Thank God It's Toby Highlights

The charming story of Grumpy Gorilla learning positive attributes from Happy Hippo is now available.

With magical illustrations and written in verse, this story can captivate any child’s heart and teach them the power of friendship, exercise and a good attitude.

”You can decide to be nice to all that you meet, and the feeling of helping others just can’t be beat”—the book explores all the habits little children should learn about to lead an optimistic life.

Grumpy Gorilla is ready to learn from Happy Hippo about changing his miserable outlook on life. An enjoyable read then takes the reader step by step through all the positive habits children should make a part of their lives in order to become emotionally stable adults with strong life skills. Find out all about the importance of making friends, having a laugh and giving presents to others in this fun-to-read adventure of two friends.

[Date when the press release will be made the live, city of the author]—Grumpy Gorilla and Happy Hippo, published by [Pegasus Paperback, 9781910903872], is now available on Amazon, Waterstones, eBay and many other online stores. The story’s characters are inspired by the author’s life and tell how Grumpy Gorilla went from sullen and miserable to helping others and having friends. Its rich illustrations by Tom Bonson make the story feel like a wonderland to dive into.

“A lovely read that helps remind our children about the importance of kindness, positivity and the value of helping others to help grow healthy young minds and strong friendships.”

Kate Thornton

For more information about Grumpy Gorilla and Happy Hippo, please visit iamscottharrison.com/books.

About the Author:

Scott Harrison is a dedicated family man with three kids of his own. Expert in the field of health, fitness and mindset, this is Scott Harrison’s debut children’s book. He is the owner of Six Pack Revolution and SPR Juniors with years of experience in health and fitness and a passion to help build others. Scott has experienced, and later preached, the benefits of healthy habits, exercise and a positive mindset in his various books and provides motivational speeches and transformation programs to people all over the world.

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Miracle Gro has revealed that a huge 45% of the UK feel lonely. They have implemented a 'Friends over the Fence' campaign that encourages people to use gardening to overcome barriers and meet new people.

Their research shows:

45% of people often experience feelings of loneliness

One-third of the UK admit they find it hard to talk to new people

70% of people find gardening is good for their mental health

48% agree that gardening and being outdoors is a great way to meet people

Women (50.5%) are more likely to feel lonely than men (40%) – those aged 25-34 are most affected (57%)

If this affects you, make a plan to chat with the neighbours when you're next out planting and weeding, or maybe visit your local garden centre and share some gardening tips with your fellow shoppers

TV presenter David Domoney, and psychologist & author of The Psychology of Gardening, Professor Harriet Gross are backing the campaign.

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Understanding and dealing with the challenges of modern life is not easy. We need support and guidance to navigate our complex emotions and cope in a rapidly changing world. Drawing on the ancient wisdom of the East, and years of experience working in Western psychiatry, Dr Sinha shares a series of analogies that help us understand ourselves. We are awakened to the possibility of not only surviving but thriving. These analogies have been tried and tested in his clinical practice in England and Canada- the book itself is borne out of requests by many patients and colleagues, as a result of the effectiveness of these teachings. In this first book of a series, "Empowered and Strong" transcends the boundaries between East and West, and offers a global perspective on issues that affect us all.

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Vince Kramer is an airline and military pilot with over 200,000 hours in aircraft and flight simulators. In the U.S. Air Force, he was a pilot, instructor & evaluator. He is a combat veteran with over one hundred combat hours during Desert Storm. He has flown for United Airlines and American Airlines as an airline transport pilot, has held positions in management and as an instructor/evaluator at United Airlines, and currently is an active pilot at United Airlines.

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John Kennedy is a puppeteer who has performed on various Muppet projects since the early 1990s.

Kennedy began building puppets as a child in his hometown of Plainfield, Indiana where he performed shows at local libraries. One of his first professional jobs was as a singing, dancing, banjo-playing puppeteer at the Indianapolis Union Station Festival Marketplace.

While working on a bachelors degree in theatre at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), Kennedy wrote to the Jim Henson Company and was invited to several performer workshops in New York City. Around the same time, Kennedy coincidentally landed a job as a dancer in the Muppet revue, Here Come the Muppets, at Walt Disney World. He relocated to Orlando, Florida, and in a few weeks found himself working beside Jim Henson himself. Kennedy would go on to work with the Jim Henson Company and the Muppets in a relationship that continues to this day.

