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This novel is available for £2.99 with the Times newspaper this week, it is a Gripping, Suspenseful crime novel Featuring a thirteen year-old lad named Johnny Merrimon who had the perfect life: happy parents and a twin sister that meant the world to him. Until she goes missing, stolen off the side of a lonely street with only one witness to the crime.

His family are shattered by the event and his sister is presumed dead. So Johnny risks everything to find out the truth, which leads him to the dark side of his hometown in a last, desperate search for her. And he finds a city with an underbelly far blacker than anyone could’ve imagined

So he seeks the help of a Detective named Clyde Hunt, who has devoted an entire year to Alyssa’s case, and it shows: he is haunted and sleepless, he’s lost his wife and put his shield at risk. But he can’t put the case behind him – he won’t – and when another girl goes missing, the failures of the past year harden into iron determination. Refusing to lose another child, Hunt knows he has to break the rules to find out the truth & solve the case; and maybe, the missing girl will also lead him to Alyssa…

Who won how many Oscars at the 82nd annual Academy Award

The Hurt Locker
Won awards for
Best picture
Best director
Best sound editing
Best sound mixing
Best original screenplay
Best film editing

Avatar
Won awards for
Best visual effects
Best cinematography
Best art direction

Up
Won awards for
Best Score
Best Animated Feature

Crazy Heart
Won awards for
Best Actor
Best Song

Precious
Won awards for
Best Supporting Actress
Best Adapted Screen Play

Inglorious Basterds
Won the award for best Supporting Actor

The Blind Side
Won the award for Best Actress

The Cove
Won the award for Best Documentary

The Young Victoria
Won the award for Best Costume Design

Star Trek
Won the award for Best Makeup

The Secret in their Eyes
Won the award for Best Foreign Language Flim

Logorama
Won the award for Best Animated Short

Music By Prudence
Won the award for Best Documentary Short

The New Tenants
Won the award for Best live action short

GWR 2-6-2 Small Prairie Tank no 4566 goes to the yard for re-coaling during the SVR Spring Steam Gala

I enjoyed This years Severn Valley Railway Spring Steam Reunion Gala, which took place from Friday March 5th to Sunday March 7th, 2010.

During the event the replica of Catch-Me-Who-Can was also in operation, and books could be bought from the Second-Hand book sale. Visitors were also able to walk round the Boiler Shop, Maintainance Depot, Engineering Department and Works Shed which were all open to the public during the Gala, this gave a unique opportunity to see how engines, such as Taw Valley, are being overhauled and the amount of work that goes into them. There was also a Goods Demonstration and Shunting Demonstration which was quite interesting to watch.

GWR 0-6-2 Tank Engine no 6695 on loan from Swanage, doing a Goods Demonstration

BR Standard Class 2 Mogul No 78019, on loan from the Great Central Railway patiently awaits the off

Visiting LNER 2-6-0 Gresley designed K4 Mogul no 61994 The Great Marquess runs round it’s train. This is the only LNER K4 2-6-0 Mogul which has survived into preservation.

I am hoping to go and see this years Severn Valley Railway Spring Steam Reunion Gala, which takes place from Friday March 5th to Sunday March 7th, 2010, and will be celebrating the line’s 40th anniversary as a heritage line. As part of the celebrations, it will feature visiting locomotives which have all been past members of the SVR fleet, these have now been confirmed as:

*BR Standard 2 2-6-0 no.78019 from the Great Central Railway
*GWR Pannier no.5786 from South Devon Railway.
*LNER 2-6-0 no.61994 “The Great Marquess”
*GWR 0-6-2T no.6695 from Swanage

Incidentally No 61994 The Great Marquess is the only one of six Gresley designed LNER K4 2-6-0 Moguls to survive into preservation, so I am looking forward to seeing it along with all the others

Representing the home fleet will be locomotives which may include: Large Prairie no 5164, Small Prairie no 4566, GWR 7812 “Erlestoke Manor”, Ivatt Class 2 no 46443, Stanier Mogul no 42968 and Ivatt Class 4 no 43106 (AKA The Flying Pig).

The Engine House, Visitor & Education Centre will also be open at Highley, so visitors will also have a chance to see locomotives such as

LMR 2-10-0 no 600 Gordon, GWR 4930 Hagley Hall, The Midland Compound no 1000 and Stanier 8f no 48773

First-year students at the University of Saskatchewan Vet School were receiving their first anatomy class, with a real dead cow. They all gathered around the surgery table with the body covered with a white sheet. The professor started the class by telling them,

‘ In Veterinary Medicine it is necessary to have two important qualities as a doctor: The first is that you not be disgusted by anything involving the animal body.’

For an example, the Professor pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the butt of the dead cow, withdrew it and stuck his finger in his mouth.

