Stuart Aken's Blog, page 248

World Book Day UK

English: Flag of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Español: Bandera de la UNESCO Français : Drapeau de l'UNESCO Deutsch: Flagge der Organisation der Vereinten Nationen für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Kultur und Kommunikation (UNESCO) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
About World Book Day
World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.
World Book Day is a partnership of publishers, booksellers and interested parties who work together to promote books and reading for the personal enrichment and enjoyment of all. a main aim ofWorld Book Day in the UK and Ireland is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own.
To mark the day, school children are entitled to receive a World Book Day £1 Book Token (or equivalent €1.50 Book Token in Ireland). The Book Token can be exchanged for one of eight specially published World Book Day £1 Books, or is redeemable against any book or audio book of their choice costing £2.99 or more at a participating bookshop or book club. The World Book Day £1 Book Token will be valid from 25 February to 24 March 2013.
Click on the link in the title above to learn more. This is intended only as a taster.
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February Is Over; How Did You Do?

The first monthly analysis of my time, following the example of the earlier weekly stats.
Target was eight stories submitted for contest and magazines. I achieved four, two to each. Halfway there, so not a complete loss.
Six books read and reviewed. A reasonable success, considering I had aimed at one per week. So, ahead of the game here.
Four blog posts written and posted. On target for this one.
Five Chapters of the fantasy edited. Not as much as I would have liked, but a reasonable amount of work.
Three short stories written and two of those completed. Not too bad.
This was always likely to be a difficult month, as will March in all probability. I’m still engaged in the day job and this is the busiest time of the year for us, as we approach the end of the tax year and prepare for the next. So, those days in the office have been trying. But only a few more weeks to go. I finish the part time employment in March and my last day at the office will be 21st March. It can’t come soon enough.
I’m relatively satisfied with my performance, though I would have preferred to have done more of the fantasy and submitted more stories. I spent a fair amount of time on various problems outside the writing but associated with it tangentially. I’m in the process of swapping ISP and that is not going at all smoothly. And my virus software has been causing me some problems, which have taken up a good deal of time and emotional energy. But, all in all, I’m happier with the proportions of my time spent on the various aspects of my writing life. Of course, I would have preferred to be able to spend more time in actually writing, but that will improve starting April, when I will become a full time writer. Whooopeee!   So, how did your February go for you? Achievements? Problems? Excuses? Triumphs? Set-backs? Tell us all about your progress, please.
The pie chart, explained: 'Writing' - initial creation of stories, blog posts, reviews and longer works.'Editing' - polishing of all written work to make it suitable for readers.'Research' - discovery of info for story content, market research, contests and blog posts.'Reading' - books and writing magazines.'Networking' - emails, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Google+ activity.'Admin' - story submission, blog posting, marketing, organisation and general admin tasks.
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Donkeys’ Years, by Michael Frayn, Reviewed.

First produced at London’s Globe Theatre in July 1976 (coincidentally the year in which my novel, Breaking Faith, is set, and a year of drought and heat wave in UK), this three act play is another demonstration of Frayn’s very British humour.
Although described simply as a play in three acts, this is much more like a farce, in the true British, dare I say English?, tradition. If not actually a farce, it could be taken as a parody of the style. It has all the ingredients: sexual misunderstandings, English sexual reserve, hypocrisy disguised as custom, bedrooms and, of course, the loss of clothes for the female and trousers for the male. I imagine the reader would have to become watcher in order to determine whether this is truly farce or the parody I suspect.
It is, of course, full of humour, poking fun at the stuffed shirts of academia, politicians and the servile subclass of those who serve such pretentions. There is much repetition, which, on the page can be a little wearying but on stage would work a treat, given good actors. The action is confined to a single location for each of the three acts and this serves to emphasise the claustrophobic and sheltered nature of the attitudes encapsulated by the cast. These are people who have no understanding of what most of us would call the ‘real world’. Privileged, spoilt and elevated beyond their natural abilities, they posture and pose their way through life completely unaware of the priorities faced by ordinary people outside their favoured circle.
The thread of lust, disguised as admiration until alcohol allows for honesty, permeates the play. The single female representative is the focus of all male attention, apart, of course, from that of the gay vicar (another stock character of English farce). There is little concern for the damage done to either lives or property by their barbs and actions. The level of achievement for most of the protagonists is well above their natural abilities and is an effective way of pointing out how birth and class can elevate beyond desert.
So, a social statement, but one so well submerged in humour that it may be missed by the less attentive. And the humour is brilliant. It had me laughing out loud and frequently, much to the distress of a fellow worker who shared the small room that serves as a temporary sanctuary from the busy and noisy office in which I perform my day job. The jokes come thick and fast, many derived from simple misunderstandings made clear to the audience but hidden from the characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed this play and would definitely attend a theatre for a performance.
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What Do You Most Fear as a Writer?

