Category Archives: Emma Calin

Bi-Polar Bare

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A while ago a lad on the bus was chatting to me about his girlfriend. The mere fact of having obtained such an asset positively changed his demeanour. Instead of his normal monosyllabic grunt and slouch he became a young gent. His acne receded and was transformed into vocabulary.


About ten days ago he did not come out to board the bus to go home. Unsympathetic teenagers grew restive in my mirror. I cranked up the music but that brought complaints from the headphone wearers. At the last minute he appeared being led by a teacher. His tear stained face was swollen. It was over. Over. Over, with that terrible brick wall finality of a dead hamster in the palm of a young hand and the rest of mortality. The vocabulary acne inversion flipped like the magnetic poles of the planet in history.

Yesterday, they got back together. Compasses started to work again. GPS systems stopped talking backwards. No one should feel insecure. It won’t last.


I’ve been giving away books on Amazon KDP. I am one of the more successful donors of the American literary world. However, in the UK, the natural sense of cool reserve and dissimulation prevents the accepting of gifts from strangers. I have the feeling that if I were to tour in my white Rolls Royce cabriolet throwing bank notes to the crowd, they would run after me handing them back. Probably I would get a ticket for littering. 

blueprint for a question not yet asked

Then the unthinkable happened. I started to sell books. Maybe after all I was a writer. I exchanged my life and personality for  sales figures. Some days I see myself as a pie chart, other days a block graph. Yesterday I had that corporate spreadsheet feeling. Personality and self image issues – surely not!
As I looked out from my window yesterday into the cold clear dusk I saw a tree reflecting the direction of life, albeit very simplified. 


Today sales dipped a little. A reviewer thought I should give up and drive a bus or something. The GPS is talking babble. I think I’m too old for acne. Insecure? Me?




Emma thinx: Whatever you’ve put in someone’s life today – they’re already passing it on.



Roll Play Exercise

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Spot the difference



There’s a song by Janis Ian which contains the line “Let’s drink a toast to those who best survived the life they led”. Well – here’s to all those who’ve survived the drink and the toast – and the butter, the foie gras and the chocolate. Life catches up with us doesn’t it. The bus driving blogger novelist carboholic lifestyle has done its worst. It is not that the situation has got out of hand. It has got out of both hands. Soon I’ll have enough spare tyres for every wheel on the bus. It had to stop. I have joined a gym. When I finish my morning shift I go straight to a modern cathedral of techno-flab where there are merciless machines that have ways of making you squawk.

 Even worse the place is half full of skinny pert anorexics who do not need to be there and spend their self righteous time watching the sagging wobblers gasping for survival. If that were not bad enough I encounter neighbours and acquaintances to whom I would never present myself in rippling Spandex. I have seen a few films of an erotic and anatomical/educational nature where the participants wear masks so as not to be recognised (I assume) by friends, work colleagues or members of the book club. A small comfort like this would double membership. Luckily a little ray of sunshine fell upon me today. I staggered back through the door after a treadmill session watching a TV show about liposuction and heart transplants. There on the mat was a lovely sample selection from “Hotel Chocolat”. Damn – I must have forgotten to cancel my subscription. And before I move on to literary matters here is a video clip I found whilst researching Vladimir rootin tootin Putin. I think it’s about dieting. Keep watching until you see the ballet dancers! Wow – Oscar likes this video, but only the classical paintings. Seriously though – this world has so many cultures! Rejoice.


Tomorrow (Saturday 3rd March) is a free KDP day for “Knockout”. The tweetbots and all the engines of cyber triberr will be whirring. I apologise for all the self promo. If you’ve not got your copy roll up roll up. Here are the links:
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Amazon France
Amazon Germany
Amazon Italy
Amazon Spain



Emma thinx: Beauty is only deep skin.

Hacking Coughs

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OK – I’m a News junkie. At lunch time I watched the BBC NEWS. For an hour I followed a story that James Murdoch had resigned from News International. There was a 40 second interruption to tell me that North Korea had appeared to modify their approach to nuclear annihilation of  Earth. Thank goodness they did not linger on that limp little column filler. 


I was first in the queue on Sunday morning to buy the new disgusting filth soaked pack of lies, scandal and gossip that the Murdochs have launched to replace the degraded, vile, sex obsessed and delicious News of the World. To me it was a bit disappointing to be honest. I wanted a story of top toff politicians in frilly ladies’ panties  being whipped by pouting sexy Russian spies in an exclusive underworld vice den. I wanted the dark soil of alliterative  adjectives raked open. The new Sun was a bit PC and non confrontational. It was like an anger management course for boxers. (Yes comrades – this is the latest wheeze of the world controllers. A British boxer, Dereck Chisora, has been ordered to seek anger management counselling after a punch up with another pugilist.)


