Craig Stone's Blog, page 7

Why Cars Don’t Start in Horror Films, and How You Can Help Them

Death is coming, packaged in the form of a zombie, a vampire, a giant slug, or even a very slow moving blob. You run, you aren’t fit, so your insides feel like a pepperoni crushed in the hairy palm of an angry PE teacher suffering from repressed emotional rage after an incident during the Gulf war, where he drew cartoons of naked women riding whales in hats.

You get to your vehicle; could be a car, a tractor, a motorbike or even a scooter. And it won’t start. You turn the key, over and over again. Usually the car starts perfectly. In fact, you only got it serviced last week. You know the tank is full because you only filled it up an hour ago. You look at the key, it’s the same shape. You thought for some reason it might have turned into a potato, but it hasn’t. You turn it again, nothing. NOTHING.

Death is now in the wing mirror, you can feel its unwanted icy breath tickling the back of your neck like the ghost of a thousand mosquitoes grouped together to form one massive ghost mosquito that’s going to suck the fucking life out of you. Your blood, your brains, your skin and your veins; all sucked up through the nose barnacle of the creepy Culiseta longiareolata.

But, wait. Go back. Let us focus for a moment on the vehicle. What if vehicles feel the stress you are under? What if on the outside (despite rusting and in need of love) the car appears mostly fine, but is crying with fear on the inside – like the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre?

These are some still shots I have taken from World War Z, but there are many examples of cars caving under pressure just when they are needed.

This mobile home worked fine earlier in the film, it got through New York without a problem. But, look at it now. The wife of Brad Pitt is turning that key and getting less response than the time I ate a Madonna CD and tried to convince some adults that I was a mobile disco and available for kids parties.

So you have to ask yourself, if the mobile home was working fine earlier. What changed? There are countless examples of frozen vehicle syndrome (FVS) in hundreds of thousands of millions of movies. Well, I can tell you what changed. The daughter decided to have a massive panic attack. The mum is scared, Brad Pitt is trying to help, but he’s pretty much reached the point where all anyone wants to know is how his hair his still so thick at the age of 49 with 6 kids. In a nutshell, what has changed? Why won’t the car start now? I’ll tell you – because it’s bloody scared too. The vehicle is having a panic attack and nobody cares. Nobody is thinking of getting out of the vehicle to put a large paper bag over the bonnet of the mobile home, so it can chug into the bag until it can start properly again, are they?

And rightly so. I’d be afraid if these things were chasing me. Take a look at the film, you’ll notice in the mobile home there are no furry dice in the windscreen, no signs of waxing or polishing lately.

Mobile vans are people too, you know.

So, remember to wash your vehicles and occasionally make them a coffee. Rest against their doors, and just listen to their engines run from time to time. Don’t try and fix their problems, because that will just piss them off and insult their intelligence, just listen…Because when that monster is in your wing mirror, and you turn that key, you don’t want to be left pissing in your own pants, dismembered head in your lap, when you could have been burning rubber and laughing all the way to the horizon.

why vehicles in tense situations don’t start when people want them to

Death is coming, packaged in the form of a zombie, a vampire, a giant slug, or even a very slow moving blob. You run, you aren’t fit, so your insides feel like a pepperoni crushed in the hairy palm of an angry PE teacher suffering from repressed emotional rage after an incident during the Gulf war, where he drew cartoons of naked women riding whales in hats.

You get to your vehicle; could be a car, a tractor, a motorbike or even a scooter. And it won’t start. You turn the key, over and over again. Usually the car starts perfectly. In fact, you only got it serviced last week. You know the tank is full because you only filled it up an hour ago. You look at the key, it’s the same shape. You thought for some reason it might have turned into a potato, but it hasn’t. You turn it again, nothing. NOTHING.

Death is now in the wing mirror, you can feel its unwanted icy breath tickling the back of your neck like the ghost of a thousand mosquitoes grouped together to form one massive ghost mosquito that’s going to suck the fucking life out of you. Your blood, your brains, your skin and your veins; all sucked up through the nose barnacle of the creepy Culiseta longiareolata.

But, wait. Go back. Let us focus for a moment on the vehicle. What if vehicles feel the stress you are under? What if on the outside (despite rusting and in need of love) the car appears mostly fine, but is crying with fear on the inside – like the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre?

These are some still shots I have taken from World War Z, but there are many examples of cars caving under pressure just when they are needed.

This mobile home worked fine earlier in the film, it got through New York without a problem. But, look at it now. The wife of Brad Pitt is turning that key and getting less response than the time I ate a Madonna CD and tried to convince some adults that I was a mobile disco and available for kids parties.

So you have to ask yourself, if the mobile home was working fine earlier. What changed? There are countless examples of frozen vehicle syndrome (FVS) in hundreds of thousands of millions of movies. Well, I can tell you what changed. The daughter decided to have a massive panic attack. The mum is scared, Brad Pitt is trying to help, but he’s pretty much reached the point where all anyone wants to know is how his hair his still so thick at the age of 49 with 6 kids. In a nutshell, what has changed? Why won’t the car start now? I’ll tell you – because it’s bloody scared too. The vehicle is having a panic attack and nobody cares. Nobody is thinking of getting out of the vehicle to put a large paper bag over the bonnet of the mobile home, so it can chug into the bag until it can start properly again, are they?

And rightly so. I’d be afraid if these things were chasing me. Take a look at the film, you’ll notice in the mobile home there are no furry dice in the windscreen, no signs of waxing or polishing lately.

Mobile vans are people too, you know.

So, remember to wash your vehicles and occasionally make them a coffee. Rest against their doors, and just listen to their engines run from time to time. Don’t try and fix their problems, because that will just piss them off and insult their intelligence, just listen…Because when that monster is in your wing mirror, and you turn that key, you don’t want to be left pissing in your own pants, dismembered head in your lap, when you could have been burning rubber and laughing all the way to the horizon.

What I Think About When I’m Running

My jogging tip for anyone thinking about running is to decide the night before to go in the morning. In the morning decide to go in the night. That night decide to go in the morning. Repeat.

I’m leaving the block of flats for my run. Before I exit, I have to fold thirty feet of cable into the inside pocket of my jacket, because although jogging is all about getting back to nature we can’t jog without cables, machines, music and technology: anything to block  the sound of the outside world we are running through.

Cables wrestled back inside me,  a Terminator performing surgery on itself after taking a cannon ball to the chest, I seek a radio station because my phone is so old it has no memory left for music. Every radio station I find sounds like it’s broadcasting from the moon.  The static whispers  I’m going to die.

These are my thoughts as I’m running:

Fresh air. This is good. This, is life.

