Issue #100. March 31st - April 14th, 2005

A 100 ways to celebrate the 100th issue of the friends of the heroes
Are you scratching your head and wondering how you can celebrate the 100th issue of the Friends of The Heroes? Well worry no more! here are 100 ways for you to celebrate!

100 things I'd like to tell her (if we ever meet)
5. The largest known prime number is more than 7.8 million digits long. The mind boggles.
By Johan Hugo

The kitchen rug that never had a thought of flying
He talks of leaves falling from trees and lanterns hanging in front of windows and stripy rugs swaying in all sorts of places, just as I am here when he does this to me, when he boasts, describes, and promises, and tempts me, and asks me to please, please, please let go this time and follow him...
By Dimitra Daisy

DJF
You wouldn't believe what's happened to me! The way my life has gone. Sometimes I think it's all fiction. Sometimes I wish it was all fiction.
By Paul Williamson

The End
"Hmm ok. Well in that case are you sure Felicity just went straight home? She didn't land herself in the middle of some sort of crazy adventure? Or meet a bunch of interesting and exotic strangers?"
By Rachel Queen

A love poem called intentions
The sea makes the rain,
And the rain rides the wind,
And the wind blows to land,
Where the rain will fall.
By Nima

'Free Trade'
Politicians like Tony Blair are still promoting 'free trade reforms' as a way to reduce poverty and spread democracy around the world - and even 'save Africa'. What have the results been so far ?
By Duncan McFarlane

Record Review: 'Echelons' - For Against
Far flung from either cultural centre on the east and west coasts of the nation they naturally crafted wide open soundscapes that reflect the isolation, vastness and loneliness of the heartland of a nation.
By Johnny Mac

Record Review: 'Letters Without Envelopes ' - Last Nights T.V.
Far flung from either cultural centre on the east and west coasts of the nation they naturally crafted wide open soundscapes that reflect the isolation, vastness and loneliness of the heartland of a nation.
By Johnny Mac

 

 

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100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Issues of FotH

GRAINNE

  • Have a picnic
  • Better still, use the messageboard to organise a FotH meet-up/picnic/pub-nic.
  • Buy a helium balloon, tie a note to the end of it and let it go.
  • Print out your favourite FotH article, leaving the URL at the top and leave it for someone to find. Suggestions - on the bus, doctors waiting room, in the printing at school or college, tucked inside a library book.
  • Write something for the next issue!
  • Dave Gorman wrote a book about Googlewhacking. Before that he did an interview with FotH. Read the interview and then try a googlewhack of your own. You get extra points, and our everlasting respect, if can googlewhack your way to a FotH page!
  • Donate money to the Schuyler fund and help a little girl find her voice.
  • Link us from you blog, livejournal, etc.
  • Congratulate us on our 100th issue on the messageboard.
  • Spread the word and tell your friends how fabulous we are!
  • Remind yourself why we are here, by reading the reasons why.
  • Buy a badge and be the envy of all your friends, as well your enemies and random strangers you happen to pass on the street!
  • Take our survey and tell us what you'd like to see in the next 100 issues.
  • Take a couple of minutes to fetch a nice cup of tea and a biscuit and settle down to enjoy the new issue.
  • Visit the archives. I'm sure there's something there that you missed the first time, or is worth reading again.
  • Check out the Club Night listings and see if there's anything worth visiting in your vacinity. If not - set one up!
  • Buy a CD based solely on a FotH review.
  • Go into a shop and ask for 100 penny sweets. (Do shops still sell penny sweets?)
  • Eat 100 Jaffa Cakes.
  • Alternatively, if you are still recovering from your Easter sugar-rush, buy 100 Jaffa cakes and share them amoung your friends.
  • Sing your favourite song at the top of your lungs and with feeling.
  • Send us your favourite links and tell us why they should be included in our links page, if we ever do it up.
  • Dance there's nobody watching. (This usually works best if there really is nobody watching.)
  • And while you're are it, sing like you don't need the money and love like you've never been hurt.
  • Go up to that special someone you've had a crush on for the last month and a half, compliment what they are wearing and ask them if they want to go for a drink.
  • Buy a brunch of flowers for someone you love.
  • That someone can be yourself!

