What a Week – Books, Buses and Boos
Literary Meeting – Strawberry Writers Club
It was a great delight this week to meet up with those literary giants Raj and Rose. To count them as friends is a singular blessing. Rose, aka Rosanne Rivers, is working on the follow-up to her internationally acclaimed debut novel, After the Fear. That first book, in a futuristic setting, tells the story of a young girl chosen to pay an age-old debt by fighting for her life and in the process discovers the price of love. It is a staggering read, full of unexpected twists and turns, peopled with characters you either love or hate, all bound together in a well-woven web of intrigue that forces you to take sides.
Raj, aka Raj K. Lal, as well as being a prolific blogger and Facebook writer, is finishing her first book with its working title, Letting Go. This is a literary, part historical novel spanning several generations in England, India and Pakistan. The novel explores identity, culture, honour and the impact of war on different generations. It is an emotional journey about mothers and daughters, dealing with loss, betrayal, the centrality of family and learning to let go as a way of finding the future. Raj’s perceptive insights into the cruelty of the Partition of India and the haunting depictions of her own family’s suffering make this a must-read book.
Interview on BBC World Service
Another friend and literary supremo, Nuzo Onoh, a British writer of Biafran origin, hit the headlines with her interview on the BBC World Service. The topic of the radio conversation was her new book, The Sleepless. This is a collection of horror stories steeped in African traditions and religious beliefs. Apart from the brilliance of the writing, the book is noteworthy for its authentic voice and vivid portrayals of life in her country of origin. Nuzo has been widely acclaimed as the Queen of African Horror. It is not an idle accolade with many saying she is Africa’s answer to Steven King.
Referendum solves immigration crisis.
The referendum battle buses were out and about again this week annoying the hell out of shoppers and those who have a life to lead. The smug inhabitants of these monsters should try travelling on the buses around here and they will see it is buses and not the EU that need fixing.
I especially like Nige the Farage’s attempt at repartee, like when he whips out his passport if anyone asks him a question about anything. Does he do it to show how the EU subjugates people when they are not looking? Maybe it happened to him when he visited the wife’s people and during a great night in the pub the EU mafia slipped a pill into his pint and rebranded him as a EU person in his sleep. Was he drinking German beer? Would that prove his claim that he is not a racist?
If Nige the Farage rides the crest of the wave on Referendum day, up to twenty million people could find they cannot live on an isolated island under Johnson and Nige and have to emigrate. Will the escaping millions create a new refugee crisis? Who will receive all those fleeing the horrors of life under the tyrannical brutality of hard right-wing throat cutters? Napoleon found living on an isolated island difficult when he had to leave Europe. He would have voted Remain. Read your history Nige.
The mass emigration would solve the overcrowding problem the Leave campaign goes on about, halve the excessive demands on the economy and ease the saturation of national infrastructures.
Retraining in supermarket shelf management could be offered to redundant police, teachers, vicars and firemen. (Women will be dismissed from the fire service unless they can carry a twenty stone bloke up fifteen flights of stairs and make him a cup of tea in less than twenty seconds and there will be no EU Court of Human Rights to fight their case).
Hospitals with greatly reduced numbers of patients will give one-to-one care for any passing person with a sore bottom or to anyone suffering from a paper cut. Unemployed surgeons can take over from the old blokes standing in front of hospital reception desks holding placards telling patients to use the computers to check in.
Big Boo Award of the week goes to all those politicians who do not speak the truth.
Their lack of honesty forces each of us to gather the information ourselves. They give only their personal view that is no stronger or better than mine. I ignore them. I gather my facts from sources I trust, from individuals who do not have an agenda, who present perspectives and not raw data than means nothing, who give a balanced view of both options and who do not push their personal opinion down my throat.
Referendum registration computer crashes
I could have told them to use the high level technical skills of switch off/on, threaten to throw the equipment out the window and, when these fail, phone my friend Kevin who is magic with computers. A child could fix it.