In addition to puppeteering, Kennedy has lent his other skills to various Henson projects. He helped write songs for The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss (including the "Fox and Knox" theme), and choreographed Kyra Sedgwick's musical number in Episode 4213 of Sesame Street.

In later years, Kennedy developed a career as an author and has written two popular puppet making books, Puppet Mania! and Puppet Planet. He also hosts puppet making videos on the internet, builds puppets for various non-Muppet projects in the United States, and has taught MFA classes in puppetry at the University of Central Florida.

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Kirsten Hege is an independent author, poet, and mental health advocate based just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States.

She is finishing up her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology with a minor in Creative Writing at the end of this summer, after which she plans to dive headfirst into her company, Streamwrite Publishing, and begin freelance book editorial, marketing, and publishing services.

Almost everything Kirsten writes has an underlying theme of mental health, detailing her own struggles as well as using her background in psychology and life experience to discuss healing, coping, and thriving through it all.

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904DadLife is a brand that unites dads from all walks of life who have one thing in common, they crave adventure. They believe that all dads are equal when it comes to that adventure of fatherhood!

The song 'A Little More Mad Than Sad' was written for a friend who lost his fight with the devil. His mother and Dean are starting a foundation called “The Young Foundation” Supporting Young adolescents who have lost w parent due to addiction.

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Few people know as much about cruising with a disability as Michele Monro. The daughter of much-loved singer, Matt Monro, Michele has spent more than 40 years travelling the world on cruise liners. For the last 14 years, she has combined her love of cruising with her work as a specialist speaker for companies including Celebrity, P&O, Fred Olsen and Royal Caribbean.

In the 1990s Michele was diagnosed with MS. It was then she began to fully appreciate the absence of advice and information about cruise travel with special needs. Michele felt strongly that whilst living with a disability presents a lot of obstacles, a cruise holiday shouldn’t have to be one of them and she began what was to become 3 years of painstaking research covering all the possible details of a disabled cruise traveller's needs to know.

The Autonomous Cruiser is the result. The most up-to-date and comprehensive guide available, advising on the whole process of cruising, including: -

·       Cruise and port choices, and the accessibility of cruise terminals. A comprehensive section on fly-cruises including airport guides, car park assistance, wheelchair advice, checked luggage, lounges, and delayed and missed departures

·       Critical pre-planning information including holiday administration, vaccinations, medication, cabin selection, upgrades, pier transfers, luggage services, drinks packages, speciality dining and the online check-in

·       Life on board incorporates embarkation, cruise ship etiquette, dining, entertainment, meetings, bridge visits, swimming pools, spa facilities shopping and duty-free, photo gallery, onboard savings, ship visits, port calls, tendering, safety, technology at sea and the travel scams to watch out for

·       Caregivers, chaperones and service dogs

·       A directory outlining the most important disability resources, including accessible shore excursions, dedicated apps, cruise specialists and accessible travel agents

This market first book covers the most common areas of special needs - from those travelling with pre-existing conditions, special dietary considerations, prescriptions and medication, epilepsy, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, cognitive, intellectual and developmental disabilities, compromised immune systems, breathing disorders, kidney disease, and visual and hearing impairments to make this the most comprehensive guide to cruising available.

About the author

Michele Monro is the daughter of much-loved singer Matt Monro. She is the author of the internationally bestselling biography of his life The Singers Singer: The Life And Music Of Matt Monro and released a brand-new album of her father’s work, Stranger in Paradise: The Lost New York Sessions in 2020 which went straight to the No8 spot in the official album charts and stayed in the charts for six months.

Michele is a special interest speaker for a number of cruise lines including Celebrity, P&O, Princess Cruises, Cunard, Cruise and Maritime, Fred Olsen and Royal Caribbean. She is also writing a series of cruise port guides for disabled passengers to complement The Autonomous Cruiser. When she isn’t cruising, Michele lives in Shropshire.