Fear is a strong but often necessary emotion. It can be both motivational and paralyzing. Writers, especially beginners, often allow fear to prevent them either finishing or publishing a piece of work. I have many social connections with writers on the internet and I’ve noticed a tendency amongst some, often the most sensitive, to find excuses not to finish a piece of work. They’re forever editing their work as they go along. They fool themselves into the idea that they’re seeking perfection. In reality, they’re putting off the moment when they have to admit to themselves, and to the world, that this is as good as they can make it. No piece of work is ever perfect, either in the eyes of the reader or, more especially, in the opinion of the producer. Unless, of course, the writer happens to be one of those individuals who is so convinced of his own ability that he’s unable to see past his many faults. Paradoxically, it’s often those with the most confidence in their own ability who produce the worst work.
We’re all fitted with our own internal critic, the editor that sits on our shoulder and pinches us each time we misspell, use an inappropriate word, produce an ugly sentence, dole out a thoughtless cliché. The trick is to knock the editor off, send this nit-picker to the back of the creative mind and make him wait there until he’s required. If I allowed my internal editor free reign, I would never have completed a single piece of work, let alone published anything or won competition prizes.
I know the arguments against relegating the editor to a back seat during creation. I’ve heard them all. ‘I can’t ignore even a typo; it stops me moving forward.’ ‘I have to have that first sentence perfect before I can move on to the next.’ ‘How can I say a piece is moving forward when I know there are errors there to be corrected?’ And so it goes on. Let me be frank, brutal, even. If you’re unable to get past these self-imposed barriers, you are in the wrong job. You are never going to be a creator. You should be working as a copy editor, a proof-reader, a lumberjack, jockey or any other occupation you care to name. But, honestly, if you can’t allow for your own mistakes during a first draft, you’ll never complete one. This isn’t a personal opinion but a logical conclusion. Think about it: NO piece of written work will ever be considered perfect by every reader or writer; ergo, whatever you do to make it perfect will make it imperfect for someone else.
So, what can you do?
First of all, face that fear and call it by the name it actually responds to. This isn’t a fear of never getting it right, this is a fear of success, a fear that you may actually produce something that a publisher will accept and place before that group of people we all want to admire us; readers. It’s a fear that one, maybe more, of those readers will spot something to make you feel foolish, inadequate, less than perfect. That’s the real fear you’re facing.
But, hang on: the publisher accepted it and put it out there for his readers. So he must think it worthy of a showing. The reader who finds fault is only one of the tens of thousands of people who’ve read and enjoyed the piece. It’s inevitable that one in thousands will have the necessary jealousy, pedantry, personal loathing of a particular sentence construction or any other individual trait you care to mention, to pick a hole in your work. The courage of the artist comes from facing that reality and deciding you don’t care about that one lunatic, obsessive, nit-picking pedant, or envious swine. And, if you think of such critics in those terms, it does make it easier to ignore them.
Having faced that possibility, the next step is take action. This involves actually sitting down and completing the first draft of a piece. But the only way you’ll be able to do this is to accept that that first draft, which no one else will ever see, will be full of errors. Think of it as the block of wood the sculptor uses to fashion a beautiful statue. The first chisel cuts, which may even be crude lopping with a chain saw, will not produce anything that even resembles the finished article. But, unless that sculptor takes his axe, his knife, his chisel or his chain saw to the block of wood, he’ll never have anything to show beyond his own vision of the finished article. You’re no different. Writing, of any sort, is a creative process. You begin with only three things: a blank sheet/screen, a means of making marks on that surface, and an idea. Creating is about having the courage to make those initial marks, knowing that some will be errors, minor and major, but aiming for an end which will have some approximation to the initial idea.
I know it’s hard. I know from early personal experience. I know it seems almost impossible for some of you. But the method that has the greatest potential to get your written work completed to a standard where you may feel confident enough to allow someone else to read it, is to write it first. Obvious. But I mean by this that you write the entire idea, complete the story, the article, the feature, even the novel, first. Then go back and allow that other half of your brain, the editor, the pedant, the policeman, to pick holes in it. Consider this not an assault on your genius but a practical help in forming the piece exactly as you envisaged it. If you think this can’t be done, consider: I’m in the process of writing an adult epic fantasy trilogy. The first two volumes are written and I’m editing volume 2 before I start to write the final volume. (Yes, I could have considered the entire trilogy as a single piece, but I see each book as a stand-alone piece). My point in mentioning this is that each of the first 2 volumes exceeds 220,000 words and each was written without ever going back, even a page, before I came to the end of that book. Yes, it meant a huge amount of editing, proof-reading, amendment and correction. But, and this is the point, I would never have finished even the first chapter if I hadn’t just ploughed on with the story.
So, face your fear, accept it for what it is, and beat it. Otherwise, you’re condemned to remaining a wannabee, a frustrated artist with nothing to show for your efforts and abilities. I urge you to try this at least once. Choose a short piece to begin with. Write the whole piece before you even look at what you’ve written. Leave it for a week, or more if you can bear it; do something else. When you revisit it, you’ll find all sorts of faults, but you’ll also be amazed at what you’ve written. That’s the time to free your editor and let him polish the work, let him find and correct the errors. You may end up with your own Venus de Milo or David. You might even complete something more sublime. Who knows? The answer, my friend, is ‘no one, until; you have the courage to try.’
I started by asking what you fear most as a writer and, for the sake of fairness, I must admit my own fear. I fear, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, that I’ll run out of things to say. And how do I face that fear, how do I work against the likelihood? Well, in my case it’s an easy fear to face and address: I take an interest in as many things as I can. That way, I’m unlikely to dry up. As one of those writers compelled to create, I’m lucky. Motivation is never a problem. Time and energy are my most precious and most easily exhausted factors. But more of that in a different post.
For now, I’ve confessed my own fear and hopefully addressed one of those most common to writers. But what’s your fear and how do you deal with it? You never know, by putting it out there in public you may do two very useful things: you may help some other poor tortured soul, and you may find a way of helping yourself get over what you most fear.
(In the spirit of illustration, it took me almost exactly an hour to create this piece. And a further quarter of an hour to edit and correct it. I know, because I keep a time sheet of my activities in order to ensure I don’t waste that most precious of assets: time.)
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Clouds, by Michael Frayn, Reviewed.

