Define 'tidy'...

Moving from Wednesday, when we were discussing the pets of a friend of mine, we go to my friend herself - or, more precisely, one of her daughters.

Sam, it seems has managed to craft and near-perfect the habit of not tidying up after herself. And before you say it, Julie, I know she still won't be as bad as me.

Sharron, Sam's mother, asked her several times to clear away all the toys, books and what have you. Asked, cajoled, ordered, and commanded. In the end, in fear of tripping over something and hurting herself, Sharron gave in to the inevitable and did it , as mothers all-too often do.

Naturally, Sam can tell the difference between a cluttered, messy room, and a tidy one. Not that she commented upon it when she came home from school. Even when her mother raised the subject, Sam remained unimpressed.

...somebody pass me a dictionary, please. I think I've been getting it wrong all this time...

Pay (lots) to play

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an inordinate fondness for facts. Whether they be relevant to something in my life, or just useless trivia, I will usually read about it and think, "well I never." Among the Giles annuals and Pratchett books in my own personal library, there are a number of non-fiction books. Many are to do with natural history, but others will stray out into other sciences, language, history and even mathematics.

Yes, I am a word nerd.

For our wedding, we bucked a few trends; we made our own table centrepieces (with hedgehogs, of course), we insulted the registrar (link), and we made our own wedding favours, to be opened as the meal began. Intended to be something to help relative strangers strike up conversation with each other, we included, along with the ubiquitous sugared almonds, a few chocolate coins, a cheap toy such as you may find inside a Christmas cracker - and a folded piece of paper, upon which was written the following; a joke ("Two fish were in a tank. one said to the other, 'how do you drive this bloody thing?'") and a factoid, a little snippet to make people wonder.

To that end, books like this were invaluable.

Crammed with all sort of useless cra.. uh, information, this and others like it are fun reading. Especially when you are stuck in the smallest room in the house for a while...

I don't know which book it was, but one of my trivia books had a section on words that have been adopted into English from various other languages. And then proceeded to give us a literal translation of said word. For example...

Ba-dum TISH!

Steamed about physics

I've bought a new book.

I'm a long-time Terry Pratchett fan. I have several books signed by him, have met him in the process of said signing, and have even helped to interview him on BBC Radio 4, talking about the novel Mort and other things Discworld. He is as genial and sharp a chap as you would expect him to be, and I'm going to shut up now, or several friends of mine will be visiting me to give me a good kicking...

Because I enjoy reading, I am often known to have failed to go to bed at nights, simply due to the fact I didn't want to put a book down. However, I already had something else I wanted to do today, so I went into town, picked up the copy of Raising Steam I had reserved (nearly coming away with an expensive slipcased version in the process), and dropped it off at home before heading off out again.

By the time I returned home, Julie had come back from work and had her tea (evening meal, for non-English folks). We chatted a little, and after a little while, Julie asked me if I had got hold of my book yet.

"OH, yes."

She smiled, and asked the question I had been expecting.

Uhhhh... what?

The great Greek flip-flop flop

Heh - say that fast three times in a row...

Anyway - as I mentioned in Monday's post, We have a friend from Greece visiting for a few days. Since she and Julie are familiar with each other, it was no effort to either of them to fall into an easy banter - especially when it came to taking digs at me. Julie may come out with some odd things now and then (yes, really!!), but she is very quick-witted, and usually manages to put me in my place with no problem.

However, the Sunday was the first day after our friend arrived and she was still somewhat jetlagged. Since I am really not at all good in the morning, Julie was pretty much the only bright spark in a sea of bleary dullness. It didn't help that I had the grand idea of taking our friend to her first car boot fair, an event which can be best described as a yard sale held in a field, where everyone turns up to sell their crap - I mean surplus goods.

As you can tell, you do get some turn up in vans; traders of one sort or another - but they have to pay a larger pitch fee as they will take up more space. Fair play. It is truly astonishing, though, just what people try to sell. Mind you, it's not nearly as astonishing as the fact that people will actually buy it. From rusty car parts, old Paul Young records (usually No Parlez) to a truly staggering amount of baby clothes and dog-eared paperback books, you will find pretty much everything.

