Since finding this blog, I’ve never failed to be amused. Well worth taking a look.
via Sunday, bloody Sunday #narrowboat #boating #swansareevil
All posts by V.M.Sang
Sunshine Blogger Award.
I read about House of 1000 Books excitement over this award, and read the question answers with interest. Then I came to the list of nominees. Imagine my surprise when I saw my name there.
I would like to thank House of 1000 Books for nominating me for this award. It’s a great honour, and I’m so excited. You can visit by clicking the name above. Here you will find many helpful reviews of books you might wish to read.
The rules of this award are:
Thank the person nominating you and link back to their site.
Answer the questions they pose.
Nominate 11 bloggers.
Notify the nominees.
List the rules and display the award logo on your site of post.
So with no further ado, here are my answers to the questions.
Pepsi or Coke?
I don’t usually drink either, but I would go with Coke. (But not the diet kind!)
What type of books do you like to read?
I like Fantasy, Science Fiction or Historical. At least that’s what I usually choose, although I’ve read many from other genres that I enjoyed. I think I stick with those for ease. I can go straight to that genre.
Have you ever bought a book on vacation?
I can’t believe I’ve never done so, but recently I take umpteen books with me on my iPad. I do like a real book, but it’s so convenient to be able to take a large number in something not much bigger than an exercise book.
What would you do instead of blogging on a rainy day?
I would play my piano, or do some cross stitch, crochet or tatting. If it’s near someone’s birthday or Christmas I would make cards. I might also do some painting or drawing or even play a computer game. Sometimes I wish there were more rainy days!
Do you like cats or dogs?
While I acknowledge that cats are attractive creatures, I’m more of a dog person. I have an objection to the effect cats are having on our wildlife. In some places, they are causing the extinction of some other creatures. They are also no respecters of property, and will happily poo in other people’s gardens (never their own).
Would you rather be captured by aliens or kidnapped by Sasquach?
This is a difficult one. I don’t suppose I’m allowed to say ‘Neither’? Thought not. Mmm! I’ll go with the aliens. I think it would be interesting to see inside the spacecraft of another species. Also, we have a vague idea as to what Sasquach look like. We have no idea about aliens.
If you learned one thing about blogging, what would it be?
That it’s not easy? You must make notes of ideas you have for posts, otherwise when you come to write it, you’ll have forgotten. That’s happened to me so many times.
What are your hobbies?
Apart from the things I mentioned above, I enjoy cooking and gardening.
What do you hate most about bloggers?
Nothing, really. The people whom I follow seem to be very nice, intelligent folk.
What do you love most about bloggers?
I love the variety of posts out there in the ether. Bloggers all seem to be friendly and helpful. That’s something I love. There’s a community of bloggers, and that’s good.
What is a place you’d like to visit?
I would like to visit St Petersburg in Russia and see the Hermitage Museum.
Am I allowed to have more than 1? I’d also like to see the Grand Canyon, the Yangtse River Valley in China, Niagara Falls, The Northern Lights…
Here are my nominees:
Bluebird of Bitterness
Clancy Tucker
Charles Yallowitz, Legends of Windemere
K Morris-Poet
Jenanita01
Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo
Little Fears
Alexander ONeill
Viv Drewa-The Owl Lady
Sheila Renee Parker
Nicholas Rossi
And here are my questions.
1. What is the first book you remember either reading or having read to you?
2. Who is your favourite author?
3. What is your favourite book?
4. When did you start blogging?
5. Do you write to music? If so, what music inspires you?
6 Do you have any pets?
7. When you go out to eat, what type of food do you prefer?
8. Do you prefer the city or the country?
9. Would you prefer a holiday buy the sea, in the countryside or in a city?
10. What city would you like to visit?
11. When preparing your blog, do you write to music, if so, what do you prefer to write to?
Unknown France
I’ve just come back from a holiday in France where I visited some places I’d not heard of before. Here are some of the photos I took of these places. They are lovely towns no one knows about.
Kortrijk
Tourcoing
Monlucon
Mortagne-au Perche
I think France is a beautiful country and it has some hidden gems as these photos prove.
What do you think about these unknown places? Add your comments in the comments box.
Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore, New on the Shelves – Pre- Order for August 7th – Racked: Grafton County Series, #4 by Sue Coletta
This sounds like an exciting read.
Inclusive Language
I heard a programme on the radio yesterday. It was about domestic abuse. Specifically, coercive control. It got me thinking.
Why do men (it’s usually men, although not exclusively, I admit) think they have the right to control their partners or spouses?
Well, I think that it’s because these people consider themselves to be superior and ‘know what’s right’, as well, of course, wanting power over someone. But you can only get power over someone whom you think is inferior to you.
