Monthly archives: November 2010

links for 2010-11-21

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  • English Russia » An Abandoned Military Town
    Photos from Gremeekha military town. Winds here are so strong, that they even blow away untethered dogs. The population of the town was 300 000, but when the navy left it, the population went down to 10 000 citizens – people are boarding up windows and leaving homes.
    (tags: russia abandoned)
  • English Russia » High-Speed Legend Of The USSR
    The project GL-1 was built in 1938 on the basis of a serial model GAZ M-1. Open two-seat body was put onto the standard frame, some parts were taken from the serial M-1, but the total weight was reduced. The “M” engine of course was forced, the valve diameter was widened and the machine gained 15 horsepower more. It could boast of 65 “horses”.
    (tags: russia cars)
  • English Russia » Soviet Naval Triton
    In the early 1950-ies the governing body of the Department of Defence began to develop the naval intelligence forces of special purpose. The commanders realised that seasoned soldiers are only half the work, they needed to be equipped properly. To be successful in fulfilment of special missions the soldiers also had to use developed underwater facilities of special construction, with the help of which the special operation forces could approach the battle area quickly and stealthily themselves as well as deliver some necessary cargo.
    (tags: russia submarine technology)

links for 2010-11-20

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  • BLDGBLOG: City of Holes
    Some new images of the ongoing laser-scan project taking place in the caves beneath Nottingham, England, have been released. "The Nottingham Caves Survey is in the process of recording all of Nottingham’s 450+ sandstone caves," the organizers explain.

    From malting caves and circular kilns to a 19th-century underground butcher, via the Shire Hall and, of course, Mortimer's Hole, it's intoxicating to imagine a city whose most exciting discoveries lie somewhere far below its own streets and urban surfaces, in a delirious sprawl of artificially enlarged sandstone caves.

    (tags: archaeology laser uk underground urban)
  • Abandoned Communities
    Since the Middle Ages thousands of towns, villages, and other human communities in Great Britain have been abandoned.

    Some places have been abandoned at a single point in time, while others have been gradually depopulated until there was no-one left. In some cases the forces of nature have made a major contribution to the abandonment, but more often economic and social changes have caused people to move away, or the decision of a powerful individual, organisation, or government has compelled inhabitants to leave.

    (tags: history uk abandoned archaeology architecture ruins)
  • BBC News – The secrets of Britain's abandoned villages
    The ghosts of thousands of long-forgotten villages haunt Britain, inhabitations suddenly deserted and left to ruin. As a new campaign begins to shed further light on these forgotten histories, the Magazine asks – what happened and why?
    (tags: history mapping uk)

links for 2010-11-19

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  • Skyline – An Inexpensive Lesson To Be Learnt : HeyUGuys – UK Movie / Film Blog
    Sure, it has received a critical mauling, and the movie-going majority are avoiding it like the plague. But with a budget reported to be around $10 million, and an opening of $11 million, the movie is already set to make a profit, and on that basis can be considered (moderately) successful. To put it into a bit of perspective, I think it is important to point out that Skyline’s opening weekend total earnings matches almost exactly that of another much maligned alien invasion movie. The difference is that 2000′s Battlefield Earth cost a staggering $73 million to make, resulting in a $50 million loss. When all is said and done, Skyline could almost double it’s money. So what can we learn from the story of Skylines’s ‘success’?
    (tags: sci-fi filmmaking)

links for 2010-11-17

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  • The Daily Mash – MANCHESTER UNINHABITABLE BY SPRING
    "I just hope our descendants can forgive us for what we are about to do here and that one day a flower can grow again in Moss Side without it being punched and then set on fire."
    (tags: satire funny)
  • ARTISTS MUST UNIFY AND DIVERSIFY – mailout
    Still hurting from the sudden death of Rochdale Borough’s Arts Officer Beate Meilemeier, the Revenue Funded Arts Organisations of Rochdale Borough and leading local freelance artists have decided that the best way to protect themselves in these difficult economic times is to unify and diversify.
    (tags: art funding)
  • Growing Trends – Growing Trends In the last two years there has… | Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens
    In the last two years there has been a rapid expansion in initiatives and projects aimed at tackling the demand for community gardening and food growing. This has been due to an upsurge in interest in 'growing your own', as well as an awareness of other issues such as health and well-being and climate change.

    Existing provision of land, particularly allotments, has proved inadequate in the face of this demand, so groups and organisations at national, regional and local levels have begun creating a plethora of initiatives.

