Would You Rather? - Interview with P.S. Bridge - #SpringReads

I am delighted to welcome P.S. Bridge to my blog today, and she has answer a series of fun questions all entitled - Would You Rather?

1) Would you rather live under the sea or in space?

Under the sea!  I have always been fascinated by what lies in the depths of our seas and oceans. Besides, before we start exploring space, I believe it’s much better to explore our own planet. Marine life is fascinating, almost hypnotic. 

2) Would you rather only read your genres you write in, or all other genres for the rest of your life? 

I like to be able to change the genre I read. Much as my heart will always lie in thrillers, as a writer and a reader, the best experiences are those which are varied. 

3) Would you rather ride a camel or an elephant?

It has to be an Elephant! They are a lot more comfortable and there is something majestic about these beautiful creatures. 

4) Would you rather eat sweet or savoury food? 

This is a tough one! Sweet would have to be my choice. I love my chocolate far too much, especially Bourbons and Custard Creams! 

5) Would you rather pick all future books to read by their covers only, or their blurbs?

However much we like to believe otherwise, our eyes are always drawn to vivid images. I have fond the majority of my book collection was chosen as a result of their striking front covers. 

6) Would you rather go skiing or sit by a beach on holiday?

I adore the beach. The sounds of the waves lapping on the shore, the warm summer breeze and the feeling of warm sand beneath my feet, and always a great book to read. I cannot imagine anything else more relaxing and inspiring. 

7) Would you rather go to the cinema or the theatre?

Having spent a large amount of time working on stage, the theatre would be preferred. Live action, right in front of your eyes, cannot be beaten. 

8) Would you rather read ebooks, audiobooks or physical books?

Physical books for definite! Nothing replaces a physical copy. It’s the smell of the pages, that first moment of excitement when you thumb through the pages and hold it in your hand before opening it. You cannot beat a physical book!

9) Would you rather be rich but unhappy or poor and happy?

Poor and happy.  I have been there before, and, when everything is said and done, it’s not about what you could have; it’s about what you have already got and how you make the best of it.  

10) Would you rather play or watch sports? 

I used to be very sporty, but these days I prefer to watch rather than participate. We are currently massive fans of winter sports and having been glued to the TV watching the Winter Olympics. 

11) Would you rather always have to tell the truth, or always have to lie?

For me, the truth is always the best option. I have always been an advocate of the truth and I think that’s why I chose the legal profession to work in. Everyone deserves to know the truth despite how difficult it can be to handle. 

12) Would you rather only be able to whisper the whole time, or shout the whole time?

I would rather be able to whisper. If you have to whisper, people have to work harder to listen. And also that means when shouting is required, people take notice! 

13) Would you rather always be late or always be unprepared?

I would never go into anything unprepared. I am obsessed with being on time though and I really begin to panic if I’m late for anything. Victory loves preparation! 

14) Would you rather have your own luxury car, or private plane?

I’d rather have a private plane. It opens up the possibilities for further travel and to get to places cars cannot. Although I wouldn’t turn down a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500! 

15) Would you rather be aged 10 or 30 forever?

With age comes wisdom and I think 30 would be my preferred age. 

16) Would you rather look like a fish or smell like a fish?

Look like a fish! Smelling like one means no one’s going to come near you. At least if it’s only looks, it’s easier to live with! 

17) Would you rather be an only child or have siblings?

I have 2 older sisters, and much as it’s nice to have them, I always wondered what it would be like to be an only child. 

18) Would you rather lose your keys or forget your mobile phone?

I’d rather lose my mobile phone. When I was younger, mobile phones were not so readily available and I managed fine without one! 

19) Would you rather have free books for life or free food for life?

Free books! No one can have too many books! 

20) Would you rather give up social media or alcohol?

I would give up social media. It’s not that I don’t like it, but it somehow doesn’t have the same appeal as a nice 12 year old Scottish Malt! 

A terrorist threat, a sinister organisation, and a threat to the security of the free world.

Renowned British lawyer and Sandhurst military academy dropout, Mark Lucas King is assigned the case of his career: to prosecute known terrorist Mohammed Al-Azidi.

All King wants is justice and to do his job successfully. But his peaceful life is shattered when a team of merciless hitmen targets him and his family and the court case collapses. Framed for assault and suspected of his wife's murder, King must leave his legal career behind and go back to his old career as a British Army sniper in order to catch those responsible and hold them to account. Mark King's brand of justice doesn’t involve a court room.

Forced to battle against highly trained hitmen to clear his name, King discovers that a sinister organisation known as Invictus Advoca is operating behind the scenes. What is their connection to him and the Al-Azidid case?

