DAY THREE:

Sunday 3^rd  January 2021:

Good news and bad news.  The good, the bad and the ugly. Indeed yesterday was a bit of a case of the good and the bad and the ugly. I am, of course, ugly but that is not what I mean. Well not entirely.

Yesterday the UK recorded another 57,725 COVID-19 cases, the highest ever daily total. Within this a further 445 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported. These are not just numbers, these are people. Behind these people are families suffering, there are NHS staff, doctors and nurses under terrible pressure as they care for the people, real people behind the numbers.

Today our country is facing schools reopening and numbers escalating to a point where those I have shared in the above paragraph will be small by comparison. As is the norm the government is dithering to the point where even one of its famous U turns would be too late.

I have said so many times that my heart bleeds for teenagers who are having these important years ripped apart. Better to have this situation, as bad as it is, than to have children, teenagers and teachers included in the statistics of those contracting this evil virus and those who are being added to the death toll. In my opinion no school should be allowed to open until every pupil and every member of staff have been vaccinated.

Thought for the day:

Each day on my website and on social media I am sharing a thought for the day, better explained as Smile for the day. This is today’s smile. Maybe not tonight, tomorrow or the next day but everything is going to be OK. That is true but to make anything OK it must have love and support from people.

Love and support from people like you, love and support from people like me.

Across the three hundred and sixty-five days of 2021 I am trying to get people around me to blow kisses and make people smile. One million kisses and one million smiles. I am also going to write a million of one million words and publish these within a minimum of twenty-four e-books on Amazon.

Do you want the good news or the bad news ?

When it comes to smiles and kisses the good news is there is no bad news. Yesterday I spent time putting ready some special things for special people.

Among these were seven hundred and twelve gifts of love from my local pet supermarket, gifts of food and gifts of toys for pets in need. Tomorrow I will take these to my local food bank distribution point. The Food Bank is working flat out trying to meet the need people have to put food on their tables. Within these families are pets who are in danger of going hungry. This is actually the second batch of gifts given by Jollyes Pet Supermarket and there are many more gifts of love to come during the year.

Dreamsai Milton Keynes every week takes food parcels to people in need. We are now giving smiles to be added to the parcels. Tomorrow I will drop off fifty quiz sheets and fifty Smile Of The Day cards to be included in next week-end’s love.

I have a Quiz For Cops and Smile Cards tomorrow to drop off to our local community police teams.

I have another quiz, one for NHS staff, to send tomorrow to University Hospital Milton Keynes, Stoke Manderville Hospital Aylesbury, Luton and Dunstable Hospital and one local medical centre.

I am working on many quiz sheets which will go to a wide variety of people in all kinds of different situations. I plan to put them all together within the next few weeks for residents and staff in care homes. Here are a few questions from the latest quiz I am working on: BRITISH INVENTIONS

·       What game did Brian Gamlin give us ?

·       Who invented the internet ?

·       What did Scottish doctor and missionary Henry Faulds invent to aid crime detection ?

·       What sporting game did William Webb Ellis give us ?

On 11^th November last year I published a book of quiz questions: A QUIZ A DAY KEEPS OLD AGE AWAY, I think it is likely to be around Easter when I bring all of these questions together in a new book WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ.

Books, twenty-four of them. Words, one million of them. Now for some bad news.

This bit of 2021 almost came to an end on 2^nd January ! 

The best book, in my opinion, I have ever written is THE BRIDGE HOUSE. That was published in 2017. I made the mistake of illustrating it. Amazon is not great at formatting illustrations so the plan was to re-publish the 76,309 words minus illustrations this year. Yesterday Amazon blocked publication saying I could not put the same text on-line twice. As I wrote my four books telling of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s I always intended to combine them into what I called a QUADRILOGY. 111,517 words which Amazon said I could not use !

Frustration turned to anger and I shouted at Amazon. Fearing I may be told to get lost I hastily apologised before I was struck off the author list. That was the bad thing, a loss of 187, 826 words. Good news, I have not been struck off.

Time to change the subject for a moment.

On this day:

Within this I am only including dates during my lifetime, I was born on 3^rd November 1950. You may like to have a bit of fun researching dates within your lifetime. Preferably I am including things I can remember.

·       3^rd January 1956 a fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower. I can not say that I remember this, well I was only five years old.

·       3^rd January 1961 The United States broke of diplomatic relations with Cuba as the Cold War got colder. I grew up during the Cold War, it was part of everyday life.

·       3^rd January 1977 Apple Computer was incorporated. Can’t say I can remember this. Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

·       3^rd January 1969 racing driver Michael Schumacher was born.

·       3^rd January 2014 Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers died age seventy-five. I love the music of The Everly Brothers, A sad day.

Back to books and one million words.

I had been looking forward through November and December last year to writing my book BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS THE DIARY OF A SERIAL KILLER. 1,308 words into the introduction and the story is not dark enough. Moving on to the five murders the story will contain I was thinking this would bring the darkness to the story I need. However, I feel to include these in the direct way planned would not be dark but sick and as such this would ruin the book. I awoke at 1am today with the thinking for a different way to twist the plot. Bad news turned into good news.

Back to schools, back to teenagers. I had been working on something to encourage teenagers to write to their grandparents and via a programme with care homes to become pen pals with residents. Also at 1am I ripped that up !

I am going today to start a new book which I will write alongside my crime thriller (I hope it will thrill.) This is called JUKE BOX JURY A BIT OF FUN FOR TEENAGERS YOUNG AND OLD. I am thinking this will probably take 30,000 words to complete and something I can dash off in ten days. It will ONLY be in e-book form and will be designed to be read on a smart phone.

WHAT ! A smart phone !  Everyone knows how much I hate smart phones. AH !  The book is designed to give teenagers something fun to do, it is designed to link teenagers with their grandparents. The book has to be an e-book and has to be read on a smart phone as the teenagers will be asked as it goes along to dip into YouTube and research on Google. AND……………………..

Within the operation of the book will be words – an instruction: USE YOUR PHONE SMARTLY !

He he he.

The good, the bad and the ugly. UGLY. Well that’s me.  I have just raced round my house and counted the number of mirrors on wall of different rooms. FIFTEEN and there to confirm that I am ugly.

Speak again tomorrow.

Dave