A dip into British slang today. The word puddled is one I haven’t heard in a long time but was brought to my notice by Tony Bushell and his excellent anorthernsoulweb blog. As fellow northerners (North of England), Tony and I heard this said so many times during our formative years. So, for today I need to take you to a new source and that is peevish.co.uk: Adj. 1. Confused. See ‘puddle’. 2. Eccentric, insane. And puddle? Noun. A mess, a confused state. E.g.”Sorry, I’ve been in a bit of puddle since the party. I drank far too much.” You can follow how it was used back in the UK. Usually in reacting to a statement that you disagreed with as in, “You’re puddled!” Some… Read More
Expat In Bacolod
Stephen Bentley - Writer
Yet another short story by ‘G.’ I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. The Philippines has talent! “Next!” The person next to me nudges me, “That’s you.” “Sorry, not thinking too clearly.” Friendly hands guide me along to the voice. One of them tells me to take a seat, that I should answer the questions as quickly as possible, because there was a major accident on I-75 and things are backed up. “Mr. Ted Jacob Anderson?” comes through an intercom. “Yes, sir” “Mr. Anderson, this is Michael. I’ll be processing you. Did you get your photo ID at the gates?” “What gates?” “The ones you passed through at 09:19 hundred hours.” I feel for my watch; it’s not there. “I don’t remember… Read More
As a blogger who blogs about Bacolod (and other things) I am often approached by complete strangers from all over the world who ask me questions about Bacolod, either because they are thinking of moving here or relocating for work reasons. These are some of the most frequently asked questions about Bacolod (in no particular order): Can I watch English football on the TV in Bacolod? Yes! BeinSports channels have now reached Bacolod at long last. You need a SkyCable subscription and the BeinSports channels is an add-on package for Php 500 per month. You receive all the English Premier League games that are shown live back in the UK plus some more with 3 p.m. UK KO times. In addition there is full coverage… Read More
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea by Geoffrey Brooke My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is truly a remarkable story. In fact it is several remarkable stories resulting from the author’s career in the British Royal Navy from pre-WW2 1939 to the end of WW2 in 1945. It is remarkable and fascinating. So fascinating that I read all 288-pages of the hardcover version inside two days. I simply could not put it down! The author’s easy writing style certainly assists as the story gallops along from one life-threatening incident to another, and some of them were not related to ships or the sea. I seriously wonder whether the world will ever see another generation of young men like Geoffrey… Read More
This post first appeared on the Stephen Bentley – Author website. “Don’t create!” Where I come from it means stop making a fuss, stop arguing, even “calm down.” The time has arrived for me to “create stop creating.” I know a comma was missing there. Please excuse that as it was omitted for SEO reasons 🙂 I need to create and crack on with writing both of my works in progress. One a detective novel and the other the “faction” book about my grandfather’s Royal Navy career. Indeed the future is rosy because I have a collaboration in mind for a second fiction novel co-written with an author friend who has previously published a thriller novel. So where does the “stop creating” come into play?… Read More
Otiose is the choice for today’s Word Wednesday and, as is often the case, the word came to me as I was writing a piece elsewhere. Otiose is a word much-used by judges and lawyers and is often used as a device to spell out that the argument being advanced, legal or on the facts, is a load of baloney. So professionally polite! Merriam-Webster says this: adjective oti·ose \ˈō-shē-ˌōs, ˈō-tē-\ Popularity: Bottom 50% of words Definition of otiose 1 : producing no useful result : futile 2 : being at leisure : idle 3 : lacking use or effect : functionless otiosely adverb otioseness noun otiosity \ˌō-shē-ˈä-sə-tē, ˌō-tē-\ noun Examples of otiose in a sentence <since you haven’t read the book, I suppose that it… Read More
Kindle Price Increase – Undercover: Operation Julie – The Inside Story A subscriber email went out a short time ago to inform all my email followers that a Kindle price increase was imminent. Much to my amazement Amazon implemented this increase almost immediately after I notified them. Changes usually take at least 12 hours to kick in. The point is, first of all I’m sorry if you missed out on the lower price. But don’t despair as subscribers will be exclusively notified of any countdown deal (discount period) in the coming months. I do plan at least one. So check your emails from me to stay tuned and don’t miss out again. Take care! 🙂 PS The increase was to move away from the heavily… Read More
Expat in Bacolod is the name of this blog and this is a slightly tongue in cheek post. Some of you, not many, have commented that it’s not all about Bacolod and the Philippines. Correct! It’s about an expat in Bacolod, me, and I happen to be a writer these days hence the sub-title under the title of the blog. I would dearly love to write every single post about Bacolod as it’s a wonderful place with wonderful people (the City of Smiles) and it’s the principal city of a beautiful island, Negros Island. I have said it before and here goes again, I love it here. But look, I can’t write every single day about Bacolod because it’s where I now live. It’s an… Read More
The post below first appeared on the Stephen Bentley – Author website. As a regular reader of my blog here, you may wonder why I sometimes reproduce articles from my author site here. The answer is straightforward. It is to enable my Weekly Newsletter to include articles like this into the news feed for the newsletter. You then have a choice. when opening the Newsletter email once a week, to read any article that piques your interest and ignore those that don’t 🙂 Please also note comments are not open here. If you wish to comment and join the debate, please click this link to go to my author website where you may say your piece. Thank you. This article continues the series of posts… Read More
Some of you may have noticed earlier today you were redirected to my author website as this blog was under temporay maintenance. The end result is a slightly newish look. I was trying out a new theme to refresh the look of the site but it didn’t quite look right so back to the old theme but with a different header image. This time showing a scene from the Philippines. A new theme will arrive soon but when, I could not say with any certainty. Anyway the news and the new era is ushered in by announcing the winner of the last and final competition to win my new book: Tralla .. the winner is Tony Bushell! Congrats Tony! And thanks for being a loyal… Read More
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