Blog - Tom Gale Writer

#0055 Wise Words Stand The Test Of Time

And Stand Up To Scrutiny

Welcome back, my fellow travellers. It is a joy to have the pleasure of your company and spending a moment together. I hope your week has gone well and you’ve gotten as much life out of that as possible.

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As always, I welcome all of your comments. They are helping me hone my craft and on the pathway to becoming the best writer, I am capable of becoming.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone with whom you are unfamiliar shares what they consider words of wisdom? ‘If you keep that face on and the wind changes, it’ll stay that way.’ ‘A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where will they build a nest?’ ‘You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’ Are any of those ringing any bells for any of you? If not, then I doubt you’ll get very much from this. So I won’t feel offended nor hold it against you if you leave now.

*Pause to allow the exit*

In real-life scenarios, I have one individual remaining. So I’m going to apply that outcome to this.

The following information is for you and only you.

THREE METHODS THAT SHOULD SHED SOME LIGHT

Assess personal value
What will it cost?
Their fruit may prove helpful.

ASSESS PERSONAL VALUE

So before we go throwing any babies out with their proverbial bath water. Let us take a moment to consider this hypothetical. How are you going to work out if these are valid words of wisdom or not? Well, that depends on how valuable it may be if proven to be the real deal. What difference would it make in your life? Or, indeed, in the lives around you? If the wind could be proven to play a part in how our faces look. What would that mean to you and your nearest and dearest?

WHAT WILL IT COST?

In that example, to prove its validity, one should have more than a passing knowledge of the nature and substance of both wind and facial anatomy. That is going to mean research. In other words, work. That will always be the cost, by the way—more work. If you’ve determined that the personal value gained is worth the price, you’ll do that work. If not, then you won’t. That decision will have at least one obvious consequence. Any guesses? ‘Yes, well done to you at the back.’ That’s right; you will now be at odds with those who believe those words. What are you going to do? Well, in terms of someone very dear to me, I think they khit the nail on the head. ‘If you are not 100% or as close to it as possible, then it’s probably wise to keep your bloody mouth shut.’ The person was an octogenarian and had earned the right to use that language.

‘YE SHALL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS’

Matthew 7: 16-20 (King James Version) Part of the sermon on the mount.

My mother has a green thumb’, meaning she has a way with plants. On the other hand, the colour of my thumb is rainbow with sparkles. Not conducive to the nourishment of plants. I preferred my connection with plants to be up close and personal. I am clinging onto impossibly thin branches feeling them in my hand, seeing their nature up close, smelling them and perhaps chewing on some bark or leaf. Then to shimmy down to a rope swing across a stream. Or the mincing of funghi for some ravioli. I have only one piece of knowledge about all things horticultural to share. ‘Good fruit will never come from a rotten tree.’ Shared in the bible and other sacred texts as a parable to demonstrate that fruit is the shared experience of an individual. You can know that the knowledge to produce is more than likely reliable. One fruit I think of is friendships. I believe it is possible to determine a portion of a person’s character by the company they keep and the length of that relationship. Who would you be more likely to listen to a man with a handful of friends at least a decade old? Or a woman who declares they have no ‘real friends’ however they boast of having over 15,000 online? It’s a rhetorical question. But I believe it does demonstrate my point.

THREE METHODS TO SHED LIGHT ON WORDS OF WISDOM FROM AN UNFAMILIAR SOURCE

Assess Personal Value
What Will It Cost?
Their fruits may be helpful.

Another quick personal anecdote that almost always provides a shortcut to all of the above. I’m sure it was going to be your first question.

I did a B.Ed Primary (Hons) at Moray House College, Edinburgh University, a while back. They get it if you can boil the above to child size. That’s your shortcut. As a parent of a precocious three-year-old going on fifty-three, I didn’t even have to wait to get in a classroom.

So I put it to the test. In addition, my ‘Sunday Name’ is Thomas, famously known for his doubting. Which my mother encouraged me. So I put it to many tests in different settings and conditions. My results were in the 80% + bracket. Which I think most people would consider a pretty good result by any measure.

The experiment where the subject was held upside down and swung around the air like a chair-o-plane got a high mark from a ‘taking part’ perspective.

