May Review: Journals, Coronation, Eurovision and a Spam-Free Tea Group!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Time once again for a look back over the month that is just coming to an end, plus an update on the current state of play with the Ongoing Concerns as we head into June and I head into new journals! The yellow one and the dachshund one, which have been warming up on the touchline, so to speak, are now ready to come off the subs’ bench and get on the pitch, lol!

The yellow one is my general journal and replaces the black Twenty 23 journal, and the dachshund one is the book journal so it replaces the purple Penny Doodles journal.

I will still need to go back into the old ones and complete some parts during the year, particularly when more books have been read, but I didn’t have enough space for more monthly setups after May, so when I turn my calendar over in a matter of hours, and we’re on for 1st June, I will be on new journals, with my Hoppy Days frog theme in the general journal and Easel Does It art theme in my book journal.

A photo I took a while ago now, but that was my subs’ bench at the time – you can see the dachshund journal and bright yellow journal, both of which are about to be put into active service. The orange one at the top, Into the Wild, is a future travel journal, as I may have mentioned before, but I still have room in my current turquoise blue Kenji journal for at least another short break and a holiday, so not quite needing to bring Into the Wild off the bench just now.

As my current ones come to the end of regular daily use, I have polished off 27 books so far this year, and purchased 11 books. My final theme in my book journal has been Tea and Biscuits, and in my general journal it has been Corgis and Crowns, which brings me neatly back to the start of this month and the Coronation of HM King Charles III!

Four books were finished in May, the first of which was Not Cool, by Jules Brown, in which he was visiting 9 cities in 9 days by train through Europe during a heatwave! What was not cool for me was that I started this month with a dental infection and was on the unclebiotics, having already needed some of those the previous month for an ear infection!

Charles and Camilla were crowned on 6th May, and in the week that followed, benefitting from the additional bank holiday we were given for the Coronation, I polished off both Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, and Not for Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley.

Ticket to Ride, by Tom Chesshyre, which was another ebook about train travel, was my fourth finish for the month, so that’s all the completed books covered. Will come on to the Ongoing Concerns in a bit.

It has also been the month in which Christine from my choir, the Mancunian Singers, discovered my blog! She said she was doing a search for any online mentions of the choir, and I had mentioned it on here in January when I had my audition and became a proper member, and I’d got the sheet music for the musical Jesus Christ Superstar because I was singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” as my audition song.

Being May, it was the month of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was being hosted here in the UK, in Liverpool, but on behalf of Ukraine. It was won by Loreen for Sweden with a song called “Tattoo” and in winning, she became only the second person to win the Eurovision twice, having won previously with “Euphoria” in 2012. The only other person to win the ESC more than once is Mr Eurovision himself, Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland in the 80s – “What’s Another Year?” in 1980 and “Hold Me Now” in 1987.

Still the FA Cup Final to come for my lads at the weekend, but the Premier League season is now over and I’m pretty chuffed that we managed to finish 3rd in our first season with Erik ten Hag as manager, as well as having won the League Cup back in February when we beat Newcastle 2-0 at Wembley. There’s still work to be done, improvements to be made, but I feel we are going in the right direction.

Our women are also going in the right direction and finished runners-up in the Women’s Super League which is brilliant considering that United only reintroduced having a women’s team around five years ago! In coming 2nd it also means our ladies have qualified for the Women’s Champions League for the first time, so both our men and women are in the top European competitions next season!

Also, both our senior goalies are safe pairs of hands! Both David de Gea and Mary Earps won the Golden Glove awards for the Premier League and WSL respectively for keeping the most clean sheets!

That’s Mary Earps with her Golden Glove award.

I shall just go and get some refreshments, and then I will get on with the Ongoing Concerns…

Right, then… the legendary OCs! Biggest news is that Prince Philip’s Century has now reached its half-century in percentage terms! Robert Jobson’s book about the late Duke of Edinburgh is 50% read. Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, is 42% read and will reach its halfway stage at the end of June, so that’s not far off now!

