Howdy doody!

Oh, where to start, where oh, where ... shall ... I ... start ....? Should I start with a moan and move on to happier things? Or shall I start out happily and slip slowly but undoubtedly into sulkiness?

Decisions, decisions.

I know, I think I'll flip this antique bronze sestertius coin from the Roman empire and if it's heads, I'll moan first but if it's tails, I'll get stuck in with a smile 'pon my face.

Hold on .......

It's heads.

(Oh goodie!!).

Right, first thing's first.

You, my beloved reader, may not even be aware that there is a 'search' function at the top left hand side of this page, allowing you to whizz through pages and pages of quality writing that I have laid down for your reading pleasure in the blink of an eye.

You may also not be aware that I too, make full use of this nifty little tool in order to avoid repeating myself and thus boring you all to tears. I mean, don't get me wrong, so powerful is my memory that I hardly ever use it for this purpose (I'd say, no more than once every other post), but I mention it to show you my commitment to keeping these pages as dross free as I possibly can.

It is with some annoyance therefore, that for several months now, this search function has not been working properly. I have tried searching for many different words that I know to be prevalent here but it returns only a smattering of offerings, if any.

The swine!

Hmmm... a search function that doesn't work but is owned by Google (who specialise in "searching". Would you Adam and Eve it?)

Anyway, if Blogger/Google are listening, please people, enough is enough, SORT IT OUT!

Ok, moan over (for now).

A rather nice thing happened today when the teacher that Joseph had while in the nursery 'wing' of his school turned up out of the blue - from New Zealand!! I saw her, we chatted, I ran to get Joseph from his classroom (it was after school hours) and said, "look who's here", standing back to see if he remembered her from over two years previous. It took no more than a second before he shouted her name, ran across the classroom to give her a hug and she, to her full credit, called his name (without any prompting from me) and hugged him right back. It was a brief encounter but a special one, nevertheless.

So special did we think this teacher, that I penned a wee poem in her honour. Not being one to crow about my poetry however, I wouldn't dream of bringing it up all over again, year in, year out, time and time again, goodness me, no!

(click HERE for a read of my brilliant poem, no obligation, only if you want to, like...)

Erm ... what else?

Oh yeah, Joseph and Annabel were both wiped out this evening so they were more than ready to get into bed slightly earlier than they have been. Joseph was asleep before I switched his light off, his gentle snore the obvious giveaway. However, Annabel was determined to read before I hit the dimmer switch for the last time, more a battle of the wills than a genuine desire to read.

Anyway, I tied her hair up as I usually do so she didn't spend the night wiping it from her face, tickling her and waking her (and therefore us), up. I could see she wasn't comfy though.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm not comfy", she replied, sitting up and looking back at her pillow.

After a couple of attempts at plumping up her pillow, the penny dropped.

"I think I know what's wrong", I smiled, watching her puzzled face.

I adjusted the bobble holding her hair from the back to the top of her head.

"Poor bubba, how are you supposed to sleep lying on that eh? Silly Dad!!"

I realised the problem as I know all too well how frustrating it is to have a bobble of hair keeping you awake due to the fact that I too once had thick, lustruou ........

"What's that dear? Stop going on about my once thick and lustruous locks?"

"Yes dear".

"Whassat dear?"

"Stop bemoaning the fact that I am losing my hair and that in your opinion no-one gives a damn?"

"I see dear. No dear. No, absolutely dear. Yes, I'll make you a cup right away dear. Won't keep you a minute".

Ri-i-ight then, I guess I'd better wrap this up for the night. What else did I want to say? Ooh, yes, that's it, I haven't even mentioned the reason I actually sat down to write tonight.

I've been blabbing on about my writing afor the past half hour when actually I wanted to be telling you about Lord Parker's writing in his debut thriller STOP ME. The cover below may look familiar for two reasons. Either;

a) You've already bought a copy or

b) You've seen my pictures of it here when it arrived a month ago.

I have to admit to having finished it over a week ago but did I do what I normally do with the books I've read and offer you a review, however measly?

No, I did not.

But here I am.

Reading it, at first I was thrown by the familiar place names and roads that were mentioned. For some reason, being able to picture the A3 dual-carriageway out of London distracted me from the actual story.

But not for long.

With thrillers not really being an obvious genre of book for me, the name Simon Kernick below the applause on the front cover didn't mean all that much to me, but if you Google him (you know, Google, the SEARCH function people, grrr.......), you will see that he is a fairly big cheese in the thriller writing world, so to have him praising your first book is no mean feat.

What he wrote though is absolutely spot on.

"Tightly written, fast paced, keeps you turning the pages".

It was all of those things, and more. Again, with thrillers not being my number one choice, the fact that this is a page turner was important. It is very easy to read; it's very easy to associate with the main character (we'd all act the same way, given the impossible-to-imagine circumstances).

Rather stupidly, I seem to want to test and push myself with books. I say "stupidly" because the only real time I get to read is at bedtime and, speaking from experience, there is little point in picking up a book at quarter to midnight which discusses the socio-political landscape of Lebanon in the late 1980's (no, I'm not kidding), when all your body wants to do is sleep!

What I need is a fast paced thriller that keeps me turning the pages and in STOP ME, that's exactly what I got. Whereas my usual choice of book had me reading for a page or two before nodding off, with RJP's thriller, I found myself glancing over at the clock, several nights on the spin, grimacing at the time looking back at me.

Anyway, don't take my word for it (why would you?). Get yourself a copy here.

And like I said before, get in touch and I'll have Lord Parker write a personal message inside the front cover.

Or the back cover, for that matter!!!

G'night.