Ragtag Giggagon

Robert Vaughan yelled U.N.C.L.E. for the last time this year. Lots of people died. How do you like them apples? Doris Roberts, a veteran actress known for Remington Steele and Everybody Loves Raymond, died this year. Alan Rickman. Terry Wogan. A broadcasting institution on the BBC. Gone. Ronnie Corbett. Fidel Castro. Caroline Aherne. Victoria Wood. American democracy. British comedy legends, one and all. If you were to ask an English person back in the 80s to name a magician, the only one you could rely on being known by EVERYONE, died this year. And then Paul Daniels passed away. On the far side of the pond, Alan Thicke, Florence Henderson and Dan Haggerty were similar big-name television personalities. Just weeks away from her third Zsa, Zsa Zsa Gabor passed away at the age of 99. In the field of boxing, the Greatest died. And what of the music? Rick Parfitt of Status Quo. David Bowie. Madonna. Leonard Cohen. Sting. Prince. Keith Richards. Massive names. Most of them dead. But where...

CSI Over Christmas, Grissom returns to help the team chase down a Native American alternative medicine ear doctor who cured his deafness ten years ago. The shaman has turned "really alternative", resulting in the deaths of nine people through homeopathic cures. Guest starring: DB Gobbley as Ted from Cheers. The Murdoch Mysteries A nineteenth century American psychopath flees north after breaking out of jail because of fewer guards at Christmas, where Murdoch Mysteries and the Scottish police chief sort him out by determining that if he gets on the next train with just enough time to spare, they can send him back down Sooth. Danny Reagan on tour Blue Bloods Danny Reagan reaches a personal crisis over the Christmas period as he realizes - after his years on the job - that he has killed more suspects on New York's streets than he did enemy combatants during his two-week tour of Iraq. Meanwhile, Frank visits the cardinal for a confessional handjob. Person Of Interest: I...

Veteran journalist and writer Sam Mwaka-Karama’s book The Water Trap concerns the attempts of local government in Uganda and other bodies, such as European engineering firms and contractors, to deliver basic running water resources to the people of Gulu Province and elsewhere. The book is over a decade old, but Sam has re-issued it occasionally with updates.  I consider Sam a good friend whom I hope to meet one day, and a valuable and erudite contact whose views on literature and culture sometimes surprise me and always enlighten. Here are some of Sam’s thoughts on where things stand today since he published his exposé. Nearly all the book’s suggested solutions have become areas of national policy shifts - for example, parliamentary and local government electoral seats were MULTIPLIED by government's creation of several smaller districts throughout the various regions of Uganda. That is to say that where previously, only one Member of Parliament represented a wide area of locality...

Rising Tide by Claudette Melanson introduces a teen, Maura - known as Mink to her mother, who wants them to emigrate to Vancouver from Pennsylvania - with skin so pale that sunlight makes her feel unwell (hence at least one reason for the big move north). Her neighbor and frenemy Katie is on the cheerleader squad; Katie's twin brother Trent is on the football team. Katie's recent attentions towards Maura are odd, her agenda questionable. Indeed, the brilliance of these opening pages begs us to question EVERYONE's motives, including Maura's mother Caelyn, and her rationale for the move to Canada. This vampire tale is a great opening to a series. It's permanently free here . Claudette Melanson's Amazon author page is here !

The need for "clean blood" and talk of being the "dominant race" would have been typical of high society conversation in parts of pre-war Europe. But in 1939, while Hitler breaks promises about his Lebensraum requirements, across the English Channel Nicolas and Marcus hold a discussion on similar themes for unexpected purposes.  Two high-ranking vampires with a centuries-old bromance, Nicolas argues against the schemes of Marcus in order to avert unnecessary conflict with the humans they rely on to exist. While age seems to have brought a level of wisdom to Nicolas's thinking, Marcus's capacity for empathy has dwindled over time. The discussion also echoes our preoccupation of "playing God" in the scientific realm, with Marcus insisting that he will go ahead with a project that involves experimentation on and turning humans into a class of slaves to serve the vampiric race. The moral discussion ends in an impasse. Will it come to blows? The work pr...

12:58 AM EST, December 2, 2016             Rumors that Santa Claus has been suffering ill health in recent years were confirmed by the man himself Friday as he prepares to journey round the world later this month.             “Yes, I’m exhausted all the time now,” he told a press conference at an undisclosed location in the Arctic Circle. “I’ve been feeling run down for the last few years. I’m more susceptible to chest infections now. I went to see a number of specialists, but none of them could figure the problem out.” Santa makes a second run to some regions on the eve of his own feast day, January 5, and he claims that it is this subsequent trip that is “the real killer”.             “You know, I’m wiped after Christmas Eve. But tradition dictates that some kids don’t get their gifts till early January. I just don’t hav...

Lynn Lamb 's Mechaniclism - available at Amazon - opens with the birth of one of its characters, and describes the poor lot she has received in life. With a severe immune deficiency, Ireland Barton's life will be spent in a bubble of dustless, filtered air to prevent microbial infection and probable death. Her over-protective loving father ensures her sheltered existence. She has a hazmat suit but she spends the vast majority of her life in her room, studying, reading books and learning about the outside world via the Internet. She attains a degree via distance learning, and a PhD at twenty-six. Her scientific background gives her the skills to take on the challenge of a pandemic when it strikes - an illness that appears to wipe out the vast majority of humanity in a number of weeks. (And we can only assume the worst as international communications break down.) Four centuries earlier, clockmaker Frederick Jori finds a patron in Lord August Godwine, who - it tran...