Now – I am no Murdoch fan. He is a Union breaker and a tyrant. Normally I would have no sympathy but here is the truth of it all. Murdoch got in amongst the toffs and the self seekers at the top. They took his cash. They courted his affection. They were elected on his say so. They chortled and bloated at his overflowing table – glad to see lesser nobles, commoners and opponents beaten with shitty sticks. Then – the baron forgot who was king. He attacked other barons – not realizing that he was NOT actually himself in the club. He is a foreigner and a bruiser. You can guffaw and chortle inside the club but you cannot attack the club. Sadly, in the UK, affairs of the boudoir are in the public interest and light fell on several erect parliamentary members. 

Now sensational News! Newspapers have been paying police and officials for juicy inside information!!! Journalists and cops intermingle, drink and chat together! CLAMOROSO as they say in Italia – although these days they can only afford lower case to save ink. Surely the sweet innocent public are astounded by such notions. Even worse, the hapless  ex-editor Rebekah Brooks was given a retired police horse to look after. Can civilization withstand any more immorality on this scale? Such a tale of kindness to animals has elevated her in the opinion polls above every single politician in the land. 


I’m no fan of Murdoch or News Corp. All the same I’ll tell you who was afraid of the News of The World. It was the drug dealers, the child pornsters, the hypocrites who would control you, the pimps, the corrupt sports stars, the arms dealers and the perfumed icons who rolled in filth.  I loved the News of the World and I doubt it will ever be replaced. 


No one needs me to tell them that this a grubby old world. While we are waiting for the broom to sweep it clean let’s keep the lights on and shining in the corners. When you live in shit, light may have to pass through a sewer to reach you. 


Emma thinx: Scandal – the tabloid word for desire.

Biting the bullet

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Mystery headless man in white spotted at crime scene

I diesel droned the bus by the police tape that closed the block of flats and the shopping parade. Regulars might remember my little moan about derelict buildings and the vision of children. Well, the area is closed because of a shooting. Various young men have been arrested and the judicial processes set in train. Gowns and wigs will be televised. Pronouncements will be boomed in posh voices about violence and the protection of  decent society. No one is surprised. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are lottery days. This time….this time!!! Such things can happen anywhere I know. Circles are vicious. Cones and spirals can take you up or down. I’ll leave it to you to judge the general direction. 


Now – I’ve spent several months in a dilemma. When your name is Emma that can tear you in two. It’s not that I have not been writing – it is more that I’ve been uncertain as to the direction to go. To be frank – I am under frilled to be a Romance writer. I am a real person with tubes, follicles, on lazy/writing days occasional armpit and leg fur and the beginning of a tummy. Well actually – quite a mature tummy. Maybe it is time to write that gritty Earth moving novel about poverty and greed set against a backdrop of boiling revolution.  A young peasant girl gives her only remaining kidney to save a dying investment banker who once tossed her mother a dollar to buy the baby milk that saved her life.  He falls in love with her but with both her kidneys gone, she dies. Oooh – I’ve told you the story now so there’s no need to bother. By the way – she sold her other kidney to pay off her dying father’s pay day loan and a new winter jacket for the elderly three legged dog they rescued from the burning barricades.


So – I have actually scrapped most things I have been doing. The fact is that I love the escape of Romance and the its ability to blend sex with glamour and true love. Good sexy romance can educate women and men a little too!  (My theory is that if a few of the angry young Kalashnakids had a bit more sex they’d be a bit more mellow).  If you think kids get told it all at school – think again. The facts sure ain’t the whole truth. It’s gonna be Romance with all the sex-joy-love-passion power I can muster. I’ve been writing the story in my head for a while and things might go a bit quiet for a few weeks. 


Now –let’s talk serious bus driving. I am a full bodied Lycra clad righteous planet saving eco green cyclist AND a bus driver. You know, the real problem here is the way we manage traffic. Basically we are savages. I’ve never had any sort of impulse to injure a cyclist but driving long, wide and heavy vehicles in crowded tense situations is difficult and stressful. Big trucks and buses do not mix with bikes! Why do we think they should??? Now I’ve upset the  the cyclists.  Guess I might be the subject of a flatwa. You gotta laugh.


Emma thinx: When in Romance. Do!

