Library Books?

Recently after replying to Kevin Morris’ blog regarding getting books into the British Library,  I decided to go one step further and contact my own local library to enquire as to whether they would be interested in displaying a few of my books on their shelves.  I’d previously sent off my books to the British Library at their request after setting them up to be printed and distributed by Ingram Spark (the British Library are entitled to one copy of every single book published in the UK), and I was also registered on the Public Lending Right website.  After all, I figured I’d lose nothing if they said no, and for all I knew the answer might even be in the affirmative.

My branch library is in  Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, about 12 miles away.  I called them and a very helpful lady informed me that the main library at Ipswich has control of all the stock.  She gave me a phone number of the team at Ipswich County Library, which is about 25 miles from where we live.  I stuck my courage to the sticking post and in my best raspy voice spoke to another helpful lady, who took all my details and passed my name and phone number on to the manager there.

The very next day I received an email from an assistant to the manager of Ipswich Library asking me to email her back with details of all my books.  I did this, and straight away I received a reply that she had passed my email on to the stock team.  I was quietly hopeful, but at this point did not get too excited.

However, back came that standard answer that we all receive when sending off queries to agents, libraries, bookstores and the like:   ‘Thank you for thinking of Suffolk libraries, but we have no plans to buy copies of these titles for our stock’.  

At this point instead of being disappointed I became angry; mind-bogglingly angry!  No bugger wants to give self-published authors a chance, do they?   Usually I wouldn’t have followed up any reply like that, but after 7 years of trying to get a foot in the door of  even a token recognition I emailed back to the effect that I am a Suffolk author and I didn’t think it an unreasonable request to ask for say three of my books to be added to the library’s shelves for just one month to see if there was any interest.  I could even supply the books myself at no cost to the stock team.

Back came the answer:

‘The stock team have advised that they have guidelines to follow when accepting all stock suggestions, including self-published titles and donations.   

We cannot guarantee that we will add any suggested or donated item to stock, and decisions are made on a case by case situation.  If there is a demand for your books in the future, then we can reassess the situation and see if they are available from our suppliers at the time.

Thank you for thinking of Suffolk Libraries.’

It seems self-published books are a no-no as regards being added to library shelves in the UK.  The British Library are happy to receive a copy of my books, but that’s as far as it goes.  I expect they’ll add them to the mountain of self-published books that sit in the vaults, but there will be no demand for them because nobody will actually be allowed to read them!

Don’t Bump into the Furniture

There was an article on the BBC News app yesterday that made me quite angry when I read it.  I read that in Japan, some companies are banning their female employees from wearing glasses.  It was also stated that in the Japanese retail sector, female shop assistants who wear glasses give off a ‘cold’ impression.

So how about Japanese men who wear glasses then?  I take it they get to keep theirs on while the female staff suffer headaches and bump into the furniture if they don’t want to wear contact lenses?  This just goes to perpetuate the sad predominantly male idea of women as sex objects to be ogled at and not taken seriously; a kind of walking (but not talking) vagina.  Hundreds of thousands of creepy men slavering over pornography through the decades has only helped to intensify the misconception that women are air-heads.  This ban will do nothing to help teenage girls and young women, who through some men’s warped views of what women should look like, magazine air-brushing of ‘celebrities’ or on-line bullying, obsess about their body image and become over-conscious about their appearance.

I’ve worn glasses since I was 17.  I could no more put a contact lens in my eye than fly to the moon.  So what if women wear glasses?  So do men, and they wear them for a reason – because they can’t see very well without them.

Do women have the same problem dating a man who wears spectacles?  My eldest son, his wife and their two children all wear spectacles, so obviously glasses do not matter to them.  I’d been wearing glasses for 3 years before I met Sam.  My glasses are part of me – I’d feel quite peculiar without them.  I know that my daughter-in-law would say that if anybody has a problem about her or her daughters wearing glasses, then it’s their problem and not hers.

