Mara Jade hold my hand

the art book   a thames and hudson illustrated guide  to  thousands of years of art from cave art to indian  installation art of 2010  as it says on the back  cover easily navigatable and user friendly  all types of art there in this print website  format from  ancient sumerian to the mannerists and onto  every post war artist since 1945  totally without comment or pretension

lore of the playground by steven roud  a 100 years of childrens games from tag to skipping    british bulldog to marbles and tops i spent my childhood indoors reading books and memorizing king lists and dates in history  so the idea of clapping games  conkers and  skipping rhymes new and unknown to me

warlords the struggle for power in post roman britain  stuart layock   some thing  familiar to any reader of a Arthurian novel     good on detail and heavy on sources form gildas  not only imcluding the favourites Arthur, vortigern and Hengest but also Gerontius  and Penda

star wars omnibus a series of three graphic novels   stars wars shadows of empire, mara jade  by the emperors hand  and shadows of empire evolution      i pickled this up and realised that i had read these in the 1990s but still  remembered the story    set betwen yavin and endor    it told  of peripheral events usually amongst  galactic scum and  cantina lowlife  for example the adventures of  boba fett transporting  a big block of han  solo to jabba ,the conspiracies of prince xixor and his black sun criminal gang   mara jade   (later of course mrs skywalker) and her early life as high kicking high kill count imperial  agent  and the last story shadows of the empire evolution    telling the story of Guri the barbie blonde replica human assasin droid from the black sun gang sought by criminal gangs, cantina low lifes and galactic scum all of which  she of course crushes underfoot   wonderfully  cliched  and  drawn colourfully if not totally to scale

seeing the sky with an astrolabe

As planned  I changed the rete on my astrolabe to use stronger paper  and reinforced the dials with backing cardboard the astrolabe  works as seen in tis setting for this week stars  in northern hemisphere   note orion just above taurus 
the astrolabe of course works on the same principle as those star pocket viewers or plantispheres but i find it effective  and can use it alongside my  mariners astrolabe i made last year

on a poetry front mixed news   i have posted to three poetry forums rather than one
 moods of wookey hole legends   my you tube poem    got good comments

enjoyably disconnected; mysterious; fresh

  and the occasional complaint from some one angered by the poems  confusing language ie  quoted in full as I  find it so  entertaining by its sheer critical non entity

This wasn't bad, but what is a fallen tomb? How can a door be haunted by the tombs. 'Telling empty'? Not sure what you mean there. I'm not sure what the cave is suppose to be. It reads like every line is meant to be a fluffy verse meant to be on it's on.(own)Nothing really links together. You have some nice images, but it could be better.(!)

 Emphasize on the girl led away by fairies. It's too vague and abstract to have a meaning in my opinion.

tend to get asked questions on forums when i post poems   such as  "A fragment ,ask for  my advice on improving"  all could answer was "I wrote it in 1994   sorry never looked at it since" and that ends the conversation  from my worthy mentor  i have been writing for nearly 30 years  so tend to  put mix of new stuff and stuff from 80s and 90s  that not me -its my  unpublished back catalogue

 got rejected by magazine editor  for  distant machine  posted  on this blog already guessed the reason 

"While this poem has some lovely lines, e.g., "Gray over the rainbow/A gospel of white light," there are some problems with syntax and clarity. 

Note that explaining a poem in the cover letter should be unnecessary. I can't use this one, but I'd be happy to see more of your work."

although i have sent emails to Bettany Hughes mentioned my theory on the minoan culture and the god goddess trinity as  bull leaping cosmology  no reply but since discovered  that all BH emails are answered  by her PR company which also posts as BH on facebook and twitter 

likewise simon armitage will not reply but  the  actual addresse of SA email  will be a junior PR  accounts assistant at  SA's publisher  who is puzzling over  what  moods of wookey hole legends is actually about  if they bother to view this blog or  youtube video at all

Click to read my poems on www.poemhunter.com

Flat pack astrolabe kit

 what did i do this weekend
downloaded this astrolabe kit from internet it is based on chaucers treatise of the astrolabe
basic card version i will   print out  rule and label  on stronger card and rete on different paper
it works  and followed  chaucers instructions 
check out the   original  article and kit download   hours of fun  

all cities turn to dust

british comics a cultual history by james chapman this claims to be a first of its kind but is yet another adult orientated nostalgia book dealing with comics from the victorian to the present yet again sections on dan dare pilot of the future and 2000AD and viz less on the funnies beano and danny just passed over and long section on little read brief issues of alternative comics and graphic novels one for the collector

