Rambling Musings Volumes 1–3. Now Available!
3 volumes of balderdash and bunkum await your pleasure.
Watching the England cricket team in India “through the night” and throughout October/November 2023 and January through March 2024 will discombobulate even the soundest of minds and so it was, as I was wrapping together my book on their sporting failings from the other side of the world, that I decided to release an entirely separate book and far away from the world of sport. This one random idea soon took root and with far too much for simply a single volume of my ramblings and musings I soon decided to release a second volume and, as you may have guessed by now, a third volume followed soon after too.
It’s probably politically incorrect to call this “March Madness” but I’m not politically correct and anyway, this is perfectly correct and in order. From early March through to the very last day of the month, and simply one book on cricket, I soon became fixated on compiling a series of blog articles from 2021 onward and this quickly became a through route to the present day as well as a retrospective look back on some of my earliest published rambling musings from 2012 and I immediately settled on three main section headings:
(1) “Saturday Night at the Movies” — Spoiler free film reviews from 2023–2024 together with a through line of retrospective opus film articles from the past on the careers of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Nolan, Lynne Ramsay and Darren Aronofsky to name just four.
(2) “Sunday Morning on Reverie Lane” — This middle section of three is firstly an ode to my dear old Dad, then a recently departed and much missed Mum before I bring up the rear in volume 3 with some personal pieces of writing that are raw and ripe to be re-written someday. I enjoyed revisiting these pieces and “My Dad in a Field of Dreams” remains a favourite piece of writing from the past decade or so. This particular article is pinned to my profile here if you wish to take a peek.
(3) “Friday Afternoon in The Matrix” — This is where things become rather contentious! Many and varied articles are contained on everything and anything, from the maddening madness of social media, my local travels and exploits, free form writing and anything and everything that gave me a reason to rant about our upside down world in the first place!
As you will have noticed, the timeline from Saturday to Friday is fractured and deliberately so. I make a point of reinforcing that I am a disciple of the teachings of Salvador Dali and Christopher Nolan and time is as believable as that world you see via your Telescreen. I’ve also deliberately mixed the timeline of my writing throughout each of the 3 sections and I leave it up to the reader as to whether my writing has improved since 2012 as well as (hopefully) the reader will inadvertently stumble upon many “call backs” in my writing over the years.
So 3 hefty volumes (each book comes in at over 370 pages), here are the blurbs from the respective reverse covers of each volume:
Volume One: “At The End Of A Storm”
Cover Art: Ironbridge, October 2022
“Following the reading of too many supposed “left field” books, my lifelong affinity for the likes of Salvador Dali, Bill Hicks, Christopher Nolan as well as an existential angst I cannot shake, the theme of memory, its reliability and ultimately its failure to be reliable any more has coalesced with the stories we tell ourselves and my worry is who carries the flame of the stories, the events, the times in the lives of those most precious to us as the familial tree withers with the ravages of the passage of time?”
“Apocryphal, embellished, or just a story that has taken a shape and a narrative all of its own accord, who carries these memories and stories forward, who breathes life into them if we don’t?”
Volume Two: “Golden Sky”
Cover Art: Stratford-upon-Avon, August 2022
“The smells of the day before were now replaced with the staple of the Sunday “roast” dinner under the care and attention of my Mum whilst the sounds were of her musical favourites Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and the man who made her heart beat just that little bit faster, Luciano Pavarotti. More contemporary names would follow in the years to come but always, always of an operatic bent as the familial legend has it (no doubt started by my dear old Mum!) that prior to meeting the man who would shape her life forever, she was training to be an opera singer. Now I’m all for printing the legend but let’s just say that Portsmouth, a seaside city separated only from France by the English Channel is the very last place you’d expect to find an aspiring opera singer, but my Mum, my incredible, somewhat taciturn misunderstood misanthrope with a heart of purest love, an opera singer?”
Volume Three: “Tales I Tell Myself”
Cover Art: Worcester, August 2022
“It’s 1.30am and I have a confession to make. It’s always 1.30am when you haven’t slept for what seems like an entire year and someone is messing with your mind by leaving post-it notes on your refrigerator. Maybe I need some sleep but in all probability I won’t be able to as there’s duplicity in the air, a riddle I can’t solve, and I have a confession to make. Even the confession itself may be a trick of my own imagination or the salve repeatedly placed over an open wound and memories I’m desperate to forget. Who knows? All I do know is it’s 1.30am, it’s always 1.30am, and I have a confession from a dangerous mind that may or may not be as true as those post-it notes you keep leaving for me in a house that is crumbling around a shattering mind”
Here’s some promotional material and a hearty “thank you” for reading. Treat yourself to one or maybe more than one of my rambling musings.
Go on!
It’s nearly Christmas.
"At The End Of A Storm" - Available via Amazon
"Golden Sky" - Available via Amazon
"Tales I Tell Myself" - Available via Amazon
Thanks for reading.