Here I am at the edge

Forgotten beauties of Indian Cinema Pratima Kannan   Reena Roy   I know little about the history of movies in India, so this is no more than my thoughts on how I view the movie scene in the state from what I have gleaned in the last few months.  I know this will be a controversial article, as many view Sridevi, to this day, as the Queen of Bollywood though many actresses were, in my opinion, as good, yet lacked her connections. I apologize to ladies that I may miss out on the article; as I said, I don't possess any depth of knowledge of the times or the cinema of the time. The cinema industry in India from the mid-1980s until 2018 was dominated by two factors, the Kapoor family and one of the wives in the family, Sridevi . The family rule was, and as far as I know, still is, if an actress marries into the family, she has to forgo her career and become a member of India's most celebrated family with a history dating to the beginnings of the cinema in India. That rule did ...

  The task ahead Among several writing projects, I have in my WIP (Works In Progress) calendar at the moment is a revamp of my bestselling book from two years ago - shown above. Before you get excited, the book is only my bestseller as it sold two copies on Smashwords , and earned $6.00.  I am editing this book, to link in with another project about a journalist's trip to India after her romance breaks up with her lover from Israel .

 Or was it suicide? The demise of Sridevi five years ago has been the subject of many theories, mostly about her possible murder, as The Queen of Bollywood was 54 when she died, and apparently in good health.  At the time of her death in Dubai , she was expecting her husband to join her for their daughter's marriage ceremony the following day. The "Official" verdict is death by misadventure, as she was reported to have taken a drink before a bath, and fainted in the tub.  It is now things don't add up. At the time of her death, she had taken out a life insurance policy that paid $35 million if she died in Dubai. I have never heard of such a policy that only pays up if you die in a particular city; the policy would be a waste of money, what would be the odds of being in a city when you died? Unless you planned it. In the following years, suggestions were asked about this policy, and neither family nor friends denied its existence. Rumors she was murdered began when i...

  Whether you are talking about the SMU scandal of the 80s. or Deflategate in the early 200s; scandals usually share a common theme, nobody is going to put their job at risk unless somebody higher up has told them to. Though the SMU scandal is so far back, it is still one of the most devastating scandals to concern sports in the USA . The managers were giving cars as gifts to entice college players to sign for SMU, when the scandal came out, SMU was penalized by having no home games for eight years, and no draft picks for five years. At the time, SMU was one of the top three colleges in Texas. Of course, it doesn't always work this way, as one Italian MP discovered in 1982 when Mario Chiesa was arrested for paying a bribe with marked money, he went to his party for backing and got refused. Chiesa's reaction was to say "Okay, we'll open the tin of worms as I have no backing." He caused the Mani pulite scandal . Mani pulite means "Clean hands," in this ...

  Newport I wonder if stupidity has a level, beyond which it is impossible to pass? A case in point happened last year, this isn't one of my fake news jokes; this can be checked up online. In September, 20222, a man living in Newport , South Wales found that he'd accidentally sent a hard drive with over £5,000,000 worth of Bitcoin value to the tip. What did he do? He contacted NASA to ask if they could direct a probe to track his HD. In the world of reality, cryptocurrency has a value similar to Monopoly money. Why do you think it's called Crypto - the Greek for puzzle? All stocks and share dealings involve an element of risk, which is what drives Bull Trading . These are people who jump onto falling shares, and hope to get money back as the prices rise. This does NOT happen with Cryptocurrencies, they are banned worldwide, including in China . China has links to over 80% of cybercrime , so if they ban it, you know it has to be bad news. The only people who gain from this a...

  In a discussion with my wife last night, I said I wasn't impressed with movies from the 1980s in  India with over-the-top action scenes, such as people doing impossible stunts. At this point, my wife pointed out that I used to watch Xena - the Warrior Princess  without a complaint. When I look back, her stunts were just as outrageous as those done in the movies I said I disliked.

  Madness If I had enough readers to offend, this post would probably cause a lot of hateful comments; but I don't have that many readers, so the point is moot. What defines madness? If a person says they have been talking to God, or the Devil, they get put in a mental asylum for being mad. Yet, millions of people worship people they have not, nor will ever meet, and we call them sane. Which is crazier, to claim to have spoken with a deity, or to worship a creature or person you don't know existed? In the Middle Ages, you were locked away if you thought the world wasn't flat, today some people still believe it.  I believe there is life, maybe not as we know it, on other planets; years ago that would be classed as madness.  I'm not sure about the metaphysical conception that for each decision we take, a world is created for the choice we didn't make; some people say this explains the phenomena called someone's walked on my grave . They say this is caused by two t...

