statement from the felonious two that Nigella was totally cool with them using her credit cards to stock up on their Chanel and Prada collections, just as long as they kept mum about the fact that she and her daughter spent their days smoking pot, sniffing cocaine and taking prescription pills.
I really hope that any books he published, and is apparently in the process of buying up for himself, aren’t whodunits, because any scribbler, and most people with the smallest capacity of logical thought should be able to see exactly what’s going on. Seriously? Nigella on drugs? I don’t believe it for a second. You don’t get to build an empire the way she has when you’re stoned out of your mind all the time. And that’s a pretty big secret to keep from your husband for ten years, which he claims she did. Not many real addicts are likely to encourage their children to join them on their painful trip, and anyone as obviously loving of her brood, and more than intelligent enough to know just how bad that would be, is most definitely not going to do anything as stupid as that.
Just goes to show that money and power can’t make people believe that you’re a nice fella, no matter how loudly you tell the world that your wife is a horrible junkie. To be honest, the thing that really got up my nostril and made me pay attention was the bit about him buying his own books to push himself up the rankings. FOUL! FOUL! Anyway. I’m sure that Nigella Lawson will make it through this horrible attack, and come out smiling and with her head held high on the other side of what is clearly a vengeful plan to terminally embarrass her.
Just 2 Weeks to Read Tuesday
It's the holiday shopping countdown:
2 weeks to Read Tuesday.
1 week to Cyber Monday.
3 days to Black Friday.
2 days to Gray Thursday.
If you don't find the electronics deals you were hoping for on Gray Thursday and Black Friday, there is always Cyber Monday. If you don't find great clothing deals on Cyber Monday, there is still Read Tuesday.
Get ready for Read Tuesday guys. It's going to be fantastic!
November 26, 2013
Pardon?!
I’m not sure if it was my admission to being a techie dimwit, but all of a sudden I’ve got piles of Spam with the letters RSS in it. Not to mention bullies holding forth around and about. For example:
Hello!! Achieve you get condition they make few plugins to avoid with explore engine optimisation?? I’m irritating to get my blog to rank in support of some under fire keywords but I’m not considering fantastically sunny gains. Condition to identify of any satisfy distribute. Be thankful for it!!! I’m attempting to live talented to enrol in the RSS feeds excluding cannot figure it out. A quantity of assistance will be present awe-inspiring. Thanks!!!
Well… I couldn’t have said it better myself. Quite right you are dear Spammy. The internet never ceases to amaze me. I suppose that it’s similar to “real life” where you get thieves and violent hoods who get up to nasty physical shenanigans. These guys are on the same level of pond life in the virtual world. I don’t know if these blog messages are harmful – I’m sure that they could be if you approved them. I think it was blog spam that ended in me having to bin a perfectly good computer because of one of those guys that worm in and hijack your system to beam out who knows what onto the world wide web, so I’m a bit more careful now with regular scans and so on.
Then there are the meany trolls who pop up on threads in various groups around and about, and viciously attack some poor innocent for no reason at all. This seems to me particularly true in writers groups. You’ll have one guy who just knows he could write Stephen King under the table and out of the door, and he will just as soon as he finishes his seven year edit on his first chapter. He will pick any random post and rip it apart, often insulting the scribbler of said post at a much deeper level. If this sort of thing isn’t nipped right in the bud I believe it can cause much harm to the person so attacked. This could totally shatter a newbie’s confidence.
Group moderators who condone this behaviour by continuing such “discussions”, and thereby giving credence to this troll’s vitriol are just as much to blame. Nope. There is never a place for this sort of behaviour and it is the job of moderators and admins to stop it right there. If what someone has posted offends you so deeply that you want to poke your own eyeballs out, get in touch with a moderator and tell them. Don’t just let rip with something like, “You rotten, disgusting, pompous idiot. My scrofulous green toenail has more talent…..”. Have a little compassion.