As the hunt for those responsible takes him far across Europe, can Mark unravel the mysteries that shroud this secretive organisation and peel back the layers to discover why he and his family have found themselves the target of professional hitmen?

Time is not on Mark King's side as he races to prevent a global terror threat, discover who killed his wife, and find out who wants him dead, and why.

Purchase from Amazon UK  or Barnes & Noble

About the author: 

Living in Hampshire, right on the edge of Southampton Water, P.S Bridge has spent over a decade working in the private financial and legal sector. Away from his professional life, he embraces his creative side and is often found writing stories whilst listening to music. An avid reader from a young age he counts author Scott Mariani as one of the many influences that finally encouraged him to put the finishing touches to the first in his Mark King thriller series.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSBridgebooks

Guest Post - Teaching 1977 and Now by Andy Ballard

What a change there has been. When I was at school myself most of the “masters” were Oxbridge graduates who were allowed to teach simply because they had a degree. They had no formal training or supervised practise, and their work was rarely if ever monitored or assessed.

My own training included a wide range of educational theory and loads of practise. In my three year course I spent nearly 30 weeks in schools, on a full time-table and being watched, guided, and advised.

During my first two years as a teacher things were rather laissez faire, in stark contrast to my training which required me to prepare thoroughly and to reflect and adapt as I went along. In fact no one did any formal observation or assessment of my work in the classroom, but there was lots of mentoring and discussion with more experienced colleagues.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a clear understanding of professional autonomy and of professional duty to attempt to excel.

Over a period of a few years government interference in the profession, partly on the back of unsubstantiated claims of a general malaise in the profession and an assumption of widespread incompetence, teaching as a profession was transformed. This transformation was accompanied by an increasingly narrow focus on exam success and an abandonment of the idea of learning as an enjoyable adventure.

Not content with demanding the impossible, that is that all pupils should achieve above average exam results (meaningless rubbish by definition) successive governments pushed a targets and testing regime so that even very young children were tested and tested again. Teaching was driven by an exam focus, with teaching to the test the norm. All of this was in the face of mounting opposition from the teachers themselves with their professional associations commissioning research and attempting to use the findings to pull politicians away from their ideological models towards an approach based on sound pedagogy.

This has continued since I finished my time at the “chalkface” and politicians continued to drive change based on ideology rather than research evidence. This policy based evidence making has removed the safety net of local accountability and handed control of schools to entrepreneurs, faith groups and frankly anyone who can persuade the government that they should be allowed to run schools. Teachers are micro-managed and must stick to a rigid formulaic approach to their work. 

Everything they say or do must be recorded or there is a default assumption that it has not happened. Politicians and school leaders drive an obsessive culture of measuring everything. They forget that much that has value cannot be measured and often that which can be measured has no worth. Teachers are driven frantic and worked half to death for fear of being caught out for not having recorded the day to day minutia of a craft and skill which is almost infinitely complex. Pupils are frantic to get good GCSE results and parents buy in private tuition and even move house to get into the right catchment area.

When it suits politicians they will claim huge school improvement, but if the political climate requires it they will lambast teachers and pronounce new initiatives to turn round failing schools. 

Politicians with no experience of teaching and no formal training in matters pedagogical make decisions about education, even to the extent of determining which books children should read (so Gove for example removing 20th century American literature from the GCSE curriculum and replacing it with Dickens), and they remove safeguards for children with special need so that their much vaunted Academies are not obliged to provide the sort of support that these children need. It has escaped the politicians notice that it is not possible to define a body of knowledge to be given to children now which will serve them through their lives. Skills of accessing and assessing information are not highly regarded despite there being a growing need for these skills. Vocational education continues to be the Cinderella and schools are once again facing very significant funding pressures.

I’m not suggesting that there was a golden age of teaching but unless teachers can look forward to being treated as autonomous practitioners ( in the way that physiotherapists are for example), and all the time they are under such intense micro-management then they will continue to leave the profession. The attrition rate for new teachers should be the only alarm bell any sensible government would need.

But perhaps I am being naive, and maybe the plan is to privatise state education and for the privateers to reap a tithe from the billions of pounds spent on education. 

Certainly teaching as a profession is nothing like what it was when I started back in 1974, when I would be expected to do a good job and my reward was lifelong connection with my pupils and the enjoyment of seeing them regard education positively.

Thank you Andy Ballard for this rather interesting post.

Seeing It Through: The Story of a Teacher and Trade Unionist

Andy Ballard comes from quite a humble background; being a working class boy from a council estate at a middle class grammar school left its marks. A career teacher with nearly twenty- ve years in state education, he forged a second very successful career as a local, regional, and national of cer of his trade union. His story includes how his work at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers would secure the future of ATL and lay the foundations for the formation of “The Education Union”. Ballard describes the interplay between his private and professional lives, and bares his soul when the pressures of a lifetime of commitment brings his story to an unexpected conclusion.

