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Pocketinns, the New York-based operator of a European travel marketplace site, opens an initial coin offering (ICO) Monday, Jan. 15, to fund the development of a broader peer-to-peer marketplace. PocketInns says it has registered its ICO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an exempt securities offering under Rule 506c.
Pocketinns operates the Umbrella Project, a vacation rental marketplace site that operates in Europe with, according to the company's ICO press release, over 50,000 rental properties throughout Europe. Founder Sarva Mada told BlockTribune last month that the service has about 10,000 users.
Pocketinns aims to turn the Umbrella Project into "an autonomous ecosystem with no central point / middle man," taking on a list of incumbents that includes Airbnb, Amazon, Uber and GrubHub. The company describes its approach as "a Netflix-like monthly subscription monetization model that can empower users to trade any product and service, from vacation rentals, to ride sharing and ecommerce, without the need of a third-party."
Pocketinns is issuing an ERC20-compliant token (PINNS) "to facilitate every aspect of the transaction."
"By employing a blockchain-oriented model, we can return control to those doing the transactions: the buyers and sellers," Mada said in a statement. "Our vision is to allow consumers to reap the full rewards of the business they conduct without being held hostage to unfair transaction fees and privacy violations. Allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other has always been a vision for the cryptocurrency community. The vision is turning into a reality and it's a beautiful thing."
Pocketinns plans to issue a total supply of 150 million PINNS tokens, floating 30 million of them in the ICO, which is open to accredited investors and "is compliant with federal anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) standards," the company says. The ICO will be structured as a reverse Dutch auction, running Jan. 15 through Jan. 31, or when a hard cap of US $46 million is reached. In reverse Dutch auctions, issues begin with a high price that declines over time. The minimum purchase is 1 ETH. There was no presale or private sale. Tokens offered in the ICO that remain unsold after the close will be destroyed, the company says.
Pocketinns says it has "comprehensively audited" its own smart contracts.
To find out more about PocketInns, go to http://pocketinns.io.
- Nobody Wants to Use Crypto Tokens: SelfKey Found a Workaround - July 3, 2018
- Is Ethereum Apple? Or Is It IBM? - May 22, 2018
- China's JD.com to Open Blockchain Accelerator - February 26, 2018
- Tezos Board Shake-up: Gevers Steps Down - February 22, 2018
- NZ Company Announces Security Token ICO - February 22, 2018
- NnBU Plans €15m ICO to Fund an on-Chain Neonatal Medical Device - February 21, 2018
- This Week's ICO Pick: Refereum Has the Momentum, Not the Mechanics or the Market - February 6, 2018
- This Week's ICO Pick: Bee Token (Analysis) - January 30, 2018
- 7 Must-Ask Questions for Crypto Investors - January 30, 2018
- New EOS Fund Pools $325M From Novogratz & Block.one - January 23, 2018
- ICO Picks and Snow Shovels, This Week (Plus 7 Red Flags) - January 23, 2018
- The ICO Winter Has Arrived: Analysis & Data - January 21, 2018
- TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington Joins Crypto Token Aelf as Advisor - January 17, 2018
- ICO Picks This Week: Bluzelle Review Plus 16 Red Flags - January 17, 2018
- Pocketinns to Open SEC-Registered ICO - January 15, 2018
- ICO Picks & Red Flags for This Week - January 10, 2018
- INS Closes $42M ICO for Decentralized Grocery Delivery - December 27, 2017
BLOCKTV is the premier televised news source for the blockchain and cryptocurrency community. They are a live, 24/7, TV news channel dedicated to premium reporting on the blockchain and cryptocurrency markets.


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Emile Raubenheimer is an avid entrepreneur, speaker, strategist, and training facilitator. His passion for economic stimulation and new venture creation inspired him to start a capital and advisory business in 2015.
The Innovation Age is transforming everything we believe about business. How we think about work, assets, strategy and competitive advantage. Change is the father of uncertainty. Change is the norm in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Siyon Capital Pty (Ltd) was established as a niche consulting firm to help businesses navigate this revolution.
With their proprietary methodologies and approaches, they partner with you to identify, create and implement key improvements that enable your business to thrive in this ever-changing environment. Their team of professionals and advisors work with all levels of your business through every phase of the process to ensure successful delivery of your goals.
He enjoys sharing his thinking and experiences as he guides start-ups and established businesses to realise their full potential.
He is a firm believer in African solutions for Africa and the world.

subset: commoncrawl


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Predictive Analytics
For many businesses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are new concepts. Here we explore Microsoft's AI and machine learning capabilities via Microsoft Azure and SQL Server to help prep, build, deploy and manage machine learning models as part of a data and analytics landscape.
By Oct 21, 2019 on


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10/10/19 This is an incredibly interesting/horrifying article in the New York Times:
The Most Detailed Map of Auto Emissions in America
by Nadja Popovich and
This map shows you the levels in growth of total emissions and per person since 1990 in various urban areas around the US. It's awful. But not hopeless! Look around your community for answers and get on board!
In celebration of the new fixed route transit system that started in my town this Monday, I am posting a link to a re-broadcast of a really wonderful radio program about mass transit: On the Media's show, "Whose Streets?"


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The Pine City Area Chamber of Commerce serves as the organizer for the Freedom Fest event held on the last weekend in June each year. The event is made possible through the efforts of various organizations that serve Pine City throughout the year.
Participating organizations meet on a monthly basis to share updates on the variety of events that they are hosting. All organizations that provide activities are locally-based service organizations and non-profit groups that use Freedom Fest weekend as a great summer fundraiser opportunity.
If your organization would like to take part in the event, please contact the Pine City Area Chamber at 320.322.4040.
Save the Date for Next Year! June 24 – 28, 2020
Register for the Freedom Fest Triathlon
Register for the Amazing Race
Special Thanks to these 2019 Freedom Fest Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Frandsen Bank & Trust · Pine Insurance Agency
Pokegama Lake Association · Knights of Columbus · Stearns Bank
Bronze Sponsors
American Legion Auxiliary · Currie, Pangerl & Associates
North American Title Co · Northwoods Bank
Pine Technical & Community College · Spire Credit Union · US Bank
VFW Post 4258 Auxiliary · WCMP Radio


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Death Also Tangos
A Tale of New Bern
By: Margaret Oberhausen Ryan
About the Book
What's more painful than a leg injury from the war in Afghanistan? In Death Also Tangos, Max Manning, the police chief in New Bern, NC, can't decide which hurts more—his leg or his heart when Olivia Lovette, his childhood sweetheart, calls to report an intruder. Olivia has inherited her aunt's decaying ballroom built in 1880. Fred Bannon and Amanda Murphy, drug smugglers with ties to the Irish Mafia, want to tear the ballroom down and build high-end condos. They try to sabotage the renovation of the ballroom and attempt to lay the blame on a homeless veteran, Andrew Holmes.
But friends of the ballroom are devoted to saving it. Jack Porter had loaned Aunt Grace money to save the ballroom from auction, but now Olivia is deeply in his debt. Carlo, an Argentine artist and tango teacher, is creating a lasting memorial to his late wife by painting her portrait on the ballroom wall. In addition, he befriends Andrew and teaches him to dance despite his badly injured feet.
When Max's new detective, Margo Saunders, makes a connection between the intruder at Olivia's house, the attacks on the ballroom, and the murder of her brother five years ago, Fred Bannon sets explosives outside the ballroom, determined to blow it up. Instead, Fred is found dead in the alleyway behind the ballroom.
Will Max and Margo find the killer? And will Max again win Olivia's heart?
About the Author
In this first novel, Margaret Oberhausen Ryan writes about characters who find strength, healing, and love in the discipline of ballroom dance. Like her characters, the author also found solace in dance when she began ballroom dancing lessons at Rivertowne Ballroom in New Bern, NC, after the death of her husband of forty years. As a retired high school English teacher, Ms. Ryan turned to writing as a hobby and is presently working on a second novel. She lives in Chocowinity, NC, with her husband Joe.
(2018, Paperback, 186 pages)


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A mental health trust has apologised to families after a critical review of 10 killings found that it underestimated the risks posed by some of its patients.
The review was commissioned by Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust and NHS England in March, and examined homicides linked to patients of the trust between 2007 and 2015.
The trust provides NHS mental health, specialist learning disability and substance misuse services across and outside Sussex.
The review looked at nine killings by patients and the case of one patient who was killed while in the trust's care.
The review, published yesterday, was carried out by Caring Solutions UK.
In two of the nine cases, the homicides were judged to be predictable or preventable. The main common factor in the incidents was the need for improvement in risk management and risk assessment.
Trust chief executive Colm Donaghy said: "On behalf of the trust, I want to extend my sincere apology and condolences.
"We commissioned this review with NHS England because we want to make sure we have done everything we should have in response to these tragic incidents.
"The review sends us a very strong message about the need to identify and embed the learning from when things go wrong in a way that changes clinical practice and improves patient care. This goes beyond action plans; it's about organisational culture, values and leadership."
Jan Fowler, director of nursing and quality at NHS England South said the point of the review was not to reinvestigate cases but to assess the trust's response to homicides involving people in its care so lessons could be learned.
She said: "The review provided some recommendations for NHS England around how we can improve future investigations. We have already started work on these to ensure we have the right processes in place to help to improve care for patients."
Recommendations for the trust
- Monitor the implementation of the care delivery service structure and the use of the safeguard serious incident recording system to ensure the investigation management and implementation of action plans are consistent with trust policies, processes and systems.
- Provide assurance and evidence that learning from all recommendations is fully embedded across the organisation in a timely manner.
- Ensure clinical staff have dedicated time for making notes and record keeping; that staff record the rationale for the clinical decisions they make; and use risk assessment and formulation to inform relapse planning.
- Investigate the feasibility of technological solutions to make it easier to complete records and improve productivity, such as the use of voice recognition technology.
- Develop a checklist of key requirements based on the themes identified in the report, to be used at all care plan approach reviews.
- Evaluate the impact of training and education.
- Implement the "triangle of care" approach to involving carers in the care and treatment of service users and achieve membership of the national programme within 12 months.
Recommendations for local commissioners
- Specifying that providers carry out audits of quality rather only using electronic systems to count the number of times things are done.
- Specifying that providers carry out patient safety auditing of basic practice – eg: recording, assessments and risk management planning.
Recommendations for NHS England
- Requiring independent investigation teams to produce no more than three high impact key recommendations. If the team considers that more are necessary, these should be listed in order of priority for improving the service/reducing the likelihood of recurrence.
- Investigation teams should be told to focus recommendations on outcomes rather than processes when the serious incident framework is next revised.
- NHS England should hold discussions regarding access to specialist services such as neurobehavioral services.
Caring Solutions UK report
Source date
18 October 2016


