Poetic Licence

Fiction & Nurturing Souls!!!

2009-03-10T14:22:00.000Z

Fiction nurtures the soul - a must for even hard-hearted politicians
Chris Bowen
March 11, 2009

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A prominent federal politician recently boasted he hadn't read a fiction book since he left school.
Now, while my personal tastes will lead me to the non-fiction shelf more often than novels, it was a bit disconcerting to hear a prominent public figure speak so derisively of fiction.
This revelation from a parliamentary colleague got me thinking. Where would we be if we all lost the lessons of some of the great works of fiction? Where would we be if young people listened to this politician and stopped reading anything but textbooks? Is it a good thing that a leading politician would boast about cutting himself off from the world of novels? Why should we encourage young people to keep reading novels when there are so many other forms of modern entertainment?
People read for all sorts of reasons. Some novels are just rollicking good stories and others hold deeper lessons. A novel can be an enjoyable read and also expand the mind.
Fiction gives us an understanding of the motivations of people that is unmatched by any other art form. And that, of course is the beauty of fiction: it exposes every situation imaginable. Fiction provides a window into the human heart and human mind.
We all live one life, but readers can live thousands of lives. Novels can open the mind. Researchers have argued that people who read novels and who have to think about the connection between a character's thoughts and their actions are better at social interaction. Children who read novels are developing their imagination, and therefore their ability to "think outside the square" and solve problems.
Lisa Zunshine of the University of Kentucky has described reading a good detective novel as weightlifting for the mind. A work does not need to be non-fiction to be serious, to help us be better people, to give insights that textbooks and non-fiction works would struggle to give us.
As we experience difficult economic times, it pays to read Keynes, Stiglitz and Krugman of course. But it also pays to read Steinbeck. Set in the Great Depression, his The Grapes of Wrath is a soaring testament to the virtues of common people. As he follows the struggles of the Joad family, cast out of their farm through no fault of their own, every page is a reminder of the burdens of those who are thrown on an economic scrap heap through no fault of their own, and the case for helping them through. It is also a homily of hope about human kindness, about the best and worst of the human condition. It's a timeless book, yet a book of particular resonance as we enter tough times again. Continued...
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Rebecca puts Birmingham on the map.....

2009-03-10T14:19:00.001Z

Birmingham schoogirl's short story selected for national publication
Mar 10 2009 by Tony Collins, Birmingham Mail

SCHOOLGIRL Rebecca Hardy is used to telling stories.
And now, the 13-year-old from Bartley Green has made it into print after having one of her tales published in a book to be circulated across the country.
Rebecca, who attends Hillcrest School in Stonehouse Lane, Bartley Green, saw her short story beat off more than 2,700 entries from over 500 schools.
And her entry, called Memories of my Past, has been published in an anthology of short stories entitled The Cry of the Wolf.
Rebecca is one of only 22 talented young writers to be published in two collections of the best secondary school entries to the 2009 Evans Schools Short Story competition.
They were published to help mark World Book Day on Thursday 5 March.
The young story writers were asked to create their own short tales using a series of first lines supplied by leading children’s authors as the starting point.
Rebecca used a first line provided by Jenny Valentine – “When I woke up it was still dark and I knew straight away everything was different” – to craft an evocative account of childhood memories.
She said: “It’s about a girl’s life and she sees herself growing up and how she first learnt to walk. It was fun because I had imagined it myself.
“I have always been interested in writing and have been involved in a lot of story competitions, even at primary school. But I was quite shocked when I found out my story had been chosen,” she added.
Rebecca will be presented with her copy of The Cry of the Wolf during an assembly at Hillcrest School on March 10. A further 100 copies of the book will be given to her school by publishers Evans, free of charge.
The Cry of the Wolf is on sale in bookshops for £3.99, with all profits to be donated to World Book Day.

Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG: Disturbing fallout of the Rushdie fatwa

2009-02-10T15:50:00.000Z

Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG: Disturbing fallout of the Rushdie fatwa

John Updike ~ A man for all seasons.....

2009-02-01T15:12:00.001Z

John Updike: There was style, and more

By Carlin Romano
Inquirer Book Critic
Can a great literary figure write too beautifully?

Consider two related questions. Can a superb concert pianist hit the notes too accurately? Can a supreme realist painter capture a scene too exactly, too photographically?

To the layperson, the answer to all three questions would seem to be no. Even many professional musicians and painters would chime in with the public on the last two matters.

The death this week of John Updike, however, reminds us that things play out differently in literature. Too much beautiful writing, at times combined with too little plot, often brings opprobrium upon its creator. Recall that sainted immortal, Marcel Proust, renowned and loved worldwide for the music of his sentences, the lingering perfume of his style.

"I may perhaps be dead from the neck up," French editor Marc Humblot wrote in his 1912 rejection letter to Proust, turning down the first part of what would become Remembrance of Things Past, "but rack my brains as I may, I can't see why a chap should need thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before going to sleep."

In the appreciations and obituaries of Updike over the last few days, one hears a similar plaint asserted, repeated, cited, acknowledged or gainsaid.