The subject’s considered opinion ‘If I have to go through life with a big grin on my face, it has been worth it.’

Of course, this is entirely subjective and can only be relied upon if the subject knows how much you love them. Otherwise, it’s about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

TRY IT.

If you have made it this far, you deserve a prize. It is my tremendous honour to dub you ‘Honourary Thomases, which now gives you the power to find out things for yourself. Don’t take my or anyone else’s word. Do some experiments of your own. Note Only proceed in this endeavour if you are sincere in your desire to know the truth. It’ll be a waste of your valuable time and energy otherwise.

If you have any questions or comments, just click that comment button, and whisk it over to the team here at Tomgalewriter, where we will be happy to help in any way we can.

I would love to hear about any provisional experiment results. There is no obligation.

N.B. The powers endowed will not work if the power determines you to be insincere.

They will cease to work after a decent period of experimentation.

They cannot be shared or passed on to anyone else.

Please decline the honour and send them back to me should your circumstances change.

The team here at TomGaleWriter knows that life can be a bitch sometimes.

The team also recognises that priorities can change at a moment’s notice.

Well, that’s it for another week. Remember to hit the like button and subscribe to your inbox for future publications.

Leave a comment by hitting the “comments” button, and leave your feedback which I value greatly.

Click the links below for my social media sites, website and published work.

#0054 RIP DOMA

As always, I welcome all of your comments. They are helping me hone my craft and on the pathway to becoming the best writer I am capable of becoming.

On Dec 8, The House of Representatives gave final passage to landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriages. When Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) back in 1996, banning same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marriage to the Union of one man and one woman.

That moment crushed millions of hearts. Yet, almost a quarter of a century later, those hearts and souls can rest at ease knowing their ‘ other love’ is protected.

I love this quote from Barney Frank, the former Democratic congressman and the first House member to come out as gay. ‘I was here for the birth of Doma, so I am very grateful to be able to be here for the funeral.’

Let’s not forget Edith ‘Eddie’ Windsor, born to a Russian Jewish immigrant family of modest means. Who became a Master’s in Mathematics from New York University. Then a Technology manager at IBM. Also, an LGBT rights activist, the lead plaintiff in the 2013 Supreme Court of the United States case United States v. Windsor overturned Section 3 of DOMA and was considered a landmark legal victory for the same-sex marriage movement in the United States.

Did you know that in the late Spring of 1965, when Windsor started dating Thea Spyer to keep their relationship a secret from her co-workers, Windsor invented a relationship with Spyer’s fictional brother Willy – a childhood doll belonging to Windsor?

Then in 1967, Spyer asked Windsor to marry, although not legal anywhere in the United States proposed, with a circular diamond pin instead of a traditional engagement ring. In Jan of 2013, then across the pond, the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill was introduced into the UK Parliament.

As of 2022, Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is legally performed and recognised in 33 countries, constituting some 1.35 billion people (17% of the world’s population). On Feb 17 2023, a law allowing same-sex marriage will come into force in Andorra.

However, by royal decree on Apr 1 2001, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands passed the first law providing marriage between same-sex couples. Hats off to the House of Representatives for making a difference for millions of Americans and a beacon of hope for billions more.

Well, that’s it for another week. Remember to hit the like button and subscribe straight for future posts to go straight into your inbox for future publications.

Leave a comment by hitting the “comments” button, and leave your feedback which I value greatly.

Click the links below for my social media sites, website and published work.

#0053 How Are We Doing?

As always, I welcome all of your comments. They are helping me hone my craft and on the pathway to becoming the best writer I am capable of becoming.

With the political landscape in turmoil. Inflation rampant. The cost of living and fuel bills are rising. Strikes threatened by the major unions. It is as if we are reliving the dark days of Scotland’s history in the 1970s.

It would be easy for us to become anxious and depressed by all this bad news.

I came across this week as I was researching on the interwebs.

List Of Countries By Wealth Of Adult

It is dated September 2022 and is sourced from Credit Suisse’s annual global wealth databook and the OECD’s better life index.

Wealth includes financial and non-financial assets—listing countries by mean wealth per adult in US dollars.

Various statistics are used by Credit Suisse, such as real estate prices, equity market prices, exchange rates, liabilities, debts, human resources, natural resources, capital and technological advancements which may create new assets and render others worthless.

