by Margaret Atwood '.... [A]nyone who liked smelling daisies, and having daisies to smell, and eating mercury-free fish, and who objected to giving birth to three-eyed infants via the toxic sludge in their drinking water was a demon-possessed Satanic minion of darkness, hell-bent on sabotaging the American Way and God's Holy Oil, which were one …
Category: Humour
Fun With (German) Grammar
Christian Morgenstern - - taking the "P" out of poetry * Now for something totally different! A little while ago, on a visit to Germany, a friend introduced me to a poet whose work seems to defy attempts to translate it into English. His name was Christian Morgenstern (the poet, not the friend) and he …
F is for ……. friendship
Screw Friendship by RG Manse I picked up this book on a recommendation from WordPress. The main protagonist of this story, set in present-day Edinburgh, is Rosy, an eighteen-year-old student at Heriot Watt University. Rosy has never known her biological father, Frank Friendship, but has grown up with her mum Irene and step-dad Findlay. She's …
War – What War?
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie A Review 'Beer does not taste like itself unless it is chasing a dram of neat whisky down the gullet, preferably two drams.' It is 1943, and war with Hitler is dragging on. The inhabitants of the two islands of Todday, like the other peoples of Great Britain, are suffering …
Jane's History
The History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st by Jane Austen [Henry the 8th] ' . . . [his] last wife contrived to survive him, but with difficulty effected it.' [James the 1st] '. . . had some faults, among which & as the most …
Elections and Economics
Numbers to Deceive The unexpected result of the recent British general election set me thinking about statistics, and polls, and how (un)reliable they are - and how people love to lie. I also wondered what Steven Levitt would make of some of the numbers. For those who don't already know, Steven Levitt is a professor …
The Bad Sex Award 2014
No-one's in it to win it! Last week, Booker Prizewinner Ben Okri became the latest author to receive the literary world's least sought after award. The winning entry is from his novel The Age of Magic: 'When his hand brushed her nipple it tripped a switch and she came alight. He touched her belly and …
Jane's Juvenilia
I have been reading (re-reading actually) some of Jane Austen's early works. A few days ago, I blogged about her History of England, written when she was sixteen. That she meant the piece to be be humorous I have no doubt; the description of herself as a very partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian gives the …
Bookheathen Scribblings 