On the other hand, you will also find the odd hidden gem, something that is just what you need. That rusty car part might be from an Aston Martin, a part that was last in production fifty years ago. If you are living on the breadline and are expecting a baby, this will be an ideal way to clothe your newborn tot. And yes, there are still some Paul Young fans out there.

As for me and Julie, we view these events as a good opportunity to add to our already substantial collection of hedgehog ornaments, toys and nick-nacks. It may have been at a car boot fair or in a charity shop that we managed to snag a lovely hedgehog doorstop.

Handsome chappie, no? Oddly enough, we haven't named this one, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

But I digress. This hedgehog is not simply for looks, we do utilise it as a doorstop. In fact, the door it is responsible for is that which belongs to the guest room, the room in which our friend is currently sleeping as I type this.

Back to the car boot fair. It had been a hot day and we had just dragged our still-weary friend around a dusty field. Having said that, we did treat her to her very first cream tea - with clotted cream, naturally. Unfortunately, despite the delicious refreshments and the elation of having bought her very first item from a car boot fair (a Stephen Fry book), our friend was unaccountably tired, so we bundled her off to her room for a bit of a rest.

On the way into her room, though, she stumbled. Now, I thought she had tripped over the 'hoggy doorstop, and, jokingly, accused her of mistreating that poor, poor animal, "I mean, what has it ever done to you?" I demanded.

How wrong I was. Our friend had not been guilty of mistreating a weighty stuffed animal, but of making a small misstep as a result of her footwear.

You mean, instead of being 'flop-flip'?

Heh. What a day; first boot fair, first cream tea - and her first Gem.

Fairways and motorways

Also known as autobahns in Germany and freeways in the USA, motorways are technically supposed to be a means of bypassing all those nasty things that slow traffic down, like towns and winding country lanes. In a sense, they have worked brilliantly, because those towns and country lanes are a lot easier to drive around now. However, that's only because all the traffic is now to be found - gridlocked - on these multi-lane car parks.

Do I sound bitter? Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes I have a reason. You see, we have a guest this week, a very good friend who has managed to escape from her homeland of Greece for a few days. The only things is, we live on the south coast of England, and our friend was due to arrive in Heathrow airport. This meant driving, on a Saturday early in the school holiday season, on the infamous M25 - AKA the London Orbital. It's infamous for having many delays and has in fact been portrayed as having demonic origins by messrs. Pratchett and Gaiman in the excellently witty novel, 'Good Omens'.

The original cover of the novel
featured an eerie, glowing version
of the M25.

Whatever the origins, the London Orbital was definitely living up to its reputation on Saturday. For about thirty miles, we alternated between crawling and complete halt. When we reached a service station, we gave in and decided to have lunch - only to find that the service's car park was about as gridlocked as the motorway we had just left. Going in AND leaving.

After we finally managed to leave the services and crawl our way to the airport, we had another problem - how on earth could we pick someone up without using a car park?
Answer: we couldn't.

Despite us timing our arrival perfectly with our friend's ejection from security and customs, we wound up going through two car parks and getting lost on the way. In the end, what should have been a joyful meeting was instead a hurried "Oh hello, come on, let's get going." I'd had enough of the bloody roads.
With that in mind, I went along with julie's suggestion that we avoid the M25 and head off a different route. Since she had the map, I agreed and let her chart the course.

Whoops.

Julie readily agrees that map-reading is not her forte, so she can hardly be blamed for us going around roads, hitting the same roundabout twice from different directions - and leaving it from two other different exits - and crossing the M25 two or three times.

I have no idea what our guest in the back of the car thought as we bickered our random way across the western outskirts of London, but it's possible she had some misgivings...
Eventually, more by luck than judgement, we found our way onto the M3. Feeling a very certain need, I suggested - in no uncertain terms - that we stop at the next motorway services for a trip to the loo and a nice, hot cup of tea.

Fleet Services (circled), as portrayed in our road atlas.

'...and relax...'

You may be asking, at this point, why on earth we don't have a satnav. Well, I'll give you two good reasons. Firstly, the sound and the look annoy the hell out of me. And secondly, when the bloody things get stuck into a closed loop by turning right all the time, I remember that I actually like maps and enjoy browsing them. Julie, unfortunately, doesn't have the same facility with maps as I do, so it can be a little hit and miss when it comes to going to new places.

That aside, I decided that we would consult our road atlas together, before we set off once more.