This is easy. I have  all the same inside bits as Mo Farah, and we’ve got the same hairstyle. I’m still young. I used to play football. Maybe I’ll get my fitness back. Join a team. Why don’t people clean their teeth with the sponges we use to do the washing up? One of them, dowsed in mouthwash, layered with toothpaste. Chew that around for a minute. I’ll try that later.

I’ve jogged  thirty steps. My first thoughts are all about taking my first steps to greatness.

I can do this. Gloria Estefan was right, the rhythm has come and got me. I’m not old! Fuck you age! That woman must live in those flats. That bloke looks aggressive. Why can’t I switch my brain off? Stop thinking. This is a spiritual thing. You are blocking it. I like the rain.  I’m never going into that pub. Who goes into a pub with blacked out windows? What goes on inside? Why don’t the people inside care about light?

Fifty paces later…

Who does this shit anyway? The unimaginative? Those who want to fool themselves into thinking they are immortal? Any human recently dumped and trying to regain their sex life? Doggers, I bet doggers jog. Woah, that’s a big dog! Big dog, big dog – slow down, don’t want to alarm the big dog. Big dog is licking the bum ring of a small dog. Owners are having polite chat. Stop. Don’t want to interrupt their chat. Think my lungs are on fire. I need to spit. Where can I spit? Gross.

The dogs move on. I walk behind the big dog. The pavement has narrowed. Eventually the path widens and I jog around the dog, but after I’ve got around the dog my brain switches off, and cuts off the will to my legs as it does.

I walk. I jog. I get to a road I need to cross, and stop.

Is this even safe? Jogging across traffic listening to music? Better stop. Walk across. Walking is much better. My face is cold. This radio station is mostly adverts. I should call Nan later. If I’m going to run I should have two pairs of trainers. This advert makes Nike sound good. Walking is fine. I could be doing something better than this. Is that a kid urinating against the shop? Man, he’s not even that young. He’s like fourteen. By the time I get my camera out to take a picture to post on the internet he’ll be finished. Shame. That might have made all this pain worth it. Is uploading a photo of a kid urinating against a shop weird? Probably. Could I just upload the urine stain on the concrete?

I walk across the road. I walk into the park.

Walking is exercise too.

A lady wearing red is up ahead, jogging the same path that I should be.

Keep up with the lady in red, let her set your pace. Why are you lying to yourself? You hate this. Your legs hate this. Your lungs hate this. Your brain hates this. Just admit you are old. Go exercise your brain with words. Just get fat. Only idiots care what they look like. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. Just do it. Jog behind her. Just for a bit. Don’t get too close though. You don’t want her to think you’re a sexual predator. Did I just think ‘just do it’ because of that Nike advert? I’m such a loser. Leaves, I like leaves. Can’t see what’s underneath them though. Leaves are fucking weird. Avoid the leaves.

I jog behind the woman in red.

I don’t want to worry her. Don’t be an idiot, this is jogging. Yeah, but I’m in a park and I don’t want my presence to put thoughts in her head about a weird man jogging behind her. She doesn’t know you are weird. She’s might have watched Dexter. How do you know an even weirder man isn’t jogging behind you, thinking even weirder thoughts?

I look over my shoulder. An old man, three times my age, buckled spine, grey face, arthritis on all of his bones, slugs for veins, winks as he passes me.

Great. I’m slower than Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Hefner, God, he’s actually a person. That’s even weirder than leaves. Imagine if Hugh Hefner was underneath the leaves, and as you walked over them, you jogged over his face. What if Hugh Hefner was made out of leaves, stuck together with semen and botox injections? Hmm…He’d come apart every Autumn.

I stop jogging. I watch the lady in red turn left and go around the park again for another lap. I watch the old man take on another lap as well. My throat burns. My chest burns. My eyes burn. My brain burns. The lady in red picks up her pace. I’m vulnerable in this state of exhaustion: a bird with a broken wing in a piglet costume at the feet of a caged wolf coming out of a diet.

I’ll jog the last bit back. That means I don’t have to jog the first bit back.

I walk the first bit back, until I reach Bermondsey tube station.

I’ll start jogging again from the bus stop.

I walk to the bus stop.

I’ll start jogging from the shops.

I walk to the shops.

I’m practically home now.

I walk the rest of the way home.

I get in, and think never again.

what I think about when I’m running…

My jogging tip for anyone thinking about running is to decide the night before to go in the morning. In the morning decide to go in the night. That night decide to go in the morning. Repeat.

Earlier today I went out in the rain, I intended to jog to the park, around the park and back from the park. These are my thoughts.

This is going to be easy. I have essentially all the same inside bits as Mo Farah, and we’ve got the same hairstyle. I’m still young. I used to play football. Maybe I’ll get my fitness back. Join a team. Why don’t people clean their teeth with the sponges we use to do the washing up? One of them, dowsed in mouthwash, layered with toothpaste. Chew that around for a minute. I’ll try that later.

Immediately jogging is stressful. I’ve not even left the house. I can’t find thick enough socks.

If my socks are too thin the plastic bits of my shoes will dig into my heels and I’ll have to come back early, then I’ll need to buy plasters to stick over the cuts in my ankles. Those skin coloured plasters are stupid. Everybody can see them. Can’t we invent skin coloured material yet? It’s 2013. We can print guns! How hard can skin coloured plasters be to get right? Note to self: find out.

I find some thick socks, but they concern me too.

The extra weight will make my feet feel heavier, I’ll be running like I’ve got a fat baby hanging onto each ankle. Which is probably the reason why I mostly walked last time. Note to self: check your ankles for babies before you leave. Also, check for babies around your ankles  more  generally than you do.

I’m leaving my block of flats but, before I exit, I have to put thirty feet of cable into the inside pocket of my jacket because although jogging is meant to be all about getting back to nature we don’t jog without cables, machines, music and technology; anything to block out the sound of the outside world we are running through.

Cables wrestled back inside me, like a Terminator performing surgery on itself after taking a cannon ball to the chest, I now have to find a radio station because my phone is so current it has no memory to hold music on. Every radio station I find sounds like it’s broadcasting from the moon, and the static whispers that I’m going to die.

Fresh air. This is good. This, is life.

I jog onto the pavement and cross the road because the side I’m on is swamped with walking people who don’t know how much fun running is.

I’ve jogged about thirty steps, and my first thoughts are all about my greatness.

This is easy! I can do this. Gloria Estefan was right – the rhythm has come and got me. I’m not old! Fuck you age! Age, you’re gonna need to be fit to catch up with this young stallion. That woman must live in those flats. That bloke looks aggressive. Why can’t I switch my brain off? Stop thinking, this is a spiritual thing. You are blocking it. I like the rain. I’m never going into that pub. Who goes into a pub with blacked out windows. What goes on inside? Why don’t the people inside care about light?

