A Book and a Chat with "Julia Hoban"

There are some guests that one has on a radio program that you just can't get enough of, that you want to chat away for hours two, or as in the case of my special guest on "A Book and a Chat" you ask back for second or third appearances.

Today I am so please to have as my guest on the show "Julia Hoban", author of the fantastic novel "WILLOW", which wile produced as a YA novel has been enjoyed, as Julia explains during the show by readers of all ages, not just in the America's but now all over the world.

As always Julia provided a fascinating incite not only to the latest news about her book, but in the art of writing, something that will be of interest and I hope help many inspiring authors.

Not only that, but Julia kindly set up a competition for me to run on my blog, details of which can be found towards the end of this blog..

Also during tonight's entertaining show, we heard about the books success around the world from already being on its second print in Spain, to being launched in Germany, China and Taiwan. The book is also being launched in the UK this month though under a different name, becoming "SCARRED" a name which in many ways describes the book better than Willow"

As part of the pre-launch work in the UK Julia shared with us a wonderful article, she wrote for the The Daily Telegraph, one of the top newspapers in Britain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/shoppingandfashion/7369893/The-power-of-a-parasol.html

The show was littered with interesting incites and anecdotes, which was enjoyed by all those who were listening or in the chat room, and is sure to be a much followed up show.

HERE ARE THE CONTEST DETAILS:

"In Willow there are references to several books, all except one of these books actually exist, though some might be not that easy to find online.

QUESTION: What is the one book mentioned in Willow whose name Julia made up?

The contest will close this Friday March 12th, with the winning entry receiving a $25 Barnes and Noble voucher. Entries must be made in the blog comments area on my main site.

(http://abookandachat.blogspot.com).

So listen to the show or down load the link for a very enjoyable forty-five minutes on "A Book and a Chat with Julia Hoban"

Oh... and don't forget to enter the contest!

Barry

Direct Link:
"A Book and a Chat with Julia Hoban"

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"Julia Hoban"


Barry Eva (Storyheart)

The Weather, Guests and Childrens Stories

Somebody remarked at work today, that I should be used to all the wet weather we've been having so far in Connecticut this so called Summer.

While perhaps once upon a time it was true that the UK did get a lot of rain and perhaps not as hot a summers as in the US, with the climate change those days are gone.

Throughout the 90's and early part of this decade, in the South of England, we had drouts and hosepipe bans (means you can't water your garden). We had many Summers where the temperature was hotter than many places in the Mediterranean.

An article on today,.s BBC states... "The UK needs to plan now for a future that will be hotter and bring greater extremes of flood and drought." The fact that there's also been Tornado's of sorts in the UK over the last few years. Perhaps it's my country that will have to get used to American weather.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8107014.stm

A BOOK AND A CHAT

Guest for the next few weeks on my Radio Show are:

June 20th Joan Early
June 23rd Nancy Thayer
June 27th Kim Smith
June 30th Alley – Humor and Pencaps (blogger)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Across-the-Pond




FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES:



THE THREE CURSES OF RIBANIA

http://romance2read.com/sirpot.mp3

PETER AND KINGS TEAPOT

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ov5xU7BcvE

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHH6kxD


SIR POT AND THE GOAT

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXABQ3T7cj0

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae4ZFHsLN6Y

I do so hope you enjoy them



Author of Young Adult Romance/Fiction book
"Across the Pond"

Storyhearts Sunday UK Blog - Gomsmacked, Bobbies or an Arm and a Leg

For this Sunday I'm going into not one but three saying that are used in every day English.

GOBSMACKED

What is the meaning of the word "Gobsmacked"?

Unlike many of these sayings this caught on in the 1980's it tends to have it's origins in the Liverpool area, where "gob" was a term for mouth. "Shut your gob" was a term telling people to keep their mouth shut.

One of the main people that brought "gobsmack' to the general public, was Liverpool singer and TV hosts Cilla Black. Who in her TV show "Surprise, Surprise" used the word frequently to describe a person who was lost for words. A little like a "a smack in the gob" (punch in the mouth) would leave a person struggling for words. The word is now a general part of the English language meaning "completely lost for words".

BOBBIES

Why are English policeman called "Bobbies"?

It is derived from Robert Peel (Bobby being the usual nickname for Robert) the founder of the Metropolitan Police and to the pay a police officer got in Peel's day; 'one bob a week'. (term for an old English shilling)

This is not now widely used in Britain, though it can occur with a mixture of affection and slight irony in the phrase "village bobby", nowadays referring to the local community police officer. The term "Bobby on the beat" is often used in politics in reference to return to more community based policing including foot patrols by one local officer (bobby) of a his own small area (beat). In Britain, volunteer Auxiliary Constables are sometimes referred to as Hobby Bobbies.

COSTING AND ARM AND A LEG

Where does the term "to cost and arm and a leg" come from?"

To Cost and Arm and a Leg means that something is expensive - very expensive, not just expensive though, but excessively so.