So who would be your top three countries?

Top Three Countries

Mean wealth is the total aggregate wealth divided by the number of adults.

Location. Population. Mean wealth

Switzerland. 7,003,000. 696,604

Luxembourg. 504,000. 657,564

USA. 251,779,000. 579,051

Were you right about your top three? Are you surprised by this data? Want to know where the United Kingdom is? Care to guess?

It is 16 on the list.

United Kingdom. 52,562,000. 309,375

Did you guess right or in the ballpark?

It is behind Australia and New Zealand, Denmark, Canada, Norway and France, to name a few. Germany is 19. Japan is 22. The United Arab Emirates is 32, and China is 40

169 to 171, or in other the bottom three are

CAR. 2,226,000. 980

Burundi. 5,559,000. 809

Sierra Leone. 4,045,000. 799

A complete list can be found at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult.

So when the doom-sayers pile on the bad news and scare us into believing how awful things are, remember by this measure, we rank 16 in the world.

Well, that’s it for another week. Remember to hit the like button and subscribe straight for future posts to go straight into your inbox.

Leave a comment by hitting the “comments” button, and leave your feedback which I value greatly.

Click the links below for my social media sites, website and published work.

#0052 Great Ideas That Were Originally Rejected

One of the ways we may overcome the feelings is to take some examples from recent history as comfort.

In that spirit, here is a collection that I have researched and found to be the most interesting.

A Western Union internal memo dated 1876 said, “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” So David Sarnoff’s Associates rejected a proposal for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” Famously attributed to H.M. Warner before he rejected a proposal for films with sound in 1927.

In one rejection letter to Chester Carlson, one of twenty companies turned away the Xerox machine’s inventor between 1939 and 1944. The company writes, “Who wants to copy a document on plain paper?!”

In 1977 Ken Olsen, the then President, Chairman and Founder of Digital Equipment Corp., Was reputed to have commented, “There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.”

Steve Jobs went to Atari and said, ‘we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts; what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you if we work for you and you pay us a salary. They said, “No.” So we went to Hewlett Packard. And they said, ‘We don’t need you. You haven’t gotten through College yet.”

Further back in history, we have other examples.

In the 6th century BC, Pythagoras declared the world was round. However, it would take many centuries before the fear of falling off the edge of the Earth was quelled. It was in 1492 that Christopher Columbus set sail around the globe.

Today Galileo is referred to as the father of modern science. Yet in the 1600s, he was sentenced to house arrest for supporting the Copernican theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. In contrast, Giordano Bruno, philosopher, mathematician and cosmological theorist, was burned at the stake.

Darwin’s idea of natural selection has become the cornerstone of modern biology, and the author withheld science for eight years before he published it in 1838. For fear of opposition from his peers. Who still believed that evolution was due to supernatural forces.

Ignaz Semmelweis Hungarian physician and early pioneer of antiseptic procedures, was killed by a guard in an asylum for continuing to insist that the high death rates being experienced were because physicians refused to wash their hands after studying cadavers in the morgue.

Ludwig Boltzmann, an Austrian physicist, was one of the most influential advocates for atomic theory. At the time, physics was of physical certainty in an ordered universe. However, he defined that God did not impose order but came from atoms’ turmoil. Boltzmann’s genius was that he accepted the probability. As a result, he could begin to understand complex phenomena like fire, water and life. Things that traditional physics or mechanics would never understand. Tragically demoralised that his ideas were not accepted, he committed suicide in 1906.

So when you get your rejection letters from editors and publishers, remember that there have been many far greater in history that have experienced similar. So do not be dismayed but instead continue to believe in your idea until someone sees the magic you knew all along.

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#0051 Suprachiasmatic Nucleus

As always, I welcome all of your comments. They are helping me hone my craft and on the pathway to becoming the best writer, I am capable of becoming.

A suprachias what now? What on earth are you going on about now Tom? I’m glad you ask. It is not available on iTunes. You can’t purchase it on Amazon or any other online retailer. You won’t see on the shelves of you supermarket of choice.

