M is for…
Music!
There isn’tany music, any genre, that doesn’t make you think. Every note and melody resonates something within you. All music touches people in various ways, it means something different to each and every one of us.
I love it all!
I don’t have a favourite genre, or a favourite song because I love it all!
Music touches me in ways words can’t explain. Not my words anyway…
So many talented musicians are out there. I respect them all.
Yesterday (Sunday 17th May) I lost my beloved dachshund, Jazz. And then this morning I woke for the first time without her.
My little Jazz is with me all day, every day. We spend every minute together. Literally!
Early on we found she was sensitive to my epilepsy and changing moods. She became my constant companion and so the prospect of being without her hurts.
A lot.
So now I need to learn to be without her. And i need to find a way to remember that she’s no longer in pain. Wherever it is they go she’s happy there.
So whilst I spend a while in my thoughts of my happy little doggy I leave you with some pictures of her.
To make you smile.
Review – Where’s the zombie.
Illustrated by Paul Moran
Written by Jen Wainwright
Designed by Angie Alisson and Zoe Bradley
February 11th – Worry for Dr Peters who has been quarantined. February 20th – Fear the Dr, his parents, his wife, his four children, a cat and dog.
So we’re hunting the pages for the ten zombie members of the family and told there are medical kits to help cure.
Looks like a bit of a laugh and the illustrations are fun so I’ll give it a shot!
Picture search one – March 3rd and were at the quarantine centre. The details are great. In amongst Dr’s, nurses and people in biohazard suits you have blood splatters, infected falling from ceiling, a man throwing up on the floor…. A lot of work obviously went into making the scene full and believable.
So we hunt for the family… I found granny, grandpa, dad (the Dr) and one of his twin daughters quickly. I also found 4 medi packs. I found two more medi packs but no more family members. I hunted for ages and found many other zombies but not the ones I was looking for. I did have to go back to the family pictures to remember why they all looked like.
Picture two – ah ha! I seen why I’ve done. It’s the other half of picture one!!!!
So more picture one – there’s a man who appears to be getting his bum looked at by a Dr and a bunch of people in the back stood in their underwear. There is also a flimsy looking pen full of zombies. These people have obviously not watched as many zombie films as me, I’d be running the opposite direction!
I found six medi packs but was distracted from looking for the family by the couple in wheelchairs. He’s ok, she not! Zombie gram (not from the family we’re looking for, we already found her) appears to be chasing her husband!
I found mum and dad, it must not have been him I found in the first one. I found the second twin and the older sister.
Looking back over the entire two pages off the picture I found the dog but the boy and the cat continued to remain hidden.
I gave up. I went to the next picture.
The real picture two – March 8 and were at an event in the park. Crazy town thinks to do this after last week’s hospital fiasco? Dad, son, granma, older girl, one twin, grandpa and dog were found easily enough along with 7 medi packs. I got distracted by all the little details happening in the pictures. There’s a mugging and a woman teaching her kid to walk amongst the chaos. I found the second girl but the cat…. He’s good, I still can’t find him!
Picture 3 – March 17 and these crazy people still aren’t hiding but are instead heading to the shopping mall! There’s some brilliant little scenes, a woman knocking a zombies head off with nothing but her handbag, a zombie in a mascot suit. It took a little longer and there were more infected to hunt through but I found the family and I found the cat!
Picture 4 -March 22 – high school. Picture 5 – March 30th and we’re finally in an improvised bunker at the underground train station. Picture 5 – March 31st – looters in main street. Picture 6 – April 4th – farm. Picture 7 April 10 th – white house! Picture 8 – April 16th – supermarket. Picture 9 – April 22 – motorway. Picture 10- April 28 th – plane crash in the Sahara.
Each picture is getting harder and taking more time. And as you look carefully through the images there are so many fun little scenes.
April 30 – street front, May 2 – rooftops, May 5 – sewers, May 6 – laboratory, May 9 – zombie nest/hideout, May 12 – mountain stronghold, May 15 and the zombies have won!
The next few pages show the answers and give you extra things to look for.
I had a lot of fun with this where’s the zombie book! It’s addictive though so only start if you’re planning on going through the whole thing!
