Moral Dilema at 8 years of age

How old are you? and how many moral dilemmas have you had in your life, and do you recall having one at 8 years of age.

Ishbel has just related the story of Mollie, our youngest grand daughters latest crisis in her life concerning LOVE.

Mollie is 8 years of age and the size of a milk bottle, her sister Shannon, and her cousins Charlie and Holly, (why would my daughters do that , closely name the children, was it just to confuse me, so that they and their daughters can continually berate me as they exasperatedly again say, That's not my/her name....)  are just about to overtake her in size, and they are five, bless, but small in stature, as in lots of other things is usually made up for in other departments, brains, beauty, and boundless energy and perseverance in all that she undertakes.

Anyway, this love thing.  Apparently she came home last night from her school disco and spoke to my big baby, her Mum, Jennifer and said,

    "Mummy, I have a problem".

Now remember I am getting this third hand from Jennifer to Ishbel to me and while I recognise that the impartiality of a Mother and Grandmother is always  present in the retelling of stories concerning the brood, I can not be held responsible for any editorial mistakes apropos the veracity of the recounting of the story from me to you...

    "Oh God! (wordlessly I imagine) What is it darling".
    "Well, you no Kieran has been my boyfriend for ages (since kindergarten apparently, why don't I know these things), and I really like HIM".
    "Yessssss", replies Jennifer wondering what's coming next.
    "Well, Jake has now asked me to be his girlfriend, and I really like him but I still like Kieran, and I don't know what to do.  What should I do Mummy?"

"Hang on", I interject, "who is Jake?" I ask.
"Oh, she has known him for ages, Ishbel responds.
"How long is ages", I repeat.
"Years", says Ishbel, "it doesn't really matter does it!"
 It matters to me now that I know, I can't process half a story and be expected to give any sort of decent counsel if I don't have the facts......................

Back to Mollie........

    "So, what should I do Mummy".
"So, what did Jennifer say to her", I ask.

Well I'll tell you, she copped out.  Confronted by this monumental earth shattering dilemma she responded.

    "Wellllllllllll, what I think you should do, is think about it.  You have known Kieran since you were a baby  and Jake for (I must have missed again how long ages is in terms of a definitive time span in the life of the universe) and I think you should take the time to think about what you are going to do.  Only you can make that decision."

    "Can I phone daddy to ask him."  (daddy is at work on the night shift)
    "It's a school day tomorrow, why don't you speak with him in the morning."
    "Pleaseeee"
    "O.k." and daddy Steve is duly phoned and apparently gives the same advice, "to sleep on it and have a think about what to do.

Ok, Ok, I know what you are all thinking, Bless her the wee angel,  pleeeaaassssse. Well Granddad/ Dad to the rescue, here's my advice.

Remind her that she is only 8 and that boys and girls at 8 have friends NOT BOYFRIENDS and GIRLFRIENDS That they are all friends and best mates and at 8 it is ok to have lots of boy FRIENDS and lots of girl FRIENDS.  And say this to Kieran and Jake as well so that they all know it is OK to have as many friends as they want at that age.

And if I here any more of this nonsense I am going back to good old smacking of bottoms and it won't be the grand kids who get a smack either


Anyone else got advice on this subject, feel free to chip in.................

Best Regards 

Hi Mum!

Switched on the news this morning and was reminded that it has been six years since the July 7th bombings in London.  It is always sad when something like that happens and lives are lost, particularly when those lives were given up by people going about their ordinary daily and probably hum drum lives, running late to work, going home from work, thinking about their loved ones and what the day was likely to bring for them, only to have it end so suddenly and abruptly, and for what, did it achieve what the terrorists wanted?  No, not really!  It disrupted our lives for a while, whether it was because we lost a friend or a family member or because we lost time in continually following the news coverage of this damnable event, but in real terms, it did not achieve very much else!