There are several possible origins for this saying however the most common belief is from the 1800's. When people commissioned portraits it would have been a lot cheaper to have a painting done of just your head and shoulders. To get your whole body painted would have been many times more expensive. Thus to cost an arm and a leg.
It is said this is why nearly every picture of George Washington for instance either has him standing behind a desk (no legs) or with one arm behind his back.

So there we are another few terms for you which I hope you enjoyed.




Author of Young Adult Romance/Fiction book
Across the Pond
http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com/
http://across-t-pond.com


OTHER SUNDAY UK BLOGSABOUT

THE GRAND NATIONAL
WHY UK DRIVES ON THE LEFT
MOTHERS DAY ACROSS THE POND
ABOUT THE UNION JACK
ENGLISHMANS VIEW ON BASEBALL
WHAT IS BOXING DAY
BRITISH TV TRANSPLANTS
WHO WAS SAINT GEORGE?
BOBS YOUR UNCLE
SWEET FANNY ADAMS
EUROPE'S GOT TALENT - WELL PERHAPS

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

It is amazing to think that November 11 2008 represents the 90th anniversary of the end of ‘the war to end all wars’. Britain lost almost a million men during this war. A million sons. Think about that for a second when you are having a bad day because the fax machine is jammed.
Sixty-four years after the end of the Second World War, still secrets and incidents are making headlines and news.

A few years ago, a man in Australia, weighed down by some harrowing psychological and emotional baggage finally divulged fragments of his life that he kept hidden for decades.

Revealing to friends and family, how he, at the age of five, he had been adopted by the SS and became a Nazi mascot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6945847.stm

In April this year another secret was discovered, when builders found a bottle had been left in the cement of a bunker near the Auschwitz camp. The message, written in pencil and dated 9 September 1944, bears names, camp numbers and home towns of seven young inmates from Poland and France. When it investigated it was found that not only did three of the names on the paper live through the holocaust, one is still alive today and living in the south of France.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8022860.stm

On April the 21st a wail of sirens brought Israel to a standstill on Tuesday morning for a two-minute silence to remember the victims of the Holocaust. Six million Jews were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust during WWII. Yet there are an estimated 250,000 Holocaust survivors still alive and living in Israel, many however below the poverty line.

Now this month, Pope Benedict XVI has condemned those that deny the holocaust actually happened. He said the suffering of Holocaust victims must never be denied as he visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

I well remember back in 1973 when the British television (ITV) aired what was to be the first of 26 episodes of “THE WORLD AT WAR”. And how my parents wanted us to see the programs that did not glorify the war but showed it all as it happened, including the terrible scenes as the troops first entered the concentration camps and what they found.

World at War is actually rated in the top twenty British television programs of all time.

So I for one am glad that from time to time, news filters through from the past to keep us remembering about all that went on all those years ago.

As Laurence Binyon wrote in his poem “For the Fallen”

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

STORYHEARTS SUNDAY UK BLOG – SWEET FANNY ADAMS

SWEET FANNY ADAMS


The expression "Sweet Fanny Adams" refers to her and has come, through British naval slang "nothing at all". Though the expression started to be used around 1867, it was not until 1919 in a book of WW1 soldier clang that we come across the first recorded the link between F.A. (meaning 'f*** all') and Fanny Adams.

So where did the term originate in the first place?

The term actually comes from a quite horrific murder of 8 year old Fanny Adams on 24th August 1867.

THE CRIME:

On 24 August 1867 at about 1.30 pm, Fanny's mother, Harriet Adams, let Fanny and her friend Millie Warner (both 8 years old) and Fanny's sister Lizzie (aged 7) go up Tanhouse Lane towards Flood Meadow. In the lane they met Frederick Baker, a 24-year-old solicitor's clerk. Baker offered Millie and Lizzie three halfpence to go and spend and offered Fanny a halfpenny to accompany him towards Shalden, a couple of miles north of Alton. She took the coin but refused to go. He carried her into a hop field, out of sight of the other girls.

At about 5 pm, Millie and Lizzie returned home. Neighbor, Mrs Gardiner asked them where Fanny was, and they told her what had happened. Mrs Gardiner told Mrs Adams, and they went up the lane, where they came upon Baker coming back. They questioned him and he said he had given the girls money for sweets, but that was all. His respectability meant the women let him go on his way.

At about 7 pm Fanny was still missing, and neighbors went searching. They found Fanny's body in the hop field, horribly butchered. Her head and legs had been severed and her eyes put out. Her torso had been emptied and her organs scattered. Her remains were taken to a nearby doctor's surgery, where over several days the body was put back together. (The surgery is now a pub called the "Ye Olde Leathern Bottle" and is believed to be haunted by the little girl.)

Mrs Adams ran to tell her husband, what had happened. He went and got his shotgun from home and set off to find the perpetrator, but neighbors stopped him.
That Baker was arrested at his place of work (a solicitors). He was led through an angry mob to the police station. There was blood on his shirt and trousers, which he could not explain, but he protested his innocence. He was searched and found to have two small blood-stained knives on him.