First performed at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in August 1976, this two act play is another of Frayn’s comedies. However, I’m at a loss to know for certain what it’s really about.
Set in Cuba (though the stage is a blank arena with stepped surfaces, chairs and a back-projection screen to receive the images of the sky that give the play its name) the action revolves around a trio of writers who are there to report on the state of the island a short time after Castro’s takeover. As a teenager during the time of the Cuba Crisis, when we held our collective breath as Kruschev and Kennedy postured over the issue of nuclear missiles sited on the island, Cuba holds a resonance unlikely to echo through the blood of the modern reader.
There’s a love story in here, though it may be that simple lust is the driver, in spite of the protestations of the protagonists. There are cultural misunderstandings, cynicism on an epic scale, subtle, and not so subtle, political asides, and, of course, humour. The go-getting American, the lady novelist and the reporter from the UK are stereotypical yet manage to convey some individuality. The tired diplomat-cum-guide-cum-minder is just that, but hovers between his sense of duty and the lust he develops for the lady novelist. The driver is a rogue, philanderer and wide-boy with an obvious eye for the ladies and the only male in the cast who appears immune to the charms of the novelist.
So, an interesting cast with an intriguing span of relationships. We follow them on their odd tour of the island, a typical itinerary for a communist regime, ensuring these foreigners see all the technical and commercial developments but are excluded from intercourse with the actual people wherever possible. There is the standard misunderstanding, deliberate or otherwise, between the eventual would-be lovers. There is the expected friction between the American and British writers. There is the unconscious condescension shown by the writers for their guardian and driver. But, in the hands of this master, the sometimes spare dialogue is made to say so much more than the mere words.
I imagine the sparse setting would enhance the dialogue, which is what the play is all about, removing visual distractions so that all attention is given to the characters as they set about their tasks of  misinformation, professional and personal rivalry, seduction and petty jealousy.
The text made me laugh where I was expected to find humour. It made me react emotionally to the various scenes of conflict, co-operation, misunderstanding and attempted sexual conquest. But I was left with an ending that seemed unfinished and flat. I didn’t expect an explosion, merely something that wound up at least something of the action that had preceded it, rather than the rather vague conclusion that the experience had changed nothing.
Would I go to see the play performed? I wouldn’t queue, but if it were easy to attend, I think I’d give it a try. Make of that what you will.
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Lakeland to Lindisfarne, by John Gillham, Reviewed.

