Slim Palmer - Home

Water Water Everywhere

2008-08-20T11:12:00Z

There I was wandering through the online version of the Guardian when I was stuck by a headline and so clicked to read: ‘Revealed: the massive scale of UK’s water consumption’.

The environment group WWF will tell a meeting of international experts in Stockholm that the average British person uses 150 litres of water a day for washing and drinking. 150 litres? In proper money that’s almost 33 gallons!

Quick calculation here of my own usage…

Quick Shower = max 6 gallons; Flush loo about 6 times a day = max 4 gallons; Fill kettle for max 4 cups of tea per day = 1/4 gallon; Wash dishes in sink = 1/2 gallon; …er… the washing machine goes on once a week so that probably uses 8 gallons so that’s a gallon-ish a day. Don’t drink water as fish do things in it. Total 12 Gallons or 60 pints.

Then they point out that I am supposedly using 4,645 litres of ‘virtual water’ every day. WHAT! 1022 gallons extra! A further 8176 pints! To produce the food that I eat.

What a load of tosh.

Got to run as the swimming pool needs filling :)

Diggory Press... are you there?

2008-08-09T11:25:00Z

My Albert tomes and the theatre book that I PODed, ‘Operation Brutus’, are still on sale at Amazon and various other sites throughout the interwebthing and to order at shops.

However the company that I POD through, Diggory Press, seem not to want to take on the next tome of ‘Panto’ as I have been trying to contact them for a month to no avail.

Their web site is still there, they seem to be still touting for business - albeit their last published works seem to be back in April - and I’m told by the printer, Lightening Source, that they are still working for them.

Anyone out there able to enlighten me as to the state of play?

(N.B. Yes I do know about the authors that were taking out a court case against them back in Feb/March but there has been no feedback since.)

Yawn...

2008-08-08T08:05:00Z

During the 17 days of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which begin today, the BBC will broadcast over 2,700 hours of TV coverage and many more hours of video output via its red button interactive service and website.

David Gordon, the BBCs head of major events, has said: ‘People are looking to us to inspire the younger generation to achieve in sport, and in a way we’re hoping to cheer the nation up. And all this for 40p a day.’

The young people I’ve spoken to, and some of the older ones, couldn’t give a rats elbow about the Olympics. As for me I’d rather have my 40p a day spent on something more constructive and enlightening for young people - now that would cheer me up.

Booze Delivery

2008-08-01T09:25:00Z

We’re all used to the familiar rattle of our letterbox, at some point in the day, as our local postman drops whatever missives, bills or junk mail through our door.

The Royal Mail, however, is cutting back on office branches throughout the country; many of them in rural areas much to the chagrin of many a villager wanting stamps or their pension.

It therefore comes as no surprise that the eleven residents of a hamlet in the Yorkshire Dales, going by the name of Booze, have been told that they will not be getting any of their mail delivered and they will have to collect it from their nearest sorting office which is a 45 minute drive away - Story in the Northern Echo.

The reason for this? “Health and Safety”. Or put another way… the postie has a bad back!

Ageist?

2008-07-31T09:09:00Z

At the beginning of last month I read an article in the Guardian by author Phillip Pullman about publishers’ decisions to place “age banding” onto books. His immediate response was to say, as vigorously as he could, “Not on my books, you’re not.”

Today I find that there is a web site, No To Age Banding, where anyone concerned with this can sign up to show support. So far over 3300 people have signed up including a certain Discworld writer:

When I was a child I read books far too old for me and sometimes far too young for me. Every reading child is different. Introduce them to the love of reading, show them the way to the library and let them get on with it. The space between the young readers eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril. - Terry Pratchett

Personally I think that marking books with an age range is just ridiculous. My Albert series of tomes are ‘aimed’ at kids but from feedback given to me it would seem the greatest readership are in their mid twenties.

Blocked Tunnel

2008-07-10T09:21:00Z

That old phrase about “the best laid plans..” sprang to mind when this article in our local News Guardian caught my eye.

The new, £260 million, second Tyne Tunnel has been delayed by about four months. No doubt chaos will ensue from frustrated motorists being diverted even further and longer hold-ups will ensue. Why? Because a gull is nesting on the old Gaslight pub that has to be demolished.

Doesn’t really bother me though. No car. I shall continue to use the spooky ‘Longest Mens’ Toilet In The World’ - otherwise known as the, 900ft (274.5m) long, Pedestrian Tunnel.

