Dannsar

OK so here's my full review. I decided to keep these till after the contest was over. I loved the premise of this. The undertow of good winning out over ... well, evil I suppose, even with the bad thing in the much stronger position. The writing was very good, the story inventive. I also found it pretty cinematic, so that should be a plus, I hope. I was a bit troubled by the on off on off notion of the good doctor and who was in charge of what on his shelves. I think that tide went through too many cycles, but that apart, I found it to be pretty good. Thank you

Lol ... that's what 'try this' means!

Anyway ... try This

Well, see, the thread seemed to be just announcing it, There was no indication there would be spoilers or discussions. Sorry if I missed that.

AND! Chilling isn't something I'm prepared to do, thank you very much. I don't give a rat's ass if the chapter is up, I haven't had the chance to look at it yet. And if you'd read the earlier posts, you'd see that I don't intend to until Cutie has 'delivered' the entire thing, cos I don't read in process stories. Honestly, if there's one thing guaranteed to send me sratospheric, it's being told to calm down by someone in the wrong. Benji, speak to Graeme, please.

Interesting to find a suicide theme in an anthology submission! It was well written, a wee touch predictable at a couple of points, but the two other boys were just a masterstroke. I thought that showed a real compassion, and an insight that perhaps has much more ambivalence (in its proper sense) than intended. Personally, having been there, I have to disagree with the main conclusion. But that's just differing opinions. Keep an eye for the forthcoming anthology for a contrary view, perhaps. I'm not sure I believed the age of the main character. I'd have put him one or two years older. But who cares. The overall piece was really good, and definitely a very well spent half hour of anybody's life to engage with one of life's remaining taboos. Thank you.

Stop with the teasy weasy spoilers already

I'm only yelling cos I know you have abso f**king lutely no idea how much of no time you are gonna have soon ... in fact, I predict a very protracted series of 'continuations' for this trial

Thanks for that Graeme. A heartwarming footnote to a shitty episode in human history.

OFFS just get on with it already and stop teasing us! Trevor is fit to bust and going blue holding his breath! Please also pm me when it is all up ... I never read things that are not finished cos its just too frustrating! Cheers Dude.

These videos may be interesting or informative, but they have DRM blocks for the UK, so we cant see them

I suppose there needs to be some sort of ability to differentiate at some points, but in one to one's I imagine simply Dad would suffice. Certainly would for Gregor and I. When was a kid we referred to our grandparents as the same thing in company where they were all present, but otherwise as granny or grampa location. I suppose Dad Arisaig or Dad Glasgow, or just plain Arisaig or Glasgow would be kinda neat, referring to identities which have special meanings for us. I do think I'd hate to be referred to by my first name, though. Thats just way too familiar for good discipline!

True, it would appear. But what is hidden in plain sight in this statement is that he HAD a gun. Furthermore, it was loaded. And on top of that, it was perfectly capable of being fired. Now, nobody wants people dead, or at least reasonable people don't. But if you have a gun, you are automatically a threat in a society where gun ownership is pretty strictly controlled. And if you get involved with police pointing guns at you, telling you to put it down or whatever, you need to make damned sure you aint going to make a wrong move. The circumstances are not clear yet. But I would be willing to bet that he presented some clear threat. Not clever when marksmen are telling you what to do. You make your own luck in this life to a large extent. And walking around with a loaded handgun on the streets of terrorised London is inviting trouble, not increasing your own luck levels. Of course, the police will now be shat upon from a great height by the touch feelies and civil rights lobby. But, ehm, how many times do I have to ask this ... ? ... Why the hell did this Mark bloke have a loaded hangun on the streets of London? Oh, yeah, that's right. It's an invalid question. He was black and therefore oppressed. Therefore his family self indulged themselves by holding a peaceful protest about his shooting ... which was not at all reasonable, because he was only carrying a loaded handgun ffs. Result:? Every idiot in London decides to go on the rampage because a guy with a loaded handgun on the streets of London gets himself shot and his family think this is an objectionable thing because it is clearly perfectly acceptable to have a loaded handgun in your possession on the terrorised streets of London. Do I sound annoyed? Bloody right. What the hell is the world coming to? Posters note ... this rant was not aimed at Mike, just at the situation in general