Walker, moutaineer, historian, or just interested in the great outdoors? This book has something for you. It was a Christmas present from one of my wife’s sisters, some years ago, and has been sitting on the shelf until now. I picked it up as a light alternative to the rather disturbing piece of fiction I finished last week. And I’m so glad I did.
This guide is intended as just that; an introduction to and a planning tool for a coast to coast walk from the west to east shores of northern England. John Gillham makes it clear from the start that you need to procure more detailed maps than the illustrative drawings he supplies alongside the text, if you are to complete this varied ramble through some of our finest landscapes.
There are mountains, vales, rivers and moors to cross on this varied route. And Gillham brings them all to life, adding small panels of local history where applicable. The reader learns some fascinating facts along the way, and is entertained with rural humour. He gives tips about various villages, pubs, bothies and ancient monuments. He also provides alternative routes, catering for the less experienced walker as well as the proper mountaineers.
For me, this was a trip back to a pleasant past. The walk starts in the Lake District, where my wife and I spent our honeymoon, and brought back many happy memories of those days. The middle section takes the reader through an area of England not much visited and one that I do not yet know. But the last part of the walk, as it approaches the north eastern coast, involves a walk through Hexham where, before we were married, we were mistaken for hotel inspectors at the hostelry we’d chosen for our meeting. Needless to say, the service and food were excellent on that occasion! The route passes Rothbury, where we dined together at another time in our early relationship. Unfortunately, on that occasion, I contracted food poisoning that resulted in the most horrendous drive back down to the Essex town where I then lived. It passes through Clennel Street, close by Clennel Hall, where we stayed very early in our relationship and confirmed that we would spend the rest of our lives together. So, another pleasant reminder. And, in fact, as a result of reading the book, we’re now intending to do some parts of the walk.
I’m well past the days when I can contemplate tackling such an arduous walk as a complete exercise, but, because John Gillham breaks it up into smaller parts, we’ll definitely be hiking several parts of it over the coming years. And I give my thanks to him for mapping out this route through some of the most spectacular and beautiful scenery in this small island of ours.
The photographs that illustrate the walk are all excellent; some merely informative, but many reflecting the beauty of the landscape and giving a clear idea of what the walker can expect to see along the way. I look forward to visiting these places with my wife and my camera in the near future.
The final part of the book is a diary, kept by John’s new wife, Nicola. This is a charming, personal account of her trip with him as he mapped out the routes he suggests. It gives a touching insight into the loving relationship between the couple and provides a more intimate view of both the pleasures and hardships that the walker may encounter along the way. I enjoyed this short piece every bit as much as the main narrative.So, whether you’re a seasoned walker, a sometime rambler, or one of those tourists who rarely moves more than a few paces from your car, there’s something in this book for you. I picked it up as a contrast to the gritty and disturbing fiction of urban poverty that I’d read previously. As an antidote, it was perfect, and I thoroughly recommend it.
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The Witch’s Cradle, by Gillian White, Reviewed.

