David L. Atkinson's Blog, page 47

Writing - 10 things from April

Some weird and wonderful animal stuff this week as well as equally weird human stuff.



1. The Borrowers would be deaf, virtually blind and need to wear extremely thick coats.

Given that they are living in a dusty environment they probably suffer from asthma and hayfever but then as they are fictitious - whatever!


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2. A hamster called Marvin belongs to the Royal household.

As well as the dogs, cats and every other creature they have been given or that has crawled into their dwellings.


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3. The Orcadian island of Mama Westray doesn't exist, but it has a very professional-looking tourist brochure.

Very creative.


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4. Labradors might be hard-wired to overeat.

Me too but the doctors don't believe me!


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5. Cycling is always the best option for your health in London, but not in Dehli, Doha or Karachi.

Its good healthy exercise wherever you are.


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6. Spanish bishops consider it a sin to illegally download films.

'Shhh! Don't tell his Holiness that I downloaded Fast and Furious 7!


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7. Air rage is more common on flights with a first-class cabin.

A better class of rage.
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8. There aren't enough people in the world to literally cry a river, but if each cried 55 tears they could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

This is daft but surely it depends on the size of the river. If you filled a couple of swimming pools then drained them down a water course would that not constitute a river?


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9. Crocodile eyes are fine-tuned for lurking.

This is not a croc its the wife.


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10. Two-dollar bills are legal tender in the US, but not everybody knows that.

Send them to me!

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God Bless

Writing - Classification, Marx and me.

May 5 is the 125th day of the year (126th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 240 days remaining until the end of the year.This day marks the approximate midpoint of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere (starting the season at the March equinox). Seems strange that a week ago we had snow on the ground!
[image error]Karl Marx
1818 - Karl Marx was born on May 5th.
Karl Marx was a philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Prussia to a middle-class family, he later studied political economy and Hegelian philosophy. WikipediaBorn: May 5, 1818, Trier, GermanyDied: March 14, 1883, LondonBuried: March 17, 1883, Highgate Cemetery, LondonInfluenced by: Friedrich Engels, William Shakespeare, moreQuotes
If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist. [In a letter about the peculiar 'Marxism' which arose in France 1882]

I find it interesting that a man has to deny the classification and definitions of himself by others. Over the years it happens to all of us, usually during a heated discussion, that someone accuses of being something or having traits that you know yourself to be alien to you. It is an indicator of how people classify and they do it to make themselves feel 'safe'. However, they are wrong to do so and insulting to state their classification of another publicly.So you end up feeling alien to yourself much as I'm sure that Marx felt when he read about Marxism and didn't recognise himself in the parameters of Marxism.The stories below are part of me, they explain parts of me, they represent part of my viewpoints on some matters, BUT they are not all that I am.Please read on.
December 2015





Steele   My hero was created post recession and so has no concept of how 'good' things were pre-2008. In 'I Have To Get It Right' when he began to flex his muscles he was working in an accountant's office. Then after the Gurentai took him under their wing and removed all of his financial worries, it was justice that was his major concern. He did become involved in international relations in 'The 51st State' but it was for the maintenance of a respectful distance between countries, rather than economic reasons. His trips into the USA had repercussions which can be read about in 'The Biter Bit' but then by the time things began to change in 2011 and the recession was really biting, Steele was trying to make sense of the state of the nation in 'A Changed Reality' and coming up against some really nasty people taking advantage of the shortage of money. By the time the USA are out of their recession Steele's steps are still being dogged by an unknown enemy from the same country. In 'Inceptus' we also find out more about what makes the man tick. The most recent Steele book 'Castled' where Steele is once again at risk from unseen enemies. It would seem that he has become quite recession proof!The most recent addition to the Steele family is Earth plc in which our hero is concerned with political and emotional issues in this crime fighting adventure.
All books are available in paperback or ebook through Amazon, Smashwords and all good book shop websites.


