Nick Deverill

In England, golf is often a sport for the pretentious as most is played at clubs with snooty rules. There are a few municipal courses but not many. In Scotland, although there are snooty clubs, it is seen as a game for everyone and the municipal courses are both much more numerous and widely used.

I wonder if I should point out to him that any physical object is coloured. Compare a black tie, a lump of coal, and a bit of black velvet. They're all black aren't they... Had to point this out to friend who bought a black car to stop him making it all spotty with non-matching paint.

Yes, it's not how you cure bullies, it's more like an object lesson in how to to make one.

I read the published chapter, and then re-read Revelations 1. Another reason to now wish my life away!

My all time favourite ending, of any story is one of the ones here. What's more, I reckon I can safely quote it as it doesn't act as a spoiler and anyone reading this post should have already read the story anyway. I attacked England. And presently it came into Welsh hands. From http://www.awesomedude.com/mihangel/xenophilia-1/index.htm It's now a long time since I first read it and I still smile.

I must admit, the genre 'fantasy' is not one I generally go for but I spotted this one being posted at quite a rate and thus liable to be completed; which it now is. Worth a read I think and not a huge tale, so you don't lose a great chunk of your life if you don't like it. http://www.gayauthors.org/story/craftingmom/tearsoftheneko

It's also a good example of what one might call a novella. Not tonight, but I will also be re-reading the whole thing. Bit like a bar of chocolate sitting in the fridge, you know it's there and wanting it for a bit makes it taste better!

Wow. Do not pass go, do not collect £/$200 I've just read part 3 and now feel I now need to re-read parts 1 and 2 despite the fact the fat lady still hasn't sung.

Sums up the tale so far perfectly.

A worthy read, and again I'm now wishing my life away to get the next instalment. I rather suspect this one will have a few twists along the way.

In the sense that autistic kids don't understand others - perhaps, but I can quite believe the film shooter is 'normal' and just suffering from the misjudgements that many teenagers make. I dare say the psychological aspect will be fully explored in the defence of the kid. Don't know about American law, but it would not surprise me if the action against the school failed on the basis that all reasonable things were done. Banning phones in this day and age is doomed to failure, and only a twit would make such a rule. Any good rule/law can be enforced, if your new one can't be, then it's not a good rule/law by definition. (Regrettably, law makers across the globe seem to be in ignorance of this point). In respect of a story, it has quite a bit of potential. I would however caution someone not to write it yet as the matter is sub judice. I can visualise an ending too, with the tale being told by the film shooter twenty years on.

Contractions form part of everyday language, and can get replaced by the word in full for emphasis. For example, a boy's friend might say "Joe, don't do that" the first time, but spell it out fully a second time as "Joe do not do that". The boy's mother might say the same thing the first time as well. The second time, not only is the contractionless version likely, but also probable the boy's Sunday name will be used too, "Joseph Andrew Jones, do not do that". I don't greatly like the term flash fiction as some sites seem to use the short length as an excuse for a lack of plot. Your story is fine from that point of view as the reader can see there was a definite thought behind the whole tale. So if you were to call it, a rather short, short story, I for one would be with you.

Rightly or wrongly, a child is deemed not to have a full understanding of the implications of any illegal action. That's the simple bit. The tricky part is getting over to said child the necessary education to cover the issue as well as the deterrent of punishment. Sometimes it's caused by faulty upbringing, bad friends, and sometimes there is no discernible cause. Both the deciding and imposition of suitable regimes and punishments is not a task I'd like to have. Anyone who has had a discussion with a group of teenage boys will know they frequently exhibit what I call group unintelligence. A classic example was when I gave three scouts a lift. I might have been transporting three monkeys at first. Dropped one at their home and it was more like two children, dropped another, and had a quite adult conversation with the remaining lad when there was no group effect. I am aware there are child protection issues here, I was and still am friends with the last boy's parents and chose the order of dispatch on that basis.