As the three of us crowded around the pages, Julie betrayed her lack of experience (because that's all it is really) once more and wondered how I knew where we were.

Our friend was ever so pleased. She'd only been in this country for a couple of hours and she'd already been at Gem ground zero.

World Book Night 2013 - the final draw

Hello folks, it's time for another shambling video clip from Spike and Julie of Julie's Gems. This time, it's in aid of the final part of our free prize draw. In case you weren't aware, here were the prizes:

The first four people whose names were to be picked would win an exclusive World Book Night 2013 edition of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, and one lucky person would get everything pictured above. Everyone would also get some official Julie's Gems bookmarks, lovingly laminated by my own fair hands.

Anyhow, down to business - here's the video clip of us making the draw. Apologies for the poor lighting, and for my abysmal mumbling; in my defence, I'm just getting through the last bit of a nasty cold.

So there you have it. Congratulations to Rob for bagging the big prize, and to Magenta, Mikey, Lisa and Slim for winning individual copies of The Eyre Affair. Messages, emails and wotnot will be winging their way to the winners to tactfully enquire as to postal addresses as soon as I post this blog.

Tata for now, and thanks so much for taking part, both in the draw and the blog in general. Don't forget, if you find yourself involved in a Gem-like situation and feel it warrants an appearance here, you can email us with the details at juliesgems@gmx.com

Cheers!

World Book Night 2013: A final fail and a call to arms

Yes folks. As I type this, you have just under six hours to enter the free draw. If you want to be in with a chance of winning a great book posted to you anywhere in the world, then email us immediately (if not sooner) at juliesgems@gmx.com - you never know, you may even bag yourself loads of other goodies too, including some official Julie's Gems bookmarks, featuring quotes from the great lady herself!

As a sweetener, here is one final outtake from our pitiful attempts at making a promotional clip for this draw (made in association with World Book Night 2013)...






There you go. All done and dusted.
We will post the results of the draw on Thursday.

World Book Night Fail II - the Techno-derp.

OK, so there we are trying to film a clip for our World Book Night free draw. Yes, we managed to get it together in the end, but there were a couple of problems. One was my poor delivery, and the other was my less than stellar ability with editing tools.

Mind you, Julie's grasp of technology seems to be even worse than mine (somehow...).

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Don't forget - you still have time to enter the free draw to win a load of books, CDs and other goodies!
Email us at juliesgems@gmx.com - and don't forget, this is open only to residents of Earth.

A vagrant bum (or, Arsing about)

Sometimes, there just isn't a lot I can say to introduce a Gem.
Sometimes, all I need to do is present it and then follow it with a  brief message of stunned admiration - or something similar.
Sometimes, I'll desperately pad it out with something utterly unrelated.

Today, all I shall do is point out the obvious, that there had been something that had been preying in Julie's mind for a while...

Well, yes. I think we'll 'end' it there.

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Don't forget folks, you have one more week to enter our free draw to win one of these books (and a Julie's Gem bookmark) - and one person also gets a whole load of other goodies too.
Email us at juliesgems@gmx.com
Or drop us a line via our Facebook page.

World Book Night 2013 is here!

We've been building up to this for weeks now, both here and on our Facebook page, with hints and teasers galore. Finally, we can now reveal our contribution to World Book Night 2013 in all its glory.

Way back when, I received news that I had been selected once more to be an official World Book Night 'giver'. The first time I did it, the book I chose was Stuart - A life backwards - that one proved to be difficult to hand out, and almost as difficult to read. Last year, it was Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's Good Omens: The nice and accurate predictions of Agnes Nutter, witch. That went rather better - on several fronts.

This year, out of the twenty titles to choose from, I chose Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. A thoroughly enjoyable and silly romp set in an England from another dimension, TEA shows you just how literally books can come to life.

I will set this blog entry to release at just after midnight April 23rd.
Why? Well, that way, early birds will get a chance to read this and maybe meet me at Roots Urban Farmshop in Eastbourne from 11am onwards and blag a copy of this most excellent of books.

However, should you not be able to make it in time to get a book there, then there is a most wonderful alternative; enter the free draw right here on Julie's Gems.
Here's a shambling, silly video introducing the draw and the prizes on offer.