Some novels are not created to be enjoyed but to inspire, educate, shock, grip or horrify. Gillian White manages to do all these things in The Witch’s Cradle. It took me longer than usual to read this book, simply because the tale is so dense with event and so drenched in emotion that I was unable to read more than a portion at any one sitting.
The inclusion of short quotes from that evil medieval book, The Malleus Maleficarum (another title on my ‘to read’ list) points the reader to the author’s views of events and the depiction of the central heroine. And, heroine she is. Misguided, naïve, ignorant, intelligent, forceful, needy, determined and courageous, Cheryl battles against forces both external and internal in her desperate fight to do what she feels is best for her children. Husband, Barry, emerges from youthful sulkiness and self-defeat to become a mature and pragmatic adult.
The villains, and they are real, appalling and credible people, are the sort of people you will want to hit on sight. I won’t give names here, as the clever way in which the tale is written allows for any of a number of characters to be good, bad, wicked, angelic, ordinary or impressive. I dislike clichés but this is a roller coaster of immense proportions.
Don’t read it before you go to bed if you’re in any way sensitive about justice, family welfare, women’s rights, the politics of expediency or the growing gap between rich and poor. Or, if you must, at least read or watch something light and fluffy before you put your head on that pillow. I had three nights of seriously interrupted sleep whilst reading this book. You have been warned.
Mostly very well written, there are odd passages where a lack of attribution makes it unclear who is speaking. There are occasional places where tense is a variable factor. I have my suspicions that these apparent lapses are, in fact, deliberate techniques by the author to place in the reader’s mind the sense of utter confusion and disorientation so frequently experienced by Cheryl as she passes through several sorts of Hell.
The denouement builds compellingly and, during this part of the book, I was unable to put it down until I had finished it, regardless of other circumstances. The very last two pages remain something of a mystery to me, in the sense that they introduce an element of fantasy that is not present throughout the rest of the book. But I think the author is trying to express ideas through the eyes of the protagonists in this: I just don’t think this one aspect has worked as well in these two pages as it does throughout the rest of the book. But it’s probably me and my own prejudices here. Who knows?
Suffice it to say that I’m more than glad that I read this book. It isn’t a piece of work that can be labelled enjoyable or entertaining. But it is a compelling read and the characters are so well crafted that the reader becomes intimately involved with them to the extent that it becomes impossible to leave them to their fate. I found I must discover what happened as each episode unfolded and led to yet another. As an exposé of the ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary, this works superbly. I shall never watch another without this tale informing my credibility.
Yes; I recommend this book. But it comes with that warning: be prepared to be kept awake and to have some of your precious preconceptions given a severe bashing.
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Do You Make These 3 Mistakes in Expression?

We always intend to say what we mean, but do we always actually say what we mean?
‘She strode straight through the door.’ So, is ‘she’ a superhero, a ghost, or blind? She might well have walked straight through the open doorway. But it’s doubtful she ploughed through the barrier itself. A small adjustment, but one that’s vital to the correct understanding of your words.
‘Your not getting you’re wicked way with me.’ I know; you wouldn’t dream of doing this. But you’d be surprised how many times the possessive is mixed up with the contraction. And it’s easily corrected. Just spell out the contraction ‘you are’ in full and the sense becomes immediately obvious. So, perhaps, now you are getting your wicked way with me, after all. I look forward to the encounter.
‘More then anything else, this confusion drives me up the wall, than I go into a rage.’  Once again, you never do this, do you? One letter different, but such variation in meaning. ‘Then’ is an adverb, conjunction, noun and adjective we use to express an aspect of time. Examples? Adverb – ‘Carelessly, in her infatuation for Bob, she caught what was then known as a social disease.’ Conjunction – ‘He went swimming, then he put on his trunks.’ Noun – ‘That was then, this is now.’ Adjective – ‘She approached the then Prime Minister and punched him on the nose.’
‘Than’ is a conjunction and a preposition that introduces comparison. Conjunction – ‘It is better to have done that, than never to have done this at all.’ Preposition – ‘Jenny was bigger in all her proportions than was Jane.’
So, ‘then’ for time and ‘than’ for comparison. Easy isn’t it?  

The picture? I like to give a little colour to my posts, and Zemanta, my usual source for these, revealed nothing relevant, so enjoy the French countryside.


