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Who would have thought it?

Last week, I won a twitter short story competition about Thanksgiving, along with five other people. What do I know about Thanksgiving? I know it is the busiest time in America for the airlines, along with Christmas. I know lots of pumpkins are cut up and eaten in sweet pies. But that's about it.

Let's Party!

Several women sit at a table, celebrating a birthday. It is a convivial scene. The drinkers sip cool white wine and there are bottles of water on the table for the drivers. It is nearly school pick up time and the women keep keen eyes on the time.

Mention “parties” in the same breath as “teenagers” at this table and you will hear groans. You will hear about feral teenagers on Saturday night rampages. You will see eyes roll and heads fall into hands.

Narcissism: Love it!

Youth narcissism is on the rise. A study of 16,000 American university students has revealed a growing epidemic of self-obsession. These students exhibit alarmingly overblown senses of self-importance. Most worrying is the evidence that narcissistic personality traits have increased from 15% of the student population to 30% in just 30 years.

“Shocking numbers,” said the principle researcher, professor of psychology Jean Twenge from San Diego State University.

I shared a public transport experience with a smallish sample size of local adolescents recently. Forget about twenty year olds in US universities. Narcissism amongst the locals is flourishing. By the time they hit uni, our know-it-all kids will be cosy in their teenage bubbles, their sense of entitlement blossoming, their attention-seeking behaviour rampant.

Booker Bickering

Bookish feathers are flying as learned souls recover from a perceived downgrading of the Booker as an accolade for high brow, if impenetrable literature. Indeed the chair of judges is a mere writer of spy thrillers. Dumbing down must come naturally to her. Never mind that Stella Rimington is also the former director general of MI5. She has been subject to vilification for prioritising readability as a vital determinant of a book's worth. Rimington wants people to read and enjoy Julian Barnes's novella The Sense of an Ending, rather than simply admire it. Committee member MP Chris Mullin was also pilloried for commenting that books had to "zip along" to be worthy of consideration.

A Festival in Paradise

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival is over and my head is pounding. It has been a bumpy ride at times, dodging motor bikes and getting soaked in spontaneous tropical downpours. Not to mention workshops, book launches and story readings; it can do your head in, gab fests like these, and to be honest, ambivalence threatened.

"Come on, Jules, it'll be great. Let's go."

And so we did.