Category Archives: Holidays

Monster

I feel like I miss the Thanksgiving buffer that stops the Christmas bandwagon from building up speed too early. But then, Britain isn’t exactly short of pre-Christmas high days and holy days around this time of year.

Strictly's gone a bit dark
BBC’s Gunpowder: *This* is what happens to people who don’t have fun on Bonfire Night!

As well as Guy Fawkes Night, there’s Black Friday (without all the tedious mindfulness suggested by Thanksgiving), Saint Andrew’s Day, and PEN International’s Day of The Imprisoned Writer.

[Give yourself a festive treat and check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter]
Continue reading Monster

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Next!

After last week’s Tangents, let’s get back on topic this week, shall we? Facebook has been reminding me this week of the vacation Mrs Stroke Bloke and I took in Thailand this time five years ago.

Er, yeah?
Does that look like a bloke / Who’s about to have a stroke?

That was kind of the last hurrah for Ricky 1.0, before returning once again to the stresses – and fun – of my NYC life, and shortly thereafter, a massive haemorrhage stroke. I still picture the Maikhao Dream Resort when a guided meditation leads me to my happy place.

[Make your happy place the Apoplexy Tiny Litter. Or summat.Continue reading Next!

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Thanksgiving

On Tuesday, I was invited to an event run by The Open University’s Reading Communities team in association with The Scottish Book Trust’s Book Week Scotland and the Being Human festival of the Humanities. It was called Edinburgh: A City of Readers. As well as my story Valhalla, I was asked to read an extract from an 1830 letter written by the actress, writer, and abolitionist campaigner Fanny Kemble in which she talks of breakfasting with Walter Scott and a small party of other Scottish luminaries of the time.

Apparently, she found it

strange that so varied and noble an intellect should be expressed in the features of a shrewd, kindly, but not otherwise striking countenance.

Walt gets all Teenage Fanclub
Ain’t that enough?!

[For more Walter Scott/Teenage Fanclub mash-ups, head over to the Apoplexy newsletter] Continue reading Thanksgiving

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Here Be Monsters…

Sorry this post is a day late, and probably a hundred words short. A big boobrie came and took it.

Aye, be careful with that search
Boobries!

A boobie, according to this interesting page of creatures of Scottish folklore, is

[a] gigantic black bird, which is supposed to have lived in the lochs of Argyllshire. It had webbed feet and fed on cattle.

[For more whimsy, don’t forget to check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter.] Continue reading Here Be Monsters…

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