US Election


A Writer’s Life 8 – I tried to warn you about Trump

Well, I tried to warn you about Palin, really. This week, I’ve taken a break from talking about my current work to say a little about Sounds of Soldiers.

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Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Trump

Just bumping the content of a couple of posts from earlier this year, and pointing you all at Sounds of Soldiers again. Sounds of Soldiers is currently an incredible bargain at $0.99/£0.99/local equivalent. But, if you want an even better bargain, pick up Britain Looks To The Future (also just $0.99/£0.99/local equivalent), which includes it and eight other great tales by independent British authors.

I did this interview for The Daily Rundown last month in May, and only just worked out where to find it. It’s a little segment on the inspiration for Sounds of Soldiers, and why it’s still relevant- maybe even more relevant- in the age of Trump.

SoundsofSoldiers-cover_thumbI started work on Sounds of Soldiers in November 2008.

Luckily, the premise genuinely was fiction within a few days of starting the project, as Obama was elected US President, rather than McCain. Thus the (implied but not stated outright) backstory for the book- that Sarah Palin rose to commander-in-chief and started a stupid war with Europe- genuinely was fiction. For the next eight years, anyway.

Now, the USA is, once again, teasing us with the potential has delivered the setup for thousands of dystopian novels, in the shape of Donald Trump. Trump’s far scarier than Palin ever was. She’s stupid and incompetent, but he takes those two traits and piles bullying, vindictive, (more) racist, and thin skinned into the mix. If anyone had written President Trump (or even potential-presidential-candidate Trump) before this year, people would have said the character wasn’t believable.

If anything, Sounds of Soldiers is an optimistic read in a world where “The Donald” could be leader of the free world. A Trump inspired future would look a hell of a lot more like Mad Max.


Michelle Bachmann is making Sounds of Soldiers relevant again

I started writing Sounds of Soldiers on November 1st 2008. It’s a near future travelogue satire on the presumptions and world view of technothrillers which takes place, mostly, after a big dumb war. Given when I started it, I always saw it as what could happen if “the wrong people” won the US elections.

Thankfully Obama won. His presidency may be turning out a huge disappointment, but just imagine how much worse it would have been if McCain/Palin had won. The simplified back story of Sounds of Soldiers was that McCain keeled over after a couple of years in one of the most stressful jobs in the world, Palin took over and the stupid just cascaded from there until the Americans were bombing their European allies and ordering their soldiers to run amok across the continent. This is mostly alluded to, but there is at least one mention of “the mad woman” taking over.

The mad woman was Palin, of course, but now Michelle Bachmann has come along as the Tea Party’s preferred Republican candidate and she may be even more scary. So Sounds of Soldiers is relevant again (well, Palin never went away, I guess Bachmann makes it more relevant).

Sounds of Soldiers is available from

Amazon UK
Amazon US
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In print from Lulu


Press release: Manchester author creates a dark Green future for the city

Manchester based author Ian Pattinson imagines a Green future for Manchester after a cataclysmic war rips apart Europe and destroys the United States in Sounds of Soldiers. Returning to the city after five years on the continent reporting on the war, Robert Jones sets out to reconnect with friends and family and find out how life has changed away from the front line. Presented as a travelogue with flashbacks to the war, Robert finds recycling projects, a new sense of community and shadows and ghosts reaching across the Channel for him.

The novella was written as a reaction to the narrow focus of technothrillers and the overblown rhetoric coming from the United States since the 2008 election. “There are a lot of books which create ludicrous wars to make a, usually rightwing, political point. They always concentrate on the politicians and military personnel, the USA always wins and everything returns to normal afterwards. I used
to read a lot of them, but they often left me unsatisfied. I wanted to create a story which looked at the effect on civilians, where there was an aftermath and where the USA didn’t win. Some of the wilder commentary coming out of the States before and since the election of Barack Obama gave me a basis for the war- what if a US government believed some of this stuff and went overboard in reacting to it?”

