little bits of everything

I know, so click-baity - right? But true. I got this text out of the blue one day: I braced myself for what came next. Here goes... Phew! I mean, I could have given him a list if he was struggling to think of some ways I'd failed. I had to respond though.  He replied: Hehe indeed. Since that day I've been thinking about how parents can not fail their children in similar ways. What are the essential albums that it would be good to force children to listen to? I didn't come up with many ideas. Then recently I came across this post by Jon Hicks, about Apple's 100 best albums . "According to Apple Music’s Ebro Darden , the criteria were albums that: represented a cultural moment for the artist or genre. were complete thoughts, not just collections of hit songs. thoroughly represent culture in production and lyrics. inspired a generation to want to create more music. represent the BEST in storytelling, musicianship, recording and production. are timeless and reached far...

 A couple of years ago I wrote about a record shop which had the Profil font on the front. Well, I wrote about music, but mentioned that record shop (Yates and Greenhough if I remember). I recently came across That mysterious font is festive  and discovered that it could have been one of a number of Egyptian italic fonts. What I didn't say about that font (because I was talking about music) was that I had a Letraset sheet of one of those fonts. There are people who can sing the praises of Letraset in better ways than me, perhaps you could point out an article you've come across? I don't remember just where I put those letters, but I do remember the excitement of being able to create your own professional quality typesetting on, say, an exercise book. Update: 28 May 2024. If you tag Ray Newman (who wrote that article about Festive) he'll help you identify which Egyptian italic font is which: Flattish O, little serif at the top of the A... Reckon that's Festive. — R...

Here's my pitch so I get booked for One Track Minds . Sometimes I think about the greatest artists of the various decades. So you've got Elvis for the 50s, The Beatles for the 60s, and for the 70s (and maybe the 80s) David Bowie. Then I think "but he's just a pop start who writes and sings great songs". Then I think "some songs aren't just great songs". There's no just about it, great songs are, well, so much more than just songs. This is where words fail me, so let's talk about Heroes. Some of you may know it as "the tunnel song". This comes from the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was originally a book. I've read the book and it's different to the film; in ways which I annoyingly didn't write down. So I'll have to read and watch again, no great hardship. One of my children remarked when I said I liked the film, but it's a teenage film. I didn't have an answer then. I do now. I was a teenager onc...

 I saw this tweet from Rhianna Pratchett (Terry's daughter) today: Okay do I go and introduce myself to the lady on the train who was talking very enthusiastically about my dad and his work? — Rhianna Pratchett 🧙🏻‍♀️ (@rhipratchett) January 17, 2024 It made me think what Terry Pratchett did so well in his writing. The thing I remember from my early days of reading his books was a scene where someone was sweeping a stable. They were working out that by the time they'd done this bit here and that bit there they were almost halfway, by which point the worst was over. I've done that same thing myself. For someone who writes about trolls and goblins his depiction of humanity is the best I've seen from any writer. When it comes to those non-human characters, there's something so right about how they're depicted. I've never seen a troll talk to a goblin but those conversations they have are just how I think they would be. His plots are also watertight and the Di...

Sometimes I publish on here and put it to Medium. I just published a post there first. I haven't got a system. New fiction writing:  The Song Doctor - let me diagnose your problem.

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash I'm in my fifties now and all my children are grown up. I think it's time to tell you kids what the adults (particularly parents) aren't telling you. I don't expect many kids will come across this, so if you don't have young kids of your own you could share it with them. You don't have to go to school (This applies to the UK, and probably many other countries.) When our kids said, "we don't want to go to school", we would say, "the law says you have to be educated". Notice we didn't mention school. That's because you could get your parents to home educate you. So you could suggest home education to them and see what they say. Or, depending on what your parents are like, it may be a worse thought than school, in which case, yes, you're going to have to go to school. Elbows on the table isn't so bad In some cultures it's OK to put your elbows on the table. So you could point that out th...