Beheading Babies

Honjii has found a wonderful way to waste time play around.

ManBabies - a new photoshopping game involving beheading, babies and grown-ups.

It also lends itself to LOLling.

Memories

While on a walk I found this.

It took me back sixty years to the memory of my father making me a swing. Unfortunately, this faded photograph (taken by my father with an old Box Brownie and the film developed by himself) is the only tangible proof that my recollections are of a reality.

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

As a part of a plot to make some of the readers of the archive think, I present a maths quiz.

Unlike many of the quizzes posted here and elsewhere in the blogipelago this will require some genuine thought and effort. It is a pity the correct answers are not shown at the end - although, with my perfect score, if you are curious, ask me and I shall, longwindedly give the correct answers.

Good Luck.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Book Review; Maddon’s Rock, Hammond Innes

Written in 1947, Maddon’s Rock is basically a war story. It reflects the recent experience of many of his readers.

As always with Innes and unusually for the thriller genre, Innes’ protagonist is not a “hero” in the typical sense, but an ordinary man suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance. Often, with this author this involved being placed in a hostile environment (the Arctic, the open sea, deserts), or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. The hero is forced to rely on his own wits and making best use of limited resources, rather than the James Bondish weapons and gadgetry commonly used by modern thriller writers.

In this case, the elements of danger are within the Arctic ocean, along with a very nasty villain and bureaucratic insensibility. Big seas and treacherous rocks provide the backdrop for a tale of old fashioned derring do.

While the prose is sixty years old, the tale is a simple one of greed and evil, just as many of the best plots are. There are delightfully accurate dialect passages in the dialogue and the whole hangs together by being believable and smoothly written.

Of course Innes never wrote great literature, yet he was able to bring a sense of danger to the situations he created and a sense of heroism in his characters. Along with excitement and a tale just long enough to hold the reader’s interest and not so long that it is necessary to take a break for sleep or food.

Maybe it is time I began revisiting a favourite author from my reading past.

Purple Trumpets

I once had one of these trees.

I found this one during a walk through Bunbury.

Unfortunately, the memory is gone and I cannot remember its name.

Old Age #8

Obama Will Lose on Nov 4

Odd Shot #10

I’m not even going to explain this shot.

Suffice to say, I found it amongst some old shots and I have no idea where, when or why it was taken.

How odd is that?

But I do know what it is - - -

Forest Glade

The fading evening light is best viewed from the darkness within the Melaleuca forest.

Book Review; Motor Mouth, Janet Evanovich

Another Alex Barnaby tale, this time based around the Stock Car world of on/off lover, Max Hooker. Lightly technical stuff is dispensed as the excuse for a plot which is enlivened by several deceased characters, the threat of deceasement (Why not? I haven’t invented a new word for days!) to the heroes and heroines and many chases in and around Miami.

The baddies are bad, the goodies are good and the goodies win, as they should.

Hooker is totally incorrigible. “Hooker kissed me, and somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, his hand had wandered to my breast. Turns out race-car drivers also aren’t good with no. No isn’t a word they entirely comprehend.”

Evanovich is still light, trite, full of commas and very fluffy but her books are a fun way to spend an hour or two.