Saturday 31 May 2014

Something Short

The new bundle of short stories I've co-written with my friend Elspeth Morrison is selling slowly but steadily. It is amazing how hard it is to get family, friends and acquaintances to part with 77p ($1.29) even when it is for a good cause. We are trying to plug the book at every opportunity so  I thought I devote another blog post to the charity we are hoping to help. The Stafford centre in Edinburgh is fundraising to send 4 volunteers plus a staff member to the family centre at Vileyka in Belarus.

This is what the Stafford centre says:

Vilejka has a population of about 26000 with a further population of 24000 living in the surrounding rural area. Within the town around 50% of families have heating and water however within the surrounding rural area most families do not have these commodities. Around 25% of the total population are elderly and struggle to survive on the state pension.
The family centre is run by the local municipal but is severely restricted in its work due to financial restraints. As a result only a very small percentage of those living in poverty have any support from outwith their family.  After finding out about stand international our service users had no hesitation in volunteering for this worthwhile cause.  

We need to raise £2000 to help us get there by donating as little as a £1 you will not only be helping our volunteers you will be helping the people in Belarus where the family centre means so much to so many people.  

So if you can, donate via the following link 

 https://www.justgiving.com/volunteering-belarus

or buy the book!

http://www.amazon.com/Something-Short-Elspeth-Morrison-ebook/dp/B00K74XHZO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1401545726&sr=1-1&keywords=elspeth+morrison 

Thanks
Angela

Friday 23 May 2014

Airport life

Certain situations bring either the worst or the best out of people, the airport brings out the stupid. Maybe all the braincells were used in packing all the necessary clothes, toiletries and documents and getting to the airport in time. They clear security and some proceed to relax so much that the brain is switched off. The other day I was talking to a very nice German customer, he told me all about his stay in the South of France; he was relaxed as he had arrived at the airport very early and had time for some shopping. He went off with his colleague to enjoy a beveridge. The next time I saw the man he was shouting at the Easyjet staff as they wouldn't let him on the flight to Hamburg. They had requested him to board three times via the tannoy, now they had closed the gate and were ofloading his luggage. No matter how much he raised his voice, they would not let him on the plane; Easyjet does not wait for stupid people.

The other thing people shout about is not so much stupidity but a failure to read and being ill informed; if you read through all the information about flying you will know that the maximum amount of liquid allowed in hand luggage is 100ml. We have had this regulation for a very long time now and the frequent flyer knows the drill. So it is often an older passenger that doesn't fly that often that gets their liquids confiscated. They come into the shop and lament about that lovely bottle of champagne, wine or olive oil that they thought would be saver in hand luggage that got confiscated. At night I see the security people walking back with big bags of confiscated good that have to be destroyed.Call me cynical but I think the traders at the airport love these security measures. It's a fine excuse to sell water at extortionate prices and it has done duty free shopping no harm either.

Then there is the whinging Poms. Again it falls probably under the heading of being ill informed rather than stupid but it is a close call. The UK has been part of the European union since the 1970's so you pay European union prices not tax free prices. With every purchase I have to explain this and in 50% of the cases, they didn't know. Then usually a very unpleasant diatribe against Europe follows. The Fins who only joint recently seem to be all aware how it works and are perfectly pleasant about paying the EU prices. I have to say that the UK citizens aren't the only ill informed passengers, and all European governments could do better at informing their citizens about what it means to be in Europe including its many benefits. I said it before but I think every whinger who complained about his booze and cigarettes being more expensive than they wanted voted for UKIP in yesterdays election. All I can do is shrug my shoulders and continue to enjoy the benefits of the European union. A stable peaceful place to live and the right to live and work in a different country without permits, free movement within Schengen etc etc etc... 

Wednesday 14 May 2014

Belarus

It has been a while since my last post, but some times you just need to prioritise and I'm afraid the blog fell by the way side. I have been busy editing and getting a bundle of short stories ready for publication. I'm so pleased that Something short is now available from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Something-Short-Elspeth-Morrison-ebook/dp/B00K74XHZO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1400057792&sr=8-4&keywords=something+short

So why Belarus I hear you ask? Elspeth my friend and co-author has a friend that is trying to raise £500 to go out to Belarus and help build a play park at an orphanage. We hope to help this wonderful charity; stand international with the proceeds of this book. This charity works with children that have been affected by the Chernobyl fall-out.

http://standinternational.org/where-we-work/belarus

We are selling the book at $1.30 which means after tax and Amazon deduct we have royalties of $0.30 so we need to sell a lot of books to make any impact. I would like to call on my followers to share this post, buy the book (its only $1.30!!) or do a review.

Many thanks for helping out!
Angelax