Ben Tylecote

I've already talked about authors "ripping off" one another's style's... Well the new Alex Rider series is out on Amazon prime. These books are the epitome of using another persons structure.  Anthony Horowitz, the author of the rider series, utilises the classic James Bond techniques. Whenever I ponder this I wonder whether copying of styles is such a bad thing, always coming to the same conclusion. I don't think it is. Many of my favourite series are well known to be heavily inspired by other works. Even the Northern Lights, and books of dust are inspired by Paradise Lost, says Philip Pullum - their author.  Overall the combination of new ideas combined with unoriginal ideas is a good thing. Getting a truly novel idea, after so many years of human life, must be incredibly rare, you would think. Yet we can never truly know what everyone has thought throughout the course of history. Therefore, unless blatantly copying word for word, I would suggest using stole...

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. If I was allowed a prop tonight I would have a banana and if I bit into that banana, without unwrapping it, I think you would say that isn’t right...  Well that is how most of the population views happiness, as something they cannot reach. However, if they took the time to unwrap it they may discover something far tastier on the inside… The other day, I was brushing my teeth, and questions started popping in to my head: like what’s for dinner, when am I going to do that last-minute homework, ….and what makes people happy?  You know, the ordinary things. I then asked myself that last question - How to enjoy the most boring of tasks and be happy. That is the question I want to answer today. When was the last time you felt unhappy or just plain bored recently?  Probably not that long ago, and you're not alone. According to a recent study, 1 in 3 of us, here in the UK, are unhappy most of the tim...