Elaina James

photo courtesy of Anita Chapman On Saturday I set off on my writer related travels again. This time to London, for NeetsMarketing's Social Media Course for Writers, run by the lovely Anita Chapman. It seems fitting that I met Anita through social media. After learning lots of useful tips from her NeetsMarketing blog  I invited her to be a guest on my blog back in March, and she wrote a fantastic post for me on Taking Twitter to the Next Level . We finally got to meet in person at the RNA conference in July and caught up with one another again at the HNS conference in September. But it was great to attend one of her courses and learn from her in person. Saturday's course covered twitter, facebook, instagram and blogging. Whilst I've been blogging and using social media for over a year it was amazing to discover there was still so much that I didn't know. Anita was full of handy tips that were like little light bulb moments, as I discovered there's a much easi...

FUMSUP or TOUCHWOOD CHARMS FROM THE VICTORIAN ERA A ‘fumsup’ may also be known as a ‘touch wood’ and as the name indicates they were for good luck. They first appeared at the end of the 19th century and were very popular during the beginning of the 20th century. There was a surge of interest during World War 1 when many were given to soldiers to take abroad as a charm hanging from a button or to be worn on a watch chain. It was suggested during this era that the name comes from the Roman era when an emperor would give the thumbs up sign to save someone during a battle of mortal combat. On the box of one of these little charms there is a poem to suggest the Victorian’s believed this to be the origin: When Romans fought With sword and knife, The sign – thumbs up – Meant – spare a life. Some historians believe this not to be the case but for the charms to have a registered design number as they do, on the back, they would have needed a name and so ‘fumsu...