To be sure, sheer celebration of his uncannily adroit prose erupted as soon as the bad news got out. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe exulted that "few writers have staged such elegant lexical ballets on the page."
Fellow Pulitzer-anointed critic Henry Allen, in the Washington Post, confessed that despite his own aim to become the greatest living American prose stylist, he learned, when reading Rabbit, Run at age 19, that Updike could not be bested, that the older man was "a dragon who would be unslayable."
"Instead," Allen continued, "he stalked me for 35 years, breathing the cool, ego-crushing fire of a style that didn't just evoke reality but also seemed to violate one of our most ancient taboos, the one against the making of graven images - a style that created eerie holograms with 100 percent correspondence to the material world."

Yet those two voices could not drown out that long-established grumble: Yes, an astonishingly gorgeous writer, that Updike, but to what point?

As noted by the Los Angeles Times in its obituary, the distinguished critic and scholar Harold Bloom complained years ago that while Updike could craft a "beautifully economical narrative," he lacked depth, leaving him "a minor novelist with a major style."

Such caveats abounded early in Updike's career. Eliot Fremont-Smith, in a 1981 Village Voice essay, commented on the "great divide between Updike's exquisite command of prose and . . . the apparent no-good vulgar nothing he expended it on." Critic Norman Podhoretz, in Commentary, deemed Updike's style "overly lyrical, bloated like a child who has eaten too much candy." Gore Vidal attacked his beetle-browed contemporary for being "fixed in facility." Alfred Kazin, one of the era's major critics, caviled that Updike "can brilliantly describe the adult world without conveying its depth and risks," a remark that stung Updike sufficiently for him to note it in his memoir.

Who could be surprised, then, that such reservations arose again, and needed to be reported, in the farewells of the week?

Cultural critic Todd Gitlin, posting about Updike on the blog Talking Points Memo, declared, "It felt to me then , and still does, that Updike's fine instruments did not enable him to take the measure of enormity the way Faulkner, and Ellison, and Bellow, and Mailer, and Roth at their best could do, and in that way he remained an outsider to the huge awful stories."
The rebuke arises partly because, in modern culture, we expect writers and film directors to take the spot philosophers and theologians occupied centuries ago. Too intellectually lazy to access our actual philosophers and theologians, we dictate that our writers be overt moralists, political theorists, social critics, even journalists. If they can write pretty, too, that's fine, but pretty without substance? No thanks.

The mistake about Updike from the beginning was to imagine that there's an "either-or" in literature as inevitable as the one delineated in morals by Updike's much-admired Kierkegaard.
Because Updike chose to imply his beliefs through stories, descriptions and nuances rather than isms, suspicious fellow intellectuals ruled that no thinker operated behind the curtain. Because he evoked writerly envy more than any of his contemporaries except Saul Bellow - sentence-by-sentence combat between the two would have amounted to a Super Bowl of fiction - many peers resorted to slicing him where they could.

And yet, as younger novelist Jeffrey Eugenides marvelously observed on the New Yorker's Updike memorial page this week, "When a writer dies, a vote comes in." Judging by the burgeoning citations on artsandlettersdaily.com, full of tributes from writers and critics around the world, it's a landslide for "John Updike, Master," not "John Updike, Master Stylist."
Truth be told, Updike shared the view that beauty in life or literature could never be only sentence-deep, some valuable extracted from virtuoso mosaic work in words or rococo flourishes across pages.
Referring once to what his Pennsylvania boyhood bestowed on him, he wrote, "A kind of respect for middle class, ordinary life, a belief that there was something worth saying about it, that there was struggle and morals to be gained, that there was beauty in it."
Similarly, reflecting elsewhere on his career, Updike explained that "Three Great Sacred Things" had ruled his life and work: religion, sex and art.
He didn't mention style.
He was right not to.

David Cameron captured by Aliens!

2009-02-01T15:05:00.001Z

UK Conservative Party Leader David Cameron: I Will Share Info About UFOs
By Robert Paul Reyes

"David Cameron vowed today that if he was elected Prime Minister he would bring an end to the era of government secrecy over UFOs and extra-terrestrial activity.
Speaking at one of his 'Cameron Direct' public meetings, the Conservative Party leader pledged that a Tory government would be 'entirely open and frank' in sharing any information about alien life-forms.
At the meeting in Tynemouth, North-East England, he was questioned about a string of recent mysterious incidents.'I have no idea if there is intelligent life out there,' he replied.'I do believe in freedom of information and openness and this question has been asked from time to time, and I think we should be as open and clear as possible.'

"http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5600271.ece

Cameron promises to be "open and frank" in sharing any information about alien life-forms. I wish Cameron were open and frank now, and admit that the UFO issue is an effort to distract the British citizens from the serious economic woes facing them.
It's disappointing that a politician who may elected Prime Minister of England is obsessed with finding intelligent life out there when it's in such short supply down here.
There is no government secrecy over UFOs in the UK or in the United States, and any political candidate who makes such a false claim is unfit to serve in government.
With the intractable economic problems facing the international community, no world leader should waste his time worrying about UFOs.
UFO mania has gripped the UK, almost every day there's a story about a UFO sighting in the tabloids. A true leader wouldn't feed the UFO frenzy, he would dismiss is as so much nonsense.
Robert Paul Reyes is a NewsBlaze writer on Politics, Pop Culture and Pointless Pontificating. Contact him by writing to NewsBlaze.Astrophysicist: On the pains of investigating the paranormal scientifically
More UFO Stories:

Gordon Brown & Nixon!