Nessun Dormitory

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Oh – too brief my little trip to France. Even the problems of the great freezage did not weaken my love for my adopted home. We lumbered our possessions back into our UK rented house grateful that there were no floods, ice or power cuts. There was no heating because the modern state of the art wi-fi thermostat system had suffered an “Electronic anomaly”. And there was me thinking it just did not work. A while later the auto fire alarm system developed a “signalling issue” and activated the “tamper threshold” on the theft alarm system. Stuff is trouble. More stuff is more trouble. My stuff and jargon decoder is at critical meltdown. 


I left the return booking a little late and there were no cabins on the 2300 service from Caen to Portsmouth. That meant a night in the “reclining chairs”. Deep joy! For a few extra pounds or euros you can buy a kit comprising of eye shades, a small blanket and an inflatable plastic pillow. Gilles and I gazed into each other’s blindfolded  eyes and puffed into our stubby inverted nipple nozzles. My Romantic novelist DNA flipped towards a public love scene where two lovers – perhaps fleeing from her crazed aristocratic family of sword wielding knights, attempt to escape on a Brittany ferry to find love in a Portsmouth concrete housing block. Realizing that members of the family had boarded, their one chance to cement their love before death was in a reclining chair, surrounded by iPod playing  bleeping electro-geeks, a snoring drunk with a body freshness issue and some leather clad English biker who wanted to talk to his mate about his chain lube. Oh yes – public sleeping is a whole new game. Luckily there was a coffee machine a and a door to the outside deck. I would have kissed my lover in the moonlight if there had been any moon and if he had woken up. And they say Romance is dead! Now – looking for a link to Pavorotti singing “Nessun Dorma” (no one shall sleep) I saw on the you-tube menu this truly inspirational moment which many of you will have seen before. Even so – please allow yourself a pure surge of surprise and joy and watch this clip. You cannot tell a book by it’s cover – except mine. 


On the doorstep at the English house there was a soggy frosted parcel containing the hard copy of “Knockout”. Wow – it looks like a book that a proper writer person could have written. Rosina  had ordered me a copy to proof read. Oh no – can I face reading it again?….




Emma thinx: Read to a child. You can cover a book by it’s telling.



The Price of Love

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Water meter counting the litres in the ocean



The room in which I am typing this little epistle is warm. It was not always thus. Shortly before my arrival home in France it had been minus 11 degrees – just ask my plumbing. The water supply into the house was frozen so there was no water. Fan heaters, gas space heaters and hair dryers were employed until water reached the meter, which kinda exploded. A sweet guy from SAUR turned up and fitted a new one. The water advanced slowly through the house. The air temperature reached a positive number. Radiators burst, frost sparkled on the inside walls. We travailed with spanners and buckets. I dreamed of oysters and moules marineres. We ate cold tinned ravioli. Wonderful neighbours arrived with heaters and advice. We plugged in heaters and blew the electrics. We warmed on the advice. Invitations flooded in. I longed for daylight. Outside it was minus 7. Inside I reached absolute zero. Gilles was Gallic and shrugging his way through the “comedy of life”. He is calm and sometimes I hate him. Around midnight we went to bed.


I was dreaming of water – great waves of gushing running water – maybe purging my anger, maybe purging me of the morally equivocal life I’ve led. Maybe dumping 931 litres of freezing water through the ceiling….Yes, the water had reached the upstairs bathroom and found a detached flexi-pipe. I ran downstairs through a downpour of water and got to the inlet valve. I glanced at the new meter which had started at zero. It read 931 litres. Well – it’s always nice to know the size of a problem! Water was about 2 inches deep through the entire ground floor. Gilles arrived and commented on “La comedie de la vie”. We swept, scooped and sponged the night away. Around 7.30 am the daylight I had longed for arrived. We surveyed the ruin. I suppose it is a comedy really…….


Today, the world’s most helpful and kind plumber arrived to replace radiators. I have spoken of this guy before in a previous blog.  He is an old school craftsman and gentleman. If you live in the Saintonge area I cannot recommend him too highly. Soaked furniture and possessions are slowly drying out. We are alive, fed and have a home. 



OK – It’s St Valentines day tomorrow. In the Super U hypermarket at Saintes there were not whole sections of the shop dedicated to cards, red velvet heart shaped cushions, teddy bears and special red roses. The main special feature was fat duck livers. In Walmart in the UK the merchanisers had gone mad. I reckon that the first guy to market heart shaped Valentine double dipper recession burgers in a red ribboned box will clean up. The ASDA (UK Walmart) brand have marketed a smart price budget Valentine card for 7 pence, (11 US cents). I guess that this was a tongue in cheek exercise to publicise their Smart Price no nonsense pricing. If so, I take my hat off to them. If Gilles has even thought of buying me one there will be no further blogs for a while unless I can post from prison.


