Bills Posts

I really feel quite bad. The last two nights have been pretty pathetic in terms of post quality. I apologise for that.

What makes it even worse, is that tonight I have again left it too late to do a reasonable post. I can assure you that this is equally frustrating for me.

It’s 2345, and I nearly forgot the post, and as I don’t really have anything to write about, I’m afraid it’s another short one.

I’m sorry, it’s a very short post tonight. Just a placeholder. My brain has gone to sleep, and. I can’t think of anything to write

I would have gone for a walk this morning, but was raining so I didn’t bother.

I had a couple of things I needed to do in town at lunchtime, and my plan had been to take an extended lunch break, and walk into town. But it was raining, so that didn’t happen, but I still had to go so the car got a run out.

The picture is of the flowerbeds at the Falklands Gardens taken yesterday morning’s walk. The plan is, if it. Isn’t raining in the morning, to,have another attempt at getting out.

I went for a quick morning walk down to the waterfront. I wanted to see what was happening with the roadworks at Crossways. From the picture you can see that things are progressing. There’s a sign that was put up around June time, which said the roadworks would take 50 weeks. I haven’t really worked it out, but I think they are halfway through the work. I don’t think the work in north cross road has more than a few weeks before it’s finished.

There’s still a lot of work to do in South Cross Street. They have started, but it has quite a way to go. I shall continue to take the occasional notice of it. I carried on walking to do the waterfront.

There is a lot of work being done in the old taxi rank and dropoff area. They no longer exist. I think they are going to build space for two or three buses to pull nose in. I think a taxi rank is in place, but it’s in a less convenient place. Obviously, the bus station, which is a bit run down will continue in use until the new halt is operational.

One of my readers, Clive, commented on yesterday’s post in response to my question regarding using real places in fictional writing. It was a good question. His response was a slight departure, suggesting writing fiction using models of real people. I have to say that I would stay well away from that. He was correct that would cause problems.

I’m not so sure about place names though, there is a very well known local crime writer who bases her books in and around the Portsmouth area. I read a comment of hers that she will only name a specific shop if she has their permission, and that can totally depend on the context, for example a waterfront shop or pub. May not wish to be associated with nefarious fictional activities.

Whilst I think there is less of a problem using town or street names, the closer you get to people the more difficult it gets.

Which leads me on to another question, what if I were to use, for example, the place names of Hardy’s Wessex, for example Casterbridge instead of Dorchester would that be plagiarism or something else?

Food for thought.

This is one grumpy cat, but only she knows why.

Just to finish off the box set thing. We ordered, for a quite reasonable price the DVD’S for seasons one to five from the great provider. They arrived today, and we’ve started watching – excellent.

I’ve set Elayne a mission; when she goes into a charity shop, she is to look for seasons 6, 7 & 8 – whilst we are watching 1 – 5, it doesn’t matter what order we buy them in just as long as we have them.

The question; if you are writing a book, let’s say a work of fiction, how does it work if you want to use real locations? Is the context important and should you seek the ok before using, say, a shop name? Just wondering.

Last night I told you about a boxset we had only just started watching (8 seasons, 96 episodes), we had got to around the 7th episode of 13 in season one when the streaming service flashed up a message saying that the whole series was coming to the end of its run and would be withdrawn. We worked out that would happen whilst were watching Episode 11.

Low and behold, when we had stayed up quite a bit later, and had reached the end of episode 11, and there it was – the whole series gone, withdrawn. The climax of the season was building, and things were getting really tense and there it was gone! We went to bed.

Luckily, if a tad expensive, I don’t subscribe to just one streaming service. I immediately jumped on the the other service, and the series was there, but we had to pay for it. Luckily we could pay per episode, now it was only two episodes to the end of the season so we decided to bite the bullet and bought the last two episodes! We breathed a sigh of relief as the hero saved the day.

Almost.

What about Seasons two to eight?

Can I spin this cliffhanger out to a third night?

Also, I am running out of time and need to post this before midnight, and it is now 23:57.

Earlier this week we found a new boxset to watch. Like all of the box sets, we wonder how it is going to develop. In this case, we were hooked by the third episode.

A couple of episodes later, we were slightly disturbed to see a message flash up on the screen saying that the series going to be withdrawn from the streaming service on the 15th.

Bear in mind; this is a Thursday, the 15th of the month, at 2330 we were on episode 11 of 13 for the first season. It was obvious we weren’t going to finish the season and we were just getting in to a huge cliff hanger.

Episode 11 finished at midnight 30 on the 16th. Was the service really going to withdraw the series when they must have known full well that we were watching it? Along comes 0030, the programme ending with a major cliff hanger building – and that was it, gone. No more episodes. The end finish!!!

Deep was our disgust. I’ll tell you what happens next tomorrow.

I went for a walk this morning. Not a long one, just around the cockle ponds. It wasn’t so much the walk, but what was going on around me.

It’s not spring time yet, still a few weeks to go, but there is definitely something in the air. Actually, it is the birds. The doves, they were making that deep throat noise when they have spring like thoughts on their mind.

There were a couple of gulls on the roof, they were making noises. To each other. The gulls on the ponds were just very noisy.

Next to starlings, the most impressive birds I see here are the geese. This morning there were three large wings of them flying and swooping over the creek, coming in to land – it was really beautiful to watch.

It’s worth talking about the morning chorus. When I did my early morning walks the morning chorus was one of the delights that I relished. I haven’t heard since I stopped. We have a bird, not sure, but it could be a blackbird. Either way, it is really tuneful, and it sounds like it’s right outside the window. Quite beautiful.