Klook and Plukey

This is an extract from a story in the online Guardian: 

"Shocked police were to find a “revenge plan” that detailed a scheme to assassinate former schoolmates and a teacher before carrying out a mass shooting at the school."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/13/revenge-on-my-mind-somerset-man-jailed-for-firearms-offences-was-fascinated-with-mass-killers

The obvious message might be to ban all gun ownership - all knife ownership - ban ownership of anything you might be able to make a weapon of... However, would it not be feasible to make our school system kinder, more child friendly?

And surely jamming children together in large peer groups is a recipe for bullying?

I have written in the postscript to Klook and Plukey (one of the stories in The Umbrellas of Hamelin) how the "one size fits all" system weighs very hard on, possibly does permanent damage to, those many children who are for those long important developing years painfully square pegs in round holes.I hated my schooldays - the system did not fit me, and to be fair, I did not fit it.  I found it hard to understand what was going on much of the time so I was probably very exasperating. My saving grace was that I could do exams. I don't know why, but looking back it is possible that the orderliness and the quietness of the exam room suited me and helped me to concentrate. There were no worries about a teacher suddenly asking you a question, or shouting at you when you go it wrong, or failed to understand it. And there was no opportunity for a classmate to single you out for a bit of nastiness.  For me, the exam room was that currently fashionable thing, a safe space.

Caroline Glyn wrote about the "one size fits all" school system  brilliantly in Don't Knock the Corners Off.  The title says it all really.

However, neither of us resorted to plans for revenge killings.  Thank God.   

Wednesday morning was stormy again - grey, rainy, big waves on the English Channel.   It seems to be a storm without a name this time.  Who decides if they get names or not? And what would I call it if it were me who did?  Storm Sue maybe as I did get in a bit of a temper that morning as I lost the daily Wordle/Quordle/Octordle competition - yet again.

The above photo is me as a Catholic Convent Schoolgirl, in the 1950s.  I am Middle Row left of pic. Next to me is Rosemary, who now lives in NZ, and Sheila, who is very sadly no longer with us.

What if I could go back to my schooldays - knowing then what I know now?  I would certainly be able to appreciate the privilege of having all that time to learn, to study. Which I certainly did not at the time.

But I could no longer go to a Catholic school of course.  I would have to be one of the "non-Catholics", who stayed out of all the prayers, catechism lessons and religious ceremonials.  

How glad I am though that my schooldays are over. But I hope to go on learning forever, being taught by Jehovah, which makes for such happiness even now. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 says:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has even put eternity in their heart; yet mankind will never find out the work that the true God has made from start to finish.

Jehovah has put eternity into our hearts. We can live forever on this lovely planet, yet we will never stop finding out about the creation, we will never stop learning.  And every moment of it will be a joy.  

"GONE Stories of Extinction" by Michael Blencowe

I have mentioned this book in previous blogs, but never feel I have done it justice.  Though I have tried.  So now I am wishing I had the writing skills of Dickens/Austen/Tolstoy and lots of other Brilliant Writers all rolled into one so I could find the words to persuade you to buy and read this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gone-search-remains-extinct-creatures/dp/0711256756

But as I don't I cannot improve on the praise already (and rightly) heaped upon it.

Anyone who has been to Michael's presentations about the natural world - and we have been to many - knows how entertaining, and informative and funny he is.

And here he manages to be entertaining while doing justice to the tragedy that has happened, remembering all the lovely creatures we have lost.  He will sweep you along with him in this fascinating memorial to them.

In other words, it is a real page-turner.

The author starts by taking us to the Booth Museum - just down the road from here. He manages to capture the strangeness and fascination of the Booth. It is well worth a visit by the way. And he also skewers the Victorian obsession it commemorates in a couple of sentences:

"Victorian society was enthralled by the natural world and they demonstrated their admiration through coveting, collecting and categorising it. Birds, butterflies, ferns, eggs, seaweeds, shells,you name it - if the Victorians could get their hands on it, they'd kill it, skin it, stuff it, press it and pin it."

Michael takes us all over the world, from Alaska to New Zealand.  He describes the valiant, hopeless and heartbreaking struggle of the vanished Stellar's Sea Cows as they tried to protect each other from the slaughter.

And he takes us to Widewater Lagoon, just down the road from us here, where, quietly, with no fanfare, we have recently allowed - or caused - yet another creature to become extinct. It is - or was - the Ivell's Sea Anemone.

It was tiny, but no doubt as important as anything else in the great scheme of things.  And if we had been taking care of it, and made things right for it, we would likely have made things right for a lot of other things too.

But we cannot restore the peace of Eden, when all the earthly creation was in perfect harmony.  However, I would want everyone to know that our Creator can restore that lost paradise earthwide, and he will.

