Nigel Gordon

To give an illustration of what Mihangel wrote about in his answer to Cole, I was recently sorting some family photos and found one from 1950 of the occupants of my grandparent's place in Hull. At the time they had my parents and a two year old me, my father's cousin, his wife and two children, my grandmother's sister and her family of three children (her husband being missing presumed dead), her eldest son's wife and their baby. 95% of the housing in Hull had been damaged in the Blitz and it was not until the late fifties that resettlement was completed.

I am sure this topic existed, as I thought I had posted to it. However, I can't find it, so I have started one, if it does exist my apologies and hopefully the Dude can move this to the original topic. ​This is a story that I have really enjoyed reading and has kept me interested throughout. Not only was the plot good the characters and the locations were vivid. If you have not read this story I would recommend that you do. If you have read it, do you think that Mark has left a loose end with Tony? Hopefully we might see a sequel in which Tony's story is told.

​It is difficult but, if you can do it, it is worth the effort. Though I must admit that the times I have done it have been more by accident than design. Woke up early hours of the morning with the idea for a story, got up wrote the story, then gone back to bed and slept, only to have forgotten the file name I have saved it under. Usually about three months before I find it.

This is a major problem for a lot of writers and one I know I am guilty of. One piece of advice I was given by a eminent published author, unfortunately one I have not always followed, is that when you have finished a piece of work put it to one side and leave it, for at least a month, if possible longer, then come back and read it. By that time you will have forgotten what you had actually intended to write and so read what is there, not what you expect to be there. I must say when I have actually done this I have found myself catching a lot of errors, especially missed words or incorrect words, like putting the when you intended they.

I first heard about Willem Arondeus in 1986, when I was living in the Netherlands. At the time there was a move afoot to make an English language film about him - I believe there had already been a Dutch TV programme made on his life. However, when the project landed on the desk of the Hollywood production companies the response was 'who wants a film about a fucking faggot'. I believe the project is still floating around out there somewhere and hopefully one day it may get made. The Dutch resistance in general had been fairly well penetrated by German intelligence and was highly compromised. The one part that they were generally unable to penetrate deeply was the resistance groups that had grown out of the homosexual community.

Des, I totally agree. Fortunately so does my religion.

I agree, to quote from my old politics lecturer "Any freedom not continually fought for will be lost."

Sometimes it can be rather dangerous to ask the writer. Some years ago I had my godson living with me and one evening he was stuck on some English Lit homework in which he was asked to explain the meaning of a poem. It happened I knew the poet in question quite well so phoned them to ask what the poem was about. My godson listened to the explanation and said it made sense and wrote an essay explaining what he had been told. He failed the assignment - what he had written, which was very close to what the poet had said in no way fitted with the experts opinion as to what the poem was about.

There is always a danger of over analysing a story, or most other things for that matter. I when I get close to doing it I try to remember a story I was told years ago by a friend who at one time shared a flat with the author John Wyndham in the 1950s. John had enrolled under his real name ( John Benyon Harris) with an English Lit group, I don't know if this was a formal class or just a discussion group. One day they discussed Day of the Triffids, when John returned to the flat he told my friend Paul that (a) he had never written what they were talking about and (b) he did not understand how they had got to their understanding from what he had written.

A New Earth and one that will be very interesting apparently. I find Michael's writing to be quite easy to read and his story telling has the ability to capture you in the worlds he is describing. It is going to be an entertainment to follow this story into the future that Michael no doubt has planned for it. You can find it here: Terre Nouvelle by Michael Arram - Chapters 1 & 2

No, newspeak as described by Orwell is a very specific subset of a language that removed words, constructs and phrases or modified their meaning, in order to make certain types of thought impossible. There is some very interesting examples of newspeak in announcements of the Nazi propaganda department during the WWII. Although newspeak changes the meaning of things it still makes sense within the context that it is used. I would suggest that to gibberishize something is to take a statement and change it in such a way that it no longer has any useful information in it and carries no meaning to such an extent that the statement is now total gibberish.

Congratulations.

I am definitely going to try and find a use for gibberishize in some of my writing in the future, it is certainly a word which we need to get into the Oxford English Dictionary. It exactly explains the outcome of most political and official speak.

I recall being told that there are some African languages where a double positive results in a negative. I suspect this might be the case with some of the 'click' languages, as I was once told that a specific click could mean positive or negative in accordance with how it was used, essentially it changed the meaning of the following phrase from positive to negative or visa versa. Though thinking about it the logic is probably more like the NOT operator in programming languages. NOT YES = No NOT NO = YES.

​The are some stories which have really great themes explored in terrific writing. There are some which are interesting and challenging. Then there are those which are just amusing. Lido is one of these, and that is not to knock it. A well crafted and well written amusing story is as good, if not better in some cases, as your other classes of short story. In fact such a story may even be considered better, if you look at the English language literature of the first part of the 20th century it is the stories of writers like P.G. Woodhouse that tend to stand out as those still being read. This is a delightfully crafted and quite amusing story. I would not put it up amongst the greats of AD writing but I am sure it is going to end up being one of the frequently read. You can find it here: Lido by Pedro

I have just read this for the first time, though I am sure I am going to read it again and again. It is certainly amongst the finest short stories that I have read anywhere, not just here, and one which is well worth reading. This is great story telling with high quality writing and a strong message all combined in one. Without doubt some of the best writing going.