Sounds of Soldiers is available as a paperback and ebook and can be purchased online at Amazon. Details of all the formats it is available in can be found at http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/books/

High resolution copies of the book cover image can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/spinneyhead/5123539218/


A quick look at the political blogosphere

With an election due soon I thought I should start looking for good British political blogs. I had some fun, found out a lot and worked out some of the background to Sounds of Soldiers through reading US political blogs in the run up to the 2008 election. Perhaps I can do something similar for the UK. A while ago I started adding poliblogs to my Bloglines account and following their updates. Some I’ve been reading since before Christmas, others I haven’t even looked at yet. Here are my impressions of a few of them-

Worst first, I think. I’ve been reading Guy Fawkes’ blog since before Christmas, though it quickly descended into waiting for something worthwhile to read. It hasn’t arrived yet. GFB is a very popular blog, as ‘Guido’ won’t fail to tell you as often as he can. It may have done something to get into that position in the past, but nowadays it’s all about throwing out red meat for his ravenous commenters to rant about. He also has a habit of referring to himself in the third person, which is about right for an obnoxious, self important blowhard. And a dumb one at that, he jumped right on the ‘Climategate’ non-story before Christmas, pretending that the hacked emails somehow negated all the evidence about climate change. I’ll carry on following Guido, but I’m not expecting anything interesting.

And another thing…. is the blog of Tom Harris MP. Unlike Guido, Tom puts some thought into the point of his posts rather than how to score cheap points with them, even if they do occasionally read as if he’s gone through them with an eye for spin. Whilst I don’t agree with many of his points it is nice to see an attempt at communication.

Harry’s Place is full of long, dense posts that probably reward careful reading. It’s just a shame my attention span’s so

Iain Dale is what Guido might be if he wasn’t so desperately trying to impress people. He’s very obviously of the right, and has the occasional point scoring jibe at Labour or the LibDems, but does it with a much lighter touch. You get the feeling that if you were dining with him at Le Caprice the conversation would about something more interesting than how wonderful he thinks he is.

Enough for now. I shall return to this subject again soon. And probably even more until the election.


The American Right are revolting!

That’s revolting as in disgusting, nauseating and horrific. They think they mean revolting as in starting a revolution but, as usual, they’re wrong.

Sounds of Soldiers was based upon the premise that McCain/Palin stole the 2008 election then McCain keeled over and left the mad woman to play out her apocalypse fantasy with the world’s biggest military machine. Glenn Beck’s wet dreams, if realised, could plausibly lead to the same catastrophe.


Sarah Palin wants to sue the internet

Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska on Friday. So news organisations and bloggers have been speculating about her reasons. The mad woman has tweeted a few comments about getting the truth out to the American people and had her lawyer send out threats to anyone she thinks will say things she doesn’t want heard.

This is the woman some fools want to run for President of the USA in 2012. (She’s also the inspiration for the big war in Sounds Of Soldiers. I imagined a world where McCain won last year’s election then died, leaving a scary, incoherent, ignorant woman in charge of the most powerful military in the world.)


I, for one, welcome America’s new Marxist-Nazi-Muslim-Liberal Hive overlord 3

Today Barack Obama becomes US President. Unfortunately, he’s not the Messiah, just a politician with far better ideas than the guy he’s replacing. Even given two terms he probably can’t completely clean up the mess left by Bush and friends, but at least he won’t try to make it even worse.

A post on Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge pointed out that today would be a great time to take another look at the rightwing sites I followed during the election and see what sort of idiocy their self pity generated. There’s the post linked in the article, which suggests that any “liberal” success is down to some sort of Hive mind. Because like minded people working together for a common goal is a Socialist invention somehow. The same guy Godwin’d (again, I’m sure he did it multiple times during the election) a few days ago, because trying to sort out the banks is the first step on the road to the concentration camps.

Stop the ACLU jumps on the too-tired-to-do-any-original-thinking bandwagon with a similar post and tries to stop global warming by quoting a guy who doesn’t seem to know what he’s rebelling against.

Michelle Malkin has an open thread for people who want to moan about living in a democracy.

Little Green Footballs tries to place the blame anywhere other than the Worst President Ever and the stupidly dangerous pair that wanted to carry on his good work.