Nephy, I did try to be very clear in what I said. Paradigmatically ou are correct ... that is to say, in the case at hand, you are right, and I agree with you. But I was trying to point out that it is not ALWAYS wrong to get violent to effect changes. And that is what you seemed to be saying ... Pretty unequivocal to me. After all, middle class bullying (my term for the method by which the middle classes never listen to reasonable complaints, then tell you that if you make a fuss or raise your voice, that they are not going to listen to you, then when you comply they ignore you again) is exactly what other people have pointed out above ... 2000 people march peacefully to Scotland Yard ... no coverage or apparent acknowledgement. As for the HDTV ... well, again, if you read closely what I said, you will see that I do not think one is necessary. But some people live in a culture where they think it is. And there little gainsaying it. It just is as it is. That's the reality of their situation where they are. You don't have to like it. I just don't like it. But that doesn't change the realities.

Paradigmatically correct, syntagmatically so far from the case it is surprising. Nephy, if I thought for one minute you would stand up in fron of the current Syrians, Libyans, etc, or the Russians objecting to the overthrow of Gorbachev, or the Chinese people protesting in Tinanmen Square, I might start to think you had a point. But, somehow, I can't see you doing that, cos as far as I have been able to divine in my few months at GA, you are way too intelligent for that. Sometimes, the only way is to rise up and destroy. But, as I say, paradigmatically you are correct. It is just not what is needed here, although that may actually be stretching the truth a little if you read what I will say below. Again, untrue. And I so wish it wasn't. But it is. The HDTV is a symbol of value in an social economy using relative values such as peer dignity as its currencies. If it is necessary, then it is necessary. And I do agree with your general sentiment ... that's just a crying shame, imo. As for the Mark Duggan affair, as I read it, following the lunchtime news, a gun was found at the scene, and it was capable of firing live ammunition. There is still a question of who actually fired the bullet in the policeman's radio (i.e. him or another officer), but it would seem unlikely to me that they shot the guy for no good reason. But that is yet to be seen. Now, as to the riots themselves. I'd like to suggest the following as a contributory factor ... and only contributory. I think it illustrates a large part of the problem. I wonder how many Polish plumbers, African maids, immigrant Afghan whatevers etc etc etc will be found to be involved in these riots? I'm willing to bet that significantly low levels, and probably all of those will be economic migrants who have not found work. The rest of them will be far too busy earning an honest crust and getting on with the job of living, rather than sitting about on their complacent arses, waiting for an oppportunity to go out and have a bit of a larf, smashing up things they do not value, because the concept of values, as held by the generality of society, has passed them by. The reason these young people are a-riot is because they are bored, marginalised, and have nothing to do. It may not excuse their behaviour, but it sure as hell goes a fair length to explaining it. And bear in mind that the UK school system is currently on holiday, so there is a far higher degree of disaffected youth with nothing better to do, available at the moment, as well as the opportunistic anarchists ready to deploy at a moment's notice. (Oh the irony). I am fairly disgusted at the conduct of our economic policy in the past twenty five years or so. We bring immigrant workers in, holus bolus, employ them to do the shitty jobs we feel we are way too important to do, pay them a pittance, treat them like shite, and castagate them for actually working. Exactly the same thing happened in the 50s in the UK with people coming to mainland UK from the Commonwealth to provide labour. They were black, so our parents etc were content to call them niggers ad such like. Not that I actually think nigger is a bad word, just that when our parents' generations used it, they meant it in a very nasty way. While the 50s paradigm was actually trying to address a situation where there was a real labour shortage for the economy at the time, the migration practices now are ... and I am quoting from many politicians here ... to support the economy of the UK because we cannot support it all ourselves. Think about what that is saying. Our economic costs are way too high for us to manage, mainly in healthcare of an ageing population, pension provision in an ageing population, and higher welfare costs in a ... well more of that later..., and we need to maintain high turnover and output while maintaining a low wage economy as much as we can. Well, that is a normal tension for a capitalist economy. But hold on just a minute. What about all the people in the UK who are perfectly able to perform this work, but just won't because they are too lazy, or are too self-regarding, to knuckle down and get on with the process of learning the skills, or getting their hands dirty. If we, as a society, allow them to sponge rampantly, and provide nothing for them to do, then we are creating a separate class of people who will view society in a different way. And we can jump up and down about this in Daily Flail terms till we are blue in the face. The fact of the matter is that there will still be a separate societal element with a differeing