Secret governmental files dating from 1981 have now been released for public viewing.  Most of the press seem fixated on trivia, such as Margaret Thatcher's alleged squabble over the purchase of an ironing board.  However, of real interest is the documented deliberate financial crippling of the city of Liverpool. Liverpool in the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s was a tough place to live.  It was probably the most difficult place in the UK to find work.  The city shopping area was limited; wander away from Bold Street and the Bold Street end of Church Street, or the smatter of shops on London Road, and you'd pass empty buildings which swiftly faded into dereliction.  It was a place where long-term unemployment was the norm, where those who had jobs were looked upon as lucky or treacherous, depending on your politics.  It is estimated that the city lost one third of its population as people relocated in search of better lives.  Added to this was the stigma given by the British p

Apparently, Italian scientists have recently decided that the Turin Shroud was created by a supernatural event.  This seems an odd conclusion for scientists. Surely our lack of understanding of a thing does not mean that same thing is of supernatural origin.  It simply means we don't understand it yet. The cloth of the Turin shroud has been carbon dated.  Three seperate investigations - Oxford University, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona - all concluded that the fabric was from the Middle Ages, somewhere between 1260 and 1390.  It was woven on a perfectly ordinary loom of that era. The real mystery surrounds the image itself, which some people insist is the face of Jesus, if only because it's a bloke with a beard.  This actually only demonstrates that people choose to believe whatever is convenient or satisying to believe. There is, however, another explanation which is rather more rational, as this video suggests. It might be not

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adelecosgrovebray/ Discover Adele's FREE Yahoo! group newsletter. There's a clickable link on the side menu, or use the link above. The group has been around for quite a while, but from today members can now communicate and reply to each other. Enjoy!   

Penguin's Book Country self-publishing option offers writers 70% of the sale price of any book.  The catch is that this publishing service costs between $99 for a DIY option, and $549 if you pay Penguine to format the text for you. I fail to see why a person would pay $99 for the privilege of formatting their own ebook when this can be done for free, for similar returns, on Smashwords.   Book Country seems to want exclusive rights to epub files, also. Ok, so you'd get the famous Penguin logo on your ebook.  But it will take more than a cartoon birdie to promote the resulting ebook.  The author will still have to do the majority of that for themselves - as is also usual with traditional paperback publishing these-days anyway. Learn more:  http://bookcountry.com/ Learn even more Joe Konrath's blog at:  http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-country-fail.html   who by sheer synchronicity blogged about the same thing today, as I've just discovered when checking

Alan Billis, a sixty-one year old taxi driver with terminal lung cancer, volunteered to be mummified after the manner of Ancient Egyptians.  The taxi driver from Torquay allegedly said his only regret would be that at he wouldn't be around to see the programme, although he hoped it would give his grandchildren an insight into his personality. I wonder if Mr Billis gave cryonics any consideration?  If cryonics works, then he could tell his grandchildren (if they also opted for cryonics) all about himself for himself - and that's assuming cryonics isn't a working reality before Billis's grandchildren require cryo-preservation to make that leap into the future.  A cryo-sceptic would say that's a lot of "ifs", and that is a fair point.  However, looked at with a rational mind which makes the most sense - a slim chance of a possibly-eternal life, or no chance at all? Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret will be screened on Channel 4 on  October 2

Amazon will allegedly be publishing 122 books, fiction and non-fiction, in the autumn.   This is far more than many traditional publishers produce in an entire year - or two or three years, even.  Not only can authors already self-publish with Amazon's Create Space (for paperbacks) and Kindle (for ebooks), not only are all authors offered virtual shelf-space and dedicated pages on Amazon's massive - and always growing - site, now Amazon is diving into the role of a traditional publisher.  And I say good! Does this action finally kill off the myth that ebooks, including self-published ebooks, don't sell?  If there wasn't money to be made then a hefty company like Amazon wouldn't be expanding further into this field.  While many businesses take chances, the successful ones only take informed chances.  If a product works and is wanted and is affordable, it will sell.  If a system, no matter how long-established, ceases to provide what is wanted it's customers