These flashbacks made me recall also that I, along with my brothers and sister, also lost someone on this date, 23 years ago today our MUM died.  She was only 66, but 23 years ago that seemed old in regard to 66 year old's of today.  Much is being said today in the UK about retirement age and the brouhaha being created by the need to extend the age of retirement for both men and women for lack of money to pay pensions, well it was only 23 years ago that MUM died at age 66 and to be honest I can not really recall if she was working at the time.  Sure, I know she wasn't working for a couple of months before her death as she was in and out of hospital with angina and other ailments, a life long smoker and one of the hardest working people I have ever met in my life.

My earliest memories of our MUM were of her ALWAYS working and not just in one job, in a variety of jobs at the same time, Bar Manager in one bar, barmaid in another, cleaner in bars and offices, all at the same time.  We were, as I recall, a part time one parent family, by that I mean that our dad was there sometimes and not at other times, and the times he wasn't there, for me at least, were better than the times that he was.  So, in the 60's when I was growing up, it was MUM and the rest of us, Billy our eldest brother had left home, no idea where he went, although I do know it wasn't prison, and he was still gone when I left to join the Army in 71, or boys service as it then was, when I was fifteen.  Bobby, 2nd eldest had also left to join the Marines, and Jim, No 3 was looking to go.  looking back there was plenty of reasons for this, apart from the fact that there were 6 of us, plus MUM, the space for one thing, three bedrooms... and of course Coatbridge where I grew up was a large industrial town full of metal and other manufacturing works, but as I grew up in the late 60's and on into the early 70's all of theses places were closing down and thousands and thousands were being put on the dole.

Mum, dressed for work as a waitress in a Reo Stakis restaurant , lates 60's I think

Growing up and watching our MUM holding down all these jobs had probably instilled a work ethic in all of us that we did not realise or appreciate at the time, and this is why now, I realise probably more than anything, was the cause of all the moving out by the big brothers, and it was for this reason that they left, in the main, to find work.

Mum, at Shorncliffe for my passing out parade

I left when I was 15 in 71 and joined the Army 5 years later I got married, and two years later Ishbel and I presented MUM with her first grandchild Marie. In 1980 we were in Germany and our son Brian was born and we brought MUM out to visit and see the new addition.  It was her very first trip abroad and she loved it.  In fact I remember she went for a walk in the small town we lived in and I offered to accompany her and she said she would be fine, this was long long before the advent of mobiles, so contact was by letter or telephone call, but being in married army quarters in Germany, I don't think I knew any junior rank who had a phone in their quarters.  Anyway, off she went and time passed, and passed and passed and I was beginning to get worried and eventually Ishbel said, 'go and see if you can find her'.

MUM 2nd from left at our weddiing in 76. Big Bro Bill on right with Ishbels' mum and dad

I set off, worried and slightly panicking.  Here I was bringing my MUM out to Germany, she had never been out of the country and couldn't speak a word of German and I LET HER GO FOR A WALK ON HER OWN!!!!!  Anyway, long story short, I eventually did find her.  'Street cafe' life was, as now, a part of European culture, and there was MUM sitting under an umbrella out side a bar, having a drink with a local German, laughing and gesticulating as two people do with no common language.  While being relieved at finding her I was a little bit perturbed at the scene, don't ask, don't know why.  Anyway when I finally managed to extract her, spoilsport I know, but it was my MUM, I asked what on earth she thought she was doing, and she turned to me and said, 'what's the problem, I was having a good time and we "clicked" ', as she raised her hand and snapped her fingers, I was speechless, but that was MUM.

