It could be a good day sometime early afternoon as myself and John Head are meeting with a potential printer for our Le Paradis Massacre book. We have already agreed a price for printing, so will be covering a few other aspects of publication.
Hopefully if everything goes well we can come away with a timescale for production. It's quite exciting.
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I often ask the question as to why I put off doing things I enjoy. I have mentioned this before and talked about playing the piano as an example of something I like doing but something I rarely find time for.
My autobiography is another example. It's a few weeks since I last spent some time editing it. I keep putting it off but have no idea why. Once I get going I find it difficult to stop. I think ultimately it's the fact that deep down I'm very insecure about it and cannot understand how anyone would want to read it. But I console myself with the fact that I feel the same way about the blogs and I have almost 700 signed up to read them. I never take it for granted that people will continue to read them irrespective of what I write.
Hoping to have some exciting news on Hethersett Herald in the next few weeks as well. I'm currently working on edition 100 and with Sophie Stanley are looking at how to make the publication better known. This may include some form of podcast or similar as I get driven out of my comfort zone and into the world of social media.
I did set up a few of my blogs as a podcast a couple of years ago but it's very time consuming and involves time I don't think I have. My friend Tony Vale is setting up an interview for the Herald for a piece on his Wymondham Talking Newspaper for the Blind which often takes articles from the Herald.
I had a random realisation with regard to the Herald. I found this out when I tried to transfer a story from Good News magazine to include in it. It took up a lot less space in Herald. Reason is something I have been vaguely aware of. Good News is A5 size whereas Hethersett Herald is A4. That means if Hethersett Herald was A5 size it would have up to 200 pages in certain editions. Now that's a frightening thought! and yes I did use an exclamation mark there.
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I have now had the chance to watch all four episodes of Mr Bates v The Post Office and have to say the title is rather misleading. This wasn't just Mr Bates v the Post Office so much as a veritable cast of characters v the Post Office.
It wasn't comfortable viewing and at first I thought that the post office bigwigs were stupid. Sadly I feel I might have underestimated the part the Post Office played in all this. If you are to believe the drama, it seems they may have known more than they let on and they covered up things they were fully aware of which of course makes things even more serious. And the role Fujitsu played in this hasn't come out fully. The words massive cover-up spring to mind.
At least the CEO has returned her CBE. I could think of a number of others that should return honours they have been awarded but don't deserve.
I used the word bigwig a few sentences ago. I think we are all probably aware of the courtroom connotations here but this week it was the answer to one of the questions or rather should that be the answer to one of the answers on the quiz show Jeopardy which has always been one of the top game shows in the USA but never found great popularity over here.
But I have enjoyed it primarily because the questionmaster or should that be answermaster is Norfolk's very own Stephen Fry- a man once described as having a brain "the size of the county of Kent."
When Mr Fry goes into the answers or questions you just know that he knows what he is talking about and not just reading stuff off autocues. I am reliably informed by people who have met him or who know him that he is a top egg...... And so onwards to the next piece of piffle.
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Just a couple of random statements for you to mull over while your coffee is still hot:
"At times the thought of doing something and the expectations are better than the actual doing."
As I write this I'm dreaming of sitting on a balcony in the warm sun somewhere and sipping a cold beer. That's the thought. The reality could be that the temperature is too high, the sun unbearable and the beer is flat lager. See what I mean?
I guess it's the anticipation of the perfect that keeps us going. I dream of sitting on that balcony reading a book on my electronic device. Now I'm having a nightmare that the sun is so powerful I cannot read the book and the contraption is running out of charge anyway.
Second random thought/statement: "It may be cold at the moment but at least the night's are pulling out (I think that's the phrase) and so we are getting more daylight in the afternoons.
Optimist - Spring is on its way.
Pessimist - Yeah but we've still got some nasty weather to get through.
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And finally today that passage from Norfolk Notebook by Lilias Rider Haggard which I promised yesterday.
"I went to the opening of the exhibition arranged by the C.P.R.E (Council for the Preservation of Rural England) at Norwich Castle. One of the first things I saw was the familiar face of Mr A. P. Herbert - that doughty knight of causes lost, stolen or strayed. I have always had a whole-hearted admiration for this man who not only has the courage of his convictions, but succeeds in making an apathetic country share them. If only it would share those set forth so ably by Mr H. G. Strauss. I thought one of the most telling points of his speech was the story of his approach to some manufacturers about the removal of a particularly hideous field advertisement. They replied in shocked tones they would never dream of disfiguring a "beauty spot", but saw no harm in putting them in fields. It is this form of blindness that appears to afflict threequarters of the nation. They cannot see that the ordinary country towns and villages bequeathed to us by the natural good taste of our forebears, the simple domestic architecture, the roll and dip of pasture and arable, well-placed timber, and the homely huddle of stacks and barns is the beauty of England. Not only a large mountain or a spectacular moor. The speculative builder, the traveller anxious to advertise his firm's goods, the brewer urging that "beer is best", are often blamed, but others are equally guilty. The great bank which builds in a perfect eighteenth century market square a building quite out of keeping. The chair store which buys a Tudor or Regency house and throws out a "show window" which is an eyesore to the whole street. None of theses can plead either necessity or ignorance. Well may Mr Strauss advise a new poster for Europe:
"Come to lovely England. No country destroys her beauty quicker. Come now or it may be too late."
My question to end this blog is simply "is it already too late*?"