This article was originally published in 2010. I am continuing the process of transferring my old Hubpages articles to here.  Bad at Arithmetic? Did you have serious problems trying to learn basic maths in school, or do you know of a child who is experiencing this? Have you heard of dyscalculia? Whereas a dyslexic has word blindness - to over-simplify the condition - a dyscalculic person has number blindness. Number Blindness This means that anything requiring numbers, such as mental arithmetic, remembering phone numbers, using a calculator or understanding the mechanics of mathematics, is incredibly difficult. If a child, for example, is doing fine in other subjects like English, history, art, geography or biology, but struggles badly with scientific equations or the times table, then there is a possibility that dyscalculia may lie at the root of the problem. As well as having obvious numerical problems, a dyscalculic may also possess a poor sense of direction, be a poor judge of ...

This story was published on Hubpages in 2009. I am transferring my work from Hubpages to here. The story as it appeared in The Zine. the cartoon is a self-portrait, showing my camera on a tripod, plus a 'Home Sweet Home' sign with a UFO in it. Written in 1992, A Day in the Life of Ondole Andlifesabitch was partially inspired by my reading of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It also  presents an accurate description not only of my own life at that time, but of life for millions of others who lived under Thatcher's Britain. Official figures at that time estimated there to be four million people unemployed. The real figures are still protected by the Official Secrets Act. However, as many groups of people were deliberately left out of the official calculations--such as anyone who had graduated from education, or who had been made redundant, or who had left the armed forces, or was aged over fifty, or who had completed a prison sentence, or who wa...

 Lilyana Shadowlyn presents her review of the Black Magick anthology here , awarding it five stars out of a possible five stars.

What does the anthology title, Black Magick , mean? Some of the authors who contributed to the book offer their explanations.

Joshua Gage has written a review of the Black Magick  anthology for Cemetery Dance online magazine. Read the review here.