You know, I sort of miss these idiots, but I don’t know if I have enough time to follow all of them. Maybe just one RSS feed, to sample the madness? They are, after all, embodiments of the sort of beliefs I’m giving to the bad guys in Sounds of Soldiers.

Update Take nine and a half minutes to learn why these people are so wrong and deluded-


This is why Barack Obama got elected 1

Or one of the reasons, anyway. People like this were against him

Congratulations, moonbats. You finally have your revenge for being forced to look at all those flags after 9/11. This is a day of celebration for everyone hostile to America and the principles of individual liberty for which it stands. Enjoy it while you can.

There are people lowdown enough to know in advance who and what was elected yesterday, and to have voted for the Moonbat Messiah anyway. What they have done to this country is beyond forgiveness.

But an ultra-radical leftist like Obama could not be elected in a center-right country, or even a center-left country, without a great deal of deception. Thanks to a radicalized liberal media willing to sacrifice its own long-term credibility to put a leftist in power, Obama was never publicly vetted. Moderates did not vote for a real person, but for a two-dimensional phantom temporarily conjured into being by hype.

The opposition made the swindle easy to pull off. After eight years of a lousy incumbent, it presented a still lousier replacement, an inarticulate, uninspiring centrist universally reviled by the conservative base. Now the Republican Party knows it must either purge itself of RINO mediocrities like Bush and McCain or go the way of the Whigs.

Bush’s subpar performance will soon fade from memory, as Obama’s malignant collectivist ideology and lack of qualifications become impossible for the media to hide. One way or another, the full extent of his radical past and associations will become public knowledge. As promised by Plugs Biden, Obama will be tested, and he isn’t likely to pass.

We’ve had awful leaders before. New York’s atrocious affirmative action mayor, David Dinkins, gave way to Rudy Giuliani. Jimmy Carter gave way to the only great president of our lifetimes, Ronald Reagan. America will turn toward greatness again, once it realizes it has been tricked into temporarily embracing disgrace and decline.

Can you say bad loser? And then laugh at the poor pathetic fool as he rages against a sane electorate.

I shall probably now unsubscribe from the right wing blogs, at least until I feel nasty enough to laugh at stupid people again.


Oooh look, Godwin!

Paraphrased, but only very slightly, for some right wing idiots blog-

“You know who else promised change? Hitler, that’s who. Congratulations America, you just elected Hitler. And Fidel Castro. Yes, Fidel Castro promised change too. Congratulations America, you just elected Hitler AND Fidel Castro all rolled into one.”


Sarah Palin talks to Nicolas Sarkozy

I doubt these two are going to lose their jobs over this prank call. Canadian comedians Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel managed to get through the campaign call screening and convince Sarah Palin she’s talking to Nicolas Sarkozy. Not hilarious, but definitely amusing as the would be Vice President misses load of hints that she’s being wound up. I bet the right wing blogosphere are up in arms about it.


The subliminal mind fuck America

Don’t want to be an American idiot.
Don’t want a nation under the new mania
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
For that’s enough to argue.

Well maybe I’m the faggot America.
I’m not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along to the age of paranoia.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
For that’s enough to argue.

Don’t want to be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It’s calling out to idiot America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
For that’s enough to argue.

American Idiot – Green Day

It comes as no surprise that racists were planning an attempt on BArack Obama’s life. There are probably a few dozen people at any time plotting to kill the US President or anyone likely to become the President. No doubt that number will rocket up if Obama gets the number one job.

Just over a week to go and the crazy keeps on coming.

A McCain volunteer claimed to have been attacked by a 6’4″ black man who scratched a backwards B on her cheek. The attack was revealed to be a figment of her imagination and the wound self inflicted, but not before the McCain campaign and various followers were all over it.

Sarah Palin’s had a huge amount spent on her wardrobe. Only now she can’t wear it because of the fuss. And she has claimed that the clothes are all only on loan to her anyway. So the next time the Republicans go looking for a female candidate for anything she’d best have the same measurements as Palin or they won’t be able to use the clothes they bought for the last one.

There’s more- there will always be more- but it’s a little late for me to go rooting around for links.


Another right wing fantasy- is Barack Obama really American?