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Aaron Phipps, MBE, is a Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby athlete and gold medal-winning Paralympian. At 15 Aaron had both of his legs and most of his fingers amputated due to blood poisoning from meningitis. After a 10km fundraising wheelchair race for the Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF), Aaron's sporting journey began. Starting with wheelchair racing Aaron competed in two London Marathons, including in 2009 where he came fourth, finishing in under two hours. Aaron joined the GB Wheelchair Rugby squad and was selected for the 2012 London Paralympic Games where he scored over half of his team's points.

In 2016 Aaron decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for both MRF and Shaw Trust, with a specially adapted off-road wheelchair. However, when the wheelchair wasn’t working on the terrain Aaron refused to be carried and reached the summit after four days of trekking on his hands and knees. It's the first time an amputee has reached the top of Kilimanjaro without any assistance. The story made national headlines and has been the subject of a Channel 5 documentary.

Aaron returned to Wheelchair Rugby in 2017. Against all the odds his team went from being 5th in the world to the best on the planet, in the middle of a global pandemic! It was the first European team to win a medal in wheelchair rugby and Paralympics GB’s first ever gold medal in a team sport.

He has been voted in the top 100 most influential people in the UK with a disability.

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Welsh singer songwriter Laura Evans announces the release of her second single "Fire With Fire" from her debut album "State Of Mind" and is on an exciting roll with yet another big, perfectly crafted song which is sure to appeal to her ever-growing fanbase. The new single will be available to pre-save from Monday 16th May from Spotify, iTunes, and Apple Music.

Laura is currently on a 12-date UK tour with Southern Californian blues rock band Robert Jon & The Wreck for 12 shows across the UK, from May 9th until May 20th. Tickets are available from www.alttickets.com and www.gigantic.com.

"Fire With Fire" follows the success of her first single "I'm Alright" which saw Laura getting huge support from Spotify and making her the face of the "Nu Blue" playlist, as well as continued support from Planet Rock and the BBC Radio Wales Welsh A List.

"Fire With Fire" is full of bluesy rocking guitars, a melody, and lyrics full of heart and soul that feels nostalgic and reminiscent of the Fleetwood Mac era. This track is the ultimate showcase for Laura's versatile and unique vocals. A taster of what's to come for fans eagerly awaiting the full-length album on July 1st. Pre-order the album from https://linktr.ee/Laura_evans. 

Laura explains she had the idea and wrote this song during lockdown 2020 co-written with her partner Rich Turner, Laura says "Rich started playing that verse riff on guitar and it reminded me of Fleetwood Mac, and I wanted to put a "spin off "on my usual heartbreak song, hence that's the first line of the verse, the lyrics were truly poignant for me at the time, they are simply about working on yourself and your peace of mind"

Recorded and produced by long-time collaborator Josiah J Manning, at Momentum Studios (Kris Barras Band) who produced Laura's whole album, this creative dream team continues to push the boundaries across genres, appealing to the masses with a unique blues/rock sound that is making Laura stand out amongst the crowd.

Born and raised in the valleys of South Wales, you may be wondering how this sweet demeanour, 5ft 3, pretty, blonde valleys girl is becoming one of the UK's most exciting singer songwriters to hit our airwaves since Stevie Nicks. Laura Evans is proving she is so much more than meets the eye with her powerhouse sweet and smoky vocals, and perfectly crafted anthemic hit songs that straddle the worlds of rock, blues, and Americana.

In 2020, Laura first burst onto the music scene with the first single from her debut E.P. "Running Back To You" which impressively charted straight at number one on the UK blues chart and peaked at 43 on the US Blues chart as well as follow up singles "Drag Me Back In" and "Solo" were added to several Spotify and Apple Music playlists including Nu-Blue and Blues Drive curated by Heidi Shenk, alongside American artists including Larkin Poe and Dave Stewart Very Nearly Nashville and Apple Music's New In Country playlist alongside Taylor Swift and Eric Church. The E.P. racked up thousands of streams in the first week of release, resulting in the last single 'Take Me Back Home' distributed worldwide by U-NXT c/o Universal Music.

It seemed Laura was an overnight success. On the contrary, this Valley girl has been honing her craft for quite some time. She has finally found and created a sound that is truly breaking through and finding the recognition it deserves. Laura grew up listening to an eclectic mix of music from artists including Bonnie Raitt, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Dolly Parton and more. Even though these influences shine through on the album there is no doubt Laura with the help of producer Josiah J Manning, has found her unique sound.

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