    (tags: gardening food)
  • Street Schemes & Public Plantings – Street Schemes & Public Plantings Overview & Em… | Federation of City Farms and Community
    Public plantings in streets and communal areas has a long tradition of making a neighbourhood a more pleasant place to live. Traditionally street greenery was made up primarily of flowers and shrubs, from municipal hanging baskets to flower borders, from shrubbery areas to trees.

    Until recently, there were few if any initiatives to grow edible plants using street space, communal areas eg precincts and marginal areas bordering streets or roads. But several different ideas are now taking off which make use of these public areas for vegetable and fruit growing.

    (tags: food gardening)

It may be time for a pseudonym 2

This entry was posted in Facts and Fictions Rain and Bullets writing on by

The great thing about being an independent author is that I’m not tied to anyone else’s scheduling. If I have an idea and the time the turnaround on a book can be two or three months, less if it’s a novelette or short story. Of course, this can also work against me. Deadlines for planned books are self imposed, and I’ve always been my own worst enemy. It’s all too easy to get distracted and go off to do something else if a story just isn’t gelling.

Which is what happened to me in the last few days. The next planned Irwin story is titled A Death in Didsbury. It brings back characters from So Much To Answer For. (Which is sort of -1 in the Irwin series in that it shares the same universe, but doesn’t feature him. He hadn’t even moved to Manchester when the story was happening.) There’s ghoing to be dilemmas for Kay Wood, and decisions which will change the nature of her relationship with Irwin, and I get to re-use some characters I enjoyed. The problem is, A Death in Didsbury is going together very messily and slowly and some of the plot threads I wanted to use are refusing to merge, no matter how hard I push them together.

Then, yesterday morning, I had a silly idea for a schlocky, over-the-top horror/comedy. It’s one of those ideas which is so obvious it’s probably been done before, but I’ve decided to kick it around until I’m certain. So yesterday I did some reading around the subject and started planning the tale. It’s the oppposite of Death in Didsbury in that sense. I’ve created a yWriter project and filled it with chapters, scenes, characters and locations. Each extra layer of detail suggests scenes and plot details. If I carry onlike this it may be the first story for which I’ve had a decent framework for years.

And if I do finish the story it will be different in many major ways from my other work. It’ll be silly, violent, dirty and trashy (in the best possible way). Readers who enjoy it may not like my other stuff and my regular audience might wonder what I bashed my head against. So, whilst it will still be published by Spinneyhead, maybe I need to give its author a different name.

Indie superstar Joe Konrath gives a similar explanation for having a horror alter-ego Jack Kilborn. When I read his post I was still planning to put my own name on everything I write (I say as much in the comments), but now I can understand why I should reconsider.

The question, then, is- if I need a pseudonym for certain genres, what should it be? I’m tempted to go with just Gareth Pattinson, as Gareth was one of the other options for my first name anyway. Or perhaps Gareth Owen, because in the early days- pre web- Spinneyhead’s full name was Owen Spinneyhead. (There is already a writer called Gareth Owen, however.)

Suggestions anyone?

Final Girl

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The final girl is a horror film (particularly slasher film) trope that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in dozens of films, including Halloween[1], Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Hellraiser, Alien, and Scream. The term was coined [2] by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.[3] Clover suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.

Greater Manchester Police to lose a quarter of its personnel

This entry was posted in Facts and Fictions Manchester Police Rain and Bullets on by

This news makes me worry about crime in Manchester. But, as my priorities are skewed that way, I find myself devoting more time to pondering how it will affect future Irwin tales.

Greater Manchester Police will lose a quarter of its staff, including front-line officers, as it faces a £134m budget cut in the next four years.

Greater Manchester Police Authority (GMPA) said nearly 3,000 posts would have to be cut from its 12,000 staff.

Objects of Desire- Original Roy Cross artwork

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Currently for sale on Ebay are several pieces by Roy Cross, one of the main creators of box art for old school Airfix. If anyone wants to get me a Christmas present they could, for example, buy me this piece for the SAR Boeing Vertol helicopter. It’s one of a batch being sold, along with several vintage models, here.

The Christie method

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Agatha Christie’s novel planning was chaotic, with notes in multiple books, ideas which took years to be used and many a dead end.

I’m sure I recently read a quote attributed to her which suggested that she wrote until she was two thirds of the way through a story, then went back, worked out who had done it and rewrote as much as was needed to lay down more clues. This sounds just like the process I’m using in my current project- I just killed a completely different person to the planned victim, in a far louder way than intended. I think I know who did it.