I don’t believe that ripping anyone to shreds in any public environment makes you look any better. Kind advice, well worded and not intended to insult goes much further. When I see that type of thing on any group I’m involved in, my blood boils, and I have to generally walk away for a bit to prevent myself sinking to levels best not plumbed and blasting the nasty sod off the face of the planet.
I reckon we should all stop taking ourselves so seriously that we feel justified in spamming and trolling – or whatever you want to call it. If the spammers spent as much time as they do spamming doing honest work, and used their tech savvy to try and build something instead of breaking things down, and the trolls spent more time eyeballing the boulders in their own eyeballs before spending so much time on the specks in others, they might get to create something brilliant and have people actually like and respect them, rather than quivering in terror whenever they enter a room. Life is just way to short. Now. I’m off to smell the roses.
November 25, 2013
Cover Reveal! Legends of Windemere: Allure of the Gypsies by Charles Yallowitz
Legends of Windemere: Allure of the Gypsies
The epic adventures of Luke Callindor and Nyx continue after their journey down the L’Dandrin River in Legends of Windemere: Prodigy of Rainbow Tower.
Reeling from his failures in their previous adventure, Luke leads his surviving friends to his hometown. With his mind frayed and his confidence fractured, Luke must face the family and fiancée he left behind. It is a brief homecoming when the vampire Kalam attacks the village, forcing Luke and Nyx to break into his lair for the key to resurrecting a fallen warrior. It is a quest that will force both young heroes to reach new heights of strength and power that they never knew they had.
Can Luke and Nyx escape the lair of Kalam? And, what role will the orphaned gypsy Sari play in their looming destiny?
Release Date- December 1st, 2013
Previous Books-
Beginning of a Hero- http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Hero-Legends-Windemere-ebook/dp/B00BL9GBU2/
Prodigy of Rainbow Tower- http://www.amazon.com/Prodigy-Rainbow-Legends-Windemere-ebook/dp/B00E8WUD5S/
Cover Artist Info- Jason Pedersen http://www.jasonpedersen.com/
Author Bio-
Charles Yallowitz was born and raised on Long Island, NY, but he has spent most of his life wandering his own imagination in a blissful haze. Occasionally, he would return from this world for the necessities such as food, showers, and Saturday morning cartoons. One day he returned from his imagination and decided he would share his stories with the world. After his wife decided that she was tired of hearing the same stories repeatedly, she convinced him that it would make more sense to follow his dream of being a fantasy author. So, locked within the house under orders to shut up and get to work, Charles brings you Legends of Windemere. He looks forward to sharing all of his stories with you and his wife is happy he finally has someone else to play with.
His blog: http://www.legendsofwindemere.com
November 24, 2013
This December buy INDIE books as presents!
Reblogged from Chris The Story Reading Ape's New (to me) Authors Blog:
As you all know, we are fast approaching that magical (and most expensive) month of the year – DECEMBER!
With all the recent heart-rending cries from Indie authors all over the world and blogosphere regarding eBook sales, or, more correctly, LACK of eBook sales of THEIR books, I thought I'd throw my furry 300 lbs blog weight into the arena as well and craft an article on the subject:
A Message For Dad's Fans and Friends
Since Dad left to pursue his new investigations for the next story, we as a family have been inundated with messages of condolence and support. So much so, that Thank You seems so inadequate.
For those of you who have your own blogs, and have shared this news with your followers, friends and fans, then, again, those very inadequate words appear, Thank You.
November 21, 2013
Important Message regarding Steve Smy's health.
It is with great sadness that I must report that Steve's health is deteriorating rapidly and the prognosis is not good.
In accordance with the request from Steve's family, this blog will not be active after the 5th December 2013.
Scheduled posts that will still be run until then are as follows:
Blog Browser Day on Saturday 23rd November
Book Promo Day on Thursday 28th November…
November 19, 2013
One World, One Nation
Reblogged from ✿ ｡◕‿◕｡ ✿ Donicia's World ✿ ｡◕‿◕｡ ✿:
In the year 1990 July 16, I remembered vividly at a very young age how the killer earthquake tore the city down and killed thousands. It was a tragic moment painted in my memory from that day to this very moment. I will never forget that feeling and knowing that when everything was falling apart and there was nowhere to run.
