mcrowl

@mcrowl (1050)

New Zealand • Age 80

Joined myLot 20 years ago

Mike and friend discuss the world situation

mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/

Discussions (88)

mcrowl's Discussions

Damien Wilkins' new book: Somebody Loves Us All

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 26 Nov 09

I haven’t read any of Wilkins’ other five novels, so with this one I came fresh to his style and viewpoint. It took me some pages to feel at home, but gradually his distinctive and detailed approach won me over. This is a novel...

1 response

Email Clutter

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 30 Oct 09

Does anyone else find it hard to keep track of their emails, whether at work or at home? I use Outlook at work, and put some stuff into folders, but even then there are still lots of emails that haven't got a 'home.' And to be...

1 response

Christian quotations

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 30 Oct 09

I like keeping a record of interesting quotes, and before the Internet was the big thing, I used to do this in old notebooks. When I ran a Christian bookshop, I would spend some time each day writing out an extract from one of the...

1 response

Original Sin - a cultural history

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 8 Oct 09

This is a fairly new book, by Alan Jacob, who's an author I really enjoy reading. His book on C S Lewis, The Narnian, was a delight, and restored some sanity to the way in which A N Wilson had approached his biography of C S Lewis...

I enjoy taking photos of murals

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 6 Oct 09

In our city we have a lot of murals scattered around, some of them have been commissioned, and some of them have just been painted by people who specialise in high-class graffiti. Some of them are of scenes (including the history...

Writing an e-book

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 27 Sep 09

I'm planning on producing an e-book related to my experiences late last year and early this year with prostate problems (not cancer, thank goodness). Does anyone have any good suggestions as to what might be a good site to look...

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First webinar experience

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 24 Sep 09

Today was the first time I've tried getting involved in a webinar, and it wasn't exactly a load of laughs. Downloading a program unexpectedly, looking for earphones, international phone calls, using Skype, loading money on Skype -...

Week in December

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 23 Sep 09

I've just read Sebastian Faulks' A Week in December, in three great chunks, and all sorts of stuff from the story is still running around in my head. This is one of the best novels I've read in a long time: the characters are...

The Consciousness Plague

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 21 Sep 09

I read Paul Levinson's detective story, The Consciousness Plague, a couple of days ago. It was sitting in the sci-fi section of the library, which was a bit odd, since it couldn't really be classed as sci-fi, even in a loose...

Breach, the movie

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 21 Sep 09

I'm a bit surprised no one appears to have written about the movie, Breach, on mylot. I caught up with it on DVD the other night, and, while it was a bit slow to start, it really got going pretty soon, and built the tension up...

2 responses

Bergman's The Magic Flute

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 20 Sep 09

I came across Bergman's 1975 made-for-tv movie, of Mozart's The Magic Flute on DVD the other day. I hadn't seen it since it first came out. It's a clever piece, cleverer than it first seems. At first we think we're going to see...

Great thriller with a focus on Snakes!

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 20 Sep 09

I was given three thrillers to review a while ago; two of them seemed almost to be written to a formula: in the first chapter the murder victim dies, in the second a fairly unimportant character finds him or her, in the third...

1 response

The People's Train

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 17 Sep 09

I've not long finished reading The People's Train, by Tom Keneally - the same author who wrote Schindler's List. It's a surprisingly dull story, in spite of being set in tumultuous times, because the main character, who narrates...

Do you think Gordon Ramsay is a good manager?

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 15 Sep 09

I've enjoyed Gordon Ramsay's most recent series in which he takes some other minor celebrity, cooks with him or her in front of a live audience and also shows a couple of other people, via video, cooking the same meals. As...

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Stranger than Fiction - the movie

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 10 Sep 09

I hadn't seen the movie, Stranger than Fiction, until last night, and found it quite quirky, witty, and generally charming. Will Ferrell does very well with a character than could have come across boring; Emma Thompson is great,...

2 responses

Clergy Burnout

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 10 Sep 09

In my job I work with a lot of material related to clergy or ministers of the church struggling with burnout and overload, with stress and depression. Many of them choose to carry on and keep working through these difficult times....

1 response

Awakening by S J Bolton

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 10 Sep 09

Not the sort of book you might want to read alone in a house, late at night. It has some fairly scary moments, and there are a lot of snakes about. If you're like Indiana Jones, and can't bear the sight of snakes, or even the...

Mary Higgins Clark and Just Take My Heart

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 10 Sep 09

Mary Higgins Clark, who’s now in her 80s, has been a successful author for decades, and has written at least two dozen mystery novels as well as several other books. Her latest book is Just Take My Heart, and I will no doubt upset...

1 response

Structure in writing

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 10 Sep 09

One of the problems I've had with larger works, like novels, is trying to get a grip on the structure. I've blogged about it a few times, again this morning, when I was looking at the matter of how it seems that I start writing...

2 responses

Changing the focus of my blog - check it out

mcrowl @mcrowl (1050) • New Zealand 2 Mar 08

I’m changing the focus of my blog at http://mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/ What focus, you ask? You mean there’s been a focus? All right, I’ll admit sometimes the focus might have been a bit obscure; that’s the nature of a...

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1 person