Event poster.   Adele Cosgrove-Bray   Tim Hulme   Peter Caton   Dave   Peter   Audience participation from Helen Brickwood   Audience participation from Frank Hogan   Note:  The lovely photography exhibition which served as our backdrop is by pupils from West Kirby Residential School.

Press clipping from The Wirral News , 6th July, 2011, announcing Riverside Writers' event tomorrow.   Click on the image to see it in a larger size. The clipping's title makes it sound as if attendees will be expected to write all afternoon.  Not so!  People will be treated to a diverse range of original fiction and poetry from some of Riverside Writers longest-standing members, most of whom are published (and I do not mean self-published!). Telling Tales is the first of two literary events which I'll be organising this year, the other being Parallel Dimensions, the third annual Wirral Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror festival whose audience gets bigger each time. 

Have a play with this Death Clock.  No, not the cartoon death metal band; this gadget is supposed to be able to calculate the date of your death.  I got July 8th, 2054 - but this date doesn't take into consideration my cryo-preservation contract, or my other (shall we say philosophical?) pursuits. 

" We believe that the world needs a different ideological paradigm...  The new ideology should assert, as one of its priorities, the necessity of using breakthrough technology for an improvement of man himself and not only of his environment.  We believe that it is possible and necessary to eliminate aging and even death, and to overcome the fundamental limits of the physical and mental capabilities currently set by the restrictions of the physical body. "Scientists from various countries in the world are already developing technology that ensures the creation of an artificial human body prototype within the next decade.  We believe that before 2045 an artificial body will be created that will not only surpass the existing body in terms of functionality, but will achieve perfection of form and be no less attractive than the human body." Source: http://2045.com/plan/

"The footage was filmed near the BBC Radio 1 building in Great Portland Street, and shows specks of white light flying at high altitude over the capital. A larger object then emerges from behind a cloud before vanishing moments later." Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8599547/UFOs-spotted-over-London.html

I watched the recent TV documentary - on iPlayer as I have no desire to own a TV - which featured the popular Fantasy author Terry Pratchet at Dignitas Clinic. He spoke to two people before they chose to take their own lives at the clinic, and he watched as one of them did so. We, the viewers, watched too. Inevitably the programme has caused a storm of protest. People argue about the sanctity of life being violated, and are concerned about the dismissal of various religious ideas, the ethics of money earned through aiding suicide, the potential exploitation or ‘removal’ of vulnerable people, and the possible grim ramifications of state-sanctioned suicide. These are valid points which need serious consideration. Who has the right to define any standard on what is a good and worthwhile life for anyone other than themselves? My definition will differ from yours, and yours will differ from the next person’s, and so on and so on, endlessly. Pratchet’s documentary emphasised that

"Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travellers. Known as the Donggar Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals...  Frescoes that are currently open to the public mainly depict Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and other deities, but also feature animals that are not native to Ngari." Source: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/06/rare-look-into-tibets-largest-buddhist.html