Tag Archives: WP

A Red Letter Day

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The two pens together. The third proved to be a faulty piece of wood and broke on the lathe.

Furious does not begin to sum up exactly how I feel after once again losing part of the post when trying to insert a photograph. This happens more and more and even though I take care with it, it still seems to happen. I am left with the impression that each year I pay more money for a slightly worse service. 

It's the same the whole world over,
it's the poor that gets the blame,
it's the rich that get's the pleasure,
ain't it a bleedin' shame?

I woke up twice in the night with snatches of this post ready written. Once it was a chorus from a music hall song and the second time it was the word “mephitic” though in both cases they were also accompanied by searing prose. Of course, on waking properly, the prose had become less searing and after several attempts I gave up. Actually, when I think about it, I may have dreamt the prose.

Compared to my normal Parker

The skill I need to develop is not the ability to write hard-hitting political blog posts, but the wisdom to know I can’t write them and shouldn’t try.

The first good news on WP was that Laurie Graves came back a while ago. She had gone over to just posting on Facebook, which is always a problem. I am on Facebook for the numismatics but as I read some of the stuff that people post (not Laurie of course) I feel my intelligence slowly leaking out. Why is it that idiots always want to share their opinions? 

Then, a few weeks ago, Clare Pooley turned up. I don’t, of course, have favourite bloggers, because you are all good in different ways, but Clare does live in a particularly attractive county. The clue is in the blog name. Not saying Suffolk is nicer than Maine, where Laurie comes from, but the winters are shorter and the snow is less deep, both qualities I admire in a winter.

This is the one I chose. It sits nicely in the hand.

Finally, today, I find that Charlie Robinson is back. Writer, runner, reprobate and raconteur. Just published his second novel, blogging again, it’s good to see him back. I always admired his haircut and now have one to match.

So, with three classic bloggers back in the fold, that has given me something cheerful to write about. I will do pictures of the famous pen in a minute and see what you think.

The pens are the two that survived the penmaking process, the third blank proved to have an internal fault, which was annoying because it didn’t show until it was almost finished. That’s wood for you. Mine writes nicely and fits well in my hand – I am enjoying using it.

 

The Story So Far

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I’m not quite sure what to write about now. Covid is passing, I slept well last night and am feeling better today, though still have a streaming cold. Also still a little vague, having lost two pairs of glasses, a box of pills and all my spare handkerchiefs.

The main topic is that WP is still playing up after three days. I will answer comments then, sometimes (annoyingly not every time) an answer will refuse to load. At one point I lost all the replies from that session. It was about twenty minutes work – not a tragedy, but still a matter of great irritation. Experience shows that this heralds a new, and inaccurately named,  “improvement”.

I’m currently stuck again. Pressing the button to send a reply to Derrick resulted in a small circle going endlessly round and round. I reloaded, I switched off and started again, I pressed various random things and now it is still sitting there circling. That’s been about an hour now.

If there was a serious alternative I would use it, but as nothing seems quite as good there’s no point changing. Although I enjoy it, I sometimes wish I’d never started.

Meanwhile, I have now made 11 submissions this month. I may go on to do another and, even another, depending on how superstitious I am feeling. Alternatively, I may leave the 13th until next month – they are one of the few magazines that does not use a submission window system and it can then be number one of the new month. Next month, has very few places to submit to, so I will mainly be writing in preparation for December, which is another bumper month for submissions. I already have twelve noted. In comparison I have three noted for October and one for November. I must look harder.

I already have acceptances for this month, so something is going right. I’m hoping there will be a few more once the window closes.

Well, that’s it for now.  No change at WP – my replies still aren’t loading. Very irritating.

 

A Jumble of Tedium

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I had a note from WP the other day congratulating me on posting three days in a row. This puzzled me as I have done more than three days in  a row on many occasions and they have never bothered to congratulate me. have any other regular writers out there had a similar message, and did you think it was strange?

They have probably been on a training course to teach them how to be empathetic. Unlike their new editing system, which as you know, I consider to be merely pathetic.

Today, in a distinct absence of orders from eBay, I put 16 more pieces of sheet music on eBay and then moved on to maps. WE now have over 1,300 items of stock on eBay and we are going through all the boxes of junk and having a push at getting rid of it. It’s a welcome break from Elvis coins, but that’s about the best you can say for it.

When I got home (it’s now taking three times as long as it did before lockdown ended) I found I had two letters. One is from the NHS, and is an example of how to use a lot of words, and create confusion. In summary, it says thank you for filling in a recent questionnaire and could I now fill in a new one as they are testing the reliability of the questionnaire design. The trouble is that I don’t think I filled the last one in. It can be confusing to a man who doesn’t concentrate.. I’ve done two online surveys too. I think I blogged about one of them. I’m doing three surveys on a regular basis, one of them monthly, and I can no longer remember who they are for.