Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 37

News: Big Issue Founder Applauds Money House Expansion

Teaching fledgling tenants to manage their nest egg

Big Issue founder John Bird has backed a scheme to help tackle homelessness by teaching vulnerable young Londoners to better manage their money

By Mark Cantrell

THE founder of the Big Issue in the UK, Lord John Bird, has urged councils to embrace a scheme that teaches practical money management skills to vulnerable young people, claiming it helps to ‘dismantle the root causes of poverty’.

Lord Bird was taking part in a special pre...

News: In Revelation Space Nobody Can Hear You Dream

Science fiction authors take literary festival to Mars and beyond

Best-selling authors Philip Reeve and Alastair Reynolds are headline guests at the Literary Leicester festival later this month, writes Mark Cantrell , so are you ready to see some stars?

SCIENCE fiction author Alastair Reynolds is taking his audience on a trip to Mars this month – figuratively speaking – with an exploration of the red planet’s place in the solar system of our mind, both real and imagined.

The...

Technology: Do Not Let The Web Bugs Bite

Cyber crooks know where you live…

The Internet of Things is bringing the digital revolution home thanks to an array of ‘smart’ creature comforts that are changing the way we live, but if we can’t crack an emerging security gap we’ll be wide open to gatecrashing cyber-crooks

By Mark Cantrell

THE digital revolution has opened up a whole new realm of ‘smart’ home comforts, courtesy of the Internet of Things (IoT), but its promise of enhanced convenience f...

Blog: Citizen Zero Origins

Back to where it all began

Mark Cantrell offers some reminiscences on the birth of his novel, Citizen Zero, released back in August by Inspired Quill. One journey ends, another begins…

TIME certainly flies. It's nearly two months now since my novel Citizen Zero enjoyed its paperback début, courtesy of Inspired Quill – but that's not the time I'm talking about.

In some respects, I'm talking about vanished youth. I guess that's what being a novelist does to you – it consu...

Society: Will Government race audit spark a bonfire of injustices?

Making a dash for a more equal society

The Government’s new ‘dashboard’ for monitoring race disparity in Britain isn’t much of a challenge to society unless ministers act on the findings too – otherwise it’ll only show what a hash we’ve made of tackling “burning injustice”

By Mark Cantrell

THE Government must deal with its own “toxic legacy” if it is serious about overcoming the “ethnic injustices” revealed by its s...

Book Review: Evicted by Matthew Desmond

Eviction has become a way of life in America’s private rented housing market

It's easy to blame the poor for their plight, writes Mark Cantrell , but it blinds us to the cruel truth revealed in Matthew Desmond's expose of America's private rented housing market – evictions are an essential part of making it a lucrative business

FOR many of us, there's a simple way of escaping a dystopian condition: we just close the book. Do that with Matthew Desmond's Evicted, however, and we just...

Blog: Trapped In A Glass Box With No Dial Tone

BT phones home

When Mark Cantrell learned that BT is planning to scrap half of its national network of public telephone boxes, it brought back memories of the time he found himself stuck in one…

SO there I was, trapped in a glass box.

Some joker had kicked the door to the phone booth; jamming the thing in its frame in such a way that this poor sap was never going to get it open. I’d only just picked up the handset to discover the phone was out of order. When, bam!

Yeah, I jumped....

News: British Library Investigates Virtual Future

Towards a single public library in cyberspace

IMAGINE a future where Britain's physical libraries are a thing of the past, writes Mark Cantrell.

No, this isn't a dystopian foretelling of a post-austerity age where cutbacks in public spending have stripped away such civic amenities. Instead, it's a vision of a singular nationwide virtual library; accessible anywhere there's a wifi hotspot.

That may not be quite the dream of the British Library and its backers, as it looks to explore the possib...

Blog: UK Indie Lit Fest Proved A Real Treat For Bradford Book Lovers

So let’s hear it for the #indiearmy

In a marketplace dominated by big publishers, indie authors and small presses often struggle to be heard, writes Mark Cantrell . But last week’s UK Indie Lit Fest in Bradford provided a friendly forum for them to find their voice – and some readers

YOU can take the man out of journalism, but it seems you can't quite take the journalism out of the man. There I was, attending the UK Indie Lit Fest, with a new novel – Citizen Zero –...

Society: Poor Men In Their 40s More Likely To Live Alone

Poverty makes for poor bedfellows

Life on low incomes is proving a singularly poor existence in more ways than one for men in their early 40s, claims a new study from the Institute of Fiscal Studies...

IT can be a lonely life for the poor, especially men, if a study by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) is anything to go by, writes Mark Cantrell.

The working paper, Intergenerational Income Persistence Within Families, explores the importance of family background for household income. Relea...