A blast from the past !!
After the unmitigated triumph of my novel STRANGLERS IN THE NIGHT some twenty plus years ago, I strode purposefully forward in my Bali Manic shoes and Chanel suit, inhaling the sweet smell (No.5) of success, sipping champagne en route to a glittering literary future. And then the cookie crumbled, as they say…
The head Judge in the competition which led to my book’s meteoric rise, was foolhardy enough to admit having bribed the other judge as he was hopelessly in love with me… Sales ceased, interest flagged, and talk of a film was out the window. I was totally flabbergasted and cast down; as was the overweight, aged Judge who managed to bankrupt himself. A deep abyss yawned before both of us. I was vaguely flattered, but how could he have done such a thing?!
If you believe that, you’ll believe anything! I don’t even know where it came from……
View original post 398 more words
Concentrating on keeping a foothold on the dangerous glacier, high up in the Ötztal Alps on the Italian/Austrian border, German tourists Helmut and Erika Simon may have thought, fleetingly, about coming across The Abominable Snowman. But they must have been even more astonished – or perhaps incredulous would be a better word – to discover the mummified, clothed body of a man, who was later estimated to have been there for an astonishing 3,500 years! The year was 1991; without doubt a red-letter day in their lives.
Nick-named Ötzi, the discovery must have excited a whole raft of people, keen to learn more about their frozen find. It was believed he lived from 3,350 to 3,105 BC. He was around 45 years old when he died (probably violently, from an arrow wound). He was 5′ 2” tall, wiry and took a shoe-size of size 8. He was also left-handed. He wore a woven grass cloak, fur hat, a hide coat, skin leggings and had quite elaborate deer skin shoes that were lined with grass. 
His body was heavily tattooed, with 61 distinctive markings. It has been suggested these may have been therapeutic in nature, an early form of acupuncture.
He would, of course, also have had to make his whole outfit, starting with his ‘tit-for-tat’ (Cockney slang for hat) by killing a furry animal, and then a larger animal to make his own coat and leggings. (No Izzi Solomon, the tailor around the corner for him… He would have been disgusted with the stitching!?) 
Oh, how far humanity has come over the years! The ingeniousness of human beings is mind-blowing. Take one of the most basic human needs. Before paper had been invented, leaves or moss was used for personal hygiene purposes. For the Romans a sponge on a stick did the trick, but elsewhere broken pottery and corncobs(!) were made use of. The mind boggles… 
Early in the 1800s, two important discoveries were made: in 1804 morphine was extracted from the poppy plant by German pharmacist Friedrich Serturner, and the first modern general anaesthetic was created by the Japanese physician Hanaora Seishu, which he named Tsūsensan.
In the early 1900s, the first vacuum cleaners were huge steam or horse-drawn machines that worked from the street, with long hoses that went into your home through the windows. 
1928 saw a truly momentous medical breakthrough, when Penicillin was discovered by the Scottish physician and microbiologist Alexander Fleming. For this ground-breaking work, he shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. 
I came across the most serious ‘coincidence’ I had ever encountered, while collating facts for my only novel The Catalyst. The book is based on the actual terrorist bombings of several London trains and a bus in 2005, the aftermath and a few fictitious survivors’ stories and fate. Because of the actual dead and injured, the subject was too delicate to write about at the time, and it was several years before I actually wrote the story and had it published.
The press also reported that the former Mayor of New York: Rudolph Giuliani was visiting London at the time of the attacks. He was staying at The Great Eastern Hotel (close to Liverpool Street station ) where TASE: The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, was hosting its Economic Conference. Israel’s Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was the keynote speaker. Presumably this was intended as further fuel for the fire of mysterious and sinister goings-on. Newspaper editors and their owners are, for the most part, not usually shy of publishing rumours, gossip or outright falsehoods when it suits their needs.
So, it seems the Press over-hyped the story, perhaps misled by initial statements. Or maybe they just decided to go with a more colourful interpretation of events. Peter Power himself dismissed it as ‘spooky coincidence’. And the chosen date? It was indeed coincidence — but an unbelievable one? ‘Every week across the UK there are probably about a hundred exercises, tests and simulations going on to get crisis teams familiar with their roles,’ Power insisted. ‘We certainly do this regularly for many clients, the vast majority of them paper-based.’
night and day, light and dark, et al? It is such a connecting, linking word and crops up all over the place in countless situations. Also, suggesting connecting as it does, it gives one a feeling of continuity and friendship…ie “You and me.” What a wonderful world it could be if we all made friends with each other. Just call me a cock-eyed optimist…
course hindsight and caution don’t always play their roles in real life well, do they?! If only we were more logical, especially when young… There was one particularly tragic case in the United States where a woman living on her own forgot to lock the front door and a passing nut-case calmly walked in and strangled her. A real-life tragedy. “If only…” immediately comes to mind.