After that, we have a right cluster of books around the 1/3 read mark! Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, is marginally ahead on 34% read, but I have three books all on 33% read! Those are Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, and Sea Fever, by Meg and Chris Clothier. That just leaves one more book…

That final Ongoing Concern is an ebook, Don’t Eat the Puffin, by Jules Brown, the guy who wrote Not Cool about his train travels through Europe during a heatwave, but this a memoir really, as it’s about his life as a travel writer, so it’s both travel writing and an autobiography and I have already read 10% of it, so it is an official OC!

Just briefly back to my journaling, I thought I’d show you some of my experimenting in a practice journal of mine with the distress inks and dabbers I’ve recently acquired. They’re great with stencils, as you can see, and the ink just runs off the stencils when you run them under the tap, so the stencils are clean again and can just be patted dry.

Anyway, I need to mention a pleasant surprise from yesterday, and you will know, if you’re a regular on here, that I have a very low opinion of spammers. Those of you who know me on Facebook will know that one of the first groups I ever joined when I first joined FB way back in 2007 was a group called A Cup of Tea Solves Everything…

Well, that group had been plagued with spammers for quite some time and I’d been asking if there were any actual admins around so that something could be done about it, as I think the spammers saw the group as a soft target, which it was… until yesterday evening…

I got a notification from FB that I was now invited to be admin of that tea group as it was in need of an active admin! Needless to say that I was on it like a bonnet, lol, and a hell of a lot of spammers will have found themselves permanently banned from the group last night! It took a while as there were well over 100 of these miscreants to deal with! I still don’t understand why people spam. This is probably due to me having something vaguely resembling a life and also having more than two brain cells to rub together!

Rules have been introduced, as has a joining question, and any posts or comments need to be submitted for my approval so that I can check if the person is a genuine tea lover or just a spammy loser! Hopefully, it will mean that, over time, the dickheads will take the hint and realise that the group is no longer a soft touch and then go and take their spam elsewhere on Farcebook. Personally, I think they should take a long walk off a short cliff and never plague FB ever again, but as that is sadly unlikely, I will settle for them buggering off and not targeting any group I am involved with!

I think most things have been covered now… the finished books, the Ongoing concerns, plus the Coronation, Eurovision Song Contest and the end of the 2022-23 Premier League season, plus some journaling news and yesterday’s good news on Farcebook giving me the power to rid that group of its plague of spammers!

I am due to give an armful to the Vampires on Saturday, so when I start June’s blogs, I’m pretty sure you’ll hear about that. As I will be in town, I can also check out that book exchange vending machine in the Corn Exchange! Until next time, though, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Not Cool – Jules Brown
• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
• Not for Me, Clive – Clive Tyldesley
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• Jesus Christ Superstar – Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd-Webber
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw – Will Ferguson
• Sea Fever – Meg and Chris Clothier
• Don’t Eat the Puffin – Jules Brown

Toppers, Tina Turner, Travel Writing and Toothpaste…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Back with yet another helping of utter waffle with some book news thrown in, lol, and we have some happy and sad news to start off. First up, Happy 57th Birthday to “Le Roi”, Eric Cantona! Couldn’t blog without mentioning the birthday of my all-time favourite player, could I?! However, sad news has reached us this evening that one of music’s biggest legends, Tina Turner, has passed away at the age of 83. Rest in Peace, Tina – you’ll always be Simply the Best!

We also lost Andy Rourke in the past week, bass player from The Smiths, so it’s been a pretty sad week for music fans. Had some Smiths songs on the other night as a tribute, so will have to put a bit of Tina on in a bit.

While we are still on all things musical, we have started off the blog with a post box topper of the band Pulp! It’s an especially good knitted likeness of lead singer, Jarvis Cocker! Also appropriate to this blog as I read Mother, Brother, Lover earlier this year and Good Pop Bad Pop was one of last year’s 60 books read by Chief Bookworm!

Right then, better get my arse in gear and mention some books. Figured I should blog tonight because then it’ll give me a week before the final day of May and I’ll be doing the monthly review.

So, the first thing needs to be that we have our fourth book finish for this month, my 27th so far for this year, and that was Ticket to Ride, by Tom Chesshyre, which I had been reading on my Kindle prior to finishing it on Monday. I will choose a new ebook next week, although another travel book about trains is quite likely.

Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, was at 40% on Sunday night when I was documenting my Ongoing Concerns at the end of last week. Lakeland, by Hunter Davies is now up to 34% and just marginally behind is Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, which is now 33% read. Progress was made with both of those last week after my previous blog.

Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson, and Sea Fever, by siblings Meg and Chris Clothier, are tied on 25% read, which just leaves Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, but I have been reading that one the last couple of days and it is currently 20% read so I’m planning to get it to at least 25% after I’ve finished this blog and got it published.

Funnily enough, yesterday, I was reading part of Will Ferguson’s book where he mentions a Rocky Lane near where he grew up in the province of Alberta, Canada – same province where my great online friend Liz can be found! When I was reading about his Rocky Lane, I was actually sitting in the reception area of our dental surgery on the Rocky Lane near me!

Sadly, the dental-themed topper is nowhere near here, but I just thought it was appropriate as I had a checkup yesterday, the one I was originally going to have on 2nd May. I’d rung up a few months ago, probably February, and they gave me the 2nd May appointment. However, as some of you probably remember, by the time that date came round, I actually needed to see the dentist for antibiotics due to the mouth infection, so that had to be treated as a dental emergency and I needed to book a fresh appointment for the checkup!

Hence yesterday’s visit to Rocky Lane to lie back and open wide, lol! After I’d had my checkup, I noticed that there was a corner of the surgery with boxes full of sample size tubes of toothpaste, so I enquired about them and ended up with four of them as freebies! They are absolutely ideal for my toiletry roll in my suitcase, perfect size for travel!

My current tube of toothpaste in my toiletry roll is nearly used up, and I had been bemoaning the fact that a lot of pharmacies, even the branch of Boots in the departure lounge at Manchester Airport, didn’t seem to have “travel size” items anymore, but my dentist came to the rescue! Yippee!

Regular followers of my blog, who’ve been following since at least the summer of 2021, will probably remember that photo – me with Shaun Bythell at The Bookshop in Wigtown – well, last week, Wigtown celebrated their 25th anniversary of being Scotland’s National Book Town!

While we are on for book-related stuff that’s been going a long time, we return to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which has been giving out free monthly books for many years now to children aged from 0-5 in various countries. You may also recall that my friend Liz Craig dressed up as “Molly Parton” for the official event to celebrate Bashaw Public Library becoming a partner in the reading scheme in November…

Well, Monton Medical Centre, my local doctor’s surgery, is going to become an official partner, the first GP surgery in England to do so! Dunno if anyone is dressing up for it, though! However, you can have another reminder of Liz as “Molly Parton” last year, just in case no-one local does likewise…

Trying to think if I’ve got anything else to mention. I can hear “The Best” coming from the telly downstairs – a tribute to Tina Turner on the evening news. The biopic “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” which I went to see at the cinema in 1993 – eek, that’s 30 years ago now – is still, to date, the only 18-rated film I’ve ever been to the flicks to see. It had to have that rating given that Ike was a nasty piece of work. Angela Bassett played Tina and Laurence Fishburne played Ike, as I recall.

Just thought… you know what we’ve not done on here for ages? A golden year! Bit late in the blog to do one now, but it might be an idea for another entry in the not too distant future!

Anyhow, I’d better get this finished off and get back to Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, so until the next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Mother, Brother, Lover – Jarvis Cocker
• Good Pop Bad Pop – Jarvis Cocker
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Sea Fever – Meg and Chris Clothier
• Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw – Will Ferguson

Eurovision Chocolate, Book Progress and Hut-Hitting…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Chief Bookworm is back with yet another blog, and congratulations to Sweden on winning last night’s Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool! Loreen’s win means she’s only the second person to win the contest twice, having previously won in 2012. She shares the record with Mr Eurovision, Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland with “What’s Another Year?” in 1980 and then “Hold Me Now” in 1987.

As you can see, there has been Eurovision chocolate! That’s actually Mum’s bar of Eurovision Dairy Milk, but I have one as well. The UK didn’t do so great last night. Need to get back to having the sort of acts representing us that we had last year in Sam Ryder. In fact, I think maybe he should give it another go in a year or two. Especially if we do want to go back to hearing the magic words “Royaume Uni douze points!”

