Lockdown – 2020 – 16 – Zoom and that Moon

This is a street-lamp trying to look like a moon. (Brought to you in the spirit of making do as central Edinburgh isn’t the best place to photograph the night sky.) The ‘pink’ moon last night was as spectacular as all the articles had promised, although not actually pink.

Attended my first online Zoom meeting. After a frustrating couple of hours on another online task, it was good to see and speak to some pals. We discussed Andrew Miller’s Now We Shall Be Completely Free. Opinions divided – which is always a good thing in a discussion group.

The fish shop was open. Yay! I met some kent faces on the way there. The newsagent has erected a plastic screen between him and the customer. (More making do.) A friend sent an electronic card which is a touching and much appreciated gesture.

Did no other writing yesterday. Possibly not even a comma.

The RNA have cancelled the 2020 Conference. Inevitable, but so sad. Sympathies to Jan Jones and Annie O’Neill who have done so much behind the scenes.

Anne

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It’s an ill wind – Nina Lambert

It’s an ill wind by Nina Lambert ran over five episodes in Woman’s Weekly. I saved them up and read the whole as I would have done a novel.

The story is cozy crime with romance. The crime is all off-stage, if you don’t count a cack-handed effort by one of the romantic couples to pretend they’re villains and the romance is fairly well-concealed too. Our heroine Emma, kicks over her job in the opening paras and that turns out to be because she’s secretly in love with her boss, Liam. Liam reappears at the end of episode three.

As almost everyone is a chef and the action takes place on a luxury yacht, there are a lot of recipes containing chilli and coconut and prawns. The chief villain beats his wife (3rd) and drinks too much.

Okay, it didn’t float my dinghy. Magazine serials used to be the meaty fiction offering wrapping up the week’s reading. Now, the editors seem to believe all the research about readers having the attention span of one of those unfortunate prawns in Emma’s lunches. The writer has had to reduce everything to synopsis. We are TOLD the whole story. Where are the emotions this reader wants to engage with?

Woman’s Weekly have a new serial starting on 6th February from Jan Jones.