plymouth-hoe-tower (from Historic UK)
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Dealing with the nitty gritty on hoes and dykes

PERHAPS this blog post should come with an advisory caution; like those that precede some of the raunchier dramas screened on post-watershed TV. A warning about bad language or offensive dialogue. Displaying an awareness of some readers’ fragile sensibilities.  Guarding against young minds being led down sinful paths; the elderly shocked into losing a grip…

Wild horses can't change us by Mikael Kristenson courtesy Unsplash
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Happy fat makes deadly fat and an easy Covid target

  Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #6 Jan 2021: THE stable door is now shut tight. Bolted and barred. Triple locked and with no sign of a key or code. And unoccupied. The horse it once contained, an unruly beast at the best of time, seized its pre-lockdown moment and is…

Covid emeregency. courtesy Mufid Majnun, Unsplash
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Deniers living in a world of fiction and horror movies

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #5 Jan 2021: WHAT is it that they don’t understand? Are the almost 100,000 deaths so beyond comprehension that they believe them to be a total fiction? Do the BBC’s recent series of excruciating hospital scenes unnerve them so much that they dismiss them as some…

Book cover Osmand's Creek
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New writer’s thriller reveals Canada’s divisive dark side

ONE of the many pleasures gained from reading crime fiction is being plunged deep into places never previously visited. Or, if having been there only superficially as a mere transient, now getting down and dirty with the locals. No longer passing through but going well and truly off piste. The crime novel as a Baedecker….

Bras and knickers come before books
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Bras and knickers come before books

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #4 SO many Covid conundrums to confuse and ponder. The more our masters attempt to clarify, the murkier the restrictions become. How far from one’s home is “a reasonable distance” yet close enough to be accepted as an exercise zone? Precisely what qualifies as an “open…

Celebratory cuddle as picture in the Daily Telegraph
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Cuddles for goals but not for grandma

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #3 04 Jan 2021: THOUGHT for the day: money does not buy brains. Nor can it buy common sense, or consideration for others or the community at large. Shell out zillions but there’s no guarantee the recipient will be transformed into a truly mature and responsible…

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Resolving not to make a resolution

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #2 02 Jan 2021: SAME old, same old. Here we go again. Back on the media roundabout as the familiar format for each year’s beginning is once more regurgitated. Not even all the shifts in lifestyles forced upon us by the pandemic’s restrictions and changes can…

Down to the Woods - MJ Aldridge
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Confused by sleuths of crime-ridden south coast

CONFUSION continues to await avid readers of two popular series of crime fiction tales centred on Britain’s south coast. They can be left flummoxed, not so much by the intricate plotting but rather by the naming of the two main characters. One wonders whether there is mutual admiration or deep rivalry between the books’ authors,…

Book review Bitter Wash Road Gary Disher
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Garry dishes up Outback crime to rival the best

I HAVE been renewing acquaintance with an old friend. As always, it was a rewarding and compelling page-turning experience. It was also thought provoking, making me wonder yet again why so few Australian crime writers make it on to the international stage. Rather than becoming household names they are too often relegated to being the…