‘Go ahead and do the same thing,’ he told his students. The students freaked out, hesitated for several minutes, but eventually took turns sticking a finger in the anal opening of the dead cow and sucking on it. When everyone finished, the professor looked at them and said,

‘The second most important quality is observation. I stuck in my middle finger and sucked on my index
finger.’ ‘Now learn to pay attention. Life’s tough, it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.’

This week the Times is offering A Reliable Wife by Rober Goolrick for half-price with the paper. The Novel is a gothic tale of smoldering desire and is a real bodice ripper at times, which takes place in 1907 during a Wisconsin winter, and features a 58-year-old widower named Ralph Truitt, who is the wealthiest man in town, but inside he’s burning with the unsated desire of 20 solitary years. So he requisitions a Mail-Order Bride named Catherine through a classified ad, for practical not romantic reasons, however Ralph isn’t entirely what he seems.

When his bride Catherine finally does arrive, looking prim and dour, she isn’t what she appears to be, either – She threw her extravagant party dresses out the train window a few miles from town, and she has hidden jewels in the hem of her black wool dress. She’s not even the woman in the photo she sent Ralph during their summer of tentative correspondence. And she’s carrying a bottle of arsenic and a long and complicated scheme….

Being a huge fan of the legendary Jimi Hendrix I was absolutely delighted when I heard that previously unpublished material by the late great man himself, is being posthumously released in March 2010 on an album entitled Valleys of Neptune.

-Woohoo! Excellent, that’s the best news I’ve heard in ages J I’ve just got to get that CD when it comes out *Bounces up and down with excitement*. Anyway here is the Track Listing for the album

Stone Free
Valleys of Neptune
Bleeding Heart
Hear My Train A Comin’
Mr. Bad Luck
Sunshine Of Your Love
Lover Man
Ships Passing Through The Night
Fire
Red House
Lullaby For The Summer
Crying Blue Rain

Here are some tunes courtesy of YouTube
All Along the Watchtower
Purple Haze
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
Cross Town Traffic

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An Australian tale

One day a koala was sitting in a gum tree smoking a joint, when a little lizard walked past, looked up and said,
‘Hey Koala! What are you doing?’
The koala said, ‘Smoking a joint, come up and have some.’

So the little lizard climbed up and sat next to the koala where they enjoyed a few joints.

After a while the little lizard said that his mouth was ‘dry’ and that he was going to get a drink from the river.

Unfortunately the little lizard was so stoned that he leaned over too far and fell into the river.

A crocodile saw this and swam over to the little lizard and helped him to the side. Then he asked the little lizard, ‘What’s the matter with you?’

The little lizard explained to the crocodile that he had been sitting with the koala in the tree, smoking a joint, but got so stoned that he accidentally fell into the river while taking a drink.

The crocodile said that he had to check this out and walked into the rain forest, found the tree where the koala was sitting finishing a joint. The crocodile looked up and said,
‘Hey you!’

So the koala looked down at him and said,
‘Shiiiiiiiiiiit dude…
How much water did you drink?’

I am looking forward to reading We Are all Made of Glue, it sounds really entertaining. So I also thought I would eventually get two more Marina Lewycka novels, in due course, and see if I enjoy those too. Novels I’ve got my eye on are

Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka
This is a tender and hilarious novel about a crew of migrant workers from three continents who are forced to flee their English strawberry field for a journey across England in pursuit of their various dreams of a better future. They hail variously from Eastern Europe, China, and Africa and have come here to harvest Strawberries for delivery to British supermarkets, and end up living in two small trailer homes, a men’s trailer and a woman’s trailer. They are all seeking a better life (and in their different ways they are also, of course, looking for love) and they’ve come to England, some legally, some illegally, to find it.

Supervising (some would say exploiting) them is Farmer Leaping, a red-faced Englishman who treats everyone equally except for the Polish woman named Yola, the boss of the crew, who favours him with her charms in exchange “for something a little extra on the side” Unfortunately Farmer Leaping’s wife finds out about this little “arrangement” and does what any woman would do in this situation: She runs him down in her red sports car.

By the time the police arrive the migrant workers have piled into one of the trailer homes and hightailed it, thus setting off one of the most enchanting, merry, and moving journeys across England. Along the way, the workers’ ideals are shattered by the ignominious, brutal, and sometimes dangerous realities of life, some give up and go back home, and some even find love

A Short history of tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Hilarious novel about two Ukrainian sisters, Nadezhda and Vera, who are raised in England by their refugee parents, and have as little to do with each other as possible, until a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine named Valentina, enters their ageing father’s life, intent on seeing that he leaves this world with as little money as possible, unless Nadazhda and Vera can stop her.

Unfortunately separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love is no easy task because Valentina is a ruthless pro, who causes chaos & soon turns the family house upside down. Meanwhile their Father, who is oblivious to everything that is going on, carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.