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Friday 13 December 2013

Slightly damaged street cred

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The taxi sped importantly up the impressive gravel driveway to the main entrance of Ransom's. Seldon felt massaged by the school's reassuringly disdainful facade, which exuded an effortless patina of success and kudos. Under the circumstances, therefore, it was rather unfortunate that the Head chose this precise moment to pull up in her brand new, disconcertingly nouveau-riche sports cabriolet. It was incongruous. Seldon had somehow envisaged the Head of Ransom's owning something rather more low-key and substantial - a Volvo estate perhaps. As it was, her car seat was so close to the ground that she could not extract herself from the depths of the vehicle without treating the observer to the unsolicited privilege of two spindly, flailing legs, reminiscent of a large spider trying to wriggle out of a crack in a wall. The indignity was enhanced on this occasion by an unexpectedly generous viewing of a white cotton gusset. Not so much Volvo estate as vulva-in-state, chuckled Eva to herself, although she was practiced in keeping her humour well hidden from parents, even prospective parents, such as Seldon
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Excerpt from MOLDAVITE, 88% off Kindle ebook today!
http://amzn.to/1bB5za9




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Monday 9 December 2013

The Voca People


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For my Dad


Today would have been my Dad`s birthday. He died when I was fourteen, which is a long time ago now. The problem with losing a parent when you are still young is having to deal not just with the loss itself, which is bad enough, impossible actually, but with the accumulative effects of the loss on the rest of your life. It`s not just that he`s not there for your birthday. It`s that he`s not there for every birthday after that, ever after, or for every Christmas after that, or for your graduation, or for your wedding, or for the birth of your children, his grandchildren. Loss is not just a one off agony – it`s an exponential chasm that grows ever wider. When one of your parents dies you fall off a cliff into your own mortality, and it`s a fall that never seems to end. And yet sometimes, somehow, that fall becomes like one of those dreams where one second you are falling, and the next you are flying.

It all really hinges on one thing. As parents we agonize about whether we have done things right or wrong. We regret our mistakes, our failings, our inadequacies. But our children do not see us like that at all. Children are incredibly tolerant of quirks and traits. They see us mainly as either loving or not loving. Loving parents expect a great of themselves and very little of their children.

When I was twelve years old, my Dad, who was already dying, turned to me one day and said, out of the blue: "Never worry what other people think about you, because they are always wrong." It may have been the best piece of advice anyone ever gave me. At the time I didn`t have a clue what he was talking about, but I certainly do now. It isn`t the loss alone that is so hard to bear: it`s the contradiction between the chasm and what we fill it with.

 





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Friday 6 December 2013

Power to you!! The truth about your bills



Dear Customer,
Just a little note to let you know we understand your anger in the recent price hike.
But it should be noted that you have no choice.
We are a big company and you will pay what we tell you.
We have the power, you need the power. So sad...too bad.
We have enclosed a little picture to help outline our response.
Have a nice day and keep those cheques coming!


 

Sincerely,
Your Electricity Supplier








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Monday 2 December 2013

Christmas Present


"Christmas Present", a new collection by Meira Eliot, Roger Hicks and O.D. West with original illustrations. Some rather unusual Christmas tales for grown-ups and two delightful tales for children of all ages by Roger Hicks and O.D. West. Out today on Amazon Kindle
 http://amzn.to/1chWzLx

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Sunday 1 December 2013

KUNG FUK YU!

"By some exquisite twist of grammatical irony, the German word for feminism, der Feminismus, is a masculine  noun, and deservedly so. In the Berlin of the early eighties you would have had to scour the institutions of hard-core Third World fundamentalism to find anything as deeply misogynistic, or blatantly paternalistic, as institutionalized feminism. Before you dismiss this statement as a piece of reactionary tosh, allow me to tell you a little story." Excerpt from KUNG FUK YU, by Meira Eliot. Kindle Countdown deal still running! http://amzn.to/1j6TMYx
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