Saturday, January 24, 2015

Wolf Hall comes to Penshurst...

I see Penshurst Place is in the news again. Many an Elizabethan drama has been filmed at the splendid 14th Century stately home but the latest one, Wolf Hall, is likely to give the place international recognition. It is a lovely house to visit or even just to walk around if you don't want to pay the entrance fee. Right on our doorstep as well if you fancy a stroll or a bike ride it's only about 5 very picturesque miles away across the footpaths. As for the book (actually books because the TV dramatization combines Hilary Mantel's two books Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, charting the rise and fall of Henry VIII's Machiavellian adviser, Thomas Cromwell,) I didn't care too much for it myself, finding it rather long winded and telling me, mostly inaccurately, what I thought I already knew. The truth is that I only finished it because it had been awarded the Booker Prize for fiction so I assumed it most be fabulous. (By no means is this always so in my experience.) The TV drama though, judging by the first episode at any rate, is superbly done....

Why are we all H-A-P-P-YYYYYYYY?

What can I say about the Happy Tonbridge video? If you haven't seen it yet then you are well behind as, at the last count, over 14,000 of you have. Clearly the people who put this film together, inspired by many other towns and cities' attempts around the world, have gone to great lengths. The final products, whilst, you have to say, by no means original, does manage to achieve it's stated objective of making us all H-A-P-P-YYYYYYY. Even an old cynic like me managed a smirk!! As Mark Kermode might say....Here's a clip (actually the whole thing.) Hope it brings a smile to your faces....

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Real Books making a huge comeback....

It's been widely reported that over the crucial Christmas period sales of physical, you know, actual real books, were resurgent whereas sales of Kindles, certainly at Waterstones, have fallen off a cliff. In any case e-book sales, whilst significant, represent a small proportion of overall book sales. The last reported figures that I've seen suggest that e-book annual sales are around £300 million whereas real book sales are over £2.2 BILLLION. Yes that's billions vs millions. So e-books have a huge way to catch up and it actually appears that sales are dropping off....

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Slade

At Chessington World of Adventures?!
A novel way of reading your favourite book!
Slade Primary School have sent me a few pictures from their "Unusual Places to Read" Competition so I thought that I would share a few with readers of TonbridgeBlog if there are any of you still out there. Apologies for the lack of posts recently. Touch of writers block perhaps?! (No, never, just been v busy what with Christmas and all.)
Watch out for these and lots more pics of children reading in unusual places in next month's issue of Tonbridge Town Crier

Anyone for a marmalade sandwich?!