Will Once's Blog, page 20

Umble Pie

No, that’s not a spelling mistake. I did mean to say umble. These days, when we say “eat humble pie”, we mean that we are apologising for something that we have done, atoning for a mistake. We are being humble. But that’s not where the phrase came from. In medieval times, umbles were the innards…

The review riddle revisited

A strange thing happened today. Someone wrote an Amazon review of my book “Love, Death and Tea”. A single review might not be much of an event to the Stephen King’s and JK Rowling’s of this world. But down at the plankton end of the publishing food chain, it’s big news. A review – yippee!…

The review riddle

It was supposed to be the new democracy. They said that the internet would revolutionise the way that we live, shop, eat, work. As consumers we would be able to publish reviews about everything – the book we have just read, the film we watched, the restaurant, pub, museum … And while that is great…

Faith

The Procrastination Demon – 2

Last time we talked about clearing out the fridge. How to deal with those painfully old and furry tasks that we really didn’t want to deal with. Now we need to go one stage further. We need to stop ourselves from procrastinating in the first place. If you are not a procrastinator, this might sound…

I will always be by your side

I am easily confused. She was a veritable Valkyrie, a warrior princess of the publican trade. I had visions of her in a leather miniskirt and tunic, a war hammer in either hand, horned helmet on her head. As she took my food order, I couldn’t help noticing that she had a tattoo on the…

The Procrastination Demon

I have a confession to make. We all have demons. Some of us have several of them. Nasty little things that sit on your shoulder and whisper evil little temptations into your ear. I have one demon that is bigger and more cunning than all the rest. His name is procrastination. Procrastination. It’s a weirdly…

Bleep

Bleep. You are not sure if you dreamt it. It’s dark o’clock. The duvet is toasty warm and the pillow has a you-shaped hole cuddled into it. Silence. You tell yourself that it’s a one-off. It won’t happen again. Maybe it’s a noise from outside the house. A truck reversing perhaps? A friendly neighbourhood burglar…

Money is broken

We are being plagued with cold calls at the moment. The phone will go ring, there will be a pause, then a background burble of conversations. A decidedly non-English voice will say one of these time-honoured phrases: “Hello, is that Mr Once?” “Hello, can I speak to Mrs Once?” “May I speak to the homeowner…

Villainous villainy

I’ve been thinking about villains. The bad guy in a story. The Dr Evil character. The wicked witch. It seems there are unwritten rules about what villains can and can’t do. First and foremost, a villain must be 110% evil. They are not trying to do anything noble. Instead, they want to dominate, invade, take…