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s time for palinurus with dangerous areas of metal armature sticking out to go too however there was a protest so i looked out some of my old tools and found that the sculpture suppliers tiranti s were still in business and still sold the special plaster with iron filings and their irresistible tools i set to work to make palinurus safe not restored just safe it doesn t look great but it was an enormous please to be back reworking a sculpture and it will definitely last for another ten twenty years i wish i could say that i am back to blogging but this is only a partial return i have spent time with friends and family and the novel has has made some rather minimal progress the tomatoes and beans have ripened yet time at my desk definitely needs to be kept to a minimum and not eat into time with those close to me so i m around but in the background share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading posted in gardens uncategorized writing notes tagged palinurus tomb sculpture terrosa ferrata the aeneid tiranti s writing time 48 replies goodbye until september posted on may 14 2017 by hilarycustancegreen 47 dear friends i need to spend time with family friends and possibly my writing so this is goodbye for the time being i will still be keeping an eye on my blog so if anyone happens to want to contact me just comment and i will pick it up but i will be neither posting nor reading your amazing posts at the end of the summer i will have had visits from friends too long neglected attended conferences on european banking and far east prisoners of war i will have grown some tomatoes and beans and just possibly i will have made some progress on my next novel we are starting here if i end up with nothing more than this so be it i will see you all again in the autumn share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading posted in gardens pows writing notes tagged writing time out 47 replies calling london a new title for threadgold press posted on may 11 2017 by hilarycustancegreen 24 on the 12th june threadgold press is very proud to be releasing a book outside its usual genre this book is scholarly genuinely readable and historically important in the twentieth century men from the midland bank travelled the world to try and understand how overseas centres of finance and industry functioned to promote their business and meet their counterparts in other countries they were inquisitive openminded and energetic they sent back reports from chicago new orleans montreal st petersburg vienna stockholm paris tokyo prague hong kong buenos aires and many many other cities they had an uncanny knack of fetching up in these centres at moments of high drama and they reported back in detail and without political allegiance these reports are available for study in the archives of hsbc in london calling london set these reports into historical context with fascinating extracts along the way calling london travels by british bankers 1904 63 the back cover says there is hardly a happening in the world that does not have its repercussions immediately or eventually on overseas branch midland venture 1933 from 1904 to the 1960s managers of the midland bank in london travelled the world to visit centres of finance and industry and then report back they often arrived by chance or intention at crucial moments in history russia in 1909 austria in 1931 france in 1944 chile and japan 1948 and for example germany in 1933 dr fischer was careful to explain to me quite irrelevantly that hitler was a most peaceable and peace loving man to whom war like intentions were entirely foreign w f crick berlin 1933 in a scholarly informative and fascinating account edwin green sets this rich resource in historical context while calling london throws light on local conditions in some serious times it also includes delightful insights into how british bankers were seen abroad mr holden is no dreamer the way he hands out a cigar is suggestive of the rapier toronto news 23 september 1904 edwin green was appointed as the midland bank s first archivist in 1974 from 1993 until his retirement in 2007 he was group archivist at hsbc in london where the records of the midland s overseas branch are located he is the author and co author of many publications on banking and business history including histories of the midland bank the mercantile bank of india and the institute of bankers he is uniquely placed to guide future researchers to this gold mine of twentieth century business archives from 12 june book will be available directly from threadgold press pensioners and staff get a reduced rate or from amazon in case you think a gremlin has taken over my blog here are some peonies share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading posted in reading uncategorized writing notes tagged 1904 63 20th century history banking archives banking history book release business history edwin green environment london calling travels by british bankers non fiction primary source history threadgold press worldwide reports 24 replies heavenly maples and maple worries posted on april 27 2017 by hilarycustancegreen 39 many of you will know that i am a japanese maple addict in spring when the new leaves start emerging i practically swoon with delight it is also a very anxious time and the young leaves are prone to frost damage in the uk we had hot t shirt weather in mid march followed by drought and then sharp frosts in the last week apart from the older maples above there are maples that have grown as seedlings aro kaze the bronzy one above they take years to grow and many die young this one is two years old and has become one of my husband s new interest in bonsais this one is i think three years old and is also joining the bonsai collection the purple one below is also three years old they are all seedlings from the same maple and this one is at least four years old i thought i had lost it the young leaves are so fine and vulnerable that they have no strength to withstand bad weather until they fill out this will be stunning when there are more layers in a couple of years time here are two of this year s crop and they only appeared a week or so ago finally one of our oldest small maples had become so pot bound that i carved it in a pie chart pattern and filled the open sections with fresh ericacious compost sadly although i could protect the smaller maples the heavy frosts of the last week have damaged some leaves on all the established maples so they will look a little moth eaten this year they will still be beautiful new note thanks to uma shankar s comment below i looked up the meaning of the name matsukaze and am charmed to discover that it means wind blowing through pine trees thank you uma share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading posted in gardens tagged bonsai bonsai maples frost damage japanese maples matsukaze seedling japanese maples 39 replies critical reviews wanted in exchange for free books posted on april 8 2017 by hilarycustancegreen 49 uh i published a novel border line in december 2014 i had a party a stall at the village christmas fair a book signing at the local farm shop café i went to the main book shops in my city plus a few smaller shops in nearby towns the local paper and