Authors Electric

  Martial eagle I’ve written about travel writing here before, and there’s a bit of a crossover as most of the wildlife that has excited me has been abroad. It’s the spectacular stuff that grabs the attention, and it’s incidents rather than the stamp-collecting of many trips which are the most interesting. I’ve recently got back from South Africa, but these days due to arthritis I have had to limit what I can do. I went with Titan, a sister company to Saga, and it includes a pick-up and a drop-off to your door and an all-inclusive package at a single centre base, with two safaris a day. Ground floor accommodation, no stressful walks, and special assistance at airports. Very tame compared with what I’ve done before. The holiday was primarily aimed at seeing the Big Five which I’ve seen many times before. It’s nearly always the Big Four, of course, as leopards are notoriously elusive. But this time I was interested in the birds, and clocked up 42 new species, which you can do painles...

DEATH BY ALAN RICKMAN--by Reb MacRath Here's something different for my September blog: a sampling from my new Substack thread called Muggability Blues. The thread's unifying theme is not only mugging but other threats of  our time, energy, confidence, joy, etc. And each month has four entries: one discussing Danger, one a personal Disclosure related to the first post, a third post detailing Defenses, and a fourth sharing Resources. This second September entry should be of interest to my British friends. And next month I'll write about my Substack lessons and challenges so far. Without further ado, this is for anyone who's been killed  by Alan Rickman.  MUGGABILITY BLUES September DISCLOSURE: Alan Rickman Kills Me When He Loves My Suit D. F. Cotter Sep 08, 2026 In Die Hard , CEO Joseph Takagi lives a while longer after Hans Gruber admires his suit…but I’ve always been a sucker for a plummy British accent. And if Hans had said ‘Nice suit’ to me, even while holding a gun,...

 Mine was Tom Robbins. The sticker of Tom Robbins stuck on my computer stand. This was not because I thought Tom Robbins had a hot bod or face. I don't remember ever giving much thought to whether he was physically attractive at all. His  writing  was hot. And funny. Funny has always been dangerous for me. I have been "in love" with many funny men who have not much to recommend them in the looks department. Make me laugh, though, and apparently my standards become extremely negotiable. I wanted to live inside the strange, funny, sexy world of Robbins' books. More specifically, I wanted to be a character in one. And eventually, somewhere between the sentences and the weirdness and the sheer pleasure of encountering a mind that did not seem to travel by any of the usual roads, I developed a crush on the man who was making all of it up. “Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice.” Learning mo...

It’s raining in Montana so I’ve not been able to ride the Sacred Trails. We’re staying in Glacier Park Lodge - alias Big Tree Lodge. It’s constructed on a framework of enormous trees, Douglas Firs, estimated to be 500-800 years old when they were felled, more than one hundred years ago. Big Tree Lodge is built on land purchased from the Blackfeet Nation by James J. Hill, ‘the Empire Builder’, boss of the Great Northern Railway. He had to go to Congress for permission to buy the land but the anxious 21st century reader can’t help wondering, and worrying, how much say the Blackfeet leaders will have had in this arrangement? The railway was already running through their territory, it had brought in miners and homesteaders, now Hill planned this lodge for holiday-makers, visitors from the cities to explore the beautiful landscape. The concept of the National Parks was still new, Glacier Park, the tenth to be established, was signed into law by President Taft in 1910. People could buy a per...

   There’s been a distinct lack of writing time over the last couple of months. Partly technical issues, and partly that wonderful thing called life getting in the way. We’ve just spent the last few days moving my eldest into accommodation at university. She’s going to be an Occupational Therapist, but the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of packing up boxes and, in terms of writing, the nearest I’ve managed to get is a couple of recipes and some instructions for the microwave and cooker… I’ve also dredged my memory to advise on the joys of academic writing (because ‘You write stuff, so you know how to do essays’, apparently). I even found a copy of an old guide to how to correctly reference sources and after a quick review and update, gave them that. Fingers crossed it helps, as otherwise I can see me spending the next few months going over Harvard Referencing – not really my idea of fun. The technical side has been more frustrating. As I’m moving away f...

  Edinburgh in August These days I don't tend to venture into the centre of Edinburgh very often, and I must admit I've been even less tempted than usual in recent weeks because Princes Street, which has been a main thoroughfare for centuries as well as a shopping street, has been closed to traffic, even buses and trams. This was because of a major fire there which left a derelict building in danger of collapsing into the street below. I don't know what the crowds of Festival tourists thought of this, though I know some local people were greatly inconvenienced by the changes to transport routes. My son, who lives at one side of town and works at the other, has probably been spending about an hour more than usual on buses, which hasn't been much fun, especially on the hottest days (yes, the temperature went as high as 25 degrees on occasion, and we just aren't used to it!). Apologies for the unseasonal picture! It isn't actually snowing here as I write. However, ...