AS we hurtle towards F-Day it might pay to heed the news from Australia. If you can find it. So little is ever classed by UK editors as sufficiently noteworthy to be included in their pages. Unless, of course, it is of a bushfires, mouse plagues or shark attacks. Although the latter have now been downgraded to “incidents” to avoid scaring the tourists. Which is little solace to a surfer who has donated a meaty thigh to a great white’s lunch. Hot off the press, however, is the latest development in the country’s endless battle with the pandemic. The land… Continue reading
Welcome to my world. My name is Tony Berry, writer and editor (and lifelong pedant) with five crime fiction books and two memoirs to my name. Also running addict, failed chef, theatre 'luvvie' and dedicated cruciverbalist
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SURELY mine is not the only brain that has gradually turned to mush thanks to this endless lock-down. I sense previously lively little grey cells have coagulated into something resembling sago pudding. Thus my head is host to an amorphous splodge of lifeless nothingness. A once active organ languishes listless… Continue reading
BOOK lovers are a stubborn and peculiar breed. They will determinedly push on to the very last word despite all the negative vibes they are receiving from their current choice of reading matter. They plough relentlessly forward, deaf to a background noise about plot, characters, writing style, inconsistencies, typos (polite… Continue reading
NEARLY choked on my afternoon cuppa. Spluttered and dribbled before disaster was eventually averted. Yorkshire’s finest it was, too. You know, the brew that guy with the accent as broad as the Dales is forever chuntering on about. Seems that the much adored novelist and regular tea drinker Jane Austen… Continue reading
Aah . . . the sheer joy, relief, escape, freedom and get-away-from-it-all happiness of a holiday trip. These hordes are lockdown escapees from the Australian state of Victoria queuing to “enjoy” the snowfields, as pictured by the Herald Sun. Yet again I am prompted to wonder what is the sense… Continue reading
ALMOST daily we are urged to place our trust in rapidly advancing new technology. The catch-cry is “Get Smart”. It is almost biblical in its unwavering insistence. Accept and ye shall be saved. Adapt to everything smart and ye shall enter the Elysian uplands where all the gizmos and contraptions that surround us will cease to cause the unending irritation, time-wasting, stress and anger that we inexplicably accept as normal. From smart meters unable to communicate, through smart phones dependent on unreliable networks to death-trap smart motorways this smart new age is anything but. Had it not been recently condemned… Continue reading