Apparently, former SNP leader Gordon Wilson wants a referendum on the government's proposals to allow same-sex marriage.  In  a nine-page document he allegedly described same-sex marriages as an assault on Xtian values which could lead to social disintegration and sexual confusion. Excuse me, but exactly how can two people loving each other and deciding to get married bring about the end of life as we know it?  Who is anyone to declare how love should be expressed or where love should blossom for anyone other than themselves?   And how do gay people become a social hazard through marrying each other; does this mean that by remaining unmarried they're somehow more safe?  How ridiculous. As for Xtian values, how about:- “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” Matthew 7:1 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 Ac

Have you ever loved a story so much that you wanted to visit the place where it happened? Have you been so involved in a scene that you felt like you were really there? Well, a new innovation means you almost can be there - almost. When an ebook's tale is set in a particular place - a cafe, a theatre, an historic location, a bowling alley etc., - then readers can click a link to learn more about the factual place. This opens up a new angle in virtual tourism, which could potentially result in readers of a story booking into a hotel or diner where their fictional heroes stayed. So what we have here is another way of writers gaining an income. Just as sports people are sponsored to wear trade logos, then why couldn't writers be sponsored to include linked-to places/businesses in their ebooks? The principles are fairly similar. Blind Fate by Patrick Brian Miller and Dixie Noir by Kirk Curnutt are the first of these innovative ebooks to be published on Kindle (which c

Learn about the history of tattooing, and about Liverpool's famous tattooing family, of which Richie Tattoo Artist is a member, in this interview with Richie broadcast on Radio Merseyside in 1996.   

"Police in Paris discovered a cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement...  A tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing.  The tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs"...a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment and a wide variety of films.  A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.   "The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines." Source:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/08/filmnews.france?fb=optOut This article dates back to 2004; I recall mentioning it

"Archaeologist Alfonso Forgione, from L'Aquila University...said, 'I have never seen anything like this before. I'm convinced because of the nails found in the jaw and around the skeleton the woman was a witch.   S he was buried in bare earth, not in a coffin and she had no shroud around her either, intriguingly other nails were hammered around her to pin down her clothes.' " 'The second skeleton we have found was buried in a similar fashion but this time we found 17 dice around her - 17 is an unlucky number in Italy and also dice was a game that women were forbidden to play." Source: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/09/800-year-old-witch-burial-found-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArchaeologyNewsNetwork+%28The+Archaeology+News+Network%29   

CERN scientists have allegedly broken the speed of light by sixty nanoseconds.  It might not sound much, but if these claims are verified by further tests then this discovery could herald the final nail in the coffin of classical physics - much of which has been disproved already by quantum physics. News article:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html The long-held theory is that if things can move faster than the speed of light, then time travel and inter-dimensional travel ought to be possible. Ideas about time travel and inter-dimensional travel were around long before the commercial success of Dr Who .  Actually, Dr Who was around long before the current commercial success of Dr Who...  UFOlogists have been debating the possibility of UFOs being inter-dimensional rather than interplanetary craft for decades, and HG Wells published The Time Machine back in 1895.  But tales of side-stepping into other dimensions can be found

Are ebooks changing the way news and magazine articles are structured?  Some articles which are too big for traditional magazine print, but too small to make anything more than a booklet, are now finding a niche as ebooks.  This idea gives publishers another way of marketing their products.  They can create a virtual bookshelf of titles which relate to their main publication(s), and also attract new readership and revenue.  Their most popular columnists can make use of their existing readership to sell their ebooks, also.  It sounds a practical and, from the point of view of writers whose work doesn't always fit neatly into a fixed word-count, liberating concept.  Most writers are quite happy to earn a bit more, too. From the readers point of view, if they find themselves interested in an article or regular column and want more, they can buy the ebooks.  If they'd like easy access to archived material, buy the ebooks.  If the price is kept very low this will happen freque