His promise, recorded 2,000 years ago in the Book of Revelation, and preserved for us to this day, is that he, Jehovah, "will bring to ruin those ruining the earth".

In a minor key, I have to report that John and I came joint fourth in the Fantastic Books Flash Fiction competition.  I am extra pleased because Talky Tin, the story that won this fourth place, commemorates our fierce and lovely Saudi cat, Whites.  The collection our stories appear in is here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CFLZSBNS?th=1&psc=1&geniuslink=true

I would love love love you to buy that too - and/or The Umbrellas of Hamelin:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Umbrellas-Hamelin-Sue-Knight/dp/1914060555

But please buy Michael Blencowe's book first.

My Movie Debut

MABLE - Fantastic Books Massive Autumn Book Launch ends on Saturday. And I understand that me and my bro will be appearing in a 10 minute video in the first event, the Launch of Kaleidoscope at 2:00 p.m.

The links are here:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule


The link becomes live at 2:00 p.m tomorrow. and will remain on Youtube if anyone wants to see my dazzling movie debut. If you watch it, look out for the lovely creature who looks like Kate Moss (only better). That won't be me.

The bee photo heading the blog is because a line from an old song or nursery rhyme (I can't remember which) has been going maddeningly through my head: "And I will bake a honey cake..." Presumably because one of Monday's projects was to try out the honey cake recipe in the Olivia Potts column in the current Spectator. The York Branch of the family have taken up beekeeping - they have a large garden - and gave us two pots of delicious honey. So I thought I would have a go.

It has turned out well - and I think it is one of those cakes that will get better with keeping - it is all portioned up in the freezer now, awaiting its turn in the packed lunches.

There must be a cake vibe travelling through the universe as I have just been asked if I can bake some cakes for an upcoming elders meeting. So I have decided to make a fruit cake - the usual boil and bake one from my Cranks Recipe book - plus the marmalade muffins (same book) - they are sturdy unglamorous cakes, but they do taste good if you follow the recipe.  As they are for our hard-working elders, I can only hope they will taste especially good.

Poor Col is still limping and in quite a bit of pain during the nights. He is not getting his usual full eight hours sleep, which is having an effect. 

On the last day of the month we got a Storm Warning from the Management Company, asking us to make sure we got all the tables and chairs off our balcony before Storm Ciaran hit us on Wednesday. They didn't issue any such warnings about the storm just gone, so presumably this one was forecast to be a lot worse.

On Wednesday, the first day of November, the bonfire was burning merrily away - a whole load of people in Hi-viz gear having come to light it on Tuesday, presumably before the storm hit and blew wood all over the Green.  I had a phone appointment with the GP first thing - it was about my blood pressure. 

By Wednesday evening the storm was roaring outside, and on Thursday morning one of our geraniums had been torn from its moorings. But otherwise, on the face of it, all seemed OK, apart from there being flood warnings in many places. Jersey and Cornwall both seem to have been hit very badly though. There is a startling little video on fb from the Channel Isles showing roofs flying into the air as the storm hit!

Anyway, I must go off and hastily buy myself a designer frock so I can watch my Showbiz debut tomorrow afternoon in style.  Problem:  I wouldn't know a designer label if I fell over it.

As for the News... it just get worse and worse and the situation in the Middle East is now spreading to many other countries, which is why I want to say as little about it as possible and not add (a bonfire image here) any more fuel to the fire.  But what a tragic mess it all is, and it weighs extra hard on both the children and the animal creation, who are so blameless and powerless in this.  It comes back to having a government that has the love, power and the wisdom to teach us to live in peace with each other - the Kingdom of God, the heavenly one.

The Bonfire Before and After

Stormy weather on Saturday morning, with torrential rain and wonderful waves on The Channel, which must have been worrying for the Bonfire Committee and the Fairground, as Saturday was the day of the bonfire, fireworks, etc.  They needed a dry evening to make their money.

The clocks went back in the early hours of Sunday morning.  There was quite a good cartoon on facebook showing a load of heavy machinery moving the gigantic stones at Stonehenge backwards an hour.

And on Sunday morning the bonfire was still in its "before" state. So the picture above encompasses both "before" and "after".  

The weather had been so bad they could not light it! There was no procession, no fireworks, and on Sunday morning, still overcast and blowy, the fairground was packing up and leaving.

This must have been a financial blow for the fairground people, which is sad.  They got all their stuff there and were never even able to open.

More strange weather on Sunday, stormy enough to cause Col not to go metal detecting!!   Well, actually I think it was more because of his bad knee, contingent upon the day he spent searching for a Misper (missing person to us laymen) last week.

We are not as young as we were.  And while I see this is so true of me, how can it be true of my young London boy?  What a short time we have to spend with the people we love.