Moving on, I left the Army in 81 and we settled in Inverness and we would visit MUM in Coatbridge, not as often as we could, money, as usual, and she would visit us, at least no passports and language wasn't a problem, so that was one less thing to worry about....  In 84 we presented Jennifer number 3 and our last child and again Nana couldn't wait to see her and was straight up on the next available train.  The next 12 years we were back and forth as she was to us and we really enjoyed the visits.  I rember after one visit when we had taken her to a local hotel, The Drumossie, as I recall which was situated just outside Inverness to the South on the old A9 road, which is a long steep roll down into Inverness.  We had gone to a Ceilidh [Scottish dance for the uninitiated] and a meal.  A few weeks later MUM phoned in a panic, she had just opened the Sunday Mail [Scottish newspaper] who were running the story of the people trapped in the Drumossie hotel due to snow storms.  Realising that we were probably not at the hotel but none the less, worried about how we were managing with all that snow, we only lived about 2 miles from the hotel, so it was a justifiable worry I suppose.  I then had to explain to MUM that we were fine, clear blue sky and green grass in the garden..... Inverness if you don't know has a little peculiarity in that it lies in a bit of a bowl and while it does get it's fair share of inclement weather and snow, it has been known for the the surrounding environs to be completely blitzed by snow, but the town itself can be completely missed, as we were on that occasion.  Bless, always thinking about us.

As I get older, and I look at my grand children, I sometimes think, 'I wish MUM was here to see them.  Not just ours, But Bobby, Jim, Lillian, brothers and sisters who also have had children and grandchildren and NANA isn't around to see them.  I also have regrets about things not said, that should have been said. 

I can't actually remember telling my MUM that I loved her or appreciated her.  I appreciated that she worked her fingers to the bone with all her different jobs, just so that we could eat, and that rent, and gas and electricity were paid.  I appreciate now as I didn't then because I didn't understand, the times I stood in the Provi office while she took out another loan to keep us fed and clothed.  I appreciate now that she was always there, travelling down to Shorncliffe for my passing out parade, travelling down to Aldershot for my marriage.  I was young and I was Scottish and I was a 'man' and we didn't say, 'I love you MUM.  And I didn't appreciate and never offered, because I didn't think, all these visits cost a lot more in money then than they would today, and she was always skint, and I never appreciated it.

Well, 23 years later I do appreciate it, and I have absolutely no problem in saying MUM I loved you and I am sorry if I and others didn't show it and I wish you were still around so I could tell you today!

Love You Mum

Agnes Stronach nee Wedlock 

1922 - 1988 

More photos of MUM

Mum Fag in hand 1973

MUM and Trudy

Mum and Marie and Ishbel 1978

Mum and Marie 1978

MUM and Marie 1978

  

Book Review- In Her Name

     I don't know what you have been reading lately, I don't even know what your tastes are in books.  Reading is a personal thing, everyone has their own tastes, likes and dislikes.  I am sure that there are some people who read who probably stick to what they know and like best and hardly, if ever, try or attempt to read anything that deviates from their own personal likes.

    It's a bit like someone claiming they do not like certain food types, and they say this sometimes never having tried what they say they dislike. So, how can they state they dislike blue cheese, if they have never tried it.  O.k, I know that one is a bit of a stretch and dependant on the blue cheese in question, the smell may be enough to put some people off and there is no way that they are ever going to be enticed into putting something that can sometimes smell like a sweaty sock, into their mouth, now are they?

    Well sometimes you just have to ignore the first sense that warns you off something and get past that initial whiff that might be putting you off what you otherwise might, just might, find interesting and enjoyable.  It may mean that you have to disguise the odious odour that is putting you off by preparing the cheese to be eaten in a different way to the norm, using it in a sauce for example, making it part of something else entirely, go on, give it a go and try something different, you never know, you might just like it!

    Having done with the food analogy that brings me nicely onto something I tried recently that I have not tried, since the late 60's, early 70,s, What was that I hear you ask, well let me tell you.... A science Fiction novel, well to be more precise, 5 novels back to back,  In the last two weeks I have read 5 science fiction novels and have been completely and utterly blown away.  I absolutely resented having to go to sleep at night,  I resented the fact that once in the office I had to actually do some work, and I was almost regretting the fact that I have just changed back, from commuting by rail, to commuting by car, I can't, unfortunately, read while driving, oh, do please hurry up someone and invent the car that does take you to and fro without you actually having to be in control of it, then I can read in that to.......

   So, I hear you mutter, is he going to tell me what these astounding tomes of intense compelling literary works were, well of course I'm not, I just wanted to get you worked up about something before going off in a completely opposite direction............ 