Just to clarify:

• You have until Midnight GMT May 7th to enter the free draw.
• ANYONE, anywhere in the world is eligible to enter - at no cost.
• Hedgehogs are prickly.
• Enter by commenting here, on our Facebook page, or by emailing us at juliesgems@gmx.com.
• All we need from you at this point is your name and either an email address or phone number. If your name is drawn, then we will ask for your postal address.

...is it me, or was 20% of that last bit unnecessary?

As I said in the clip, one lucky person will not only get a copy of The Eyre Affair, but will bag a veritable treasure trove of goodies. In case you couldn't see them, here they are.

You may have noticed that a couple of books, Skallagrigg in particular, are looking a bit creased. That's because, I'm sorry to say, both that and Decipher are out of print. In the case of Skallagrigg, I think that is most definitely a crime against litereature. Oh, there are pristine copies here and there, but since they go for ridiculous prices in the main, I have to admit that I can't justify forking out my meagre funds.
Oh, alright. The fridge magnet is brand new.

One last detail to try and convince the waverers: The WBN 2103 version of The Eyre Affair comes bundled with a couple of special features. On the inside of the back cover, you will find a poem, and just a little further back from that, there is a snippet from a book, selected by Mr Fforde himself for this edition.

That's it!
Join in, have fun and enter the draw!

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LINKS
Email for Julie's Gems: juliesgems@gmx.com
Julie's Gems on Facebook.
Not Always Right (as mentioned in the video - seriously, it's worth it).
World Book Night.

World Book Night 2013 - what? MORE goodies?

Wotcha folks. World Book Night 2013 is nearly upon us, and preparations have notched up another gear. Bookmarks have been created, printed (after a frantic search for some decent card) and laminated and various prizes gathered.

Oh yes. And I collected the twenty copies of The Eyre Affair from our local library. Julie was a little concerned about me carrying the box home - via a meandering walk through town - but it was well within my capabilities. OK, so my arms were cramping something rotten about an hour after we got home.

You may be interested to know that we will be kicking things off in fine style here on Julie's Gems with a video presentation of the book and goodies we will be giving away. If past clips are anything to go by, then it should be suitably shambolic. Between my general lack of preparation and Julie's willingness to subvert the proceedings at any and all possibility, it'll be a miracle if the camera doesn't burst into flames in a desperate, suicidal moment of self-immolation.

Back to the prizes.

As you already know, Anyone that can't make it to Roots Urban Cafe on Tuesday 23rd April (11am GMT) has the chance of winning one of five copies of a Jasper Fforde book. And I mean anyone. Whoever you are, wherever in the world, you are eligible to enter. If your name is pulled out of our hat, then we will send you prize to you, be it Shanghai, Stockholm or Swindon.

On top of that, on lucky person will nab themselves a veritable grab-bag of bits and bobs. So far, we have told you about Skallagrigg, Donald McGill and Grieg. Now, I want to introduce you to Stel Pavlou and Nicholas Parsons.

Stel Pavlou came to prominence by having a hefty hand in scripting the film The 51st State, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Not long after that, Pavlou published his first novel, Decipher.

Published two years before Dan Brown's execrable The DaVinci Code, Decipher reads like a blockbuster movie, far more coherent and exciting than its soon-to-be rival.
Like Skallagrigg, it's out of print, so I'm afraid you will be in receipt of a loved, but decent copy of the book. I'm really hoping you like it as much as me.

Nicholas Parsons, the man whose name invites plenty of schoolboy titters (if you don't know, don't ask),* heads a comedy panel show on BBC Radio 4 called Just A Minute. Various quick-witted celebrities are invited to discuss various topics for a minute without repetition, deviation or hesitation. You'd think this should be easy enough, except that everyone else is simultaneously trying to put them off by hectoring and challenging them over the oddest points...
Hmm.
I think the best thing to do is to invite you to have a listen to Paul Merton and Julian Clary doing their best.

There you go. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Anyhow, this brings me to our next prize, a compilation of the best bits of the show from 2009

Spread over 2 CDs, this will keep you entertained for a little while, one would hope.

Right - that's all for now. The rest of the details will wait until Tuesday, and the video.

Tata for now!

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*No, I mean it. Don't.