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Gujarat Borosil an Indian solar glass company that supplies up to 90% of the domestic crystalline solar panel market has called upon the Indian government to introduce anti-dumping measures on solar glass, pv magazine has learned.
Pradeep Kheruka, vice chairman of Gujarat Borosil Ltd, told pv magazine at the Intersolar Europe show that the solar glass industry in India cannot compete with subsidized materials entering the Indian market, and has petitioned the government to introduce measures designed to create a level playing field.
"Manufacturers in Europe and the U.S. cried foul on the whole anti-dumping business, and so have we in India," Kheruka said. "We can compete on quality and supply, but we are completely taxed. The competition, on the other hand, is subsidized. All we want is a level playing field."
Led by Borosil and a handful of Indian solar cell and module manufacturers, Kheruka revealed that a petition to impose anti-dumping duties on solar glass has been recommended by the Ministry of Commerce. The decision now rests with the Ministry of Finance.
"Just like in Germany, when there was a very vocal body opposing the establishment of anti-dumping in the EU, in India we have the same: a very vocal, very robust body of people who feel that anti-dumping duties on solar glass should not be introduced," said Kheruka. "Their enthusiasm is misplaced."
In May, the Indian government recommended the application of anti-dumping duties on solar cells and modules imported from China, Taiwan, Malaysia and the U.S. The government's report on the matter found that only three Indian solar companies Indosolar, Jupiter Solar and Websol Energy Systems did not benefit from importing dumped goods. Those same three companies brought the anti-dumping complaint before the Ministry of Commerce.
While Kheruka stressed the importance of retaining a competitive domestic manufacturing base for the entire Indian solar chain, others have criticized Indias export strategy, claiming that bold capacity expansions saddled many solar companies with huge costs they were never able to recoup.


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The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has launched its newest leadership initiative, Value of Investment (VOI), which was created to help district-level technology decision-makers assess the costs and evaluate the benefits of proposed technology investments before making acquisition decisions. The VOI Web site provides a set of rigorous assessment tools to assist education technology leaders articulate the benefits of their projects. The site's Project Cost Estimator tool helps decision-makers calculate the cost of and identify potential savings from proposed projects. There's also a Project Benefits Worksheet that helps school leaders demonstrate how these investments can help achieve educational goals. Additionally, the site outlines a five-step approach for determining the true value of investment...
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CNN Student News has expanded the availability of its daily 10-minute broadcast on Headline News through a video podcast. CNN Student News, CNN's cost- and commercial-free educational program for middle and high schools, is the cornerstone of Turner Learning and uses the vast resources of CNN Worldwide to create news and informational content specifically for the classroom. CNN Student News airs on Headline News during the weekdays throughout the school year at 3:12 a.m. (Eastern time). The show is also streamed for the Web...
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As users clamor for more applications and data usage grows in your schools, the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) offers a way for you to simplify your data center operations and speed up your response times. Learn how from K12 IT experts.
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Cindy Crawford on Her Son's Runway Debut at Moschino [MADE LA]
We've never looked up "legend" in the dictionary, but we have a feeling that if we did, we would find two words: Cindy Crawford. The original supermodel and mom-you'll-never-be was at the Moschino show last night, helping to ring in her son Presley Gerber's first fashion show. She brought her daughter, Kaia, along to celebrate, and when they emerged backstage, all seemed to go still. Thankfully, we were able to catch her during a lull for a few chill minutes.
Will your daughter be walking in the show tonight, or is it just your son?
My daughter's actually not walking; she's only 14! But my son, over there, it will be his first show.
Amazing! His first show ever?
Yeah his first show ever. But I love it that it's for Jeremy [Scott], because it's fun and it's young and it's cool. And it'll be good to watch! So it's great.
How does it feel watching your kids follow in your footsteps?
Look, I just want them to do whatever they want. I think it's been fun for them to see a little bit of what I do and get a taste of it. And they also realize that it is work, but also how many great people you get to meet. They're developing their own relationships and it's fun!
Have you been to any of Jeremy's shows before?
No, I don't think I have been to a Jeremy show.
Are you excited?
Stay tuned to Milk for more from MADE L.A.
Lead image shot exclusively for Milk by Byron Spencer. Second image shot exclusively for Milk by Andrew Boyle.


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"A Meeting of the citizens of Forsyth County, irrespective of party, will be held… to take counsel together on the alarming condition of the country. "South Carolina has seceded from the Union. Commissioners from Alabama and Mississippi are now at our State capital inviting North Carolina to do the same thing. A great question is […]
Archive for June 30th, 2013
Counting on 'safety in the voice of the people'
Posted in Just A Bite, tagged forsyth county nc, nc secession, winston nc on June 30, 2013 | Leave a Comment »


