The Enid Blyton Society

I'm exactly the same. Looking at authors I enjoy, both childrens authors and adult, most are women - Enid Blyton, E. Nesbit, Elizabeth Chapman, Dodie Smith, Elizabeth Beresford, Mary Norton, PL Travers, Helen Cresswell, Nina Bawden, Philippa Pearce,Linda Newbery, Celia Rees, Daphne DuMaurier, Agatha Christie, etc

...whereas there are very few male authors I enjoy - Linwood Barclay, Harlen Coben, AA Milne, Philip Pullman, Mark Twain, Dickens and CS Lewis are about the only ones I've read!

I'd say in my experience I've always read about an equal balance of male and female authors and I've certainly never noticed that female authors struggle in any way to get noticed or to sell books. I do recall J.K. Rowling reportedly chose to publish the Harry Potter series under her initials because she originally thought boys wouldn't want to read books that were obviously by a woman, but her gender became common knowledge very early on and it doesn't seem to have harmed her sales at all!!

W.E.Johns - his Biggles books are on my shelves as are many by Malcolm Saville. The majority are by women though.

My shelves are mostly filled by female authors. I do have a number by Malcom Saville, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snickett (Daniel Handler), William Corlett and a few random bits and pieces. I think almost all my 'grown up' books are by women!

Seems like a lot of nonsense to me though. I think we discussed some studies before where people checked how many books in their OWN bookshop were by men vs women. And they were shocked by the 'inequality'. Well, stock more female authors then!

Books should be published on literary (as in a good read not some snobbery) merit not based on the gender of the writer.

Fiona1986 wrote:Books should be published on literary (as in a good read not some snobbery) merit not based on the gender of the writer.

Totally agree.

Yes, well said, Fiona.

I have loads of books by Malcolm Saville, Frank Richards, Anthony Buckeridge and Eric Leyland as well as my collection of Blytons.

Fiona1986 wrote:
Books should be published on literary (as in a good read not some snobbery) merit not based on the gender of the writer.

My thoughts exactly, Fiona.
Good luck with the little one.

I've just ordered a Hampshire street atlas from WHSmith (12.95) I was then invited to receive £6.xx cashback - all I had to do was register. Having filled in the form it then came up with boxes to fill in that I'd' missed'- I'm sure they weren't there before- my debit card details.It was going to cost £15 a month (until I canceled it) to claim the £6 something!

That sounds rather worrying. I'm increasingly suspicious about on-line/automatic payments. A local petrol station now has a debit card machine which always asks me if I want to make a 25p donation to charity. I have to make sure I press the 'no' button and not the 'yes' before I can put in my pin number. I don't think it says anywhere what the charity is. The last couple of times I've had to ask for my receipt as well, they don't give it to me automatically, and the last time I had to wait ages for it to be printed off, and I was made to feel I was being a bit of a nuisence. I've now decided to stop using that petrol station as I'm so afraid that one of these days I'll be in a hurry and not pay enough attention and end up getting ripped off.

I was in a shop recently where someone was paying by card and were given the option of contact less or pin. Then the shop owner said that they'd had someone that day who went to put their card into the machine to pay by pin, but their purse was in their hand and the machine automatically took the payment off another card which was still in their purse! I thought that was just one of those scare stories, but it would seem it is actually happening to people.

I really hate the idea of 'contactless payments'. It seems obvious to me that if you dropped your card someone could make numerous payments using contactless swipes before you even noticed the card was missing! At least previously they needed to know your pin number before they could use the card, or use it online, but now any thief can just swipe away your money.

I think you can only make 3 payments of up to £30 before having to put a pin in again, but that's still nearly £100 that could walk before it was stopped. Also, I think £30 is the thin edge of the wedge, and it will soon be upped to £50, then £100 etc. and before we know it, everyone will be 'tapping' away.

Just love the spirit of adventure evinced by this guy!

Plymouth man completes 20,000-mile pub adventure


A man has driven a sports car across 21 countries, starting at the most northerly pub in the world and finishing at the most southerly.

Ben Coombs, 38, from Plymouth in Devon, drove 20,000 miles across three continents from the Arctic Circle to the southernmost tip of Chile.

It took him seven months to complete the challenge.

Mr Coombs described the final pub as "a dive", but said "it's the journey that matters, not the destination".

The idea for the adventure came while he was having a pint in a pub on Dartmoor.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-43056769" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All my debit card payments are now made by my phone. The beauty is that I don't have to bother with a pin if it's over £30. As my phone is finger-print activated, it is the simplest and securest way of paying. I even use it on the tube. I am now almost cashless.

It certainly sounds as if finger print activation is the most secure way to do debit card payments, as I'd 99% secure...though I'm sceptical as ever, lol! Wonder how long before some criminal mastermind finds a way to bypass the fingerprint...