Vital video procedures

OK, so World Book Night 2013 is nearly upon us. On Tuesday, I will be handing out three-quarters of my copies of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair at a cafe in Eastbourne. Here's my poster advertising the event.

Hmm. I tried to make a logo for JG, but it's turned out a bit naff.

If you can't make it for some reason, then no matter, because there will still be a chance for you to win. On Tuesday, there will be a special blog here telling you just what you need to do. Not only that, but there will be a video of me and Julie presenting the goodies on offer.
Oh yes.
It's been a while, I know, but if a WBN giveaway isn't a good reason, then I don't know what is.

I was discussing this with Julie earlier, and cheekily suggested that she had a small glass of wine to loosen her up a bit. She replied that she'd rather have a big glass. Fair enough, I suppose.
When my wife came out with that, it reminded me of a Gem she came out with when we raised the possibility of a video a while back. The video never happened, but I kept hold of the Gem, because I knew there would be a time that I could share it.

Essentially, Julie was already 'loose' as she puts it. Enough that not only had her mouth escaped from her brain's strict control, but it was tripping over itself in trying to leave the rest of her behind too. Not only that, but she was in danger of using up all her good material before we had the camera ready...

On reflection, I can't work out if that makes sense or not...

World Book Night 2013 - listen like a Slav

What ho, folks! How are your respective weekends going? Have you consumed diabetic quantities of chocolate, or are you somehow managing to pace yourselves?

If you're having a quiet weekend, then I hope you are settled down with a good book to read. Oh, go on, then. Have a bit of chocolate. And a nice cuppa.

When it comes down to settling in for a good, hard read, I like to have a little music on in the background. It won't usually have much in the way of lyrics, as that would distract me. As there aren't many (decent) albums that are limited to instrumentals and/or lyric-free vocals,* this generally means classical music.

I have a few favourites, but there is one composer I tend to keep coming back to; Dvorak. I was a young lad when my father played the composer's Slavonic Dances, but I loved the sound and it has stayed with me ever since. If I'm sat with a book and I want something upbeat to accompany my reading, on goes that CD.

And you know what?

We're going to be sharing that opportunity with you. Yep, another one of the prizes for that one lucky person is going to be a copy of that CD.

Nice, eh?

Stay tuned for more prize announcements in the coming weeks!

World Book Night 2013 - update

Hi folks, you may recall that for the last couple of years, we have been involved with World Book Night, which encourages people to read by the wonderful process of giving away brilliant books for free.

Well, we're at it again. This year, out of the twenty titles available, I chose to give away copies of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
However, in keeping with our previous efforts, we will also be giving away other goodies too. Over the next few weeks, I will be introducing them. Here's the first; Skallagrigg by William Horwood.

This is my all-time favourite book. It's not a fantasy novel, but it has an invented mythology within it. It challenges you to face up to facts of life that are extremely uncomfortable. What would you do if you suddenly found you were the father of a cerebral palsied baby and that the child's severe handicap was due to the car accident that also killed your wife?

The threads in this book are woven together with such care and skill that you not only find you are able to follow Esther Marquand's life in various care homes and schools, but that you also want to. You want to help her along, cheer her on and doff a cap to her when she achieves something amazing.
I love Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. When Frodo leaves Middle Earth at the end of the book, I will cry rivers for him. Esther Marquand is different. My emotions for her are nowhere near as primal. However, for a middle-aged man with no severe handicap to find himself identifying with a frustrated, heavily cerebral palsied young girl (and later, young lady), that indicates writing of the highest calibre.
Don't just take my word for it, though - here's a great blog about it.

Skallagrigg is going to be one of the prizes for one lucky person in our free draw. Since it's been out of print for a long time, the copy on offer is not of the highest quality, but it's readable and won't fall apart on you.

That's it for this time - next week, I shall reveal one of the other prizes that will be up for grabs.

World Book Night 2013 - teaser

Well, then. This is all rather nice. Yours truly is involved once more in that event promoting reading known as World Book Night.

That's all for now.

What?
You wanted details?
That's a shame isn't it... hehehehe...

World Book Night 2012. Boy, do we have a prize draw for you. Finally.

As promised, we pulled some names out of a hat - literally. We're old school like that. We even committed it to video. Finally. We really need that camcorder so we can save ourselves a fortune in AA batteries.

Anyhow.

