It's Friday - What Can Possibly Go Wrong?
A weekly newsletter from Jodi Taylor
This week we have:
An update from Jodi - Drugs, deathdays and alcohol
Photos from the Murder Mystery weekend.
A David Sands Writing Competition entry: Last Man Standing by Robert Piepenbrink
This Week in History: The Execution of The Last Welsh Prince
Jodi Taylor Book Recommendation: The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennet💙📚
A joke from the #SillySunday thread in Jodi’s Fans and Readers Facebook Group
October - Book of the Month: Out of Time
There’s plenty to read this week and you can see everything new on the blog too. CLICK HERE for the blog.
Drugs, deathdays and alcohol.
There – having got your attention I shall clarify.
Thirty minutes before departing for the Murder Mystery weekend, I hurt my back. Quite badly. All I did was walk across my bedroom when there was a really nasty pain and my legs gave way.
I promise you absolutely no alcohol was involved. Not at that point anyway
This unfortunate event led to me having to disappear at regular intervals throughout the weekend and excusing my absence with the reassuring phrase, ‘I’m just off to do more drugs. Back in a minute.’
Only Ibuprofen and paracetamol before anybody starts asking awkward questions and yes, they were effective eventually. Sadly, I’m as stiff as a board today but hot baths and massive amounts of chocolate will sort that out, I’m sure.
Right – that’s drugs dealt with – on to death
I was having dinner with my family on the last night of the weekend and the subject turned, as it often does, to death. After one particularly welcome margarita (Thank you, Tracey) and one glass of rosé (Thank you… someone or other. Things were a bit blurry by then) I told them that at the age of nine and unable to sleep one night, I lay in bed and tried to work out when I was likely to die. As you do when you are nine. In those days, of course, three score years and ten was the accepted lifespan. I decided that with my luck, I’d be lucky to make it that far, and so with much working things out on my fingers, I decided that the day of my death was likely to be the 19th November 2021.
Just for once, that date lodged in my brain, and a lot of my life was organised around getting everything finished by that particular date.
At this point, I should mention that, by now, all eating had ceased, and my fellow diners were regarding me with what I’d like to think was open-mouthed admiration, but probably wasn’t.
‘So what happened? enquired my brother. Not one of his most penetrating questions I think we can all agree.
Which was when I had to admit that when the day actually came – I forgot. That the 19th November had come and gone and I’d missed it. It was only around about Christmas the same year that I remembered I should actually have been dead by then.
Which leads me smoothly to alcohol – as frequently happens. I’d like to take the opportunity to say thanks to everyone who bought me a drink over the weekend.
And thanks to everyone who was kind enough to bring me a gift.
And thanks to everyone who came to spend the weekend with us. I do hope you had a lovely time. See you at the next event.
And lastly but by no means leastly, huge thanks to Karin and her fabulous team who put together such a wonderful event. Great job guys!
I’m off to Battersea, London, next week – 8th October – for the official Out of Time launch. I hope to see many of you there.
Best wishes to all.
Jodi x
Heather Purple and Allie Twist, die-hard Jodi Taylor fans, are bravely skydiving from a breathtaking 15,000 feet (yep, 15k!). They’re doing this awesome jump to help the Bookmark Reading Charity. Click here to find out all about their exciting adventure.
Great fun was had at the Out of Time murder mystery weekend in Cheltenham - you can view more on the Jodiworld Events Facebook Group
Last Man Standing by Robert Piepenbrink
Time travel was dangerous not just to the time traveler, but to Time itself. It was discouraged by custom and forbidden by law. Anyone who engaged in it was bound to be visited, sooner or later, by the Time Police, who were Utter Bastards, prone to shooting everyone and arresting any survivors. They came for Charlie Connor at 8:45 AM, GMT—a squad of four young fit officers, dressed in the traditional black but in the modern tunic instead of the older shirt and jacket. Captain Charles Connor (Time Police, Ret.) approved. He was dressed in uniform and waiting. Fifteen minutes early was on time for Charlie. It always had been.
Remembrance Day, AKA Stop the Clock Day itself was only just in time, he suspected. He was still reasonably mobile, and (so nearly as he could tell) compos mentis, but his doctor had stopped fussing with his medications, and had started to take an alarming lack of interest in his personal habits—the sort of attitude which suggested that diet and exercise weren’t going to make much difference at this stage.
This Week in History: The Execution of The Last Welsh Prince
On a chilly morning in Shrewsbury, 3rd October 1283, crowds gathered to witness a spectacle both unprecedented and gruesome. Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last native Prince of Wales, was about to die. His execution would not simply end the life of one man; it would close the chapter on centuries of Welsh independence.
Born around 1238, Dafydd was the youngest son of the ruling family of Gwynedd, a turbulent figure in a turbulent age. His elder brother, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, often known as “Llywelyn the Last”, had fought long and hard to be recognised as Prince of Wales, striking treaties with England yet resisting its creeping dominance.
Jodi Taylor Book Recommendation: The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennet💙📚
Both books tell the stories of an eccentric but brilliant older woman detective, Anna Dolabra, and her assistant Dinios Kol, who has been magically altered to possess total recall.
Sci-fi, murder-mystery, satire, magic, politics. A rich mixture, great world-building and very clever murder mysteries. Original and often funny – the relationship between the old woman and her young male assistant is wonderfully observed. Mutual respect but often grudgingly given!
Both highly recommended. I loved them and can’t wait for the third in the series.
Have you enjoyed this book too?
A joke from the #SillySunday thread in Jodi’s Fans and Readers Facebook Group
Thank you to Anna Scutt for this contribution:
Did you hear about the butcher who backed into the bacon slicer?
He got a little behind in his work.