Jules Jones

( Dismantling the pen )
( Commentary on Anonymous Claire )

My Kobo is whining at me to remove some books so it has room to update its operating system. This means that there may be book logging activity. "Review" is possibly a little optimistic, as that implies thoughtful consideration rather than "I read this book and this is what it is about". First up:


Heather Boyd - Engaging the enemy

This one's part historical romance and part mystery, doing a good job of weaving them together. Leopold Randall was forced by his uncle, a very wicked duke indeed, to do his bidding with the whereabouts of Leopold's kidnapped siblings as ransom for his obedience. Now Leopold is back to look for clues after the death of his uncle. It's all he wants, but he finds his cousin's widow in need of help to protect her young son, the current Duke of Romsey - and Leopold holds no grudge against a young child.

Mercy has no good reason to have liked her father-in-law, but after his death she's at her wit's end trying to keep the estate running without help, and that's without the anonymous threats she's been receiving. Her late husband's cousin might be the help she needs. She readily gives him permission to look through the old man's papers in exchange for help sorting those papers out.

I liked this a lot, particularly the way that Leopold and Mercy have both been manipulated and used by the old duke, giving them a shared interest in working together to solve past and present mysteries. I'm not entirely convinced by Mercy chasing after Leopold quite so brazenly in a setting with serious consequences for her if she's caught, but I can certainly see why she wants him after even a short acquaintance, and why he wants her. It's a pity that the book had a very bad case of greengrocer's apostrophe - "whoops, there's an s coming up!". It was so distracting that I very nearly gave up reading a few chapters in, and it would have been a shame if I had.

The book's the first in a series, but can be read as a standlone.

Purchase links (including some affiliate links): https://books2read.com/u/bQdxgD

It is possible that I have too many fountain pens. I did not, however, until very recently own a pocket fountain pen; and that one is sufficiently expensive that I'm a little reluctant to take it out of the house. So when I was browsing the clearance section at Cult Pens and saw an Ohto pocket pen at £6 I decided that I Wanted That.



( Read more... )

I wrote this review for the Amazon product page, but given how many of you lot would find it useful, I'm putting it here as well. I should note that the UK distributor contacted me through Amazon after I'd bought it, and asked if I'd be willing to write a review, as there weren't many on the UK Amazon site. However, I'd already intended to write a review for exactly that reason -- I'd had to go to the US site to find enough information to see if the product would suit me. It just got written rather sooner than it might have been without the request.

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I'm a daylight-sensitive insomniac who is tired of waking up with the dawn when I'm sleeping in an east-facing room. The sort of masks handed out by airlines help for the odd night, but they're not good enough for regular use. I bought the Sleep Master on spec, and while it's not perfect, it's a lot better than any other mask I've tried. For me it was well worth the 22 pounds I paid for it. I bought mine for insomnia, but I think it's also worth trying for light-sensitive migraine.

It's a wrap-around padded blindfold held on with a velcro fastener, and has no straps or elastic involved in keeping it on your head. There are padded areas over the ears to muffle sound, and it comes with two sets of earplugs if you want heavy-duty sound blocking.

What it's very, very good at is blocking out the light. It's very wide, the padding ensures that almost no light gets through the blindfold itself, and the cut out around the nose is a good shape that ensures a good light seal in that area.

Comfort-wise, it's very good once you get used to it. It's made from a soft, silky material that feels comfortable against my skin. I was concerned that it might get too sweaty, but so far haven't had any problems. The padding makes it quite thick, which makes it feel a bit odd to lie on at first, but after a few days I didn't notice it. The main problem I noticed was that it rests directly against the eyelids, which means that if you're prone to opening your eyes when sleeping, you won't be able to and it's going to disturb your sleep.

It's held on by a long velcro strip which provides plenty of size adjustment, and which does a good job of holding it securely closed without it loosening during the night, as elastic is prone to do. It's also a lot more comfortable than elastic. The one drawback is that I found that it doesn't reliably stay on during the night, although that may because I'm a fairly restless sleeper. It's easy enough to slip back on if it does come off.

