Shooting Parrots

Nightmare

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

It’s a while since I wrote a book review which isn’t surprising as I haven’t read much of late, but one title very much on my pre-order from Amazon list was Nightmare, the third in Stephen Leather’s Jack Nightingale series. I’ve written about the previous two novels here and here, so I’ll make my precis [...]

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Missing Inaction

Monday, 16 January 2012

It isn’t like me to go without posting for so long, but we had an exhausting, sleep-deprived week last week that had me otherwise occupied. The problem was the course work that my daughter had to complete over the Christmas holiday for the first part of her TEFL degree. It was an enormous task.

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Z is for Zephyr, Zibi and Zip-lining

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

Can I complete the whole of Round 9 of ABC Wednesday based on our four week stay in South Africa in February? Click on the photos to enlarge. Phew! I managed to make it through the alphabet from South Africa and with quite a few examples for the letter Z. First up is this Zephyr [...]

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Bonfire of Inanities

Monday, 9 January 2012

My following is obviously growing. After I wrote about the Banished Words list the other day, the BBC followed in my wake when the issue was included on 7 Day Sunday on Radio Five yesterday. Okay, so they might have read about it on the Hot Word Blog which is where I stole the idea [...]

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Service Event Horizon

Saturday, 7 January 2012

I read a newspaper editorial yesterday that I think was meant to cheer me up over the state of the economy. It didn’t. It was the bit that followed an intro about the tumult in the eurozone, with the euro falling, increased borrowing by the French and £41 billion in new bad loans in Spain. [...]

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Ginormous Trickeration

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Pretty well everyone I know has a pet hate about the use and misuse of the English language. (I can’t speak, or speak for, other languages, but I suspect the same annoyance will apply.) I have lots. For example, using the word ‘gate’ as a suffix to indicate some level of conspiracy, as in Camillagate, [...]

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Y is for Yachts and Yellowwood

Wednesday, 4 January 2012

Can I complete the whole of Round 9 of ABC Wednesday based on our four week stay in South Africa in February? Click on the photos to enlarge. Yachts are always helpful to illustrate the letter Y, as any author of ABC books for children will tell you. I took this photo of yachts at [...]

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Gridding His Loins

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Our dog, Jack, is around 13 years old which means he’s getting on a bit. The trouble is, he doesn’t know it, despite his eyesight not being quite what it was. It was such a lovely day yesterday that Mrs P took him out for a walk, from Broadbottom up to Coombes Edge where you [...]

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Do the Hokey Pokey

Monday, 2 January 2012

I must be feeling extremely content because not a thing has occured to me that I felt I must post about. Not one. Perhaps it’s just that I have finally unwound over the Christmas holiday, but more likely it’s because I’ve been immersed in the world of Skyrim.

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