So he very kindly chauffered me to the Kingdom Hall and back, which was so helpful as it was monsooning down both as we left and as we drove back.  The waves on the Channel were wonderful and we expected them to be throwing stuff over the road before the end of the day.  Apparently there was even a mini-tornado locally that took someone's roof off!  

On the doubleplusgood side, yesterday I received such a lovely email from an old Uni friend, Pete.  He has just read Umbrellas (The Umbrellas of Hamelin, my new book) and loved it.  The email ends this way:  I literally could not put it down until I had finished it. 

That has made me so happy, as my aim is always always to make my books page turners. I want people to really enjoy reading them, to want more. One thing on my ToDo List today is to write and thank him - oh and also to say how much I appreciate that he will review it.  Reviews are important.

The News though is dreadful - from the Middle East, as Gaza is flattened, thousands killed, including many children on both sides, the hostages are still missing, bar the one released unharmed, and may well be dead too.  And the trouble spreads by the day. Then there is what keeps coming out about the amount of corruption right here, and the violence towards the most vulnerable in our society, the fatherless.motherless children, as we keep finding what so many of them have suffered in our Orwellian "care" system.

What to do in the face of it?   Exactly what Jesus told us to do - keep on telling everyone who will listen about the Kingdom of God, while there is still time.  Jehovah will act to remove every vestige of the current wicked system of things on the earth - and soon.

We are all in "the valley of the decision".  What will we decide?

I have been living as a subject of the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government, for over thirty years now, and can only say I have never been happier (despite the News, despite all the health horrors of old age).  It is a government - the only government - that knows and cares for every one of its subjects. 

In fact, I cannot imagine what I would be feeling now if I did not know the truth. The Inspired Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation are the truth. The rescue they promise, the restoration of paradise, earthwide, is so close now.

The Launch of THE UMBRELLAS OF HAMELIN

The launch of my latest book - a collection of short stories - THE UMBRELLAS OF HAMELIN - is tomorrow, at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon.  The video. 23 minutes long, will remain on Youtube.  I hope all my blog readers (both of you!) will watch it and give it a like - even buy the book maybe?  

It is available as an E-book.

Or you might win a free copy if you enter the Competition.

The link to the video is here on the schedule, and will become live at 2:00 on Saturday:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

I am looking forward to watching it myself as I don't know how it is going to go or exactly what it will contain.  I know I did a ten minute video with my brother about writing. He has published some scholarly publications and is now trying his hand at fiction.  We tried to keep it short and interesting.

But I can't remember what we said. I look forward to finding out, and I plan to be there in person, chatting at the side.

And I think I also read and recorded Talky Tin - which is my shortest and most recent story as I wrote it for a Flash Fiction competition.

That will probably take 5 minutes at most, so I will be interested to see what the video consists of.  Or indeed, more grammatically, of what the video consists.

Talky Tin stars our lovely battered old Saudi cat. He was a stray I was feeding, and we adopted him after he bit me and put me in A&E.  Because of rabies, if you were bitten by an un-vaccinated animal, the animal had either to be put down and its brain tested to see if it was rabid. Or it had to do 10 days quarantine in the Kennel Club to see if it had rabies.  To do the quarantine, Whites had to have a registered owner, who would pay for him. So we adopted him. And he was a wonderful cat. Oh, and he wasn't rabid!  After that, as our cat, he was of course vaccinated regularly.

He also appears in The Martian Goes to a Party and has a Nice Day.  It is the story that reflects my initial shock at expat life (and my dislike of parties). Whites, as Tiswas, gets the last word in that one.

The next launch on Saturday is of Penny's entertaining Death by Column Inches.  It's a while since I read it, but I remember it as being a good combination of both thrilling and funny.  Then there is a Spotlight on Crime and Psychological Thrillers which should be interesting, and lastly Walt Pilcher, who is always value for money - very entertaining.

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy the launch video.  I hope I will!

BABET and MABLE

Hi Tide
by me

The sea had long wanted
to go into town
so early one morning
it roared in
found the arcades still closed
and battered them down.


I was reminded of this little poem I wrote many years ago - unpublished until now  (well, unless I have blogged it before) - because of pictures my sister has sent of the Porter Brook flooding Endcliffe Vale Park. I have seen the Brook in flood before, but never like this.  Storm Babet has been a bad one. It has claimed lives.  It may claim more as we are now being told that the flood water still lying in the North may be about to freeze over!

Once again I think of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  Even the wind and the seas obeyed him.  He is exactly the ruler we need.  We cannot expect that from any human government, no matter how well-intentioned.