How has this come about? And how can we change attitudes?
This is not an easy thing, but there is one thing that, I think, adds to the problem, and that is exclusive language.
When I was growing up, the common term for our species that was in use was ‘Man’ (With a capital letter to distinguish it from ‘man’, the male of the species.) Nowadays, I often see ‘man’ as referring to the species as a whole. No capital letter to distinguish it from ‘Man’.
If we consider the animal kingdom, often we refer to a species by a name that is the name of one gender or the other. Cow, Goose, Hen, duck, dog etc. We say to our children ‘Let’s go and feed the ducks.’ Or ‘Look at those cows in that field.’
We call these creatures by the name of the gender that is most useful to us. Hens lay eggs. Cockerels don’t. Cows give us milk from which we make butter, and cheese. Bulls don’t. Ducks and geese lay eggs. Drakes and ganders don’t, and when I was growing up, a dog (male) was the preferred gender to have. And ‘bitch’ is a derogatory term, anyway, as are so many female names. (witch and cow, for example.) And if you want to insult a man, you can call him a bit of a ‘girl’ or ‘woman’.
In the north of England, a term of endearment is ‘duck’, but I think it has a certain condescention about it. Probably that’s just me, though
Male names are often, or were in the past, used as praise. A very long time ago, the term ‘a gay dog’ meant that the man was a womanizer. But that was not considered too bad, really. In fact it was often said with some hint of approval. Yet if a woman did the same type of things, she was a ‘slag’.
The male names for animals applied to men do not have the same connotation. A stag party is a group of young men out to have a good time before a wedding. Stags are imposing beasts, strong and beautiful. Now think about the female version—hen party—. Hens are silly, fluttering and noisy clucking creatures. If you want to say someone is unpleasant, you can call them a bitch, or a cow. Even a mare is occasionally used. All names for the female animal.
Now what about the males. I’ve already talked about ‘dog’, but ‘bull’ isn’t used derogatorily. It usually implies the man is strong, and stallion that he’s good in bed, to be polite.
Now to language, which is what this post is all about. Here are some alternatives you can use in your writing (or even in your speech).
Man: Human, People, Humanity.
Man-made: Artificial, Synthetic. (Not only men make goods, you know.)
New Design
I decided to have a new design for my website. I’ve given my dragon a little holiday. I think she needed one. As you can see, I replaced her with some of my books. (There’s one that’s not there, you’ll notice. )
I wanted to have my books showcased on the front page with a link to Amazon wherever you are. It will make it easier for people to go to their page and have a look (look inside and prices etc), and of course, buy.
If you want to know more about each book without going to Amazon, you can click on the My Books tab and read a blurb about each one.
At the moment, Vengeance of a Slave is self-published, but shortly, when I’ve gone through it once more to check there are no major errors and plot holes, it will be published by the same publisher who has published the other books. I hope it wont be too long.
The next book in that series, that follows a family through the ages, is on the way. It’s currently being critiqued. Then I need to go through it again at least once. I’ll be sending that to the publisher, too. This one is called Jealousy of a Viking and follows the personal conflicts of a young Viking girl, descended from Adelbehrt, the protagonist in Vengeance. I’m really looking forward to this being published. I’ve had some excellent comments from the critiquers, including one that said it has the potential to be a great book!
I’ll keep you informed about what is happening in future posts.
l love hearing from you, so please leave a comment in the box. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
In Defense of The Wasp
This morning I was watching a wasp flying around the flowers in my garden. It wasn’t bothering me, just gong about its business, gathering nectar.
I remembered that I’d posted about wasps at an earlier date, and so decided it was time to repost it. So here it is!
I’ve decided to do a post about a much maligned insect. The Wasp.
We all know the nuisance black and yellow striped creature that buzzes round us when we want to eat outside, and I’ve heard it said, ‘What is the purpose of wasps?’
Well, here it is. Something that I hope will help to mollify your thoughts on the creatures.
I was brought to thinking of them last September when I got stung. In all fairness, it wasn’t the wasp’s fault. Well, not entirely, anyway. I saw one in my daughter’s bathroom and decided to let it out of the window. I failed to get it out, and it must have ended up on my clothes, just under my arm. When I put my arm down, it stung in self defence. Still, it didn’t half hurt, and continued to do so for days!
What we think of as wasps (and hornets), those black and yellow terrors of picnics, are not the only insects to be classified as wasps. Wasps belong to the order of insects called Hymenoptera and there are over a hundred thousand species.
The black and yellow terrors are communal insects. They build nests of a papery substance created from wood. It usually begins in the spring when a queen lays eggs that hatch into workers. The workers are all female, and their ovipositors are what have become their stings.