On the book front, however, it has been a good weekend, very productive, and TWO of the Ongoing Concerns have now been finished, meaning that I have read three books so far in May and 26 so far this year. The Goodreads Challenge target has now been increased from 25 books to 30 books.

You can see some of my book journal pages above. The first of the book bingo cards is filling up nicely, especially with two finishes in the last three days, and you can see I’ve filled another OC Progress spread. As I will have to start two new books in the coming week, that will fill my OC Progress list up for April’s setup and I can then start on May next time I finish a book and need a replacement.

The finished books are Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, which I finished on Friday, and then Not for Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley, which was finished earlier today.

With finishing Breakfast of Champions, it means that I have read a book first published in the year I was born, that novel turns 50 this year as I did last month. Towards the end of it, there was a character called Eddie Key, and he was supposedly a descendent of Francis Scott Key, the guy who wrote the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner.

Funnily enough, when I was still reading The Secret Library, by Oliver Tearle, he mentioned that the full name of the author F. Scott Fitzgerald was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, so he had been named after the lyricist of the USA’s national anthem!

The melody is actually an old English tune, “To Anacreon in Heaven” but Key put the words to that tune for the US anthem. For anyone nerdy enough to want more facts about national anthems, check out Republic or Death! by Alex Marshall, in which he goes around the world in search of interesting stories behind various countries’ national anthems. Some of you, who have been following this blog for a number of years, will remember that I read this book back in 2020.

Isn’t that a fab postbox topper?! Apparently, inside the lighthouse, there is a plastic bottle with fairy lights in it. Very clever!

Before I get on to the books I have in mind to start now that I’ve got another couple off the OC list, we need to look at the remaining Ongoing Concerns and give a progress report. Ticket to Ride, by Tom Chesshyre, which is my current ebook on my Kindle, is 50% read, so I am aiming to have that finished by the end of May at the latest.

Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, is currently 38% read. As I said in a previous blog, it should be around 42% read by the end of May and should reach the magic 50% milestone on 27th June, so not too long to go until that gets to the halfway stage.

Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson, is 25% and that has now been joined at that particular milestone by Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, which I have been reading this afternoon. Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, is 12% read, so that’s all the OCs done for now.

Before I go any further, I said in the last blog that I needed to show you my July setup in my book journal, as I’d shown you the circus theme in the general journal but not done the corresponding month in the book one, so here goes… get your buckets and spades, lol!

There you go! Hit the Hut is the theme for July in my book journal! A seaside theme with beach huts and a quote from My Sand Life, My Pebble Life, by Ian McMillan which was one of my Ongoing Concerns earlier this year!

From the sands of time to Hands of Time, by Rebecca Struthers, watchmaker and doctor of horology, which has recently been serialised on BBC Radio 4 as their Book of the Week, and it’s yet another book that has been given this honour by Radio 4 that I fancy reading. Given that I have some gift cards which I got for my Big 50 last month, it is likely that this is one of the books I will purchase from either Waterstone’s or W H Smith’s.

So, what have I chosen to start for my next books? There are two vacancies on the OC list, and they will be filled by Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, which is about his travels around Canada, and, closer to home, Sea Fever, by siblings Meg and Chris Clothier, which is a “seaside companion” book set here in the UK.

And there you have it! I have updated you on pretty much everything I made a note to tell you about, and will be back soon enough with yet more book-related waffle to bring you, plus the usual random nonsense, lol! In the meantime, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
• Not for Me, Clive – Clive Tyldesley
• The Secret Library – Oliver Tearle
• Republic or Death! – Alex Marshall
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• My Sand Life, My Pebble Life – Ian McMillan
• Hands of Time – Rebecca Struthers
• Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw – Will Ferguson
• Sea Fever – Meg and Chris Clothier

Coronation Comestibles, Meh in May, and Summer Themes…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to the first blog for May and I’m tapping away here on my iPad on the evening of the extra bank holiday we have had because of the Coronation of King Charles III on Saturday! I’ve been at a cream tea at St Thomas’s this afternoon and I also have a gingerbread crown somewhere, while we’re on Coronation comestibles!

