rashbre central
fun going forward
Wednesday, 20 November 2024
terminate
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Novel approach
I've been reviewing a couple of novels recently, one recently published and the other undergoing its last revisions. This process is interesting and similar to the one I use with my own novels before they fly.
As an experiment, I've decided to write a non-fiction book about novel writing based on my personal experiences. I once helped out with a book about railways for a local charity, but sadly, it never saw the light of day.
So here I am with a handsome stranger poised outside the city walls of an unknown world. There's some kind of drone in the sky, and the stranger looks like he's having a rough time.
Now, I need to think of a Non-Fiction Book structure. Something like:
Sunday, 17 November 2024
The circle of scroll
Wednesday, 6 November 2024
ain't no sideshow now
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
Monday, 4 November 2024
twitter abandoned at last
Sunday, 3 November 2024
rookie cleat mixup
Thursday, 31 October 2024
Desolation of Smug
Friday, 25 October 2024
Unredacted Steele
A curious book, in which Christopher Steel reveals much of his life story. From school to post-Trump legal battles. I was expecting more new stuff, but I think I'd desk researched much of it previously, so the surprises were limited.
Wednesday, 23 October 2024
a few more days
I've mainly tuned this one out. It was shouty enough when I was in New York recently. Christopher Steele's book considers the Trump win a catastrophe. A "new world disorder".
Saturday, 19 October 2024
Wobble the market
Goofing around, I thought I'd try this little micro-economic exercise in the FT. Interesting...I got it close to the balanced numbers but had to break a couple of Fiscal Rules that the government recently declared. The effect was to make the markets wobble, but I think it says more about the vacuousness of the markets holding the economy in their thrall.
It takes about 5 minutes to set up the parameters for a round. Fascinating.
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Chunks of German with the fabulous Anja
I'm always the one who protests at having to learn all of those tables of 'der, die, das' and so on and say it interferes with speaking to one another. I say I prefer a 'Lego block' approach to a language where I can assemble pre-formed phrases to make longer sentences.
Well, it turns out that Anja agrees and she calls it 'chunking' - from the British Council origination of the word - although I can't help thinking about tinned carrot jokes.
Anyway, yesterday was a case in point where I was on a one-hour 'party' call with Anja and then jumped off the call onto Zoom with my Stammtisch buddies. For personal reasons I've missed several of the Stammtisch calls and they were surprised to see me return. However, I was immediately asked if it was alright to be tested on definite and indefinite articles and found myself in a world of nominative musculine singulars and so on.
Now I'm more of a bluffer, so I'll admit my word-endings can sometimes come out wrong, but on the whole I go for what I think 'sounds right'. Anja has the precision to know the grammatical underpinnings and will correct mistakes, but I think we both agree it's better to have a go at the sentence rather than to remain quiet. Here's an introduction...