Return to Blandings

 It will be party time at Hanbury Towers on Sunday night.

No, not the usual bread roll throwing competition but a joyful charleston around the ha-ha to herald a new TV adapation of that literary genius and one of my  favourite authors,  P.G. Wodehouse *g*

A six-part series of Blandings starts on Sunday, based on Wodehouse's much-loved accounts of the fictional life and times of the inhabitants of Blandings Castle.  The Blandings stories follow the fortunes of the amiable but befuddled Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth and his beloved pig, the Empress of Blandings.

Blandings has a primetime evening viewing slot and an all-star cast, including Timothy Spall as Lord Emsworth, Jennifer Saunders as his formidable sister Connie, Jack Farthing as Lord E's hapless son Freddy and Mark Williams as the imperious butler Beach.  David Walliams makes a guest appearance in two episodes as Rupert Baxter, Clarence’s new secretary.

Blandings will star Jack Farthing, Jennifer Saunders, Timothy Spall and Mark Williams. Photograph: BBC

I have High Hopes so dear BBC, don't let me down with this new adaptation featuring some of my favourite Wodehouse characters and stories.  The series is adapted by Guy Andrews (Lost in Austen) and directed by Paul Seed (Just William) which augurs well.

And if Blandings is anywhere as good as Fry and Laurie's Jeeves and Wooster, it will be a job well done, old bean ;0)

Here's a taster on YouTube - unfortunately I can't embed for some reason :-/

Lights, Camera, Poltergeist!

A Happy New Year to everyone!

Let's get 2013 off with a bang..or should that be a bump in the night? *g* with a guest post from fellow Coffee Crew member, Astraea Press author and good friend Nell Dixon.

Nell's latest release (her 21st title, which is just amazing!) is Lights, Camera, Poltergeist! 

Here's Nell to tell us more...

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Thank you so much for inviting me to talk about my latest release from Astraea Press.

Lights, Camera, Poltergeist! will be my 21st title release! So a kind of coming of age.

For those who haven’t met me before my name is Nell Dixon and I’m a UK author based in the Black Country, a small region which is more or less dab bang in the middle of the UK. I write for a number of publishers in the US and the UK and have been fortunate enough to twice win the UK’s prestigious romance prize for category length fiction. I’m the only person to have won twice.

Lights, Camera, Poltergeist! is set in Scotland and I thought it might be fun to tell you a few fun facts about Scotland. Author Bram Stoker is said to have taken the inspiration for his novel, "Dracula," from Slains Castle in Cruden Bay, which is wild and remote.

Slains Castle (image from Wikimedia Commons, Attribution Revelation Space at en.Wikipedia)                  

Scotland has many myths and one is the selkie. This is a creature in the shape of a seal that can turn into a beautiful woman. On the fashion front, modern kilts have up to eight meters of material. A modern take on the kilt is to use leather, instead of traditional tartan.  You can read more here.

Lights, Camera, Poltergeist!

Things don’t just go bump in the night, sometimes they throw tea cups!

As the presenter for Ghost Uk, the leading TV show investigating paranormal activity, Fae thought she’d seen it all. Until a Valentine’s Eve live show from Scotland’s Fingelly Manor upsets both her preconceptions and her love life.



And here's a wee taster!

John watched as she headed out of the room. Lately, it seemed he couldn't say or do the right thing, where Fae was concerned. He wasn't looking forward to the evening ahead of them any more than she was. Until Tim had sprung his hare-brained scheme for a live Valentine's show on them, John had planned a very different kind of evening with Fae.

Tonight he should have been enjoying an intimate dinner with her at their favourite restaurant, hoping he could put some romance back into their relationship. Instead they were to freeze to death in a cavernous and dingy dining room with the rest of the production team. Worse still, that lecherous creep, Giles, would be ogling Fae at every opportunity.

The room seemed to be growing colder by the minute. The elderly woman finished her ministrations by the fireplace, and a dull orange glow filled the hearth, accompanied by lots of smoke.

The tech staff had gone from the corridor as John crossed the room to stand closer to the meagre fire. No doubt they had slipped off to the kitchen in an attempt to scrounge up more mugs of tea.

He was tempted to go join them, but he really wanted to finish setting up the lighting and placing the motion sensors first.

Silence hugged him like a shroud as he concentrated on tightening the final connection. His breath formed ghostly clouds in the chill air. The fire next to him offered no more heat than a candle.

A growing sense of unease forced its way into his senses, raising goosebumps on his skin. John lifted his head, certain he was no longer alone in the room. At first he couldn't see the cause of the sensation.

A change in the shadows in the far corner of the room, next to a dusty case containing a long-dead fox, caught his gaze. A soft snicking sound followed, like a door being closed quietly. He blinked, unsure if he had imagined the momentary distortion in the oak panelling. 


