Giving excellent stuff the credit it deserves (part 2)

Enthusiastic praise with harsh review ratings.

Sydney Opera House.
"One of the world's greatest landmarks, a UNESCO world heritage site,
and a finalist in the 'New 7 Wonders Of The World Contest'. 4/5"

In the early days of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I mentioned a review of the brilliant album 'Singing From The Grave' by Anna von Hausswolff which gushed...

‘...one of my favourite records of all time. 4/5’

Giving 4 out of 5 to 'one of your favourite records of all time' just seems a bit stingy to me. I'm baffled by the number of reviewers who leave extremely praiseworthy comments, and yet for some reason they then award a less than generous rating, so in honour of this weird practice here's another round-up where I once again put the spotlight on positive reviews with unduly harsh ratings.

1) Liar by Cypher

First up is the hauntingly beautiful song 'Liar' by the brilliantly talented Australian singer/songwriter Cypher. You can listen to the song on the Triple J Unearthed website, but in the mean time, here are a few review quotes which demonstrate what I'm getting at:

Weird facebook likes (part 3)

A few more statuses that 'friends' on facebook like.

As I've mentioned before on my blog, I find it strange how people on facebook will sometimes post a status which is clearly bad news, and yet some of their so-called friends will 'like' this bad news. It's been a while since my last post on this theme, so here's another round-up of weird and inappropriate facebook likes.

"A car is on fire." 1 friend likes this.

1) "Stuck in traffic.  Car on fire."

1 friend likes this.

Er ... hello!? A car is on fire! That's not something you're supposed to like! I realise there's not a standard set of rules for what you can and can't like on facebook, but if there was then surely, "Don't click 'like' when someone's car sets on fire," would have to be one of the rules.


Next up is another example of a status where the 'like' button just seems to me to be a little inappropriate.

2) "I lived in Mexico problem free for six months then get mugged on my way home in East London."

4 friends like this.

I'm no expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that your friend getting mugged isn't something you should be liking.


This next one is even worse.

Love and romance advice

Relationship tips for Valentine's Day

A puppy, pictured yesterday.

As it's Valentine's Day on Friday I thought I would have a love and romance themed blog post this week featuring a few relationship tips. However, I'm very similar to the main character in one of my early books when he gives the following relationship advice to his mate:

"Top of my list for advice… Like, more important than any other advice I can give you is this... When it comes to relationships, whatever you do … don’t take advice off me. That’s got to be the top rule to follow above everything else.”

Given my feebleness on the subject of romance, I therefore decided to consult the advice of various relationship 'experts' for a selection of relationship tips, observations and comments covering a variety of themes...

1) Compromise

"My wife wanted a puppy. I didn't want a puppy so we compromised and got a puppy."


2) Communication

When a women says, 'When you get a chance...', what she really means is, 'Stop what you are doing right now and carry out my wishes immediately!'

Book reviews (part 5)

I've spent a lot of time relaxing on beaches over the last few months, so as a result I've been able to enjoy a number of interesting books, so here's another batch of reviews of books and short stories which I've recently been reading...

The Walking Man by Wright Forbucks - 4.9 / 5.0

I loved this book. Within a few pages I felt like I already really knew the characters, thanks to brilliant characterisation, and just the right balance of dialogue and narration. There are a lot of ingredients in the mix; humour, inspiration, dark moments and also a few twists along the way. At times I found myself laughing and then thinking, 'I shouldn't really be laughing at this,' because the humour can be a bit dark, but the strength of the writing and the way it is handled means that the humour never really crosses the line into feeling uncomfortable.

The author has created characters who you can at times dislike and at other times sympathise with and even admire, and The Walking Man is an excellent example of how brilliant indie books can be. Strongly recommended.