Morgan Delaney's Blog

we’re moving back to Berlin for a few years this summer.

Which means I need to find a job.

Just when my resume thought it could retire, it’ll need to work harder than ever before!

My last position as an employee was as a specialty building manager in Australia…

nine years ago.

While I’ve been busy with the books since then, I’m not yet sure how to parlay those skills into a job in the building industry.

“Morgan has almost a decade’s worth of experience building entire worlds in his books!”

And, as you know, I can walk and talk at the same time.

That’s going on the resume.

In my latest nonsense history video, I talk about the time American writer O. Henry was imprisoned for embezzlement at his job.

​A sentence which cost him his job and his Hogg…

I’m almost at 100 subscribers, so please keep sharing these videos with your friends!

Then tell me, what are your top job hunting tips?

Mine is:

Ignore the job requirements. If you like the sound of the role – and think you can do it – apply for it.

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post Ignore The Embezzlement Bit… appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

I spent last week trying to get Nadine into one of Tbilisi’s famous sulphur baths with wine, cheese-bread, a cat and a dog.

You might think the cat and the dog would be the tricky part, but they weren’t.

The tricky part was not cutting my fingers off or glueing them together.

Because I was making a raree show for Nadine’s birthday.

(That’s what Wikipedia says they are. What a great word! Keep an eye out for it in an upcoming Alumière adventure.)

Mine was with Nadine, Manchee and Pudding cavorting in a steam bath with wine and Georgian cheese-bread!

I found the idea on the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

You basically cut out several layers of paper with different images and line them up behind each other to create a little scene.

Fiddly but fun.

​So, I’m passing it on, in case you’re handy with a craft knife and want to give it a go, too.

Otherwise, stick to the videos.

My latest is very educational, about where the phrase “ok” came from.

Needless to say, it involves one of my great-great-grandfathers, as well as newspapers, the Boston Irish, and stress-tested trousers.

​Check it out, then share the link with your friends!

Ok?

Chat soon,

Morgan

The post Get In The Bath! appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

Sometimes you don’t know what to say.

Walking with Nadine to work yesterday, a young man, maybe 27, hurried past us as we crossed the bridge over the river.

It was raining, but he wore only a knitted cardigan and jeans with the bottoms turned up in a manner I personally haven’t seen since 1993.

I’d never make fun of someone for what they were wearing.

But I would make fun of someone for walking like they think they’re important.

His legs were moving fast, but the steps were short. He kept his knees turned out to the side so no one could sneak up on him from behind, and his arms swinging to distribute the smell of too much aftershave fairly.

Well.

Myself and Nadine shared amused glances. I can’t tell you what Nadine was thinking, but I was busy working on several absolute zingers for when he bosswalked out of earshot.

And then…

And then he bent over in front of us.

In the rain.

And picked up a lump of bread, about the size of an eyeball, which some previous pedestrian had dropped on the street.

We followed. We watched. We bated our breaths.

Arriving at the end of the bridge, he deposited the bit of bread on a wall and passed out of view and into legend.

My zingers turned to ash. He had left me with nothing to say.

I only had questions.

If you have any idea what the hell we witnessed, please let me know.

All I can think, is that perhaps – it’s a long shot – but perhaps Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter had aligned, and he was performing the Ritual of the Bread to ward off death and disaster.

Like on the 29th of March, 1345, when a similar planetary alignment caused the Black Death.

​Allegedly…​

And if you enjoy it, please perform the Ritual of Sharing It With a Friend to prevent more monkey business.

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post Don’t Walk THIS Way… appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

one perk of being a writer is the writer’s salon.

Those evenings where us big-headed tweedy lads – and ladies – discuss matters of crucial import.

And at our last session, I brought us to a very interesting conclusion.

The topic was polar bears, inspired, amongst other things, by this German classic.

I queried the group whether we knew the colour of a polar bear’s poop.

In case you were unaware, it’s the usual colour, and this, I feel, is unacceptable.