They are words that I learned recently in a book written by Matthew Walker. He doesn’t really like being called Professor Walker. He is a scientist. His chosen subject is Sleep. He has written a fascinating book titled Why We Sleep.

The book is in four parts.

Part 1. This Thing Called Sleep
Part 2. Why Should You Sleep?
Part 3. How and Why We Dream
Part 4. From Sleeping Pills to Society Transformed

Oh by the way the short answer to Part 2 is because we’ll die if we don’t.

Back to the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus. It is a part of our brains. The simplest definition is that it our internal clock. However it is a clock that releases hormones that determine how alert or sleepy we feel. By using the brightness of levels in our surroundings, it syncs our alertness or sleepiness. So what I hear you say. Well this is so what. We have just put back our clocks by one hour a couple of weeks ago. This has already begun to have an effect on the number of hours we have of daylight. As we had into the Winter months. It will worsen. The number of hours becoming less and less. Until we are only getting about 8 hrs if we’re lucky. That doesn’t factor in the weather either which of course we know live here on this island can be utterly unpredictable. We can kind of predict that it almost certain that there will be more overcast days. With grey overhead clouds blockout out the sun than there will be fine days. We can say that because we’ve live here all our lives.

Not only that. Because it is so dreary outside we tend to put on bright light in our homes. That combination then confuses the SN. The hormones it produces get out of whack and you are feeling tired and out of energy during the day when you are working. This continues into our sleep leading to a reduced quality of our sleep. With our brains now sleep deprived it reduces our willpower which in turn becomes procrastination. What is the one thing that we procrastinate the most? Yes you’ve guessed it. Sleep.

We procrastinate developing a cooling down routine that will allow us to fall asleep and stay asleep. Reading about all of these things in Matthew Walker’s book was, if you’ll forgive the pun, a wake up call for me. It took me a couple of months to crack but perseverance paid off as I developed my Night Time Routine.

The light from electronic devices, even for less than a minute can be enough to disturb the ‘go to sleep’ signals our brain sends out. So having no electronic devices or screens on in the bedroom is one of the most important things you can do to help you get a good night’s sleep.

We tend to fall asleep at cooler temperatures. So turning off the heating at least an hour before you go to bed. Will allow the bedroom to come to an ambient temperature that will help you drift off to dreamland.

Having blackout curtains really helps too. I have always been a light sleeper. The tiniest crack of light coming into my room is enough to have up and wide awake. So blackout curtains is essential for me having a good night’s sleep.

Stop eating about a couple of hours before you go to bed. If not then it means that your body will be working overtime digesting food. Which in turns distracts your from the job it should be doing. Getting to sleep and staying asleep.

When you wake in the morning feeling like you’ve hardly had a wind of sleep it most likely because you haven’t allowed sufficient time for you brain to shut down. That means that it has less time in which to carry out its repairs. It carries out vital repairs on our organs. Particularly the liver and kidneys which are primarily responsible for flushing out toxins that may be in our blood and body tissues. Sleep allows the body to moderate and balance our gut biome and lets our brains process all the data that it has received during the day and hasn’t had a chance to do anything with. As it is too busy making sure that the heart keeps pumping blood and we breath in and out.

When we sleep our heart rate decreases and our blood pressure is regulated. Our breathing decreases which allows the body to draw on stored proteins, mitochondria that allow our tissues to draw on the nutrients and the four basic building blocks of our bodies. Adenine, Cytosine,Guanine and Thymine. The chemical building blocks that form our DNA.

All of these measure will also lower the risk of our SN getting out whack in the first place. You will wake up feeling refreshed and energised. It will take time and you will have to become disciplined. The prize is worth it. A lifetime of having a great night’s sleep more often than not. Waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed.

People will notice and some may even ask you. You can now tell them that it is all to do with Suprachiasmatic Nucleus.

Well, that’s it for another week. Remember to hit the like button and subscribe straight into your inbox for future publications.

Leave a comment by hitting the “comments” button, and leave your feedback which I value greatly.

Click the links below for my social media sites, website and published work.

#0050 Seeking Forgiveness Rather Than Permission

A Screenshot of Google Sheet Of Mine

#0049 A List of the Books I Have Read This Past Year

As always, I welcome all of your comments. They are helping me hone my craft and on the pathway to becoming the best writer I am capable of becoming.

