2 April 2020
It may be just a small point to you …
WHAT is it about apostrophes that is so difficult to understand? Yes, I am well aware it’s a question that has been asked hundreds of times before. But we remain none the wiser – certainly not those who scatter them hither and thither like seeds on the wind. Nor those who teach them, either, it… Continue Reading
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, sang Joni Mitchell. And right now I am hoping that will be the case. Hoping that when Covid-19 testing eventually filters down to the masses, my current concerns will prove justified. That I was not giving in to hypochondria. That tests provide late confirmation of what… Continue Reading
27 March 2020
Strewth, it’s Strine
You’ve gotta love what the Aussies can do to the English language. No time was wasted Down Under in adapting linguistically to the present crisis. A sample of the latest OzSpeak: “Me boss tested posi for the ’Rona so now I’m in iso. Popped down to Woollies for some sanny, but it’s been bloody magpie’d.” Continue Reading
THE elderly man flicked through the pages of the newspaper. Back and forth. Flick, flick. Stopping occasionally to re-read an item, perhaps check a headline, looking for meaning, for answers. Finding none, only confusion. What first appeared as imperatives could also be seen merely as advice, open to interpretation. An either/or situation. Toss a coin…. Continue Reading
12 March 2020
In the long run, even the long run has to stop – finally
Another extract from Bromo Book #6 – a work in progress: THE Richard Watkins he had just claimed to be had long vacated the address Bromo had given to the cops. Departed this life completely, unmourned and unmissed, as an untidy package Bromo had left in a two-star Shanghai hotel room for the embassy’s removalists… Continue Reading
8 March 2020
Deceptive calm with coffee and cake
An update. After a bad case of writer’s block we find our sleuth taking an uneasy interlude over coffee and cake. A brief extract from book #6, as yet untitled, in the ongoing series of crime fiction featuring Bromo Perkins. FINDING the way to Grains, Beans and Leaves needed no help from satnav or Google. A sign… Continue Reading
29 November 2019
Simple pleasures of a plate of sprats
27 November 2019
Listening to the body
THE human body is a wonderful thing, but it does have a mind of its own. A mind that overrides opposition, one that will rarely accept deviation from the course it has set itself upon. And thus it was at precisely 2.53 pm today that it made an unheralded announcement: a truce would be called… Continue Reading
25 November 2019
Bromo bashed – an excerpt from Book 6
A few paces on and he stopped at the entrance where he had seen the skinny youth enter and emerge. The sign was in full view, Skippers Ope. One skipper or many, he mused; something only a relentless pedant would worry about. Daylight was fading. The ope was an unlit passage between neighbouring terraced houses, roofed… Continue Reading
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2 April 2020
It may be just a small point to you …
WHAT is it about apostrophes that is so difficult to understand? Yes, I am well aware it’s a question that has been asked hundreds of times before. But we remain none the wiser – certainly not those who scatter them hither and thither like seeds on the wind. Nor those who teach them, either, it… Continue Reading