Writing and reading can be a refuge - I'm just settling into this way of thinking - If you've been inspired in these difficult times - well done and thank you so much for your wonderful postings. If you need a distraction - let's get writing! It's no coincidence that my two picks have food at their hearts. Our appreciation of the sensual nature of life seems to have come to the fore. From lime tea and madeleines too to hot, salty chips shared in...

A new story has grabbed my writer’s attention and I’m slowly falling into that place writers go, that trance like state when you’re thinking up a new plot. I love the newness...the twisting, turning possibilities...the fun of something new. It's the essence of creativity having that blank canvas before me…I can slowly see the story forming and for me it's always at night that I find my creative spirit thriving. I'm not sure why but I guess I'm a...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000h3nt/the-countess-and-the-russian-billionaire A poignant voice towards the end of this docu-drama told viewers Sergei Pugachev was likely to be down to his last £70 million (or it might have been dollars $70 million). That was to put things into perspective. I’m not sure if we were meant to feel sorry for him. My Russian stretches to nada. Pugachev had once been worth around $15 billion. He was a Russian...

I guess those of us that have been kept under house arrest for a week or more, might have a little more sympathy for Ruben Carter, fitted up, for a triple murder and served nineteen years. His co-defendant, John Artis served more than fifteen years. He too refused to bend, plead guilty or finger Carter as a murderer, even though it would have got him out of prison earlier. The focus of the prosecutors of Paterson, New Jersey was so much on...

Just finished watching the film Tolkien, written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford. what a brilliant performance from all the actors, especially Nicholas Hoult who plays J R R Tolkien. I truly recommend this film for fans out there. Jenny.

What better time to start? A friend is running twice weekly ' free writing ' sessions via Zoom during the Covid-19 lockdown. I joined today for the first time and thought I'd add my writing here (hadn't realised there was a blog function!) so I capture what I've done and can share it for fun or for feedback! Session 1 The prompts were: 'In hindsight' and 'I remember' told from two different perspectives. We had 10 mins for the first and 20 mins...

Miscegenation n 19 th century from Latin miscere ‘to mix’ + genus ‘race’ + ation Man Gone Down is a terrific book. Whether the subject is race, or class, and the gentrification of New York, the opposite of white flight, and the squeezing out of the poor and disenfranchised, well, that’s not a book, but a documentary. Here we have a black writer, unwilling to compromise. We have the ticking clock, the unknown narrator (whose name is Ishmael)...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gfy74/wolf-hall-1-three-card-trick https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05172x8/wolf-hall-2-entirely-beloved https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0520v9d/wolf-hall-3-anna-regina https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b052sfnf/wolf-hall-4-the-devils-spit https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b053j5n1/wolf-hall-5-crows https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0547rvc/wolf-hall-6-masters-of-phantoms ;’ I...

I read this years ago. Probably, the beginning of the 1970s. Mrs Bell our next door neighbour was on her throne. She kept a firm grip on her son, Pete(r). TV Times , Reader’s Digest, Sunday Post and borrowed our Sunday Mail . All was right in her world. She admitted she skipped the boring bits in books. Descriptive stuff. A.J.Cronin was one of her favourites. No boring stuff and everything was black and white. There were good guy and bad guys...

I have not been posting much lately as I've been on a journey of learning the world of self publishing, learning how to format an eBook and a paperback- both apparently have different guidelines, and I’ve had to learn book cover guidelines as well. Doing all of this manually and on your own is daunting for a not always so computer literate being as myself...so It’s been a slow process of getting it right but I am slowly...very slowly...figuring...