Like we said before, there would be five winners, each winning a special edition of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's 'Good Omens'. As we added later, there would be an especially lucky person who would also win further prizes. Take a look.

Not a bad haul, eh?

Just to recap the prize situation, everyone will get a special edition of Good Omens and an official, laminated Julie's Gems bookmark. One lucky person also gets a special edition of The Time-Traveler's Wife and a slap watch (seriously, who come up with these stupid names?)
Last night, after Julie came home from work, we cobbled together a quick video clip for the prize draw. As you will see, we had no script (as per usual), not much expertise, and certainly not much of a clue. It also didn't help much that we hadn't agreed how we were going to go about things. As a result, right from the word 'go', I was pretty much wrong-footed for the whole clip.

So, there you go. Four lucky people and one very lucky person. Congratulations to Jules, Sharron, Kevin, Peter and the winner of the extra book and watch, Dimitra! Your goodies will be winging their way to you in a short while - well sort of. Kevin didn't have to wait long at all, the lucky so-and-so.

As you can see, Kev only won the book and bookmark. He seems pretty
happy about it though, doesn't he?

Heh - I did a quick little presentation, showed him the video clip and handed him the book. He then asked me if we had made that video in the library. I had to explain to him that the books behind us were actually ours. And represented less than half of our own personal library.
[/bragging mode]

Bonus post - It's a nice way to kill time

A friend of mine from gaming days of yore has graciously allowed me to share this little event with you...

Paul and his wife, Lisa, were waiting for a TV show to begin and were successfully avoiding the ads by having themselves a pleasant natter. They both enjoy the show, but it so happens that it's actually Lisa's favourite. Paul was lost in the conversation, but Lisa, who had been keeping a weather eye on the TV, saw that the show was about to begin. With a pithy ability to get right to the point, Lisa cut into the conversation with this...

Um. Yes, dear...
(shutting up now, dear)

When I saw this, I knew I had to appropriate it for Julie's Gems. However, I needed a little background first. After all, the only thing I knew at first was a simple sentence on Facebook.

See what I mean?
Apparently Lisa "has a thing for serial killers. Long story."
Erk. Having asked the question, I was now reminded of a quote from Terry Pratchett's 'Mort'

Yes, it definitely served me right.

In case you happened to be interested, the TV show in question was Criminal Minds.
Many thanks to Lisa and to Paul, who is probably in for a world of pain when Lisa finds out he allowed me to post this.

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Now I've managed to shoehorn a Terry Pratchett quote into the blog, I may as well take the opportunity to once more plug the free book draw taking place. If you want a special edition copy of 'Good Omens' and an official Julie's Gems bookmark (with a chance to also blag a copy of Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time-Traveler's Wife' and a slap watch), then send us an email by this Sunday to juliesgemsuk@hotmail.co.uk

Say what??

That was close. I put this Gem together, all the time having this nagging feeling of deja vu, and finally committed myself to starting up a new blog post with the title above. Except that after typing the word 'say', I was then given the auto-complete option of 'Say you, say what?' With a sinking feeling, I trawled the archives in search of the post with that title, hoping it wouldn't be the same thing. That I had re-used something, having failed to cross it out before...

>phew<

As it happens, 'Say you, say what?' is a completely different post, one from the murky depths of time before I started getting cocky and adding pretty pictures to each Gem. Take a look.
Today's Gem admittedly riffs off a very similar theme, albeit set to a rambling time signature in the key of 'eh?'

You know what, love? It may well do, but I'm damned if I know...

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Just a few days left to enter the free book draw, folks. Just comment below or send us an email to enter.

Magnificent motors, post-haste!

This weekend, there were a couple of events taking place in Eastbourne. One was a semi-regular 'continental' market along the seafront promenade, which sells product from Europe and the UK - and, for some reason, native American Indian-themed clothing and accoutrements. Hence the use of quote marks above. There were plenty of foodstuffs - mostly pricey foodstuffs. Admittedly, they were tasty, but they were still pricey. Baklava (or however you wish to spell it), churros, paella (so very tempted by this), noodles, biscuits, cakes, cheeses (including a cheddar infused with Guinness. VERY nice melted onto toast) and sweets. There was even a guy trying, in the chill wind, to sell slush puppies. Yeah. I'm guessing he wasn't making much of a profit this weekend.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the long prom (and back a bit), there was the annual event known as Magnificent Motors. We're not petrolheads, not in the slightest. Any interest in cars, vans, buses or lorries is going to be on a purely cultural basis. We don't care how smooth a ride it is/was, or what goes on under the bonnet (or 'hood' for our American friends). However, it was something to do on a bank holiday weekend, so we wandered along, grateful that there was no entry fee.