 It Just Slipped Out: A Bulging Encyclopaedia of Double Entendres by Russell Ash laugh out hsitory of this englaih language comedy institution what is a doulbe entendre well a girl wals in a bar and asks for a double entendre so the bar man gives her one side splitting a to z od the perisl of asking aold hard of hearing man if he had "seen any picknickers about " or the reply to get if you ask a cockney in a rowing boat with two woman passengers if you ask to "borrow one of his oars" "taking down particulars" and "inspecting testimonials" a laugh out loud book


 when a bilion chinese jump how china will save mankind or destroy it by jonathan watts the asian enviromental correspondent for the Guardian tours china and finds it smoggy, eco extinct and building great cities on refuse and resources


 dubai the story of the worlds fastest city by jim kane yet another journalists book this time on the mirror city building skyscrapers in the sand powered by its migrant workers who live in a shanty called the city of gold dubai like binhai and beihan a new 21stC city from nowhere but like all cities in the world abandoned by the end of this 21st century city as wealth of the elite and model town dream do we need them?


 nearly did not make it to monday as narrowly missed by a speeding car going through a red light when i was crossing the road


 writing poetry and emailed simon armitage expect as much a reply from him as got from brian cox all i asked SA was was had he ever considered doing another medieval yorkshire accent poem this time translating the kalevala

cardboard kits of scientific instruments

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


found a really great website
that sells make yourself carboard kits of nocturnals, orreys,sextant and telecope kits
thinking of an excuse to buy them all


given up on sending my poems to magazines that want you to buy your work as one poem in an anthology see little different between the bridport prize and the vanity press forward books
no room in me for vanity or anthology as do not actually like poetry as a subject

travel and not leaving the journey

where China meets India by thannt Myint U the idea that buma is emerging as the crosroads of asia liberal and culturaly unique ok for nsyone interested in the kingdoms of assam or Ava and the chinese borders but like so many others taking of short range globalism

tales from the fast trains by Tom Chesshyre is that an pretensious affectation of a surname i live in the county and spell it Cheshire
chesshyre or chessy to his friends and his dull (make believe) girlfriend E take little journeys by train to call at explore like sarcastic tourists the euro destinations of Dijon, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Rotterdam, Marseilles,Antwerp, Lille, Luxembourg and Paris
little interesting here a jumped up guide book and a boring series of travel article that has little content to interest thr train buff or the traveller

walk the lines by mark mason the london underground overground mason walks the 269 stations of the london underground but falls back on cripped facts and barely observed london life take it up you are a tourist

silk road by colin falconer
yet another knight travels to kubilai khan novel covers the same groud as thomas b costains novel the black rose of 1945 and virtually every other pseudo marco pol adventures in cathay book and is as much as travel book as a historicall novl
starts well with the confession of a dying monk which plays out in flashback but so much sameness in this mongol horde and very slow going with very short chapters lot of narrative and stilted dialogue ffrm historical source material but kept reading to the end and realised that the unlikable monk really deserved to confess to a horrific sin he had commited long ago in the east

"I hate all Boets, Bainters " and Pookbinders

been looking at sending my poetry to magazines firstly these are expensive in subscriprtion or submision £12 per entry SAE required and in the same format as vanity press anthologies ie you buy from their press and secondly We do not read simultaneous submissions! We do not publish texts that have been published elsewhere (this also includes Internet magazines, homepages, and blogs)! We do not read (review) websites and do not consider work published there.they want poetry never published anywhere how passe and elitist so that includes internet sites blogs homepages what is it with wood based publishing these days and their minority opinion and non exclusive rights
can i not express and publish my poetry as i like?
after all my youtube channel gets the hits and i am not working on a volume of slim poetry and hoping to lecture for creative writing purposes
likewise the bridport prize largest creative writing competition in the english language rules state Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must never have been published, self-published, published on any website or public online forum, broadcast nor winning or placed in any other competition
why am i worrying on a inpirational roll at the moment so can give them one of my new ones but do find that the wood based bookbinder is behind the times after all my kindle book reaches an audience as does my youtube channel are they not suitable mediums for poetry
quote in title by the way taken from king george the first of england on being asked opinion of arts in the UK

