TONY ON GREEN, YOBS & MORE

Including Sunday Scribblings and Writers’ Island.
Have you had a go yet?

Welcome to my Friday Magazine post.
It is being reported that Britain is set to fail its own renewable energy targets. I’m not surprised by this. It was always inevitable, mainly because it was nothing but pure spin. This was due to the fact that the UK did meet CO2 reduction targets early on.

This was, however, a con.

Oh yes, the targets WERE met. But this was thanks to Maggie Thatcher, and her destruction of the UK coal industry in the 1980s. Obviously, with coal gone, our power stations would be cleaner.
This is a typical story in the way western governments and Big Biz manipulate the green agenda. Show what they are doing in any way they can, but actually plotting AGAINST green behind the scenes. If they really did pursue a green agenda, they’d be putting themselves out of business.

The United Nations has condemned Britain, again.

This time it is for the punitive youth justice system which vilifies teenagers as yobs. And for once, I’m in agreement with the UN. Yes, Britain has many teenagers totally out of control, but the reality remains that most are perfectly well adjusted kids who do not deserve the tag.
Those who do should have the full weight of the law thrown against them, but the reality is they only get cautions and anti social behaviour orders, which many class as an award that increases street cred.
And meanwhile, the remainder – the law abiding ones – are legislated against as if they are as bad as the bad ones. Typical, of course, of a government that treats everyone equally, regardless of behaviour. And with such an amoral message being sent out, how long before they really ARE as bad as the minority?
…
Just a quick note: My links until now have been on Eye On the World, but now that I don’t use it much, I’ve decided to move my most regular reads to the Blogroll, left, along with my main sub-domains. Why not take a look? I’ll be adding to it in due course.
Have a great weekend. Next Magazine post on Monday.

© Anthony North, June 2008

HAPPY ENDINGS

Happy endings, we love them so,
in a story we love to go,
from beginning to end in a frenzied haste,
providing the villain, he is displaced;
And hero and heroine, they come together,
after adventure, adversity, endeavour;
The writer’s job is thus to define,
the threads of life that do entwine,
people and circumstance, good or bad,
as long as we get that cruel cad;
But wait a mo, is this really so?
Must the bad guy always receive the blow?
Of course he must – it’s the way to end,
or belief we would have to suspend,
in the moral truth of good beating bad,
but isn’t this simply revenge?
So sad

(c) Anthony North, June 2008

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MOMENT OF TRUTH – A Cass Nova Detective Thriller

It had been one of those cases. And DC Sandy Powell had been vital to me solving it. ‘Well I think it’s either Bob Mortimer or Chris Jones, guv,’ she had said.
It had begun with the discovery of the body of Roxy Sullivan. Shot through the heart, the killer had covered his tracks well. No DNA. Nothing. Looking into her past, she was a prostitute with form for blackmailing her clients, which just wasn’t nice.
We uncovered some dozen regular clients, and looking into their lives, it was obvious that Mortimer and Jones were both suitable candidates for blackmail, so they were our prime suspects. But how to prove one way or the other?
Enter, Molly Beavis. Of course, that wasn’t her real name. But as she said to Mortimer when she met him: ‘I’m not telling you my real name, ‘cos you’ll come after me. But I just want you to know, I know. You killed Roxy. I was her friend and she told me everything …’
That night I staked out Molly’s flat – she hadn’t done a very good job of covering her tracks. I didn’t have to wait long for the car to pull up, and Mortimer to get out. He looked up, saw Molly moving about through the window. He went in.
I burst into the flat just after the gun shot. The body was laid on the floor, half visible, half behind a curtain. Mortimer was about to fire at me, too, but changed his mind when it was clear I would take a shot first. He dropped the gun as two uniforms rushed in and took him away.
I went and knelt beside her still body – shook my head. ‘Okay, Sandy, theatricals over,’ I said.
Sandy kicked away the manikin Mortimer had shot and smiled. Our use of coercion may well have been questionable, but as she had given her ‘Molly’ speech to both suspects, we kind of knew we’d get our man.

© Anthony North, June 2008