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After the skin is injured, in certain cases the healing process can leave a raised or a depressed scar. However, not all wounds will leave a scar. Normally very superficial wounds do not leave scars, provided that the healing process is smooth and there are not significant infections. It is important to understand that generally, … Continue reading Keloids
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Posts Tagged 'rare groove'
The Hate Inside The Inkwell
Posted April 10, 2013on:
A couple of weeks ago, I joined in a discussion with fellow posters on The 'Spill music blog on the issue of developing a fondness for music your partisan allegiances may once have instructed you to disdain. While citing my enduring contempt for Spandau Ballet's True, I recognised that some affection has grown atop my identification of its vices, that I indeed now love the song for having been there for me to hate for so long. Even its specific offences – the overwrought, meaningless meaningfulness of lyrics like I bought a ticket to the world/ But now I've come back again – seem pardonable teenage misdemeanours with three decades of music listening as hindsight.
Precisely how I feel about an old pop song is neither here nor there, but it got me thinking about malignant creative influences. When asked to cite the influences that helped shape the writers, artists or even just the adults we have become, it's natural to accentuate the positive. The writer I grew into certainly carried with him the early introductions to Shakespeare, Orwell and Harper Lee; the exposure via John Peel's radio show to Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Cooper Clarke and Ivor Cutler, or via The Guardian and The Observer to James Cameron, John Arlott and Michael Frayn; the schoolboy aspirations to be Dickens, Fitzgerald, Conrad. But the transitions that occur throughout a life don't happen as a victory parade; we also evolve by mutation, and among the many factors that shape us are our corrosive emnities.
I find little use for Hate these days, not proper hate, gut-knotting, blood-curdling; the thought-through hate; the uncut hate. There's a quote from Joseph Conrad which reminds me of why he was one of my teenage literary heroes:
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
It's a line I push to creative writing students now, the majority of whom were not alive in November 1990.
"And death…where is it?"
He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death.
In place of death there was light.
"So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy!"
Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death Of Ivan Ilych encapsulates Conrad's point. Ilych is not a likeable nor especially admirable man, and he is in possession of a considerable range of foibles. Tolstoy shies away from none of this in presenting Ilych's life but, as the character slips towards death, our compassion is engaged. Beyond identifying with his struggle to comprehend what is killing him, and the despair in being forced to accept its irreversibility, we embrace Ilych fully in his final moments. When all the competing pressures are removed – around how to live, what to strive for, what greatness to achieve and what a signficant person to become – Ilych is able to free himself from the fear of death [above] and share with each of us the beautiful insignificance of our lives. And that really is the place to get to, since it's where we're all going.
Nobody this week has tried to make the case that Margaret Thatcher's life was insignificant.
In my 2008 short story, A Different Sky, I wrote a scene set in November 1990 featuring some dancing in the street that may foreshadow some of April 2013's transgressive street parties:
Max saw Will on the other side of Leece Street, by the hole-in-the-wall 'Dog Burger' bar, so he placed a clenched fist high in the air as a salute. Will crossed the road carefully, then skipped the rest of the way, pumping both his fists.
'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YEESS!' he yelled at Max.
'Oh my God!' Max shouted back, 'I can't believe it – finally!'
'Eleven years, man – e-lev-en years.'
They stood and laughed in each other's face. 'I really can't believe it,' Max said again. Will ran on the spot. Max took Nelson out of the pram and raised him up towards the sky, like a scene from the adverts for Gillette.
Some might say that the day Thatcher left her office as Prime Minister was the right day for dancing, although it wasn't us forcing her out but her erstwhile seemingly sycophantic Cabinet colleagues, and the Conservative government we opposed didn't end for another six-and-a-half years. So that moment, in May 1997, might have been the right time to celebrate. Except tempering the euphoria was the awareness that the newly-elected Labour Party had become a very different being since Thatcher re-framed the national debate. Tony Blair's goverment just had to show up to appear more socially progressive than John Major's "Victorian family values" and Thatcherite policies like "Clause 28", Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, which sought to prohibit teaching and educational materials promoting the acceptability of homosexual relationships and which must seem to young people today like the basis for a Horrible Histories song. However, Blair styled himself as Thatcher's political heir and New Labour's economic and foreign policies remained true to her ideologies, while the retention of power underscored comparable authoritarianism. The salutations this week when an octagenerian dementia-sufferer died from a stroke, that we'd at least seen off the Devil of our age, can't have gone unaccompanied by the understanding that, if Maggie Thatcher was ever a crusader against the welfare state, a symbol of social division and an enemy of the poor, then there's a mob of millionaires who are very much alive, determinedly in charge, and bringing in divisive policies that exceed even her grandest follies. The time for dancing would have been when we'd defeated her politically, but our moment of victory never really came, and my 1990 revellers in A Different Sky unwittingly acknowledge this:
When [Nelson] came to rest on Dad's shoulders, he could now see the top of another man's head and there was hardly any hair there at all, just two grey patches at the sides. The man was walking past Dad and Will but he stopped for a moment, and his stiff grey suit made their denims seem even more soft and crumpled.
'Great day, isn't it, lads?' the man said.
Will adjusted his voice to register his upbringing rather than his residence. 'Absolutely, sir. Ding-dong, the witch is dead – now if we can just find a way to get rid of Bush and get out of the Gulf, we'll be sorted.'
Blessed not only with the hindsight with which I was writing but also the ongoing, austere repercussions of the banking crisis, those wearing party hats to next Wednesday's funeral will know that the song they're singing is really the elongated whinge of the defeated. We know that, if this is a political argument, it's one that has played itself out. For her political opponents, the rap sheet against Thatcher was long throughout her time in office and, thanks to the 30-year rule on the release of Cabinet papers, the next few years could see it lengthen. We also know that she became a lightning rod for some historical and technological shifts that would doubtless have rolled by in any case; that, as Ian McEwan acknowledged in The Guardian, "there was often a taint of unexamined sexism" in the willingness to characterise her as a grotesque; and that dislike of her policies and personality morphed into a perverse fascination and a creative energy. We can look back on the Thatcher era with calm, rational minds, accept that she engaged with ideology, measure her power in terms of progress and damage; but the emotions her politics inspired remain in unbridgeable encampments.
Interviewed on the BBC website about his 2004 novel of the 1984-5 miners' strike, GB84, David Peace commented on the impact of Thatcher's confrontation with Arthus Scargill's National Union of Mineworkers, whom she claimed represented "the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight [than the Argentinian "enemy without", defeated in the Falklands War] and more dangerous to liberty.":
It wasn't the strike that changed lives and communities, it was the government policy and the forces they brought to bear upon pits and communities in order to close pits that changed lives. I think it's hard for people in 2004, especially younger people, to understand the levels of sacrifice that people underwent in mining communities during 1984/85; the loss of, on average, 9000 pounds per miner, 11,000 arrested, 7000 injured, two men dead – that men and their families did this in order to defend not only their own jobs and communities, but also those of other men in other pits and communities. Those pits and communities are gone, organised labour is gone, socialism is gone and with it the heritage and culture that held people and places together. That government and their policies changed everybody's lives, not only the ones that had the courage to at least stand and fight.
GB84 is a brilliant piece of writing and an exceptional work of multi-layered storytelling. Reading it was also one of the most unpleasant experiences I've had with any work of literature, so effective was it in pitching me right back into the moment of the miners' strike, the high point of defiance against Thatcherism and the decisive factor, as Peace says, in bringing to an end the influence of organised labour in British political life. Hate was thick in the air supply then. In a suburban South London sixth form, nowhere near the war zones of what were still considered mining communities, I experienced feelings of solidarity and venomous hostility towards classmates based on their relative views on the strike. It was a daily consideration for over a year, the country felt like an emotional furnace, and it was nasty. Reading Peace's novel, it was a shock to be reminded of how much hate had governed everyday life, but in the midst of the Thatcher years, the strike was just the most full-throated expression of the hate that muttered through the 80s.
I don't think it was Maggie Thatcher who taught me how to hate. For a non-white kid in a British city in the years after Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, politicisation came early. The occasional insult in the street didn't hurt much but it alerted me to racism, gave me – by way of the National Front – a focus for my nascent fear and loathing, and directed me (following my big brother's tastes) to a mainly musical kindergarten for our political education. The Tom Robinson Band were stalwarts of the Rock Against Racism movement and were magisterially right-on, pushing anti-racism alongside feminism, unionism, opposition to police brutality and gay liberation. The anti-authoritarianism of Punk packaged hate in a discordant rage and cynicism that would have suited Thatcherism but related to the grey overture of the Wilson/Callaghan Labour years: entrenchment in the Northern Ireland 'Troubles', the strident pomp of the Queen's Silver Jubilee and the Winter of Discontent, along with the rise of the NF. As formative to a clenched-fist political identity as The Clash were, though, nothing would give vague left-leaning beliefs such focus and purpose as Thatcher's response to the death of Blair Peach.
In the weeks before the 1979 General Election, in which the National Front fielded over 300 candidates, the Party staged a campaign march through Southall, one of the areas of London most synonymous with immigrant settlement. Peach was a white New Zealander, working in London as a teacher, and part of the anti-racist counter-protest which clashed with riot police. Though it took 30 years for the Metropolitan Police to issue even this basic acceptance of claims made at the time, Peach was beaten to death with a blow to the head from a police officer. I was approaching 12 when this happened. I was not world weary. I had not seen it all. I was shocked and chilled that racism had got so bad that they were now killing white people to protect it. And then Mrs Thatcher, campaigning to be Prime Minister, offered her understanding of the situation:
"People rather fear being swamped by an alien culture."
The man was dead and her compassion was for the racists who decided I didn't belong in the only country I'd ever known. Ten days after Blair Peach's head was caved in, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. She'd give me plenty of reasons to stoke that hatred over the years but it was there from Day One for me, and for millions of others who refuse to be hypocrites by joining in the steel toe-capped hagiography in progress, and the millions who promised themselves they'd live to see this day but didn't make it. It's political, but it's always been personal.
I can testify that Thatcher was an immense influence on the reasons I had to write, on the things I chose to write about, on the decisions I made about what I wanted from my writing life and very likely the things I wouldn't do in the interests of a writing career. But hating Maggie Thatcher isn't a sustainable creative impulse. She did, though, make me take care to choose my words. So I won't waste next Wednesday mourning her passing. If there's a glass to be raised, I'll raise it to Blair Peach.
I've found that people who've read stories by Roberto Bolaño tend to have stories to tell about Roberto Bolaño. These stories are inevitably about ourselves, our own life stories and the stories of those in our lives.
The first time anyone ever told me about Bolaño was when I had a chance meeting with my friend K, on Bold Street, which anyone in the Liverpool art scene knows is the street on which chance meetings are inevitable, so not really chance at all, and it's really the only place I see K these days. K is a Glaswegian former Situationist, a playwright and DJ – at the legendary Eric's in the punk era and on Toxteth pirate radio stations in the 90s, which is when I got to know him well, though our paths had first crossed as adult literacy tutors in the back end of the 80s. He set up the annual African and Latin American music festival in Liverpool and I'm used to him recommending artists to me whose names sound like songs – Orchestre Baobab, Oumou Sangaré, Lisandro Meza, Zaiko Langa Langa – and, to be truthful, the words "Roberto Bolaño" similarly washed over me as a melodic statement rather than a name to follow up. What did stick with me was that there was a buzz about a novel by this writer, that the work was unfeasibly ambitious and certainly messy but, K told me, "some of the things he does with prose" justified the hype. Slightly closer attention to the susurrus from the literary salon told me that the novel was Bolaño's five-part, posthumously published 2666, so I got hold of a copy. In the spring of 2009, I began reading it in the café of Liverpool's World Museum while waiting for a meeting about the Charles Darwin-inspired Evolving Words workshops I would be facilitating there over the summer.
The story of how I came by Bolaño now becomes a different story, not really a story about friendship and meetings and work and time, but a story about writing; it's about reading and it's about being a writer; it's about being this writer and not being that writer. That's why I am using these stories as a preamble – in case you were losing faith in my remembering the title of this post – to talking about Bolaño's short story, A Literary Adventure from the similarly posthumous 2008 collection, Last Evenings On Earth: because any story I tell about Bolaño should rightfully mention the story about when I was reading 2666 and my head spun round in a complete circle.
I began reading with thoughts of K's paean about the quality of ideas in the prose. For eight-and-a-half pages, I was conscious of the lack of spectacle. The writing was fluid, engaging, and the story was interesting. I don't know what exactly I was looking for – I had the experience built up as something akin to a first hearing of a musical revolutionary like Sun Ra or Ornette Coleman, but what might that be like in prose fiction, with words on the mortuary slab of a page? If a work of prose is like a building, then in these early few pages I was still in the hallway of the prose, able to admire only the basic masonry and door hinges of the text. Then, on page 9, a character called Liz Norton, an English academic in an Oxford college, began reading a novel by an obscure German writer, Benno von Archimboldi:
She read it, liked it, went to her college library to look for more books by the German with the Italian name, and found two: one was the book she had already read in Berlin, and the other was Bitzius. Reading the latter really did make her go running out. It was raining in the quadrangle, and the quadrangular sky looked like the grimace of a robot or a god made in our own likeness. The oblique drops of rain slid down the blades of grass in the park, but it would have made no difference if they had slid up. Then the oblique (drops) turned round (drops), swallowed by the earth underpinning the grass, and the grass and the earth seemed to talk, no, not talk, argue, their incomprehensible words like crystallized spiderwebs, or the briefest crystallized vomitings, a barely audible rustling, as if instead of drinking tea that afternoon, Norton had drunk a steaming cup of peyote.
[translation by Natasha Wimmer]
And that was when my head performed a 360.
The willingness to perform prosal trapeze acts is the facet of Bolaño that first grabbed me but even the rococo stylings of the above passage give indications of some of the staple concerns in his writing. There, creeping in at the last in the reference to peyote, is the Latin American sensibility, one that is dropped – here via the Englishwoman reading the "German with an Italian name" – into a European setting where such identities drift, maybe disappear, maybe re-settle, often co-ordinate themselves in a foreign place around a sense of artistic belonging, yet are always in the grip of home. Bolaño was 20 when, on September 11th 1973, General Augusto Pinochet's CIA-backed coup deposed the government of Salvador Allende and proceeded to brutalise the Chilean people for the next seventeen years. As one of the exiled, Bolaño carried into his writing the certainty of impermanence – endings rarely provide closure – and the sense that somehow life is a thing that's already been lost. As liver failure led towards his early death, aged 50, this must have darkened the shadows under each tender observation of the artistic existence.The disposition towards melancholia related to exile and to illness but it was there in Bolaño's essential literary condition, that of the lesser known poet. From the passage quoted, you can see that poetry underpins his prose. Fiction was also the strategy he turned to in order to achieve a modicum of financial success – to support a young family – of the kind poetry had never been able to provide him. Key to the first story you are told about Bolaño is his intended structuring of 2666 as a series of separate books to be released as posthumous publications over successive years, ensuring a regular dribble of revenue. When the time came, the decision instead to polish up the working draft of the fifth book and publish them all in a single volume was vindicated by the subsequent Bolaño fever, which in turn made his previous writing viable again. He even started to be recognised as a poet. As a commentary on this writing life, it was a very Bolaño-like plot development. Wry observations on literary fortunes, bordering bitterness, run through much of his writing. How could he have had success as a poet? He was a Chilean poet in exile and the world had already placed Pablo Neruda in the single occupancy vehicle that was Chilean poetry in exile. Bolaño's own idol was Nicanor Parra, a pricklier presence in Chilean poetry, in whose lines (as below) we can get a sense of Bolaño's own poetic disposition:
I Take Back Everything I've Said
Before I go
I'm supposed to get a last wish:
Generous reader
burn this book
It's not at all what I wanted to say
Though it was written in blood
It's not what I wanted to say.
No lot could be sadder than mine
I was defeated by my own shadow:
My words took vengeance on me.
Forgive me, reader, good reader
If I cannot leave you
With a warm embrace, I leave you
With a forced and sad smile.
Maybe that's all I am
But listen to my last word:
I take back everything I've said.
With the greatest bitterness in the world
I take back everything I've said.
[Nicanor Parra; translated by Miller Williams]
It's possible that a story like A Literary Adventure, translated by Chris Andrews, might seem a meandering tale of obsession, a more loosely-structured take on Edgar Allen Poe's seminal shadow-chaser, The Man Of The Crowd but without the pay-off of Poe's final, frustrated confrontation. This is more than a case of Bolaño spinning a shaggy dog story: the marginalised writer moves with a shambling gait through most of Bolaño's stories, whether as stand-ins for the writer himself, or personified by the almost mythic figure of Archimboldo, or emerging from the pages of forgotten literary journals picked up in thrift shops by the characters in the short stories. It's not difficult, as a writer, to relate to such figures because we all have our sense of marginalisation; of being overlooked in favour of other lesser, or if not lesser then luckier, or if not luckier then simply younger talents; or of – whatever level of satisfaction we may have with our own relative status – griping that there is insufficient regard for what we do because the public is misdirected as to why, how and what to read. For the most part, these miseries can be absorbed, comfortably and productively, into a world-view laced with a generous and genial scepticism but Bolaño provides catharsis because he never absorbed that stuff: it bounced straight onto the page.Benjamin Samuel, blogging about literary feuds, cites Bolaño's pronouncement on the Argentinian writer, Osvaldo Soriano: "You have to have a brain full of fecal matter to see him as someone around whom a literary movement can be built."
It's in this context of affronted ego mixed with wounded self-doubt that A Literary Adventure takes shape. As elsewhere in his short stories, Bolaño's protagonist is simply identified as B. There is an antagonist, as unwitting a nemesis as the suspicious-looking old man trailed by Poe's narrator, referred to as A. These may well be substitutes for Bolaño and a specific contemporary, but they are archetypes as well. A is:
a writer of about B's age, but who, unlike B, is famous, well-off and has a large readership; in other words he has achieved the three highest goals (in that order) to which a man of letters can aspire. B is not famous, he has no money and his poems are published in little magazines.
I know I'm a B; to my friends and acquaintances and Facetwitter whatever whatevers, if I'm more in the A category to you, then I beg your forgiveness but, you know, you should get out more because there are some real As out there and each of them considers his or herself a B in relation to someone else again. The details that inject this story with the pain of a chord played by Victor Jara are phrases like the "in that order" ranking of writerly aspirations, or the heartbreaking diminuitive "little magazines". So personal disappointment is fused with a righteous sense that success is lavished on the undeserving, or that it corrupts. B notices "a sanctimonious tone" appearing in A's writing as his recognition grows and it's this pomposity he attacks when creating Medina Mena, a thinly-veiled representation of A, for one chapter of a novel he is writing (presumably because poetry isn't paying). The novel is picked up for publication and sent out for reviews. A is a reviewer – an influential one, at that – and he loves B's book. While singing its praises, he appears not to recognise, or at least publicly to acknowledge, the satirical version of himself B has written.
The story revolves around the moral crisis A's enthusiastic review triggers in B's conscience and imagination. The layering of speculation upon assumption here is an utterly believable depiction of B's mounting paranoia:
He's praising my book to the skies, thinks B, so he can let it drop back to earth later on. Or he's praising my book to make sure no one will identify him with Medina Mena. Or he hasn't even realised, and it was a case of genuine appreciation, a simple meeting of minds. None of these possibilities seems to bode well.
Neurosis makes for great, bleak comedy and there's a Picaresque feel – B as a hapless Gulliver in the land of Spanish literature – to the way the plot spools through B's efforts to get to know A and thereby get to the truth of exactly what he felt about the Medina Mena character. There is the publication of B's second novel and A's equally warm, though suspiciously swift, review of that. There is a party in which a meeting with A seems about to take place in a dark recess of a garden which Chekhov might have fashioned to represent a soul in torment. And there are phonecalls made at inappropriate times, visits planned, voices overheard, all of which seem to be inching us towards a resolution.
But B's identity as a writer must leave agonies like this unresolved. This story isn't what matters anyway: what matters are the stories that happen in the corner of your eye while you're keeping watch on something you should ignore. When following A but deliberating on whether to try to speak to him, B goes to a restaurant and, for a few minutes as he eats, we sense a respite from the literary frustration that's eating away at him. Could the story have been here instead?
B sits down next to the window, in a corner away from the fireplace, which is feebly warming the room. A girl asks him what he would like. B says he would like to have dinner. The girl is very pretty. Her hair is long and messy, as if she just got out of bed. B orders soup, and a meat and vegetable dish to follow.
The next sentence – "While he is waiting he reads the review again." – sucks him back into his grim quest but in that sliver of life in the restaurant, that moment of survival and possible hope for more than mere survival, we glimpse the beauty of Bolaño's storytelling. We get that his stories and our own swim around one another, with beginnings that are impossible to trace and no resolution in the endings, just these moments that happen on the way to the end.
My good friend O, a songwriter, guitarist and drummer, was another Chilean who left the country after youthful struggles against Pinochet. Before he arrived in Liverpool, he spent some time in Spain, where A Literary Adventure and other Bolaño stories are set. He hasn't read Bolaño but he has a story he wants to tell about the beautiful Madrileña daughter who recently stepped out of his past. I want him to read Last Evenings On Earth as he sets about writing down his stories. Because he's in Bolaño's stories and because Roberto Bolaño is in his. Because that's the way Bolaño's writing works: it's intravenous. I read Bolaño and I glimpse beauty in small moments of survival but I read Bolaño and I feel the volume of self-doubt that's in all writers' libraries easing itself off the shelf and dropping onto my lap. And that's too overwrought a metaphor, isn't it, making the process sound like The Sorcerer's Apprentice. And I've made this blog too long so readers will probably cut out after they click on the Sun Ra link I inserted earlier, so then that'll be yet another thing to add to the list of all the other things.
S is for Shut Up and Deal
[also for Spoiler if you've never the seen the film, so beware…]
Writer/director Billy Wilder, co-writer I.A.L. Diamond, and star Jack Lemmon had combined two years earlier (with Joe E. Brown delivering the killer line) to create the immortal "Nobody's perfect" dialogue at the end of Some Like It Hot. In 1960's The Apartment, there's something approaching perfection in the stuttering path Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine take, through endless work and love-based misdirections, to the romcom moment of epiphany depicted at the start of this closing sequence. But from the moment MacLaine enquires after the deck of cards, the brief remainder of the film becomes an outstanding example of letting the action speak for itself, that any writer would do well to heed. Yes, Lemmon attempts a gushing declaration of love but he's cut short and handed the deck: "Shut up and deal." Note MacLaine's expert shuffle, a story in a few hand movements, and then, as the end credit appears, the way Lemmon follws that instruction, cards flying everywhere and bliss taking hold:
T is for Twist…Bust
Shirley's just dumped Fred McMurray to see in the 1960s with you, she's got the pixie haircut and she's wearing that dress…those cards aren't getting picked up anytime soon – it's not as if you're playing Felix in The Odd Couple for another eight years. Should Jack and Shirl eventually return to their game, they might get round to playing some blackjack, and they'll know that, when you're aiming for 21, if you twist too many times, you could end up bust. T could be for Tortuous Analogy because, as in card games, so it is in the short story: twist if you need to, but exercise caution. Writers approaching the short story via a Tales of the Unexpected, Guy de Maupassant or, indeed, Scooby Doo route, might believe that a twist in the tail is essential to a short story's DNA.
Maupassant's influence, as one of the 19th century architects of what we now understand as the short story and the leading pioneer of the twist (and you thought it was Chubby Checker!), is powerful. Yes, he may wrong-foot the reader, but his characters aren't constructs purely for the purpose of concealing the surprise at the ending: these are people living real lives. In The Necklace, the unfortunate, impoverished Mathilde, having borrowed a glittering diamond necklace to mask her poverty when attending a function related to her husband's work, loses the necklace and she and her husband spend ten years raising the funds to buy a replacement to give back to the owner. The twist is that, when the owner has the dreadful secret explained to her, she tells Mathilde that the original necklace was a cheap fake. It's a shock to the character, definitely, but the story isn't about that shock: they've crippled themselves with debt and worked hard for ten years to pay for something they could have replaced for less than 500 francs – that's a story about how crap life is when you're skint. It's not a twist at all: it's a boorish, droning inevitability. Get the reader to understand your story, and the ending may momentarily startle but it won't seem to have come from nowhere. Set out at every turn to fox and confuse your reader and it won't just be the disgruntled old retainer in a phantom mask who's plotting your downfall.
U is for "Uno, Dos…Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro…"
Gil Scott-Heron's spoken count-in to The Bottle; Little Richard's "A Wop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bam-boom" into Tutti Frutti; George Harrison's double-tracked guitar intro to I Wanna Hold Your Hand: if they were short stories and not songs, they'd read something like –
And then, after six years, she saw him again.
[Katherine Mansfield, A Dill Pickle]
Your father picks you up from prison in a stolen Dodge Neon, with an 8-ball of coke in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat.
[Dennis Lehane, Until Gwen]
Miss Cicely Rodgers strapped her cock and balls into the Miracle Deluxe Vagina, which was made from skin-like flesh-coloured latex and came with fully adjustable straps to ensure a perfect fit and to hide any last sign of maleness.
[Alexei Sayle, Who Died And Left You In Charge?]
V is for Velázquez
It wasn't just that he'd paint a dwarf as well as a Pope. It was that the depictions of the Dwarf Francisco Lezcano or the beggars and lowly workers, in the grounds around the royal or papal palaces, were proper portraits, investing the subjects with dignity unattainable in everyday society. It was also that Pope Innocent X could be portrayed in such a storytelling way, the terse, malevolent executive overflowing with human power but without too much divine grace in evidence. Stories can work like paintings in as many ways as there have been artistic movements, but the humanity in a Velázquez should be high on the list of aspirations.
W is for Watermelon
Thank you, the sex was lovely and, as you know, I've been very keen for it to happen for some time. And how delightful that the hotel puts watermelons in the room – so refreshing! I'm going to cut myself a slice. Would you like one?. I tell you what – this is lovely, but those black pips get on my nerves.
In Chekhov's The Lady With The Dog, none of this is spoken by the male protagonist, Gurov, to his titular sexual conquest. He does cut himself a slice of the watermelon, which he eats slowly. And then Chekhov creates an image so excruciating, it's enough to put you off the fruit for life: "At least half an hour passed in silence." Girls, if he's not at the very least asking you whether he's got any pips stuck in his teeth within the first ten minutes, (a) get the message and get out of there, but not before (b) you shove the rest of the watermelon into him, not sliced up, and not necessarily via his mouth either.
X is for X-Ray Spex
Acknowledging the passing of Poly Styrene and celebrating the concise characterisation displayed in Warrior in Woolworth's:
Y is for Yeast
That idea you've got, that you think would work in a story but you've not got a plot yet, or characters, or a setting or a way to begin or end it. It's still there, still at work, and it'll grow, so give it time.
Z is for Zelda Fitzgerald
The epitome of the writer's muse. The ethics of drawing from your own life, and thereby the lives and personalities of those who share that life, are in a constant state of push-me-pull-me within each writer. You use your non-writing hand to wipe away the tears shed at the worst moments of your life because the other hand's twitching for the nearest pen. Zelda was not simply a muse but an incisive writer herself. Scott knew this, of course, but does the selfishness required by a writer instinctively seek to overshadow this apparent equity in their relationship? Is there room for a second writer in your house? I'm only asking because I write short stories for a living, and I think my landlord might have got wind of this….
L is for C.S. Lewis' 5 Tips for Clear Writing
I was reminded of this list when it was posted on a Facebook page for creative writing students at Liverpool John Moores University, where I've been luxuriating in short story pursuits since the end of September. The notable thing is not just how much good sense there is in each of these tips, but that Lewis was directing his advice at children, the assumption being that writers will then reach adulthood having dispensed with the bad habits counterposed here. Either they're starting adulthood a lot later these days or the message needs to get louder:
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the clean direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean "More people died" don't say "Mortality rose."
4. In writing, don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is "terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers "Please, will you do my job for me."
5. Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
M is for Mr Benn
On holiday in Madrid and Toledo in 1996, only the second time I'd been abroad since moving to Liverpool over ten years earlier, my writing brain started finding points of connection with David McKee's fancy dress time-travelling adventurer. I was writing predominantly about cultural identity at the time, for performance poetry and for an MA, and the pivotal narrative mechanism in each Mr Benn story – he changes his clothes; steps through a doorway and becomes embroiled in the dramas of a strange foreign environment; changes their lives; then he gets reminded who he really is and he returns with only a memory – seemed to offer a loose parable for the co-mingling of 'otherness' and belonging experienced when a second generation immigrant becomes a British tourist abroad. The thoughts found concrete expression when I introduced a Mr Benn twist to the story of San Miguel de los Helados, written after going for an ice cream in Toledo and representing the first time my increasingly prose-shaped poetry took off its bowler hat and donned the apparel of a short story.
Aside from the delightful stories, brilliant illustrations, the iconic cartoon it spawned with Ray Brooks' narration and a soundtrack by some of Britain's finest jazz musicians of the time, Mr Benn provides handy shorthand for a number of narrative tropes and archetypes. Festive Road is a terraced row of pathetic fallacy, in which the mood of the street and its inhabitants echoes something in the fantasy world Mr Benn will find. Our hero may as well be carrying a loaf of bread in his briefcase, sitting in the park all day feeding the ducks, and then going home at 5 o'clock to tell his wife (if we're allowed to speculate that he has a wife) he's been hard at work, when in reality he was laid off months ago: what does he do in his bowler hat, suit and tie other than take it off in the fancy dress shop? But this sense of him being as escapee from office and suburban humdrum is a huge part of his appeal. The device of the shopkeeper popping up "as if from nowhere" is, at first glance, textbook deus ex machina but this is a text in which Mr Benn too steps out of a machine to resolve the crises he encounters. His role is typically that of a Dr Who bringer of knowledge from other worlds or a mellower version of the ghostly inspector in J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls, forcing the community to examine itself. The shopkeeper's intervention, then, is not to impose an artificial or divine solution but to represent reality's yoke, leading Mr Benn back to that terraced treadmill.
Don't get me started on the psychosexual undertones in Judith Kerr's The Tiger Who Came To Tea!
N is for Pablo Neruda
from I'm Explaining A Few Things
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.
I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.
[…full poem here…]
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
O is for Osiris
Because when you're in the world of words and stories and ideas about words and stories, you sometimes need a purgative, a palate-cleanser, and joining in the chorus of this funk monster should do the trick:
P is for Periphery
What's everybody looking at? That's not where your story is.
Q is for Quite
Or fairly, a number of, several, a few…