The blindfold by itself does muffle sound a little, and could be enough to mask low levels of irritating sound. The flip side of this is that it adds sounds of its own -- the rustling of satin cloth against skin right next to your ear. This could be helpful, if you find it soothing white noise that masks other sounds, or it could be annoying in its own right. I haven't tried the earplugs it came with, but one pair is the type I used to wear in a high decibel industrial environment as hearing protection, so I know that it's capable of blocking very high sound levels.

Washing directions are hand wash in cold water and drip dry. So far it seems to have survived the experience, and I didn't get any colour bleeding. I suspect that you could get away with occasional mashine washing on the wool cycle if you put it in a delicates bag, which matters if you're like me and have hand problems, but I'm not going to try it unless I need to.

In summary: excellent product which should suit most people.

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An additional bit of review for the blog only -- yes, I'm sure it will be very useful for Other Purposes as well. :-)

I'm probably going to bring this along with me to cons, since so many hotel rooms don't have adequate blackout curtains. If anyone wants to have a look at it with a view to purchasing one of their own, feel free to ask.

Revolutionary, Patented SLEEP MASTER (tm) Sleep Mask. Worlds most effective light and noise reduction package. Helps with snoring partners , insomnia , shift work , jet lag for truly restful sleep. Prevents disturbed rest ensures peaceful slumber

I wandered into Alex Woolfson's sf webcomic site Yaoi 911 while he was still posting Artifice, and was hooked. The ad I clicked said "smart guy-on-guy sci-fi", and that's exactly what I got.

Artifice, now complete, is a solid story about an android soldier who didn't obey orders, and is now being interrogated by the company's top robopsychologist to find out why. There follows a battle of wits as Doctor Maven tries to uncover why Deacon, last survivor of an assassination squad, not only failed to kill the last survivor of the colony his unit was sent to dispose of, but attacked the retrieval team sent in to fetch him. Excellent writing by Woolfson teamed with nice art by Winona Nelson, and it skilfully blends a thoughtful look at the use and abuse of androids with a delightful gay romance.

The Young Protectors, currently in progress, is a superheroes comic. Although some of the superheroes we run into aren't so heroic... In the prologue, young superhero Kyle has just finished a quick visit to a place he doesn't really want to be found by the rest of the team, when he encounters supervillain The Annihilator. The Annihilator's price for not telling the world that he just saw Kyle go into a gay bar for the first time is... a kiss. :-) Kyle goes back to ordinary after-class superheroing in the first chapter, but life rapidly gets more complicated for him. At forty-something pages in, there's a lot of intriguing backstory and long-term plot being hinted at, and I can't wait to see what happens next. Also, some acidly entertaining commentary about the amount of collateral damage around superheroes. Woolfson's excellent script is pencilled by Adam DeKraker and coloured by Veronica Gandini. I have no idea where Woolfson's planning to take this, but if you like your superhero comics with some May/December superhero/supervillain in the mix, take a look at this.

There are more pieces available to mailing list subscribers, but these are the ones which are currently available without registering.

I generally don't point at reviews of my books, even the good ones, unless it's one where I personally asked the reviewer to look at the book. But every so often there is a review that makes an author think, "Yes! They got what I was trying to do! It worked!" And Jenre has just posted such a review of Lord and Master.

[exit, bouncing]

I stumbled over the Cult Pens website a couple of years ago when I was looking for a mail order source for my beloved Pentel R56 rollerballs. I promptly bookmarked it for future use, but hadn't got around to ordering anything from them until a couple of weeks ago.

They stock a *lot* of different pens and pencils. More to the point, they stock the refills and accessories for them as well. You can buy both singly and by the box. The site has plenty of information on each line stocked, usually with their own commentary and not just the blurb from the manufacturer. It is obvious from the commentary that this place is run by pen geeks.

The sheer number of product lines makes navigating the site a slightly daunting task, but it's well laid out into sections by manufacturer, and there is a useful interactive selection guide where you can put in the features you want and what you intend to use it for, and get back recommendations. There are also very good articles on mechanical pencils and technical pens, with an in-depth look at the different types and features, and recommendations for different uses at price brackets ranging from budget to extravagant.