    O.k., O.k., only kidding, Michael R Hicks, known by his twitter name of @KreelanWarrior is the author in question and he can be found at http://authormichaelhicks.com/ and also at Amazon. I know I did this a few days ago, but honestly he does deserve a seciond mention and so...... The books are a series of graphic novels, the first is entitled, In Her Name: Empire and it tells the story of humanity's attempts to remain alive in a war that seems impossible to win.  A war of attrition that is 100 years old and is destined to go on until the Kreelans find, "The One" or they become extinct, although neither of these important points are known to humanity, and even if they were, they are far to busy trying to stay alive to worry about something as abstract as that.  The setting is sometime in the future and we learn that after almost destroying themselves on planet Earth Humanity on that planet are living under one liberal government but that many more humans have now colonized other planets throughout space.  It is on one such planet that the scenes of  this epic opus is  set in motion for us.  The inhabitants of the planet are almost wiped out by the Kreelans.  The Kreelans are a blue skinned female warrior race, with fangs...

     The action starts straight away with Reza Gards' parents trying to stay alive on their home world from the onslaught that has descended upon them.  The Kreelans are 10's of thousands of years older than humanity and this is reflected in their technology, however their sense of honour makes them fight, and kill, humans with weapons and ships that are as close a match to human technology as is possible, after all where is the honour in just exterminating animals just because they exist! 

   During this battle Reza  a young boy not yet into double digits manages to land a blow on the warrior priestess's face cutting her, rather than kill him outright, and as a mark of respect for his courage she marks the boy with a similar scar and leaves him on the ruins of the planet.

    While it is explained that the Kreelans could in fact wipe out all of the humanity on all of the planets they exist on, without any effort, it is again down to their sense of honour and desire to have an enemy fight them that they withdraw after each conflict to allow the humans time to regroup and muster their forces and ships.

    From the very first page of this novel I was hooked, and chapter after chapter was not  disappointing.  Unlike other SyFi novels that I have picked up over the years, but never been tempted to read, this book did not contain any of the techno babble that some of that genre seems to believe that it must contain.  These books were written in clear unambiguous ordinary english by an author who wanted to tell a story and not cloud it for himself and more importantly for us the readers, by constantly referring to rubbish that would take you away from the story and ultimately and probably end up with you discarding the book into a corner, or worse still, the waste bin.

    So, the story continues In Empire, and moves on 5 years into the future and we find 13 year old Reza on one of the many orphanage worlds where the orphans of this 100 year old war are sent and used effectively by the administrators of the planet as child labour.  Having started off with non stop action and graphic scenes of death I thought we were then going to get a wishy washy tale, however that was not the case and the time spent detailing Reza's and the other children's existence on the planet and their battle to survive against the abuse of their own kind was just as compelling as the first chapter and the more you read, the more you wanted to read.  This story was just getting better and better, and I'm only two chapters in.  

   Learning that Reza is now 13, we also learn that he has become the protector of other orphans both younger and older and that he has developed an intellect beyond his years by his many visits to a library on the planet that they are not really supposed to visit.  He is also somewhat under the wing and unstated protection of a retired Marine Colonel, who while letting matters with overseers run their course would be able to step in and save Reza if an ultimate threat from the worst of these overseers were to manifest itself.  A new bunch of orphans arrive at Rezas' site, delivered by the most brutal of overseers, and amongst them is Nicole Carre, older by a year and she is saved from being raped by the overseer by Reza, and this starts a thread of love and friendship that spans the series of books as it does the years and galaxies covered within the books.  

   Look at that, right out of left field, you have been dealing with the harsh realities of human destruction and devastation, human horridness against human, and then,  suddenly,  a love interest is introduced, is this guy Hicks nuts or what, has he just ruined what was turning out to be an all action adventure, NOT ONE BIT OF IT.  It just adds to what turns out to be a complete and compelling story, and you just have to keep turning page after page to see where it is going and where it takes you.