2009-01-19T16:08:00.000Z

January 19, 2009

What Gordon Brown and Richard Nixon have in common

Just after the Premiere of Frost/Nixon I reflected on the similarity between Tony Blair and David Frost that must have made it easier for Michael Sheen to play both characters.
Now the author of the play, Peter Morgan (who also wrote The Deal about the so-called Granita Pact), has noted the shared easy charm of these two characters.
Fascinatingly he made this comparison as part of a discussion of the shared characteristics of Richard Nixon and Gordon Brown (another likeness I have remarked upon):
They are people who are hard to like, people who have complicated emotional inner landscapes, and somehow have had trouble accessing them.
"People will hate me for saying this, but there are emotional similarities between Gordon Brown and Richard Nixon. Gordon Brown finds it hard to be liked and yet he's a brilliant man. But people don't warm to him, they don't like him.
Posted by Daniel Finkelstein on January 19, 2009 at 01:40 PM in Gordon Brown Permalink

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Its funny but I was beginning to think there is a physical resemblance now too. Brown's jowls and that fake smile are increasingly Nixonesque.
Posted by: Simon 19 Jan 2009 13:55:30
The similarity, for me, is that Dr James Gordon Brown, like the late Richard M. Nixon, is a bare-faced liar.
Posted by: Keith Darby 19 Jan 2009 14:06:56

2008-11-23T14:24:00.000Z

The international takeover of French literature

The Afghan-born Prix Goncourt winner Atiq Rahimi. Photograph: Ulf Andersen/Getty
The motives that guide the gaze of the literary world can be bothunthinkingly loyal and randomly fickle. For while there are moresacred cows grazing on the lush pastures of literature's vastcanonical steppe than there are dead ones hanging in Smithfieldmarket, it doesn't take long for last year's big thing to fall off theshelves into the ignominy of remainderdom, replaced by a glut of morebrightly coloured, aggressively marketed, bright young things.
This can happen to whole countries as well as individual authors. TakeFrance, for example. Before the award of this year's Nobel prize forliterature to the Franco-Mauritian JMB Le Clézio, the names of veryfew French authors were spoken outside specifically francophoneconfines, Michel Houellebecq and, to a much lesser extent, AmélieNothomb aside. A glance down the list of Nobel literature laureatesshows that since Sartre was offered, and refused, the prize in 1964,only Claude Simon (1984) and now Le Clézio have been French. Yet thefirst half of the century is crammed with French names, includingBergson, Gide, Sartre and Camus and even the very first prize, whichwent to the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme.
It is interesting then, with the Nobel prize returning the world'sgaze to homegrown French literature once more, that the gaze of theFrench literary establishment seems in turn to have cast itself muchmore widely than is usual. This is surprising, because the attitude ofour neighbours to their books is probably even more protectionist thantheir attitudes to their car manufacturing and agricultural industries. But to reflect on the recent spate of awards, bundled together as usual in November, is to behold a country opening up its literary lens as rarely before.
The biggest of the prizes, the Goncourt, went to Afghan-born AtiqRahimi for his novel Syngué Sabour (Stone of Patience). Beautiful,painful, and groundbreaking in its way, the novel is nonetheless only accidentally French. Beside him on the shortlist were Michel Le Bris's fast-paced romp between New York and Africa in the roaring 20s and Jean-Marie Blas de Robles's Brazillian-set Là où les tigres sont chez eux, which also carried off a Prix Médicis.
This international turn in the Goncourt is mirrored in the award ofthe haughty Académie Française's Grand Prix du roman to the formerFrench ambassador to Sweden, Marc Bressant, for his La DernièreConférence. Set in London, the novel is a semi-fictional reconstruction ofthe 1989 conference which turned Glasnost up to full heat andorchestrated the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is also notably un-French in style, basking in the kind of straight-talking, faction-packed tradition of reportage most highly prized by British and American readers. Elsewhere, the Prix Renaudot, which last year went to the staple of French letters Daniel Pennac, was won by the Guinean author Tierno Monénembo for Le Roi de Kahel. Today's announcement of the Prix Interralié, won in 2007 by Christophe Ono-dit-Biot for his tale of the drug and antiques trafficking in Rangoon, Birmane, may well follow the trend.
It would be a shame if France were to turn its back on its homegrown tradition of high-art literature, for it has held onto it better and for longer than most European countries. But the internationalist turn in French literature is not about dumbing down. To judge from history, the last great phase in which French writers fixed their focus so far from their borders - the long build-up to Revolution - also marked the moment when the world's eyes were most firmly fixed on French literature, science and philosophy. So if some literary purists might be worrying about the dissipation of French tradition, the politicians, at least, should be rubbing their hands at the waxing of their cultural star.

Posted by Guy Dammann Wednesday November 19 2008 12.19 GMT

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2008-10-06T09:26:00.000Z

2008-08-09T15:34:00.001+01:00

Beijing ~ Where it Sizzles!!

