Author: lazloferran

Memories of the 1960s – Toys

Corgi Toys Buick Riviera
Corgi Toys Buick Riviera

I was born in 1962. The first 1960s toys I remember are a fluffy ball with a bell inside, a red, plastic train and a ‘musical box’, about the size of a food can, with a crank on top. As you turned the crank, metal tongues were flicked inside, much like an African lamellaphone. It had pictures of the royal guards and Buckingham Palace painted on its sides. I don’t remember what the tune was. The plastic train was from a Playcraft train set (see image below). All these toys seemed to be around since a time before I could remember anything clearly.

Playcraft Train Set
Playcraft Train Set

The first 1960s toy I remember actually receiving was a motorised Centurion tank (possibly Scalecraft). My dad came home late one night (it was always late when a father came home for any kid that was at nursery school!) and presented me with this thing that drove up and down a pile of books on its own! My dad showed me how to open a book and turn it upside down so that its spine formed the ridge of a hill. The tank could go over this too. Continue reading “Memories of the 1960s – Toys”

The Ice Boat FREE this weekend!

FREE! @ Amazon 14/6-16/6 The Ice Boat http://bit.ly/OqGsCT

The only reason anyone went out was to buy drinks in town. The tide of cans was always in on the studio floor.

With plenty of drugs, sex and rock and roll; The Ice Boat is a modern pop-culture odyssey. But more than this, it’s a serious book that doesn’t avoid the messy subjects of identity, sex and eroticism.

“I was absolutely engaged” “Surreal and engrossing story telling style.”

GRAB YOURS TODAY!

Memories of the 1960s – TV

This week Memories of the 1960s – Toys, Books Available on Wattpad, Free Giveaway and Honorary Cliff Robertson Documentary

Memories of the 1960s – TV

Elevator vehicle under Fireflash from Thunderbirds
Elevator vehicle under Fireflash from Thunderbirds

I had several nice comments about Issue I so here is another:

TV programmes
Most people will remember the two most prominent aspects of 1960s TV; no colour and the dreaded test cards!

Colour television didn’t arrive in the UK until 1967 (BBC2) and late 1969 (BBC1 and ITV). There were some early test programmes on BBC2 and I think I remember one featuring a carnival. My father designed television cameras for a living so we were the first family I knew to have a TV set that could receive and display colour. I remember the riot of ultra-vivid colour blasting out of the screen. It seemed to completely transform the world. There were of course hiccups. Many people turned the colour button up to full, which made greens and red so bright that you would quickly get a headache. Paul McCartney had been assured that the Magical Mystery Tour would be broadcast in colour on Boxing Day 1967. But BBC1 still had not made the transition to colour so he was to be disappointed. Continue reading “Memories of the 1960s – TV”

Inchoate available in Egypt and it’s FREE!

Short Stories Series (all use same cover)

Egypt or any part of Africa through Kobobooks.com, I am told. I need somebody in Egypt to test this.
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-gb/Search?Query=lazlo+ferran
nb: you will have to convert the book to .mobi using a free software programme called Calibra if you want to read them using a Kindle device.
If you have problems let me know by commenting or emailing me so that I can send you a workaround.

You can always find details of availability and updates on the Catalogue page of this website.

If you live in Egypt please can you test the Kobobooks source and get back to me?

Cliff Robertson Honorary Documentary

My all-time favourite film, set during wartime, is 633 Squadron (1964), starring Academy Award Winner Cliff Robertson. You may know him better as Peter Parker’s uncle in Spider Man.

633 Squadron is also one of my favourite movies of all time. The editing is tight and the action is the edge-of-your-seat stuff of legend. Here’s some trivia for you: did you know 633 Squadron was George Lucas’s inspiration for the Death Star attack in Star Wars IV – A New Hope? A great deal of the credit for the film’s taught style and human depth can be attributed to Cliff Robertson, who had enough influence in Hollywood at this time to ask for rewrites of film scripts. Cliff was at the very pinnacle of Hollywood’s acting elite and is still, to my knowledge the only actor to win a Grammy each for film, theatre and advertising. His Oscar for Charly was well-deserved and if you haven’t seen that, PT 109 (where Cliff played John F Kennedy) or 633 Squadron, see them.