Several days in cold water, ice and propane gas fumes have diminished my normal romantico flame and passion. Tomorrow is another day and I wish you love.


Emma thinx:  Don’t throw cold water on a flood of kindness.











Pistons on La Piste

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It is snowing here in Southern England. Two issues occupy my brain.
1) Will it be snowing in the morning and will the school be closed?
2) Will Gilles and I be able to slither the car to the Brittany Ferries terminal at Portsmouth in order to cross the Channel so that we can go home to France?

Come what may I am going home! Sunday morning hot baguette and oysters for lunch with wine ….Nothing will stop me! I will crawl through the snow living on nothing but the huge cask of brandy around my neck like a St Bernard mutt. (I love dogs and always think that mountaineers should have the rescue brandy round their own necks). 


There is always much controversy over reverse parking and driving skill in the benda fender gender agenda. My sexy French lover, Gilles is an executive high earning occasional car driver. I am a minimum wage full time bus driver. If he offers to drive in the snow and ice – yup, he’s got the job. Would I ever say anything…….? Do you think I would ever offer a single word of guidance…?


Emma thinx: Love has no end – only endings.

A Right Old Pickle

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Heaven and Hell in a jar



“Can ya tell’em at the school he’s got a tempracha,”  came the voice of intercom mom from floor 23 of the tower block.
“Is that an’ igh tempracha or a low tempracha,” I ask.
“Woh – dunno for sure dear – but ee’s right poorly.”


I trudge back to the bus. It is Friday. The chances of intercom mom having a thermometer seem unlikely. Her boy is a right little sod and secretly I must admit I did hope that if she did have one, she had inserted it up his bottom. I think he attends about one Friday in each half term. At the school I informed the staff. As I swung the bus out of the yard I’m sure I saw them dancing in my mirrors. 


However, let me get back to the real business and glamour of my life as a best selling romantic novelist. In my last blog I raised the issue of pickles and a lady apparently had not encountered pickled onions. You know, we always think that everyone is like us. When you are a kid you think that your family is normal. I never forget when I first went to a friend’s house and found that not all parents hated each other. I was astonished. 

You never know when you might need a pickle



Now I think about it, you do not see many pickled onions in France. You do see cornichons (dill pickles) and one just cannot eat dried pork saucisse without them. But the pickled onion is probably almost as iconic as British fish and chips.  Most fish and chips shops still have a huge jar of pickled onions on the counter. It was my first ever experience of the impulse buy. Mr Henry Papadopoulos, the Greek fish and chip shop guy, plopped an enormous crisp vinegar soaked onion on top of my battered cod and chips (fries). Oooh, As my mouth blended the acid onion crunch with the crisp batter and the soft hot white fish sprinkled with salt, I experienced a deep physical joy. Soon after I discovered sex and I think it was only that that saved me from addiction and a life in the chippie. Incidentally, if you do eat a pickled onion, make sure your lover has one too. Greasy, salty gum-sucks are OK but unilateral pickled onion can slow things.

I think the goldfish might be dead.



 Before I get away from the fish and chip issue I must make a major statement. The best fish and chips I ever ate were on the pier at Santa Cruz in California. As I sat in the open air overlooking the Pacific Ocean, an enormous pelican decided to dispute possession with me. Those birds are killers!


I’m sure there are all kinds of pickles out there unknown to Brits. In Texas, somewhere near Fort Hood, I found a quaint “old time western” shop selling cactus pickle. I wonder if anyone else does pickled boiled eggs? I received some as a gift at Christmas. Chip shops often sell them but they are just so acidic that my poor old tubes shriek at the sight. I’ve dotted a couple of pickle pics around the text just to excite you all.


And finally, some readers will not have encountered the quest of Kathy Lynn Hall to raise money for Wounded Warriors. She has written an e book, “The Great Twitter Adventure“, the profit of which will be donated to the fund. It sells at only 77 pence in the UK, and is a first rate read! The above link is for for Amazon UK. Here is the Amazon USA link. Come on guys….99c or 77p…




Emma thinx: If you think you’d give your right arm for something, remember those who’ve given theirs for you.