the city paper wrote about me and my third novel i sold plenty of copies at these events and a respectable number for me of print and ebooks on amazon ebook cover and that was more or less it to be honest when i have finished writing a novel i am ready to put it behind me no book of the imagination ever reaches the original vision so the fun is in building a new vision and having another crack at it so i didn t blog tweet or go on facebook with requests to buy border line and i am not going to do so now i got on with the next project this was the important task of getting my non fiction book about far east pows published this was a very different task completed last year and published by pen sword though the research and the follow up work goes on yet now as i return to the writing fiction at last the old questions about what works and what doesn t in my writing are hovering over me again add into this mix some interesting posts from other bloggers about positive and negative reviews especially how useful negative reviews see tara sparling s post are to readers so we come to my idea i would like to give away uk or europe only six copies of border line in return for critical reviews on amazon or goodreads and i mean critical i do not mind if this results in two star reviews or more or less i am a perpetual student knowing what does and doesn t work are both equally useful i already know for instance that the ending of border line splits readers so i am looking for personal views what you loved or hated what niggled or irritated you why you would or wouldn t recommend this book to other readers one line would be good five to ten would be even better write an essay if you feel like it if you are interested and want more information about the book go to the border line page of my website hilarycustancegreen com if you would like one of these free copies email me threadgoldpressatgmaildotcom if you are outside europe and want to write a critical review the ebook is not expensive share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading posted in reading writing notes tagged book reviews border line critical reviews hilary custance green negative book reviews surviving the death railway a pow s memoir and letters from home two star reviews 49 replies for cynthia the delights of poetry a spike of green and 6 yellow tulips posted on march 24 2017 by hilarycustancegreen 42 dear all i gather that the lines of poetry are showing incorrectly in some browsers i can t correct them as they are fine in mine so sorry this is a transcript of a speech i made at toastmasters where i am learning about public speaking i don t know if it will work as a post but i know many of you will miss cynthia jobin as much as i do the speech was restricted to between 5 and 7 minutes and was about using language clearly simply and directly several members of the audience did not have english as a first language and for some of them poetry was an unknown pleasure i was so determined to have 6 tulips in flower that i slightly overdid it poetry delights me and for the next few minutes i d like to show you just a few of the ways in which it does so in a poem called the storm walter de la mare starts first there were two of us then there were three of us then there was one bird more four of us wild white sea birds treading the ocean floor and the wind rose and the sea rose to the angry billows roar the storm and the birds keeps on growing until there is a host of screeching scolding scrabbling sea birds on the shore and then he brings the birds and the storm gently to rest a snowy silent sun washed drift of sea birds on the shore using words that sound like the story they re telling is perhaps the most familiar delight of poetry but poems can work in a thousand different ways they can for instance simply send a message here is one from william carlos williams this is just to say i have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold it reads like a post it note yet it s also a tiny unforgettable love letter lots of poems deal with universal subjects the trials of love and the anguish of grief and we can go to them for comfort but what if you want to convey an experience that will be unknown to most of your readers the c17th poet milton was going blind so he used the voice of the blinded biblical figure samson to convey his terror dark dark dark amid the blaze of noon irrecoverably dark total eclipse beyond all hope of light you may i trust never experience blindness but i defy you to forget the passion and the beat of that cry dark dark dark amid the blaze of noon poets love metaphors so if i say it s raining cats and dogs you know i don t mean it literally but you understand me your imagination stretches and your brain enjoys that t s eliot made london fog vivid for us by making it behave like a cat the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes licked its tongue into the corners of the evening slipped by the terrace made a sudden leap and seeing that it was a soft october night curled once about the house and fell asleep a particular delight for me in poetry is the layers of ideas so you get two or even three or four for one here are a couple of simple lines by alun lewis from raider s dawn written in wwii softly the civilised centuries fall paper on paper peter on paul lewis shows how both individual people and the long term efforts of humanity are lost through war choosing biblical names peter and paul reminds us that war is against the principles of christianity and most other religions he points a finger at bureaucracy paper on paper because bureaucrats run wars he has skilfully made one verb to fall do the work for all three ideas and at the same time he has seduced our ears with the alliteration the repeated opening sounds softly civilised centuries paper peter and paul another thing poetry can do is make us feel understood little story my brother was out on a walk with fellow ramblers when the person beside him a stranger looked at a green shoot appearing out of the ground and quoted when i went out the sun was hot it shone upon my flower pot and there i saw a spike of green that no one else had ever seen at this point my brother joined in on other days the things i see are mostly old except for me but this green spike so new and small had never yet been seen at all this poem was written by my grandmother in the 1930s and still appeals to small children today i want to dedicate this talk to an american poet cynthia jobin who died just before christmas her writing is moving scholarly often funny and to me utterly delightful so here are the last three lines of a poem titled six yellow tulips only being is a tulip s work being beauty against gloom after a long winter being the yellowest gladdest thing in the room share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading posted in reading uncategorized writing notes tagged a spike of green alun lewis barbara baker cynthia jobin dark dark dark john milton poetry raider s dawn samson agonistes t s eliot this is just to say walter de la mare william carlos williams yellow tulips 42 replies post navigation older posts surviving the death railway cover border line click image to order or available from heffers bookshop cambridge uk border line ebook cover border line of course love i...