Bruin Fisher

Yeah, but it was a good rant, and you made some powerful points. Well done you!

Do. It's really funny, but if you're looking up the lyrics you have to imagine it sung in an over-the-top clipped Oxford English accent. There's a line: Englishmen detest a siesta - which fits in well with your comment about the more sensible Spaniards! Bruin By the way - nice to run into you again here!

Hey - I'm a hypochondriac on Fridays, too! It means I'm always ill all weekend and get better just in time to start the working week again on Mondays. It really sucks. Bruin

Okay, thanks for that info. I guess Star Trek scriptwriters are exempt, though, for obvious reasons. That being so, perhaps my comments apply both sides of the big pond, then. Bruin

Thanks. I'm an ignorant Brit who can't be expected to know stuff. Bruin

If I had only known vs. If only I had known... I wonder if there's a transatlantic difference in usage here? In the UK, splitting an infinitive carries the death sentence, but I believe in the US it is acceptable (to boldly go where no man has gone before...). Here we're not considering an infinitive, but it's a verb clause.. 'I had known'. I think in the UK it would be preferable not to split it by putting 'only' in the middle. Better to put it outside. I agree with earlier posters that the word 'only' is used here idiomatically. The word 'just' could be used with similar effect - 'If I had just known' - but to my ear it doesn't work as 'If just I had known', that way it means that 'I' am the only person who had known. Like it would if 'only' were used literally rather than idiomatically. I'm getting myself tangled up in my own verbiage here. Get out while the going's good, Bruin.

Hmm. Don't even know what one of those is. Students at UCLA get called bruins? No. I'm a very UK kind of Bruin, more like Pooh Bear than UCLA, I think. Thanks, guys, for your welcome - I feel at home already. Bruin

Disclaimer: I don't 'do' poetry. I don't. Not at all. So the following offerings 'just slipped out'. Here's the first, called Radiance. I'm rather proud of it. It was written centuries ago when I was an impressionable teenager, about a girl who could always lift my spirits - and those of everyone else around her. Puddled pavements and sodden clothes Dry out under your smile And showers of your words wash out The gloom, and joy reigns awhile. ... and here's the second, untitled, (it doesn't really deserve one, as you'll see) written in a moment of inspiration, or possibly just mischief. With apologies to the songwriter Jimmy Kennedy. If you go down in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise. If you go down in the woods today you'll find the place full of guys. For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain because The gays today go cottaging with a picnic! ... so now you know why I'm a non-poet. Bruin

Wonderful writing from Camy. Jennings rides again! I'm a product (possibly waste product) of the school system that Camy writes about, and I have to say he writes with authority and sympathetically about a long tradition that lives on even now. Not everyone who gets put through that mangle comes out of it as well as the boys in the story do, so I'm very glad that Camy chose to write a happy, positive story. As such it's idealised, escapism. Just what I need. This story establishes a group of friends who go on to have further adventures together - go look for them in Camy's other stories. They're all great and strongly recommended. Bruin

Was this the first story of Camy's that I ever read? Can't remember now. But I can remember the story, almost word for word. It made a BIG impression on me. Why? Partly because it's about the world I inhabit - run-down seaside tourism land UK. Partly because it's a story about people like me. But mostly because it's so brilliantly written. Infectious, involving, heart-rending and heart-warming, I just love this. If you haven't read it, go read. NOW. Thanks for giving it away, Camy! Bruin

Read it, loved it. Now this story was brilliant, like Duck Duck Goose (yes, I know, I read them in the wrong order). But unlike DDG this one started off surprising rather than becoming so gradually. What a great setting. Like others I loved the atmosphere that you gave it, I could feel the cool night air out on the stoop at sunset. And like others I felt these two very nice guys had only just begun. Plenty of scope for extending the story if you chose to do so. But you wanted to give them their privacy and I can respect that. And it gives me exercise for my imagination...! Thanks for wonderful writing, Cole. Bruin

Hi guys, I love the banter on this thread. And I love the story I just read - as far as chapter 20 and I lost most of a night's sleep so I could read it at one sitting. This is my first post in the AD forums so I'm as newbie as they come. But I had to overcome my terminal shyness (!) to post here because Cole's story is just so good. It's great, brilliant, uplifting, life-affirming - and all that stuff. Okay, here's my confession: I began it and thought 'oh no, not another angst-ridden teenager story, overcoming adversity and finding his true (gay) self through the experience'. How wrong I was. Okay the setting is a lot like the setting of a lot of other gay fiction, but Cole is so good at writing that the characters stopped being cardboard cliches and took on flesh and blood immediately and from then on I was hooked, involved in the story and aching to see Kevin come out of his shell, and all. I really loved to read this story and while waiting for the next installment (how glad I was to read that chapter 20 isn't to be the last) now I'm off to lose more sleep over more of Cole's work. Thanks so Much Cole for giving us such a great read. Bruin