This latest fantasy has two prongs. On the one hand they believe there’s some deep dark secret about Obama’s birth certificate, which will prove that the front runner for the presidency is somehow not of the USA. I read a post last night where one of the idiots, accepting defeat, decided that there should be hundreds of private lawsuits filed after Obama’s elected, every one arguing his legitimacy. Whatever.

The other prong is a string of comments, from Sarah Palin on down, painting anyone who doesn’t vote Republican as unAmerican. I wonder where that phrase has been used before?

Update I found this, from one of Obama’s speeches. It seems appropriate-

And Spinneyhead is having one of its busiest days in a while, courtesy of pervs looking for naked pictures of Obama’s mother. Seriously guys, go register with Domai– full colour, high resolution, gorgeous and politically neutral- you’ll thank me.

The guy at Stop the ACLU who posted the version of the dumb rumour that I first found is defending it (yes, they’re off the naughty step for the time being). It’s all very convoluted, but I think he’s saying that because it’s even more baseless than the rumour about Palin faking her pregnancy he has every right to run with it. Elsewhere he’s defended his conspiracy theory because Communism is genetic and Obama’s parents- in his fantasy world- are a “Communist and a slut”. Classy.

Update Fleshbot, long time chroniclers of fake nudes, have looked at the pictures (NSFW, obviously) and are fairly confident they’re not of the woman the conspiracy nuts want them to be of.


Barack Obama’s naked mama, and other stupid stuff from America’s right 2

The US right wing blogs I’m reading are getting desparate as they realise how pathetically their candidate is doing. One post from today is so moronic it’s funny. Stop The ACLU (still not getting a link, even if they didn’t delete my last comment there) got an email from some perv who’d been checking out vintage porn and swore he’d found a naked picture of Obama’s mother. He immediately went searching (it must have been hell for him to stare at all that pulchritude) and dug up some more, on which he used his finely tuned forensic skills to determine who Barack’s secret father is.

They are taken before Christmas by the decorations and unopened presents. Also a stereo and records that an expert could confirm as jazz records are in view.There is a distinctive grain to the wood floors. I do research including genealogical and had downloaded everything I could find. Not much. So when I saw the picture, I locked on the the ear lobes, chin, eyebrows. It is she. A nude photo,not distasteful, but posed, I believe, by a mature man who knows what he likes, including jazz and now we know young girls. One could ascertain the location of where the photos were taken.

And the shoes..not indigenous to Hawaii,but maybe not unsual for Helen Canfield Chicago socialite and Marshall’s second wife. The photos are important in the sense that they explain the going to Chicago and the immediate acceptance by the hard left, if his father is Frank Marshall Davis, not just his mentor

It’s Christmas- see, the man’s a genius- and there are records “that an expert could confirm as jazz records”- because only black men listened to jazz records at the time- and a distinctive grain to the wooden flooring. There, it’s conclusive. Apart from the shoes….. Oh, the shoes.

On November 5th this guy’s going to be sitting in his basement, wanking over his supposed pictures of Obama’s mother and crying because the rest of the world just can’t see what he sees.

Elsewhere, one supremely homophobic homeschooling mother is no doubt seeing a jump in visits to her blog after several people (me too now) have linked to her post fantasising about blowing up faggots. You could ask her to replace her various epithets with Christian and ask if she’d like to read the passage that results, but she’ll just ignore it, because she’ll only pay attention to answers with “Scripture instead of another meaningless cliche”.

The right wing isn’t going on about the ACORN voter registration scandal they invented as much. This is probably because the only person so far arrested for voter registration fraud is a Republican and cases against ACORN are being dropped all over because they’re baseless.

But it’s not all bad for McCain. One key group has come out in support of him- Al-Quaeda sympathisers.

Note I’d like to point out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at images of naked women or men, vintage or otherwise, I was merely calling him a perv for satirical purposes.

Indeed, if he’s looking for a particularly good source of gorgeous naked women I’d highly recommend Domai (affiliate link). Many of the beauties there are from former Soviet republics, so he can have the added fantasy of only being able to see them because Ronald Reagan defeated Communism. Or, if he’s closeted- like I suspect so many of these guys are, he could try maleperfection.net (also an affiliate link).