Much of a muchness

You know the song ‘New York, New York, so good they named it twice’? WELL……

I noticed that I have been nominated in the ‘Top 100 Female Bloggers’ list over at Enkay Blog. The list is calculated using a combination of PR, Technorati authority and Alexa ranking which all sounds very complicated – so complicated in fact that I make the list at number 50 AND number 51. This blog is so good they named it twice :-)

Every once in a while, I get an email from someone asking me how I make my books. I usually send them links to various wonderful web sites with tutorials and videos of the process. I made this book yesterday. It took me ages as I documented every step of the process and I have decided to share this with you all. I know that this is risky, as I plan to start selling my books (yes, yes, I know, I keep saying that, but believe me it WILL happen. Promise!) and by showing how it is done to the world and his wife, I am ostensibly reducing my market. I am banking on the probability that a lot of you are far too busy (or idle) to make books but for the interested few, there is now a tutorial. If you check out the tabs at the top of the page there is now one called ‘HOW’. (It had to be a short page name as it wouldn’t have fit in if I had called it ‘TUTORIAL’. I have also had to change the title of the CONTACT page to E-ME. Got to keep things tidy…..

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who tries it out so that I can explain anything tricky more clearly or if anything doesn’t make sense.

Now then moving on from a country which shall not be named for a while, to another of our European neighbours, France. When I was at school (Withington Girls’ School for the record) I was given a French vocabulary book. Our French teacher, Mrs Petit-Jean, was having a clear out and she gave us all a copy of this little book as she was otherwise going to throw them away as they were a bit(!) outdated.

Over the years since, this little book (published in 1949) has made us laugh at the quaintness of the vocabulary which now seems so antiquated.

Photo: click to enlarge

There are several entries which really make me wonder quite who the book was aimed at….check out the last entries on page 29…

Photo: click to enlarge

And after all the useful and innocent animal sounds…..

Photo: click to enlarge

Presumably after having his throat cut!

I hope I never have to use the phrase at the bottom of page 93…

Photo: click to enlarge

Schooldays. It all seems so long ago. It was so long ago. It’s quite frightening when I think back just how long ago it was. I remember it all so well though – it’s yesterday I have a problem with…

I do remember that I went to see the film WALL.E last week. It’s so good. The animation is astonishing and it’s a very sweet story with a topical, environmental message. And as a Mac fan(atic) I found this which I stumbled upon very amusing…those of you who have seen WALL.E will ‘get’ it.

There were lots of very cute little short videos on the WALL.E website – here are a couple. I think they are hilarious.

My next expedition is to London on Thursday. I am going to the Royal Opera House to see the Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China perform Swan Lake. You may remember the amazing video I posted last week – should be wonderful, I’ll let you know…