  You would think in this day and age, that a necessity for any country would be at least one hospital, but there is one country that has no hospital. That is if you class the Vatican as a country, not a city. With the city being only a few miles from Rome , the Vatican has no need for a hospital. Also, other than the Swiss guard , most of the inhabitants are gentlemen of late middle age, you get few Cardinals and Popes under 50.

Catalan Separatism  In Spain , there are two major factions vying to run their areas instead of being run by Madrid . One is the  Basque Separatism movement, and the other is the    Catalan movement. On the whole, I am for regional government, letting the capital make decisions for the country, but letting the regions run themselves as they know what works for the area. This is where the divide comes in.  The Basque country, though great for hikers, and bird watchers have little if any infrastructure. The area is known to be the HQ for the terrorist group ETA , who have less than 1% support in the aims after the 1998 Barcelona bombing which killed 12 children. The area is ideal for a group like that with highly inaccessible ravines and sharp rocky peaks, but useless if you need to build roads. On the other hand, the Catalonia region has a massive infrastructure, with most of the major cities, other than Madrid, and Bilbao situated along the Mediterranean ...

 You pay the price for stupidity I will set the record straight from the beginning of this post; I have always been anti-bullfighting , and that will not change. Anyone who gets pleasure from seeing animals hurt is nothing other than a criminal in my mind and deserves all they get and more. Each year in  Pamplona , Andalucia , Spain dozens of people get gored trying to outrun the bulls, I am sad to say. I am sad as it would take more deaths to stop this dangerous habit. A fully grown bull can charge at speeds of upto 50kmh compared to a human who can run upto 35kmh. The odds are always in favor of the bulls; I am pleased to say. For speed comparrisons, they only animals which run slower than us are wombats. The running of the bulls is similar to some pc racing games, in as much as you don't need to outrun the bulls, all you need to do is be sure you're not at the back. In my reasrch into bullfighting , I found out that the bulls from Andalusia are the most sought after for ...

  Four years ago I had a minor accident in our kitchen; the accident was minor, but the ramifications of the event are long-lasting. I am sure, in some part, the fall I had is part of the reason I suffer from insomnia more as the years pass, than I did in years passed. The boot I used to wear, to support my left ankle as the tendon tore, for may years is also a factor in my insomnia as it meant my left leg was carrying more weight than usually, so my knee became weaker.

 Here I am at the edge If you wonder where my blog title originated; here is an explanation of the title. I chose the title  Here I am at the edge because 14 years ago when I began the blog (my Lord was it that long ago?) I believed I had the possibility of a new start as a writer who could sell a few stories. All this time later, and I am still waiting, however, the title takes an ironic turn here; each day since the end of 2014 has been a struggle to keep writing for me, and I stand at the edge wondering whether to stay online. A further irony is the image at the head of the post. The title Ghosts of your past relates to a series of crime fiction stories that never sold, but it could easily refer to the failed books I have written over the last 14 years that ain't me.

Makes no difference unless it is a major award When I was a regular blogger with a larger following, much larger than now, I was in contact with several award-winning writers ; I was one 13 years ago. That shows how long I have been writing  as the book above was not the first I published. The one thing we agreed on is unless you win a major award you may as well not bother.  I have said a lot about the contest I lost due to site hacking    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-day-bubbles-burst.html over the years. The one thing I haven't mentioned is what happened to my friends who did win. Brian, who won the contest, got a couple of requests for work to be put in an anthology. Yezall, who came second, got an offer of work from a publisher in Miami, but told me they are so bad she was selling more herself. Sometimes later, out of the blue, I got an offer from the same site as Yezall, which I turned down as I was unhappy about what they were publishing...

 Nagin I doubt any of the fans of the Harry Potter films realize that J K Rowling took the character from a series of Hindi films going back to the 1950s. Nagin was a snake who could turn into a beautiful lady when she met her lover. She turned into a killer when four men killed her lover when they saw him as a snake and thought he was going to kill her.

 Cheats do win Make no mistakes, cheats DO win, I know from experience; the only consolation I got was from exposing the fraud - several times. I am reminded of the phrase from "The Rhinestone Cowboy," by Glenn Campbell - nice guys get washed away with the rain and snow. One instance was when the person in question posted on LinkedIn she had won 0ver $300 first prize in a writing contest . She didn't like it when I posted, on her post, that her story was a copy/paste from a story I had read only weeks before in a book I bought from a friend. She could not dispute this fact, as she knew I was right (I posted a photo of the book). Later that year, we were again in a contest, against my will, as I knew she'd cheat again to win. This contest was on a site run by a site in Germany . Halfway through a friend pointed out that one of my stories had disappeared from the site. I only thought a little of it at first as sites often have glitches; until I noticed the vanished stor...