Fifty paces later…

Who does this shit anyway? The unimaginative? Those who want to fool themselves into thinking they are immortal? Any human recently dumped and trying to regain their sex life? Doggers, I bet doggers jog. Woah, that’s a big dog! Big dog, big dog – slow down, don’t want to alarm the big dog. Big dog is licking the bum ring of a small dog. Owners are having polite chat. Stop. Don’t want to interrupt their chat. Think my lungs are on fire. I need to spit. Where can I spit? Gross.

The dogs move on. I walk behind the big dog. The pavement has narrowed. Eventually the path widens and I jog around the dog, but after I’ve got around the dog my brain switches off, and cuts off the will to my legs as it does.

I walk. I jog. I get to a road I need to cross, and stop.

Is this even safe? Jogging across traffic listening to music? Better stop. Walk across. Walking is much better. My face is cold. This radio station is mostly adverts. I should call Nan later. If I’m going to run I should have two pairs of trainers. This advert makes Nike sound good. Walking is fine. I could be doing something better than this. Is that a kid urinating against the shop? Man, he’s not even that young. He’s like fourteen. By the time I get my camera out to take a picture to post on the internet he’ll be finished. Shame. That might have made all this pain worth it. Is uploading a photo of a kid urinating against a shop weird? Probably. Could I just upload the urine stain on the concrete? Is that weirder or less weird?

I walk across the road, and keep walking.

I walk into the park.

Walking is exercise too.

A lady wearing red is up ahead, jogging the same path that I should be.

Keep up with the lady in red, let her set your pace. Why are you lying to yourself? You hate this. Your legs hate this. Your lungs hate this. Your brain hates this. Just admit you are old. Go exercise your brain with words. Just get fat. Only idiots care what they look like. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. Just do it. Jog behind her. Just for a bit. Don’t get too close though. You don’t want her to think you’re a sexual predator. Did I just think ‘just do it’ because of that Nike advert? I’m such a loser. Leaves, I like leaves. Can’t see what’s underneath them though. Leaves are fucking weird. Avoid the leaves.

I jog behind the woman in red for two minutes.

I don’t want to worry her. Don’t be an idiot, this is jogging. Yeah, but I’m in a park and I don’t want my presence to put thoughts in her head about a weird man jogging behind her. She doesn’t know you are weird. She’s might have watched Dexter. How do you know an even weirder man isn’t jogging behind you, thinking even weirder thoughts. Bloody hell…

I look behind and an old man, three times my age, buckled spine, grey face, arthritis on all of his bones, slugs for veins, winks as he passes me.

Great. I’m slower than Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Hefner, God, he’s actually a person. That’s even weirder than leaves.

I stop jogging. I watch the lady in red turn left and go around the park again for another lap. I watch the old man take on another lap as well. My throat burns. My chest burns.  The lady in red picks up her pace. I’m vulnerable in this state of exhaustion; a bird with a broken wing in a piglet costume at the feet of a caged wolf coming out of a diet.

I’ll jog the last bit back. That means I don’t have to jog the first bit back.

I walk the first bit back, until I reach Bermondsey tube station.

I’ll start jogging again from the bus stop.

I walk to the bus stop.

I’ll start jogging from the shops.

I walk to the shops.

I’m practically home now.

I walk the rest of the way.

How about you? Do you feel the pain and stop because pain is actually a bit rubbish, or do you push through pain like a trooper?

Feel free to leave comments and stories about failed/successful exercise regimes below.

#SayNoToRacism AND #BadJournalism

This latest event in Willesden London about Estate Agents denying people from the black community properties at the request of the landlords reveals half a story. I lived in Willesden Green, North London. My landlord was elderly. He was typical of the age of landlords I met when trying to find a place in North London. He was open with his (ridiculous) views, he me he told his estate agents he didn’t want to rent his rooms to black people, but he also told me he told his estate agents he didn’t want women, gays, chinese people, Indian people or couples – from any background or ethnicity. This included white couples. (Because couples use up more electricity, and sometimes speak too loudly). Obviously, he was a total c*unt. He told me a story, that he was proud of, about how one estate agents in Willesden Green sent him a gay couple; after the couple left, he promptly phoned up the estate agents and fired them. My experience makes me think the media, instead of inflaming the black community, should have dug a little deeper before releasing this story – they could have found out more information about the landlords of the area and their broader political views. It wouldn’t have been that hard to do. Pose in the estate agents, then pose as someone wanting a room. Ask the estate agents and the landlords if they are happy to reject homosexuals, people from the Indian community and black community too. They haven’t done that, so it feels like inflammatory “We’ve got the story, let’s go home” reporting. Don’t get me wrong, the truth only makes things worse, increases the amount of people victimised – but at least the attack from landlords would not be what it seems, (which is just against the black community). The philosophy behind the owners of propery in Willesden Green is, more likely I feel, against ANY and ALL minorities; these landlords are, I believe from my own experience – people who have views typical of their peer group. Nasty pieces of work, who hate everyone – people, who well, don’t really enjoy life. The reporters could have found out that the old people holding onto property in some parts of North London, especially Willesden, hate all people equally, just like my landlord did. I couldn’t stand his views. He was clearly wrong and seemed atypical (to me) of other landlords I had seen and met in the area. He wasn’t just racist against the black community, he hated every.single.person.in.the.world, and he hated them all equally. Obviously, this makes him a terrible human being – and the estate agents should not be condoning the behaviour of racists by saying yes for an easy life. But, I fear the UK media have told half a story, plucked the black community from it, and stoked fires for a story – and all because “estate agents are racist to black community” will get (and is getting) a much bigger reaction than “old landlords in North London share old and dated political views typical of their peer group”.

#SayNoToRacism but also say #NoToBadJournalism.

If my ex-landlord, and the three others I met, were representative of a the wider community of landlords in Willesden Green, then they are afraid of pretty much everyone who isn’t white, wearing a suit, straight, male and employed.

That isn’t right – of course – but nor is it, like it’s being reported – solely an attack against the black community.

Peace out. x

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24372509

An open letter to every publisher in the world

Dear every publisher in the world.

This letter is not typed from a bitter place. My heart is a smiley sticker.

As I type, I type these words with Captain Happy in control at the wheel of my brain.

I have a simple question for you.

What does it take in this current climate to convince a publisher to read original material from a writer?

As far as unpublished authors go, am I close to being one of the authors with a chance of having their first chapter reviewed?

Before you answer my question, here is some information about me; some reasons why, I believe, perhaps I should be given half an hour of your time in a day of your choosing.