Purchase from Amazon UK

About the author: Andy Ballard has enjoyed an extensive career in the education sector including twenty-five years as a science teacher before transferring his efforts to being a trade union official and advocate for teachers and their pupils at local, regional and national level rising to become national President of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. Since then he has spent several years as a Senior Regional Official, covering the South West peninsula with a role as spokesman and advocate on employment issues for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Now retired, Andy enjoys spending time at Weston Rugby Club where he occupies the role of first team manager, as well as taking long walks in the Mendip Hills with his dogs, and writing the occasional comment article for his regional newspaper. He lives in Somerset with his family.

Guest Post - The Books of Summer by Brian Paul Bach - #Blogival

The BOOKS Of SUMMER

Or, At Least, A Few Such Notions

Brian Paul Bach

I guess I’m kind of an oddball reader. That is, not your typical (capable) consumer of reads for enjoyment, first and foremost. Nothing against such pursuits, it’s just that I’m more of a grab-bag kind of explorer, book-wise. Also, I’m maddeningly slow in plowing through pretty much everything. True, I have an astigmatism that ensures my progression will be clunky and start-stop-start, but it’s really because I’d rather be writing than reading. You know, distractions arise – such as, non-related ideas crowding in, a relentless parade of superfluous sensations, and most significantly, my two-year-old hound Hudson sitting before me, smiling, snuffling, and grunting  all of which suggest ‘git off yer ass and let’s go goof off’, and I enthusiastically obey without any equivocation whatsoever.

Thus, my own Dog of Summer eclipses any Books of Summer that may vie for prominence. And that’s taking in the upcoming Total Eclipse of the Sun, due in August, which he’ll probably sleep through...

Nevertheless, citing a few ‘summer-ian’ (though not Sumerian) book-looks is a cinch, because I can wax fondly over any read that evokes sweet reminiscences of moods to be treasured.

I tend to gravitate to fiction that conveys cinematic vividness and nonfiction that supports such characteristics (including books about the movies themselves). I guess that’s why I threw everything I knew about the film world into my four-part epic-noir-satire saga, FORWARD TO GLORY. And I did so with a general feeling of everything being right with the world, such as one might encounter in an afternoon of deepest summer, and the enjoyments therein.

So, with the Fahrenheit/Celsius rising, time to settle back on a ramshackle chaise, with both book and matching beverage of the moment. Here are five, randomly selected, in no special order.

Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases and of Kindred Terms Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive by Yule, Burnell and Crooke 1902. India is one of my specialties, and yes, it is noted for its varying aspects of heat. Yet, I’ve never been more chill than when I got up before dawn to visit the Taj Mahal at Agra. That’s where I got this particular book, a totally fascinating compendium that you can dip into on any page and discover how shampoo, bungalow, juggernaut and thousands more terms evolved. And yes, ‘Hobson-Jobson’ is fully explained. Hands down, one of my all-time favorite desert island books. Perfect gin+tonic reading.

A Tennessee Williams omnibus: Suddenly Last Summer, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana 1950s-60s. Just because ‘summer’ is in the title of a book, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything seasonal, but most of this master dramatist’s works are evocative of some kind of hot spell, either literally or emotionally. Plays can be pretty fast to read, especially if you know the story. And because these three classics are three classic films, going through them is even more enjoyable. It’s also interesting to note the differences between stage and screen versions. Refreshment? Ice tea (preferably spiked), but no mint julips – clichés do not apply to Tennessee Williams.

At The Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft 1973. I acquired this book as a youth while visiting Oxford one summer, and I was pulled in because of the wonderfully bizarre cover. I’d never read Lovecraft before, but the contents didn’t disappoint. On beyond Poe, it takes place in Antarctica, where an expedition makes some ghastly discoveries, all of which are shiver-worthy. The only possible antidote: a hot toddy.

Baedeker’s Southern Italy and Sicily 1903. I’ve been to Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento, but not yet further south. I love old guidebooks and of course, Baedeker’s are top of the line. This is the grand tour approach, meticulously detailed, with delightful period touches, yet completely current with the substance that matters. The tactile quality of these little red books is sensuous, the maps are pure amazement, and it’s worth every lira to splurge on a select Italian white.

Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg, illustrated by the Petershams 1922.

Not necessarily a summer-oriented collection, except that it reminds me of rose-tinted and carefree summers of childhood, when joys were so simple, especially when discovering such a parade of splendid originality as these ingenious inventions. It’s a pretty big book for kids, and I’m powerful thirsty. Lemonade...? Well, now that I’m all growed-up, I think I shall send out for cold beer.

