Author Archives: James - Page 10
Extinction Rebellion London
Extinction Rebellion have been protesting in central London around Westminster. The protest started on Monday and is planned to last two weeks. There's a good overview of it on their website, along with a fab map. The objective is to get the UK government to acknowledge the climate change emergency and to bring forward the net zero carbon target to 2025. Extinction Rebellion in London As regular readers are likely to know my day job is in Westminster. So I've been walking past the protesters, and stopping to have a look and take pictures. It's a pretty good natured protest, feeling more like a festival than anything else. There's music and dancing and people talking about the climate emergency. The streets are even full of tents and flags! As well as protesters there are also loads of police, and they…
Emilie Knight – Author Interview
Knight with the hardback of Dagger and Scythe (photo: Emilie Knight) This week's post is an Author Interview with Emilie Knight, her new book Dagger and Scythe is officially released tomorrow! It's the second title in the Ichorian Epics series, the first being Era of Undying. Here are Emilie Knight's answers to my questions. Emilie Knight - Author Interview How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? I’ve been writing seriously for a few years. I’ve been writing since high school, but in 2017 I really sat down to focus on it as a career with novels, rather than short experiments for myself. Do you write for a living, or do you also do other work? I work in a call center in a car dealership. It’s a fine job, customers can be rude quite…
At The Trough by Adam Knight [Book Review]
At the Trough by Adam Knight My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was offered an ARC of At The Trough. It took a bit of getting into, partly because At The Trough swaps between several point of view characters, one per chapter. So it took 2-3 chapters for each character to properly hook me into the story. Once I'd got there it kept me up until 2am on a work night! At the Trough At The Trough is a very dystopian near future, a warning of what could happen if the super-rich managed to take control of education. The scenario is close enough to reality that you can see a plausible join into the present. It's a plausible, if very dark, future. This is part of what made it compelling to me. At the Trough is like Fahrenheit 451…
Farewell Facebook
Just a short note for the record that I've now deleted my Facebook account. I've not logged in regularly for a couple of years. My blog has been auto-linked to it, and many of the blog posts shared via Facebook when I've published them. Facebook's Usefulness I've missed some bits of Facebook. It's a great communications medium with my family, especially as I don't live near any of them. I've also missed some of the social groups, although my wife still uses Facebook, so I get some of the highlights second hand. Facebook's Failure That said the reason I stopped logging in regularly was because there was a lot more noise than signal. It was also clear that I didn't share values or understanding of the political situation with many of those that appeared on my timeline. Mostly they were…
Dad’s Guide to Styling A Daughter’s Hair
I'm pretty rubbish at styling my daughter's hair, but since I mostly do the morning school runs I need to be able to. If Lucy is lucky she gets a pony tail or bunches. So my wife decided to book me on a quick hair styling course with Lucy was run by the very nice Beth Finch, at Warlingham Park School. Beth, and the other mums with daughters, were very friendly and encouraging. I certainly learnt a fair amount about how to do my daughter's are some of the things that I learnt, partly so that I will remember, and partly I case they help anyone else style their daughter's hair. Tips for Styling Your Daughter's Hair Here are some general tips that I picked up that will help me style my daughter's hair. Put a teaspoon of conditioner in…