Witnesses put Baker in the area, returning to his office at about 3 pm, then going out again. Baker's workmate, fellow clerk Maurice Biddle, reported that, when drinking in the Swan that evening, Baker had said he might leave town. When Biddle replied that he might have trouble getting another job, Baker said, chillingly with hindsight, "I could go as a butcher".

On 26 August, the police found Baker's diary in his office. It contained a damning entry:

24th August, Saturday — killed a young girl. It was fine and hot.

At his trial on 5 December, the defense contested Millie Warner's identification of Baker and claimed the knives found were too small for the crime anyway. They also argued insanity: Baker's father had been violent, a cousin had been in asylums, his sister had died of a brain fever and he himself had attempted suicide after a love affair.

The judge invited the jury to consider a verdict of not responsible by reason of insanity, but they returned a guilty verdict after just fifteen minutes.

On Christmas Eve, Baker was hanged outside Winchester Jail. The crime had become notorious and a crowd of 5,000 attended the execution.

THE PHRASE:

So how does this link to the current usage of the term?

In 1869 new rations of tinned mutton were introduced for British seamen. They were unimpressed by it, and decided it must be the butchered remains of Fanny Adams. The way her body had been strewn over a wide area presumably encouraged speculation that parts of her had been found at the Navy victualling yard in Deptford.

With typical grisly humor, they sailors came to use the expression “Sweet Fanny Adams” to refer to these unpleasant meat rations, meaning worthless, which changed to mean “nothing at all”



Author of Young Adult Romance/Fiction book
Across the Pond
http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com/
http://across-t-pond.com



OTHER BLOGS ABOUT GREAT BRITAIN:


THE GRAND NATIONAL

WHY UK DRIVES ON THE LEFT

MOTHERS DAY ACROSS THE POND

ABOUT THE UNION JACK

ENGLISHMANS VIEW ON BASEBALL

WHAT IS BOXING DAY

BRITISH TV TRANSPLANTS

WHO WAS SAINT GEORGE?

BOBS YOUR UNCLE

WHY THE UK DRIVES ON THE LEFT

One of the first things anybody notices or remarks about when traveling in the UK is the fact that we drive on the left hand side of the road. However there is history and reasoning behind this.

In days of old logic dictated that when people passed each other on the road they should be in the best possible position to use their sword to protect them selves. As most people are right handed they therefore keep to their left.

This custom was given official sanction in 1300 AD, when Pope Boniface VIII invented the modern science of traffic control by declaring that pilgrims headed to Rome should “keep left”.

Nothing much changed until 1773 when an increase in horse traffic forced the UK Government to introduce the General Highways Act of 1773 which contained a keep left recommendation. This became a law as part of the Highways Bill in 1835.

Reasons to travel on the right are less clear but the generally accepted version of history is as follows: The French, being Catholics, followed Pope Boneface's edict but in the build up to the French Revolution in 1790 the French Aristocracy drove their carriages at great speed on the left hand side of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right side for their own safety. Come the Revolution, instincts of self preservation resulted in the remains of the Aristocracy joining the peasants on the right hand side of the road.

Another reason was that when teamsters in the United States and France began hauling farm products in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses.

These wagons had no driver's seat. Instead the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team.

Since you were sitting on the left, naturally you wanted everybody to pass on the left so you could look down and make sure you kept clear of the other guy's wheels. Ergo, you kept to the right side of the road.

The first known keep-right law in the U.S. was enacted in Pennsylvania in 1792, and in the ensuing years many states and Canadian provinces followed suit.

In France the keep-right custom was established in much the same way. An added impetus was that, this being the era of the French Revolution and all, people figured, “hey, no pope is going tell ME what to do.”

Later Napoleon enforced the keep-right rule in all countries occupied by his armies. The custom endured even after the empire was destroyed.

Britain's imperial expansion (all of the pink bits on old maps) spread the keep left rule far and wide. This included India, Australasia and much of Africa (Although many countries have since changed to driving on the right when they became independent).

So why then, even in England, do boats keep right?
Good question with no clear answer, the favorite theory goes back to the fact that most people are right handed, if that was the case and if the boat was propelled and steered in the same way as a punt then you would want to sit on the right hand side and steer with a pole or board (might be where the word starboard comes from). If this is the case then you would keep to the right so that it is easier to reach the bank.

RADIO POD CAST

Check out today’s enjoyable interview “A Book and a Chat” with award winning author Joyce A. Stengel

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Across-the-Pond


MY LATEST BLOG RADIO APPEARANCE

My latest radio appearance at thegrits.com

http://www.thegrits.com/radio/?p=77


AMAZON REVIEWS:

No new reviews to let you know about you can read the 58 reviews for Across the Pond – by Storyheart at Amazon at… http://tinyurl.com/d6547j

Storyheart
Across the Pond
http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com/
http://across-t-pond.com