view on things. Curiously Margaret Thatcher throws the truth of this into relief as well as being it's greatest cause. She changed our economic system so that people had to work to maintain a roof over their heads. She sold us the council houses and gave lots of us mortgages. We all of a sudden found it pretty unappealing to be on strike all the time, so our work ethic changed. For the better. But she also began the process of shuffling people off into corners with a small amount of money per week to keep them quiet. They do little, but they don't really care because they are paid to do that, and they can fiddle the rest of it somehow anyway. A gap then appears between the haves (jobs) and the have nots. Those with jobs are constricted by their mortgages, those without are not. Effectively, those without have more power because of their existence outwith 'normal' society, than those within it. They also become disenfranchised and dejected. Raging against the hated machine which farms them to be indolent and treats them like shite in the first place, they disengage, and so the spiral continues downwards. The enfranchised society then declares them not worth a f**k, and gets in some other crew of dejected people to do the work. Except this dejected crew know the value of work and opportunity, and get on with the job. Hence why we won't be seeing too many of the aforesaid economic migrants involved in the rioting. They are like Outraged of Oxley ... working their butts off to get by. But they are also part of the problem, indirectly. Not that you can blame them. We asked them here in most cases, to do our dirty work because we couldn't be bothered to kick the lazy arses of our own people to do it instead. Send them all back? Hell, no. That would be ridiculous. They are prepared to work, and have come here under perfectly legitimate methods, for the most part. They need to be respected and valued. And I don't just mean as economic migrants, but as humans too ... which they are all too often not. But western capitalist systems need to look at their own arrangements. they need to stop importing cheap labour from abroad and using them as modern day slaves (low pay, little choice, treated like sub-human shite) and demand of their own people, who they pay a wage to every week to sit back and do sweet fanny adams (that's Sweet F**k All, to those of you who don't know the idiom) to get their fingers out and get some learning done, then get some working done, and then get some bloody engaging done. Do you know why it is so easy for Muslim fundametalists to maintain a war against other forces? It's because there are huge numbers of bored young men sitting around waiting for something to do. It's the same in this paradigm ... give people too much time to do too much nothing, and they will get into too much bother. Tire them out during the day, they will sleep at night. Ensure they have to fight a little for their daily bread, and they will think twice about being on the streets in the evening burning and looting. And before anybody gets on their high horse and starts ranting that I am a crew cutted thug wanting to throw all of the foreigners out ... go back three paragraphs and read again. This is one of the reaons why London is burning at the moment. Much like Kings Cross Station burned when too much dust accumulated under the escalator, too much dust has been sept under the social carpet in the UK, and it catches light every now and then. Without a good hard look at the facts, the day will come when there will be a real conflagration, and a few extra bobbies on the beat will have little or no effect whatsoever.

Right, Frosty, Darlin! It's time to wrap this one up By which I DO NOT mean stop it ... However, I think there is a great story potential here and it is being sold short by the flash format now. I've enoyed it so far, but I can see there is stuff starting to develop, and there is a roundness appearing, that I think is going to be lost in the flash format. Would I be tooooo horrible to ask advise you to stop and start again with these characters in the conventional manner. That is not to say that the flash format is bad or anything. It clearly has its place, but I feel like it has been a good sketch book up until now. But the sketching is kinda over and it's time to start making a whole with more depth than the flash format can muster. I think, having watched the series so far, that the flash format would be really good if it was started with a total story in mind, and little vignettes were drawn to eventually make a whole. Metaphorically, this would be like creating a picture from a grid, and filling each square with that bit and that bit only. Eventually we get to see the whole thing. The benefit I can see from that format would be that it could be more like small, almost random, flash pieces from differing points in the plot which eventually make a whole sense. This might need to be rippled out in a two dimensional series of sets ... but it would utterly change the normal linearity of the storytelling method, which could be really interesting. The reader would need to develop a differeing set of interactions with the universe created by the writer, and the writer might need to develop a different set of controls to mould the trajectory of the story, because the reader would quite possibly have a much greater degree of control over how they perceived the characters / elements. I offer these comments, because I like this story so much, I'd reallly like to see it developed conventionally, but I can see a potential real value in the experimentation which has gone on up until this point.