Cessation 


This is a dystopian story that hinges directly on the state of the nation as a result of fiscal mismanagement. Having said that it is more a story of human relations, privations, love and loss.


Poetry - there are also two thoughtful collections of poetry available solely through Amazon.


The Musings of a Confused Mind 


and


Words from the Raindrops 

God Bless

Writing - Give the lad a carrot!

I caught a glimpse of an advertisement for a radio programme about Charles Dickens. The headline was questioning his ability as a husband. As both he and his wife have been dead for many years it seems to be an irrelevance.

[image error]Charles Dickens
I have no room to talk about anyone's ability to be a husband but as a writer he was almost peerless, and that is how he should be remembered. He was also a dutiful son, working two jobs to pay his father's debts and have the old man released from debtors prison. Dickens was criticised for his standard of written English by scholars from that time. It seems to me a culturally driven set of behaviours that is innate to British people which allows the dissection of people with skills and abilities to those peoples' detriment. Such behaviours are also allied with the inability of British people to accept plaudits.The title of this blog is an indicator of that issue as it was a slang term, a number of years ago, for congratulations, but being British could have often been thrown in a tone of voice dripping with sarcasm. Why is that?
Is it resentment at the success of others?
Is it an attempt to encourage the successful one to keep their feet firmly on the ground?
Whichever, I don't know, but I do know the feeling of depression when even a slight success is treated with derision. Personally, anything I view as an achievement for myself, I tell no one! At the same time I have tried to heap praise where it is deserved.
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Perhaps it is part of the reason that I don't like negative reviews. How dare some fashion conscious hack pronounce doom and derision, or success, on what someone has slaved over for months? What a pathetic way to make money!
Everyone has shortcomings and advice on how to overcome such difficulties is always gratefully received otherwise butt out!
[image error]Magwitch and Pip
What should happen is what has happened to so many people who have read and enjoyed the antics of the Artful Dodger, or the machinations of Magwitch and the reformation of Ebenezer Scrooge. Enjoy the entertainment that is being provided for what it is and not for whatever pattern you think it should fit.
God Bless

Poetry Thursday 211 - Earth Power

Some weeks when I write poetry 'it just comes out'! This week I was pondering how poetry becomes and read that you can generate it by reading others' poetry, looking at striking images and adopting a prescriptive type of poem. Those things work okay and undoubtedly the two below came from some stimulus but I can't identify that source for the moment.In fact the first could be a result of constant bombardment on green matters.
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Earth will fight back
The sun decorates an ice blue denim sky,the ubiquitous air seems clean and breathable.There is a threat in the beauty.
Peoples’ pleasures and work engines,emit foul pestilence and rancour,haphazardly created invisible toxins.
Survival in our hands or the trees?Stop the thoughtless, careless murder,protect the work of butterflies and bees.
Money should not be the dominant force,big business actions must be recanted,damage won’t repair with penniless remorse.
So stop the senseless, endless tipping,reduce the business emitted excrement,forget the plans to introduce fracking.
The Earth and atmosphere will fight back,our environment will create a device,stop before our sky turns permanent black,and mankind pays the inevitable price.© David L Atkinson May 2016

This poem came from an overheard comment about personal power.

You are powerful
Believe in you for your own sake,take your own decisions,life the sum total of what you make.Don’t look back – no time for revision.
Questions should have your own answers,don’t let others force you to equivocate.Say what you think and take your chances,use buckets of tact to continue to relate.
For happiness be your own person,be unfailingly kind and supportive,remain strong in your conviction,and smile when disaster is courted.© David L Atkinson May 2016



God Bless

Writing - Knock on effects

The world is in balance, more or less, but every so often something goes wrong and human beings in their arrogant self-knowledge know how to fix it.