Review – Stranded with a Scotsman – Serenity Woods – A short story
Cori and Ewan have a past that neither of them managed to really put behind them. Whilst Cori is visiting her friend Izzy, who just happens to be Ewan’s sister, she is shocked when it isn’t her friend who picks her up but was in fact her brother that she still has feelings for. They went to some causeway and got stranded by the tide leaving them stuck til it went back out. (I do think this was intentional on Ewan’s (behalf)
It’s sweet and caring and at times you want to bang their heads together till they realise they’re just waiting for one another.
The characters are portrayed well but a little wishy washy for me. But then I’m the sort of person who’d have stood up to her dad and would just tell the guy I liked him! That’s me though and I do like Cori’s naivety. She’d never of followed him and got stranded without that innocence.
Halfway through the book they finally kiss and admit they missed one another during game of truth or dare.
The truth game continues and we learn about the high class type of lifestyle Cori comes from and how it feels stifling to her. And she admits the man she is expected to marry in a few months doesn’t hold her love.
He convinces her not to marry the fiance (Henry I think, at least something like that) and you get the expected moment when they confess their feelings for one another.
I don’t really know exactly how o feel about this. O knew it would be short, it’s a short story so it would be. However I was still strangely disappointed. I just want a bit.. more.
Review – Masturbation – Zachary Rowell
Written in a sing song rhyming way it’s a lot of crude fun!
There are cheeky little illustrations as well to make you laugh. Crude but incredibly funny. Obviously it’s for more mature people as it does have sexual content. (If you didn’t notice this by the title you’re in serious trouble!)
“First people got sick. Then they got really sick.”
” Still it’s probably nothing to worry about. People get sick all the time.”
If you don’t know already the suspected terrorist attack on the cruise liner, Spirit of Kirkpatrick, is from the book by the same author, Seasick. It is not necessary to the book to read Seasick first, but it’s a nice little fact, I think. Jan’s son Damien is a character in Final Storm. I love how Iain Rob Wright uses connections like this.
Nick Adams is our lead. Unsatisfied in his phone shop managerial job he seems to nevertheless be a nice guy. Going home to his wife and son he does seem worried as they’re both becoming ill with what is presumed to be a particularly virulent flu bug. Accidentally killing his rabid son he is unable to reach emergency services and then has to combat his rabid wife.
Things are not going well for Nick.
There is a nice and realistic feeling to Nick. He seems exactly like a normal bloke and you go along with him as he struggles to cope with and understand the devastation happening around him.
We meet Eve and Dave and Pauline as well as the other passengers on the bus that Dave drives. We see their first deliberate violence against the infected and the confusion and effect it has on them.
We hear Nick make the old horror movie mistake. “I think we’re through the worst of it. This day can’t get any worse.”
Never, ever mention those words. Things can and do ALWAYS get worse.
“I think crazy got invited to the party today.”
Introducing Annaliese in part two and allowing us to follow another characters point of view and experience of the virus is refreshing and appreciated. We watch as she finishes a gruelling shift as a zoo vet and how she first comes into contact with the infected.
“The sudden fright sent shockwaves of adrenaline through her veins.”
“Like a starving animal, he sunk his teeth into her windpipe, cutting dead her screams and reducing them to a pained gargle.”
‘Annaliese shook her head. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“No,” he said, thrusting the bloody meat tenderiser in her face. “You’re right. It’s your fault.”
We’ve seen Nick risk himself to save the other members of his little group of survivors and bore witness to Dave attempting to be the group leader. We now see this with Annaliese as Shawcross attempts leadership and Anna is willing to risk her life so her small group of survivors have a chance to escape to safety.
I like that the settings are real. Nick ‘s house, the road, a bus, a hotel, a small animal park/zoo. Real places were you may attempt to remain safe and hidden during the whole end of the world zombie apocalypse thing.
I love that Annaliese’s character is flawed. She’s not a perfect hero. She has suffered in her life and she turned to drink to cope.
The scenes that involve her and Lily the orangutan are written so well. Seeing Lily loose her family too was heartbreaking in a way that only a skilled writer could make you feel.
“If we leave them down there to die, then we become the monsters.”
Part three reverts back to Nick ‘s view point. It shows the two groups of survived coming together.