November 17, 2013
Feed My Reads Magazine
Reblogged from Feed My Reads South Africa:
Fraser Stoopman introduces the first ever Feed My Reads magazine:
“Welcome to the first ever Feed My Reads magazine and a massive thanks for
checking this out.
Firstly let me just explain a little about Feed My Reads for those who don’t as
yet know of us –
Feed My Reads was setup in July of 2013 in order to create a community…
Here's the first ever Feed My Reads magazine. :D
November 14, 2013
Cleaning Up My Act
Pardon me if I’ve missed anything. My computer’s been behaving badly so I’ve been running everything from full malware scans to getting paranoid and deleting my entire My Documents library – again. Fortunately I picked that up before running a cleaner. Eventually, and very reluctantly (because so many people say that Firefox is the best) I changed over to Google Chrome. And. It’s COOL. It works really smoothly, and even though all the layouts and sizes are slightly different, I just find it better in every way. In fact things appeared that I hadn’t even seen before. I still haven’t managed to claim my blog in Google though. I reckon some guy somewhere is employed specifically to make people like me never get to claim our blogs. So bugger that I say. I’m not going to try anymore – any time soon anyway.
Whatever the most productive, least time-consuming, most effective way to do something is, you can rest assured that it won’t be being done by me. Not because I enjoy laborious or just plain stupid ways of going about things, but because unless I actually concentrate quite hard on most technical things (like opening the vacuum cleaner to find the bag), I just can’t get my head around them. When I do, I generally forget about them straight away so I have to start over many times before anything sinks in. I also have a tendency to take on too much and lack the ability to say no to anyone, so I never have the time to concentrate on these things.
One thing that’s always bothered me is the fact that some of the blogs I’ve followed don’t have follow by email buttons. Don’t yell, don’t yell! I know I’m supposed to go through my reader or RSS feed, but for the reasons listed above, and my generally all over the place nature, I mostly forget about the reader and I still have no clue at all what an RSS feed is. This has meant that I’ve missed a lot of posts that I would have liked to see. Now I’ve found out that if you go into the Edit Blogs I Follow thingy on WordPress, you can change all the settings to receive instant emails every time they post. Eureka! Now all the blogs I follow pop up on my email and I don’t have to stress about missing anything anymore. Possibly I might stress about all the extra emails, but I must say it’s been really nice catching up on all the posts I haven’t spotted. Getting this right has inspired me to clean up my ditzy habits in general.
I’ve decided against finishing the NaNo this year. I don’t like the way that story’s going at all, so instead of wasting the tiny bit of time I’ll have this month on that, I’ve decided to GET ORGANISED instead. The general idea for my NaNo story might be useful for some future project, but what I’ve got so far can only be called crap really. So – get organised. I’ve decided this many times before and failed horribly every time. This time I plan to get it right. Possibly not right now at this very moment, because if the thunder’s anything to go by the heavens are about to open. Anyway. I’ve got a plan of action now. First – totally clean and organise my office and desk. Right now I think it constitutes a health hazard. Then consolidate all my scattered To Do lists into one epic Master To Do List. Finally tidy up my messy computer files and insane email files. Then get back to work properly.
I’m not going to try and write again until I’ve got all these things sorted. I’m slowly figuring out that running around doing tiny bits of many things is actually worse than not doing anything at all. Right now I have so much that needs to be done that just thinking about it has me running for cake. Time to be firm. No more worrying about the actual volume of work that needs to be done, or things that are late or forgotten about right now. All the worrying leads to total avoidance and fear of getting crapped on. No. I’m going to put on the brakes, clean up my act, and take on one thing at a time from my new, epic, Master To Do List. I’ve started the physical side of the cleanup. This should take a while because I’m more of a get into corners with a toothbrush kind of cleaner than a sensible one. Right – busy, busy, busy….
