Bits and pieces

-
You will never, not ever, get the same thrill from an e-reader as you will looking at this lot.  Not if you're me, at any rate.

Thanks to the Mumsnet blogging network, of which I am a member - see smart new badge thing at the side of the blog - I found this excellent blog about the trials and tribulations (plenty of both) on a Perthshire farm.

The Olympic Test event happened this week at Greenwich Park.  Here's the best report I've read of it, by Fran Jurga.

I loved this story of the author's introduction to The Elliott Bay Book Company:  a timely reminder in these corporate times, of the power of the independent.

There's an online children's literature festival at the Awfully Big Blogging Adventure on July 9th and 10th.  The ABBA is written by UK children's book authors, and the programme for the weekend is after the jump.


Saturday 9th July

9.30am Anne Cassidy Post: To Blog or Not To Blog?
10.00am Jo Cotterill 
10.30am Anne Rooney & Mary Hoffman Video: Italian Inspiration
11.00am Celia Rees Post: Scattered Authors, the Beginning
11.30am Elen Caldecott Competition: Win 'Operation Eiffel
12.00pm Sally Nicholls Post: History 
12.30pm Gillian Philip Competition: Win 'Bloodstone' and 'Firebrand'
1.00pm Liz Kessler Competition: Win 'A Year Without Autumn'
1.30pm Sam Mills Video: Interview with Tyger Drew-Honey
2.00pm Adele Geras
2.30pm Jane Eagland Post: The Ups and Downs of Research
3.00pm Enid Richemont 
3.30pm Malcolm Rose Post: Reader Gregor Kelly questions Malcolm Rose over Forbidden Island
4.00pm Lucy Coats Video and Competition: Going to the Dogs--Tackling a Tricky Audience
4.30pm Susan Price & Katherine Roberts Post: Kindles and Kids Books
5.00pm Wendy Meddour Post: On Not Being a Famous Actress
5.30pm Miriam Halahmy & Savita Kalhan Video drama and discussion about Edgy Fiction
6.00pm Catherine Johnson Post: Rastamouse, the Moomins and Me
6.30pm Penny Dolan 
7.00pm Linda Newbery & Julia Jarman




Sunday 10th July


10.30am Emma Barnes 
11.00 am Dianne Hofmeyr & Miriam Moss On Picture Books
11.30am Kath Langrish Post: Secret Rooms in Children's Fiction
12 NOON Nicola Morgan Competition: Win 'Write to be Published' and a crabbit bag.
12.30pm Julie Sykes Post and Competition: My Favourite Bears
1.00pm Leila Rasheed Competition: Win a critique
1.30pm Joan Lennon Post: The Flamingo and the Writer
2.00pm Hilary McKay Competition: Win 'Caddy's World'
2.30pm Fiona Dunbar & Keren David Video: In Conversation
3.00pm Josh Lacey Competition: Win 'Island of Thieves'
3.30pm Marie-Louise Jensen & David Calcutt 
4.00pm Candy Gourlay Video: Creating a Legend
4.30pm Karen Ball Competition: An Inspiring Giveaway
5.00pm Linda Strachan & Cathy MacPhail Video: In Conversation
5.30pm Malachy Doyle Post: The Happy Book
6.00pm Michelle Lovric Competition: Win 'The Undrowned Child'
6.30pm Sue Purkiss Post: What the Dickens?
7.00pm John Dougherty Competition and Composition
7.30pm Lynne Garner 
8.00pm Nicky Browne Video: Finding history and herstory

This schedule may be subject to change as a result of circumstances beyond the organisers' control. Though we'll do our best to be control freaks and not let that happen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more