What has happened in the last week and a bit since I blogged at the end of April? Well, Chief Bookworm is on unclebiotics again, this time due to a mouth infection which kinda started last Monday, also a bank holiday. I was due a dental appointment anyway on 2nd May, thankfully, so they were able to have a look and give me the medication, but things got a bit worse before they started to get better, so I needed Wednesday off as well as Tuesday! My face was considerably puffed-out so there was definitely something Pete Tong!

A slight swelling remains at the back of my upper lip, but I am pretty much back to normal. I still also got some reading done despite the obvious medical issues and the tiredness that had come from disrupted sleep when I was at my worst with it.

The photo at the top is of the post box on Parrin Lane, in case you were wondering – our most local yarn-bomber had been busy making a Coronation topper! There have been a lot of good ‘uns, and I might put a few more on, plus one to celebrate the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest!

That’s the Eurovision one for the forthcoming contest, which is being held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine, hence the blue and yellow base of that topper. I think I mentioned, in a previous blog, that the Ukrainian city of Odessa is twinned with Liverpool, hence the Scousers hosting the event. I think that post box is somewhere down south, though, according to the FB group, not on Merseyside.

Anyway, enough wiffling about post box toppers for the time being as I need to get on with the book news, and Not Cool, by Jules Brown, was finished at the weekend, giving me my first finish for May and my 24th finish so far in 2023! I have got another of his on my Kindle to read, but I have returned to Tom Chesshyre for my next ebook, and Ticket To Ride is already 10% read so it has become an Ongoing Concern! It’s still about trains, though. Around the world in 49 train journeys.

I also needed to start a physical book as I had finished The Secret Library, by Oliver Tearle, at the end of April, but with the mouth infection, I spent the first few days of May feeling a bit meh and what reading I did feel up to was finishing Not Cool on my Kindle.

Towards the end of last week, though, in fact during Coronation Weekend, I decided to start Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, and that is 12% read, so you’ve got two of the OCs there, at the less-read end of the scale!

Moving up the pecking order, after those two recently-started books, we have Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, at 15% read and then a bit of a jump up to Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson, at 25% read. Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, is currently 36% read, and will reach the halfway stage in late June, but I worked out that it will be 42% by the end of May.

So, to the front runners, and in second place at the moment, on 50% read, we have Not for Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley, and just slightly ahead, on 53%, we have Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr! So, that brings you up to date with the Ongoing Concerns for now!

One more book finish takes me to 25 books for the year, and it’s likely to be one of the two front runners, or my ebook as I seem to get those on my Kindle read fairly quickly. Then I would have to change my Goodreads Challenge target again, increasing it from 25 to 30.

I’m also in the final month of my current journals, both for reading and my general one, but the next ones are ready to go, and I have got June and July set up in both journals. Yesterday, I finished off my circus-themed July setup in the general journal, so I can show you that…

So, that is my Oh, What a Circus! theme for July. I have just had a look at recent blogs and I’ve not yet shown you my theme in my book journal for July, so I have made a note to show you that in my next blog. I will say that it has a definite seaside feel to it, but no more spoilers than that!

The circus theme was due to April’s Rowan Berry “After Dark” box from Under the Rowan Trees, so the washi tapes (other than the plain red and pink ones) and the stickers were from that box. The plain washis were from Kenji if I am not mistaken. Stencils from Oops a Daisy.

We shall see how many months I get in these next journals. You may have noticed that I have combined the title and calendar onto one spread and the You Tube viewing trackers are now part of weekly spreads, as are the Ongoing Concerns charts in my forthcoming book journal, the one with the dachshund on it. The yellow one is the general journal, and I am hoping that, by trimming down each monthly setup, I get more than five months in them. Kinda hoping for seven so that it completes the year, but we shall see!

In the current journals, we have Tea and Biscuits in the book journal for May, and Corgis and Crowns in the general journal for obvious Coronation reasons!

Well, I think that’s about it for now! Can’t think of anything I’ve not covered, other than that I need to show you another journaling theme next time I blog! Until that time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Not Cool – Jules Brown
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• The Secret Library – Oliver Tearle
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Not for Me, Clive – Clive Tyldesley
• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr