Archives for themself - Page 8
Horror Movies – What Makes Them Properly Scary?
The Blair Witch Project (Photo credit: Wikipedia) On the way to school this morning Alexander was asking me what makes the Blair Witch Project a scary horror movie. He hasn't seen Blair Witch, but he has read the article on the sequel in the current Empire magazine. Ever since he has been obsessed about knowing how the Blair Witch Project went. Horror or Splatter? One of the things we talked about was whether or not you really need lots of blood and gore in a horror movie. There's certainly a visceral horror in seeing injured or dismembered people. But it is quite hard to get it right. We're good at understanding that it isn't real. If we don't think it is real then we cannot be truly terrified. Gore in a horror movie is like slapstick in a comedy. It…
500 Posts on Themself – milestone
Themself passed the 500 posts milestone earlier this week. I've been specifically writing for Themself since 5th July 2006, so it has taken me a decade to write 500 posts. That said, the earliest posts date from 1995, but they were originally written for the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group newsletter Milmud. Of the posts I've written, 15 were slotted in before the real start of the blog. All of those come from other things I'd written for publication elsewhere. Part of the nature of the very early blog posts was that I didn't have a topic in mind, so they're pretty short and random. These days they'd probably turn up as facebook status updates. Back then there wasn't a facebook (or at least I didn't have an account). What really turned up the heat was doing the creative writing course…
Battle of the Somme 1916
Today is the centenary of the first infantry attacks in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Zero Hour was 07:30, and at that point the whistles blew and the infantry began their advance across no-man's land towards the German trenches. The infantry attack was preceded by over a week's artillery bombardment of one and a half million shells. A couple of minutes before H-hour several mines were detonated under the main German positions. Public Perceptions of the Battle of the Somme The Badly Shelled Road to Bapaume (21 Sept 1916) By Lt Ernest Brooks, via Wikimedia Commons This image gives the general public perception of WW1 in general, and the Battle of the Somme in particular. It is from the Battle of the Somme, but from 20th September 1916 rather than 1st July. The Somme battle was what churned…
Biscuits without an oven
I'm experimenting with making digestive biscuits without using the oven today. I'm trying it out ahead of the cubs cooking competition to see if it works. The cubs aren't allowed to use electrical stuff and only have gas rings to cook on. This year's theme is the cub scout centenary. We've not yet finalised the menu, the choice is between something jungle book inspired and a twist on classic cub camp food. So the digestive biscuits I'm trying will become the base for smores. Digestive biscuits without an oven Recipe rolled out dough for the digestive biscuits 2 cups wholemeal flour 1/2 cup dark brown sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup butter 3/4 cup milk I've given the measures there as cups, but I used a nominal 100g per cup for my trial. Method Take a…
Giveaway on Goodreads – Themself in Paperback
My latest work, Themself, is now also available in paperback. I've organised a Goodreads Book Giveaway. All you need to do is go over to the goodreads website and tell them you would like a copy (see below for the link). At the end of February they'll randomly select five lucky winners who I will send a paperback copy of Themself to. Here's the book blurb on the paperback version: "On a whim in November 2012 James Kemp took part in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge to write 50,000 words during November. He didn't quite make it, but he did get hooked on writing. That was his spur to enrol on a Creative Writing course with the Open University starting in October 2013. Themself is his story of how he became a writer, told in part using contemporary blog posts…