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POLLY TICKS
Welcome to my weekly magazine post. Watch
it grow thru the week. You can opt to read
the essay, current affairs, themed mini mag
with fiction & poetry, or just read the lot.
Plenty for everyone here. Do call again.
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
Bells used to be essential to orderly society. They’d wake you up, call
you to worship, to work; call a break in the fight – tell you when
someone’s on the phone. We lived by the bell’s toll. Indeed, the
phrase ‘for whom the bell tolls’ is well known, particularly following
Hemingway’s famous novel. But what lies behind the term? A quote
from John Donne, it is similar to his ‘no man is an island’, both dealing
with the interconnectedness of humanity. In essence, he is saying
whatever affects one affects us all – hence, ‘it tolls for thee’. It is a
message we should cherish.
READING SPORT
Does the Winter Olympics affect my reading?
No – although sporty activity certainly has.
Never a team player, I did enjoy gymnastics,
karate and swimming in my youth; and I hardly
ever read. Coming down with cfs changed all
that – sport went and reading became primary.
Are there 2 ‘types’ – sporties and readers?
ECONOMICS
I’ve got a problem with all economic systems we have tried. They
are all ‘system’ centred – in other words, based on ideology and not
people. Hence, something that should serve us well never does.
Maybe we can get a better system by taking ideology out of the
mix. But how do we do that? Easy – the clue is in the word ‘mix’.
Take the three major types of systems tried – capitalism, collectivism
and feudalism. The first offers initiative, but makes us too greedy; the
second offers planning, but leads to lethargy; the third provides a
layered economy, but becomes dictatorial. What we need is a system
taking the best of the three but ditching the bad. Here’s my take on
how to do it. Encourage raw entrepreneurial talent and turn them
loose on aggressive capitalism, but the companies they create cannot
sell to the public or manufacture things. The manufacturing base
should be centrally controlled, but they make things as ordered by
entrepreneurs, to whom they sell. The entrepreneurs then sell on to
local trade centres, who demand the local be taken into account,
such as produce from local sources. This all means that entrepreneurs
who go bust can only affect themselves and not production or
economy, factories are always safe from closure, and also free from
socialist ‘plans’, the customer has a local outlet to complain to, and
green policies are demanded at the point of use. So that’s it. All we
need to drop is a single-system ideology.
Eye On the World
Essays on everything from science
to religion, politics to crime
BRIT NEWS: New teachers need
training to deal with violence in class?
Used to learn to deal with things thru life. No
more, it seems.
BRIT NEWS: Tory leaders told green issues could be
divisive. Is this the first sign of the Conservatives ditching
the environment?
WORLD NEWS: G7 nations vow to wipe out Haiti’s debt. Of course
they must. How else to afford to pay for all the new deals coming?
WORLD NEWS: Brit firms to drill north of Falklands. Argentina calls it a
‘violation of sovereignty’. Let’s not go there again.
BRIT NEWS: Labour toying with urging people to inform on benefit
cheats. Do two wrongs make a right? This totalitarian mentality
is wrong.
BRIT NEWS: BBC pays £230 million to their presenters &
actors. As it is funded by mandatory licence fee,
this is a disgusting amount.
BRIT NEWS: Record 800,000 students competing
for 500,000 places this year as university
funding is slashed. The good times
are over.
READ WITH MUMMY
The Magazine Post with a gentle hint of horror
One Single Impression
ReadWritePoem – Friday Flash 55
Heads or Tails – Three Word Wednesday
Sunday Scribblings
INSOMNIA
Can’t sleep!
I know it’s close – can feel it creep,
Can’t sleep!
Sanity slowly beginning to seep,
Away from me as fear grows,
It came before – chilling – froze;
Can’t sleep!
Got in my mind, so very deep;
It’s coming now, engulfing me,
If only I could run, could flee!
Can’t sleep …
THE LAST DRIVE
Fiction: It was a long trip and by the time it got dark I was already
tired of driving. As the hitchhiker appeared in the lights I decided to
pick him up – maybe conversation would keep me awake. But there
was none – he just sat in the passenger seat, staring ahead. After a
while, I dropped him off, and the tiredness intensified. Still, soon
another hitchhiker came along and I picked him up. It wasn’t until he
got in that I realized it was the same guy. How he’d got ahead of me
I don’t know. Maybe he’d got a lift in a sports job. After a while, I
dropped him off. The tiredness was getting really bad by now, so
when I saw him again ahead of me, I was compelled to pick him up
once more – the mystery itself was stimulating, in a way. Well, he
drained me completely that third time of feeding. And as I lay here in
the road, the vampire driving off, I guess I’m going to die.
HORRIFIC FROG
Pitter patter, panic now,
Stand on footlocker, lubricious brow,
Hacksaw in hands, no fiction this,
A red frog muttered; scary abyss,
Walk on eggshells, frosted mind,
It’s coming for me, from behind,
It wears a crown, nails through palm,
Didn’t make a Prince – decay, embalmed
FLASH 55 – ZOMBIE TOWN
Fiction: Wish I hadn’t moved here. There’s nothing but zombies in this
village. Occasionally I see them on a night – or hear them. One day
they’ll get me, I’m sure. Their bodies are cut and deformed, their
nocturnal habits depraved – their minds numbed, empty; faces
masked. If only I’d known this place was full of celebrities.
LIGHT OR DARK
Light or dark? You have a choice,
Listen to that inner voice,
Let it guide you through the worse,
Too much? You’ll end up in a hearse;
Dark or light? Choose which side,
On chocolate I can never decide
NIGHT VISITOR
She went to bed, feeling the gloom,
Leaving housework, ragged room,
Dreamt of what could occur,
Then deep sleep caused a blur,
Morning, fresh, room tidy and clean,
Not all poltergeists are mean
WHEN THE PIGS FLY
Imprisoned here a month of Sundays,
Hell froze over, trapped for always,
Time disjointed, reality suspended,
Share with people, most beheaded,
Nightmare came so very sly,
Began when I noticed the pigs fly
WORLD NEWS: As new Afghan
offensive gets under way, Brit death
toll rises above that of the Falklands War.
Another grim milestone reached.
BRIT NEWS: Church of England tries to patch up near-
schism over gay equality and women bishops. Entrenched
stances ruin so much.
WORLD NEWS: As Greece faces financial ruin some EuroZone countries
say they’ll help. With Euro regs they’re boxed in. Strong currency?
BRIT NEWS: 30 Facebook pages of prisoners taken down as they were
used to taunt victims. How did they manage not to be supervised?
WORLD NEWS: So Iran is a nuclear state. If true, worrying;
& there’s nothing we can do. We need to think
up new model for world affairs.
MAD BRITS: Don’t leave it too late to get to
hospital. A woman gave birth in hospital
entrance. With every push, automatic
doors opened.
© Anthony North, February 2010
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