The trouble with omniscient narrators is that they think they know it all. No, actually, we think they know it all, we depend on that – it's what we trade our hard-earned suspension of disbelief for. So when the narrative tells us that a place is "quite far away" or that there were "a few" people in the bar, there's got to be a pretty good reason why we're not being told the precise distance or number of customers. There was a pretty good reason for me using "pretty" to modify good in that last sentence – two, in fact: one, because it gives the tone of the blog the sense of motivational speaker urgency that seems to go down well; and two, because it sets off a little Larry David in my head, saying "Pret-tay, pret-tay, pret-tay good!" and that makes me smile. All these weak adjectives have their place, of course, when you need an adjective to express a personal attitude towards a quality or quantity being described, but if you want to give your reader information, and you want them to pay attention to that information, then if it's quite important that it's quite accurate, you're diminishing your intended impact.
R is for Rainy Day In The Park
Bruce Robinson's 1987 film, Withnail and I, ends with this, the moment Richard E. Grant will carry with him as evidence when he's claiming a comfortable seat with which to see out the afterlife. Forget everything you know and have ever quoted from this film. Go to that park, stand in that rain, see that man with the umbrella, hear him shouting, and then listen to what he's saying – your story starts where this one stops.
E is for Emotional Choreography
A line I'll often throw out to students facing the construction of their first ever short story is to think of as simple a plot as possible, then make it simpler. If someone is telling you the summary of their short story plot, by the third or fourth "and then…" alarm bells are ringing out. Any short story, even the most fleeting vignette, requires a plot, whereby the characters do things, or things happen to them, or things are revealed to the reader, in a particular order – it's just not always helpful to try to break it down in those terms. The idea of emotional choreography can be more useful when talking about a story in which little takes place in the way of external action or happening but we are witness to a shift in the internal state of the character(s), and the writer's job is to arrange the steps by which they experience this shift. In Mansfield's A Dill Pickle, the action can be summed up in terms of Vera unbuttoning and then rebuttoning her coat, with a conversation in between, but the emotional choreography is worthy of Gene Kelly.
F is for Forbrydelsen
In 1995, Steven Bochco's Murder One unravelled a single murder trial over 26 hour-long episodes. In a TV world in which the biorhythm of any crime was that it should be solved with time for a bit of banter at the end within the space of one hour, where the feature-length deliberations of Morse had seemed an impossible luxury, Murder One's progress towards the truth, led by Daniel Benzali's Teddy Hoffman – the shaven-headed, ursine embodiment of Raymond Chandler's line "Down these mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid" – seemed more in keeping with the complexity and level of commitment we'd expect from a novel. When novelistic TV series, like The Sopranos, began to roll out of HBO and the other US networks, Bochco's innovation receded into fond memory. Once high production values, narrative complexity and mumbled articulacy had become familiar to drama viewers, the crime-solving drama moved towards being the type of quality pulp that enabled you to switch your brain to autopilot without feeling you'd surrendered it to a tribe of reality show producers.
First airing in its native Denmark in 2007, but only reaching the UK when it was shown at the start of 2011 on BBC Four, Søren Sveistrup's Forbrydelsen (The Killing, but the poncey insistence on the Danish also serves to differentiate it from the patchy US remake) took on the police procedural genre. While crime, in general, and police procedural or criminal psychologist narratives, are staples of the fiction bestseller lists, as well as the TV ratings, and while "fiction bestseller" equates to novels rather than short stories, it's also possible to argue that the Whodunnit is a pertinent model for short fiction. Getting to the truth, or a good enough truth to enable us to move on, is as much a short story reader and a Chandleresque detective-figure can hope for over the course of a story. Forbrydelsen's first series ran for 20 episodes, but each episode represented one day of an investigation into the murder of a teenage girl, and one day at a time in the grieving process of her family. So, while it had a similar novelistic scope to Murder One – and in Sofie Gråbøl's Sarah Lund, a shrewd, sensitive, tunnel-visioned Sam Spade for our times, and for the future series of the drama to come – it often carried itself like a short story. As one example, Lund's relationship with chewing gum is a crucial aspect of Gråbøl's performance but it's one never given overt reference in the script: we just see her chewing her way through the barriers – bureaucratic, emotional, political – that hamper her progress towards the truth. The correlation between her chewing and the stress tells us enough so that when the frustration piles up to the extent that she bums a cigarette from her colleague, Jan Meyer, an arc, reaching back to way before we knew any of the characters, is completed.
G is for Gil Scott-Heron
For all the reasons discussed here, and for the story told in a lyric like that for Pieces Of A Man:
Saw my Daddy meet the mailman
and I heard the mailman say,
"Now, don't you take this letter too hard now, Jimmy,
'cos they've laid off nine others today."
But he didn't know what he was saying.
He could hardly understand
that he was only talking to
pieces of a man.
H is for Hunger
"Come on."
"Bit of a break from smoking the Bible. Eh?"
"Oh aye."
"Anyone work out which book is the best smoke?"
"We only smoke the Lamentations – right miserable cigarette."
"Nice room."
"Very clean…"
Hunger is Steve McQueen's 2008 depiction of the 1981 IRA hunger strikes and dirty protests in the Maze prison, culminating in the death of the IRA prisoners' Commanding Officer and newly-elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender). The film, drawing on McQueen's background as a Turner Prize-winning video artist, deploys the essential short story technique of observed detail to extraordinary effect, so much so that the genuinely harrowing scenes of filth, brutality, a shocking assassination and Sands' lingering demise acquire a perverse luxury through the beautifully patient storytelling. The heart of the film, for which co-writer Enda Walsh deserves credit, is a 17-minute dialogue between Fassbender's Sands and Liam Cunningham's Father Dominic Moran. With just one change of shot after ten minutes, we are able to focus on the dialogue's humour, tension, tragedy and politics, not to mention the relief – for us and, we can empathise, for Sands – to have this break from literally wading in shit. This clip is just the first chunk. There are breezeblocks of exposition in fiction – and then there's this expositional sculpture:
I is for iPadding
Nothing at all wrong with first person narrative. Nothing wrong with streams of consciousness nor with charismatic narrators who are the stars of their own stories. Writing what you know: tip-top advice. We often enter into the process of writing short stories as an act of self-expression or memoir; we come via the poetic statement that's acquired a narrative; via the anecdote; via life's epiphanies or forks-in-the-road. And when I say "we", we write "I". "I" in fiction can be a Nick Carraway or a Charles Ryder, the unremarkable foil to the Gatsbys and Flytes that absorb the light throughout those novels. But "I" can also be an obstruction to any given scene or story. A writer can wrap themselves around every detail so every piece of information about place, action or other characters comes to the reader already evaluated and filed under a particular conclusive emotion. It can make for a narrative effect similar to having someone sitting next to you, talking all the way through a film you're trying to follow, not only drowning out the dialogue but explaining the plot as well. Simple(-sounding) solution: get "I" to step back and allow us to see the sunset, the actual sunset and not just what "I" thinks about the sunset – we know "I" can see it, otherwise we wouldn't have it narrated to us, so we get very little from "I looked across to the West and saw in the sky a beautiful sunset."
J is for Johnny Cash
When you can sing a song like this, you'll get a great reaction from any audience, but when you're stuck in Folsom Prison or, as the crowd is here, in San Quentin, then the visit of a country&western superstar, singing songs about the life you used to lead and the one you've got now, will be a story you'll be telling each other every day until your release, and every day thereafter. Confinement is a key to short fiction. One night in a cell might get you enough material for a short novel, if you're Roberto Bolaño (By Night In Chile), and a train journey might provide you with a murder mystery novel, but you'd beter hope that train's the Orient Express: for the 13.34 from Irlam to Widnes, you're going to need a short story. A restricted temporal or spatial setting alerts the reader to the idea that what happens here and now matters: what's being described is not leading you to anything or anywhere else more important so stick with it, pay attention to every clue and, eventually, you're going to find that sonofabitch that named you Sue.
K is for Stanley Kunitz
His last published poem, written and performed here at the age of 100. "What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire." This is a poem that anyone, but especially each and every writer, needs to "remind me who I am" and this video is a short story in itself:
There's no bettering Kurt Vonnegut when it comes to articulating the nebulous pursuit of a philosophy of writing. The objective of this series is to express nothing as grand as a writing philosophy nor as self-defeating as an attempt to pin down the ingredients of my, or anyone else's, fiction. This is just a glossary that will gather together a series of creative touchstones in order to locate a system of shorthand for "the things I mean when I say the things I say that make you say 'I guess you had to have been there' when I say things about short story writing." It's not a reading list, because it's clear that continued, wide and deep reading offers its own best system for understanding how writing works, but it rounds up some of the other stuff: the not-always-literary, bespoke moments that become the mantras.
In some of these, I'll be reprising ideas I've floated in previous posts but shall include here so you can cut the pixels from your screen and reassemble them in a handy binder to file next to your Oxford English, your Roget and your dutiful copies of Will You Please Be Quiet, Please
A is for Albert Brooks in Broadcast News
It's for everything he does as Aaron, the flop-sweating, unrequited, intellectual pinnacle and moral centre of Taxi creator James L. Brooks' 1987 TV newsroom satire-cum-romcom which, if it didn't directly influence Drop The Dead Donkey, recent BBC drama The Hour and Aaron Sorkin in general, must have slipped something into their water supply. But it's mainly for this contender for both the Film Speech You Most Wished You'd Written and The Line You Most Want To Come Out With In Real Life, namely "Don't get me wrong when I tell you that Tom, while being a very nice guy, is the devil." An object lesson in how to make an enduringly salient point about capitalism and managerialism within an act of romantic emotional grandstanding, and it even finds a way to reference the subversion: "How d'you like that? I buried the lead." If you've never been Aaron in this scene, you have no place at my table. If you're Tom, see you in every workplace in the land next week; don't forget the twee bloody biscuits you insist on bringing to the team meetings.
B is for the Bridge in A Night In Tunisia
Charlie Parker on A Night In Tunisia performs a precarious highwire act to get from the tune's main theme into his opening solo. It's one of the most famous "bridges" in jazz history. The composition of fiction can have a fractal quality as you visualise the story in discrete moments or plot points. Crossing the bridge from one of these moments to the next needn't be as spectacular as Parker makes it but without a successful crossing, the coherence of your piece may never recover. There isn't a single method for crossing your story's bridges: sometimes it'll be a compact, unfussy, functional action or description; sometimes you might want to elaborate. But knowing that you have these crossings to make can be the important first step.
C is for Cup of Tea
We've been here before: If I don't care about the character when he or she is making a cup of tea, I'm not going to care when s/he's saving the world.
D is for dice and women and jazz and booze
Beale Street by Langston Hughes
The dream is vague
And all confused
By dice and women
And jazz and booze.
The dream is vague
Without a name
Yet warm and wavering
And soft as a flame
The loss
Of the dream
Leaves nothing
The same
And D here dovetails with another significant inspiration from Langston Hughes, his narrative for the Charles Mingus jazz piece, Scenes In The City, a pitch-perfect portrait of low-rent bohemia, chiseling out a recipe for survival from a life of struggle, shortage and disappointment: "And with the blues, whether I like it or not, I love the idea of living."
Family and your favourite bands provide you with the love affairs you'll have to make do with until it's time to have love affairs with real people. They do not qualify as real people themselves, living in symbiosis with your sense of self, and your commitment to them is, accordingly, contingent on neither party changing, growing, maturing or ever really improving. There is a subtly chilling moment in Frode Grytten's Sing Me To Sleep in which the 40-year-old narrator remarks on the sartorial evolution of his idol, Morrissey, as a preamble to a description of himself getting ready to go out:
I can see from photographs that Morrissey has got older too. His hair is quite short now, but he still has sideburns, and he's started to wear Cox loafers and Gucci coats.
Morrissey is so bloody stylish. He always has been. He has more style than the whole pop industry put together. Some people think that he lost it after The Smiths, but that's just bullshit. He's still got what it takes.
I put on my black suit, a black t-shirt and my NHS glasses. The same glasses that Morrissey is wearing on the gatefold of Hatful Of Hollow.
Even though Morrissey is allowed to grow up and reflect his affluence in his dress style, the obsessive Smiths fan remains locked within the mid-80s uniform for disconnected young men and women.
Grytten's story provides a superb example of a first person narrative in which the narrator manages to be a three-dimensional character whom we can study from all angles, rather than an avatar of the author. An example of the avatar-narrator might be Rob, from Nick Hornby's novel, High Fidelity, whose list-making attitude to music, first, and then other people, is an indoors version of the football-watching, psychological self-portrait Hornby painted in Fever Pitch. Autobiograpical details aren't a factor: Grytten is a 40-something from the small Norwegian town of Odda, where the story is set, with a quiff and glasses (more Richard Hawley than Morrissey) and a taste for 1980s post-punk and indie music, but the maudlin, stilted, repetitive prose, that we see in Kari Dickson's translation, serves first to build the character and then throw him towards the definitive moment in his life: the death of his beloved mother.
In this way, the short story has much in common with the dramatic monologue and, although Alan Bennett's Talking Heads are unlikely ever to quote from Please Please Let Me Get What I Want or the other Smiths lyrics peppering the text, we can recognise Grytten's narrator as a Scandanavian cousin of the Bennett creations. The main difference, though, is that the Talking Heads talk to us, whereas Grytten's character is largely talking to himself. He details the regimen of care for his mother and his accompanying feelings about her love for him, the devastation of her divorce from his belligerent father, the prospect of her death and how that will leave him bereft yet liberated – and we witness his affection, infuriation, shame and pride at the same time as he admits these feelings to himself. So, if you like, we are watching his soul in performance – very much in the vein of a solo work of drama – but the short story additionally has recourse to movement and action, the new dynamics that come with a change of scene; and Sing Me To Sleep makes the transition from character study to a classic, plot-driven Quest in less time than it takes Johnny Marr to take the tedious self-pity in a Morrissey lyric and transform it into something heroic.
Sing Me To Sleep is a contender for future analysis in our Reel Time Short Stories series as it's been adapted for the screen in a 2010 Polish/Norwegian co-production, the watchful, ruminative longeurs of Polish cinema a good partner for the breathing spaces inhabiting short fiction. Grytten's narrator and his mother share a mutual frustration at the life each other has ended up with, and this results in a sad, tender paso doble in their dialogue which leads to him blurting out the lie that he has a girlfriend, and that he'll bring her to meet his mother the next day. It's the moment when drama replaces characterisation, and it draws comparison with Wolfgang Becker's 2002 film, Goodbye Lenin, in which an East German son nurses his loyal Communist mother back to health while hoping to prevent the news of the Berlin Wall's collapse from shocking her into a relapse; in the Grytten story, the narrator has to navigate the understanding that, were his mother to die overnight, this would save him from his lie, but that finding out the truth would kill her, and he'd be the murderer. Another connection can be made with Paul Auster's short, Auggie Wren's Christmas Story – which has also appeared on film, within Wayne Wang's Smoke with Harvey Keitel as Auggie – a seasonal tale of a palliative white lie between people who understand that the fantasy provides all the truth that's going to be needed in that situation.
As well as the plot, the settings in these comparable narratives shape what's being told. The tumult of Berlin in 1989 and the enduring affection Auster repeatedly display for his Brooklyn neighbourhood are what makes those stories happen. This is no less the case with Sing Me To Sleep, which appeared in Comma's 2007 Elsewhere anthology of stories from small town Europe. Odda is the source of conflict and it's the relationship that will never change, the love affair that will never provide relief or escape. While his mother's demise is inevitable and the changes Morrissey has made to his look and his music can be celebrated, when Odda changes to become the Anytown that all our towns and cities are marketing their way towards, it only provides more confinement:
I have an inner picture of Odda, and it's a beautiful Odda, a dirty and rusty and old Odda, but a beautiful Odda all the same. I don't want to see the other Odda, the new Odda that is trying to be not-Odda.
"The rain falls down on a humdrum town," somebody once sang. Until the clouds break, if ever they will, or you find some rain in a town less humdrum, bringing a fake girlfriend home to fool your dying mother can be the action of a hero.
Some content on this page was disabled on March 29, 2019 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Acephoto. You can learn more about the DMCA here:


