Category Archives: My own

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A late night thought about concrete

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The news in England over the last few days has had a lot of concrete in it. And accusations. The problem seems to be around the possibility of concrete failing, particularly in schools of a certain age, built with a type of concrete known as RAAC (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete).

Since all the chat I’ve been looking at concrete with deep suspicion, and no knowledge at all to back me up. However, I am a little more confident when it comes to words, and I’m wondering if it is time for certain expressions to be levered out of our daily use in the same way as RAAC.

The word concrete, like the building material, has got everywhere – in English at least. For instance, there is “set in concrete” and “concrete decision”, and in pyschology terms such as “concrete thinking” and “concrete emotion”. Have these also become a bit wobbly? Do we avoid them? Or should we just put on our hard hats, and muddle on through our concrete jungle?

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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A little heatwave and a little bird

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Here in England, the seasons should be changing, heat giving way to damp autumn. This year, in the south of the country, the normal weather track to Christmas has been diverted via a September heatwave. Lovely if you like the sun, but a little confusing even for us.

I wonder how it feels to the house martins? I imagine that by now their mud nests under the eaves are unusually hot and crowded, and possibly a little crumbly. Will this sudden heat muddle their timings? Delay their departures? Is it the heat or the hours of sunlight that tells them when to leave? Do the young birds know the route they will take? How far must they travel?

It is almost impossible to imagine that these small birds, bombing across our September skies, will make it all the way to Africa. And yet they do or, at least, so far they have.

I hope this year will be no different. That they will find all the insects they require to gather their strength for the long journey south, and that they’ll find enough of what they need to bring them all the way back.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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This is embarrassing – I should have realised

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I owe a BIG apology to the kind friend who tried, several times, to point out to me that it was difficult (‘impossible’ would have been more accurate) to find previous chapters/episodes of my draft novel once they vanished from the front page of this blog. I was convinced, without checking, that there wasn’t a problem so I lowered my nose back to my keyboard and carried on typing. Foolish me! Too much rush to put the next pillar in place, and not enough thought about how to get it there.

This week I discovered how frustrating it is to search for something on the site that isn’t obvious to find. It’s very frustrating, so I instantly referred the matter to The Phraser’s technical department, and the issue has now reached my desk. Since then I’ve studied it closely, and today can report to any readers still out there, that the audio version of the draft novel can now be found under Podcasts. If you click on that it should drop down to the heading Draft novel – Uprooted, which then links on to all the audio episodes. Frustratingly they remain in reverse order, but, who knows, I may yet figure out how to change even that.

As far as the written version goes, some chapters are now listed under Postcards 2023, and below that under Draft novel – Uprooted, which then links on to individual chapters. There are too many still, so I have to work out how best to organise them. But, I hope I’m getting there, and while I am, may I apologise again for the self-inflicted failure, and for my lack of attention to the alerts issued.

Thank you for bothering to read at all.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023