A book with bite!

Karla Brading, 21, a writer from Merthyr Tydfil released her third vampire novel ‘Dark Blood Falling’ this week. Brading, who is now studying Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Glamorgan, self-published all of her novels and this new one is the last in the trilogy.

Karla Brading at her book signing in Merthyr Tydfil Library

Brading’s first creative achievement was ‘Destiny In Blood’ followed by ‘Blood Of Angels’.

She has attracted the attention of fantasy and science fiction authors Katherine Roberts and David Remy who both gave positive reviews of her first book.

 “Not only do the locals approach me and say they loved the book, I have Americans emailing to say they want more and couldn’t put the first one down!” said Brading.

She added, “You can find out more about ‘Destiny In Blood’ and ‘Blood Of Angels’ by going to Myspace.”

‘Destiny In Blood’ is available on Amazon.co.uk, and Brading can be contacted via Facebook for the other two books.

Eddie Izzard @ Cardiff International Arena

Transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard has jumped from comedy to theatre, to Hollywood and back again. And now he is back, again!

Eddie Izzard - Stripped

His religious, historical and philosophical ramblings of previous tours continue in Stripped despite any West End or Hollywood influences over the past five years. His opening line was “Let’s talk about everything that’s ever happened.” So he did: dinosaurs, Darwin, Noah’s Ark, Latin, bees, the Bible and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Jimmy Carr @ Wales Millennium Centre

It’s no surprise that Jimmy Carr didn’t include the war amputee joke in his set of Rapier Wit that caused such a fuss when he told it to a 2,500 strong Manchester crowd. 

Jimmy Carr - Rapier Wit

Just in case you didn’t hear it first time round, here’s another chance, “Say what you like about those servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a f**king good Paralympic team in 2012.”

This is Jimmy Carr we’re talking about, so what did people expect? He’s not exactly known for his family orientated content. But he’s a crowd pleaser, the only thing peple do other than laugh at a Jimmy Carr gig is ‘tut’.

Clay Shirky on what society needs

Clay Shirky claims that ‘society doesn’t need newspapers.’ It needs journalism.

Clay Shirky

Shirky is of the opinion that the industry is not what it was and that people are sceptical about how to preserve newspapers. There is, in fact, no single ‘model to replace the one the internet broke.’

He gives an interesting and descriptive view of newspapers being replaced by the Internet and the notion of citizen journalism.

Shirky compares the arrival of the Internet to Gutenberg’s Printing Press: both revolutions in the field of journalism and elsewhere. He describes how society can benefit from the role of newspapers but explains that change is inevitable since the Internet is more efficient in availability of information, finding it and is constantly being updated.

 He argues that society is getting the journalism is needs, just in a different form.

For more information visit http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

The Nobel Prize in Physics: How it’s relevant to you.

Albert Einstein

Science Daily said that the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics has ‘helped to shape the foundations of today’s networked societies.’ The scientists involved used former Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein’s theory to develop their own.

Well that’s good! We all use social networking, right? Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, the majority of the population can be found on one of them. Even President Obama, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, used Facebook in his Presidency campaign!