 What a choice I am spoilt for choices here, I have sat through some horrors of films. Here are just a few I recall. The Omega man (original), this film could have been told in half of the time. A man who fights zombies, cannot come out in the daylight, and he daren't go out in the dark - obvious solution. Emmanuelle - I went to see this film as E2 was supposed to be more sensual, and erotic than the original;, so I thought I had to see the first to compare it, my verdict is both were a waste of time; it didn't help that I found Sylia Kristel not only unattractive but a terrible actress. Black Emmanuel was slightly less boring, no sexual pun intended, as the lead actress, Laura Gessmer I did see as attractive. On the whole, sex movies do nothing for me.

 Man vs Nature In a contest of man Vs Nature , there is one winner, and it is not humankind.  How can we think of competing against a force so powerful it can push land up over 28,000 feet, or dig a trench as deep? In the 1970s when the disaster movie craze was in flow, a book called Crabs was printed. and sold well, it tells the story of an island invaded by millions of crabs - that can never happen, you say - but, it does.  Every year, Christmas Island is invaded by red crabs, 1% of the eggs live to become crabs, but even on such a low percentage the number of crabs comes to millions - imagine if that percentage was higher. I was watching a video from Japan today about giant lobsters, and I had the concept for a story "Revenge of the Lobster," where a lobster comes back from being boiled and eats its way free. The scientist asked to find a solution says, "What do you expect? You thought boiling alive would kill them after they've through a nuclear reactor meltdow...

 The Traveler After paying my bills, seeing the family was out of money issues, and setting up a home for stray cats and dogs; if I were a rich man and could travel, there are a few countries I would like to visit. The USA would still be top of the list as countries go, followed by Spain , Greece ,  Italy ,   and France . For cities, outside the ones in the UK , I'd like to visit Seattle, New Orleans , San Fransisco ,  Toledo , Barcelona , Seville , The Greek Isles, Milan , Bologna , Bari , Rouen , Nice , and Marseilles   to mention a few which come to mind quickly. My wish to see Seattle goes back to the days when I made models, I always wanted to see the Boeing museum. A bit of sad news is the last Boeing 747 rolled off the production line this week, another legend has come to its final days.

 A varied palette One of the pleasures of being able to travel    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/p/the-virtual-tourist.html   for me was the opportunity to try various national dishes.   The only countries I visited    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-virtual-tourist.html   which were a disappointment were the Netherlands and Switzerland . In the last few weeks, my wife and I have enjoyed watching cooking videos on YouTube .  There was a restaurant in Cheltenham I wished I had tried, they served Thai food. I did try food from Mexico , which is fine if you like spicy food; a good thing I enjoy Tex-Mex food. The ironic thing about our day out in Italy, when I went to Switzerland, as we'd had so many types of food that week; we were served the dish of the people who were leaving the next day, I bought of all things the shortest meal on a menu Ham, eggs, and chips - fries - (MNX) :) Food in the Netherlands was bland, i...

  Herculaneum Less than two years after Mount Vesuvius erupted, the seafront of the city of  Herculaneum sank into the Bay of Naples . The view of the Catholic church is that the city sank because it had become so debauched the Lord took out his revenge and drowned the city.  A more likely scenario is that the eruption of Vesuvius destabilized the magma chambers under the city, and they in turn erupted destabilizing the ground around the seafront area which was already strained by the amount of building put on weak foundations. The modern city stands on the same chambers as the old city, the ground is so unstable it is possible, with ease, to watch the ground move below your feet as the magma changes position. If these chambers rupture, the ensuing firestorm will make Pompeii appear like pricking a boil, as the city will be turned to ashes.

  The Cursed The Raggedy Anne doll called Annabelle is "supposedly" cursed; I don't believe it is. The Warrens who claimed to be psychic researchers have been proven to be frauds, don't forget they made a fortune from the series of films called " The Conjuring ." If you ignore their obvious motive for perpetuating the curse and look at the facts the facts don't prove a thing. The owner of the doll stated that she kept moving on her own, WOW< I am sure most of us have had that thought at some time. We put an item down for a moment, turn around and find it not where we thought it was, I know I do. When we do find it, we saw to ourselves, how did that get there, it's no more than a memory lapse, usually caused by having several things on our mind at a time. Genuine psychic researchers with no motive, but qualifications, have proved the Warrens are no more than frauds. The doll is "supposed" to curse anyone who comes into contact with it; ho...