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Isaac Newton

As Isaac Newton's 3rd Law of Motion states,
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction


There has to be a relationship between two things for this to happen. Quite often examples of disastrous relationships occur between humans and nature, sometimes with devastating and long term effects.
Australian rabbits
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Wild rabbits are a serious mammalian pest and invasive species in Australia causing millions of dollars of damage to crops. Rabbits in Australia are European rabbits. They were introduced to Australia in the 18th century with the First Fleet and became widespread after an outbreak caused by an 1859 release. Various methods in the 20th century have been attempted to control the population. Conventional methods include shooting rabbits and destroying their warrens, but these had only limited success. In 1907, a rabbit-proof fence was built in Western Australia in an unsuccessful attempt to contain the rabbits. The myxoma virus, which causes myxomatosis, was introduced into the rabbit population in the 1950s and had the effect of severely reducing the rabbit population.
The rabbits were introduced as a source of food and for hunting.
The Dust Bowl
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The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–40, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.
In both of the above examples there is an element of self-interest and greed. In the case of the rabbits it was a small group wanting some of the comforts of home, in the second case it was to do with making money more quickly to the detriment of the environment.
Carpageddon


Carp were first introduced to Australia in 1859, but numbers exploded in the 1960s after an adapted fish-farming strain was accidently released into the wild.It's estimated carp make up around 80-90% of the fish biomass within the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's most important agriculture region.The carp are prolific breeders that compete with native fish.Their toothless jaws mean they need to feed at the bottom of rivers, which causes erosion and makes the water turbid, reducing water quality.Barnaby Joyce, the deputy prime minister, said the only way to get rid of the "bottom-dwelling, mudsucking" fish was to unleash herpes on it.The A$15m ($11m; £8m) eradication program, dubbed "Carpageddon" by the government, aims to rid the Murray-Darling Basin of carp.
Now there are loads of examples of creatures being introduced for one purpose and having an unfavourable reaction. American Grey squirrels were introduced into the UK to boost the indigenous red squirrel population but instead they have overtaken the smaller locals. There is an inbuilt arrogance in humans that allows us to believe that we know best. We keep getting it wrong!
Ghandi wrote his seven dangers to human virtue which we seem to choose to ignore on too many occasions.

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God Bless

Writing - The authors' responsibilities

If readers are unsure about the level of responsibility authors have for their creations they need to check out the following:-

[image error]J K Rowling
On the 18th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts she tweeted her apologies for killing the former Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. She also has recently revealed that she had no intention of killing off Remus Lupin.
Is it quaint or undoubtedly necessary that a writer takes this step? Well another writer recently said that writers' block is when the characters stop talking to you. The clues are all there - a writer creates a 2D character with 3D aspirations. I have often told people who have asked that the characters take hold of the stories I write and push them in the direction they want them to go.
Check out what I mean .

December 2015





Steele   My hero was created post recession and so has no concept of how 'good' things were pre-2008. In 'I Have To Get It Right' when he began to flex his muscles he was working in an accountant's office. Then after the Gurentai took him under their wing and removed all of his financial worries, it was justice that was his major concern. He did become involved in international relations in 'The 51st State' but it was for the maintenance of a respectful distance between countries, rather than economic reasons. His trips into the USA had repercussions which can be read about in 'The Biter Bit' but then by the time things began to change in 2011 and the recession was really biting, Steele was trying to make sense of the state of the nation in 'A Changed Reality' and coming up against some really nasty people taking advantage of the shortage of money. By the time the USA are out of their recession Steele's steps are still being dogged by an unknown enemy from the same country. In 'Inceptus' we also find out more about what makes the man tick. The most recent Steele book 'Castled' where Steele is once again at risk from unseen enemies. It would seem that he has become quite recession proof!The most recent addition to the Steele family is Earth plc in which our hero is concerned with political and emotional issues in this crime fighting adventure.
All books are available in paperback or ebook through Amazon, Smashwords and all good book shop websites.


Cessation 


This is a dystopian story that hinges directly on the state of the nation as a result of fiscal mismanagement. Having said that it is more a story of human relations, privations, love and loss.


Poetry - there are also two thoughtful collections of poetry available solely through Amazon.


The Musings of a Confused Mind 


and


Words from the Raindrops 

God Bless

Writing - Walt Whitman's legacy

Walt Whitman is considered a US literary giant but that wasn't always the case.

[image error]Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works.
Whitman was the USA's poet in the same vane as Virgil, Homer 
and Plato but in his early life he made a living as a journalist 
working for a small newspaper in New York. He also worked as a 
teacher and government clerk. All of the time he wrote poetry and 
was influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Alan Poe.

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In 1855 Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. He was, it is said, trying to connect with ordinary people. Throughout the time he was writing his poetry he was also trying to make a living and he left an interesting legacy.
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In 1858, under a pseudonym, Whitman wrote 'Manly Health and Training'.
It contains multitudes of tips on topics such as diet, sex, and hygiene.
The 47,000-word series, which survived only in a few libraries, was discovered in a digitalised newspaper database by a graduate student last year.
It is now being published by the online journal The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review.
US commentators point out that some of Whitman's health advice sounds surprisingly modern.
"Let the main part of the diet be meat, to the exclusion of all else," one entry reads - a exhortation that both The New York Times and Time Magazine say would be endorsed by today's paleo-diet advocates.
Whitman also recommended the general use of the comfortable shoes "now specially worn by base-ball players" - trainers, as we would call them today.
He also warned against the ravages of desk jobs. "To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler, the same advice. Up!"


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The message has to be that irrespective of the main thrust of your writing, whatever you write, whether it be in a blog, articles or poetry; there may come a time when it becomes useful and relevant. Whitman's advice on health contains information that is as relevant in this century as it was in the nineteenth.
Finally, a sample of his work.
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Related Poem Content DetailsBY WALT WHITMANA noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. 
And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
God Bless

Writing - 10 things we didn't know last week

Robots, 'uncuddly' dogs and good looking ginners!


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1. Prince had a swear jar.

Haven't heard of that for a number of years God Bless him.


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2. Gucci doesn't like it when people burn paper replicas of its products as offerings to the dead.

Bless the sensitive little souls.


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3. People with variants of a "ginger gene" look, on average, two years younger.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
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4. Most dogs dislike being cuddled.

Why would any animal? It's a human thing! Don't trust cats.


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5. Great artists have a lot in common with psychopaths.

They just prefer working with once living materials.


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6. People with more friends have higher pain tolerance.

I'm in trouble.


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7. Lizards share sleep patterns with humans.

Drunk or sober?


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8. There are 30 peacocks and peahens roaming loose in the village of Ushaw Moor, County Durham.

A pretty mess!


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9. In 2014, 250,000 cars were impounded in Paris.

Comme ci, comme ca!


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10. Robots mentor Japanese ex-convicts.

Take me to your leader.


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Writing - Children's stories and writers

It isn't a genre into which I have dipped the toes very deeply as yet and I may never do so, but they are undoubtedly extremely important. In fact it is a genre from which I have derived great personal pleasure in reading over the last 60+ years.

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The quote above from C S Lewis says it all. There are many children's stories that have a great adult following, including those written by J K Rowling, Philip Pullman and Roald Dahl. In short I believe that a good story is precisely that and enjoyed by a wider audience than genre specific tales.
The discussion has arisen because later this year it will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of Roald Dahl. He was born on 13th September 1916 and died in 1990. The city of Cardiff are planning  a huge celebration around the anniversary
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A casting call has gone out for 6,000 volunteers to take part in a Cardiff production to mark 100 years since Roald Dahl's birth.The City of the Unexpected event needs 2,000 choristers, 1,000 dancers, and 13 magicians - and a performing mouse.
The Wales Millennium Centre and National Theatre Wales production will take place on September 17 - 18. 
It promises to be a fascinating event as the man's appeal was universal. I'm sure C S Lewis would have loved the Dahl stories. I discovered Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I was about 23 years old and read it in a single session. In fact from then onwards I have been delightfully surprised by many of his stories and poetry. He was a fantastic storyteller - a real word artist.
December 2015