Titanic

been aware of the Titanic for years as it was such an event from 1912 onwards and my grandmother who was a seamtress/dreamamaker make fancy baby clothes for one of the passengers to take with them on voyage - oh the memory
until 1997 the main titanic film was night to remember that gave the black and white version i also have the book upon which it was based by walter lord there have been many films about the loss of the titanic

i was inspired to write poem about Titanic and created it whole in about 2 minutes
added it to youtube along with another new poem about wookey hole

Gadgets lost for memory

read story of astromony by peter aughen from ancient babylon to the space age good information on all the discoveries nad personalities of astromony including jeremeiash horrocks as aughen wrote a previous biography of him chapets devoted to the two greats of moden science newton, einstein and hawking
some skating over the 19th century ie nothing much after 1846 and asides on longitude and large telescopes

collecting gadgets and games from 1950s to the 1990s daniel blythe
is there room for yet another TV cream type remember when about toys but including sandwich makers nad betamax video to keep gadhets in the title
a webpage in print with prices and brief retrofax with that true authors standby the link to websites of interest

fear a cultural history by joanna burke the study of fear from fear of death to fear of terror however msot faer is conduced in the laboratory or the text book and the section on nightmares is dull more dreams by freud than dreams by dreamers


Most Amazing Haunted & Mysterious Places (Readers Digest) an update of the 1970s version mainly a revised gazeeteer of a few post 1980 hauntings to add to the update and the addition of UFO sightings in palce of fairy rings and ruins useful bedside read but little new from the 1970s larger version which i also have and found a better book

some poetic inspiration over the holiday find i can write it down as i create

the wasteland in ten lines

comment on my latest poem "A dream-like disconnectedness to this, a surreal starkness which 'misses the nail right on the head'. Your poem is like 'The Wasteland' in ten lines. Enjoyable, intriguing, tantalising"
ah shucks i am blushing now!!
this is it anyway
wrote it in about 15 minutes a month ago
Watch the road
Overgreen
Nature goes inevitable
Blank city connected space
Cage overdying

A ship breaks the trees
No metaphor of shipwreck
Sea hating and depressing

Turning at a noise
A few great engines
pathetic , regular and horizontal

whether it is the weather or a better choice of reading matter from the library but march april one of my most productive writing months 10 poems and three i wrote and then could not read my writing the next day as for example last evening i scribled it down in haste and looking aback today realised i did just that -scribble it
this is all i can make out
four lines
two more lines
The last in black
What am I living by this telling
thrre more lines
I cannot actually read the rest of my own writing
there it is another lost to the world -third this month !

all getting on the road to make big journeys with little maps

fun inc Why games are the 21st Century's most serious business by Tom Chatfield the rules of the game and its business from pac man to second life naso n to MMo and an analysis of the emerging cognitive behavious of a game all the way to gameplayer guild management as a skill you can put on your CV to virtual honours a typical web 2.0 book

The Battersea Park Road to Paradise by isabel losada i admit this is the first of losada's book i had read and read it as i have read others on this totally passe othe peoples relgions road trip type subject ie 2the spirtual tourist" losada tries to be funny but ends up writing the least funny book since mark twains Innocents abroad very much in the tone and delivery of someone begiing each sentence "IF LIKE ME" and unlike some book on "living spirtualily" losada is completely without malice or carping losada goes on a journey through the five elements from feng shui to vipassana and motivational therapy all the way to a dire tripping up the amazon last section where we meet the idea that was cliche even in percy fawcetts time -the shaman who claims to experience changes but only actually ingests something yet another web 2.0 book but i at least read it to the end and expect a screenplay soon

Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion by david lewis willaims yet another religion what the devil is it? all the way from kalahari bush men visions to general christianity mayan ritual to therian cave art

extreme insects by richard jones this is a beautiful book with illustrations of insects that jump off the page combined with incredibly useful facts about smel insects suh as the armoured rubtaisl that live in wasp nests and an insect that attacks its predator at the moment of strike to parasite its eggs on the now sedated predator