I was shortlisted for The Dundee International Book Prize, please click on the 2012 shortlist here: http://www.dundeebookprize.com/archive.htm

I have over 75,000 followers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robolollycop

I have been interviewed live on the BBC: http://bit.ly/BBCComedyCafe

I did have, by reputation, one of the best agents in the business, but we parted ways because I spoke my mind, and asked questions like, what have you done in the past year to further my career? And what publishers have you sent my book to?

Should I have asked these questions? Absolutely I should have, my dream is not for others to hold for a moment, to then place on the side to forget about, so it grows old, and dries out in the shade of the successful dream of somebody else.

I have plenty of good Amazon reviews:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Craig-Stone/e/B006YHNM08/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

I have more reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.

The reviews for my books are entirely honest. Honesty, I’m wondering – does it matter these days? Are we really in the era, (perhaps we have always been?) where it’s better to be an average writer with a great marketing campaign, than a great writer with an average campaign?

I always thought the best marketing campaign, would be to publish the best book possible?

My book titles are Life Knocks, The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness, How to Hide from Humans, and the book I am working on now is called Deep in the Bin of Bob.

Life Knocks is a story about a recluse forced to live with a lonely old man with boundary issues; The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness is one homeless man’s race to save a parrot from becoming the dinner of a madman. Deep in the Bin of Bob is a story about a mute Muslim boy who climbs to the top of a council estate in Bermondsey. Life Knocks takes place in Willesden Green, North London. It spans Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hawaii. The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness takes place in a North London Park. Deep in the Bin of Bob takes place in Bermondsey, central London.

I don’t think any other writer is going to be writing anything similar.

What happened to supporting original books from UK Authors? Not even supporting them, just giving them a chance? Turn me down. That’s all I’m asking for. Take on my challenge, read one of my books, and turn me down. At least then I can get on with my life.

Recently I received a pair of clogs from Holland, covered in glitter, from a lady calling herself a fan.

They don’t fit. Sadly.

I say these facts not to boast (except for the clogs, I am clearly boasting about being sent glittery clogs) but merely to illustrate the evidence suggests I am one of the talents, and not one of the time wasters.

Yet despite the evidence, I still can’t get a publisher to read my books.

I have been in the queue for quite a long time. 17 years of waiting.

What do I need to do, who do I need to be, to get my books read by a publisher?

Does being shortlisted in an internationally respected competition nudge me above the author who has not been shortlisted in an internationally respected competition?

Do I need 100,000 Twitter followers? Does having 75,000 Twitter followers nudge me above an author who has 100?

Do I need 200 more five star Amazon reviews? Does having 200 5 star Amazon reviews (across all books) nudge me above an author who has only 10?

Do I need to appear on ITV and have my own show on Sky1 on top of being interviewed on the BBC? Does appearing, and making people laugh, live on the BBC, as myself, being interviewed about my books, nudge me above an author who has never been asked to appear on the BBC as themselves, talking about their books?

I don’t know, but I am asking. Apparently the answer is no, these achievements do not matter.

But what about when you combine all of those factors? If all these factors combined don’t warrant my books being looked at by one publisher somewhere in this world, then perhaps one of you publishers could be  lovely and take a minute to explain what I’m not doing? What am I doing wrong? Why will a publisher not read my books? What else do I need to do?

I think I deserve a chance, for you to sit down, and read one of my books.

I wrote my first book homeless, the story behind The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness is as engaging as the book.

All the evidence available to me, the facts without my opinion, suggest people like my books; people enjoy my words.

I feel I have done my part. I’ve got the twitter following, I’ve created the books.

The material exists; I just need to borrow your eyes for a bit.

My agent chose to represent me because she fell in love with my words, she said I was an exceptional talent.

One published author said the only other book he enjoyed about love as much as Life Knocks was The Magus.

If John Fowles was around today, not that I am comparing myself to him, would it be the case that no publisher would find the time to read him?

So, how do I get you to read Life Knocks?

How do I get a publisher to read my book?

How do I get you to contact me?

Flowers? Chocolate? Send you some clogs covered in glitter with a note attached informing you I’m sitting under your desk spelling your name out on the floor in Alphabet Spaghetti?

Please, there has to be a publisher who can look at all the empirical evidence, note my age, now 33, and recognise that to get as far as I have completely unaided proves I have at least something worth at least a bit of your time.

You could find the time to read a good unpublished book by a young English writer. If your love for reading is why you ended up in publishing, then I would go further, and say you have a responsibility to read Life Knocks, or The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness (if you are a publisher more into the surreal).

Tell me my books are rubbish if you think they are, tell me I don’t have what it takes, laugh in my face, ask me to get out from under your desk and put the Alphabet Spaghetti back in the office fridge.

I can take it. I can take rejection, but the cold silence. The cold silence just leads to a million questions. The cold silence leaves hope. The cold silence can be filled with anything I choose to fill it with, when what I need is someone in the publishing world to fill it with facts, or preferably a book deal. I’m sure you are busy, but I believe it’s your responsibility to respond to me. It’s your responsibility to exhaust any and all possible means to find decent literature.

So, ask me, please. Ask to read Life Knocks.

Ask to read The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness.

Ask me more about Deep in the Bin of Bob, if you wish.

Give me a break, I’m only asking you to read a book already judged to be better than hundreds of other books from all over the world by an established international book panel, including Stephen Fry and Philip Pullman.

That’s what you do, right? Find talent? Shine a light on it?

Well, I’m here. Waving in the dark.

Ask to read one of my books. Come back and tell me they are rubbish after you have, and I will say fair enough. I’m young. I’m learning, but I’m keeping your Alphabet Spaghetti.

Or maybe to release my frustration, I’ll leave the Alphabet Spaghetti in your fridge, but spell out “YOU CAUSED SADFACE” before I leave; so that when you open up the fridge in your office, you will be faced with the undeniable consequences of your decision making process.

So what does it take, in this current climate, to convince a publisher to read original material from a writer?

How do I get you, to read me?

And If you say through an agent, I understand, but my agent was a bit rubbish, and I think I’m at a level where maybe I don’t need an agent because there is enough proof to suggest I can write. But, you tell me.

Please disprove that the industry is all about who you know, please show me at the heart of the industry it really is all about how you write, and that if you are one of the better writers, you don’t have to know anyone, because books are still about the words. Please show me books are still selected by the words, and the order the words are put in, and nothing more.

I wait in hope of an answer, you can email me on davidsausageface@hotmail.com or you are welcome to leave a comment, anonymously, or not, underneath this blogpost.

If you are a book agent, feel free to get in touch with me. As long as you’re not a wally, and you are actually interested in the material, and wish to work with me to form a relationship, rather than use me as a number, then I am willing and happy to listen to all ideas and suggestions.

Thank you, truly, for your time.