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#One Billion Rising

English: A campaign against female genital mutilation – a road sign near , Uganda. עברית: .מאבק נגד מילת נשים - שלט הסברה בצד הכביש, ליד קפצ'ורווה, אוגנדה (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I usually post about writing on Thursdays but today’s a day of action on a topic close to my heart, so please forgive my passion ruling my sense of duty on this occasion. I suspect many of you won’t have heard about a growing movement that aims to act in defence of women subject to violence. It takes many forms: the fight against it, that is. There are many, many places on the web where you can participate without a huge amount of effort.
I’ve never been a campaigner in physical protest, getting out on the street, partaking in revolution or rebellion in a physical way: such protest is too easily high-jacked by those with vested interests in promoting their own violent and often extreme political views. Such protest can frequently do more harm than good. I’m a writer. My skills lie in my ability to communicate through the written word: it’s therefore more appropriate for me to work as a spreader of the word, a reporter on the topic, an informer to the unaware.
So, this piece and my other internet activities constitute my activity, my contribution to the debate. I hope to raise awareness of the issue and perhaps persuade more people, especially men, to become engaged in the cause against violence to women. At the end of this short piece I’ll provide links to sites of interest where you can learn more, participate, and spread the word, as you see fit.
Violence against women, against the female of our species of all ages, is widespread, destructive, unjust and sometimes simply casual. There are societies, political movements, religions, and criminal groups that treat women as commodities; goods and chattels to be used, abused, traded and disposed of without any regard to their humanity.
In certain parts of the world, girl babies are routinely killed because the male line is the one that inherits, and dowries are required to be paid on the marriage of a daughter. There are groups where the insanely cruel practice of female genital mutilation, euphemistically labelled ‘female circumcision’, is routinely carried out on young women approaching puberty. The rationale for this horrific abuse, often controlled by the mothers of the victims, is that a woman incapable of experiencing the real pleasures of sex is unlikely to stray from the marital bed.
Within the more extreme versions of Islam, there are groups that continue to stone to death a raped woman, accusing her of infidelity.
The Catholic church routinely turns a blind eye to the rape and assault of both male and female children at the hands of its priests, whilst condemning any girl subsequently found to be pregnant to suffer the torture of giving birth the bastard so conceived.
Women are beaten daily by tribal husbands in Africa, Asia and the Middle East simply because they fail to satisfy every demand of these men.
In the USA, a land that prides itself on freedom and modernity, the right wing element of the Christian church is more concerned about the rights of an unformed foetus than about those of its raped mother. I could go on, but the list is disappointingly long.
The vast majority of violence against women is perpetrated by men; though some is committed by other women, especially mothers. The greatest single cause of this violence stems from ignorance. Education, of both men and women, is a key route to the solution of the problem. As a consequence of ignorance, fear plays a huge role also: we all know that bullies are, almost without exception, cowards. A man who fears ridicule because a woman rejects him, who fears his sexual prowess will be called into doubt if ‘his’ woman appears to be enamoured of another man, who fears that a woman is actually more intelligent, rational or simply ‘right’, will lash out if he has no social example to show him that this is not acceptable or correct. And it is education that will most surely deal with such ignorance.
Many will complain that changes in custom and tradition are needed to end some of these practices. The argument that cultural difference is an insurmountable difficulty will hold sway with many others. But these attitudes hide a reluctance to face the realities. At base, we’re all aware that the ‘golden rule’ is the only real arbiter of true justice in this world and that all deviations are the result of domination by one group of bullies over another. But we have moved on from the days when might was right. That the world is not uniformly developing a rational and reasonable consciousness does not excuse the toleration of practices that are, by any logical measure, brutal and unjust. The fact that an action stems from custom or tradition does not automatically confer legitimacy upon it. I challenge those who defend brutality on the grounds of culture to apply the golden rule to these actions and examine them in that light. The advantage of using this as a yardstick is that it (Do unto others as you would have them do to you) lies outside the rules, laws and traditions of any religion. The simple idea expressed by this rule is based on mutual respect and informed self-interest. We would do well to make it a universal law in all our dealings with each other and to outlaw all instances of ‘law’ that fail to conform with it.
Finally, much violence against women is allowed simply because various cultures, religious sects and traditions have debased women. This is almost always the result of ignorance of the biological facts. Consider the old habit of rulers disposing of wives who failed to give them a male heir: we now know that the sex of a child is dependent on the input from the male. Blaming a woman is ignorant and stupid.
The idea of male supremacy stems largely from the brute force that most men are able to apply against women. The simple biological differences between the genders makes men, in general terms, stronger than women. Of course there are exceptions, but the general rule applies and is responsible for the irrational attitude to supremacy that continues in many cultures. We no longer live in a world where brute force is the prime factor in a group’s survival. Other factors, many of them the domain of the female of the species, now apply to the continued health of any society. Education will make this clear. Education will restore the proper respect and sense of worth for women. But, and I understand there’ll be much resistance to this idea, education must be free from the interference of any religion for it to have the necessary effect. It’s clear that much of the religious world was born out of traditional ignorance and to allow it to have undue bearing on the education of our children is to perpetuate the problems we need to solve. If parents want their children to be raised in any given faith, let them do it outside of general institutions of education.
So, to how you can work for the good of women in the world in general. The following links lead to areas you can further develop. Thank you for reading this lengthy piece. I welcome comment, as usual, of course. And if any readers have additional sources of information, please add these to your comments.
http://onebillionrising.org/pages/share-your-plans       http://www.asafeworldforwomen.org/fieldpartners.htmlhttp://safeworldcommunity.net/http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?cl=2491518899&v=21821http://www.unicef.org/index.phphttp://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=65318https://www.facebook.com/7Wonderlicioushttp://unprocessedfamily.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/i-didnt-set-out-to-have-breastfeeding.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/aug/17/female-genital-mutilation-banned-somaliahttp://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/01/22/mcandrews_nevada_rose_inside_the_american_brothel_photos.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/user/TheGuardianhttp://imgfave.com/view/2518961?r=pinhttp://jenblizzard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/april-is-national-child-abuse.htmlhttp://www.vittana.org/
I could go on, but I don’t want to overload you. I’d rather you got involved. Thank you for your patience.
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The Dark Twin, by Marion Campbell, Reviewed.

