14 September 2006

Pulp fiction news

"Writing a thriller without knowing how to shoot a gun is like a virgin writing a sex scene," says Joseph Finder in a telephone interview with Haaretz journalist.

It's a good thing Finder is not writing medicine thrillers yet. Or Clancy-style blockbusters about nuclear or biological warfare.

After writing numerous thrillers, American author Joseph Finder decided to learn how to shoot a gun. He occasionally goes to a firing range near his home in Boston and shoots. He has a wife and a 12-year-old daughter, is a graduate of Harvard and Yale, and he grew up in an intellectual home. One might even call him a man of letters.

One might. On the other hand, one might decide not to...

In not totally unrelated news, "a company in Snowdonia has won an award for making greetings cards and gifts out of sheep droppings."

Creative Paper Wales won a £20,000 Millennium Award for its Sheep Poo Paper products, reports the BBC. They collect sheep droppings from the surrounding mountains, sterilise it in pressure cookers and recover the washed and undigested fibres. A sheep digests just 50% of what it eats. The recovered fibres are mixed to form paper and cardboard for the company's range of stationery and gift products.

I think that this environmentally-friendly enterprise should be encouraged and expanded to the whole world. There are thousands of books printed in millions and millions that clamor for this elegant solution.

The moment the Welsh folks find a way to feed the used books back to the sheep and prove the total absence of smell from that paper, they are definitely up to a Nobel.

On the other hand - don't bother about that smell...

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