   

    The fight for survival on the orphan world continues and we learn that the children may be able to escape from this living hell that they have been subjugated in when they are 15, so while Nicole has just arrived, and Reza has been the for over 5 years, she will be able to leave in a year while Reza and the younger children must endure.....  The story moves on and Nicole does indeed leave the planet to attend Military Flying Academy.  The story then moves to informing us more about the Kreelans and one of the many facts we learn is the the Kreelans believe that Humans are little more than animals with no soul, but that within these animals one will exist whose 'soul' will sing with the Bloodsong, and that He will, if found, end a centuries old curse that will lead to the Kreelans not dying out. However if they cannot find ' The One' they are more than prepared to remove the animals from existence in the course of their search for him. 


    A decision is taken by the Kreelan Empress that they must find out if the animals do have a soul and so they decide that the only way to discover this is to attack one of the orphan planets and carry of all of the children back to the Kreelan system where they can be 'tested' to see if it is likely that one of them will have a soul and where one does other might too.  This of course leads us into the title of the Book where Reza is once again on  a planet that is attacked, only this time he will not be escaping and is carried off by the Kreelans, and while this is happening Tesh Dar, the Warrior Priestess cut by Reza all those years ago, sees a young human animal with a scar similar to her own and remembers their encounter all those years ago.


    Reza awakens, from a drug induced sleep not knowing whether he is on a ship or on a planet. His warden or jailer is named 'Esah-Zhurah and so begins his introduction into the Kreelan Empire as befits an animal of low standing.   The rest of Empire is a fast moving story where Esah-Zhurah is tasked by Tesh Dar to see if the human can be trained in the 'Way' of the Empresses people, and while he is to be kept alive, that is only to be if he can survive, but no matter, once they have learned all they can of these animals, it will be unlikely that he will prove to have a soul and his survival will only last as long as he manages to do so or until there is nothing more that can be learned from him at which point Esha-Zhurah will put him to death.


    Reza, quickly learns that Hell does exist and that he is in it.  As the years move on and he learns the language of the Kreelan, becoming better able to communicate, he also learns that his life is balanced on a knifes edge and while determined not to submit to the will of the Kreelans he is battered and bruised and brought to the edge of death on many occasions as he has to learn to fight as taught by his jailer/mentor.  Their relationship is built on over the years and inextricably these two of different races and mortal enemies are drawn together by that bond that always seems to be generated by opposing and mortal enemies who are forced into working together.  Eventually, Reza and  Esaha-Zhurah  comit the ultimate crime of falling in love, even although Tesh Dars' second sight he seen and warned against this, warning that it will even cost Reza and Esaha-Zhurah their lives, but in the course of this love Rezas' soul sings with the Bloodsong of the the Kreelan and he is accepted into their society.


    I am sure that I have not done this book the justice it deserves here, but you really do need to put aside any misconceptions you may have of picking up, either in book form, or as in my case Kindle , and read this for what it is.  An epic tale of war and love, of a race destined for extinction and its race to find the one who can save them from their own self destruction..


    The ultimate test of Rezas' acceptance to his new life as a Kreelan will be to join one of the armadas regularly despatched to human space to destroy his own kind and you need to read the book to see if he can do this.


    The next two books in the series, which are all available in one omnibus edition, which was what I purchased and was glad that I had, are; Confederation and Final Battle. Confederation goes on to introduce the machinations of the humans in this war and the dirty tricks still played by some politicians and military officers who instead of concentrating their efforts in defending humanity from annihilation are more concerned with murdering their own kind while they consolidate their own power bases. New characters are introduced, and the bloody mixture of the first book is repeated again and again, but without repetition.


 You would think reading these novels that your sympathies would be firmly on the side of Humanity, but Mr Hicks has written them to skilfully that even while Tesh Dar is single handedly wiping out the inhabitants of the largest city of one human planet, numbering in the millions, yes single handedly and not by bombs or bullet, but by mystical powers that only she and the Empress have, but rarely use, you do not get to feel any real animosity towards these creatures, regardless of their constant death dealing, and I think that is a measure of the writing and presentation of the author.  That he has managed to get you engaged both in sympathy towards what is happening to your fellow humans, he also gets you empathising with the protagonists of this epic tale.