Look. I don’t expect a panda bear to do black and white coloured business. That would be asking too much, but I must insist that polar bears poop whitely.

That’s a deal-breaker.

The Arctic is white.

Polar bears are white.

Polar bear poop should be white.

It’s no wonder the world is in the shocking state it’s in, if it can’t be bothered to make sure polar bear poop blends in with the background.

And from there, it’s but a short step to understanding why we keep lurching from one crisis to the next.

Back in the day, someone dropped the ball on the polar bears, and it’s all been downhill from there.

So next time you open up your newspaper, don’t get upset about all the bad news.

Just blame the bloody polar bears.

Although, to be fair, it was actually the teddy bears and their damn picnic that killed my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Smurfitt Delaney, that time he went to Sweden to see the king…

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. Does anybody know any good salons? I know a writer on the lookout for a new, less-judgmental one.

P.P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post Great News! It’s All Their Fault… appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

Poe did more than just write fiction, you know.

He was one of America’s leading literary critics, as well as being interested in physics and cosmology.

And he was almost certainly the first man in America to use the CRISPR gene-editing technology.

Right? I couldn’t believe it at first either, but it says so on Wikipedia.

Look:

You see? First he became editor of the Journal, and then he became editor of its owner.

I found that while researching Poe again this week. I’d researched him before for my article revealing the secret of his “mysterious death.”

This week I examined the story behind his expulsion from West Point Military Academy.

A period in Poe’s life when his best friend, my great-great-great-grandfather, Macabre Delaney, had his eye on Poe…

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out my latest nonsense history short on YouTube here:

​Poe’s Secret Message Spells Death for his Best Friend.​

And like and subscribe to motivate me to make more, please.

It’s actually quite hard.

Don’t take my word for it. While reading Wilkie Collins’ The Queen of Hearts this week, I came across this great snippet:

See?

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post That Gene-Editing Nonsense appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

Have you looked at a washing machine recently?

We’ll need a new one when we move countries, and the last one we bought was maybe in 2013 in Australia. So, at the weekend I spent an hour tentatively dipping my toe into the shopping pool to see how warm the water is, and

HOLY MOLY!

You can buy washing machines with AI now!

I was so excited. Imagine. A washing machine that’ll wander around the house picking up washing, sorting it into piles, washing it and hanging it up for us!

But when I read the description, I discovered that’s not what the AI feature does. It’s even better:

It gives you an app!

With real-time notifications on whether or not your wash cycle is done.

Wow.

How did I ever live without that?

And there’s more.

If there’s a fault, the app may help you troubleshoot the problem with no need to call a technician.

Although if not, you’ll probably need a technician and an IT specialist to fix the fault.

Mega-Wow!

At what point did technology stop being at all useful?

I’d like to know what you think, but I’ll start us off by saying sometime after 1933 and before, say, 2013?

1933 because that was the year King Kong came out, and when they were making it, everybody said, stick a man in a monkey suit. It’ll be fine. But producers Cooper & Schoedsack stood firm and went for stop-motion and all sorts of other cutting-edge tricks.

It’s why the film still ranks as one of the best ever made.

And while everyone knows what happened to Kong, few people remember the tragic events that led to the death of my great-great-great-grandfather, Mincer Delaney, on the night of the premiere.

If you haven’t seen it yet, then click here, where I – like Mincer – reveal all!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post There’s An Ape For That… appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

great news!

In fact, great newses, because I have two!

The first one will come as a relief to everyone who’s been struggling to keep up with the tsunami of nonsense on YouTube, etc.

I’ve been posting five videos of nonsense (but top-notch nonsense, if I do say so myself) every week for the last six weeks for a challenge. Now that I’ve won the challenge, I’m dialling it back to three a week, in response to urgent warnings by brain specialists that humanity can’t take it much longer.

In future, you can find out how history should have been on YouTube and Facebook each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Did you know tennis was invented by a man afraid of wasps, but not afraid of volcanoes?

