The Moon Stallion

Finished it overnight, and it was as magical as I remembered the television programme to be.  I remember being quite frightened watching it at the time (I’d have been about 9 years old, I think).
I was interested to see what specifics stuck in my mind: the toad skeleton, the horse magic, the Celtic goddess Epona, [...]

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They’re called WILD Things

Hurray for Maurice Sendak!!!
“The night Max wore his wolf suit” he was a Holy Terror. He chased the dog with a fork. He shouted at his mum. And then he travelled to the island of the Wild Things, and terrified them to the extent that he becomes their king. And then he storms round the island doing all the [...]

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Catalyst

The Catalyst Awards are on, but one’s Husband is providing expert interviewing skills with mock interviews. He needs to get Daughter to school first, so I ask Lovely Friend for a lift (Thanks, L F!).
Unfortunately, Daughter’s school closed due to heating issue, so she comes along with Husband. Go and ‘fess all to Boss who [...]

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Nightfall

Not much science fiction (or much fiction in general) involves archaeology. The first one I read was Nightfall. It was originally a long short story by Isaac Asimov, which was later turned into a novel co-authored with Robert Silverberg. The idea of the prehistory of other worlds is fascinating, but it doesn’t really [...]

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Scaring children

There’s been a wee cluster of stories on the news about whether it’s a good idea to scare children in stories.
Driving to work on Friday morning, I heard John Humphries interviewing author, John Connolly, about his new book, “The Gates” (subtitled, “the gates of hell are about to open”), and discussing whether authors are “going [...]

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Burke and Hare by Conaghan and Pickering

Took a group of Upper School pupils along to Motherwell Library this morning to see Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering discuss their graphic novel about Burke and Hare.
I had always assumed that the author just wrote the story and the artist interpreted it in his or her own way. I had no idea about [...]

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Free periods

I often sit down to write up my day of an evening, only to find that I have no idea what I actually did all day. I’ve been busy, but can  I point to anything concrete?
Well, I had no classes this morning, and only one this afternoon. How to make best use of such luxury? [...]

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The Box of Delights

Allow me to quote from the DVD Times website,
At least seven television channels, seven national, one international and a host of regional radio stations, a website that’s amongst the best in the world, an early adopter of digital television, of widescreen and of on-demand services, all of which are entirely free of advertisements, and The [...]

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What I’m reading

Hi, I’m Jen and I have a reading problem.
Nothing fictional appeals to me. I can’t find anything decent, nothing I can sink my teeth into.
Am I asking too much to want every book I read to be excellent, exciting and encourage my mind to wander in new directions? I don’t think so. But more and more [...]

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A day in the worklife: lunch: CfE meeting

Busy lunchtime, with kids reorganising the books on the shelves and a CfE meeting. My new LRC helpers are exactly that, very helpful, but when I asked them to swap the books on to the next shelves, I neglected to point out that the spines are usually read from left to right. It really didn”t occur to me [...]

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