I have just read this for the first time, though I am sure I am going to read it again and again. It is certainly amongst the finest short stories that I have read anywhere, not just here, and one which is well worth reading. This is great story telling with high quality writing and a strong message all combined in one. Without doubt some of the best writing going.

This whole subject is a minefield where thinking, at least in the West, has been massively corrupted by the Abrahamic tradition. It might be worth considering that in many non-Abrahamic cultures and tradition the child is not recognised as being a "human being" until some time after birth. Actually this also applied within the Abrahamic tradition until about the time of the Roman conquest of Judea. The argument that life exists and must be preserved from the moment of conception is flawed from a scientific perspective as the majority of conceived embryos fail to implant ( between 60% to 80%) and are flushed away in the menstrual cycle. Also a lot of implanted embryos are naturally aborted before the end of the first month. Many late or heavy periods are in fact miscarriages of failed implanted embryos. If we are going to say that life exists as an independent entity from the moment of conception we have a major medical emergency on our hands as we are losing up to 90% of it. What is interesting is that the countries that have the best sex education in the world, like the Netherlands, have some of the lowest abortion rates ( 9.7 per 1000 women of childbearing age), whilst those with some of the worse sex education, like the USA tend to have the highest abortion rates ( 18 per 1000 women of childbearing age). Whilst abortion was on the increase worldwide up till the millennium, figures since the millennium indicate that the abortion rate has either remained flat or in many cases decreased. These figures are generally in line with an increase in the quality and availability of good sex education. There have been a number of studies showing that there is a direct relationship between the quality of sex education provided and the level of abortions. The better the provision of sex education the lower the level of abortions. It is also the case that where there is good quality sex education provided there is a drop in the level of 'viable abortions' that is abortions where the aborted foetus would have been viable if it had survived to term. In countries such as the Netherlands, with their low level of abortions, a high percentage of abortions carried out are to terminate foetuses that would either not survived to term or would have died shortly after birth. From my own perspective and my religious belief the right of the mother to have an abortion if she so desires is absolute. At the same time I regard abortion as something that should be avoided if at all possible, not on any moral ground but because of the attendant risks associated with any medical procedure. The fewer medical procedures that have to be carried out the better. What seems clear is that one way we can reduce the number of abortions is to increase the availability and quality of sex education in schools. To make this effective, however, you also have to make sure the means of contraception are readily and easily available to all who might need them, including such provisions as the morning after pill.

There has been an interesting programme on the impact of the upcoming Gay Marriage issue before the US Supreme Court on the BBC World Service. A link is given below: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tmct1 Not sure what the access restrictions are on this as it is a World Service programme but you may need a VPN to access it outside of the UK.

​Very interesting and it does raise a very valid point. There are a number of us in the LGBT community who are of the opinion that there are alternatives to marriage out there which are probably far more suitable for many and we would like to see ways of giving them formal status.

I can't say how glad I am to see this in the Dude's Picks from the Past. Sequoyah is a great story teller and this is a great story. I first read it on another site but have read it a couple of times since and am re-reading it yet again. It is well worth reading.

From what I hear from some sources connected with the Vatican I understand this Pope can be rather blunt and forceful in his use of language at times, especially when confronted with idiots. We might hear him telling the Republicans to shove it.

I have just finished reading the actual report mentioned in the article. You can find it here: a highly anticipated report It is well worth reading. I particularly found the following be to interesting and something that should be disseminated, especially amongst some of the Christian groups: The study explores and could find no evidence that same-sex orientation can be changed through ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapy. It highlights that 50 years of research have not found same-sex attraction to be inherently pathological or a malady of any kind. Studies have also not been able to show any particular social harm of consensual relationships between adults, nor any negative impact on broader communities. Given the documented dangers of such therapy and its direct conflict with medical ethics, these interventions are contra-indicated. Further, recognising the ineffectiveness of conversion therapy, we recommend the wide dissemination of this information especially to health professionals across Africa and beyond.

Shouldn't someone tell them that when God comes down to establish the Kingdom on Earth they will have a slight problem: She's a Black Lesbian! She doesn't speak English She only drinks Coffee ​

An interesting report has just come up on the SciDev network about homosexuality in Africa, the connected article is well worth reading. You can find it here: http://www.scidev.net/global/governance/news/ASSAf-homosexuality-african-life-report.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=SciDevNewsletter&utm_campaign=international%20SciDev.Net%20update%3A%2015%20June%202015 I am always amazed by people who tell me that there is no history of homosexuality in Africa. They mostly seem to be people who are part of the African diaspora, especially Jamaicans and African Americans. Anybody who has spent any time studying African history will have come across the evidence for homosexual activity within the Zulu Impi, the courts of the Kings of Benin not to mention the reports on the practices of the Central African tribes. Homosexuality was always a major part of African life and culture, it is Western Churches that have driven it underground, especially American Baptist Missionaries.