It’s All in the Eyes – It’s All in the Mind!

Yep I know British visitors (and probably others nowadays, now that TV programs get shipped around so much) will know immediately where this is from, that it is entirely innocuous and nothing at all to do with my little world.  But hey!  Don’t say anything and ruin the illusion.  

 Besides, there is nothing to say that particular uniform dress wouldn’t suit other roles – you just have to apply a little imagination.   

In fact a shop that was once situated in the Edgware Road, London (Near Marble Arch) used to sell a similar style aimed at privately employed nursery nurses and children’s nannies right up to the late 1980s.

Look up ‘GAROULDS OF LONDON’ (click) in the women’s workwear collection section of THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTE if you get the chance.  It is in the BEYOND THE BARRED WINDOW area or copy and paste the link below into your browser.


   http://www.theoriginalinstitute.com/toyntanen/garroulds-of-london-1960s---80s-overalls-and-uniforms.html

Not that there’ is much really going on in this particular picture either – to me it’s all in the facial expression (bolstered by the uniform to some degree – but not as much as you might think).  Sometimes you can come across a perfectly innocuous scene like this and read all sorts into it.  As an image, though, it would work well if illustrating some part of one of my later books, such as ALICE UNDER DISCIPLINE (either book one OR two - Garth Toyntanen, LULU Books) and it would work wonderfuly well along side the piece by 'Chris' I am currently edditing / embelishing in between working on my own new book.

Talking of reading.  For the first time in years I actually purchased something in my own genre (apparently) recently, off of Amazon.  I’d read the first part as a free sample and got all steamed up about it – it spawned a multitude of fantasises and putative story arcs in my head.  But I should have left it like that – all hanging questions, what ifs and ‘maybes’.  As it was I took the next step…  And was disappointed.  It only cost me £2.59 (inc VAT) so even I, in my fairly dire strait, am not actually weeping other the cost – and to be honest it was not THAT bad all things considered – it was just that it quickly ran out of steam ideas-wise, didn’t go where I’d hoped it would go and… Oh no – the heroine not only quickly grew to like her situation, She Came Out On Top (in a way, to a limited extent).  A real shame all in all.  Yeah there were one or two aberrations which niggled, such as the use of ‘an’ before a word beginning with a consonant (the word forms part of the title, so I won’t give it) and one or two plot devices which were contradictory (there is a part where the heroine is in something very akin to a straightjacket in the manner by which it immobilises her arms, but all of a sudden she is being ‘led by the hand’) but all in all it was quite well written.  As I say, the cost is so little as to mean nothing, it is just that reading it sort of robbed me of all those delicious mental possibilities I was enjoying so much. 

Which brings me back to the picture above.  Left as is, with perhaps just the hint of an outline, one can still tailor the tale to suit one’s self.  In fact it is for the latter reason that I decided to leave off anything that might define exactly who is being addressed, gender identity and so on.  Now you the onlooker are in charge of the journey.

Lastly – GOOGLE.  Yep!  Apparently the rumours were true:  I received the following email a few days back (which is why I’ve been inspired to update again – and go back to editing a contribution by Chris for future inclusion), but have not had time to post it up until now:  So this is what they say – it’s not exactly a climb-down in the way that it is worded; but you have to admit, the scenario they describe with blogs such as this one being labelled as ‘adult’ is errm…errm…errm…  Actually – can anyone see the difference?

EMAIL from GOOGLE

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Dear Blogger User,This week, you received an email telling you about some changes we were  making to the Blogger Content Policy. In that email, we announced a change  to Blogger's porn policy stating that blogs distributing sexually explicit  images or graphic nudity would be made private.We've received lots of feedback about making a policy change that affects  longstanding blogs, and the negative impact on individuals who post  sexually explicit content to express their identities.We appreciate the feedback. Instead of making this change, we will be  maintaining our existing policies (http://www.blogger.com/content.g).What this means for your blog:Commercial porn will continue to be prohibited.If you have pornographic or sexually explicit content on your blog, you  must turn on the adult content setting  (https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/86944?hl=en) so that a warning  will be shown.If you don't have sexually explicit content on your blog and you're  following the rest of the Blogger Content Policy  (http://www.blogger.com/content.g), you don't need to make any changes to  your blog.Thank you for your continued feedback,The Blogger Team(c) 2015 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA