Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 44
May 3, 2015
NEWS: WWF Warns Of Deforestation
Where have all the forests gone?
THE Earth's forests are being destroyed by a pernicious parasite – us.
If we don't curb our rapacious appetites then more than 230 million hectares of forest will disappear by 2050. That's not good news for the creatures that dwell in forest habitats; it's not that good for us either, given we rely on forests to help maintain the climate that makes this world fit for human habitation.
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But there you go; we're ch...
April 30, 2015
BLOG: Don't Tell Porkies, It's National Honesty Day
Would I lie to you?
APPARENTLY it's National Honesty Day – no, I've never heard of it either – so I guess it was in the spirit of truthfulness that a PR firm sent me their top ten list of porkies high street estate agents allegedly use on bewildered home hunters.
Well, okay. Said PR firm was clearly after a free mention of their client; a certain lettings agent called Rentify. So there, you got the plug. I guess that makes me a sucker for this kind PR 'clickbait'; or maybe...
April 25, 2015
NEWS: Don't Get Scalded On The Artwork
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GLASS can be a stunning material, but when two artists wanted to create a sculpture that observers could interact with, becoming part of the display, the material was simply too unwieldy to sculpt and shape on such a scale.
That's especially true if your artwork is inspired by molten glass – you don't want to scald your audience to death – so artists Mark Hursty and Victoria Bradbury opted to use a nylon material to c...
April 19, 2015
POEM: Age Has No Meaning
By Mark Cantrell
Old... old, you say?
You call me old,
You,
Young sperm,
Still wet behind the flagellum,
Bathed still in the
Seminal fluid of a rise to blinking
Vapid, consciousness?
I shall tell you, tender shoot,
I am not old,
But ancient,
So ancient indeed that beyond
Time and measure
Do I find youth eternal.
Ageless and timeless, I am,
Ebbing, surging, with vigour,
While you, young sperm,
Still beat your tender tail
Against the flow of seeding,
To reach your place of spawning,
Whence...
March 28, 2015
BLOG: Yes, I Dabbled
Mark Cantrell Interviewed on The Dabbler
"When that first rush of inspiration gives me the idea for a new story has got to be the best part of it all. It really is a rush when a fresh idea strikes. It’s like a burst of mental lightning that fires up my brain and crackles down my arm; it’s always a frenzied occasion, scribbling down the thoughts and ideas as fast as I can, and yet the mechanics of my arm never seem quite enough to keep pace with that fizzing cr...
March 21, 2015
POEM: Bad Luck Vampire
By Mark Cantrell
Love's a bitch
For Vampire Man,
Every time
He meets his Queen,
Cupid's Arrow
Stakes his heart,
Crumbling him to
Dust.
Mark Cantrell,
Bradford, 31 August 2002
Copyright (c) August 2002. All Rights Reserved.
March 15, 2015
BLOG: Manchester Uncanny
By Mark Cantrell
ONE thing that often strikes me about Manchester as I walk through the city centre is its almost 'London borough' vibe – and I don't mean that in a good way.
The city has transformed itself over the last 15 to 20 years, and that process continues apace, shifting the appearance and nature of this former industrial metropolis. Look out of the window of the office where I work and towering over the remains of the city'...
March 7, 2015
POEM: A Shade Of Photo-Chemical Amnesiac
By Mark Cantrell
Old photographs
Show moments of time frozen,
A window, from where faces of history
Can stare unknowing at the present.
Their time has gone.
Their bodies rendered dust,
Scattered by the hands of time, and
Long since dispersed by the breeze of
Rushing days.
Still, these portraits of captured light
Prevail to say...
Nothing,
For there is nothing these chemical
Ghosts might say,
There is no word nor thought
They might comprehend of these days
Born beyond the era of...
February 26, 2015
POEM: Dressing Things Up
By Mark Cantrell
Sane,
Is ever so sartorial,
Don’t you think?
The way it’s worn cuts such a dash,
In the fine rush to catch
Convention.
One might think, from this,
The Sane-about-town suffer such a fret,
About the reaction of the crowd.
Insane, now there’s something else,
A bold flourish,
An organic miasma,
A flirty little quirk, dancing with eccentric
Punctuation, through the clauses
Of the norm.
Good old Insane, now there’s a style
Well-worn,
Pul...
February 14, 2015
Blog: Ticket Inspectors From Mars
By Mark Cantrell
TAKE the historic occasion of the first manned landing on Mars, throw in two science geeks working on a project in their lab at a Californian university – and the scene is set for an idea I wish had exploded into my head.
Quite what you make of the subsequent two-volume novel by Peter F Hamilton is neither here nor there – brilliant space opera, or turgid sci-fi (personally I run with the former) – but I would...