PS: Not that I get snockered while reading, but on such an afternoon, I do not question the summery magic that results from indulging in such pleasures.

Thank you so much Brian for sharing your books of summer with us. 

Forward to Glory: Tempering

Butterbugs is a nobody, a nothing. But that’s not why he’s compelled to drive to Hollywood and hurl himself upon the mercy of the cinematic capital. His only dream is to act. Without any plans, resources or friends, he throws caution to the wind and embarks on a journey to the City of Angels. The trials that result pose only one question: will Butterbugs remain a non-entity, or will his big dream come true?

Facing the movie monolith’s prospects alone, Butterbugs attempts to perform dramatic scenes in front of the homeless and amongst the inebriated. Living in his car, and with dwindling reserves, he searches for opportunities, takes on a hazardous scaffolding job, and makes desperate pleas to bankers for clemency. Isolation leads to alienation, from fringe existence to bare survival, all in a city which cradles high achievement and bottomless failure. Despite his rough start, Butterbugs is strangely attractive to other outcasts turned possible allies: Heatherette – a mysterious force for good whom he weirdly rejects, and who in turn, rejects him; Starling – the thief who tries to love him; ProwlerCat – who might indeed save him, though it is far too early to know for sure. At one of his bleakest moments, Butterbugs receives his first sign of hope that his dreams remain alive: a screen test and the chance to be an extra in a major production. But now, with his first opportunity in hand, nothing seems as it should, except his going forward.

Abundant with movie lore and invention, Forward to Glory I: Tempering by Brian Paul Bach is an ode to the cinema and the bewitching power of entertainment. 

Purchase from Amazon UK

About the author: 

Brian Paul Bach is a writer, artist, filmmaker and photographer; he has worked across the entertainment business, in theatre, music and as an academic. He now lives in central Washington State with his wife, Sandra. His previous works include The Grand Trunk Road From the Front Seat, Calcutta’s Edifice: The Buildings of a Great City, and Busted Boom: The Bummer of Being a Boomer.


Website: https://forwardtogloryquartet.wordpress.com/
Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/340808.Brian_Paul_Bach
Goodreads FORWARD TO GLORY page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34416505-forward-to-glory?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/brianpaulbach/
Twitter: @ftgquartet


Follow along with the rest of Clink Street Publishing's big blogging festival - Blogival 

Graphic Novel Extracts - Preceded by Chaos Vol +1 by M. Wheeler - Blog Tour

The Preceded by Chaos series is a series of five illustrated short stories, which follow a young emergency medicine physician who is having troubles adjusting to his new life. Volume 0 is available now. The 2^nd, and current release, is Volume +1.

The books are written as an internal narrative with occasional interactions between Mitchell, the main character, and the outside world. Volume +1 has more interaction and dialogue than the Volume 0 but still maintains the feel of an introspective dialogue running in Mitchells mind as he makes his attempt to understand, and gain control of, his life. 

This is an excerpt from VOl. +1. In the series we slowly learn that Mitchell has more problems than he is of aware of but he is certainly is trying to get his life in order. This scene was used to address the current state of some of his issues from the first book as well as make the reader aware of some of Mitchell’s present worries.

I hope you enjoy the excerpt and give the books a chance.

Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, IG and visit us at www.preededbychoas.com

And thank you for your interest in my book.

MW

I can’t sleep. I keep staring at the ceiling and thinking about her. My girlfriend DeAnna and I are in the middle of a break-up. She wants more from me: she wants marriage, she wants kids. She gets frustrated with me because I’m not proposing. She wants more from herself: she wants more schooling, she wants to start a business. She gets frustrated with me because I don’t support her enough. I just want her to be happy and I don’t know how to make it happen. We spent the

majority of last night arguing about whether or not marriage is the answer. She hates that I’m so pragmatic. She knows the divorce rate is 50% in this country, largely because I’ve told her countless times. She told me her parents have been happily married for 35 years. The word ‘happily’ echoed through my mind. I looked unconvinced. I told her, “An ideal marriage is a statistical aberration”. She looked unimpressed with my lack of confidence in the strength of our relationship. Man, I wish I could sleep. 1am and I’ve got work in the morning. If only piece of mind was as dependable as heartbreak during a lover’s quarrel I would be eternally well rested. I usually would just get up, take a Xanax and go get a drink. Nothing summons the sandman like an alcohol and benzo cocktail. But, unfortunately, I don’t do that anymore. Maybe if I fall asleep I can dream about the liquor and drugs.