I explained all on Monday.

If you haven’t yet, you can sign up to be notified when the next one comes out.

And did you spot the mighty upgrade to Monday’s video?

Subtitles!

I was going mad trying to work out how to add them.

In particular, how to add them without having to sign up for another bloody monthly subscription service.

And then I found Canva will do it for free.

That’s my other good news.

CapCut wanted a $20 per month subscription from me to do the same thing.

So if you ever need speech to text captions for your videos, Canva has you covered.

Alright, now I need to find something funny to say about the Council of Rockingham and papal allegiance for Wednesday.

Dear God.

Nadine said I should have done book review videos.

She might have been right.

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post If You’re Listening God… Make With the Funny appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

It’s the time of year I get shouted at the most.

Hurray!

Spring has arrived, so Tbilisi’s gardeners are filling the parks’ flowerbeds with red woodchip mulch again.

Hurray!

Which means they shout at me when Manchee goes over to do his business on them.*

Yay!

The woodchips are to combat weeds by sucking up nitrogen.

(So, the reason weeds grow better than flowers is that weeds are nitro-powered, apparently.)

Dogs also go mad for those woodchips.

Visitors to Tbilisi in spring are often terrified of the stray dogs at first, because the dogs walk around stained in red, like they’re paid-up members of the sinister Blood City cult.

But they’re not. They just like to sleep on the red woodchips and the colour rubs off.

You see? There’s a rational explanation for everything.

Even for the plague of rats terrorising Hawkinge-By-Hythe, after a powerful witch promises revenge…

Find out what it is in The Phoenix right here!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

*Doing his business on the woodchips, not on the gardeners.

He’s a good boy.

The post Welcome to… Blood City! appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

you know what I hated while growing up?

Curtains.

In particular, the ones in my bedroom. They were a deadly beige with enormous brown…

What are they called?

Paisleys?

Those swirly amoeba-blobs that make up a paisley pattern.

Dreadful-looking things with swollen heads and swirls that gave them arms and legs.

And because the window let in a draught – what we called “getting fresh air” in those days – the curtains swayed in and out, making it look like the paisley monsters were marching towards me as I lay in bed.

Every morning when I woke up, those damned curtains would wave at me, as much as I wished they wouldn’t.

It was always a relief to get up and leave the bedroom behind.

Speaking of which, I’ve got a brand-new, lovely little – or should that be weird and creepy? – bedtime story for Valentine’s Day for you over on YouTube.

Find out why it’s best not to peer too closely at your loved one while they sleep in “Love’s Curse,” right here!

Chat soon,

Morgan

More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post Pull Yourself Together appeared first on Morgan Delaney.

when I visited my granny in England, people thought I was a burglar.

I loved visiting my granny, but – let’s be honest here – she was a few years older than me, so occasionally things felt a little slow for a young lad full of beans on toast.

One time I decided to see how many laps of the house I could do in ten minutes.

She lived at the end of a row of terraced houses, so I would start in the front garden, run inside, out through the kitchen door into the back garden, then onto the bin, over the wall, back through the alley and into the front garden again.

I reckoned I could do 15, maybe even 20 laps.

In fact, I did four before I bumped into a neighbour at the front door.

She had come around to warn my gran about a suspicious character she had seen hopping over my gran’s wall, again and again.

Although she ruined my chance to do 20 laps, I didn’t mind.

What are you supposed to think when you see the same young lad constantly diving over the wall of a house where you know an elderly woman lives alone?

Either it’s a gang of identical robbers…

or a plague of Morgans.

Neither of which you’d have to worry about in Hawkinge-By-Hythe.

There’s not much crime there.

On the other hand, they do have a family of identical scientific sisters…

and when a mysterious man from Luxembourg arrives in town, he seems to bring a plague of rats with him.

You can find out what happens when the locals are up against the wall in The Phoenix here now

Chat soon,

Morgan

More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

The post The Plague of Morgans appeared first on Morgan Delaney.