Kreatures of Kreation

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Firstly let me thank Jo VonBargen for nominating me for the Kreativ Blogger Award. At my primary school I was appointed deputy blackboard monitor. Since then few accolades have come my way and I have searched in the desert of broken dreams ever since for that high. Oh – OK – I’ve been scribbling romance and I’m in double purple 3 glasses of wine on empty stomach mode.  The regulations require that I list 10 things about me that one would not suspect. Oh dear, does this mean that I must submit to a warm bath of ego while my readers sponge my back. Ooooh – here goes then:


1) I play the trombone. Probably this is why I can be a little brassy. It certainly explains my love of Wagner.
2) I am not quite absolutely totally a fully pigmentally challenged natural blonde. 
3) My favourite undergarment is my salmon pink and black lace basque.
4) I have a RYA coastal skippers ticket.
5) I have a Class 1 Heavy Goods (semi-trailer rig) licence in addition to my class 1 bus licence.
6) My ex husband called to say he was marrying a pole-dancer. Turns out she is my age, lives in Poland and loves to tango.
7) I am allergic to cats.
8) In France people think I’m Belgian on account of my accent and love of chocolate.
9) When sensitive English friends visit us in France I have been known to serve rabbit and tell them it is chicken.
10)  My favourite position with my sexy French lover is… on the back of our tandem going downhill.


Gilles bought me my basque by mail order from a lively national company who provide lingerie and all manner of toys. They boast that their products are delivered in plain wrappers by their own couriers. I was at home when the doorbell rang and a large tattooed man handed me  a package. With a wink he explained in a gruff confidential stage whisper – “Ere y’are Sweet heart – here’s them naughty knickers.” – I was quite shocked.


What a week-end. I’ve been free on Amazon KDP Select  and Rosina keeps phoning me with updates. In the end I gave up and made leek and potato soup. To me it seemed a bit bland so I added some anchovy paste…..Ummm – well, we ate it.


The weekend stats have all sorts of astonishing aspects. If you are thinking of going for this KDP deal you might be interested. Breakdown of figures by Tuesday I hope.


The second regulation for this award is that I choose a further six Kreativ souls. Here is my list:

1) Claude Nougat – La giornalista piu intelligente in Italia.
2) Jack Durish – historian who is improving my general knowledge
3) Magda Olchawksa – for her informative and varied posts about the Creative Industry.
4) Yvonne Lewis for being the only other person on Earth to admit to loving Carousel and Oklahoma
5) Craig McGinty for This French Life – the best ever resource for news and info for expats in France
6) Julie Kemp for Empty Nest Insider – Intelligent writing about a variety of interesting topics.




Emma thinx: Elation and deflation have poetic relation.









Free Market Slaves

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If you look at my previous post you might have gotten the idea that I am a sex fuelled hedonist. Well, if not I’m gonna try and try until I make it there. It’s only lack of book sales that is holding me back. 


But let’s talk about the “new capitalism” which is the buzz on the economic block. I hear Euro politicoids talking about “Fairness” as if the concept had just arrived on their desks with all the kick-ass imperative of a memo from Rupert Murdoch. Before all the social class, religion, nationalism and wealth difference poisons and divides kids – they know about fairness and justice at the age of three. Just try telling a toddler he took his brother’s chocolate biscuit when he knows his sibling took it himself and framed him.


 So – how is it that something so atavistic, so recurrent and ingrained in mankind has been subverted and lost in our teeming world of worshipped and applauded greed? I heard PM Cameron today declaring that Europe was falling behind the productive capacity of China. Oh no – maybe our systems of democracy, health and safety, social care, civil rights, conditions of work and wages are holding us back? Dear me – there is the answer then. Let’s all race to the bottom. The finest time of Britain and the Empire was when slaves were bartered for gold,  children started work at the age of nine and life expectancy was 25years. At least it would get rid of a few rival novelists on Amazon.


A few months ago a case of “human slavery” was discovered in the UK. There was wailing and a general gnashing of teeth. The political class were astounded and outraged. However, it was not a surprise to some of us. If you want another story here is a link to a terrible tragedy in 2004. At a time of my life when I was  destitute I went to work as a turkey process hand. It was tough. Let me say that again – it was tough enough to break your bloody heart.  I wrote a story because fiction is far more powerful than “News” because that happens somewhere else. The girl in the story is unattractive and therefore could not work as a prostitute which is the fate of most trafficked females. That does not mean she won’t be used and raped by her “masters”.  The story is “Sub Prime” and is as true as a story can be. Ironically it is something of a best-seller although I have never wanted money from it. I have published it with an audio track, read by a dear friend.  I cannot read it myself because it makes me cry so much. 

This week-end Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th January, “Sub-Prime” is free on Amazon, along with its MP3 audiobook that will also play on the Kindle (I have also have a free romance novel on the same promo).


Click here for my FREE books on Amazon USA
Click here for my FREE books on Amazon UK




Emma Thinx: Keep the bones out of the bonus