Steele   My hero was created post recession and so has no concept of how 'good' things were pre-2008. In 'I Have To Get It Right' when he began to flex his muscles he was working in an accountant's office. Then after the Gurentai took him under their wing and removed all of his financial worries, it was justice that was his major concern. He did become involved in international relations in 'The 51st State' but it was for the maintenance of a respectful distance between countries, rather than economic reasons. His trips into the USA had repercussions which can be read about in 'The Biter Bit' but then by the time things began to change in 2011 and the recession was really biting, Steele was trying to make sense of the state of the nation in 'A Changed Reality' and coming up against some really nasty people taking advantage of the shortage of money. By the time the USA are out of their recession Steele's steps are still being dogged by an unknown enemy from the same country. In 'Inceptus' we also find out more about what makes the man tick. The most recent Steele book 'Castled' where Steele is once again at risk from unseen enemies. It would seem that he has become quite recession proof!The most recent addition to the Steele family is Earth plc in which our hero is concerned with political and emotional issues in this crime fighting adventure.
All books are available in paperback or ebook through Amazon, Smashwords and all good book shop websites.


Cessation 


This is a dystopian story that hinges directly on the state of the nation as a result of fiscal mismanagement. Having said that it is more a story of human relations, privations, love and loss.


Poetry - there are also two thoughtful collections of poetry available solely through Amazon.


The Musings of a Confused Mind 


and


Words from the Raindrops 

God Bless

Writing - Diaries and books

In life sad things happen and today it was announced that Jenny Diski died at the age of 68 from cancer.

[image error]Jenny Diski (1948 - 2016)
The author and essayist Jenny Diski, whose memoir about living with terminal cancer was published last week, has died aged 68.Her partner, the writer Ian Patterson, known as The Poet in Diski's works, announced her death on Twitter.
"Sad news. My darling Jenny @diski died early this morning," he tweeted on Thursday.
Diski was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in August 2014 and given "two or three years" to live.


Image copyright Twitter The following month, she began writing a diary for the London Review of Books, describing her experience of living with the terminal disease.
Her memoir, In Gratitude, was published by Bloomsbury on 21 April. 

People are always impressed, and rightly so, when they are given the privilege of an insight into someone's suffering by way of a memoir or diary. Thinking about why that is, strikes me as startling in that on one hand it seems simple but on the other what we are experiencing is the inner most feelings and thoughts of another person. 
When we read even the most lightweight of novels we are being given glimpses inside the workings of someone's mind. Please read on.


December 2015




Steele   My hero was created post recession and so has no concept of how 'good' things were pre-2008. In 'I Have To Get It Right' when he began to flex his muscles he was working in an accountant's office. Then after the Gurentai took him under their wing and removed all of his financial worries, it was justice that was his major concern. He did become involved in international relations in 'The 51st State' but it was for the maintenance of a respectful distance between countries, rather than economic reasons. His trips into the USA had repercussions which can be read about in 'The Biter Bit' but then by the time things began to change in 2011 and the recession was really biting, Steele was trying to make sense of the state of the nation in 'A Changed Reality' and coming up against some really nasty people taking advantage of the shortage of money. By the time the USA are out of their recession Steele's steps are still being dogged by an unknown enemy from the same country. In 'Inceptus' we also find out more about what makes the man tick. The most recent Steele book 'Castled' where Steele is once again at risk from unseen enemies. It would seem that he has become quite recession proof!The most recent addition to the Steele family is Earth plc in which our hero is concerned with political and emotional issues in this crime fighting adventure.
All books are available in paperback or ebook through Amazon, Smashwords and all good book shop websites.


Cessation 


This is a dystopian story that hinges directly on the state of the nation as a result of fiscal mismanagement. Having said that it is more a story of human relations, privations, love and loss.


Poetry - there are also two thoughtful collections of poetry available solely through Amazon.


The Musings of a Confused Mind 


and


Words from the Raindrops 

God Bless