Hailed, on the front cover, as ‘An adult fantasy in the great Tolkien tradition’, this novel disappointed on a number of levels. So much so, that I couldn’t be bothered to get past page 67 of 249 pages. It was clearly much applauded at the time of publication in the 1970s; described variously as ‘beautiful’, ‘fascinating’ and ‘a harsh elemental poetry’, by reviewers in the major newspapers. Either they read a different book, or I failed to find the elements they drew from the pages.
The language is ‘beautiful’ and there are undoubtedly ‘fascinating’ elements in the tale and some of the events are harsh and poetically presented. But the parts do not seem to add up to a ‘whole’. In fact, I found the narrative tedious, the attempt to weave a mystery out of the incomprehensible lacking in enough intrigue to make me want to read on. Fantasy, of this type, is traditionally a depiction of life in an invented or imagined landscape and is generally built on ancient and well understood themes. Tolkien, with whom this author was compared, dealt quite obviously with the battle between good and evil and set his tale in a land similar to our own Earth, peopled by humans, hobbits, elves and dwarves along with all those mystical and fabulous creatures he borrowed from the myths of Northern Europe. But I was at a loss to understand where this tale was leading and what themes drove it. Had there been some indication that I was, at least, being taken somewhere of interest, I would probably have stayed with it. But I felt I was in an endless exposition describing the arcane customs and rites of some civilisation I found difficult to comprehend and that I was being led into a maze with little hope of discovering the whys and wherefores before being abandoned without any solution.
The nature of the story, such as it is, told in the form of a narrative, initially with dialogue only sparsely used to relieve the monotony of the first person narrator’s description of his life of harsh instruction, quickly began to bore me. I didn’t need endless hints about the corruption, bullying and deception of the ruling individuals; so much was clear. I would have liked a little more indication of the motivations that drove the protagonists, beyond the evident ambition of the priesthood. I would have liked a spark of rebellion or, at least, questioning, from the two young boys who were being raised for positions of rule; something to make them interesting. The ‘gift’ of foretelling and farseeing seemed small reward for the level of deprivation visited on the victims.
In short, I was waiting for something to ‘happen’. I think the main problem with the narrative was that I was ‘told’ so much and ‘shown’ so little, that I felt ever the observer, the voyeur, and never a participant, never even an involved bystander. Only the singer, Felim, brought any contrast to the otherwise unmitigated misery of the tale. A touch of lightness, some hope, an indication of something better to come, might have kept me turning the pages. But, in the end, I felt unwilling to spend any more of my precious time on this depressing story that seemed to be going nowhere.
No doubt fans of the author, of which there may well be many, will castigate me for a fool and a dullard for failing to recognise the magic they have found. But I can judge only on my own terms and, as a reading experience, I found this disappointing, dull and lifeless. Sorry, but there you are.
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