Craig Stone.

PS Any person who understands or empathises with this struggle is invited to help me get this letter under the eyes of publishers by please sharing this open letter on Twitter, Facebook and your blog.

Feel free to send it to your friends in publishing or book agents, or people you don’t know who look like they might be into books.

You know where the share buttons are, and just maybe, with my letter and your help, a publisher will respond.

If you don’t help, I’m pretty sure you all have Alphabet Spaghetti in your homes, and I’ll be sure to visit soon…

…And if you don’t have any, I’ll be bringing my own

Nobody is talking about Flamini, says everybody.

For the past few weeks, everybody in football has been talking about how nobody in football is talking about Arsenal midfielder Matthew Flamini.

An Arsenal fan from Motuo, China, was quick to react:

“We have to praise Flamini, but we do not. if Ozil is our new car, Flamini should be spoken about as our new steering wheel. Without a steering wheel, our car would crash, and a branch from a tree will break through the windscreen and remove the head of our driver. When will the first person talk about Flamini in these terms? You can’t drive a car fast without a head. What does a player have to do to get credit from fans like me?”

An old lady from La Rinconada, Peru, was asked about Ozil, and she responded by putting down her oranges, and talking about not talking about Flamini.

“Ozil is fantastic, the grace of two swans making love under a night full of stars and a moon the size of a bin lid. But all I talk about is The Great Wizard of Ozil. I want to know why nobody is pulling the curtain back and talking about Flamini. What does Flamini have to do, to be spoken about by people like me?”

The village elders from Ittoqqortoomiit, Greenland, a small village with no phones or internet, sat around their only television and watched Match of the Day whilst eating sausages, hoping for answers; but Gary Linker was as miffed as everybody else. He asked Match of the Day viewers and the panel what Flamini would need to do, to ever be spoken about on a programme like Match of the Day.

The panel of experts spoke about Flamini at length, before agreeing that nobody knew.

Matthew Flamini was unavailable to comment.

Paying for fake reviews, how F’ing DARE you?..

You know all those writers we’ve been hearing about who had the money to pay for 1000′s of fake reviews to launch their career? That wedge of writers who became so popular against all the odds? Who sold books on the back of paying people to read their books? Those writers, who then went on to further their careers as writers by selling books explaining every detail about how they made their name, but conveniently left out the chapter about how they paid $1000s for 1000s of reviews?

Make no mistake.

No matter how you justify it in your head.

No matter how powerful you think these people are in the indie book world, or in the world of Kindle, no matter how big their name…

These ‘writers’ are your enemy.

These people are intelligent, their past actions deliberate.

They rigged the market you are trying to survive in! Stephen Lee, UK snooker player, was today found guilty of rigging his sport. He was given a 12 year ban. He would have received a life ban, but he committed his crime before recent laws were put into force.

These writers started the indie market.

And don’t fool yourself into believing these so called writers did not understand that their actions, at the time, were morally bankrupt.

They genetically modified the evolution of the species by artificially pumping sales that had no natural place into the market, then artificially rigged their own perception of what they told you good writing was.

You, I, thought these people were important.

THAT IS A LIE.

They created an environment where they would be statistically more successful by paying to rise up the charts by pumping thousands at fake reviewers. Some explain their actions with the response “the review was up to the reviewers, I paid for the reviewer, not for the review” = another lie; this time to themselves. After all, the reviewers who were told to be honest, were told by their boss to be honest, who was being paid by the writer, who was therefore the CEO of the entire company, a company that was manipulated financially to sustain a lie as a truth.

So, how honest do you think that honesty would be?

In case you aren’t getting it, and if you are not outraged, then you are not getting it – reviewers from all over the world, have been paid to create fake accounts, to lie and generate fake reviews, by the big hitters on Kindle.

How can a review be honest, if it starts from an account that is set up purely because it has been paid to promote? Even the name of the reviewer is fake!

People have been paid to lie by authors who, before they were authors, were bored people with some spare cash to throw at the wall in order to manufacture their success. Then, being not very nice, they thought, why be shy, I’ve got away with it so far? They then wrote, and consequently sold books telling you how you could become successful! They artificially inflated their talent and took your money, then took your money again by selling a lie, which covered up the truth about what made you buy the books that made their name in the first place.

Here is all those books needed to say. This advice is for free:

Chapter 1: Pay for fake reviews. Spend Thousands of dollars on them if you need to. Once you get over two hundred reviews, people will start to take notice.

End.Of.Book.

DO NOT DO THAT.

I would rather fail, I would rather fail than pay to live a lie.

 

Your book could be brilliant, but if you are not prepared or cannot pay $1000s to lie, then your book, even if it’s better, will now be perceived to be worse than books that are actually totally shit.

Well, I can’t afford to pay for fake reviews.

And even if I could, I would stab myself in the eyeball with my computer until I was dead before I ever did.

This is a rant, as you can tell.

This annoys me.

This annoys me because, partly, like every writer might be doing, I wonder where I could be now, if I had $1000s to throw at my career, if all a successful career takes is money WHAT IS THE POINT?

MONEY CANNOT BE WHAT WRITING IS ABOUT?

I CALL BULLSHIT!!

MONEY IS NOT WHAT WRITING IS ABOUT!!

MONEY IS NOT WHAT WRITING IS!

If anyone out there has bothered to read this far, support me for no other reason than I invite your criticism, I am not paying for your lies; read my books and say what you want about them. Support the people out there who have sacrificed everything for words. Support the talent, support the writer’s who write regardless of what people think of their writing, not because of it. Stick a massive two fingers up at the truth we are all avoiding.

Say go fuck yourself to fake reviews, say how dare you disgrace art by throwing money to manipulate how it’s perceived.

Do that by reading my books, and if you don’t like my books, please PLEASE slate them on Amazon.

IT IS YOUR RIGHT AS SOMEONE WHO IS NOT MY EMPLOYEE, YOUR RIGHT AS SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ASSOCIATED FINANCIALLY TO ME IN ANY WAY, TO DESTROY MY BOOKS ON-LINE IF YOU DON’T LIKE THEM.

IF YOU DONT BUY MY BOOKS, BY ANY WRITER THAT YOU LIKE THE LOOK OF, WHO SOUNDS DESPERATE.

I guarantee, if they are desperate, their words will be far better than any fool with a ‘marketing plan’.

I know the counter argument: “Well, Craig, this is the same way that the traditional publishing world has operated for years, and still does today.”

I get that. I don’t disagree with that counter argument.

There is not one traditionally printed book that is not smothered in words from someone from within the industry, regardless of how completely rubbish it turns out to be.

There is not one film that does not have quotes smeared over it by the already famous, regardless of how utterly boring and repetitive the film clearly is.