Whenever you see any woman on TV wearing glasses, she’s either a newsreader, or acting the part of a lawyer, a scientist, or somebody who is very brainy in another sphere; she always takes them off  for her close-ups or if she has to talk.  The only time she doesn’t take them off is if she is advertising the spectacles themselves.  Dorothy Parker once said that ‘Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses’, but another way of interpreting this is that men consider girls who wear glasses might be cleverer than they are, and therefore to be avoided.

Why can’t a woman be cleverer than her partner?  Why does the male of the species think that he has to dominate all the time?  Okay he may be physically stronger, but that does not make him superior.  Sorry for the rant, but this is a real backward step in the fight for gender equality.

Has this Ever Happened to You?

Sam will soon be off to the US for a week on business, and he asked me to order him a couple of my ghost stories so that he had something to read on the plane.  I logged into his account in that mahoosive online  store that we all love to hate, and ordered  paperback copies of ‘Finding David‘ and ‘Partners in Time‘.   I did this on 23rd June.

As you know, once the paperbacks are delivered then the sales should have been recorded on my KDP paperback dashboard.  However, it is now nearly 2 weeks later and  only ‘Finding  David’ has been recorded even though both books have been delivered.

I have complained many times via chat and phone about the missing book sale on my dashboard, but the sale never gets added to the dashboard.  I have wasted hours on the chat facility going around and around various departments that shift me on to someone else and say they will get back within 24 hours and never do.  They are now trying to get rid of me by saying they have no details of the sale; yesterday a very convenient ‘glitch’ happened that had to halt the conversation.  When I try to ring, I get told that the KDP Department are not contactable by phone and that someone from that department will phone within 24 hours (ha ha).

Can one person fight such a large institution?  This makes me wonder whether every sale gets recorded.  I only know about this one because I ordered the books myself from Sam’s account.

Has this infuriating situation happened to anybody else?  If so, how was the situation resolved?

By the way, my ghostly short story ‘Finding David’ will be FREE from Friday 5th July to Sunday 7th July.

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UPDATE

I was surprised beyond belief to receive an email from Executive Customer Relations this morning after I had emailed Jeff Bezos himself out of sheer frustration when noticing online that he reads all of his emails but doesn’t reply to all of them (I hoped at the time that he would reply to mine).  This is part of the reply:

Mr. Bezos received your message and I’m responding on his behalf. That particular event didn’t reflect on your royalty reports because we fulfilled this order with existing inventory from an either cancelled or returned order that was already reported as a royalty when the manufacturing event occurred. 

Yes, I remember that I’d had a Kindle copy of a different book returned, but this was a paperback bought at a higher price.  Oh well, I think I’d best shut up now…

 

Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear…

Tags

#abortion

Alabama’s State Senate approved a bill by 25 votes to 6 to outlaw abortions in almost all cases except where a mother’s life is at risk.

The senators who approved the bill were all men.  Surprise, surprise ….none of the 4 female senators backed the bill.

I felt quite angry when I read this on my BBC News app.  Why are these men interfering with women’s rights?  In my opinion a woman should be in control of her own body and have the right to terminate a pregnancy if she so wishes.  Men have no idea of the thoughts and feelings a woman might have towards an unwanted foetus growing in her body.  If men could give birth, how would they feel knowing there is an unwanted baby growing inside them, maybe due to rape, that they will have to curtail their career to bring up, and possibly also suffer financial hardship into the bargain?

Pregnancy takes a toll on a woman’s body, which will never be the same after she has carried a baby.  If that baby is wanted, then she will eagerly welcome the new arrival and carry the scars of pregnancy as a trophy.  If the baby is unwanted and she is not allowed a termination, then she will either feel desperate enough to go somewhere else and have an abortion anyway, or feel depressed and resentful towards the baby and possibly its father as well.  The baby might well be given up for adoption or taken into care, and therefore not have the best start in life.

Babies and toddlers can push parents to the limit.  I know because I had to listen to my eldest son’s continual screaming for the best part of 3 years.  I put up with it because he was wanted and loved.  What might happen to that baby if its mother felt only resentment towards it?  It doesn’t bear thinking about.  Have these men spent day after day looking after a screaming baby?  I think not.