The prices are shown both with and without VAT. UK shipping is simple -- if your order is under 10 pounds, it's 1.50, over that it's free. They also ship internationally, with VAT deducted where appropriate.

The prices are reasonable, but generally not hugely cheap. I'm fairly sure I could have got most of the things I ordered a little bit cheaper by shopping around. But the advantage of using this site was that I could get everything at one site, all at a reasonable price, with clear information that let me decide whether it would do the job I wanted it for. I ordered 8 individual items and one box of a dozen black R50 rollerballs (which were in the Office Essentials, a small selection of nice office pens on heavy discount).

The shopping basket is reasonably easy to use. One thing I particularly liked was that I could leave it for a couple of hours, come back, and find the basket still there. I find it annoying when a basket times out after ten minutes or so -- this is a security precaution which is useful when you have to sign into an account before you start shopping, but is simply a nuisance when the site doesn't have any of your personal information until you actually check out. The main payment method is debit or credit card, but you can also generate an order from the basket and then select "cheque" as payment method if you want to pay by post using UK cheque or postal order.

I ordered on Sunday evening, received a clear and detailed delivery note with full UK VAT receipt by email immediately, and my parcel was with me on Tuesday morning via first class post. The items were packed loose in an appropriately sized bubble mailer, without any padding inside the envelope, along with a paper copy of the delivery note. I'd hope that more expensive items would have a bit more protection, but for the items I'd ordered this was fine.

I like this site, and will be ordering from them again. The only problem is the sheer amount of temptation one has to resist. :-)

ETA: One of the people at Cult Pens has commented on the copy of the post on my WordPress bookblog, and notes "For more expensive or breakable items, we do use extra packing, or even box them. If items were arriving broken, it would cost us too much to keep replacing them."

I know people love to hate Microsoft -- but they do sell good hardware. When I finally had to abandon my ancient Trust ergonomic keyboard because my new laptop wouldn't support an AT connector even through an adaptor, I went straight for a Microsoft keyboard -- the Microsoft Natural 4000. I've had it just over a year, so it's time to report.

The 4000 is a split-and-angled layout designed to reduce RSI. Even though I'd been using such a layout for the last ten years, it did take me a few days to get used to this one, as the exact slope and dishing of the keypads is slightly different to my old one. And I can remember how long it took me to get used to an ergonomic keyboard the first time. If you've never used one before it will take a while to adapt, especially if you're like me and have a fast but totally untrained typing method that wanders all over the keyboard.

It's well worth taking the time, as for most people a good split keyboard such as this will reduce the risk of RSI and help people who already have problems. This model is very comfortable to use -- the keys generally give good feedback without feeling spongy or requiring a lot of force, although the space bar needs something of a heavy hand. There's an integrated padded wrist rest, which is very comfortable and used properly reduces arm strain. There are foldaway feet to raise the back of the keyboard if desired, but there is also a clip-on platform for the front of the keyboard which gives a slight reverse slope, which is actually more comfortable for many people. (Note that it may not a good idea to rest your wrists/palms on the rest while actually hitting keys -- what it's good for is dropping your hands into a supported rest position for a second while you think about what to type next.) I have RSI that will flare up with very little provocation, and this is one of the two most comfortable keyboards I've ever used.

There's a collection of extra buttons, some programmable -- most of which I personally don't use, but which are likely to be useful to some people. The two that I do find I use regularly are the zoom lever, which is a godsend when trying to read webpages with tiny fonts, and the mute key, which lets me switch off the sound *fast* when I hit a webpage with annoying embedded sound.

The shape means that it takes up quite a bit more desk space than a standard keyboard. One word of warning -- I use a left-handed mouse, and you'll have to stretch for the mouse if you place it on the right.

It's relatively pricy by the standards of ordinary consumer keyboards, but if you have problems with RSI and this one works for you, it's worth the extra money, and it's a *lot* cheaper than some specialist keyboards.

(But don't let your cat knock a glass of wine over it, right, desperance?)