Cliff was one of my childhood heroes and I was lucky enough to correspond with with Cliff at the end of his life. Along with many other fans, I always wondered what happened to his character, Roy Grant, at the end of the film. He is badly wounded but we can’t be sure whether he survives or not. After a heated discussion on youtube, I decided to try and contact Cliff to find out. With the help of Stephen Thompson, Cliff’s Press Agent, I was able to write a letter with a set of questions and get these to Cliff. Continue reading “Cliff Robertson Honorary Documentary”

Banned: Infinite Blue Heaven

Infinite Blue Heaven has been banned by Amazon. It is my first book available from me directly: https://payhip.com/b/yth1. Read on to find out more:

Cover of Infinite Blue Heaven - A King and A Queen
Cover of Infinite Blue Heaven – A King and A Queen

Infinite Blue Heaven – A King and A Queen The eBook has recently been banned by Amazon although they do not specify why. Despite repeated requests by me for the reason, they refuse to be drawn. If it is because of the incest, then there are books on Amazon which peddle this theme as pornography. There are also writers like Vladimir Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon who treat this subject more sensitively. If this is the reason, I really don’t understand it; I have always used the word ‘incest’ in the description and the book has been on Amazon since 2009. I have made no changes to it in that time. I also treat the subject sensitively and include it because incest was not rare in royal circles of the 17th Century. Let’s be plain, it existed and Amazon can’t simply wipe out the bits of history they don’t like.

Buy Infinite Blue Heaven on Payhip here: https://payhip.com/b/yth1

The paperback continues to be available on Amazon through their subdivision CreateSpace. But you can now purchase it directly from me using Payhip. Just click on ‘Lazlo in Your Country‘ in the main menu above to find this book from now on.

Memories of the 1960s – Fishing

Last week I took a long walk next to the Grand Union Canal near Ware in Hertfordshire. It reminded me of my fishing days in the 1960s, and I wondered if fishing could still feel the same. It occurred to me to try and write about the 1960s, and I decided to write about fishing. Each post will be entitled Memories of the 1960s and followed by the issue number. Here is the first: Continue reading “Memories of the 1960s – Fishing”

OCD Log 1 and Free Book

This week, first of my new OCD updates and FREE eBook Offer: Eighteen, Blue

OCD Log 1
To make it easier to find my updates on OCD, I am starting from today to name them Log 1, 2 etc. Too often, these posts might get lost among other subjects and I am aware there are many sufferers out there.
In my last OCD update, I announced my first OCD-Free day. It was really just an experiment and I didn’t expect it to work. But it seems to have worked.

OCD-Free is a strong term however. I think it would be more accurate to say that I have ‘broken the back of my OCD’ or ‘turned a corner’. The OCD is still there; every day I catch myself doing something that I call ‘OCD behaviour’. I just stop myself, say, “That is OCD behaviour. I am not going to do that,” and then ignore the impulse. Continue reading “OCD Log 1 and Free Book”

Monica Bellucci Naked: Profound or Banal?

This week: Two Poems and: Is Monica Bellucci, Naked, Profound or Banal?

I apologise for the belated post this week; Amazon managed to revert all my book descriptions to old versions so that I have had to spend the last three days rewriting them. Like a fool, I trusted Amazon to keep them current so I didn’t keep copies myself. I have also had Infinite Blue Heaven – A Kind and A Queen banned. I don’t know the reason why but it might be something to do with the word ‘incest’, which has been in the project description on Amazon since 2009 and on Lulu since 2006. If Nabokov, in Ada, and Thomas Pynchon, in Gravity’s Rainbow, can mention incest, why can’t I? I have emailed them to ask what the problem is and to ask for it to be reinstated so I will keep you posted.

Is Monica Bellucci, Naked, Profound or Banal?
Okay, so I have your attention! In fact the question is slightly tongue-in-cheek but there is a point to it, as we shall see.

It is often said by wiser men than I that the beauty of a woman is profound. Some would say that nothing in the Universe can be more beautiful.

In the Hollywood movie Malèna, starring Monica Bellucci, we see a beautiful woman through the eyes of a teenage boy. Continue reading “Monica Bellucci Naked: Profound or Banal?”

Too Bright the Sun, Caption Competition

Just a reminder: Love Blade Runner? Download the 5★ Science Fiction novel FREE NOW on Amazon until 7 May: https://bit.ly/102Xt92. It’s currently #845 in Amazon Free kindles and #10 in Science Fiction (see screen grab below). If you don’t have one already, make sure you download a copy!

Toobrightrank040514

Too Bright the Sun is now in the goodread lists: Best Military Science Fiction Books (listed #65) Can’t Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy of 2014 (#96) and Best Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction so if you have time, please vote for it here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/17664602 by clicking on the list name at bottom of page and then clicking on the ‘vote’ button beside the book title!

Competition
I am soon to release World Like Dust, the next part of the Iron Series. In this episode, the Stamford Torus space station, J5 (looking something like the illustration below) has to leave the Solar System under it’s own power as a final refuge of mankind. I think it should have a new name for this voyage so I want you to choose one. All you have to do is download a FREE copy of Too Bright the Sun, comment here AND share a Facebook post or a Twitter tweet to win the prize of a free copy of Worlds Like Dust. It will be published as two, novel length books so it is a prize worth winning! in addition, your name will be used in the published book and you will also get an acknowledgement at the beginning of the book. Continue reading “Too Bright the Sun, Caption Competition”