Abortion should be seen as a fundamental human right.  A foetus is not capable of independent life.  If an unwanted pregnancy is allowed to progress to its natural end, then the resulting baby might not be loved by either parent at all, especially if it is the result of rape or incest.  These male senators are not thinking straight!  The female senators know what it’s all about and that’s why they’re not backing the ban.  Somebody ought to educate these men…

 

Are We Really ‘Saving’ Our Planet?

I’m not a tree-hugger as such and I don’t go around talking to plants, but when I saw this huge tree cut down in its prime just because it’s Christmas, I felt a little bit sad:

 

All its roots have been cut away and the bark shaved off so it can fit in a purpose-built hole in our churchyard.  Then it will be draped with festive lights that never go off until January 6th.  After that it will be cut up and discarded.

Er… this is not really ‘saving the planet’ is it?  Trees absorb our carbon dioxide and give out oxygen.  It’s not going to be doing much of that anymore, is it?

It was instilled in me by my parents to always appreciate trees; how they give us shade and make a habitat for wildlife, as well as absorbing our exhalations.  It’s my opinion that until people can all think as one regarding saving the planet, and not as individuals just concerned for their own ‘traditional’ Christmas, then millions more trees will be cut down, decorated with gaudy trash, and then chopped up!

Do a tree a favour this Christmas – let it grow and flourish in peace and buy an artificial one.

Peace be with you.

Freakin’ Freakshakes

Tags

calories, diabetes, sugar

Today by reading an item of news I learned a new word – ‘Freakshake’.  I’ve also just learned that it’s National Diabetes Day …

A Freakshake is apparently a milkshake containing any number of sweet additions such as ice cream, double cream, or chocolate etc.  This freakin’ outrage can contain the equivalent of 39 (yes, 39!) teaspoons of sugar and has a calorie count of 1200.  A certain restaurant chain in the UK sells this dubious ‘delight’.

To maintain her weight a woman needs to eat no more than 2000 calories per day, or 1500 if she wants to lose some pounds.  A man can eat up to 2500 calories per day.  So in effect a Freakshake has taken up more than half a woman’s daily calorie allowance and almost half a man’s.

Does this restaurant chain care that it is contributing to the spread of Type II diabetes, which is linked to obesity and is affecting one in every sixteen people in the UK?  No, all it cares about is money and making a profit from people who cannot control their weight.

The NHS is creaking at the seams with the self-inflicted ailments of diabetics.  The eye clinic where I work is overloaded with patients suffering from diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy.  When they’ve been seen in the eye clinic they then go elsewhere in the hospital to have their foot ulcers and amputated stumps dressed.   Of course, I do have sympathy for Type 1 diabetics who are born without the ability to produce Insulin, but I cannot understand why others might want to subject their body to a regular assault of Freakshakes and the like and expect to suffer no consequences.  The body can take the odd sweet treat, but too much sugar over a long period of time and the pancreas will eventually become exhausted and refuse to work.

In my opinion sugar should be listed as a Class B drug, and regulated by the Government.  It is highly addictive, and causes unpleasant withdrawal symptoms of headache, fatigue and muscle aches.  It builds sugar receptors in the brain, causing the sufferer to crave more sugar to banish the aforementioned withdrawal symptoms.  It also makes the blood acidic, causing calcium to be leached from the bones to neutralise the blood.  Sugar is hidden in many foodstuffs we consume, as manufacturers want us to enjoy the taste of their food and so add sugar to make us buy it again.  It’s all a question of money (as usual).

Excuse the rant and I’m not getting at those who enjoy a little slice of cake once in a while for example, but I work for the NHS and see first hand the effect of freakin’ Freakshakes/ too much sugar.

 

 

The Olfactory Blues

Give a thought for those poor souls like me who are intolerant of fragrances every time you use a spray-on perfume or after shave before you go to work.  When combined with others’ perfumes/after shaves in a small room, the one who is fragrance intolerant has to go and stand outside in the fresh air and recover (can’t open a window because somebody is always cold).

