Authors Electric

My partner keeps his brain alive - his expression - by playing Scrabble.      He's only been playing the game for about a year, but he took to it ferociously and now plays every chance he gets. He even plays against himself.       He joined his local U3A and their unsuspecting Scrabble-arm made him welcome - since then he's beaten them all, even their best player, monotonously, like gongs. And by 'beaten', I mean by over 300 points.      In self-defense, they brought in rules such as: No cheating by using the official Scrabble dictionary instead of an old Concise Collins without a cover, published in the 1940s. And then: No looking things up in dictionaries.      It did them no good. He's simply memorised all the allowable two and three letter words, and all the allowable words containing 'U', such as: usufruct : the right to enjoy the use of another's property, so long as it's not damaged or destroyed, and ...

"I don’t think those dogs ever mistook me for their master. They were good herd-dogs and I think they knew exactly what I was — a little calf, lost from the herd. A lost little pup wandering loose. They knew that what they had to do was take me in charge, and herd me along, and watch over me, until they had brought me somewhere safe." It’s a long way home — from East to West across Scotland’s mountains and lochs.           Sandy’s mother is desperate for money. So she ‘bonds’ ten-year-old Sandy to a wealthy farmer until he’s twenty-one.           Sandy is miserable — bullied, ill-fed and beaten. He runs home, and is heart-broken when his mother makes him return, to another beating.           So Sandy runs away, though he fears he will be caught and hung for breaking his bond. Alone, on the road, he longs for a safe, lovin...