And what a wealth of other, pleasing, words there are at our disposal. Most writers have their favourites. The following are just some of mine: scrumptious – so descriptive – I can almost taste a toasted bun dripping with butter, or a yummy chocolate cake; glutton: a jolly Billy Bunter type digging in to a huge fry-up…(all of which says a lot about me, except for the fry-up) and Salacious: fondly-remembered… sexual desires (“Ooh, George…”). I could, of course, could go on and on.
Born in 1947 to devout Roman Catholic parents in Brazil, Paulo, it seemed, was an unusual, slightly disturbed child, who happened to enjoy writing. For some reason, his parents did not agree that their son should be a writer, but should choose a more ‘worthy’ vocation in life. His rather questionable behaviour thereafter, lead his parents to have him committed to an Asylum for three years. Upon release, he travelled and became a hippie, and then a songwriter and political activist, which lead to imprisonment and torture. His thinking gradually then changed, and he walked the gruelling 500 km pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and felt a spiritual awakening, which lead him to write The Pilgrimage, which eventually sold well, after a slow start. His second book, The Alchemist, was a simple, while inspirational story, about an Andalusian shepherd boy. Sales were also weak, and it was said that he literally begged people to buy a copy….Incredibly, over time, it grew in popularity, until astronomical sales figures were reached and it was translated into 70 languages!.
Paulo met and married an artist named Christina Oiticica and they bought two homes: one in Brazil and another in France. He became so successful, sales of his books reached 65 million and he started a Charity for deprived children and needy elderly people, much to his credit. One wonders whether his parents lived to see their son’s amazing achievements? He has now written 26 books – one every two years, and continues to prosper.
‘Alchemy’ (from Arabic and ancient Greek) is complicated and obscure and goes way back to an ancient branch of natural philosophy, historically practised in India, China and the Muslim world and in Europe in Western form. It was first attested in a number of texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries. New interpretations of alchemy merge with New Age or radical environmental movements. Freemasons have a continued interest in alchemy and its symbolism, and in Victorian times, occultists interpreted alchemy as a spiritual practice and the merging of magic and alchemy is a popular theme.
I wouldn’t mind betting, way, way back, before the fifteen hundreds, somewhere or other, a farm labourer’s worn trousers fell down and his wife laughed uproariously. Such are the simple things which tickle our funny bones. Our most famous bard, Shakespeare, was no fool and soon cottoned on how to get ’bums on seats’ – apart from tragedy, that is! Apparently, satire was regarded as a higher genre than other brands of comedy, and was thought to be morally improving. There is some evidence, though, that rules and conventions in comedy were loose in Shakes’ days. One of his most popular comic characters Sir John Falstaff, was celebrated for his verbal dexterity. As he said: “I am not only witty in myself, but the cause of wit in other men.” (The Merry Wives of Windsor was called “An excellent, conceited comedie of Sir John Falstaff.”). A few more examples of Shakes’ wit: “I do desire we may be better strangers.” (As You Like it, Act 3 scene 2) and “Mine eyes smell onions.” (All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 5, scene 3.) A few, more bawdy quotes, are best left unquoted…
Fast forwarding to the Silent Movies…who couldn’t take to the diminutive, pathetic figure of Charlie Chaplin known as ‘The Little Tramp’ as he tugged at heart-strings from the silver screen? Charles Chaplin was Jewish and his real name was thought to be Israel Thornstein, but it was never corroborated. Born in London in 1889, he moved to the USA aged 21. He was suspected to be a Communist and was investigated by the FBI, but there was no reason to believe he was a spy. Nevertheless, Hoover blocked his return to the US after a trip abroad. He made such gems as The Little Tramp, The Gold Rush and The Great Dictator, but it wasn’t until 1972 that he returned to the US and received an Honorary Oscar for his outstanding work. He also received a Knighthood in the UK two years before his death at 88. He may have been small in stature, but he left a lot of smiles on a lot of faces over the years as he slipped on banana skins, had vivid, messy food fights with film adversaries and got up to all sorts of amusing mischief.
Leaping forward, what a wealth of fabulous talent we have seen since those early days, on stage, film and TV…It does, of course depend on what lifts your lip corners. Taste is so variable. One of my favourite acting comedians was Gene Wilder. Born in 1933, he is well known for being in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and with the great Richard Prior in Stir Crazy. Wilder’s debut was via TV. He directed and wrote some of his own films, including The Woman in Red. He was married four times; and often worked with another Bright Guy, Mel Brooks.
Feminists will be champing at the bit at the late inclusion, but there have also been some wonderful female entertainers over the years. Who could not like ‘dippy’ Lucille Ball or her ‘side-kick’ Vivian Vance, crazy Phyllis Diller, or the outrageous Joan Rivers… And the late, lamented Victoria Wood was a force to be reckoned with.
Many more talented people, British and American have made me laugh like a drain over the years, and last but not clichéd least, is the brilliant Woody Allen. I have guffawed and spluttered over his writing, his films and mad jokes for years. Bring it all on!
Joy Lennick 