It’s the 5th of November and here in the UK it’s the day of the annual pyrotechnical festival known as Guy Fawkes Night. Or Bonfire Night. Or Fireworks Night. It’s also Friday, which means that the weekend is here, and that always brings a smile to my face. I didn’t watch any firework displays this…
Category: James Proclaims
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 4
November is but four days old and I continue to persist with my attempts to write an entire novel this month in honour of NaNoWriMo. I seem to be maintaining my rate of roughly 500 words per day, which is, just about, enough to keep the dream alive, although I’m definitely going to have to…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 3
On to day 3 and it has to be said, things are not going as well as could be hoped. I started the week with the remnants of a cold. I thought I would have recovered by now, but, while the virus itself seems to have abated, I still seem to have some very blocked…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 2
It is day 2 of November 2021 and consequently day 2 of my pledge to produce a badly written novel of circa 50,000 words by the end of the month in honour of NaNoWriMo and to simultaneously blog about the experience of writing said novel in honour of NaBloPoMo. If this ever seemed like a…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 1
And so to day 1 of the month that is often referred to as November and my, almost certainly futile, endeavour to successfully navigate the choppy waters of NaNoWriMo and in doing so, produce a full-length novel in 30 days. I’m simultaneously participating in NaBloPoMo, meaning I have committed to blogging everyday this month. An…
A Post That Has Very Little To Do With Halloween Despite Being Written On Halloween
Happy Halloween everybody! If indeed that is the correct greeting. Although maybe a ‘happy’ Halloween is not a successful Halloween. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a great observer of this particular holiday, mainly because, in the UK at least, it isn’t a holiday at all and the only reason I didn’t go to work today…
Another Saturday Chez Proclaims
When last I troubled the blogoshpere, it was at the end of a horrible weekend which saw Little Proclaims briefly hospitalised and the entire Proclaims family housebound while she recovered from her ailments and I grappled with a deadline for a course that it was in my professional interests to complete but in which I…
A Weekend To Not Remember
As I write this it is Sunday evening and I’m watching highlights of last week’s Reading Festival on the television. Specifically I am watching Liam Gallagher’s set. As I discussed in last week’s post, even though it takes place a mere ten minute walk from my house, I didn’t make it to the festival itself…
Of Portaloos and Potties
As I write this, it is Friday morning. I am at home, as has been the case for the last five weeks, because school is officially ‘out for summer’ and I work in a school. Not that I haven’t had a fair amount of paperwork to do in the ‘off season’ because I have. I…
Daddy, I Dropped A Wee On The Carpet
It’s Saturday morning as I write this and Chez Proclaims we are embarking on what is arguably the toughest challenge we have ever faced as a family. Little Proclaims is learning to use the potty. Given that she turned 3 a few weeks ago, we are actually rather late to this particular party. We did…
Of Bubbles And Bubbly
As I write this I am a little inebriated. I’m currently sitting in my garden on a Saturday afternoon drinking a bottle of pink sparkling wine, which does not appear to subscribe to such platitudinous labels as Champagne, Cava or Prosecco but is rather its own thing. Not that I could tell the difference between…
The Perils Of Success
It has, at the time of writing, been but two days since Tokyo 2020 ended but I’m already feeling somewhat bereft. This is often the case when a major sporting event concludes but is perhaps more acute at the end of these Olympic Games because it marks the denouement of what has been a fairly…
A Blog Post About Watching Sport On The Telly
As I write this, Team GB has just won a bronze medal in the noble sport of dressage. I don’t know much about dressage, it looks like dancing horses and doesn’t really seem like a sport, but, as has been the case for most Olympic games during my lifetime and certainly since, like many of…
The Anticlimactic Nature Of The Thousandth Post
It’s time to crack open the bubbly. No, not champagne. I can’t really justify the cost of champagne for an occasion such as this. To be honest even cava or prosecco would be overdoing it. I think I could stretch to a glass of sparkling Lambrini. And a cake. There must always be cake. For…
A Post About Bubbles
As I write this I am sitting in my garden enjoying what can only be described as a glorious Saturday morning. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the general tranquillity is punctuated only by the delighted sounds of Little Proclaims who is running around the garden making bubbles with a cheap plastic…
A Post About Not Blogging With A Brief Interlude About Vaccines
As I write this, it has been just under a month since I last posted anything on this blog. By the time this actually hits the blogosphere, it will have been just over a month. I’m writing this on Friday but I intend for my ‘comeback’ to be on Monday. According to the Gods of…