Maybe I’ll drift off into La La Land only to be snatched back to reality choking from a nightmare of being drowned again. The liquors gone, but that’s still with me. Every position I lie in feels uncomfortable. And just when I get sleepy I gotta piss and my walk to the water closet only creates another opportunity for my mind to turn to DeAnna. I refuse to think about her anymore and stop counting the dots in the ceiling. After 45 minutes I drift off.

Buzz! Buzz!

My phone… Shit! Maybe it’s her. I roll over to grab my cell and read the message.

The protagonist, Mitchell Weaver, is a young Emergency Medicine doctor. Mitchell has entered a high stress, distinguished profession with the burden of a variety of particularly disturbing personal demons that he must battle every day in order to maintain the facade of sanity and control. The second instalment of the series, Volume +1, documents Mitchell's state of mind as he tries his hand at decency and sobriety. Whether he finds himself at his job in New York or volunteering in the Dominican Republic, he struggles to suppress hedonistic urges and restructure awed philosophies. Although his attempts to gain control of his life are genuine, the question remains, "Is Mitchell gradually gaining control or is his life slowly falling apart."

Purchase from Amazon UK | Barnes and Noble 

About M. Wheeler

M. Wheeler held an eclectic series of jobs - including working as a studio engineer and a teacher - before he entered medical school in his thirties. During his residency while living in New York City, he wrote his first two books which would eventually become the Preceded by Chaos series. Wheeler travels extensively for his job but currently lives in Miami.

Website - http://precededbychaos.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/precededbychaos

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PrecededByChaos/

Videos from JoZie “LoveStar” DiMaria - Blog Tour @gilbster1000

I have something a little bit different for you all today. I have three videos from JoZie “LoveStar” DiMaria who will be illustrating some of the work outs in her new book Rock Hard.  

So take a look and enjoy! 

Strength, Stretch & Go

 I'm with the BANDS: full BOD circuit!

JoZie's Rock Hard Chair workout

These are just a few of the workouts and the sorts of things you can expect from Rock Hard. 

Rock Hard: A Backstage Pass to Staying Fit on the Road the Rock Star Way

If there’s one woman who rocks harder than anyone it’s JoZie DiMaria. Gorgeous, outrageously fit and heavily tattooed, DiMaria has worked as a dancer with — and a trainer for — some of the biggest names in rock music. Having toured with legendary bands like Mötley Crüe, Papa Roach and Jane’s Addiction, she has lived a life that most people could only dream of. 

But DiMaria soon found that staying in top shape on the road was tough; performing long shows at packed stadiums late into the night, combined with endless hotel stays, poor nutrition and constant partying was gruelling. So DiMaria decided to take control and develop her own fierce fitness routine so that she could rock hard and train hard at the same time. 

Rock Hard: A Backstage Pass to Staying Fit on the Road the Rockstar Way is both an outstanding fitness guide and a nostalgic behind the scenes account of JoZie DiMaria’s incredible life on the road, training rockstars from Tommy Lee (Mötley Crüe) to Billy Morrison (Billy Idol) and Josh Todd (Buckcherry). Her easy to follow routines prove that you can work out anytime, any place — airports, offices, hotels, no excuses! — building a strong and healthy physique, inside and out, while developing a positive approach to body image. Beautiful paintings of her rockstar gym buddies accompany hand-drawn illustrations of work out moves, making it easy and lots of fun to train along with her, DiMaria’s Rock Hard is a fitness book worthy of any rock God.

Purchase on Amazon UK

About the author: Originally from Roselle, New Jersey, JoZie “LoveStar” DiMaria is a certified personal trainer who has travelled the world as a make-up artist, stylist and back-up dancer to some of the biggest bands in rock. Just fifteen years after she first went to her first ever concert - Mötley Crüe at Madison Square Garden - she was invited by the band to perform with them on tour. She has worked as a make-up artist for MTV, VH1, TLC and Discovery.

Website - http://www.rockhard.fit/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JoZieRockFit

Twitter - https://twitter.com/JoZieRockFit

Guest Post - Trolls and Fairytales by Nicolas Starling - Blog Tour

The origin of Trolls differs from place to place .Scandinavian trolls are bigger than humans evil ugly will eat anything have a taste for human flesh and generally not very nice. Icelandic trolls must be real because the people of Iceland build them shelters and will tell you they exist. They will never say they don’t. Norwegian trolls originate from the Viking era they were on Viking runes and called HULDRAFOLK which when translated means hidden folk. Troll evolved from the Viking word Troller which meant magic to harm others. There are trolls that look like humans with a tail and generally run around naked except when near humans when they hide their tails under clothes .

