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A message from Rob Wilkins.

Shortly before he died, Terry Pratchett assured me that, if there is an afterlife, he would give me a ring and let me know. That was ten years ago - and still no call.

From which, incidentally, I draw no firm conclusions. What if there was an afterlife, but with no phone signal?

But of course there is one place where Terry indisputably lives on: in the pages of his books and in the minds of the millions of readers around the world who turn those pages and continue to find them funny and true. For, while his words live on, so does Terry, and that will be the case, no question, not just for this one decade so quickly gone, but for many further decades to come.

So let me join Lyn and Rhianna in raising a glass today to the magical persistence of books and to Sir Terry; gone but still so very firmly with us.

Rob Wilkins

"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?"

"It's... it's... IT'S ADORABLE"

"What? Adorable?"

this blog hates donald trump

Look how many people hate him. I’m pretty damn happy about that 😁😁😁😁😁😁

how is trump alive?? like hes rlly gone thru his whole life like That …. and no one has ever just fuckin decked him?? gave him the ole one two? knocked his lights out??? incredible

My cat is so helpful...

Your annual reminder to not donate to Salvation Army!

Day Seven - The Arts

Of all the subjects so far, this is one of the ones I've looked forward to least. I'm not really a big person for art - I can't draw, I despise dancing in all but a few cases and I'm not in the slightest bit musical, so my interest in the arts is more from a consumer point of view. Seeing as I know next to nothing about painting, the obvious choice is music.

I've grown up listening to quite a wide range of music - from early to late 90's pop music (thanks to local radio and television) to Blues and Rock music (thanks to my father's influence) to Classical music (thanks to my maternal grandfather).

Ever since I was small, the majority of the music that my father would play in the house was Blues and so it was obvious that my tastes would start there, my enjoyment of this genre was cemented by my dad's performances in multiple local bands, appearing in various venues through the south of England and being roadied for (more than a few times) by yours truly.

My interest in pop music tailed off to near nothingness in the late nineties when I began to notice just how similar each song was becoming, I started to see just how corporate pop music had become and how it almost seemed production line based.

I've had a love hate relationship with Classical music since I was young - at first it just felt like lift music - tinny noises in the background that were more to be ignored than admired, but in the following years I've grown to see it as a pure art-form in itself, capable of being just as soothing as modern music and just as rousing and energising as any rock music.

Thanks to a few of my friends, my real passion in music over the last few years has been rock, it seems I found bands like Evanescence, Fightstar, Within Temptation, Paramore, Nightwish and The Foo Fighters (to name but a few) at exactly the right time in my life in order to provide relief and some guidance.

...well that's sort of a potted history of my musical tastes - can't really say I feel like I've done a good job on this one, feels like I've rambled again, but what the hell, right?

Tomorrow you get to watch the fun as I attempt to write a poem... yay

Nik