On The Fifth Day Of The Fifth Month, Here Are Five Things I’m Not Afraid Of
I’m not afraid of a little hard work – I am terrified of a lot of hard work. I’m not afraid that I won’t live up to my potential – I’m worried that I already have. I’m not afraid to stand up for what I believe in – I’m just not entirely sure what it…
May The Fourth Be With You – Always
Happy Star Wars Day everyone! I’m not sure when people started celebrating ‘Star Wars Day’ on May the Fourth. I’m not even sure if people do celebrate it. And although I could just look up the answers to both of those things on the internet, I’m not going to. Because I don’t really care. I…
May The May Be With You
Long time readers will know that last May I spent the entire month blogging about nothing but Star Wars on the flimsy premise that people often regard the fourth of May as ‘Star Wars Day’ (because you can say ‘May the Fourth be with you’ on that day and only a few people will think…
A Post Designed To Encourage You To Wish Me Happy Birthday
Happy Easter everyone! Also Happy Birthday, if it is also your birthday. It is my birthday. So Happy Birthday to me! Having a birthday which falls on Easter Sunday is not like having a birthday which falls on Christmas. Mainly because it doesn’t happen every year, but also because people don’t conflate Easter eggs and…
A Redundant Post To Announce My Return To Blogging After An All Too Brief Hiatus
Hello dear readers. After announcing that I would be having a break from blogging just over a week ago, I’m now announcing my return. This does presuppose that anyone cares, which is, perhaps, too great an assumption all things considered. On the other hand, if I didn’t announce my return then how would anyone know…
Ten Important Things I Have Learned After Blogging Every Day For A Year
Today marks my 365th post in 365 days. I have managed to write a post every single day for an entire year. That I accomplished this by writing a lot of syllable-based poetry should not detract from the fact that it is, none-the-less, a stellar achievement. I deserve all the plaudits I’m inevitably going to…
A Sort Of Penultimate Post
Yesterday I posted a haiku that, as with all my haikus, failed to meet most of the criteria to qualify as a haiku, and might, instead, be more accurately described as a senryu. Indeed it might be even more accurate to describe it as a small collection of words. Irrespective of its credentials, however, the…
A Post That Might Be About Something But Probably Isn’t
Sometimes on my way to work I go for breakfast at a place the kids tend to call a ‘Drive Through’ and the really cool kids call a ‘Drive Thru’. Although the specific fast-food chain is irrelevant, I live in the UK, and as far as I am aware there is only one company, the…
The Key Ingredients To A Good Blog Post
James Proclaims is made with the finest selection of high-quality verbs and suffixes, punctuated by a delicate array of commas, colons and apostrophes. We don’t use any artificial adjectives in any of our posts and all of our exclamations are free-range. James Proclaims can be enjoyed as part of a balanced reading diet but is…
An Exclusive Offer From James Proclaims
With the end of lockdown in sight it’s time to start making plans and at James Proclaims, we would like to help you to to make the most of the New Normal, with exclusive access to our new outdoor blogging club. Take advantage of our pre-opening offer and get your first month free and no joining…
The James Proclaims Brand Guarantee
RETURN POLICYLast updated March 14, 2021 Thank you for choosing to read this post. We are very proud of our posts here at James Proclaims and hope you are happy with your choice of reading material. However, if you are not completely satisfied with your purchase for any reason, you may return it to us for a…
Little Proclaims Takes The Wheel
As I appear to still be plagued by writer’s block, I thought I’d let my two-year-old daughter, known to her fans as Little Proclaims, take responsibility for today’s post. Of course regular readers will be more familiar with her contributions to the art world, back when I used to post her drawings on this blog…
A Blog Post That Is Today’s Blog Post Unless You Are Reading It On A Different Day
It’s Sunday afternoon as I write this. Little Proclaims is having a nap, Mrs Proclaims is working on her PhD and I am steadfastly ignoring a report I am supposed to be writing for work. To be fair the report is mostly done, and to be even fairer, no-one is ever actually going to read…
A Token Post
Hello dear readers and welcome back to the multi-award nominated blog, James Proclaims. Since the end of March 2020 I have been posting on a daily basis but I almost didn’t manage to post anything today. As it is I’m already over twelve hours late in posting this, given that my usual arbitrary blogging time…
A Churlish Celebration Of World Book Day
Happy World Book Day everyone! Because if you live in the UK, then today is World Book Day. If you live somewhere else then it probably isn’t. Because we ‘celebrate’ World Book Day on a different day to the rest of the world. Which means that we should call it ‘UK Book Day’. But we…
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