Woke up this morning

Went to work after eating,

In the office where I sit

Unfortunately there was a meeting.

There am I trying to type

And all around me are women who are drenched

In some kind of awful perfume.

Good God what a stench!

In no time at all

My cheeks are burning

My throat is tightening

And my eyes are watering.

Nobody cares

That I am intolerant to fragrance,

Day after day

It’s the same old recurrence.

There’s nowhere else for me to sit,

I guess I’ve just got to put up with it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if these gals

Could just wash with soap and water,

And give the essence of farmyard

No quarter.

Examining Kitchen Cupboards

I expect this post is not going to be popular with young people who have just had their A Level results, but do stay with me for the rest of this blog because I need to say something about the examination system in England, which I have had some past experience of, having worked in the examinations department of a college.

On my BBC News app, it says A Levels in England have been moving away from coursework and instead are graded on final exams.  This is how it used to be when I was at school, but wait a minute… I also read that this year A Level students have been awarded the highest proportion of As and A* grades since 2012 (97.6% was the overall pass rate for all grades), and that the exams’ regulator had promised grade boundaries could be lowered once papers were marked if it transpired that the new exams were tougher than expected.

I don’t have an ‘ology’ so correct me if I’ve missed something here, but I assume the students had been studying the proper course content for 2 years, they knew they’d be tested at the end, and they’d had the chance to take a few mock exams beforehand?  What is the point of making the exams tougher if the grade boundaries then get lowered because not enough students  achieve top grades?  Surely it’s how the subjects are taught and the teachers’ control of the class that should be checked?  It’s pointless lowering grades, as very soon you’re back to square one where everybody passes and university clearing houses and prospective employers cannot then root out the wheat from the chaff.

I failed my Biology A Level back in 1976, and so did all my classmates.  In modern times this doesn’t seem to happen.  School league tables nowadays have a lot to answer for.  Parents want to send their child to a school that has good exam results, and so surprise, surprise, no school wants to publish low grades.  What’s the solution?  It’s obvious! Have another look at the end of paragraph 2…

When I worked at a college for 16 – 19 year olds back in 1999, one of my jobs was to  give out exam papers to the students and gather up the completed scripts and send them off in the post for marking.  I saw questions on some of those papers that a 5 year old could have answered (‘What do you keep in your kitchen cupboards?‘ was one question as I recall – can’t remember what the exam subject was though).  I remember mentioning the kitchen cupboard question to the exams manager, who told me in a roundabout way to keep my mouth shut.

No wonder the pass rate was so high and the principal beamed as the press took his photo!   When my sons took their GCSE exams back in the late 1990s and came home to tell me about it, even they had to laugh at how easy some of the questions were.

When I left the college I complained to several national newspapers in a whistleblowing letter about education standards.  I received replies in the post from a couple of editors saying that they understood my concerns, but they could not print my letter.  Others never replied at all.  What a bloody joke it all was!

It’s time exams were toughened and grades not lowered to reflect the actual pass rate.

 

 

The Junk Food Crisis

I sat on the beach and read a newspaper, and in the Letters section one lady wrote that she was shocked to see the number of obese families in Britain after returning from living abroad.  She went on to say that she had to leave a cinema mid-film because of the unpleasant aromas of food and the amount of people eating, rustling food wrappers, crunching, chewing, and slurping.

I have to agree.  Obese children more often than not have  obese parents, whose idea of a treat for good behaviour is a trip to a branch of that infamous hamburger establishment that put the nation on the road to weightiness back in the 1970s.

My own granddaughter Hayley is obese.  Kelly, her obese mother, is a size 24 and looks with suspicion on any green foodstuffs, or anything that isn’t sweet-tasting.  Their fridge is full of chocolate bars, as apparently they taste so much better when they’re cold.  Hayley is 11 years old, but already has a painful back and has had to give up her combined bed and desk to her younger cousin because she has trouble climbing up the ladder to the high bed at night-time.  Kelly has made an appointment for Hayley to see the GP because of her back problem.