I get that…

But: We had a chance to create something better.

We had the chance to create something where the good books got noticed, where the truth mattered, but all because of the same selfish people that seem to turn up at at the beginning of everything that could be good, we no longer have that.

So thanks, people.

You fucked it up.

You greedy, lying fuckers…

And you all know who I mean.

My Top Six Writing Tips

Marketing is now more important than content, sales are more important than authors, immediate profit is more important than sustaining the publishing industry long term.

The material has become immaterial.

Most people are writing the same sort of stuff, falling into the same old traps, eating each other alive in buckets to get out; like rats.

Here are some tips on how to get out of that bucket, and escape into the jungle as the only rat still alive.

A rat with a dream, a passion, and a story everybody will want to read about your time in the bucket…

1. IGNORE ALL ADVICE, ESPECIALLY ALL THIS ADVICE

Everybody is an expert, but the truth is, nobody is.

Not even the experts are experts.

The expert people behind the scenes in publishing companies are just people who have read books, like you and I.

Experience has made them an expert, but too much experience eventually turns people blind.

All YOU can do is focus on the content of YOUR book, and be brave about it.

Don’t look to other writers to see what they’re doing to learn how to do what you want to do, because the truth is the writers you look to for advice previously looked to other writers to see what they were doing, and those writers who came before the writers you are looking to for advice, looked to learn from other writers who wrote before them to learn about what they should be doing and, finally, the last writer referenced, who was also the first writer to write anything down didn’t have a single fucking clue what he/she was doing.

Everybody is copying everybody else believing somebody must know what they are doing.

Remember: nobody does.

There are no experts; start with that in mind, and one day you might just become an expert.

2. JOIN TWITTER

Twitter is the place writers go to fuck the shit out of other like-minded brains, so if you are thinking of writing a book, it’s a great place to begin.

Others say Twitter is the place writers go to die.

Actually, nobody has said that, I’ve just made it up, but there is some truth to it.

However if you are already dead, or not alive yet, then you have nothing to lose; and if you can write a book, then you can sure as hell write something interesting in 140 characters.

3. STOP CALLING YOURSELF AN ASPIRING AUTHOR!

You either are or you’re not, you either can or you can’t, you either will do or you won’t.

Either we are all aspiring authors, and I include every single person who has ever picked up a pen in the history of man, or none of us are.

There are writers on Twitter claiming to be best-selling authors because one of their books about a cowboy falling in love with his own waxed chest has somehow made it to #357,095 in the Amazon charts.

These books are a silver bullet shot into the heel of a werewolf formerly known as Achilles.

IF the people writing these books are not calling themselves aspiring, then guess what?

Nobody is aspiring.

MAKE NOTE: Aspiring is dead.

The meaning of the word has been changed by Kindle; don’t sell yourself short before you begin.

And besides, just because you are starting out, does not make you an aspiring anything; some authors who have forty books behind them might disagree, but I like to think that in ten years time some kid will come along and write something better than I ever did, because he is naturally more gifted than I ever was.

In fact, if that doesn’t happen, I’ll be extremely sad.

Our duty, your duty as an author, is to push the boundaries of where we can take literature, to try and push where we can take the human imagination; and if you don’t believe that is possible, then why get into writing in the first place?

The less time you spend aspiring, the sooner your steps to changing the world begin.

Begin a dreamer, and never stop dreaming, and do not confuse dreaming with aspiring.

T H I N K B I G

Unless you are sitting at the keyboard almost typing, fingers hovering perpetually above the keys, unless you are sitting with a pen and almost putting it to paper, then you are writing.

So, please, no more aspiring.

4. BACK TALENT WITH ARROGANCE

People might not get how you write, people might tell you that you should write more like them, people might turn their nose up at your words, people might tell you they think your book is confusing, people might say they wish it was more romantic, or had more action in, or was funnier, or was a little bit darker, or had a mermaid robot in called Daisy who got erections at funerals – BUT remember:

If you change what you write to meet the expectation of your readers then you immediately negate yourself to the status of being completely irrelevant.

You become, essentially, a newspaper. Not full of stories, just full of bollocks and spin put in to appease what your readers expect to read.

I’m not saying arrogance as in the type of arrogance where you immediately go out and buy a gold car with tinted windows and insist your mum drives you around, and you sit in the back seat with a prostitute taking cocaine and talking about yourself whilst your wife is at home telling the children Daddy will be back from the shops any minute.

I am not talking about that kind of arrogance.

I am talking about having a confidence, about having a swagger in your words.

Write the stories YOU want to write.

Write the stories that make YOU laugh.

Write the stories that YOU want to hear.

Write for yourself, fuck everybody else.

Don’t live for the crowd, don’t live for the reviews, don’t write your words down for a pat on the back, write them down because if you don’t you get depressed and angry and sad, and know that means you are a writer.

Don’t back down, don’t change your vantage point, stand your ground and argue your point.

Draw your line in the sand, because your book is about you, your book is not about anyone else.

And to do that, takes arrogance.

When the dust has settled, when your line is drawn in the sand, how many books you have sold won’t matter, because you will know you wrote your own way and for yourself.

In a world full of zombies and vampires and cowboys rolling around in the hay, by not following conventional methods you give yourself the best chance of standing out from the crowd.

The only chance, in fact.

5. WRITING WHAT YOU KNOW IS WRITING WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

Nobody can write what they don’t know.

Everything you will ever write is something you know; so start thanking the stars we all know different things.

Writer A does not have a vivid imagination, and so might truly know contemporary fiction; the here and now, real life punching you in the gut and pulling your eyeballs over your head, to show them to your friends.

You, on the other hand, might just know about dragons, or you might know about talking water that has the power to convince all penguins they are better off living in apartment blocks and working for the council as dustmen.

Knowledge is not just what other people tell you it is, knowledge is not just what we think in the moment we think it, knowledge is the image we see in our heads, knowledge is our imagination, knowledge are the pictures we see and the dreams we have.

Knowledge is all we know, and all we know that we don’t know yet.

So write what you know, but remember you don’t know at this point all you will know…because when you write, you will teach yourself a million things about you that you never knew you knew, that are waiting to be known that you know.

Writing what you know is also writing what you don’t know, because writing what you don’t know doesn’t exist.

So, that’s that sorted.

6. EDIT

If God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, I know why the world is so fucked. He left no time for an edit.

A great writer, who is an average editor, will write an average book.

An average writer, who is a brilliant editor, will write a brilliant book.

People prefer brilliant books to average books.

It’s that simple.

Write your book.

Then read it again and edit it.

Then edit it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

I know if you’re a bit younger, editing sounds like the boring bit. And also, if you have that arrogance which ultimately all writers have (whether they admit it or not) then you’re going to think you are so great you don’t need to check your work.