Don't know about the browser or the platform but quite a bit of such troubles are due to the ISP (internet service provider) caching pages. BT (British Telecom) has been proved to do it in the past, but even when shown evidence - carried on denying it!

I'm with Nigel. Modern habit is to film all sorts of activities and the 'cameraman' would not have thought it through. Teenagers don't, five minutes of foresight is the best you can hope for. It's actually possible that the 'cameraman' himself is now a suicide risk.

A surprising amount of goods sold in the UK were metrified by requoting the dimensions in metric, fiddling the tolerance and not really changing anything. A surprising amount of 3/4 inch plumbing goods became 22mm, and for the things that did change like copper pipe, you can get conversion olives. Threaded bits of plumbing in the UK, despite metrification are usually BSP (British Standard Pipe) and just to be really contrary, 1/4 inch BSP has a major diameter (the outside of a thread) of 0.518, ie over 1/2 inch. I've a set of metrinch spanners originally bought to use on the three wheeler, but of quite a bit of use on domestic jobs too.

Not sure you'll find anything to be honest. Although the measure exists, it's a bit of a daft one. According to the paragon of truthfulness, Wikipedia (yeah right), it's not used. Some market traders, and pubs in the UK will sell you a pint of prawns which is the nearest I've come to a liquid measure being used for dry goods. As I'm a bit of a sucker for seafood, I have had it a few times for lunch.

Be very careful though. Imperial gallons (ie the true ones) are different to US gallons and that is both of them - wet and dry. Oddly, I weigh myself in kG, but measure my height in feet and inches. But as I was taught imperial in my first school, and was expected to know and use the metric system in secondary school, perhaps not that surprising.

I think the changes in chapter first person (the bloke wot's telling the tale) is correctly handled. I don't like the practise of writing "Eric's P.O.V." then Joe's "P.O.V." as it looks messy, often a reflection of the author's inadequacies and usually breaks the rule on the use of T.L.A.s (three letter abbreviations).

Fingers (and arms and legs) crossed etc. Exercise the bits that do work and keep trying to exercise the bits that don't!

Cockney slang is not made up on the spot else the other party would never know what you were on about. There's not that many word substitutions really but it does take a bit of learning. Probably invented as an aid to keep matters private, pig latin can be regarded in that light too. Although I always found it next to impossible to get on with. At school, some of us learnt the runic alphabet - made the passing of notes a much less risky activity as although it doesn't take much learning, the secret to the success of it is the fact that there are several two letter combinations in English script, that are one rune. So conventional code-breaking techniques fail. We were very careful never to say this, but make sure any note included at least two per sentence.

Thanks Paul for editing your post. I think most, if not all of us would have guessed, but the story is a much more enjoyable read when one figures it out for oneself. The mark of a good literary conspiracy theory is in making the tale believable. To my mind, this one hits the nail on the head.

That is a bit of a spoiler. Hopefully anyone coming here will have read the story first as leaving out the name makes the story. Googling mathematician and Bletchley will enable anyone who hasn't got it to understand. As is usual for Nigel, a masterfully written tale of a past not so long ago. Whether one needs to don a tin-foil hat though is another matter.

Tale is an interesting one, but the writer desperately needs either lessons in English or an editor to knock things into shape. I read chapter one, but stopped less than halfway through chapter two as although the basic premise is good, reading it is hard work. Sentence length is the major issue for me. And certainly in some sentences, all one needs to do is put in proper punctuation and the basic words as written will do. One sentence in part 2 is 107 words and has a Gunning Fogg index of 45.79. Which is utterly ridiculous, the editorial in broadsheet newspapers is often in the low teens.

The age of actors playing schoolkids is something that Hollywood gets wrong with a boring monotony. As a rule, if you want to see actors and actresses anything like the age they are supposed to be, you need to be watching a film from almost anywhere else. And to be honest, a gauche teenager will play most teenage parts better as well. The ones who retain the ability into their 20s are very few and far between.