I’d like to give a quick shout out to Ed Hamrick of ‘VueScan’ software. When I first started scanning in 1995 I was using a Canon, then changed to an Epson Scanner/Printer and all the time the supplied software met my needs. I could scan and get it to paste directly into Paint Shop Pro which I still use, in fact I’m still running the 1998 version as I don’t find I need all the bells and whistles of later updates. In around 2019 I changed Scanner/Printer again and the old software no longer ran and the new involved a lot more stages than before so I looked around and found ‘VueScan’ When I got into it I found I could almost do the same as before but it took just one more stage which I could accept BUT on a recent update my ability to preview, crop, copy and then paste into Paint Shop as a cropped image disappeared, I got the whole scanned area, not just the cropped part. I contacted Ed at ‘VueScan’ expecting to be told why do you do what you do, just add scan but that was one more stage I didn’t need. Thankfully Ed took it on board and after a couple of failures I am now pleased to say I am now back to a working edition as I use it so once again thanks to Ed for taking my request so seriously.
This weeks random title is for ‘Sphinx’ by Robin Cook of which I have three editions, none with particularly inspiring covers. It was made into a film with Lesley-Ann Down in 1981. I’ve not read it or seen the film so I can’t pass comment although I have been to Egypt and seen the Sphinx when there was a lull in the rioting so instead of hoards of tourists there was just a few and we were outnumbered by the locals selling tat.
I picked up a couple of Piccolo titles with a Scottish theme as they are set in the Orkneys. They are both by George Mackay Brown and I don’t think they have ever been read and they both have covers by Paul Slater. George Mackay Brown (17/10/1921 to 13/04/1996) was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century. He also wrote ‘Six Lives of Fankle the Cat‘ for children but this was not published by PAN but by Chatto Windus.
The news of Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, passing at the age of 86 last week reminded me of the time I met him in Foyles bookshop at PAN’s 70th birthday bash where he was presented with a ‘Golden Pan Award’ for selling over a million copies of ‘Only Time Will Tell’ I didn’t really have that much time to form an impression but I do like the quote from Sheridan Morley who is supposed to have said “At the interval I went to the toilet, and there beside me was Ringo Starr. He asked if I knew this Jeffrey Archer bloke. I said everyone in Oxford was trying to work out who he was. Ringo said: “He strikes me as a nice enough fella, but he’s the kind of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it” Having sold over 320 million copies of his books worldwide he must have been doing something right, maybe I’ll get around to reading one someday.