charles barrow's writing

I'm reading a science fiction thriller at the moment. The Stone Man by Luke Smitherd. It's an ebook, self published I'd guess. It's gripping stuff, I'm enjoying it so far. Someone should make it into a movie. Reading the book I was reminded of this photo of a stone man I took a while ago in the grounds of an Abbey. It's not anything like the stone man described in Smitherd's story, his is featureless. I remembered this one looking as though he was in pain or torment, perhaps frozen in time as Medusa turned him to stone. Now I see the photo again I'm thinking he looks more rapturous, with his face turned to heaven. Photos are the author's own.

This is a Victorian ice house. A curious brick structure built into a bank of earth in the woods. The doorway leads into a short tunnel. Beyond that grille is a circular brick chamber descending, perhaps, fifteen feet into the ground, this is where the compacted ice would have been stored, covered in layers of straw. It's light but damp and cold in there which is the point I suppose. It would make a great prison cell, or place to hide a dead body. The photos are the author's own.

'When he was younger he would race for a dare between the city's livestock pens, terrified of the big farmyard beasts grunting and snorting beyond the slats. Now, he might just drop by on a blue moon to trade with the butchers for jerky and biltong, though there were fewer animals to be seen these days and then mainly sheep, with their black faces boney and their eyes uncurious.'  An excerpt from John Mann - At Day's End.  Photo is the author's own.

I've no idea of the story behind this statue. A folk tale maybe? Whatever it is I don't suppose it ends well for the goose. In John Mann's world birds and fowl are a public enemy and no one would choose to get hands-on with either. Photos are the author's own.

I've now lined up my Spring reading. It seems to be quite 'murder and mayhem' heavy. I don't know what that says about my current mood I'm sure. Maybe I'll fit in some lighter themed stuff as well.

I recently read The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, a.k.a. JK Rowling, on my tablet's Kindle app. I'd been wanting to read a 'grown-up' book by JK for a while and I wasn't disappointed. However, there was some weird shit going on with the text formatting. Random words would appear in a much smaller font size, or be italicised for no apparent reason, or change font together. Weird. Weird but comforting. If the JK juggernaut can't get the formatting right then I don't see that I should lose sleep over mine. Of course, I suspect it was probably perfect at the point of sale and simply got mangled by my reader, but this is the problem with ebooks, they are at the mercy of reading devices of varying quality. We never have this problem with printed books, apart from the fact that they are read by optic nerves of varying quality. Customer, 'I want my money back, all the print in this book is out of focus.'  Maybe one day there will be just the on...

I've been posting photos under the title 'Sparking Ideas' and the images are beginning to work, to earn their keep. Only this morning I was writing a scene that mentions a statue shrouded in swags of ivy. This is a meld of two images, the first the one of the tendrils of ivy encroaching on the stone eagle (posted previously), and the second this one here, shrouded statues. I'll continue to post further pictures and hope I find inspiration in them. The photo is the author's own.