In Praise of Chocolate - The Immaculate Confection

"Know your Chocolate....Know your dreams....Surrender to Chocolate....Realise your dreams!"

I don't know how it happened, I never used to like chocolate... now I'm irascible without my morning mug of cocoa and my chocolate raisins for a mid afternoon snack and Green & Blacks' Organic Maya Gold before bed. I think I may finally have developed an addiction. As Miss Piggy says: "Love is grand, but all I need is chocolate."

"The 12-step chocoholics program: NEVER BE MORE THAN 12 STEPS AWAY FROM CHOCOLATE!" Terry Moore

"If it ain't chocolate, it ain't breakfast!"

"Forget love-- I'd rather fall in chocolate!!!"

"Nobody knows the truffles I've seen!"

"Man cannot live on chocolate alone; but woman sure can."

"There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles."

"Be irresistable to the opposite sex, cover yourself in chocolate."

All about Chocolate

Health Benefits of Chocolate

Chocolate.Org

Chocolate 'has health benefits'

Chocolate's Potential Health Benefits – and its Effect on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients

Ahhhh! Better Than Red Wine Or Green Tea, Cocoa Froths With Cancer-preventing Compounds, Cornell Food Scientists Say

"Exercise is a dirty word... Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate."

Chocolate History

History of Chocolate

Chocolate History Timeline

"It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man". Miranda Ingram

Chocolate Challenge
Take the Chocolate Challenge

"I never met a chocolate I didn't like." Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation
Books and Films

Books and Films about Chocolate

"There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE" Linda Grayson, "The Pickwick Papers"

Chocolate Recipes

Chocolate Recipes from Chocoholic.com

Epicurious's Chocolate Recipes

"I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process.... It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?"

Chocolate entertainment with a difference...

Chocolate painting

"Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get." Forrest Gump in "Forrest Gump" (1994)

Monty Python - The Whizzo Chocolate Factory

In the beginning The Lord created Chocolate And it was good Then he separated Light from Dark And it was better!"

Now I'm off to raid the cupboard for some choccie... and dig out that famous chocolate cake recipe I grew up with... yummy, scrummy, drooly, dreamy... Slurp!

(Images duly nicked off the internet... Quotes and links found courtesy of Google searches)

John the Revelator

Marie did a great post about 80's music with some cool links to clips on youtube. Of course the trouble with youtube is once you're there you start to play...
And then I found this... courtesy of Depeche Mode. Yeah.

Elderly gents and old farts

I don't know what I did to deserve it but in the past few months (I blame the trees entirely) I have found myself conversing with more elderly gentleman that I would have cared to do. What strikes me is the remarkable difference in types of male elder. Some of them are indeed true elders - statesmanlike figures, emeritus professors, one's even a Fellow of the Royal Society - hey, what can say, sometimes I keep intellectual company. Of these elders some are also real gentlemen - kind, considerate, considered, temperate and wise - men you can admire and wish there were more of - and in positions of power unlike some other pratts who got there god alone knows how (but don't get me started on him...). These are men who though inordinately intelligent don't claim to know it all - which is refreshing given their vast brain power.

Then of course there is the other type of old gent. This type of old gent is pure old fart material - hold your nose, put your fingers in your ears and protect your eyes so you don't see the crunchy stuff that collects around their hairy ears. There are two or three of these old geezers that particularly spring to mind. And I have developed a very particular hostility towards them. This says something; I'm normally a fairly cheerful, even-handed soul with a bright voice and sparkling eyes. But I'm afraid when I encounter these old buzzards my voice goes dangerously low and quiet and my eyes turn to flint. The trouble with this type of old codger is that it thinks it knows everything - whereas I know I know very little. The worst part about these old gits is that they fail to listen, seem incapable of reading and despite that still insist on knowing best.

I had a call from one of them this morning. Oh joy. And I hadn't even had my first mug of cocoa of the day. Nothing like taking on an old fart when one hasn't even been fortified. He must have realised he was, as ever, on dangerous ground - of course last time he hadn't had the insight to back down... Thusly, it can only be said that this time my tone was rigourously "professional". As I'd said to a friend, I'd sooner have nits than have to attempt a halfway intelligent conversation with said geriatric. I will, however - she said patting herself on the back - say this in my defense - despite using the low, quiet and very dangerous voice - I still managed to be civil. No, I won't go so far as to say "charming" - that I reserve for the genuine tribal elders.