© Nell Dixon 2013




Lights, Camera, Poltergeist! is available now from all good etailers, including Amazon.com  and Amazon UK


And why not try Cue Me In? which also features Fae, John and the Ghost UK team?  Available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK and other good etailers.

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Thanks Nell - both sound great reads to kick off 2013 with :)

You can find out more about Nell and her books at her website and her blog.

Smoking Bishop and Christmas Cards

“A merry Christmas, Bob! Said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken…I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!…”

...so says the reformed Scrooge to Bob Cratchit at the end of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but did you ever wonder what Smoking Bishop was?

It's a warm mulled wine and port drink, sometimes known simply as 'Bishop', that was especially popular in Victorian times.  It's exact origins are obscure - Jonathan Swift mentions it in a poem in the late 1600s - but the name seems to have arisen from when church dignitaries were served spiced wine during visits, from the shape of the traditional punch bowl it was served in, shaped like a Bishop's Mitre, or possibly even the colour of a Bishop's robes.

Scrooge and Bob Cratchit sharing a glass of Smoking Bishop

There are several variations on the theme:

Smoking Archbisop - made with claret
Smoking Beadle - made with ginger wine and raisins
Smoking Cardinal - made with Champagne
Smoking Pope - made with burgundy

Here's an original 1836 recipe from 'Tales of the Table, Kitchen, and Larder’, By Dick Humelbergius Secundus:

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Among the ” Oxford night-caps,” bishop appears to be one of the oldest winter beverages on record, and to this very day is preferred to every other, not only by the youthful votary of Bacchus, at his evening revelry, but also by the grave Don by way of a nightcap. It is not improbable that this celebrated drink, equally known to our continental neighbours under the somewhat similar name of bischof, derived its name from the circumstance of ancient dignitaries of the church, when they honoured the university with a visit, being regaled with spiced wine.

Glasses Of Smoking Bishop

RECEIPT, OR RECIPE, TO MAKE BISHOP.

Make several incisions into the rind of a lemon; stick cloves in these incisions, and roast the said lemon by the fire. Put small but equal quantities of cinnamon, mace, cloves, and allspice, and a race of ginger, into a saucepan, with half a pint of water; let it boil until it be reduced one half. Boil one bottle of port wine ; burn a portion of the spirit out of it, by applying a lighted taper to the saucepan which contains it. Put the roasted lemons and spice into the wine; stir it up well, and let it stand near the fire ten minutes. Rub a few nobs of sugar on the rind of a lemon; put the sugar into a bowl or jug, with the juice of half a lemon, (not roasted) pour the wine upon it, sweeten it to your taste, and serve it up with the lemon and spice floating in it.


Oranges, although not used in bishop, at Oxford, are, as will appear by the following lines, written by Swift [in the late 1600s] sometimes introduced into that beverage :—
“Fine oranges,
Well roasted, with sugar and wine in a cup,
They’ll make a sweet bishop when gentlefolks sup.”

When this is put upon the table, there are few, we imagine, who would be found to say, “Nolo episcopari,” not even the Bishop of London himself.

 

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 Eliza Acton's 1845 recipe from her Modern Cookery is similar but she recommends using oranges...

“Make several incisions in the rind of a lemon,* stick cloves in these, and roast the lemon by a slow fire. Put small but equal quantities of cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice, with a race of ginger, into a saucepan with half a pint of water : let it boil until it is reduced one half. Boil one bottle of port wine, burn a portion of the spirit out of it
by applying a lighted paper to the saucepan. 

Put the roasted lemons and spice into the wine; stir it up well, and let it stand near the fire ten minutes. Rub a few knobs of sugar on the rind of a lemon, put the sugar into a bowl or jug, with the juice of half a lemon (not roasted), pour the wine into it, grate in some nutmeg, sweeten it to your taste, and serve it up with the lemon and spice floating in it.”

  * A Seville orange stuck with cloves, to many tastes imparts a finer flavour than the lemon.

 

Mitre-shaped punchbowl, from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery

 

And here's a modern version which will serve around 10 people - great for entertaining!

Christmas Cards

Did you know that the first Christmas cards were sent by Sir Henry Cole, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in 1843.  He wanted to remind his friends that they should give to charity at Christmas but didn't have the time to sit down and write letters to them all, so he commissioned painter John Collcott Horsley to create a design that he could have printed.

Now, in the UK, we send more than 700 million Christmas cards a year!

Sir Henry Cole's first Christmas card

 

Christmas Card, printed in Germany and sent from Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania  to Beaver County, PA in 1909

Card posted in Detroit , Michigan to an address in Fort Street, Detroit in Dec 1911. Another card that was printed in Germany

   (early 20th century card images courtesy of Lindsay/C19)

 

And that's it - no time for more posts in 2012 as I have to get on with making some Smoking Bishop! :D

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy and Healthy 2013!

  

 

 

Meg Mims - Santa Paws

Today's guest blogger is another fellow Astraea Press author Meg Mims.  Meg's latest release is a Christmas novella, Santa Paws. 