    I did say that I had now read 5 of Mr Hicks' novels and so I have.  Completed No 5 earlier this evening and that is what compelled me to write another blog on them.  After reading the omnibus edition of In Her Name  it was back on to the Kindle store to purchase and download the next two instalments.  You see Mr Hicks has done a bit of a 'Star Wars'  on us and written a prequell, again this is going to be three novels and so far he has written and published two, with the third in production.  The prequel takes us back to the first encounter of Humans and Kreelans over 100 years before Empire 
and in, In Her Name: First Contact and In Her Name: Legend of the Sword we learn how Humans are sending survey ships into space looking for habitable planets or planets that can be easily tera-formed and how one of those vessels stumbles into Kreelan territory and while all but one of the ships crew is killed in an arena as they are given the choice to fight or die much like gladiators in ancient romans times on earth.


    During this slaughter, Tesh Dar has to select one Human to survive, so that he or she might tell the others of its kind that the Kreelan Empire now knows they exist and and that they will be coming to wage war on them and that they should use the time allotted to them to prepare for the attack on the Planet that the Kreelans have told them they will arrive to destroy.


    Again I was not disappointed aand neither will you be if you purchase these books they will leave you on the edge, you'll feel elated, you will feel the tenderness between Reza and Nicole and Reza and Esha-Zhurah, You'll find yourself wishing that someone would just kill Colonel Thorella Rezas' nemesis on returning to the Federation and you will feel immense sadness at the death of many of the characters that you came to know so intimately through the course of these novels, and most of all you will feel, if you buy them all, you will feel that you want to give author Michael R Hicks a kick up the bum to hurry up and get the next instalment finished and out into print..............


Sorry for rambling on ..................

Best Wishes

      

Books Vs E-Books response To Alexander McCall Smith Face Book Posting

Alexander, If I may be so presumptuous in addressing you by your fist name as no formal introductions have been made, however as my better half hails from Edinburgh I feel there is at least a three degree of separation between us and it being such a small and provincial town... anyway to the point, which is the e-book issue.

While you confess to reading an e book you do not tell us if you actually own one or if you were reading it on your computer? No matter, a small point but one does detect the slightest whiff of superiority and maybe just a hint of condescension in your comments about e- books and those that choose to read in that format.  No amount of flowering around the garden with your usual delightful use of prose in your Face Book  ‘note’ posted 29th June  2011, can hide these facts!

Please, please Alexander, do not take this as a personal attack on you, nor indeed on anyone else of similar thoughts.  In fact the opposite is indeed uppermost in my mind as I type this response as I try and measure my comments as carefully as you chose yours and always with the thought, ‘be careful what you write because this chap has brought so much pleasure to you over the last few years since your discovery of Mme Ramotswe, Bertie, Isabel and all the rest of the wonderful inhabitants of his mind that must be contained in a head with obvious 'Tardis’ sized proportions to contain all those wonderful characters and storyline’s

Anyway, Books versus e-readers,  I agree that there is nothing absolutely nothing that can take away from the tactile sensations of holding, especially for the first time, a new book, for me, preferably in hardback, but that is me probably being more than a little slightly pompous.  You get that book either in the mail or you have just been to the bookstore and brought it home in the ubiquitous plastic carrier, you take it out, or you unwrap as delivered by the postman and you hold it in your hands turning it over, the cover is inspected as is the spine and then the back cover. Anticipations are building and indeed even some tenseness, especially if it is a book from a favourite such as Alexander McCall Smith, that you have been anticipating getting your hands on for many months.  This happens with me regularly, and for your books I might add here.

