Suz’s Space Blog

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Suz's Space Blog

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The current is one actually from last year but it’s current enough. The first thing I noticed is that it’s all in colour while the one from 1977 is mostly in black and white with a few ads in colours, I bet those colour ads cost the earth. In 2009 there were nine articles about famous people and each one was fairly lengthy, going into great detail about what they do, why they’re famous and why they’re in this issue while 1977 only had three articles and some of the articles were about multiple people. Each one only had one article on ordinary people and Mere Male was prevalent in both. Four pages of mindgames in 2009 with none in 1977, four pages of recipes in 2009 and only three in 1977, one page of letters in each issue. Two beauty article in 2009 and only one in 1977. 2009 there were two articles about animals and seven miscellaneous articles while in 1977 there was one article about plants, two craft articles, one about medical issues, one fiction story and an eight page liftout about baby care.

I noticed 1977 has a lot more variety and their word count looks to be higher per article than 2009. They have few pictures and lots of words while 2009 has a large picture with most articles. The articles are also far more people friendly and less sensationalist. In 1977 there was an article about a Federal Minister’s wife balancing her budget which was fairly quiet in tone and very much in the times of a woman being in the home looking after the family while 2009 has an article on a family which has 11 kids under the age of seven, it does mention the size of their shopping list, it’s also very much in today’s language I wouldn’t say the language is sensationalist but it isn’t as laid back as the one from 1977.

It’s very interesting to sit down and read the articles about the famous people. Today’s magazines tend to be a little sensationalist and tend to not put in as much detail as they have so many photos.

It’d be very interesting to have an expert take a magazine or two from each decade and make a proper study of them to see how much things have change. I do think some of the articles from 1977 were much better than today.

So, “How come you’re known as The Boots Lady I hear you ask”. What a good question and I’m so glad you asked that one.

I was in the middle of a business conference and we were doing a workshop on writing our FAQs. We had to take a piece of paper, write as few words as possible about our business and pass it on to the next person who then had to write three questions and pass it on to the next person who then had to write three more questions and so on until we were told to hand them back to the original person. We then had to look at our papers and were asked what we’d found out. My voice rang out “I need to do something about my writing”. That got a nice laugh and when I explained the poor lady who’d misread my writing was mortified. I’d written “I sell books online” and my writing was so bad it looked like boots so she’d asked me questions about selling boots.

There you go, most people know me as The Books Lady, but some people know me as The Boots Lady. I’m sure there’s a moral in that story but there’s a reason I learnt to type. In some places I’m known as The Badge Lady, but that’s another story entirely and will need photos.

Speaking of typing, I know I wasn’t really but I am now. I managed to secure myself a seat Tuesday this week in a fabulous training session run by the ever-lovely Darren Rowse. When he sent out the initial query asking if there was interest he was looking at a 20 person training session and ended up with upwards of 100 people. I now need to wear reading glasses when working on the computer or reading a book…or writing…so I took my laptop as it’s a real pain to look at the presentation with one pair of glasses then have to change to write something down and I generally only get a fraction of what I need. I was lucky enough to sit in the back row right near the powerpoint so I was able to type the whole day. I certainly typed…a lot, I’ve got a 26 page Word document which is fairly closely spaced. I sent these notes to Darren last night and we’ll see what happens.

I went to this session so I could learn how to make my blog work better, look better and give me more confidence about the whole process. I was already in the process of designing a new blog layout with a new url linked to my website and this session given me all the information I need to design the right blog. It won’t happen for a few weeks as I’m not really html savvy, I just know enough to be dangerous, but it will happen and I’ll announce it here first and give you all the url before I do the final switchover. Stay tuned to this Bat Channel for more information.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Born in Nantes, Western France in 1828. Jules Verne was an author extraordinaire. Along with H. G. Wells he was considered the founding father of science fiction despite neither of them actually attempting to claim that title. Some people claim Hugo Gernsback and Edgar Allan Poe should share that same title. This cartoon stands, or rather, swims for itself.

The notes down the bottom read:
1. This is a special calendar which has been developed for handling rush jobs.
All rush jobs are wanted yesterday. With this calendar a client can order his work on the 7th and have it delivered on the 3rd.
2. Everyone wants his job on Friday, so there are three Fridays in every week.
3. There are eight new days at the end of the month for those end-of-the-month jobs.
4. There is no first of the month – so there can’t be late delivery of end-of-the-month jobs on the 1st.
5. A “Blue Monday” or “Monday morning hangover” can’t happen, as all Mondays have been eliminated.
6. There are no bothersome non-productive Saturdays and Sundays.
7. With no 15th, 30, or 31st, no “time-off” is necessary for cashing salary cheques or paying bills.
8. “MIR DAY” – A special day each week for performing miracles.

Rush Job Calendar

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Vistula was a retreat from the tumult, a comfort, full of stillness, such a contrast to what was happening in the bowels of the city. Ferries and barges steamed by, and the vast expanse of water hinted at broad estuaries that meandered into oceans he would one day cross to gain access to a new life.

Jewels and Ashes – Arnold Zable

The buzzer rings, the panic starts,
Grab cash in bags and go
Throw the money in the till
Get ready for the show

The streaming population
Start crowding through the door
When you’re in the middle of
Mopping up the floor

You ring your little bell all day.
You’re on the floor Men’s Back,
You dare to make a sally.
And then you get the sack.

Joanie Rose, so sweet and kind,
Saturday is her day,
Purdew let’s them in at 12,
Then Joanie has her say.

Her voice is heard for miles around
“Serve the B’s yourself”
And things begin to rattle
Even on the highest shelf

Poor old Cooney works so hard,
Each day he travels miles
His wages can’t be chicken feed,
He must be making “piles”!

Our storeman, Ian, happy chap
He rants and raves all day,
We really need a referee,
To settle every fray.

Gillie’s not a bad old stick,
He has a nifty car,
He loves to pass me on the tram
One day, he’ll go too far.

The lean and lanky lad
With rooster strut and air,
Reacts to our tinkling little bells
With a rather vacant stare

With many thanks to my friend, Peggy, who has shared another poem with me. She wrote this one in Camberwell in 1951 when she worked for G. J. Coles, now called Coles Myer.

With the Famous Five books they’re taking out all the old phrases such as, ‘mercy me’ and ‘awful’ swotter’. You can see the article Lashings of editing jolly bad for Blyton books and get more details for yourselves. I don’t understand why everything has to be revised and dumbed down. I think it would be better for the child’s understanding of the world to have them exposed to as much as possible and then explain to them what it used to mean and then relate it to a phrase in today’s language rather than just changing the book. I know they want more money and if they can publish another series of books then that equates to a lot of sales, but my personal belief is that it’s better to publish them as they were. I wouldn’t mind if they proofread them properly and edited out the few typos that are there, though.

Squid Ink reads The Bible

The Bible is the world’s most read book. I’m sure therefore it is the world’s most discussed book (that is discussed not disgusted, although if a book could speak it might tell us it was disgusted but that’s another story). Squid Ink seems to have the water and the fish, but is missing the loaves. Does it matter if Squid Ink is missing the loaves, does Squid Ink eat bread? I will have to ask the artist.