2008-08-04T15:22:00.000+01:00

Beijing where it sizzles

By Constantino TejeroPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 04:13pm (Mla time) 08/04/2008

ONE IMPRESSION OF Beijing is that it’s forbidding. Its structures are gray hulking monoliths, particularly the government buildings. And its people look grim-faced and more robust than those in Taipei and Shanghai, for instance.
In China’s 5,000 years of history, since this city was made its capital some 850 years ago, one of the visions that stay longest in the foreigner’s mind is of bloodshed: the Boxer Rebellion, which laid siege to foreign legations and had to be put down by an international expeditionary force.
And then, all of a sudden, the world comes here to play. And the battle cry is “One World, One Dream”—the slogan of the 29th Olympic Games, which opens in Beijing at 8 p.m. on Aug. 8 (note the triple eight, considered a propitious number).
One might say it’s an empty slogan. We’re rather more charmed by the adages ubiquitous all over the city, such as this one writ large across an old building in a busy intersection: “History creates today, tradition creates civilization.”
Natural poetry
Such solemn maxims are taken matter-of-factly in this land of sages, along with the natural poetry of its people. As in the names of these establishments in the financial district: Everbright Bank; Dazzle Jewelry Shop.
Or these two salons near embassy row: New Feeling Styling Hair; Silk Flow Hairdressers. And this joint in the bar row: Pure Girl Bar. The poetry can be found even in the supermarket: Carefree Coffee; Golden Swallow Snack Foods.
Naturally it creeps up to the suburbs and countryside: Hundred-Fruit Orchard; Jujube Picking Garden; Sweet Hill Farmhouse. And this is not to mention those innumerable cultural and historical landmarks like the Red Sandalwood Museum and White Cloud Temple.
Peculiarly Chinese, yes, and frequently making one’s toes curl. But wait till you’ve seen how these people can turn a delicious pun, as in this ramshackle shop: Comfoot Shoes.
Shopping and dining
These are the signs of the times the visitor is likely to encounter all over the city this week, along with the emblem called Dancing Beijing, an abstracted image combining a seal, a Chinese character and the Olympic rings; and the cutesy mascots Beibei (the fish), Jingjing (the panda), Huanhuan (the Olympic flame), Nini (the swallow) and Yingying (the Tibetan antelope. See? Tibet is part of the Games).
Olympic T-shirts and toy mascots can be had quite cheap from itinerant vendors on the streets, but the official ones of top quality are better bought at Silk Street Market in the Central Business District. Here you can get anything from Mongolian handicraft and The Little Red Book to jade, silk, tea and electronics (better acquired in Beijing’s two versions of Silicon Valley).
For rock-bottom bargains, go to the numerous flea markets such as Panjiayuan. But be careful with the haggling. If you’re not buying anything, just quietly walk away. These people can make a scene so much more dramatically than the Vietnamese vendors.
Shop only for those you can’t find in Manila, such as local products, as most items here are a little pricier. In the supermarket, a canister of potato chips is 35 RMB (1 yuan or RMB to P7), three pieces of banana are 20 RMB, and a bottle of bird’s nest is 1,700 RMB.
A Szechuan dinner of five dishes with a bottle of beverage in a wayside eatery is 75 RMB. Taxi flagdown is 10 RMB plus 2 RMB per kilometer. If you know your way around, go by bus for 1-11 RMB and by subway for 2 RMB or by bicycle for 10 RMB a day.
Wining and partying
For hip entertainment, fine dining and people-watching, go to clubs, restos and bistros such as Lan, Block 8, Centro, The World of Suzie Wong, Babyface, Blu Lobster, La Baie des Anges, Whampoa, Cargo, Aria.
Some of these are reused courtyard houses, apparently heritage structures, but you’d be surprised to find that the interiors have been designed by a Philippe Starck or a Johannes Thorpe.
For all-the-way entertainment, try what locals call Bar Street. These clubs and bars along Houhai Lake have plushy velvet sofas outside, looking ready for action right there on the sidewalk.
Foodies and nightlife lovers would be enchanted to discover that among the most happening places in the city are those funky restos and wine bars in the hutong, those interconnecting alleyways of Old Beijing rowed with boxlike houses.
This is the counterpart of our tenements and squatters’ area – see how the Chinese have turned them into what would eventually become heritage sites.
Cultural landmarks
If you’re culturally inclined, you may want to watch the Peking opera at the Imperial Granary or the Chinese acrobats at the Universal Theatre. Or visit any of the museums and art galleries such as the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art and the Working People’s Culture Palace.
If you have longer hours during breaks in the Games, you must see at least five landmarks: Tian’anmen Square; the Forbidden City; the Summer Palace; the Temple of Heaven; and the Great Wall, of course. Without having seen any one of them, it’s as if you hadn’t been to Beijing.
China is now touted by Westerners as a new superpower on the rise. We can only smile, because based on just those five heritage sites, China had been a superpower ages and civilizations ago.
Most probably it is its recent ascendancy in world economy that has occasioned that irrelevant epithet. The so-called proletariat state is now in the grip of capitalism which it purportedly renounces.
Of the country’s 1.4-billion people, 15 million live in Beijing—so you can imagine if even only a third of them are entrepreneurs what that can do to the economy. And that’s not counting the foreign investors.
We’d rather call it China’s neo-imperialism. This is palpably evident in Beijing’s rapid development, and not only for the Olympics but also because of that ancient sense of imperial birthright, the sense of privilege and supremacy, we suspect.
Chinese officials have cleverly used technology and architecture to send their message across, as Hitler once did with Albert Speer.
Architectural marvels
These marvels of new technology and design have become surefire crowd-drawers even to local tourists. They come in hordes, from toddlers to doddering old folks, from far-flung provinces to see some, even on crutches and in wheelchairs.
Two of the most recognizable structures of the Summer Games venue can be found near China Agricultural University. The most popular is the National Stadium, also called the Bird’s Nest, designed by Herzog & De Mueron with Arup and the China Architecture Design & Research Group. The other is the National Aquatics Centre, or the Water Cube. Even world-weary Westerners stare and stare.
Another new marvel of architecture is the odd-shaped China Central Television building, or CCTV, designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Sheeren. This has been selected among the Top 10 buildings in design by a British paper. Walking in its shadow is like something from Magritte — imagine the Rock of Gibraltar hovering above your head.
The apex of Chinese gigantism must be the new Capital International Airport, designed by Norman Foster. Touted as the biggest airport terminal in the world, it is the ultimate symbol of China’s neo-imperialism.
In this mad rush to build, Beijing’s ultramodern structures and futuristic skyscrapers seem to be nearly overtaking its sprawling historical and cultural landmarks. However, rapid development doesn’t necessarily mean one canceling the other.
In fact, we see the modern and the ancient comfortably coexisting in the palaces and temples shadowed by malls and high-rises, or in the onrushing Peugeot along a street swerving by a slow-moving camel from the Gobi Desert.
In this city of metaphors and contrasts, that about encapsulates everything under heaven.

BBC NEWS | Business | UK house prices 'fell 2% in June'

2008-07-10T11:22:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS Business UK house prices 'fell 2% in June'

Very Funny Animated Gifs Part 511

2008-07-07T18:42:00.001+01:00

Writing a review

2008-06-22T19:25:00.001+01:00

How to Write a Review

by Gale Barker, Jun 21, 2008

Are you mad about movies? Do you love to read the latest books? Do you have a season ticket for concerts or the ballet?

Do your market research. Study the publications you want to write for, which reviews they include, and the style, tone, and format of the reviews.

Make sure you have all the relevant pieces of information to identify what you are reviewing. Mention them at the beginning e.g. if it is a play, you will need the name of the play, the playwright, the theatre where it is being performed, and the dates that it is on. (But sometimes some of this information is given at the foot of the review.)
If it is a television programme, you will need the title, the television channel it was shown on, and the date and time of transmission. Tailor this information to the conventions normally used by your target publication.
How to Write Your Review
Begin by mentioning what you are reviewing without making it sound like the introduction to a school presentation: “I am reviewing Coronation Street which was on ITV on Friday 29th February at 7.30 p.m.”
See what sort of techniques the usual reviewers use. Try to incorporate the information in an attention-grabbing hook.
Adopt a tone that's suited to the publication you are aiming for - serious, flippant, humorous, witty - and make your review a similar length to ones which the publication usually prints.
Make Your Review Readable
Give enough detail to give your reader a brief idea of the content, without reproducing the entire show/play/book/ exhibition.
Give the review an angle - let the reader see why you chose to review this particular thing. Is it because it was terrible, shocking, exciting, original, unforgettable or exceptionally good? Give as much of your own personal response as the publication normally allows.
Illustrate any claims you make with examples, but remember you are aiming to inform, entertain and be thought-provoking. This is not a school or university essay!
Use original, striking language, and avoid clichés. Don't “state the obvious” or you'll turn your readers off straight away.
Make sure your spelling, grammar, and presentation are immaculate.
Give it a Proper Ending
End with a sentence summarising your conclusion - was the subject of the review worth watching/visiting/buying? Did it have certain strengths, but fall short in some way? Try to end your piece with a memorable phrase.

Ian McEwan

2008-06-22T13:35:00.003+01:00

Ian McEwan: I despise militant Islam

By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:16PM BST 22/06/2008

The award-winning novelist Ian McEwan has launched an outspoken attack on militant Islam, accusing it of "wanting to create a society that I detest".

Ian McEwan has been criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain
The author said he "despises Islamism" because of its views on women and homosexuality.
But predicting a backlash against his comments, which were made in an Italian newspaper, he insisted he was not a racist.

The writer of Atonement and Enduring Love condemned religious hardliners as he defended his friend, the writer Martin Amis, against charges of racism.
Article continues
Amis was accused last year of being Islamaphobic after he said that "the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order".
In an essay written the day before the fifth anniversary of the bombing of New York's Twin Towers, the novelist suggested "strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan", preventing Muslims from travelling, and further down the road, deportation.
In The Age of Horrorism, Amis argued that fundamentalists had won the battle between Islam and Islamism.

