Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 47
June 22, 2014
BLOG: Driven To Distraction
Clutching at chores
There's a time and a place for everything, but these days a writers' time and headspace are being devoured by a rapacious brood of craft-hungry cuckoos that forever want more MORE – and this blog is one of 'em...
BLOG when you've got something to say, that's what I reckon; otherwise you'll just turn your writing activity into a chore that will choke your creative spirit.
If you're a naturally chatty person, then great: there are writers for whom daily blog...
June 7, 2014
PROSE: First Principles Of An Acid Bath Murderer
Don't try this at home, no really By Mark Cantrell
Neighbours being too noisy, work colleagues getting on your nerves, the local politician has given cause for annoyance? Well, a cosy chat over tea and biscuits can go a long way to resolving life's little annoyances...
Ensure that the bath is of an appropriate size.Obtain sufficient quantities of sulphuric acid. Remember bulk purchases bring the benefits of economies of scale. Only use your debit or credit card if...
May 31, 2014
FEATURE: The Bedroom Tax Is A Political Crime
With malice aforethought: The makings of a political crime The bedroom tax doesn’t have to make sense, not even to its creators, because when all is said and done it’s a policy designed to punish people for a politically manufactured crime, writes Mark Cantrell in this cover article from the December 2013/January 2014 edition of Housing magazine
WHEN you stop to think about it, there is something actually quite ominous about a minister of state who simply decides one day that thou...
May 25, 2014
CITIZEN ZERO: Stripped Of Their Human Rights
So, with that headline above, and the associated news item listed below, we encapsulate one of the major themes of my dystopian science fiction thriller, Citizen Zero.
In the novel, British society has become dangerously divided between rich and poor, with the creation of an excluded underclass numbering millions. The divide is policed by the mechanisms of a surveillance state, of which the welfare state (as we currently...
May 24, 2014
NEWS: Orwell Award For Social Evils
Orwell prize looks into the dark heart of social evil HERE'S a little something that's out of my league, in all my writing respects, but it's interesting nonetheless – and one can always aspire.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has teamed up with The Orwell Prize, the UK's most prestigious prize for political writing to launch the equivalent for journalism that gets to the heart of social issues.
Suitably named, it's called The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's S...
May 15, 2014
POEM: For The Fury Of A Blood-Thirsty Deity
By Mark Cantrell
So it spirals,
Howling high in frenzied lust,
The bitter cry of vengeance.
Violent rage, violent acts, all
Fuel the fire of fury,
Until nothing remains
Of Reason, real or but imagined.
Unjust hurts stoke the ire a’plenty,
Until both sides' cause is lost;
Collateral damage lying butchered in the crossfire.
Exit blocked, buried,
Piled high in victims’ corpses,
And no hands willing to clear the way
To peaceful resolution.
Where now the scales of just...
May 9, 2014
CITIZEN ZERO: Manufacturing The Future
With the Coalition austerity programme and welfare reforms effectively making enforced destitution a matter of Government policy, it might be argued that ministers are actively manufacturing the underclass known as zeros that feature so prominently within Citizen Zero. Many of the links below relate to this with, with stories about how social exclusion and hardship is actively promoted…
Swindon Advertiser, 2 April 2014
Police called out to...
May 4, 2014
POEM: Once A Fool
By Mark Cantrell
If you want to make a mint
In the midst
Of a gold rush,
Don’t dig yourself a hole,
Sell the shovels,
And the props,
To the saps in the pit.
The same applies,
It must be said,
To those poor deluded souls
Who dream of literary gems.
There’s no gold in them there slush piles,
But sell ‘em a pen,
Some paper,
And a pocketful of hope,
Then there’s a penny or few to be made,
Out of literary fool’s gold…
Mark Cantrell,
Stoke-on-Trent,
31...
May 3, 2014
CITIZEN ZERO: More On The Prequel
Welcome to another batch of links culled from the media and various websites. As before, these represent what might be called the backstory to Citizen Zero. Taken together, and they present a chilling insight into the world of the novel…
Centre for Medical Humanities, 10 December 2013
Whistle While You Work (For Nothing): Positive Affect as Coercive Strategy – The Case of Workfare
In this post, Lynne Friedli and Robert Stearn l...
April 19, 2014
POEM: Thinking Through
I like to think
I have opinions
Well-formed and worth a
Shout.
As I grow older,
I realise
They are but the burbling
Of an ill-fed mind,
Growling for some substance
To digest.
Malnourished, I am, in cogitating,
But it doesn’t stop my
Dreadful bouts
Of woeful opinionation.
Mark Cantrell,
Manchester,
24 May 2006
Copyright © May 2006. All Rights Reserved.