The female of this type of troll is known to sing sing to the human which puts him in a trance and she keeps him as a mate or a pet .When she wants a new one she wakes him up and he doesn't remember anything. There are trolls that are ugly (to humans) and stupid they are the trolls best known to humans I think. They are malignant to humans they appear in countless tales of Norse mythology. Trolls are all descended from the Scandinavian troll called a jotnar .In time trolls had had enough of waiting for their battle against the Greek gods for judgment day a battle of good against evil and the trolls were still evil but liked to play evil pranks on Christians and their churches they would throw large rocks and boulders at the churches to try to knock them down and if they took too long and got caught in the sun they turned to stone. So if you go to Norway and see boulders around a church you know where they have come from. 

Trolls tend to live on mountains in Forrester or caves even under bridges. They don't like or trust humans because humans are nomadic and will trick or steal a troll’s gold or his magic if he can. A lot of modern day trolls have changed from evil to naughty stupid creatures but as long as they look like trolls they still give the same impression. They have appeared in Lord of the rings .Harry potter to name but a few .You never know they might not be mythical. ASK IN ICELAND.

           Most of us think fairies are tiny creatures that fly about with a magic wand. History and folklore say people didn't like to call them fairies and called them little people or hidden people. Some people think they are spirits of the dead which were not bad enough for help but not good enough for heaven. There are hundreds of different types of fairies. Some fly some tiny some ugly. But they can all appear and disappear when they want or need to. The oldest recorded fairy was in the thirteenth century so they have been around for a long time like the trolls. The fairies called Brownies or Hobgoblins are really very ugly but very nice and do housework and odd jobs for you but Banshees are evil and sinister and only appear to tell of a tragedy that is about to happen. Goblins and Bug o boos are really evil and people should keep away at all costs. Most of nature's fairies are thought to be descendants of pre Christian gods and hostesses of spirits of the trees and rivers. 

Black Ann  a blue faced hag haunts Dane hills in Leicestershire and gentle Annie are thought to be descended from Danu mother of Irish cave fairies. Jack o lantern is thought to light flames in marsh gases and tempt travellers to go into the bogs and drown. Some people still believe they are real and why not?

Thank you Nicolas for explaining about all the types of trolls. I just thought they were those toys with the fun hair from the 80s and 90s! 

Thomas Troll's Travels 

Thomas the Troll comes from Norway. Like most Trolls he is mischievous, naughty and full of adventure.

One day, he has to leave Norway because the troll elders are going to punish him for being so cheeky.

Thomas decides to live in England and has had all kinds of adventures on the way there.

He meets elves, gnomes and brings Ticklefish with him; Ticklefish are great fun and nearly as naughty as Trolls.

Thomas meets pirates a friendly ghost and even thinks he's sees the queen!

Some people think Trolls are a fairy tale. I don't. Do you?

Purchase on Amazon UK 

About the author:

Living in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, retired Butcher Nicolas Starling has always enjoyed entertaining people both young and old with his vivid imagination.

Follow along with the rest of this blog tour for Thomas Troll's Travels. 

Guest Post - Five Career Highlights by Richard Evans - Blog Tour

1. During my time as US correspondent for the Evening News between 1968-1972, I covered one of the most volatile periods in American political history. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated and Richard Nixon won two Presidential elections. 

There was a police riot when students protested in Grant Park at Chicago ‘68 and huge liberal resentment towards the way Nixon was running the country. When he won a landslide victory over George McGovern in November 1972, the vast majority of newspapers in Britain went with the “Nixon Triumph” line. But, in my opinion, that was too simplistic. My instincts told me that Nixon was a crook. I couldn’t write that at the time because the true story of Watergate had not unfolded and there was no proof. 

But, equally, I felt it my duty to present the other side of the argument. So I wrote an op-ed piece for the Evening News with the headline “Four More Years of Nixon the Slick” with the sub-heading of “Why I fear for America under this cynical salesman.”

Peter Jenkins, the Guardian’s political columnist, was the only other British journalist reporting from America to take a similar line and evidently Lord Harmsworth, the right wing publisher of our Associated Newspaper group, was furious. 

The piece made it into the first three editions of the day but was taken out by the time the 5.00 pm edition hit the streets. It was the only time I had been edited out of the paper from above. But I was right and his Lordship was wrong. Nixon resigned once the Watergate tapes revealed his involvement in a crime. 

2. At the age of 18, seven months into my first job, Reg Hayter, who ran his free lance sports reporting agency in Fleet Street, sent me to cover the England Under 23 football tour to Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia for the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and News Chronicle. Reg was taking a huge punt on a very green reporter but it was a challenge I relished and managed to fulfill. 
The trip behind the Iron Curtain in 1958 was fascinating in so many ways but, for me, the most memorable moment came when the England manager, Walter Winterbottom, decided he wanted a full practice match and only had 20 players, including himself. So he turned to the press corps and, as Peter Lorenzo and I were the only reporters remotely young enough to pull on a pair of boots, we played! 

