Coming Out Of My Shell

Someone once mocked a political opponent by saying that they "could not run a whelk stall". I don't think I could either - because I'd eat them all. Whelks are far too good to serve or sell to other people. I'm not too sure how well known they are in the USA but I think Italians may call them Scungilli. If you fancy some nice juicy yet chewy snail type food here is a link to a NY Times article. 

Here in France they are called "bulot". As I write this little blog a background fantasy of sea food is playing in the middle of my mind.  The attached You Tube clip is just to show you how to be sure to add enough salt to oxidise your cardiac pacemaker.

The only reason Fruits de Mer and bulots are going round in my head is that I have just seen some at la poissonnerie and denied myself even a single lick. Today is a fasting day  on the 5:2 diet so it's all about sacrifice. I still don't think I could run a whelk stall though.

Allowing myself to look at whelks was a special treat to celebrate the completion of the final story for my forthcoming collection of shorts and novelettes which will go out under the banner Love In A Hopeless Place. They are all stories of love among poorer people in urban settings. The final story has probably been the most difficult thing I have ever tried to do. I know it will shock and appal many people. In the end I thought I had to write it because it is more or less a re-creation of true events without too much intervention by me. I'm never afraid of putting sex in my stories and in cases where this is what motivates characters, you just cannot avoid it. I am a bit nervous of the contents. There are advisers around me of the Disney tendency who have turned a ghostly pale on first reading. Might be a good sign eh?  Good job I'm an orphan. The title is indeed a lift of the Rihanna song because in the story, a couple of the characters sing it. 

Emma thinx: Freedom Air - calorie free seafood to inhale. 

"Wow - I've lost a stone!" Emma ejaculated.

Merely 4,250 calories = 8 days food

I originally started blogging when "Knockout" was published. Seemingly it was the thing that all aspiring scribettes needed to do. For the first six months I performed every day. Since then I have progressively reduced the output with surprising results. Yesterday for instance, some 200 hundred applauding fans flocked to worship at the shrine of my wondrous words. Or - perhaps not! 

My suspicion is that most of the views are conducted by some kind of Spam-a-vision. They leave anonymous comments about my genius and the need for the world to ejaculate more fully by using the tablets only available from their website. I'm with them on the assessment of my genius of course - but the other matter is rather beyond me.  Does any one else have blog issues with genius and ejaculation?

I am in France and sticking to my 5:2 diet. Yes, five different types of cheese and two glasses of wine to lubricate the follicles. Luckily I never omit an accompanying  substantial meal laced with blood purifying vampire slaying garlic to complete the evening. Oooh - you should have seen me at dinner with friends last week denying myself a third serving of full fat ham in liquid butter served with potatoes in melted cheese. I was so proud! Luckily there was some left for me to bring home.

Saint Saviinien  is so beautiful - even on a diet day there is loveliness

Of course, those are the five eat as you wish days. I have been ruthless on the two days of fasting. In France I have learned one thing. Denial is purely relative to temptation. We could call this the  DT index. Instead of all the statistics about financial inflation, happiness and climate we just need to know the DT ratio. Some places should warn that only experienced self deniers should enter. All French bakeries and cheese vendors would have to show their DT index on their shuttered shop windows. Oh why oh why is the best stuff so bad for you?

As big and as wide as a fasting novelists stomach

The good news....on the scales this morning I found that the world of Romantic fiction is now a whole stone (6.35 kgs) lighter. Accordingly I'm downsizing all future heroines by one size.
This diet is liveable and it works guys - it really does.

Emma thinx: Eat, shrink and be merry. 

Order - Order!!

                                                                                                         

Today is budget day in the Devolved United Kingdom. This annual ritual of  political circus is when the Chancellor of the Spreadsheet hangs out his dirty washing. And the news is that we are BUST. Luckily there are other countries that are even bustier. That has allowed our leaders to reduce the price of a pint of warm English beer by one pence. In my limited and innocent experience, busts expand with beer - both as possessed and perceived.  And ya boo sux to all those limp honourable members opposite.

I trust that my intellectual and astute readers will realise that my comments are merely a pastiche of that parliamentary pun and run style which is otherwise known as government and leadership. 

A few days ago I was a guest in someone's home where the family was gathered around the Sky TV Oracle at Murdoch to receive the noises of WWF. Now, I know that at once you think of the World Wildlife Fund. Oh no - I mean the World Wrestling Federation. For a moment I thought I was watching the Parliament channel. Here is a clip - you'll see what I mean.

Emma Thinx: Keep the circus rings out of your nose. 

Fast Food - Food Fast.

I'm just brazen with my grazin'

I've not been lounging about on these pages for a while. I've been writing, reading and dieting and to be frank, they don't mix. I'm on the 5:2 fast diet since I thought it was about time I joined in a craze. Probably thousands of you are doing the same. 500 calories is not a lot but I can scrape by on it. I find it impossible to write because I feel so miserable and weak on the fast days. So far in three weeks I have lost 8 lbs. I have realised something important.  I now see that on a normal day I graze so much that if I caught the eye of a farmer he'd put a tag in my ear and pull me in for milking.

All the same, today is a big eat day. Oooh - steak and kidney pie with chips! That's what I call a diet. Tomorrow is an anchovy fillet and a carrot baton for lunch followed by an air kiss and a glass of water for dinner. Talking of air kisses let me just say that a certain amount of gas can arise.......oooh - I don't want to think about it. To be fair, my impression is that this regime does work. If you're on it too please let me know your experiences.