When I began writing full-time about two and a half years ago, one of the first books I read was “On Writing” by Stephen King. It is part memoir and part ‘here’s how to do stuff’ book. One of the things that struck me was his insistence that to become a good writer; you have to do two things. One is to write. Then I learned that writing is much more than just putting words onto the page or screen. I won’t go into it, but if you are a beginner writer looking for a good book about how to write. I can’t recommend it enough. The other thing that you must do is read. Purists will say that you have to read a ‘proper’ book. Stephen disagrees, and I share his opinion. There are many ways to read these days. Both in ‘proper’ book form and other media. Such as e-books and audiobooks.

Using apps allows me to carry a whole library of books wherever I go. Helpful when going on holiday. You are not taking up vital space in your luggage for reading material. It is also beneficial if I chat with someone about a book and they express an interest in it. I can send them a copy and share mine with them. It doesn’t cost them or me anything extra. As you know, a book habit can get costly if you’re not careful.

I will only tell you the author of the book and the title. I’m not sharing feedback on the books. However, I may do it at a later date. The list is quite long, and the author and title are enough.

Another thing that I have found extremely useful is learning how to read speedily. Most of us read at a rate of around 190 words per minute. Using a combination of apps and webinars, I have increased my speed to about 260 wpm. Don’t you think that’s possible? Try it and find out for yourself. Please don’t take just my word for it.

I will put the list in alphabetical order of the author’s surname. So if you have a favourite author in mind and want to know if I’ve read them, you can scan through the list quickly, which gives it some structure and makes sense to me. Other opinions and methodologies are available.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dsLa5RFhmCaioH_W7Z02iyV43fOmDymYzsSlxoZs0XE/edit

Suppose mine disagrees with you. Leave me a comment, and I will do my best to find another solution for you. Would a recording of the list be helpful, for example? Should I be thinking about more significant font types? What about other languages? Do let me know. I welcome all of your feedback and comments.

So there we go, a list of the books I read last year. As you can tell, I read a wide range of genres and a mix of fiction and non-fiction. Which I believe was something else Stephen King encouraged. I do read everywhere I go. That’s another benefit of having different media to choose from you. I can pick the press to suit the environment that I am in. I squeeze in a few minutes while waiting to have my groceries checked out. Or any other queue situation I find myself in. Doctor, dentist, pharmacy, customer service call on hold, and so forth. I can read in the car and my reading corner at home. I would instead read than watch something. When I want to watch something, I use a reward system—20 mins for each goal or sub-goal I achieve in a day. So for an hour of viewing. I would need to complete a minimum of three goals. I mark it off on a little chart on my fridge door. Seeing lots of ticks on the sheet as the weeks and months pass is very satisfying.

Has anyone else compiled a list of books they have read in the past year that you would like to share? Do you have any recommendations that are not your own? What reading habits have you taught yourself? Please let me know by liking and leaving a comment.

Well, that’s it for another week. Remember to hit the like button and subscribe to your inbox for future publications.

Leave a comment by hitting the “comments” button, and leave your feedback which I value greatly.

Click the links below for my social media sites, website and published work.

#0048 Three Ways I Use To Get Over Writer’s Block

I am a member of a forum for writers on Facebook and one question that keeps coming up is how to overcome writer’s block?

Here are three ideas that I use that you may find useful.

Look Outside

I have found that when I’m struggling to find something to write about. If I write about something else as a starting point this will often open up my mind to other things. So I look out my window. Then pick an object, a tree, bush, flower, gatepost anything really. Then write about it in as much detail as you can. Don’t do any editing just allow a stream of consciousness to flow. For me this can often be enough to spark an idea or thought for another piece of writing.

Magazines At Your Supermarket

Another way I’ve used is to go to my local supermarket and find the magazines. The ones with the ‘stranger than fiction’ stories in them. Buy a few of them and then over a hot drink either in a coffee shop nearby or back at home. Take notes on a few stories that grab you. Then genderbend the characters to make them different and more interesting. Then rewrite the story with the characters you’ve created using the situation of one of the stories. Write in 20 min bursts. Again do not edit or rewrite. Just let the story come out of you onto the page. Take a break and have a wander around or do some stretches and deep breaths. Then write in another 20 min burst. After an hour read through what you’ve written. It may just surprise you.