Buzz

2008-06-30T09:27:00Z

A bit in this mornings Times asks about that illustrious creature the honeybee and why they are disappearing – if their reporter was up on his TV he would know (from Saturdays Doctorumentary) that they are just returning to their home planet of Mellissa Majoria. No extermination there.

Coming Soon To A Store Near You

2008-06-23T08:51:00Z

When I read in Publishers Weekly, back in April, that Print On Demand outfit Lightning Source had signed a deal with On Demand Books I had a feeling that something was in the air.

This weekend I read in The Guardian that Blackwells book shops are to install what has been called the ATM of books. Several of their outlets are to trial the Espresso Book Machine which won the Time Magazine ‘Best Invention of the Year 2007’ in their Living catagory.

Now I don’t like to say “I told you so!” but I did predict this over a year ago in the previous incarnation of this blog.

At about $50,000 a pop I can’t see many indie shops going for one of these machines… yet. Supply and demand will, of course, bring down the price - remember how much DVD recorders used to cost - let’s hope this roll out will rejuvenate book reading and in ten years time - you never know - there may be one on every corner.

Publishing; But Not As We Know It

2008-06-09T08:45:00Z

There has been, for the past few weeks, several spats going on over the news that Amazon US now wants POD publishers to use their Booksurge service for printing or lose the ‘Buy Now’ button on their web site.

Yesterday I noticed this in the Sunday Herald; basically a UK publisher standing up to Amazon by way of telling them to get stuffed over their demand for greater discounts.

The way I understand publishing to work is that there is a printing price, a royalty for the author and a fulfillment price; this is what the retailer takes for selling the work. If a book costs £3.99 to print and the author royalty is set at £1.00 this makes the fulfillment £3.00 on a book costing £7.99. Where do you discount? Print more copies thereby bringing down the first price or make the authors royalty smaller. And then there are ‘returns’

Two problems here: If you print more it ‘costs’ more; paper, transport, environmental damage (returns are often just incinerated). If you reduce the royalty the author suffers.

Is the way forward to be e-books via the Kindle or the Sony reader? Probably not as figures show that most people prefer a paper book and POD is now cheaper than standard printing for runs of fewer than 1,200 copies.

Back before 1995 we had something called the Net Book Agreement. I suggest we return to it.

Pssst!... (part II)

2008-06-02T10:03:00Z

I read that a 12-week national debate starts today, instigated by the UK Department of Health, entitled ‘The Future of Tobacco Control’. PDF

In these proposals are the usual steps towards cutting down on smoking but also:

The banning of cigarette machines so that kids won’t use them - suggestion: make them credit card only - you have to be over 18 to get one. Simple solution and you don’t send to the wall companies who provide this service. Out of the UK population there are c.16m people who smoke; c.350000 of these are kids (under 16); 17% of these buy from vending machines - my maths (non too hot :) ) says that this is 20500. Where’s the problem when twice this many nick them from parents/adults/friends and 78% just buy them from a shop? (just as a side note there are more kids injured/killed on the nations roads than buy cigs from vending machines - lets ban cars… )

Banning the advertising of cigarette papers and other smoking paraphernalia - Paraphernalia? What… Matches… Butane gas?

And finally, at least here, the denuding of all cigarette packaging of colour and logos. Which HMG bright-spark came up with that one? Plain white packets with a giant health warning on it and in ten point Helvetica the brand name? Perhaps it was the HM Customs dept: “How do we cut down on black market ciggies, guys?” a hand is raised: “Lets not have colour and logos on UK packs?” Fax is sent.

Coming next: All processed foods, margarines, butter, cream, most cheeses, fatty meat, sugar and sugary foods - like cakes and biscuits, food containing additives and colourings, salty foods and fast food and takeaways to display massive health warnings and be sold in plain brown wrapping with just the contents displayed?

… did I mention alcohol..?

(edited)

Pssst!...wanna buy some tobacco?

2008-05-27T09:07:00Z

Cigarettes will be banned from public display in shops, packets of 10 cigarettes will also be outlawed and vending machines are to be scrapped under proposals, to be published later this week by the Health Secretary Alan Johnson, to stop smoking among young people.

Will it make a difference? I doubt it very much as it’s just another lurch towards social engineering.

My crystal ball sees that the next step towards turning us into a 1984 society is a hole in the wall with a uniformed guard:

A man steps forward, through a whole-body scanner, from a long line of similarly dressed people to approach a small booth at which is sat a truculent ‘Servant of the People’ and places a small metal disc onto the appropriate place on the counter.

MR.PUNTER: Cigarettes please.

GUARD: Got your license?