Yup, I'm being Dommed at the moment ... he's reallly building it up slow and teasing me blody well senseless

Well, it's a rant to be sure .. one I've had plenty times in the past. But believe me, as a doubly labelled person researching a book on parts of the labelling process, I have come to understand that it is completely inevitable, and, yes, actually correct. As sentient beings, not yet out of the danger zone of everything, we still have the security issue to deal with, way back in our subconscious minds. It's what stops us getting mugged, stepping out in front of a bus, etc and so forth. We constantly assess and classify. Not because we want to label for the sake of identity categorisation, but for safety assessment ... what is it, what does it look like, how does it compare to my stored records, how does it differ, are the similarities likely to imply danger, are the differences likely to imply danger, is it friendly looking, is it threatening looking. The way meaning is constructed in our heads, we actually do this at the same time as labelling, because we are dealing on a level of meanings. The meanings are labelled for grouping purposes for future assessment, or for assessment priority. So labelling is actually a normal part of how we operate. It all goes wrong when you automatically assign a negative meaning to a concept. Smoking in the workplace and other restricted areas was banned in Scotland a few years ago. I cannot believe how disgusted I feel when I see someone in the street with a cigarette now. I mean, it's just bloody well irrational. I honestly downgrade them to almost criminal, almost sub-human, for an instant. I am doing the wrong thing with the label. And labels can be good things. They help us shape our responses to situations. For instance, I am slightly autistic. It is not physically obvious in the way more severe autism can be. Thus I have expectations made of me everyday that I am not able to live up to because I have an invisible impairment. If it was visible, people would alter their responses and perhaps expect something different ... yeah, you're right, they'd be much more patronising If you see an old lady in the street, you will try to rush to get past her before the pavement narrows, but you also won't risk getting too close like you might with a younger person, cos she's much more likely to fall over if you inadvertently nudge her. Query, assessment, label, action. Sexual mate selection is the same. We see guys, we think 'yum', we need to know if he is approachable ... we need the label. We need to know how to conduct ourselves in order not to offend him by making a verbal pass, and engendering a bad or physical response. Or if he is looking juuuust that little bit too long at home, you might decide it is worthwhile sending out some signals, but not ones the wife or kids are likely to pick up on. So it is easier to have labels. Don't decry them. They are very useful. It all goes wrong when you misuse them. Like when the straight guys all think the gay guys are going to follow them to the toilets and slip a hand down the back of their jeans while they are taking a leak! That's bad labelling ... or at least it should be

What has a hazelnut in every bite? Well it all depends upon what you ate last night Be it almond, pecan, pea The only way you'll see Is forensic inspectation of your shite

Seriously though, ain't it good fun To go naked when out in the sun You can cook things to brown With your undies pulled down And rub them with oil till they're done

Helllllo there! Well, my name is Lexie I can see that you think me quite sexy But your package is trapped Let me get it unwrapped I'm a witch, I'm the bitch, I'm all hexy

There was a young man from old Doune Considered a horny wee loon At the corner he'd stand Like a man in a band Fiddling his instrument's tune

Young ladies who like to drip drip Homage the wee man in his ship They stroke his wee head Till he pops up, quite red And there's enough going on for sip sip

A laddie was scratchin his baws Early one mornin because In the morning they itch Well ain't life a bitch But he'd rather be using his jaws

When holding discussions about preggers You make yourself open to neggers They just can't abide A sustained other side And f**k your reputation, the beggars