Last year, it turned out that I was far more interested in one of the bands playing than in anything else - as we approached, I heard the strains of a cover of a tune by The Specials. All of a sudden, Julie found herself talking to thin air (I know, I know...), as I peeled off at speed and a tangent, and made a beeline for the stage where Ska'd 4Life were banging out some great tunes. There was a half decent crowd, but only myself, a couple of young children and one woman (who turned out to be a band WAG) near the stage showed any inclination to pump elbows and dance along. Julie, in the meantime, maintained a cautious distance.
Sadly, the music this year wasn't up to par, although I had to give the singer we saw some credit for singing the Joni Mitchell hit 'Big Yellow Taxi' at a motor show.* I'd have put a pile of money on nobody else getting the joke, though...

It didn't take us long to wander around, although we did stop and have a chat with one guy who was running a stall devoted to making and selling DVDs of old film footage of various forms of public transport around the South of Britain. I was very tempted, but Julie persuaded me not to bother. I'm still thinking about it though. Hmm, look at that, I seem to have his website....
Shortly after that, we came across this beautiful old car.

Apologies for the quality, I was only using my phone-cam.

Now, bear in mind that, as I said before, neither of us have any knowledge or interest of a car's workings, I was curious as to what that brass plate I have pointed out was actually for. In fact, it put me in mind of something else...

Facepalm time. Well done, love, you caught me out with that one. Terrible pun, but you got me, nonetheless.

*Oh come on, you know the lyrics; "... they paved paradise and put up a parking lot..."

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OK, so we're now into the final week of our prize draw. If you haven't put your name in yet, then do so immediately, if not sooner. The prizes, as if you need reminding, are as follows.

1 person wins a special edition of 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, a special edition of Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time Traveler's Wife, an official Julie's Gems bookmark and a funky slap-watch.
4 people will win a special edition of 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman and an official Julie's Gems bookmark.

Remember, anyone can enter, the prizes will be sent to anywhere in the world at no cost to you. All you have to do is send us an email (no postal addresses yet!) to juliesgemsuk@hotmail.co.uk
The latest date for entries is this Sunday, 13th of May

Time to finish with a video - a little bit of Ska'd 4 Life, anyone?

Memory almost full - of WTF

OK, it's best that I get the news out of the way first - you're certainly not going to be in any fit state to take it in following today's Gem.
Regarding the World Book Night free draw for copies of Good Omens, I have made the executive decision to extend the time for entries for another week. This is nothing to do with the draw itself, but more to do with the fact I will be sending out the prizes on the back of my next pay packet. Ultimately, this means that any waverers now have a little longer to try and make up their minds, as the closing date is now Sunday, May 13th.
Go on, drop us a line at juliesgemsuk@hotmail.co.uk and tell us you want a free book. Or books and a watch. Actually, why not drop us an email anyhow? We like to hear from people. Tell us what you like or don't like about our blog, and maybe even suggest something or other. You never know, you may even have a Gem yourselves and want to see it posted here... don't look at me like that - it's happened. A lot.

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And now for something completely wotnot.
Today's Gem is all Julie and was a status update on her personal Facebook page.* The first I knew of it was that one of our mutual friends had commented upon it and requested - nay, demanded - that it be transferred here to make it official.
Anyway, no fannying about, here's the Gem. Make of it what you will, because I'm out of options...

Now, if you're anything like myself and our friend, you will have just spent the best part of five minutes reading and re-reading that, just to try and work out if the internal logic holds up.
In fact, if you're anything like me, you have also just developed a sharp pain behind your left eye and given it up as a bad job...

Have a great weekend folks (especially to those of you in the UK who now have a three-day weekend to look forward to. Barring people like Julie who work in hospitals and the like. My sympathies.)

*Don't forget that Julie's Gems also has a Facebook page. If you become a fan of the page, then you'll have access to all the Gems plus a few FB-only posts.