And do you know what?  I know the GP will not say a word when he sees how obese Hayley is.  Doctors are so frightened of offending the patient and being sued that they will gloss over the fact that Hayley is now wearing clothes for 16 year olds.  I once stuck my neck out and mentioned Hayley’s weight to my son, who agrees with me.  However, it’s like the elephant in the room – nobody tends to talk about it and nothing ever seems to get done about it.

Hayley is permanently hungry.  When she was at the van last week she was asking when it was going to be lunchtime at 10am.  She knows we do not eat between meals except for fruit, but she complained that oranges and apples tasted sour.  We stuck it out and put up with the sulks.  We took her for walks, but she complained her legs ached.  Unfortunately we know we cannot make much of a difference to her weight because most of the time she is not with us.

It’s so sad.  Hayley should be playing out in the street and running about.  Instead she sits in front of the TV eating huge bowls of crisps and popcorn.  There are so many other young people whose lives are being shortened by this type of child cruelty.  It’s all down to parental ignorance, and we as a nation are worse off for it.

My solutions?  Fast food outlets should either be made to close for the health of the nation, or if that smacks too much of the nanny state then be forced to open their doors for only a short time only each day.  They could also be hit with heavier than average business rates.  Supermarkets need to stop selling aisles of crisps and sweets. All junk food advertising should be banned, and first-time parents should be made to attend courses on healthy eating and nutrition.  I know many people will complain about this, but we were all so much healthier and thinner before junk food increased the nation’s blood pressure and waistlines.  We now have a third generation of children being raised on this crap.

As I sat there on the beach, I heard a child complain when his mother said it was time to go home because she had to make some jam.  What kind of parent forgoes building family memories by the seaside to go home and make jam?  Goodness me, if you really have to eat the stuff, you can buy a jar of it for a pound or two!  Why not make a healthy casserole or salad instead?  I know why, because the kid already has a sugar addiction and won’t eat it.

Oh dear.  What’s to become of all these poor children?  My heart aches for them.

Shared on Esme’s Senior Salon 13/8/18 https://esmesalon.com/senior-salon-roundup-august-13-17-2018/

Not Everybody Loves Your Dog…

I don’t often have a rant, so please ignore this if you’re not in the mood…

I’ve just returned from one of the best holidays I’ve ever had.  The sun shone every day with not a drop of rain, we bought a kayak and wheeled it down to the sea for the first time to have a little practise.  We walked the Tennyson trail and discovered new footpaths and entertained relatives with BBQ’s on the decking of our holiday home, but the time away was spoiled by one thing and one thing only…

Dogs.

As you know I’m not a doggy person, and neither is Sam.  When we tried to walk along the shoreline it was like an obstacle course trying to avoid dogs not on leads running wild, fighting with each other, yapping continually, and generally ignoring their owners.  Then it was maneuvering around dogs cocking their legs to piddle on a rock or squatting to defecate on the sand, or dogs running about after a ball.  It seems all the locals are dog owners, and most of the holidaymakers had brought their dogs with them.

Dogs don’t like me, and the feeling is mutual. When they see me some of them growl and bare their teeth, and I move out of the way of those not on leads with some alacrity.  I don’t mind dogs on leads that are well-behaved and walk to heel, but why do owners think that just because they’re on a beach they can let the dogs run amok?  Not everybody is a dog lover, and having been chased and bitten by an Alsatian when I was a child, I’d prefer to have nothing more to do with them.  However, it seems that unfortunately St. Helen’s beach is a doggy paradise.  Even when kayaking the bloody mutts were swimming nearby and yapping while trying to reach a ball that some owner had thrown out into the water.

Back at the van, a small dog in the next caravan yapped continually until thankfully its owner went home.  How can anybody stand that noise all day?  I looked with distaste at the wet, sandy dogs coming of the sea – how could you want that sitting on your settee dropping hairs and mess everywhere?

Grr!  Sorry again about the rant, but it had to be said!  Apart from Sam, I do not know of anybody who hates dogs as much as I do.  Are we the only people in the whole universe who feel this way?