I had hoped this would be a week free from medical matters, but I had my filling done this morning. It was scheduled for November, but they had a cancellation and the dentist rang me up yesterday to ask if I could come in.  Much as I did not want to, I said I would and now I am glad that it is done.

The weekend was busy with Metal Detecting for Himself, and the meeting at the Kingdom Hall and MABLE for me.  Being taught from Jehovah's word was, as always, so comforting.

Mark Henderson read some extracts from his elusive folktales; and Mella May and Dale Neal also read extracts from their current books - very funny, All three books are linked here:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/elusive-folktales.html

Amazon.co.uk/Tatty-Cat-Wonderful-Whiff-Mella/dp/1914060547

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/mshgb-all-formats.html

The latter two are the sort of books that children will love and that parents will love reading to their children. And they will all make great presents. Mark's book would make a great pressie for those exiled from the Derbyshire Dale countryside. He has done some amazing research, and come up with legends both funny and scary. 

The photo, taken by Captain B in the beautiful Derbyshire Dales, is in honour of Mark's new book.

The videos are all on Youtube now, and will be joined next Saturday by the launch video of my latest - last? - book,The Umbrellas of Hamelin.  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Umbrellas-Hamelin-Sue-Knight/dp/1914060555

The launch is at 14:00 hours, or two o'clock in the afternoon for us oldies.  It is only a short video - 23 minutes - and I am still not sure what is going to be on it.  I hope to be there commenting at the side though.

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

I have my first comment ready to go, for if and when they show the video: "What is wrong with the camera here? Why am I not looking exactly like Kate Moss, only better?"

No answers on a postcard please.

Betjeman's Broomhill

An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield 

by John Betjeman

High dormers are rising
So sharp and surprising,
And ponticum edges
The driveways of gravel;
Stone houses from ledges
Look down on ravines.
The vision can travel
From gable to gable,
Italianate mansion
And turretted stable,
A sylvan expansion
So varied and jolly
Where laurel and holly
Commingle their greens.

Serene on a Sunday
The sun glitters hotly
O'er mills that on Monday
With engines will hum.
By tramway excursion
To Dore and to Totley
In search of diversion
The millworkers come;
But in our arboreta
The sounds are discreeter
Of shoes upon stone -
The worshippers wending
To welcoming chapel,
Companioned or lone;
And over a pew there
See loveliness lean,
As Eve shows her apple
Through rich bombazine;
What love is born new there
In blushing eighteen!

Your prospects will please her,
The iron-king's daughter,
Up here on Broomhill;
Strange Hallamshire, County
Of dearth and of bounty,
Of brown tumbling water
And furnace and mill.
Your own Ebenezer
Looks down from his height
On back street and alley
And chemical valley
Laid out in the light;
On ugly and pretty
Where industry thrives
In this hill-shadowed city
Of razors and knives.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/poems/837

I grew up in Broomhill, in the hill-shadowed city of razors and knives, a long long time ago. 

Or was it only yesterday?  I love John Betjeman's re-creation of it. How good he was at capturing place.  

I have blogged about this before, but my hometown has been on my mind because, ever since our medical troubles earlier this year, I have been wondering if we should not move back there.  I have been looking at house prices and wondering if we could afford to return.  However, we love our retirement by the sea.  We love sitting out on the balcony watching the sea come and go and the moon on the water.  

Do we even have the energy to do it again, if we decide we want to?  Nute has very kindly said we can move into the bungalow with her if we do, thus avoiding the hassle of trying to buy and sell at the same time. We could sell our flat here, move up North, and start to look for something. It would also mean we could buy at auction, if the right thing came up.

But...  Col absolutely does not want to leave our lovely flat - and we are both very happy here. What to do?  I need to pray about this, to ask Jehovah what would be the best  thing. Because He knows, and I don't.

MABLE is on again this weekend, schedule here:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

The videos will remain up on Youtube, and also there is a competition you can enter.  I am hoping to pop in to all of the weekend sessions and have a chat.  You are so welcome to join us.  I don't know if I might even get a mention in this one: 16:00 BST: SPOTLIGHT on Science Fiction (59 minutes)

Though I am not a SciFi Writer.  One of the stories in Umbrellas is ostensibly about a Martian (it's really about my own feelings of being on an alien planet for much of the time, especially at parties).  And one of my characters in Disraeli Hall is kidnapped by aliens and taken off to the Planet Betelgeuse. However, his experience only occupies a few lines of text and is of no importance at all re the plot and its central mystery.

I would have liked to call the book   A Present From Betelgeuse (as my kidnapped character brought a present back with him, a genuine space artefact) but I couldn't as then it would have been classified and sold as SciFi, and it isn't. Not at all.  If I had to describe it, I would say it was a post-modern take on Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, as that sounds rather clever.  Just don't ask me what it means.