Far more pleasure has flowed from my reading "Never Alone" by Linn Halton (Amazon.com) (Amazon UK). I've posted my review and you can see it below.

Until I read "Never Alone" I had never considered that what we call paranormal might in fact be more normal than our conditioned tendency to ignore what we call intuition. At first Holly and her partner Will have a beautiful and successful life. Holly's encounter with a mysterious supernatural entity poses a problem in their lives far beyond the trauma of the incident itself. She is forced to examine her values and her own true character. She finds a new companionship with with a completely different group of people who appreciate her mysterious talent for spiritual consciousness. She begins to see the flaws in her life of materialistic ambition. Understandably, her new behaviour perplexes those around her and conflicts multiply as the action proceeds. Finally, of course she makes choices whilst the narrative explores her reconciliation with the idea of contact with "the other side" as a natural part of her life. Just at the point where you can see the story playing out to a predictable outcome based on what you thought you understood - it doesn't!
This is a good well paced read. The characters are believable and very much of our current times. The author has a light touch which makes the book very easy to read. I enjoyed "Never Alone" and for me it merits a five star rating.

Emma Thinx: Too much moral fibre can blow your mind.

Watercolour Postcard From Saint Savinien

A River Runs Through It

Oh - do we have eau! Saint Savinien carries the tag line - village between water and stone. Well dear me - there sure is water and luckily plenty of stone for folk to stand on. Although I have not seen a drop of rain myself, the natives assure me that it only stopped about an hour before I arrived. Not even a cloud has entered my sky but seemingly this has been one of the wettest ever winters. Last year was definitely the coldest ever. Oooh - I'm starting to sound like some old granny over the garden fence.

Relax - put your feet up. 

Nothing can hide the beauty of this place and a slight surplus of water merely adds to the quality of reflected light. It is oddly comforting for me to know that the only way to travel between the village of Taillebourg and the opposite bank of La Charente is by means of a causeway built by the Romans using hand tools, eye sight and pots of red wine. The tarmac road built by helmeted sober technoids with lasers and 4G connection to Head Office is under water and crumbled into pebbles. It  fully exonerates my Luddite follicles. 

Time to reflect.while reflecting on Time.

Which one is the real me?

The French were of course, never conquered by Les Romans. They were merely a band of heavily armed civil engineers who were allowed to stay on condition that they did some building work in exchange for the recipe for Moules Marinieres. Believe me, the Romans got a good deal.

 Oooh - last night we had the neighbours in for a sea food blow out. Today I feel like the last of the red hot mollusc mamas. If you've not tried harissa paste cuisine get some and get stuck in! I was gonna ask for advice on pruning my vines......but in the end I chickened out. I can't deal with information overload. Vine pruning is a kinda genetic gift from the jolly green Gallo-God. I got up and just had a chop. Usually I do Oscar's hair. He's getting a bit woody but still alive. 

Baguette in the flow of life  in search of a back story

When I was a young temp in London I once worked in the art world. I actually helped to organise a surrealist exhibition. It was a difficult job because the gallery owner thought he was a fish and only communicated in speech bubbles. I made up the last sentence because I've allowed a couple of glasses of Chablis to pass my lips. The memory entered my sozzled brain as I snapped a passing baguette. You know in any narrative there is the problem of back story....


Emma Thinx: Stop wine on empty stomachs. Prohibit stomachs.

Springtime Postcard From Saint Savinien

My wonderful home.

I cannot hide my joy at just being alive here in France. Springtime is special of course, wherever you are. It represents something of a forgiveness to me - that the great generous heart of the universe has  once again let me have its warmth. Surely, this is how pagan folk must have felt.

Brave tiny blooms - your beauty is stronger than my self important life

Oh - thank you thank you for your gorgeous push and pulse

I set out into Saint Savinien with my camera to take some pix of the first push of Spring. Oooh - it made me feel quite frisky - and at my age....no risky. God knows how many progeny I would have borne if I'd not lived in Republic Bar of  Urbania.  Springtime in South London was when they changed the revolving lamb kebab lump-a-stuff in the Istanbul Delite Tonite Takeaway window.  Here, the season pushes out its cry of new life. It's orgasmic and I love it! 

So, all in all it's romantic novelist and poet goes OTT with vernal lust. Here are a few images:

Reach and reach and reach and reach. I offer only my open shouting beauty. I AM ALIVE.

LOOK AT ME - I AM A MIRACLE

You just cannot beat these simple little blooms. I think of them as cherub kisses planted with a wink. Oh - joy joy joy!

Emma Thinx: Life sometimes shit. You always seed. GROW!

My Valentine Love Poem

A a writer of Romance, Valentine's day is kinda like Christmas eve in Walmart and Santa's place at the North Pole. I am a real sucker for Saint Valentine's day. Well, yes I know all the teddy bears, hearts, flowers and chocolates are a commerce-fest crossed with an orgy of kitsch. 

Yet, among it all the festival has that wonderful power to give permission for anyone to go completely over the top in the knowledge that.....you just cannot go over the top. No rose is too red, no teddy bear is too big, no card has too much sentiment. 

It was in this frame of mind that I have written my Valentine's love poem. I write of love because I have had much of it and of course, it not all hearts and flowers. But when it is - then it is the most wonderful and dizzying thing in this universe. I have said in a previous Emma Thinx - anyone who can talk sensibly of love is not in it. On Valentine's day, the gloves are off and the wits are out. Why be sensible or bother with taste when you can let go and love?

Emma Thinx: If you can't exaggerate your fantasy - it's love.