"Broken Skin" by Stuart Macbride

Posted by Justin on May 18, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, Uncategorized | 0 comments Slightly slowly, I have now finished this. Though I felt I was getting into it at ab out the halfway/two-thirds point, it seemed to go slightly off the boilI enjoyed the way the main character (a DS) was drawn – very believable, but “supportable”. was less happy withe the rater cartoon-like DIs who were his bossesI guess the characters are being built up into a set of players...
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"Mustn’t Grumble" by Joe Bennett

Posted by Justin on May 16, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, pubs | 0 comments Invited to travel round England and write about it (and the English), Bennett decided to use H V Morton’s “In Search of England” as a sort of route map [note to self: must find a copy of Morton’s book]Bennett has tried (though not very hard) to identify “Englishness”. In the end, he thinks it is encapsulated in the BBC’s “Antiques Roadshow”...
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Jack Smithies

Posted by Justin on May 16, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, Uncategorized | 0 comments Just finished reading 'Mustn't grumble' by Joe Bennett. Towards the end (page 251 to be exact), a name from my past jumps out at me when the author refers to "Jack Smithies, the best English teacher of all time". "Mad" Jack Smithies taught at Brighton Hove and Sussex Grammer School, where I spent my Sixth Form years. He was, indeed, a brilliant and inspiring...
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A breathing space

Posted by Justin on May 14, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, Uncategorized | 0 comments The property crash is (to put it mildly) not nice for those linked to the property market|; those who need to sell, estate agents, solicitors and other conveyancers, removal firms, carpet suppliers, etcHowever, it has stopped big business hijacking the process: a lot of would-be big players in the HIP provision market have been put off (or gone bust) as a result of the recessionTHIS IS AN...
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Networking

Posted by Justin on May 10, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, local | 0 comments As secretary of the Wealden Business Group (http://wbg.me) I have been finalising and uploading the minutes of our committee meeting last week. As part of the discussion was on the subject of other local networking groups and how WBG differs, I thought I’d try to find out a little abvout the competition.Not as easy as it should be! Some seem to have almost impenetrable websites that send...
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