You are wrong.

The edit is the fun part.

The edit is the cherry on the cake, the wanky bit of duck sauce next to the prawn Vol-au-vents, the money shot; the bit in dirty dancing when Swayze lifts the girl above his head.

Come at writing from the back, implant in your head now that the end of your book is actually the beginning of it, and when you finally come out the end you won’t be too far off.

Now IGNORE ALL OF THIS and go and write YOUR book, YOUR way.

And remember to repeat this mantra when nobody understands what you do…

the trial that ended how it began, with a joke nobody understands but Zimmerman

I am not a journalist, I don’t need to be balanced, this is my opinion, the truth as I see it. The balance that you think you get from the media, is not balance at all, the justice you think exists is nothing more than a mist.

Ultimately we all draw our own conclusions from what we read, hear and witness, but sometimes we need to question who handed us the pencil.

The tall, white lawyer, a pencil erasing justice as he rewrote it in his image, defended Mr. Zimmerman and planted seeds of doubt in the jury along the way as he did.

There was no way of knowing who screamed he said

There was no way of knowing who the aggressor was he demanded everyone thinks.

He showed pictures of Zimmerman, flat nosed and bruised.

These factors were the defence; the few pebbles needed to crack the glass window of American justice.

Mr. Zimmerman had just phoned 911, because he wanted the acknowledgement of the police. He wanted to be on their side. He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be noticed, he wanted to be more than he is. He wanted to be the cop in the film, thanked by the public for just doing his job.

Like all of us, in a way. We can all understand what it feels like to want to be noticed, to have a purpose, but unlike most of us, we don’t choose to look for acceptance by cruising the streets with a concealed gun, judging people who we think might be cruising the streets with a concealed gun.

And if we can’t find anything we can help with, we don’t look for our hero status where it doesn’t belong. We don’t want it at any cost, we don’t want to scare a child in the hope we might be proved right. We don’t want to start a fight with someone younger because the chances of us winning are higher, we don’t start a fight with a child because there’s a chance we might find some pot on them which would justify our thought process; and earn a high five from the men in blue.

We wouldn’t, but then none of us are George Zimmerman; a man who protects the peace, by carrying a gun and ending the life of innocent children.

Mr. Zimmerman was recorded stating he was following a kid because the kid was walking in the rain, and so therefore must have been on drugs.

One of the dumbest observations I have heard in a long time.

Mr. Zimmerman was unable to link the connection between the rain and the hoodie.

If only Trayvon had taken an umbrella with him, if only he had been acting like he wasn’t just being himself coming back from the sweet shop.

The jury were manipulated into looking at the case through the eyes of Mr. Zimmerman, and not through the eyes of the victim. Here’s how…

“The post altercation photographs of Mr. Zimmerman show he was a victim too.”

The photographs of Zimmerman after the altercation shown to the jury showed his entire face.

The jury did not just see a picture of  his nose. A lip. A lump. A bit of flat skin, raised.

The jury saw his entire face. The jury saw his eyes: the jury saw a person.

The injuries of Mr. Zimmerman were humanised, because the jury could see them on a person.

The photographs of Trayvon Martin the jury got to see? A gunshot wound. A body under a cover, face down, dead.

Dehumanised.

A photograph of the point of entry; a belly, with a man-made hole in.

The gunshot wound could have been on anyone.

The body under the cover could have been anyone.

The body face down in the grass could have been anyone.

In the mind of the jury, seeing a gunshot wound on a faceless body is not the same as showing photographs of the face of a dead child.

If you are going to bring up photographs of the post-fight face of Mr. Zimmerman as a defence, then the prosecution should have shown photographs of the post-fight face of Trayvon Martin.

That would be fair.

That would have altered the mental image being put into the heads of the jury.

But they did not.

From the very beginning George Zimmerman was subtly being humanised, and Trayvon Martin was being depersonalised.

A gunshot wound on an anonymous body, compared to a person.

The media happily showed reel after reel of the injuries to Mr. Zimmerman, but the face of the dead Trayvon was hid under the guise of protecting us from being offended, but a far greater offence has occurred, because the media continued to show us Trayvon smiling, alive and well, right up on the same screen they showed pictures of Mr. Zimmerman battered and bruised.

With the sound down, you would think it was a story of a kid assaulting an adult.

Then you turn the sound up, and realise it is.

The media described Mr. Zimmerman’s injuries as horrific.

The horror is the boy dead on the ground; yet the photographs of the dead boy were described in America’s national press as startling, whereas the photographs of a bruised Mr. Zimmerman horrific.

Anybody else think those two descriptions are the wrong way around?

The lack of balance in the images the jury were shown is not really the point. The point is, for this part of the trial, the focus became not about the taking of a life, but about how the photographs taken of Mr. Zimmerman made him look beaten worse than he actually was.

That was the discussion.

He didn’t wipe his blood away at the time, said the prosecution.

And the defence said no, the pictures show the truth.

And back and forth they went, discussing the nature of Mr. Zimmerman’s bruised left eye.

And so the jury never even thought about the greying, twisted, dead face of Trayvon Martin; a face they were spared because it was too startling to show, so instead they were left to dwell on and think about the horrific photographs of Mr. Zimmerman’s slightly bruised chin and a broken nose they could compute.

The argument is exactly the argument the defence team wanted to have; a completely irrelevant battle they could win, and did.

In the end, the jury thought they agreed that Mr. Zimmerman’s injuries looked genuine in the photographs, and a hole was put in the case of the prosecution because the prosecution sounded like they were exaggerating.

But the thoughts of the jury should have been all about the dead face of a child they never saw; their thoughts should have related to the photograph of Trayvon Martin’s dead face, not Mr. Zimmerman’s slightly bruised one.

Over and over again, the trial focused heavily on small arguments the defence wanted to have, little battles that the defence could win, distracting the entire trial from the bigger picture.

But this is law.

Worse, this is American justice, televised for the world to see.

“There is no way of defining who the aggressor was.”

The jury were told they had to know who the aggressor was.

Without a doubt.

They had to know.

The jury were told they had to know, because the defence team knew the prosecution had no concrete eye witnesses.

So if the defence could get the jury to believe they had to know without doubt who the aggressor was, and get the jury to believe their version of what being an aggressor means, they would win the trial.

Now that entire argument, who the aggressor was, means once again the trial focused on completely the wrong point.

This was a big issue, and yet another issue the defence were allowed to dictate right from the beginning.

What the jury should have been considering is not who the aggressor was, but what it means when the subtext to what the defence were saying is who the aggressor was means we can legally justify a child being murdered.