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CommonLit's greatest asset is its library of texts. With hundreds of short stories, news articles, poems, primary source documents, short plays, fiction excerpts, and nonfiction pieces for middle- and high-school students, there's something for every student! CommonLit's library will help expand your curriculum with quality resources and plan for new, exciting units.
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A Fine Italian 19th-20th Century Baroque Revival Style Carved Walnut Figural Wine - Storage Cabinet. The elongated carved body centered with a single door with an amber glass inset and a wrought iron grill decoration, concealing eight interior drawers, flanked on each side with carved figures of bearded male guards, gargoyles and a pair of Corinthian columns. The scrolled base with a single drawer. Circa: Florence, 1900.
Height: 84 inches (213.4 cm)
Width: 50 inches (127 cm)
Depth: 24 inches (61 cm)
Ref.: A2356 - Lot 10179


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"Failure made me look forward to the next game. If I had a bad game, I couldn't wait for the next day, when I could brush off the failure and try to do better." —Gary Carter in Still a Kid at Heart: My Life in Baseball and Beyond
The book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck made me look at the people around in a whole new way. The results of her studies show people approach life in one of two ways (or a mix of both): with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
As Benjamin Barber says it, people are learners or non-learners.
People living in a fixed mindset believe their abilities, like intelligence or talent, are inherited and fixed. They evaluate their intelligence and believe it cannot be changed. They give up on music lessons because they don't believe they inherited the "gift" of musical talent. They document their abilities, but they don't spend any time developing them.
When people choose to live in a growth mindset, they work at developing their abilities through perseverance and hard work.
People who live in a fixed mindset believe that when they fail at something it means they are a failure. They don't want to be seen to fail; they perform routine, repetitive tasks they know they can manage instead of risking more challenging tasks at which they might fail.
When growth mindset people fail, they use it as an impetus to work harder and to try new approaches. Their resilience leads to success.
When I read the quote at the top of this post, I know Gary Carter had a growth mindset; his failures led him to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Thomas Edison had a growth mindset; his failures led him to lightbulbs and other fantastic inventions. J.K. Rowling had a growth mindset; her many rejections led to my favourite Harry Potter books.
Sometimes we inadvertently encourage a fixed mindset in others when we measure success only in terms of winning or losing, or when we try to protect our children from the pain of failure. When soccer teams don't keep score so no team "loses," or when schools hold "leaving ceremonies" instead of graduations, the result is a washout of mediocrity.
We definitely encourage a fixed mindset when we see intelligence and talents as inherited and fixed. When math teachers believe students either "get" math or not, and sport coaches favour a certain physical build over a determined athletic spirit, they pass over gold mines of potential talent.
The good news is that the first step to progressive change is accepting that we have a problem. We can ask ourselves, "Do I want to stall myself, or my kids, or other people kids, in a fear-filled miasma of mediocrity? Or do I want to keep growing and getting better and taking on new challenges even if it sometimes hurts when I fail along the way?
We can teach our kids that to fail is to succeed because that means they are out there doing something. We can teach them to feel the pain and then extract lessons from their failures. We can teach them that a single failure doesn't define them and that there's always room for growth.
We can teach them to do the hard stuff with excitement and not a fear of failure.
"If you only go through life doing stuff that's easy, shame on you." —Patricia Miranda