Each spring, a new queen that has hibernated over winter, begins to build a new nest, built of wood she has chewed and mixed with saliva. Then she lays a few eggs. She has to forage herself for food for the hatched grubs until they become adult worker wasps.
These wasps only become a real nuisance in the late summer when the queen has stopped laying and no more workers are being produced. They search for food—sweet, sugary substances usually—and that is when they come into contact with humans.
And we don’t like it.
Most of the rest of the year, they are happily capturing insects and feeding on nectar from flowers. In fact, they are important pollinators. Not something most people know, but with the problems with the bee population recently, perhaps we should consider them more kindly.
Most wasps are not social, though, and live a solitary life. Some live in communities, with nests close to each other, but do not interact, except to sometimes steal each others’ prey. Some species actually build communal nests, but each adult wasp has her own cell, and there is no division of labour or community work. The females each catch and feed their own grubs.
The prey of these wasps is spiders and insects. They feed them to the grubs, which are carnivorous, but the adults usually feed on nectar. As such, they are useful to help get rid of unwanted insect pests.
Then there are the parasitic wasps. They lay their eggs in the body of the prey animal. The grubs then eat their way through the insides of the poor creature. Others lay their eggs in the tissue of plants. The plant responds by creating a gall around the growing grub.
I admit I’m not the most generous of people to wasps. It’s now spring, and the queens are coming out to find a place to build their nests. Just this morning, while I was working at my computer, I heard a buzzing by the open window. It disappeared, but returned soon after. This happened several times and so I got up to investigate. A wasp was clearly inspecting the brickwork around my window. It then had the temerity to enter and start to look around my husband’s computer.
I went downstairs and got the Wasp and Fly killer and zapped it as it went back to the window. (I didn’t want to spray the killer onto my husband’s computer, just in case! I’ve no idea what it might do to it.) I might know they are important predators and pollinators, but I don’t want hundreds of them just outside the room where I work.
So please spare a thought for the poor wasp. They aren’t as useless as you thought.
Please leave your thoughts on the wasp in the comments box. Do you think they are useless, or do they have some use after all?
Finally!!!
Announcing the release of Andrew Joyce’s latest work, Mahoney.
via Finally!!!
Spring. A Poem
Dandelions, like gold, cover the meadows.
Newborn lambs frolic in fields.
New leaves on the trees are casting their shadows
And winter’s cold grip quickly yields.
At the edges of woodland the primroses glow
And cowslips their scent fills the air.
Anemones dance when the breezes do blow
And birds sing with never a care.
Then bluebells and campions come into bloom
Their colour the blue of the sea.
The cuckoo, that herald of spring, will come soon
His call echoing over the lea.
The song of the blackbird is like molten gold.
His notes are so pure and so clear.
Hearing him seems to banish the cold
And brings joy to all those who hear.
Robin is nesting, and other birds too,
The hedgehog is active once more.
The young of the deer and the badger and shrew
Play their games as in old days of yore.
The sun climbs higher and higher each day
Giving more of his heat and his light.
It sparkles like stars fallen into the bay.
All smile at the beautiful sight.
Hope and excitement come with each spring morn.
What blessings will come with this day?
New starts can begin once again with each dawn
And send us all hopeful away.
Words you should not use in writing or speech
1. Obviously. This word is one that is unnecessary. If something is obvious, it does not need stating.
2. So. Lots of people open sentences with ‘so’. It usually has no meaning and is just a filler word. Someone asks a question ‘Why did you go to see Jason yesterday?’ , and the response is ‘So. I haven’t seen him for ages and wondered if he’s all right.’
3. Very unique. Unique means there is only one of it. Adding ‘very’ is meaningless. As is adding other qualifiers.
4. Just. Unless you are talking about the judicial system, ‘just’ is another filler word. We often say ‘I was just going to do it.’ Don’t write it.
5. Very. You should try to find stronger word. Don’t say ‘very big’ use ‘enormous’. ‘Huge,’ etc. The English language, thanks to the way it’s developed, is rich in synonyms.
6. Awesome. This word is greatly overused. It actually means something that fills you with awe, not just something that’s pretty good.
7. Nice. This is something I was taught at school, many centuries ago. OK, maybe not quite that long, but a long time ago anyway. Don’t use ‘nice’. Choose a stronger, more interesting word.
8. Really. Similar to ‘Very’. ‘A really nice cake’ (Look, I used 2 of these words in 1 sentence!) Choose a stronger word.
9. Irregardless. This is NOT a word. The word is ‘regardless’.
10. Try and… actually means you will try, and you will succeed. If you succeed, you don’t need to try. If you try, you will nor necessarily succeed. Use ‘Try to…’ instead.
What do you think about using these words? Do you use them?
Dragons Rule OK. V.M.Sang (author) 