August 2016 - Expat In Bacolod

Whopping: Word Wednesday

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 31, 2016

“You whopping liar,” was a rebuke often heard in my childhood when someone had been found out telling ‘porkies.’ [Cockney rhyming slang ‘porky pie’ = lie] I was surprised to learn that Merriam-Webster has its origins dated back to c. 1625. My instincts (wrongly) told me it was a relatively modern word. Whopping adjective whop·ping \ˈhwä-piŋ, ˈwä-\ Popularity: Bottom 40% of words Simple Definition of whopping : very large, impressive, etc. Full Definition : extremely large; also : extraordinary, incredible Examples in a sentence The play was a whopping success. The car sped by at a whopping 110 miles per hour. First Known Use circa 1625 Related Synonyms astronomical (also astronomic), Brobdingnagian, bumper, colossal, cosmic Let’s take a closer look at its origins: Etymology references…

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Prince of Wales: WIP Research Progress Report

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 30, 2016

The previous articles about the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales in 1941 have been met with some interest which is pleasing. In case you missed them they are here and here. A tentative start has been made on the book but only in the sense that I needed to settle on a format or device in order to do the story justice. What I mean by that is I did not wish to write a straightforward historical non-fiction book. It required a device to let my grandfather “tell his own story.” I have settled on such a ‘writer’s device’ but I’m keeping it under wraps for the time being. It is very much a work in progress (WIP). Prince of Wales Research Progress Report…

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Exciting New Giveaway Competition For All My Loyal Fans

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 30, 2016

Competition time again folks! Who doesn’t love a competition especially when you can win cash and have a real chance of winning (a better chance than the Lotto). This post is to announce an ‘Exciting New Giveaway Competition For All My Loyal Fans.’ You may have come here directly or through clicking on one of my “Subscribe” links either on this blog or my author website. Welcome! If you are not yet a subscriber but would like to receive my weekly newsletter and have FREE entry into the new competitions then you may subscribe here: [mc4wp_form id=”994″] This post also serves to inform you all of the final stage of my competition to win a FREE signed copy of my new book Undercover: Operation Julie…

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Discover Daniel Parsons: Author Spotlight

Discover Daniel Parsons: Author Spotlight

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 28, 2016

This post first appeared on my author website. Daniel Parsons, welcome to Author Spotlight. I’m sure we are all interested to know more about you and your books. I hear you have a new book out all about Twitter. I must buy it as Twitter is a mystery to me! Bio Daniel Parsons is the author of the fantasy books The Winter Freak Show and Blott as well as the comedy zombie story Necroville which has received critical acclaim on Wattpad, garnered almost 30,000 reads, and has been used to promote Hollywood’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies movie. Besides writing, Daniel has worked at two publishing companies in South Wales, UK, but now works as a freelance editor. He occasionally runs workshops in which he…

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9 Eye-Opening Facts About Getting Older For Young People

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 28, 2016

Many blog posts are prompted by the writer’s own experiences. I’m no different and there is a reason why I chose to write about the ‘9 Eye-Opening Facts About Getting Older …’ aimed at young people. There is a part of my most recent book in which I describe bumping into a man I hadn’t seen for many years. It happened in London in about 2010; we both knew each other well from forty plus years previously from my Liverpool days. I walked by and thought ‘That looks like Kevin Dooley. Nah! it can’t be. He looks old.’ Stopping in my tracks, I turned and yelled “Kevin!” He turned around, for it was indeed Kevin. Fact #1 Inside your head you remain the same person…

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Curious Case of the Iceberg Lettuce and a Cranky Book Reviewer

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 27, 2016

Welcome to the World of Books (and Iceberg Lettuce) You may ask what an iceberg lettuce has got to do with book reviews. Read on my friend … One of my recent book reviews on the Goodreads website was for a book called A Harvest Passion by Emily Murdoch. I also posted my review on Amazon. While I was on the Goodreads site, I spotted a 1* Review. I thought ‘no, it can’t be.’ But it was and here is what was posted by the reviewer. If there’s a worse book out there, I can’t think of what it is. This was awkward and weird, with neither main character having anything remotely interesting about them. There was absolutely no reason for them to “fall in…

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The Sugar Bowl of the Philippines

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 27, 2016

Negros Island is well known for sugar production and is known as the Sugar Bowl of the Philippines. Below is a further article by Butch Bacaoco in his series Cane Points and reproduced with his kind permission. Butch knows his stuff about the sugar industry and in fact I listened in awe one day to a “history lesson” about the industry that involved an Englishman named Loney. This is an extract from the SRA’s website about the history of sugar in these islands: Although sugarcane was raised since pre-Spanish times in the Visayan islands after its introduction, it did not become much of an industry until after 1850. There were a score of small plantation in the province of Iloilo and a few in Negros…

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#1 Pro Tip – Try Before You Buy Social Media Tool (Be Happy)

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 25, 2016

Twitter is still partly a mystery to me. I say “partly” because the penny is starting to drop. If you want to have a presence on Twitter then you need to engage! It’s no good just shouting about your book, blog, or whatever else you have created and believe is a masterpiece. So, let me tell you about my #1 Pro Tip about social media in general and Twitter in particular. Before I do that, who needs it? If you are a “creative” then I suggest you need it. That applies if you are a writer, blogger or musician. You want to ‘tell’ the world about yourself and your work. This article could go on at length about social media and Twitter. It is such…

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War on Drugs – Beware 1) Misinformation 2) Vested Interests

Published by Stephen Bentley on August 24, 2016

Disclosure: I have a book to sell and promote ‘Undercover: Operation Julie – The Inside Story.’ It is a true story of my undercover cop days infiltrating one of the world’s largest drug gangs. I make the disclosure in light of the words “vested interests” in the title of this piece. I, unlike some others, have no vested interests in the debate on drugs. As I wrote in my book, “I am neither pro or anti-drugs.” I am all in favor of an intelligent, fact-based debate. But other than that, I have no vested interest in advocating a view about the so-called ‘War on Drugs.’ It was the BBC who said that Operation Julie was the start of the ‘War on Drugs.’ As I…

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Month: August 2016