I was totally out of my depth but being of the same pitch as Johnny Haynes, Brian Clough, David Pegg, Bryan Douglas and Jimmy Armfield was certainly something I will never forget. 

3. I have been incredibly fortunate to work on so many great stories but I suppose the job that gave me the most enjoyment and satisfaction was commentating on Wimbledon from the BBC Radio box which offers the best view in the house. It took time to feel really at home but I was so lucky to have summarisers of the calibre of Fred Perry, Frew McMillan and  Christine Truman Janes sitting alongside me. Play by play on tennis is demanding but so much fun!

4. Of the twenty books I have written or edited, I feel “Open Tennis” was the most worthwhile because I was lucky enough to have an insider’s view of the tumultuous events of 1968 and 1973 which changed the game forever.  First Wimbledon went Open when chairman Herman David invited the pros to play and then, in a revolt against authoritarian amateur rule, the ATP pros boycotted the Championships in ‘73. The details needed to be written down quickly before word of mouth and fading press cuttings distorted the story. So I wrote it as it happened in “Open Tennis”. 

5. Of all the film stars I interviewed for Entertainment Tonight, it was the encounter with a director, David Lean, that stands out. Master of telling a story for the big screen, the man who made “Lawrence of Arabia” & “Dr Zhivago” was working on his last film, “A Passage to India” when I met him in Bangalore. His PR people were very nervous “He’s quite old, you know” but Lean was charming and totally professional, filming Alec Guinness from behind his camera just for us. It took no time at all. I love working with pros. 

I think you will agree with me that Richard Evans has clearly had a fascinating life and if you want to hear more then you will need to read The Roving Eye!

The Roving Eye: A Reporter’s Love Affair with Paris, Politics & Sport

Go. Be there. For the past six decades Richard Evans has followed that dictum  – being where the action was, not just as a tennis writer and broadcaster – 196 Grand Slams and counting – but through his years as a foreign correspondent in America, France and Vietnam as well as a spell as a roving global reporter for the US television programme Entertainment Tonight.

Evans, whose English family fled France in June 1940, also became a National Service Captain in the British army, without having to dodge a bullet which was not the case in Cambodia nor in Miami where he was struck by a cop during an anti-Nixon demonstration.

Evans was in Memphis hours after Martin Luther King was shot; campaigned through Indiana and California with Bobby Kennedy – “a unique politician” – before he, too, was assassinated and witnessed the pre-Olympic demonstrations in 1968 against the Mexican Government which ended in massacre.

He accompanied the Wimbledon champion and activist Arthur Ashe on two trips to Africa, witnessing the dark days of apartheid and was back in South Africa in 1990 covering Mike Gatting’s rebel cricket tour during the historic weeks that saw Nelson Mandela released and apartheid abolished.

Evans paints an insider’s portrait of Margaret Thatcher and No 10 Downing Street during the time he was with the Prime Minister’s daughter, Carol; a romance with the actress Gayle Hunnicutt and two marriages; friendships with Richard Harris, Michael Crawford and more Wimbledon champions than you could fit into the players’ box. He was also the last person to interview Richard Burton.

A life lived to the full, covering the globe with a Roving Eye – being there.

Amazon UK  | Barnes & Noble 

About the author:

Richard Evans has been a journalist since the 1960s where he began his career writing for the Evening Standard. He has covered tennis for outlets including the Sunday Times, Fox Sports USA and Tennis Magazine, reporting on more than 196 Grand Slams over the course of his career. Evans was the play-by-play commentator for BBC Radio at Wimbledon for twenty years and was a commentator for the Tennis Channel at the French Open and AO Radio at the Australian Open. He is the author of 18 books, including biographies of tennis legends, the official history of the Davis Cup, and most recently co-authoring Pain, Set & Match.

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Ringham7

Guest Post - “A Day in the Life of a Sea-Plane Pilot” by Paul W.J. Harding - Blog Tour

Flying a seaplane is as unique as entering space. Flying, in all its forms, is an art form that professional pilots thrive on perfecting. Piloting regular land planes is forever a marvel for those of us who ‘sit up front’ in the cockpit. Flying on and off water offers an enthralling dimension that is different on every experience, for our runway moves! We can never take for granted the expected. We are taught to ‘fly the machine, do not allow it to fly you’! Seaplanes have a mind of their own and for some strange reasoning always seem hell-bent on destroying themselves if chance allows, even with the engine silent and sitting serenely at anchor in some shallow water! There are tides and wind and adverse weather to take into consideration. Our craft in the wide open can be dauntingly vulnerable.

I have been maybe more fortunate than most commercial seaplane pilots where my ‘office’ was located in the islands of the Bahamas. Those lucky enough to fly in some of the worlds’ most stunning environments such as Alaska and the Rocky Mountains often pay the price of winter. Days of low ceilings and adverse weather plague those aviators let alone the bitter cold. They are subject to wearing thermal underwear and heavy boots - they even have to wear socks! My islands however allowed a uniform of T-shirt and shorts with flip-flops on my feet to greet my guests. The shoes were quickly discarded and stored in a pontoon compartment, giving rise to the title ‘barefoot pilot’! My runway was the crystal clear ocean water of the Bahama Islands, never cooler than 75F during the ‘height of winter’!

Today would start as most do, very early morning, to ride an aging Honda 700 motorcycle along our pristine coastal road to work. The ocean is flat calm and radiating its brilliant turquoises. I am ramped on a lake in the center of New Providence, for this seaplane has no wheels. There is a ritual of pre-flight where we study all our control surfaces for ease of movement; we check oil levels and fuel onboard. The aircraft is turned about in the shallow water to heel obediently facing the open water. There are no brakes on a straight-float seaplane. When that engine comes to life you are instantly underway. I taxi into the middle of the fresh water lake and with permission from air traffic controllers at the neighbouring airfield I rotate off the flat surface heading to our Out-Islands southeast some forty miles away. Climbing above the small cotton wool clouds I find calm cool air. The scene below is surreal; miles of clear-ocean that Columbus named ‘shallow sea’. The islands I fly over the Exuma Cays, a pearl necklace of islands that stretch 120 miles, an island for every day of the year.

I have been summoned by friend and client superstar Johnny Depp to collect him from his private island to meet a charted jet in Nassau, in order to fulfill an award ceremony in Los Angeles. ‘Good Morning Brother’! He always greets while climbing aboard to sit in the co-pilot seat, obediently adhering to the ritual of drying his feet after paddling through the salty shallows to climb aboard the seaplane. We chat through headsets all the way back to Nassau. I am contacted from my home with a message of urgency for a second flight to another island where a fisherman and long time client has impaled his foot with a large fishhook. The man is in agony as I gently assist him to climb aboard the pontoon and into the cabin. The hook is buried deep within his flesh, making the ordeal of clambering into a small space a painful experience. Help soon followed at the other end. Finally, as I was about to wash the plane after a wet salty day, believing my work was over my phone came alive with yet another plea for help. The Captain of a cruise liner had passengers on board that had received an emergency call from home informing their daughter had been kidnapped in America! Naturally they needed to get home. Refueled, I flew 85 miles to the cruise ship destination island, only accessible by seaplane. Stories so often bombard us as commercial floatplane pilots. The last light fades in the west as I wash the salt from the airframe. Some days are so much longer than others but they are never dull. Yesterday I had found a shipwreck survivor drifting alone in the open ocean clutching a small piece of floatation - just another day in ‘Paradise’!

Thank you so much Paul for sharing that wish us, your life sounds fascinating, and if I ever get a suitable break in my TBR I'd love to read Sharks in the Runway. 

Sharks in the Runway: A Seaplane Pilot's Fifty-Year Journey Through Bahamian Times!

Captain Paul Harding moved with his family to the Bahamas when he was just twelve. He fell in love with his exotic new home immediately and this epic memoir pays tribute to his passion for island life, his ecclectic friends and family, and the extraordinary career he has forged from the sea and the skies.

Paul became a qualified Charter Boaat Captain and Open Water Scuba Instructor, founding the award winning day-trip diving company Diving Safaris, Ltd in 1976. In 1989 he followed this success by ordering a seaplane and learning how to fly; Safari Seaplanes has since become the stuff of Bahamian legend, flying people from all walks of life to sundrenched locations, including politicians and even superstars like Johnny Depp, who Paul counts as a close friend. 

A diver, pilot, captain, husband, father and friend; Paul Harding is a superb storyteller whose tales of island adventures are sure to capture the imagination.

Purchase from Amazon UK  

About the author

After being raised and educated in the United Kingdom, Paul Harding relocated to the Bahamas where he became a certified scuba instructor and opened his own business. After a lifelong interest in flying, he earned his commercial pilot’s license and started Safari Seaplanes in 1990, the first charter seaplane business in the country, which he ran for over twenty years. Now retired, Harding currently resides in Nassau, Bahamas and still flies privately.

He has previously written for Water Flying Magazine and this is his first book

Blog - http://paulhardingadventuretravel.blogspot.co.uk/

Take a look at the rest of the blog tour for Sharks in the Runway.