Challenges and Awards

I have finally decided to join the 1030s mini challenge being hosted over at Things mean a lot and it’s not just because of the rather attractive button this challenge has. No it’s because my next book is ‘Tender is the night’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald which was published in 1934, I have never read Scott Fitzgerald before so hopefully this book will be a good introduction.

We have been given a couple of awards over the past few days. Firstly the One lovely blog award from the also lovely Cat from Cat-bookmagic.



We also have been given the Oh My Blog! Award from Petty at Pen and Paper.


The procedure, as The Little Flower explains being,

"1. Get really excited that you got the coolest award EVER!
2. Choose ONE of the following options of accepting the OMB award:
(a) Get really drunk and blog for 15 minutes straight, or for as long as you can focus.
(b) Write about your most embarrassing moment.
(c) Write a "Soundtrack of your childhood" post.
(d) Make your next blog a 'vlog'/video blog. Basically, you're talking to the camera about whatever.
(e) Take a picture of yourself first thing in the morning, before you do anything else (hair, make up, etc) and post it.
3. Pass the award on to at least three, but preferably more, awesome bloggers. Don't forget to tell them."

I’m gonna go with ‘Soundtrack of your childhood on this one.

But before I can do this I need to talk about Australian Soaps (yes there is a connection) I don’t know if it is actually the law in Australia but it certainly seems to be. Basically if you were an up and coming actor/actress/singer during the 80s/90s in Australia then you would have been MADE to appear in a soap over there at some point during your early career. The most popular soaps to appear in for these young entertainers would have been Neighbours and Home & Away, but if you weren’t quite beautiful enough for those then there was always prisoner Cell Block H.
I’m rambling; anyway the height of popularity in the UK for Australian soaps was during the 80s when I was only about 10. EVERYONE in school watched them and we would all swap posters everyday of the soap stars. Well during all this many of these stars made a break for Hollywood (the most well known being Guy Peace, Russell Crowe and Naomi Watts – in fact for all you true blood fans that’s where Jason Stackhouse started)
But for the rest of them that weren’t Hollywood worthy they would wash up on the UK shores and then start to bleed our ears with their awful 80’s pop music and thus the connection. Yes when I think of music during my childhood I cannot help but think of Kylie and Jason, the most successful of these. Do I listen to them now? No, in fact I cringe, Kylie may be a bit of a sex kitten now but then she was very uncool with a terrible 80s perm. Do I watch these soaps now? No, not for years.



Ok so I would like to pass these awards to the following bloggers who I have recently discovered.

Book Bookie
BookMarc Blogpants
Caribousmom
Learning to Read
the ladybug Reads
This Bookish Life