McEwan, 60, said it was "logically absurd and morally unacceptable" that writers who speak out against militant Islam are immediately branded racist.

"As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist," he said in an interview in Corriere della Sera.

"This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist. And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on - we know it well."
McEwan recognised that similar views were held by some Christian hardliners in America.
"I find them equally absurd," he said. "I don't like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others. But those American Christians don't want to kill anyone in my city, that's the difference."

Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, criticised McEwan's defence of Amis.

"Mr McEwan is being rather disingenuous about his friend, Martin Amis's remarks. Of course you should be allowed to criticise the tenets of any religion. However, Amis went much further than that," he said.

"He was advocating that the Muslim community be made to suffer 'until it gets its own house in order'. And what sort of suffering did Amis have in mind? In his own words, 'Not letting them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.'"

He added: "Those were clearly very bigoted remarks and the fact that McEwan prefers to whitewash them tells us much about his own views too."

Houses ~ Falls much bigger!!

2008-06-11T10:47:00.000+01:00

'House prices to fall until 2010': the options for buyers and sellers
Last Updated: 12:56am BST 11/06/2008
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Homeowners are being warned to brace themselves for three years of falling house prices, writes Paul Farrow
There are signs that tens of thousands of borrowers are already being sucked into negative equity.
Ed Stansfield, at Capital Economics, said: "We had forecast price falls of 8 per cent this year and 10 per cent next year, but the 8 per cent figure is looking very conservative. It is now plausible that prices will fall by 15 per cent in 2008. When it comes to forecasting the direction of prices in 2010 it is a case of reasoning why prices won't fall further rather than the other way around. House prices falls tend to run in years not months."
Mortgage repossessions: how to hang on to your home
Ten tips to get the best price when you sell your home
Surviving negative equity
The gloomy prediction comes as the number of homeowners in danger of falling into negative equity begins to rise. More than 23,000 homeowners took out 100 per cent home loans in the past year – and it is highly likely they are already in negative territory.
Weighed down: homeowners need to be prepared for difficult times in the housing market
The number of houses changing hands has also "collapsed" to the lowest level in 30 years. The fall in sales far exceeds the depths of the last housing crash in the 1990s and is the lowest since records began in 1978. The average number of houses that estate agents sold in the past three months was 17.4 - almost a third lower than a year ago, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
Miles Shipside at Rightmove said that those that were still looking to sell were being totally unrealistic – new asking prices were, on average still higher than a year ago. "Sellers have to drop their asking price by at least 10 per cent," he said.
Last month, Hometrack, the property research company said that property values had fallen eight months in a row, while Nationwide and Halifax, the two largest mortgage lenders, confirmed that house prices are falling year-on-year.
House sales fall is steepest since the 1970s, says RICS
House prices: News, views and data
RICS UK housing market survey, May 2008 [PDF Format]
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We have canvassed the thoughts of some other leading experts on how far they see prices falling – and what they would do if they were a buyer or a seller during these difficult times.
How far can prices fall and has your forecast changed recently given the ongoing gloom and fall in consumer confidence?
Alun Powell, senior UK economist, HSBC "The recent run of weak housing market statistics, including the very low levels of mortgage approvals for house purchase and falling house prices, has led us to downgrade our forecasts for house price inflation. We now expect that by the end of this year, prices will be 10 per cent lower than they were at the end of 2007. The bigger question is what will happen to house prices in 2009. Our view is that a weakening economy will keep the housing market subdued."
Melanie Bien, director Savills Private Finance "The UK mainstream market will fall 8 per cent this year and 2 per cent in 2009 assuming liquidity pressures ease by the end of the year. The worst case scenario is a 10 per cent fall in average values in 2008 and a further 15 per cent in 2009 taking values back to 2004 levels for UK residential."
Ray Boulger, analyst at John Charcol, the mortgage broker "I have changed a little. I expect prices to fall by about 9 per cent this year but to be recovering by the second half of next year."
Marc Goldberg, head of residential sales, Hamptons International "We have seen prices fall by around 10-15 per cent so far, since the peak of 2007 and it is possible we will see another 5 per cent over the next few months – which will mean a 20 per cent drop since summer 2007."
What would you do if you were a buyer?
Melanie Bien: "If I were a buyer I would find a property I liked and then seriously haggle on the asking price. It's important in a housing market downturn that you don't pay more than you need to, nor overstretch yourself on the mortgage.
"If I were a buyer without a deposit of at least 5 per cent (preferably) or 10 per cent and no likelihood of assistance I would return to old-fashioned values and save for one. Because there is a downturn you won't risk being priced off the ladder while you save and it will widen your options, give you access to a greater number of mortgages at preferential rates."
Mark Goldberg: "Analyse prices carefully. Prices are 15 per cent off the peak of last summer and some vendors have taken advice from their agent on this and adjusted prices accordingly. However, others have ignored the recent changes in the market.
"Ask the agent why the vendor is moving. There are always people moving for genuine reasons and these people are more likely to be realistic than those just looking to cash in on an investment. It is a more relaxed proposition buying in a down-turn though, as buyers can, on the whole, secure the price they want."
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2008-06-10T16:35:00.002+01:00