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Our Miami, FL, Indoor Party Place Gallery
At Bounce Play World in Miami, FL, we take the stress out of planning a birthday party for your kids. While you may have turned your own home into a party place for your children's prior parties, the setup and cleanup can be exhausting, and you may not be able to invite as many friends as you'd like for the big day.
Our team of skilled party professionals at Bounce Play World helps you every step of the way, from a free party planning consultation to choosing the right party package for your needs to taking care of everything the day of the party. And with our spacious indoor party place with abundant kids' entertainment and amenities, you're sure to have a great time. Check out our indoor party place gallery below to see our space, amenities, and entertainment for yourself!
Playgrounds and rock climbing wall
Our party activities at Bounce Play World include something for everyone. From our safe and clean toddler play area to our larger playground and rock climbing wall, kids will have plenty of space to get out their energy on the day of the party. Our trained staff works with kids to teach them how to use the rock-climbing wall, safely belaying them as they climb and rappel back down. For those who have never climbed, it can be a fun and challenging experience that helps fill them with confidence.
Party games
For older kids (and adults at the party), we have a pool table, air hockey, ping pong, and video games, offering options for all interests and all ages. Face off against your kid on an air hockey team, keep adults entertained with some pool, or just let the kids have all the fun playing video games and ping pong.
Bounce houses
Our large bounce house and basketball bounce activities are a great way for kids to get energy out and stay entertained. With a large platform area and safety netting around the sides, kids can have fun tumbling and jumping without getting hurt.
Food packages
All of our party packages come with snacks and pizza for the kids, with options to upgrade to a range of delicious food options for adults. We have unlimited sodas, a cotton candy cart, and a popcorn cart so no one gets hungry throughout the party. We can then provide pizza for all the guests or serve adults with arroz con pollo y maduro, moro con lechon asado y yuca, baked ziti, or other delicious options. Plus, we have coffee on hand to help you keep pace with the kids!
Face painting and other entertainment
If you want to add additional entertainment to your kid's party, Bounce Play World can provide fun activities like face painting, a visiting princess, a clown show, Create-a-Bear activity time, and other fabulous add-ons. Check out our party packages and party extras to learn more about options for your kid's next birthday party! Contact us in Miami, FL, to learn more!
Call for a free party planning session!
Why Party With Us?
- Trained Party Hosts
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- Exclusively Private Party Space


