charles barrow's writing

This picture intrigues me. I assume Kitty was a real person, peddling her wares in a London backstreet. Frying-pan Alley exists, I checked in the London A-Z, it's near Petticoat Lane. I bet Kitty had some stories to tell, after theatre crowds, gentlemen suitors, royalty maybe? Or a life of grinding poverty and a gin soaked old age? I hope not, I hope she had a good life and made a good end. I'm thinking Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady here. Photo is the author‘s own

No apologies for wandering off topic (I have a topic?) but Spring is here in a wonderful blaze of warm sunshine, day after day of it, and I wanted to celebrate it. So, some glorious daffodils in bloom and a gorgeous magnolia in bud.  Photos are the author's own

I may not have had a great visit to Stonehenge, see below, but I did get this photo of a Rook. It's out of focus of course, you wouldn't expect anything else from me, but I'm pleased with this. This is the closest I've got to a bird yet. The rooks are everywhere at Stonehenge, in all the fields and skies around, but oddly none settled on the monument itself, that I saw. Perhaps there's an ancient bylaw prohibiting it. I wonder if there is a myth surrounding the rooks at the henge, like there is for the ravens at the Tower of London? Anyway, I was pleased to get a snap of a rook in particular because I've named a character Rook in Book 3  of John Mann's story. He's a ruffian. I bet a rook could take care of itself in a bust up. Photo is the author's own

I visited Stonehenge recently. Is it heresy to say I was left rather cold by it? There was a keen wind blowing across the plain but that wasn't entirely to blame for my experience. These stones are iconic (there's an overused term for you) and their history is compelling but standing at a distance from them I got nothing from them at all. I have a huge respect for our heritage and I understand that a million visitors a year cannot be allowed to clamber all over them but I found it very difficult to be moved by a group of stones just by staring at them. To be able to lay a hand on one might have added to my understanding. Photos are the author's own

"Dazzling, seemingly effortless writing." This quote is from a Sunday Telegraph review of Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. I just finished reading it today and it's shot into my top ten best ever books chart, to keep company with Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which I read a few years ago. I'd had Wonder Boys on my bookshelf for a while. It never seemed the right moment to pick it up, but you know how sometimes a book chooses you? It comes along when you're ready for it, need it even. That's what I feel happened with Wonder Boys. I'm not one for writing book reviews. Trying to condense an entire plot into one paragraph seems rather discourteous somehow. But I will tell you that two of the main characters are a middle aged professor, and mid-career novelist, Grady Tripp and his young student and would-be author James Leer. Tripp has writer's block and no idea how to finish his 2,000 page, seven years in the writing novel Wonder