Punter shows Guard photo/fingerprint/biometric card.

GUARD: Anything else?

MR.PUNTER: I’d like a pie, some milk and some cheese.

GUARD: Where’s your BMI?

Punter rolls up sleeve to show RFID implant chip which guard sweeps with hand-held scanner.

GUARD: Okay, you pass but if it goes two above… no more pies.

MR.PUNTER: Any alcohol this week?

GUARD: License?

Punter rolls up other sleeve to show a similar RFID implant chip which guard sweeps with hand-held scanner.

GUARD: You’ve still got the two units quota from last month. Sorry, no booze for you.

MR.PUNTER: But I’m having a birthday par..?

Guard makes to draw Tazer.

MR.PUNTER: Okay… okay…

GUARD: You may approach the shop.

Mr.Punter takes three steps forward towards a blank wall in which there is a half metre square metal plate, which is heavily armoured with a grill and protected by CCTV, and presses his retrieved token, with the shopping list encoded upon it, into the flashing green slot.

Seconds later a bio-degradable plastic bottle containing three pills and two forty millimetre tubes drops into the recessed tray of the counter.

‘Have a nice day.’ says a robotic voice, ‘And please attend the next queue for your government’s anti-smoking lecture. Failure to do so will negate your license to leave your property.’

I've Been...

2008-05-24T15:49:00Z

Yes, yes, I know… a month of not updating this blog. Despite now having a chair with my name on it at various doctor’s surgeries and hospitals I’m still alive.

My being big and butch I decided to have my throat ‘numbed’ for the endoscopy – which in fact I learned was a gastroscopy – I wouldn’t recommend it. Being knocked out seems much more favourable and less messy (I won’t go into that here).

The camera down the throat episode was closely followed by a dentist with pliers extracting three teeth. Drugs for this one. In there an hour and it seemed like five minutes.

Great, I thought, all the medical stuff out of the way… huh!

Two and a bit weeks of faceache, headache and toothache – even though the teeth were not there.

Back to the doctors to find I have an abscess – grrrrr!

All this time I have not written one word. Not one.

I’m seriously thinking of perhaps making a living by ‘spamming’ bookshops... might work… might not.

Decisions, Decisions...

2008-04-22T08:01:00Z

Tomorrow is St Georges day. It is also 392 years since Shakespeare died on this day and it is UNESCO’s “World Book and Copyright Day” which marks Amsterdam as “World Book Capital City”.

So what to celebrate?

Do I raise a glass in celebration of my being English? What would be in that glass? Ale? Mead? Or do I go down the Shakespearian route and celebrate the bard’s work with a hogshead of something?

As an author perhaps I should celebrate by visiting my local library and have a cup of tea together with cucumber sandwiches sans crusts?

Just as I am pondering these wee problems the phone rings…

Tomorrow I shall be having an endoscopy.

Buggritt!

Strange...

2008-04-18T07:51:00Z

It was a bright sunny day and I was looking after two young girls who were off on an adventure at the nearby farm.

Being so warm, and my being in the car, I decided to have forty winks and so fell asleep and dreamt of my daughter when she was younger.

On wakening it was dark and as the girls had not returned I decided to go and look for them. My path took me towards shrieks and laughter and splashing. As I turned the corner into an old quarry I could see that they were enjoying the water – obviously warm – which was lit by yellowish lighting both on the walls and under the water.

Deciding that I had nothing to worry about as there were also other kids and adults present I decided to walk back to the car.

At that point I also decided to wake up.

I have a few questions to myself this morning:

a) how do you have a dream within a dream?

b) who’s slipping stuff into my last glass of wine before bed?

c) do I need to wrap more tinfoil around my head?

Author! Author!

2008-04-16T08:04:00Z

Sadie Jones, one of the six authors shortlisted for the women-only Orange Prize, has backed suggestions by novelists Tim Lott and AS Byatt that as the prize is “sexist” that there be a “Men Only” prize (no not that top shelf version) and I thoroughly agree with her.

But… let it not be along the lines of those books finalised for the Orange. Good grief! Angst, poverty, drownings, families falling apart. Uh! I know more women than men buy books but do they really want to read about all this misery? On second thoughts… probably. Take a look at the plot lines to many soaps: Angst, poverty, drownings, families falling apart.

If we are to have a book prize for men at least let it be along the lines of action / adventure or similar genres – the “Dangerous Book for Boys” is to be made into a movie and TV series so does that tell us anything?

Sponsors for the prize would probably end up being a brewery but unfortunately, at the moment, Carlsberg don’t do books.