"...Robotic labor seems like a brilliant idea that will ultimately create more wealth, and open up more opportunity for humans to pursue enjoyable work ."  - Aaron Saenz Source:  http://singularityhub.com/2011/09/12/robotic-labor-taking-over-the-world-you-bet-here-are-the-details/ Following from  this post , when I wrote about the changing role of employment in the future, I now turn to the idea of robots.  The article linked to above offers a concise summary of the way things seem likely to go.  But I don't want to write about automated manufacturing or similar.  Much more fun is an idea I've touched on with Seth's Basement.  Artificial companions, in other words.  For around $6,000 USD it's possible to purchase a male or female life-sized doll from a company like Real Doll .  Dress 'em how you like and go play.  They're an excellent solution for some people's needs.  The first person to combine these with (improved) robotics, AI, and the be

Are literary agents and publishers dictating the sexuality of fictional characters?  Apparently, Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith were told to 'straighten' one of their characters in their YA novel, or not have him come out until at least the third novel.  The responses to their blog post echo their dismay. Read the post here:  http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/?p=1519 Teenaged readers will be totally aware of the existence of non-straight preferences.  Some of them will have non-straight preferences of their own.  So why, in the 21st Century, is this bigotry being perpetuated?  To me, it seems ridiculous. Any agent or publisher with a similar tunnel vision need not apply to represent me.  (Ok, the way things work in this business is that traditional agents and publishers hold up the hoops for writers to leap through...)   My characters include straight people, bisexuals, homosexuals and one happy trio.  Mine are not stories about graphic sex; they&

"Scholars at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond have set out to leaf through eight million documents dating back to the 17th century, seeking the names of slaves." Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/arts/design/database-of-viginia-slave-names-goes-online.html It seems incredible, in this time when genealogy is so popular, that research into the identities of slaves hasn't been done already.  Liverpool was one point of the infamous slavery triangle, the other two being Africa and New York.  Ships from Africa would arrive at Liverpool to sell their human cargo and restock for the long haul to New York.  Ships from New York would arrive in Liverpool, sell cotton and similar crops raised on American plantations by slaves, then  to prepare to sail for Africa where they'd barter for more slaves to re-stock the workforce. Not all the slaves were black.  Many Scots and Irish people were sold as slaves by English magistrates.  Those people caught up in t

Sales of hardbacks, which is apparently the most lucrative category of books, are down by 23%, though some authors are doing better than ever due to increased sales in ebooks and clever use of interactive websites. Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/08/17/the-worlds-highest-paid-authors/ What does all this mean for the unsigned author?   How will the downturn in sales effect the number of new publishing contracts?   I've been thinking about what it actually means to be published.  It's fair to say that every writer dreams of having their work read by thousands if not millions of people.  I'm no different.  As much as I enjoy the creative process of writing and editing subsequent drafts, I also want my work to be read - and hopefully enjoyed.   And some of my short stories, one extract from Tamsin, some poetry and non-fiction have been published over the years.  But I want more; of course I do. There is the undeniable kudos of having had someone e

700 underground chambers have been found in Bavaria and another 500 in Austria, whose purpose is currently unknown.  Where they hideouts or sacred spaces?  They are often too narrow to have been used for food storage, and the only artifact found so far seems to have been an iron plowshare. Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,775348,00.html

Architect Jacob Szczesny has designed what may be the world's narrowest house, which fits neatly into a small gap between two pre-existing buildings.  It's intended occupant is writer Etgar Keret. I'm not sure why the design is triangular, as from photos it seems like there's plenty of room for a rectangular house which would provide more space.  Also, I suspect the remote control stairs which flatten when raised to make a level floor space will be a mixed blessing.  No object (or person) could be left on that area of the floor as surely it (or they) will go flying whenever anyone wanted to leave the room.  Still, it might be an effective method of ejecting unwanted guests. The first floor is reached by a ladder surrounded by an alarming hole in the floor.  Where does the occupant store  clothes, groceries etc?  There doesn't seem to be a washing machine but then is it described as a workplace (and an art installation) rather than a home - though it does have

There is a rather lovely tribute to one of my favourite artists, Lucian Freud, who died this week, written by someone who knew him well:- Visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jul/24/lucian-freud-william-feaver-appreciation