If I lived in America, according to the law, a seventeen year old child could start a fight with me, and I would be legally entitled to respond to five punches by shooting them through the heart with a gun.

And not only would I not be initially arrested, when I was arrested, I would be let off completely free and handed my gun back; the equivalent to a pat on the back from the police for a job well done.

Playing into the hand of the defence for a second, let’s say for the sake of argument ‎Trayvon Martin did start the fight.

Does that change the moral standpoint of the argument?

No.

The defence’s argument was flawed at the very core, because for them to be right, then they were stating that if Trayvon started the fight, he somehow played a deliberate part in his own death, so that makes murdering him legally moral because he was asking for it.

What total, utter, complete, fucking nonsense.

Manslaughter must have a different meaning in Florida.

George Zimmerman in all definitions of the word was the aggressor.

He followed the kid when he was told not to.

He got out of his car.

He approached the boy.

He had a gun on him.

The question “who was the aggressor?” should not have been asked until the jury had an answer for the question “at what point does aggression begin?”

Start there, answer that question first, and then once the jury understand what’s being talked about, proceed.

The point should have been made to the jury that the aggressor does not decide when aggression begins; the point of aggression is dictated by the individual who is feeling the consequence of the aggression.

As soon as Trayvon Martin knew he was being followed by a car. He was affected.

He was the victim of aggressive behaviour by an aggressor at this point.

As soon as Trayvon Martin called his friend to say he was being followed he was affected.

As soon as Trayvon Martin realised a man was approaching, the same man from the car that had been following him…

He. Was. The. Victim. Of. Aggressive. Behaviour.

Trayvon Martin could not be the aggressor if he was armed with a packet of skittles and riding away from a man following him armed with a gun.

What next for American Justice? The beaten wife, dying on the floor, gets arrested for throwing her face into the path of her violent and paranoid husband’s fists?

After all, according to the defence team’s version of aggressor, the wife in this scenario is the aggressor.

Maybe she didn’t have the dinner on the table in time, or maybe she spilt her husband’s beer?

She deserved the beating, because she was the legal aggressor.

By focusing on the aggressor the prosecution had dropped in another point they never fully explained, giving the jury just enough information to focus on thinking backwards and believing they were legally acting in good conscience.

A dot of information they wanted the jury to focus on.

A magic trick, nobody could see.

Not even the prosecution, by the looks of it.

“Trayvon was on top of Mr. Zimmerman.”                                                   

If I am fearing attack from an unknown enemy and I find a way of  getting on top of my attacker, there is no way I am going to get off him because I would be scared shitless.

When a robber is pinned down by the public, the public don’t pin them down and then get off them because they might be attacked.

They stay on them, to keep them there, for their own safety, because they have managed to get control of a frightening situation they previously had no control over.

Yet in the trial, Trayvon Martin was seen on top of Mr. Zimmerman, and that fact was used to harm the prosecution.

The jury were told this is evidence Trayvon was the aggressor.

This is only evidence that Trayvon was trying to control a situation he had been forced to deal with through no fault of his own.

The only mistake Trayvon made was backing off Mr. Zimmerman, affording him the time to react like the cold moron he has proven to be.

“The scream could have been from either.”

The father of Trayvon said the scream did not sound like his son.

I imagine, no scream, no primal noise emitted at the time we are going to die, sounds like any noise we have made before in our life.

The father of Trayvon saying he did not think it sounded like his son does not prove it was not his son, nor does it add reasonable doubt when challenged by the fact that as soon as the shot was fired the screaming stopped.

A shot through the heart would silence a scream.

The science geek stated that the human body can live for 10 seconds without its heart, but he made no reference to, nor was asked for, his opinion on how long shock takes to settle after a bullet has ripped you in half.

And then there’s the fact that the mother of Trayvon said she was sure it was the scream of her son.

Does a man armed with a gun ever need to scream for help, like his life is under threat, if he is the man holding the gun?

Who is likely to scream for help, a boy acting as a man, or a man acting as a God?

The defence team led the trial, dictated the thoughts in the head of the jurors and ultimately created enough doubt for a not guilty verdict.

Members of the public who are defenders of the law are stating that the law returned a non guilty verdict so Mr. Zimmerman is not guilty and that is the end of the matter.

This is true, but it’s also so black and white it beggars belief.

Newsflash: American law also allows regular dumb as fuck folk to carry a concealed weapon because the NRA own the people making the rules.

The law can be argued.

The law should adhere to common sense, and when the law stops adhering to common sense, not only can it be argued; it can be re-written and changed.

That’s the beauty of law.

You are not less American if you stand up and shout BULLSHIT at a clearly BULLSHIT verdict, in fact, you are more American.

Look closely America and you will see the laws that govern you are slowly being enforced by crazy billionaire white folk holding guns.

And these billionaire men say if you don’t agree with the law and what they think, then you are not American.

It is a counter argument that works. It is a counter argument intended to make those who do not have the American flag on their bumper sticker feel like the minority.

And it is exactly the same response some Americans come up with when someone questions the people who do their thinking for them.

Idiots inside America tow the line without thinking. They put up the American flag and shout down anyone who might be thinking that a lot of stuff going on at the moment is complete bullshit.

If I was American, and I had a flag in my garden, today I would take it down.

And I wouldn’t put it back up until the powers that be in my country did something I was proud of.

And, before you ask, I’m from the UK and my government are equally capable of fucking us over, and do…but that’s not what this blogpost is about.

I don’t have the English flag in my garden. Not just because I don’t have a garden. If I had a garden, the last thing I would want to stick in it is a label. I don’t cry when someone questions my government, because the government is meant to be accountable, it is meant to be questioned, and the day you cannot question your own government, is the day your government can do anything it wants.

I don’t get defensive when someone criticises the UK government, and so I worry when I hear people passionately defending theirs. Criticising your law makers is healthy; it means that regardless of what your leaders are doing, at the core of what’s going on is a freedom to express what you think.

That freedom is getting smaller and smaller with each voice that decides to stay silent when confronted with what is clearly bollocks.

The other side of that coin is North Korea.

So think before you try to shout someone down for criticising the American government, because a government’s most powerful weapon is the silence of their people, and that weapon becomes loaded when the silence is not enforced by the government, but by a majority who believe they are doing the right thing.

Pledging an allegiance to a flag, whether you can admit it to yourself or not, is grooming a child.

Today America is divided between adults still living by the below pledge because they fit better into their church communities and enjoy being thought of as good people by strangers, who also enjoy being thought of as good people by strangers…

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

…And those who can see that an innocent kid has been murdered and nobody is going to prison.

Nobody is even being fined.

Hell, this twat George was not even arrested to begin with.

This is not one nation under God.

This is division.

This is not liberty for all.

This is not justice for anyone.