text: London Film and Comic Con 2018! Always one of my very favourite shows to do and as usual, ShowMasters pulled out all the stops to promise one hell of a HOT line-up. The guest list was huge but to name a few, David Duchovny, Peter Capaldi, Jason Momoa, Christopher Eccleston, Meat Loaf and Steven Seagal. …


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Kitchen table decorating ideas picture is needed to give you an advance view to plan your own kitchen, especially when you have a new house. Kitchen is the main part of the house because many kinds of delicious meals which can complete your desire are made there. Besides, the family can do many activities there together for example trying new recipe. When you want to build your own kitchen, you have to think about the concept, design, area, and especially the budget plan. This article will give you short planning concept to build your own kitchen.
In this modern era, many people like something simple and stylish, no exception for the kitchen decorating. Simple and stylish concept does not very complicated to be done and it does not need high cost or big area. You can also ask for an advice from your friends that have currently remodeled their kitchen. As alternative, ask an architect who expert in this areas. You can discuss the right model of the kitchen which matches perfectly to your house.
However, if you want to do something new in exploring your own concept, you can use this information as your kitchen table decorating ideas. The first idea is a kitchen table which has size 400×313 cm. It can fit in your house or apartment. This kitchen table is very simple which surrounded by six chairs, but very stylish with the detailed ornament and the rectangle shape.
This idea will make your dining to be more enjoyable, especially when you have a chat with your family. The perfect size of kitchen table will make the communications go smoothly while you share the meals. Hopefully, this table kitchen decorating ideas will help you to build your dream house or apartment with a simple and stylish kitchen table.


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Your Baby Month 11
Your little darling will have a big proud grin on her little face when he/she stands up without support for a few seconds this month. He/she may even take a few tentative steps, though not properly balanced. Your baby's vocabulary will also be greatly improved and he/she might be able to associate ma-ma with you and da-da with his/her father.
Your child may be trying out his/her strength on larger toys or lighter furniture by pushing them around. Make sure your dear one is supervised because he/she can have a nasty fall.
Common Queries
Pets around the house:
A lot of people are confused when it comes to keeping pets around their kids. It is even more confusing for people who love their pets a lot and have had them for years before they have had children. There are a few things to keep in mind when the issue is pets and your baby.
Always make sure your pet and baby do not share their toys/ food. If your pet's food is lying around your baby is likely to put it in his/her mouth.
Ensure your pet is vaccinated to date and de-wormed regularly. Always double check with your veterinarian.
Always make sure someone supervises your pet and the baby. Do not leave your baby unattended.
If you are planning to get a dog after you have had your baby, it is better to wait till your child is a little older.
Ensure your pet's medicines or supplements/food is kept safely out of your baby's reach.
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The bone broth flavor is strong.
When we ship the Organic Chicken Bone Broth, the powder settles. Many people like to experiment with the scoop to water ratio. Many like it with half scoop or a little less. It's always best to start with less and add to it to get your desired taste.


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SHERIDAN — CHAPS Equine Assisted Therapy announced grants received from the LaRue Young Foundation, Newell B. Sargent Foundation, Herbert & Dorothy Zullig Foundation, William F. & Lorene W. Welch Foundation and the Wheeler Family Foundation last week.
The grants are for general funding, scholarships and lease funding in support of equine assisted activities and therapies in Sheridan and Johnson counties.
"The LaRue Young Foundation has been one of our largest grantors every year," said Kristen Marcus, CHAPS executive director. "They support scholarship and lease funding: two of our biggest needs. Their scholarships provide youth the opportunity to participate in riding or driving each year."
Marcus said the Newell B. Sargent Foundation also provides scholarship funding and has partnered with CHAPS the last three years. The Zullig and Welch foundations provided general operations grants, and this year, the Wheeler Family Foundation's grant is going to sponsor a horse named Dennis. Dennis has a metabolic disorder that requires medication. Dennis is also on specialized arthritis medication and he will be going to driving school this winter to become a driving horse. Sponsorship funds will help pay for the medications, driving school and his yearly preventative and hoof care expenses.
CHAPS serves youth, adults and veterans with physical, mental, social and psychological disabilities.
General funding from foundations help with bills other than direct service. These bills can include lease of the facility, utilities, liability insurance, auto/trailer insurance, facility maintenance, equipment maintenance and veterinary bills. Scholarship funds provide direct service opportunities for clients in Sheridan and Johnson counties.
CHAPS currently serves the Child Development Center, the Veterans' Home of Wyoming and Day Break at The Hub on Smith for the winter. Riding and driving lessons will resume March 4.
Applications for the 2019 season are available online at www.chapswyo.org.


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Yesterday several of us went kayaking with the Bishop in the waters of Dayton Harbor and Semiahmoo Bay. We all managed to return safely to shore, all of us a bit wetter and all of us tired and happy. I'm sure my shoulder muscles will remind me tomorrow. There's something about being out on the water, floating on the one biggest component of our bodies, the lifeblood of the planet and the context of our births. Water can sustain and it can drown. It can refresh and it can reflect the sun's rays so that you sunburn your nostrils. It lubricates and polishes.
Floating is unstable and for that, mobile. The gentle rocking of the wavelets or the slapping of a motorboat's wake, the wind's effective pressure on your upper body and the tide's pressure on your paddle, all remind you that to stay in one place you have to keep moving. And even if you manage to stabilize your location, the stuff floating beneath you remind you that the place you are in any moment is not the place you are in the next. The fragile plastic hull beneath my seat is all that separates me from 45° water that can reduce me to hypothermia in minutes.
And yet it is the source of food and livelihood for dozens of harbor seals, sea ducks, shore birds, and Bald Eagles. The salmon that constitute the bread of heaven for the sea creatures sustained a cannery for nearly 80 years, one of the largest in the world. Now the salmon left sustain the wildlife that so many of us enjoy watching. I think I ate salmon every day I was there.
They say (whoever "they" are) that World War III will be fought over water. If so, we will be fighting for life itself.
God forbid!


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Barbour classic sylkoil stud on leggings regular
Product Code: MOT0002OL91Barbour sylkoil leggings are heavyweight and are ideal for working with animals or pushing through wet undergrowth. Wrap around style with press-stud fastenings down the sides. They are attached to the trouser belt via two-button side straps. Available in olive only, as shown.SALE!
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|Olive Green
|Small | Medium | Large | Extra Large
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|Barbour Wellington Boot Bag Green
The Wellington Boot Bag from Barbour helps keep the boot of your car and your wardrobe clean. Made in green texturised nylon with PVC base. Suitable for all Barbour wellingtons and for most other makes of wellington boot too. The Barbour Wellington Boot Bag features; carry handle, shoulder strap and zipped flap.
Price: SALE!
|Barbour Rain Choker
This is a Barbour tailored, pure cotton, terry towelling rain choker. Sadly Barbour now only makes the rain choker in olive green. The Barbour Rain Choker is folded and sewn into corners at either end and makes an ideal gift for the serious outdoor sportsman. Rain chokers or rain cravats stop that nasty feeling of rain trickling down the back of the neck. Size 125cm x 16cm.
Price: SALE!
Would you like to check stock availability? Call Sara or Paul on 01494 775577 Mon-Sat 9.30 a.m. to 5.00p.m. Please Note: We do not accept orders by telephone and enquiries are better placed by email too. When ordering on-line, please note that we do not deduct any money from your credit card, until the goods are being despatched. Please also note that you may alter the quantity of goods in your basket at any time.


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When visiting Fresno, CA you might need help locating Restaurants and Bars ideas. Browse the categories below which all go to Fresno-specific Restaurants and Bars pages. On each Fresno page you might find companies and businesses in nearby cities such as Clovis, Easton, Fowler and Del Rey. Some of the ideas in this section include Gloria Jean's Coffee in our Coffee Shops category and Bistro Rustico, Booney's Dogs & More, Sequoia Brewing Co and Yukon Jacks in our Restaurants category.
Restaurants and Bars in Fresno CA
Top Restaurants and Bars In and Around Fresno
- Imperial Garden Restaurant
6640 N. Blackstone Ave, Fresno, CA 93710
- Outback Steakhouse
2765 W. Shaw Ave, Fresno, CA 93711
- Tokyo Garden
1711 Fulton St, Fresno, CA 93721
- Campagnia
1185 E. Champlain Dr, Fresno, CA 93720
- The Landmark
644 E. Olive Ave, Fresno, CA 93728
- Dog House Grill
2789 E. Shaw Ave, Fresno, CA 93710
- Yosemite Ranch
1520 E. Champlain Dr, Fresno, CA 93720
- Livingstone's Restaurant and Pub
831 E. Fern Ave, Fresno, CA 93728
- Luna Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant
349 Pollasky Ave, Clovis, CA 93612
- Michaelangelo's Pizzeria
619 Woodworth Ave, Clovis, CA 93612
Nearby Beaches
Reedley Beach
Sandy Cove Beach