So, you have that new book in your hands and it has past first muster inspection and you pull open the cover to the first page, the fly leaf becomes clear and you read while being slightly distracted, but not in a bad way, if the inside cover and facing page have a design motif on them, row upon row of No 44 Scotland Street in ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Scones’,  Elephants, Oil cans and Lizards in ‘The Good Husband of Zebra Drive’ or a lovely pale green empty space in, ‘The Careful Use of Compliments’ someone I know always refers to it as ‘The Careful Use of Condiments’, bless.... You carefully turn over the next couple of pages, and here I have to confess to what is probably a little bit of a strange indulgence or peccadillo, I look at the; First published, Copyright, All rights, Typeset, Library Catalogue details, don’t ask, I have no explanation for the strangeness that overtakes me when opening a new book, and, I guess to an extent it might be that I want to savour every single page of this delicious mind feeding entity that I am holding in my hands, who knows....

Then, then we turn over another page and we find the beginning of the best time of your life for the next indeterminable period of time, that is for however long you are curled up on the sofa, in bed, on the train or sitting in the park, engrossed in the story that someone like Alexander McCall Smith, or other author of choice, has so graciously chosen to deliver to us, it is almost too difficult to describe the sensations that flow through you when reading a good novel.  Authors, of whatever calibre and ability should be almost revered for the enjoyment they bring to so many millions of people each and every day.  A Novel can be heart warming, it can be funny, it can be dangerous.  You can be relaxed one minute and tense the next, reading one last week I was literally breathless and a little afeared one minute and the next I was welling up, not one of your sAlexander, but a self published author by the name of Michael R Hicks.

And do you know what the difference is between McCall Smith and Hicks Novels is, in my hands at least, I have never read any of Alexanders books on my Kindle (yet) But I have read five of Mr Hicks books in the last two weeks, all on Kindle.

You see, Alexander I agree with you, the BOOK in written format on paper should never ever be consigned to a book shelve just as an antiquity, as long as we can plant sufficient trees to help eat the bad things that we put into the air that we breathe, and we can spare some to pulp down into paper, we should continue to hold that wonderful cornucopia of words and thrill at the joy of discovering new adventures, whether they be gentle beautiful stories that you give us, or ripping sea adventures from Julian Stockwin and his Captain Kydd series of novels, or the gut wrenching, planet exploding, double dealing love stories that Michael R Hicks gives us, they should always and forever be produced in book format. But, if the same pleasure can be got from an e-book, minus clearly the feel and texture of the actual BOOK, and it can and it does, then I for one have welcomed  albeit with reservations to begin with, when first presented with it by my wife Ishbel at Christmas last.  

My final comments are these, BOOKS as you know are so expensive these days, and while some authors still have published works  in e-books for as much, and in some cases more expensive then the BOOK (what's going on there) the vast majority of books are very reasonably priced in this format and much more so than in book stores, and in many cases, like libraries they are free, but you do not have to return them.  This is something that actual BOOK retailers and libraries need to seriously start dealing with, better than they appear to be so doing at the moment,.  The need and must develop strategies for I,  for one,  will lament the day that we see even more book stores and libraries closing en masse.   I love my Kindle, but I love browsing and buying, in fact in my wallet I have two gift cards for BOOKS received gratefully recently, conversely I also have credit in my Amazon account, also received as a gift, that I use for my Kindle books.  My eldest grand daughter turned eight in April, along with other bits and bobs she received three books from us and a BOOK diary to make notes in, and she was delighted to inform me that as well as the fancy hand held game thing she has, that she got games for she also received toys and clothes, 'I also got a total of 49, yes 49 BOOKS granddad'.  That's lovely I thought and I am so proud of her but I do hope she doesn't forget to play as well! And, she loves my Kindle.

So, Alexander if my interpretation of your comments are completely wrong, I apologise Sir, but I think it behoves Authors of all ilks to embrace this new technology and insist that where they have publishers that they make all of their works available in both formats from the outset and don't be disdainful of e-books as opposed to BOOKS , we the readers of books enjoy both, and for those out there who have not tried an e-reader don't turn your nose up at it until you have at least given it a fair trial.

With deepest respect to you and other authors dead and alive who continue to give me so much pleasure...

[RIP Hans Falllada]

Best Wishes