Chickle!

I know folk get tired of being sent jokes via the Interweb, especially ones that have been doing the rounds for yonks, but this one made me splutter coffee over the keyboard. So thank you Ginny, for this little gem:

Yesterday I was at my local Co-op buying a large bag of Purina dog food for my loyal pet and was in the checkout queue when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.
What did she think I had, an elephant?

So, since I'm retired and have little to do, on impulse I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the Purina Diet again. I added that I probably shouldn't, because I ended up in hospital last time, but that I'd lost 2 stones before I woke up in intensive care with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well and I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in queue was now enthralled with my story.) Horrified, she asked me if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's arse and a car hit us both.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard.

I'm now banned from the Co-op.

Better watch what you ask retired people. They have all the time in the world to think of daft things to say.

Website makeover

Been fiddling about with the website, yet again. Not this one, the other one.

I'd been using Trellix site builder for some years but then tried to migrate to their new web builder with disastrous results. I lost half the content - my fault, I'm sure. But anyway, then one of my writer friends, Jill Steeples, told me about Moonfruit and how easy it was. I agree. Much easier! And I don't have to pay to get adverts removed either!

So, if you click here or on the link at the top of this page it should take you to my nice new site. Similar content to the old one, just a bit smarter..but that's only my opinion ;0)

I think I've done everything necessary to divert traffic from my old site to the new one but apparently it can take a while for it all to kick in...or whatever the techie term is. And then there's the wait for Google and other search engines to crawl all over it and gather up keywords and other important techie stuff.

Have you created a Mary-Sue or a Gary-Stu?

If you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, don't worry, I'd never heard of it either, but apparently, in literary criticism, a'Mary-Sue'is a fictional character the writer has created who...you know what, I really can't be bothered to explain so here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

A Mary Sue (or Gary Stu), is a character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as 'Mary Sues' is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the 'Mary Sue' character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an 'author's pet'.


Someone has even devised what is known as The Mary-Sue Litmus Test. Be warned, it's awfully long.

Did I learn anything from it? Well, not really. It's a basic principle when creating characters. Make them likeable, well-drawn and not cliched...end of. Simples!