Three Boxes

This one takes a little preparation. It is also a good way of getting help from close friends and family. Pitching it as a way for them to help you become a better writer. They can make a contribution to one of three boxes.

Box 1 Names of characters.

Box 2 Situations

Box 3 Dramatic tension

Cut or tear some paper into strips large enough to write a few words on. Then write down the name of a character, situation or dramatic tension and drop into your box. Once you’ve collected around a dozen it is ready to use.

When you find yourself stuck for something to write about. Simply take a paper slip from Box 1 then Box 2 and finally Box 3. So you have Mrs Peacock in the supermarket having an argument.

Take a few moments to let you mind think about these random things. Then as before write in 20 min burst taking a break to stretch and breath before writing another 20 min burst.

I have found that by employing one or more of the techniques mentioned above I soon overcome any writer’s block. My mind is captured by an idea and another WIP is born.

#0047 Armistice Day

Armistice comes from the Latin word ‘sistere’, which means ‘to come to a stand’ or ‘to cause to stand or stop’. And ‘arma’, which means weapons. Therefore the literal translation is a cessation of arms.

The armistice we commemorate is the ceasefire ending hostilities between the Allies and Germany on the 11th of November 1918. It wasn’t the end of WW1 but rather an agreement to stop the fighting on the Western Front while the leaders worked out the terms of a permanent peace.

This year will be the first in living memory when we won’t hear the voice of H.M. The Queen, but rather it will be the voice of our new king we will listen to. As King Charles served in the RAF and the Royal Navy, he will speak with an authority the late Queen didn’t have.

Having served in HM Armed Forces myself, I find myself reflecting on the sacrifice given by so many over the 20th and 21st centuries as our armed forces battled with so many enemies that did their level best to obliterate us. The horror of it was brought home to me personally when fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland. During a time when so-called political prisoners went on hunger strikes and brought about riots in The Maze Prison in Belfast. In 1982 the IRA bombed a bandstand of musicians and members of horse guards who were parading at the time in Hyde Park and Regent Park. The band were colleagues of The Green Jackets. 11 died that day. Four soldiers of the Blues and Royals and seven bandsmen. It is those men more than any others that I remember each year as I was a bandsman. I learned later our regiment was scheduled to play that day. However, our assignment was switched last minute. I remember their sacrifice, filled with gratitude that it wasn’t me.

I will never fully understand war. To me, it is futile. No war has ever led to anything good. It devastates the landscape and the number of deaths every war produces. Not to mention the effect on the families of those killed. They are also blighted because the cost of freedom has been so high.

Up to 40,000,000 in WW1, 5,000,000 to 9,000,000 in the Russian Civil War, 8,000,000 to 11,000,000 in the Chinese Civil War, and 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 during the second sino-Japanese war. Then there were another 85,000,000 killed in WWII, another 2,000,000 during the Partition of India and up to 4,500,000 in the Korean War and a similar number in the Vietnam War. 3,000,000 each during the Nigerian Civil War and Bangladesh Liberation War. 2,500,000 during the Afghanistan conflict. 2,000,000 in the Sudanese Civil War. Up to 5,400,000 during the second Congo War.

Those are just the wars where the death toll is 2,000,000 or more. That is a total of almost 197,000,000 million human souls, with at least twice as many affected families, communities, and countries ravaged by the futility of war upon war.

We only tend to focus from a UK or European perspective. We are all citizens of the world. We are all brothers and sisters. How many millions more will count in the annals of history before we learn the lesson that war doesn’t solve anything? It has a devastating effect both in lives lost and countries in ruins. Physically, financially and emotionally, PTSD is in danger of becoming an epidemic. With the zombie, survivors wandering around in our communities as a symbol of the shame we are responsible for.

May our children or our children’s children one day live in a time when armistices are a thing of the past as the world moves into an era of unprecedented peace. That is my hope for this Armistice Day.

#0046 List of Albums produced on or after 2000

List of albums included in the top 100 best albums of all time produced on or after the year 2000.

Does anyone care to hazard a guess as to how many? I’ll tell you this much, not as many as you’d think.