I'll let Meg describe how a rescue dog inspired her to write Santa Paws ;0) ...



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I was working on a non-fiction article when a friend called. He said he was taking a dog to the pound, and since I'd mentioned possibly getting a second dog to keep my first one company, did I want to see him?

He brought over Benji, whose sweet scared face was too hard to resist! Would my dog get along with him, though? They hit it off like "best buds" and despite my husband's misgivings, I "rescued" Benji from being a "reject" who'd bitten a child and would have lingered in the pound, who couldn't be trusted - I doubted any family would have taken him.

So far, he's held down the couch pretty well, helped my other dog learn to walk better and is fairly quiet. He does have his "quirks" (loves tearing up cardboard) but it's so much fun to see him chasing the squirrels in the back yard!! I am willing to keep him. And when it came time for me to write a Christmas novella, I thought "write what you know" - only exaggerated quite a bit. That's why it's fiction!! ;-D




The last thing Lacey Gordon — divorced with a teen daughter and two cats — needs is a rescue dog coming into her life. To top it off, she’s rooked into a “Get Under the Mistletoe by Christmas Eve” dating contest. Since Buddy the dog prefers to be the only “new guy” in Lacey’s life, will Santa Claws ruin her holiday for good?

Excerpt:

Lacey could go grocery shopping Saturday—uh oh. She’d promised to think about attending the ‘dating contest’ at Fresh Grounds. She did love their mocha lattes. Hm. She hurried through the rest of the paperwork piled on her desk, turned off her lamp and computer, then ran into April on the way out to the parking garage. The elevator’s chill set them both shivering.

“I’ve got you down for noon at Fresh Grounds.”

“Why so early? I thought you had the whole afternoon reserved.”

“You’re quality, remember.” April dashed to her truck.

Lacey clutched the top of her coat together to shield against the bitter wind. She hurried to her car in the growing dusk, grateful to see the sunset courtesy of Daylight Savings. Lacey drove toward home, half-listening to the news, hoping Todd wouldn’t ruin her evening or get stuck in traffic. Pure luck she zipped home in half an hour.

And nearly ran down a burly man in a Sherpa jacket and baseball cap, walking a dog across the street. Not just any dog, but a beige and white pit bull. Lacey shivered. She pulled into the condo complex in relief. Home, sweet home. Even if it was a bit cramped compared to a house in the ‘burbs where she’d spent her marriage. The frame and brick condominiums, surrounded by tall oaks and maples, had four two-story units joined together with a one-story ranch on the side. Most neighbors here were retired, walking their dogs through the narrow streets and parking lots to the woodier paths beyond the complex.

But she cursed aloud seeing Todd’s car in her sheltered parking spot. Lacey warned him the last time not to do that. He never listened. Not now, not back when they’d been married—until she dangled a satin thong in his face. Lacey had found them stuffed in his jacket pocket, and refused to listen to his half-hearted, lame excuses. He hadn’t fought the divorce. Perhaps he preferred running around, since he’d been doing just that since high school. Why hadn’t she realized that long ago? Trust was important to her.

Not to him.

She slung her briefcase over one shoulder and walked around her condo to the front door. Lacey fumbled for her keys in her purse. Her briefcase slipped off her shoulder, its hefty weight dragging her down, and her feet burned inside her new pumps. She heard an odd scratching sound. That couldn’t be the cats. They weren’t at the window as usual, watching for birds.

“Deena? Is that you?”

Lacey unlocked the door. Once she opened it, a hairy beige dog barreled into her, knocking her onto her bottom, spilling her briefcase and purse into the snow. She shrieked, her backside aching, one shoe on and one shoe off. Lacey stared in horror when the dog lifted his leg and piddled in an arc over her leg. A few warm wet drops dribbled on her pantyhose.

Deena appeared in the doorway and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Buddy! Bad dog—oh, Mom, he’s really very sweet. Just wait till you—no, Buddy!”

Lacey watched the dog snatch her purse and duck between her daughter’s legs, then race inside the house and up the carpeted steps. Leaving a trail of muddy footprints.

End of excerpt

Award-winning author and artist Meg Mims lives in Southeastern Michigan with her husband, a drooling black cat and a 'Make My Day' Malti-poo dog. She's loved reading mystery, western, historical, romance and other genre fiction since first grade's adventures of Spot, Dick and Jane. She's a staff writer at Lake Effect Living, an on-line magazine and has published hundreds of freelance articles. Meg enjoys gardening, crafts, watercolor painting - anything but housework.

Find out more about Meg and her books at her website, blog, Twitter and Facebook author page.  You can also visit the Facebook page for Santa Paws here.

Buy links for Santa Paws:  Amazon.com   Amazon UK   B&N Nook    Kobo   Smashwords

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Thanks so much for being my guest today, Meg, and best of luck with Santa Paws!!

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