Dialect researchers given a 'canny load of chink' to sort 'pikeys' from 'chavs' in regional accents
By Andy McSmithFriday, 1 June 2007

If, in this age of instant nationwide communication, you think that regional dialects have died off in the UK, you must be a bit of a noggerhead (as they say in Somerset), or perhaps or a nizgul (from the Black Country), or you're a bit cakey (Staffordshire), or batchy (Essex), mazed (Devon and Somerset), niddy-noddy (Isle of Man), or just gormless (Yorkshire).
Researchers at Leeds University are sifting through a vast collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by a project run by the BBC, in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country.
So much information came back that the Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded a team led by Sally Johnson, Professor of Linguistics and Phonetics at Leeds University, £460,000 to study it. Among thousands of items turned up by the BBC Voices project is the range of words the young use to insult one another.

How, for instance, do they describe someone who goes around dressed in a lot of cheap, trendy clothes and jewellery, someone like the singer Lily Allen, for example? The best-known insult thrown at such a person is "chav", which can be heard all across the south of England and has spread north.

But in the South-east, such a person may also be called a "pikey", a corruption of 'turnpike sailor', a derogatory name that used to be directed at gypsies.

Other regional insults, all given the same meaning, include "charva", a Romany word heard in Newcastle, "scally" on Merseyside, "ned" in southern Scotland, and "kev" - short for Kevin - around Birmingham.

One of Lily Allen's offences against sartorial standards was to be photographed in a dress and trainers - trainers as the universal word for footwear known as "pumps" in Yorkshire, "gutties" in Scotland, and "daps" if you're on the south coast. "These labels are perhaps more eloquent of the people who are using them, and their attitudes, than of the people they try to stick these labels on," Clive Upton, a member of the research team, said.
"There is a study to be done as to whether when somebody calls someone else a 'pikey' or a 'scally', the word means the same to the hearer as to the person using it. Some people might think of it as a style statement, others might hear something threatening.

"But while we are in academia studying these questions, the people who really know what is going on and the people who are really driving the language forward are the people who speak it."
Mr Upton, who is Professor of English at Leeds University, said that they were "very pleased" - and indeed, "well chuffed" - at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country, or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink"

The word on the street: dialects from around Britain

Northern Ireland
Foundered: cold, chilled
Hirple: hobble or walk with a limp or unevenly
Peasewisp: untidy heap
Scrake of dawn: very early
Yam: crying sound of a cat

Glasgow
Go-carry: piggy-back
Midgie men: bin men
Oaxter: armpit
Planked: hidden

Tyneside
Canny: something or someone good
Copper wife: policewoman
Hadaway/Howay: be gone
Snotter cloot: handkerchief
Wor: our

Liverpool
Backie: riding on the back of someone's bike
Delf: cups, saucers, plates
Exey cosher: newspaper street seller
Latchlifter: having enough money to go to the pub
Spondoolicks: money

Yorkshire
Ay oop/Ey oop: hello
Baht: without
Clarty: muddy
Happen, or 'appen: perhaps
Owt: anything
Black Country
Mardy: moody
Nizgul: stupid person
Ronk: horrible
Toy: a gentleman's neck tie

London
Russell Harty: party
North and South: mouth
Pete Tong: wrong
Leo Sayer: all dayer
Tom Cruise: booze
Boracic lint: skint
Lord Mayor: swear

Southern Counties
Allus: always
Bodger: careless worker
Swimey: sick, or faint
Twitten: narrow path or lane

Edinburgh
Gie's a schifter: let me have a go/look
Mawkit: dirty
Pure: solid, really difficult
Top gadgie: great guy
Somerset
Acker: friend
Lart: wooden flooring
Noggerhead: idiot
Pixie-led: simple minded or crazed
Scollared: taught

Mid-Wales
Chimook: chimney
Glat: hole in the hedge
Her's in a cank!: she is in a bad mood
Unty tump: mole hill

Wiltshire
Fuckling: tiresome
Galley-bagger: scarecrow
Loppity: to feel weak or out of sorts
Mucker a miser: Teg sheep

Norfolk
Bishy-barney-bee: ladybird
Dodman snail: Mawkin scarecrow

Another Pikey joke.......

2008-06-10T16:31:00.001+01:00

Did you hear about the pikey who won the lottery?Apparently they're going to pay him with Travellers Cheques...

Gordon Brown ~ Good news and Bad news for Porridge

2008-06-08T19:02:00.001+01:00

The good news, according to the Politics Home website, is that Brown’s unpopularity has finally “bottomed out”.

The bad news is that his approval ratings have flatlined, with 77% thinking he is doing a bad job.

At prime minister’s questions, he looked more miserable and lonely than ever. The talk among Labour MPs is doom-laden.

Could he have gone by Xmas?

Gordon Porridge ~ record breaker

2008-06-08T18:57:00.001+01:00

Gordon Brown is breaking all the wrong kind of records.

Only John Major has hit a lower poll rating in office than Brown today. A recovery from here would make history.