Would you be surprised to know that the number is a single digit?

It surprised me.

Here is the list

Artist

Album

Released

Genre

Adele	25	2015	Pop, soul, r&b
Adele	21	2011	Pop, soul
Eminem	The Eminem Show	2002	Hip hop
Norah Jones	Come Away With Me	2002	Jazz
Britney Spears	Oops…I Did It Again	2000	Pop
Eminem	The Marchal Mathers LP	2000	Hip hop
Linkin Park	Hybrid Theory	2000	Nu metal, rap metal, alternative metal
The Beatles	1	2000	Rock

Eight Albums, however only six artists with Adele and Eminem both with only one-word names scoring double-whammies.

It is a very diverse group of genres. Everything from Nu metal. I haven’t a clue how it differs from old metal and why Nu has an odd spelling. What can I say? The US and UK. Two great countries are divided by one language. To a bit of cool Jazz and everything in between.

With only two countries hogging this pie. The US with 62.5% (five albums) and the UK with 37.5% (three albums)

One could say that all of these albums are older than any living person identifying as Gen Z.

You could infer that all the greatest music ever written by any group was produced before the year 2000.

However, hold on a minute. I forgot something.

In the list of top-selling albums of all time. From 1945 – 1984 a list of twelve albums. Half of them are musicals.

Most of them were penned by the outstanding duo of Rogers and Hammerstein. Lerner and Loewe make their entry with My Fair Lady based upon George Bernard Shaw’s novel Pygmalion.

Selling two million records way back in the dark ages of 1956. A trifle compared with the 1982 Album that sold over thirty-five million records Thriller by Michael Jackson. The biggest selling album of all time. Interestingly it was MJ’s sixth studio album. Produced by the leg end himself, Mr Quicy Jones ladies, gentlemen and others. By Epic records.

Epic started in 1953. They were part of Columbia at the time. They started to promote records that weren’t in their wheelhouse. Jazz and pop are among them. It is currently owned by Sony.

May I be so bold as to say? That anyone using the word Epic and NOT referring to music. Especially Jazz and pop. That is offensive to my ears. It isn’t very respectful at all. You are IMHO,, and others are available misappropriating the true meaning of the word Epic.

You could say that Thriller is the most epic of all Epics records.

All albums included on this list have their available claimed figures supported by at least 30% in certified copies. The percentage of certified sales needed increases the newer the album is, so albums released before 1975 are only expected to have their claimed figures supported by at least 30% in certified copies. However, newer albums, such as 21 and Come Away with Me, are expected to have their claimed figures supported by at least 70% in certified copies; this is because more music markets instituted certification systems after the 1980s and 1990s.^[a] Certified copies are sourced from available online databases of local music industry associations. The certified units percentage varies according to the first year an artist appeared in the charts.

As a result of the methodology that the American and Canadian certification-awarding bodies (the RIAA and Music Canada, respectively) use, each disc in a multi-disc set is counted as one unit toward certification, leading to many double albums on the list—such as Pink Floyd‘s The Wall and the Beatles‘ The Beatles—is certified with a number double the number of copies sold there. Such albums have the certifications for the number of copies (not discs) shipped indicated. Conversely, the American certification level for double albums that fit onto one compact disc, such as the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, reflects the number of copies sold. In 2016, RIAA included streaming in addition to tracking sales and album sales based on the concept of the album-equivalent unit for certification purposes, and certification, therefore, no longer reflects shipment alone.^[1]^[2] For example, in the update of the certification for Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) by the Eagles in August 2018, the album was certified 38× Platinum (increasing from the previous 29× Platinum certification in 2006) based on the new criteria, making it than the album with the highest certification in the United States.^[3]

The UK went with a number between the US and Canadian standards and flexed with each year. Or at least that’s what I’ve uncovered so far.

So as the US appear to have the most reliable system. We will defer on this occasion.

As this is a dynamic Wikipedia page, reserve the right to change our minds as and when will give us the biggest advantage.

What? It needed lightening up it was all getting a bit too serious. You know I won’t take anything too seriously unless there is no alternative.

If you’ve made it here, you deserve a little thank you. So here is a link to a youtube clip of the top 100 songs of all time. You’ll never guess who’s number 1.

Click here to find out