I feel I need to point out that although this is a zombie horror, the zombies themselves are secondary to the trials of coping with the unexpectedness of the end of human life as we know it. It feels like so much more than a standard novel about zombies, Iain enthralls you with the dynamics of people and the complexities of the intermingling of people who would not normally mix.
“Their hands touched. Lily’s rough fingertips slid over the cold flesh on the back of Nick’s hand. She let out a soft hoot.”
The add of Lily brings a much deeper sympathy. You see people connect with her in so many ways and each is touching. I love the description in these scenes that capture you with a little bit of wonder in the otherwise bleak world of survival.
“You can’t stay here for long Lily. I’m sick, eventually I’ll get dangerous. But I think you understand that. For now though I’m glad you’re here. I hope you make it out of this mess better than me.”
Watch as power threatens to corrupt in even these dangerous times. See how the group divides and who makes it out.
Don’t stop after the epilogue. Read through Path of Infection Seasick to find out how Nick ends up in line after the boat explosion. This novel can stand alone but as I mentioned earlier Seasick explains what came first, and is set on the boat Spirit of Kirkpatrick, the one that exploded on the Mediterranean. Then the story continues in Savage.
(Using the title pages copied from Amazon.)
Review – The noodle kitten art series – Ryoko San.
This is an easy book to review. Inside is Ryoko’s version of famous paintings starring cats as the main focus. On the second page of each drawing he gives artist name and painting title of which he was inspired along with a little info on that painting.
Cute, colourful and a little informative.
L is for…
Language.
I’m proud of my heritage, proud to be Scottish. But sometimes finding the right english word is a nuisance…..
K is for….
Kingdom
I’m a big history nerd, I admit it! The history of Scotland is close to my heart. I love it.
(sourced)
By the end of the seventh century, the four kingdoms of Alban were united in the Christian faith, but not much else.
Even the constant raids of the Norsemen, beginning in the eighth century and culminating in the conquest of Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, (where, in many areas, the non-Celtic Pictish tongue was replaced by the Scandinavian Norn), could not bring the four kingdoms together in a common cause.
Picts and Scots, with their own separate languages, were still enemies; and the Welsh-speaking Britons of Strathclyde were desperately trying to hold on to their culture in the face of ever-increasing hostility from the Angles of Lothian and Northumbria.
A semblance of unity among the warring societies of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Angles did eventually arrive, however, by the year 843, thanks to the determined efforts of Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Scots of Dalriada, who claimed the throne of the Picts after he had defeated them in battle. He created his capital at Forteviot, in Pictish territory; moved his religious center to Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, where he transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.
According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, MacAlpin “was the first of the Scots to obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called Scotia.” From that time on, the Picts, the tattooed or painted people, have remained a shadowy, poorly documented race. It is a pity that no Pictish literature has survived. All we have are the sculptured stones with their remarkable designs incised that show warriors, huntsmen and churchmen.
In 1018, under MacAlpin’s descendant Malcolm II, the Angles were finally defeated in this northerly part of Britain and Lothian came under Scottish rule. In the same year, the British (Celtic) King of Strathclyde died leaving no heir; his throne went to Malcolm’s grandson Duncan. In 1034, Duncan became King of a much-expanded Scotland that included Pict-land, Scotland, Lothian, Cumbria and Strathclyde. It excluded large tracts in the north, the Shetlands, Orkneys and the Western Isles, which were held by the Scandinavians.
When David died in 1153, the kingdom of Scotland had been extended to include the Modern English counties of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland, territories that were in future to be held by the kings of Scotland.
At the Treaty of Perth, 1266, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man were ceded to Scotland.
Orkney and Shetland remained under the control of the Norwegians until 1468 when James II of Scotland married Margaret, daughter of Christian I of Denmark. Orkney and Shetland were part of the dowry. Further, in 1470, the Earl of Orkney resigned his territories in exchange for lands in Fife, thus giving James II all the lands and rights in the northern isles.
Scotland was very much a different place than it is today!
J is for…
Jie or Jay
The endless debate!
Where I come from the letter is pronounced Jie. Jay is not a letter but a name. It’s a Scottish thing!
Emma Ruthven-Stevenson 