With the first anniversary of his premiership still not upon us, Gordon Brown has set an unenviable record. He leads the most unpopular Labour government in polling history.
Jim Callaghan, in the Seventies, never fell below 30 per cent in the Gallup polls of his day. Harold Wilson's nadir was 28 per cent in 1968. Mr Brown's government is supported by just 26 per cent.
Only John Major, who slipped below 20 per cent, stands between Mr Brown and the wooden spoon for most unpopular government. It is hardly a comforting thought.

Gordon Porridge is full of oats

2008-06-08T18:55:00.000+01:00

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party reached a record low in popularity ratings, a poll found, although the same survey showed public backing for his counter-terror proposals, a key government policy that faces a vote in Parliament this week.
An ICM Ltd. poll for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper published today gave the main opposition Conservative party a popularity ranking of 42 percent, while Labour scored 26 percent -- the lowest recorded rating for the party by the polling company. ICM interviewed 1,023 adults on June 4 and 5 and no margin of error was given.

Irish to vote NO NO NO NO YES

2008-06-08T18:51:00.000+01:00

No camp 'gains' in Irish EU vote

Irish No campaigners seem to have gained ground
Irish and EU officials say they are confident the EU reform treaty will pass an Irish referendum despite a poll suggesting the No vote is surging.
A survey published by the Irish Times on Friday suggested 35% of people would vote No - more than twice the figure polled two weeks ago - against 30% Yes.
It is the first poll to put the Nos in the lead, ahead of Thursday's vote.
Ireland is the only country holding a referendum on the treaty. A No vote would throw the process into chaos.

Carol's Birthday on 30th May 2008

2008-06-08T15:03:00.001+01:00

Tories surge ahead in polls

2008-06-03T14:27:00.000+01:00

The Conservative Party enjoys a 14-point lead over Labour, enough to give David Cameron an overall majority of 102, according to the latest poll by ComRes for The Independent.
It puts the Tories on 44 per cent, their highest rating since the company began polling for this newspaper in October 2006.
Labour is on 30 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 16 per cent.
Although Tory support has risen four points since our last ComRes survey five weeks ago, their lead over Labour remains the same because Labour is also up four points. Other parties appear to have been squeezed. The Liberal Democrats have dropped four points, and the smaller parties have fallen back by the same amount.

Modern Jazz Quartet - Django

2008-06-02T15:43:00.001+01:00

Incredible group from my youth.

Xmas is coming

2008-05-27T10:21:00.000Z

Homeowners will lose £20,000 by next Christmas as house prices drop 10%
By SEAN POULTER
Last updated at 23:14 31 December 2007

Glimpse of the future: A slump in the housing market is indicated after ten years during which prices have doubled
An average of £20,000 will be wiped off the value of every home by next Christmas, it is claimed today.

This will be the effect of a 10 per cent fall in property prices compared with their peak in August, say analysts.

In total, this equates to a staggering £400billion fall in the bricks and mortar wealth of the nation.

The figures come from accountants at Grant Thornton, who warn the reverse is likely to deliver a huge blow to consumer confidence and, potentially, the wider economy.

House prices have more than doubled in the last ten years, creating a feeling of economic well-being and security that generated a consumer spending boom.

This boom, built on credit, kept high-street stores busy, promoted manufacturing orders and ensured the UK avoided recession.

Grant Thornton warns that a fall in house prices could have exactly the opposite effect. Homeowners will feel poorer, leading them to tighten their belts and limit their spending which could starve stores of income, threatening closures and job losses.

Senior tax partner at Grant Thornton, Maurice Fitzpatrick, said: "It appears that house prices hit their peak in August. We can expect a fall of 3 per cent by the end of 2007, followed by a further fall of 7 per cent in 2008.

"This would wipe £400billion off the value of UK residential property or an average of £20,000 per household.

"A 'burn off' of this degree of personal wealth would tend to make people more cautious about borrowing. That would damage any feelgood factor and, potentially, economic growth."

He added: "The value of a person's home is crucial in terms of the psychology of personal and financial well-being. Just as rising property prices promoted a feelgood factor and spending, so falls could have a powerful opposite effect."

Mr Fitzpatrick said his projections represent an analysis of the figures based on the "best available hard evidence".

The Bank of England's decision to cut the base rate by a quarter point in December to 5.5 per cent was intended to head off the worst effects of the credit crunch. However, City analysts believe that this falls well short of having any meaningful effect.

Many banks and building societies have refused to pass on the cut to borrowers. At the same time, they have slashed the number of mortgages they are offering, leading to a fall in the number of property sales and prices.

Experts at Capital Economics revised their forecasts to suggest price falls over the next two years will be greater than it originally anticipated.

They believe prices will fall by an average of 5 per cent in 2008 and 8 per cent in 2009, wiping out all the increases of the last 18 months.

Previously, it had forecast a fall of 3 per cent in each of these two years.

However, price falls could turn out to be good news for firsttime buyers. Chief economist at the Halifax, Martin Ellis, said: "A more subdued housing market over the next few years is a positive step for potential new entrants."

Business leaders also warned that the property market could suffer a "sharp reversal" in 2008.

Confederation of British Industry director-general Richard Lambert warned that "a sharp reversal" in house prices would have serious consequences but added that there was a risk excessively gloomy talk could fuel a deeper downturn than need take place.