What I found ironic was during the last conversation the old goat had assured me I didn't have my facts straight, hadn't a clue what I was talking about and had my knickers in a knot over nothing (unlike the view taken by those other elderly gentlemen). The tone has been patronising and pompous, the attitude bellicose. Hmmm - well as we know chickens come home to roost - well at least Atyllah always does... This time the silly old pratt wanted to be sure that I was attending a tree meeting to be held this Friday (oh yes, that should certainly provide plenty of satirical entertainment) since he can't make it and he wanted "to be sure that someone with all the facts and a strong voice would be there". Yours truly, no less, and if you don't mind. Hmmm... Perhaps my resignation from all things trees, my previous pointing to 100 meter high letters of doom in the sky finally made the old twit realise he wasn't the last word and the final authority on the state of arboreal destruction. I have, however, learned that in certain instances one should not live in hope.

As for the other silly ass, well a few choice words of description should suffice: parochial, belligerent, bombastic, pompous, self-opinionated, arrogant - oh you get the general picture. No doubt after Friday I should be able to manage a suitably acerbic post on this particular subject. Watch this space.

(Images in this post duly nicked off the internet -thank you to the creators/providers!)

YEEEHAAAA! It's done!

(Image nicked off the internet.)

It's done. The first edit is complete! Whooohooo!!!

A friend said to me it sounded like I was experiencing childbirth with this edit. Well, all I can say if this was childbirth - and it was pretty damn painful - then the original writing process was sublime sex.

I don't know about the rest of you but for me, the first write of a new story is one magnificent adventure - it's passionate, intense, exhausting but entirely wonderful. Erm... just like good sex...

This story, like everything I've written (other than articles) just flowed from me - I wrote it one in a month, last year. I'm not a plotting, planning kind of writer, I'm what I call a "just writer" - I just write - any shaping or smoothing comes later.

So... when I get to the editing process... well, that's a whole other matter. It's when I edit that I have to think and consider. I have to hunt out extraneous words, pulverise any adverbs that might have snuck in, check my characterisation, my plotting, structure and voice. After the thrill of "just writing", this, let me assure, is a massive pain in the butt.

Fortunately, I'm getting better about it - and I hope - better at it.

But at least the first draft is now done. I'll send a copy off to my critique and writing partner (waves to Penny), and meanwhile start thinking about the next manuscript, which has been composting away for the past few months... I don't know about the rest of you writing sorts, but I find ideas and stories chase me down - I hope, frankly, that they never stop!

Very Brief Time Out

(Image from Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, duly nicked off the internet!)

Just to say, posting and visits and comments might be a bit scarce for the next day or so - I'm drawing to the end of the first edit of my present manuscript and things are a bit intense. Got the bit between my teeth, so to speak, and am galloping towards the finish. Please bear with me - I'll be back just as soon as I've sorted out these damned vampires! As if there isn't enough vampirism going on over at Facebook right now - all that biting, really! Anyone would think we'd nothing better to do other than going around nibbling each other's necks. Kinky, that's what it is. Tsk.

The chicken says she'll lend me her Granny - but I don't think I need a werechicken to come along and complicate things - there's no knowing what Granny Were might do - frankly, I shudder to think!

Thank you, Jon

Ooh... *tremble*... *quiver*... *blush* - I've been given an award by JonM - thank you Jon!


I now, in accordance with the rules, award the following with "thoughtful blogger"...

Verilion 'cos she's a thoughtful sort
Debi Alper; because she cares so much
Wanderlust Scarlett 'cos she's so generous with her comments
Minx because she's always there
Canterbury Soul 'cos he's just so special.
I was going to give one to Marie, but I see someone's beaten me to it!

You can read all about the award and collect it here - to put on your blog.

And today's post follows below.

Passing through

I know this place... I've been here before. These thick dark walls... the chill that reaches out with damp fingers to constrict my heart.
I know this cavern of no light... where I grope like a blind man trying to touch... but unable to feel.
Yes... I've been here before...
Frightened, at first, of the bleak darkness... Later finding solace in it. Letting it wrap wraithlike arms around me.
Sleep comes easily in this place. Lulled... numbed... It's a balm, an escape - a no life.
Yes... A no life. There is something safe and cocooning.
Yes... safe now... tucked away in this dungeon of emptiness...

And in the emptiness there is nothing; a nothingness that stretches beyond everything, bypassing time and space.
In the darkness - going beyond the nothing - I return to the void of non-being.
I walk into it. And I know it too.

Finally... finally there is the peace and tranquility that can only be found in no-life... nothing... in the vast stillness of ultimate being, which arises within the interminable expanse of the infinite void.