    RACHEL

  • write a poem/story/song using only 100 words
  • plant 100 daffodil bulbs and then wait for next year
  • write a list of 100 things you want to do in your life and start doing them now.
  • make a cd with your 10 favourite songs on them and send them to your ten favourite friends.
  • book the first flight you can find for under £100/E100 or $100
  • organise a treasure hunt
  • spend the weekend looking for a friend of the heroes then come and say hello.
  • join the newsletter and make sure you don't miss the next 100 issues of friends of the heroes
  • start learning a new language by learning ten new words a day. by the end of the year you will be fluent.
  • Buy a lottery ticket then cross your fingers. (if you win you know you'll want to share your good fortune with us!)
  • buy a bumper pack of felt tip pens and refuse to write in the same colour twice
  • write a real letter to one of your friends
  • write to one of your heroes
  • go for a walk and don't return home until you've spotted at least 15 different species.
  • learn an instrument.
  • then start a band.
  • then get rich and famous.
  • buy everyone you work with biscuits/cakes/ chocolates. They'll wonder what your up to but at least it might put a smile on their face and make work more bearable!
  • go to the beach and look for shells
  • find your favourite quotes from things and send them to us to use on the contents page.
  • learn all the words to at least one song by ballboy.
  • write your own list of a 100 ways to celebrate the 100th issue of the friends of the heroes
  • Help an old lady across the road.
  • Help a young lady across the road.
  • Hide under your bed and read all day
  • Go to the pub and buy a pint of cider
  • Phone somebody up just to say hello
  • Melt down all your left easter eggs and dip fruit in it (It makes it healthy ok?!)
  • Lie on your back in a field and look at the stars
  • Take Duncan to the zoo (but please don't let them keep him!)
  • Visit all the tourist attractions in your town/city or village. There has to be at least one!
  • Give up complaining for a whole day.

    JOHNNY

  • go on a date with Cindy Crawford
  • go on a date with Elle MacPherson
  • Wake up from my dreaming
  • Ask 100 fit birds out on a date
  • close your eyes and make 100 wishes (that you could go on a date with Cindy Crawford)
  • List 100 reasons to be cheerful
  • List 100 reasons why you shouldn't be gloomy
  • Email your friends and tell them that they are your heroes
  • always say 'please' and 'thank you' and do it with a smile
  • Smile at a stranger
  • try to say 'good morning' to the first person you see each day in a really cheery voice, even if you feel like crap
  • remind yourself that it could be worse, it could always be worse.
  • tell someone a really good joke
  • laugh out loud on the bus, it's infectious
  • look at yourself naked in the mirror and say 'I look good'
  • change your will to include money to good causes
  • Try and get another date with Cindy Crawford
  • prepare an alibi for when you get arrested for stalking Cindy Crawford
  • See if you can collect £1 off 100 people and send it to the local dogs home
  • say to yourself 100 times 'I am (insert your name here) and I can do anything...

    DUNCAN

  • Don't vote Labour (unless you have an especially good anti-war Labour MP or candidate) or Conservative (or UKIP or BNP obviously).
  • Buy stuff on ebay.
  • Stop going crazy on ebay - you'll end up broke.
  • Look around desperately for things to sell on ebay.
  • Sell things on ebay.
  • Stop buying so much crap - the stuff you're selling will never cover all that.
  • Buy some jiffy bags and a set of scales so you can work out the postage costs of the things you're selling on ebay (when you buy the scales everyone will think you are selling drugs even though you're not , giving you a fleeting notoriety - "You could see from how spaced-out he/she looked" they'll all say)
  • Eat warm porridge mixed with chopped pears (don't turn your nose up - take that look off your face).
  • Write another FotH article at the last minute just to try and get it in the 100th issue.
  • Panic cos there's not enough time to do it well.
  • Visit our website. You know you want to.
  • Go on , Go on , Go On , Go On ,etc.
  • Write a book called 'The Gypsy Queen' (this one will be much better than all the others of the same title - it'll have mongols in and everything).
  • Maximise your earnings potential (ok - i read that off a spam email in my inbox i admit it - running out of ideas)
  • Offer to set up a website for someone who doesnt have one(preferably someone who doesnt know that it's really quite simple so you look smart and knowledgeable)
  • Sell me all your old citadel figures - not the crap ones with the plastic bases - the old metal-based ones. You don't know what I'm talking about ? Never mind then.
  • Say something positive about asylum seekers.
  • Support Fair Trade not 'free trade' (see the World Development Movement website).
  • Don't hate people you disagree with or even distrust.
    You can only persuade people if you also listen to them and show respect.
    You may learn something from them too.
  • Don't follow Johnny's advice or you'll end up with Cindy Crawford - the woman is starving and her sharp elbows and knees will injure you severely (apologies for the confusion).
  • Don't follow Grainne's jaffa cake advice or you may die of the diabetes - or Rachel's advice or your work colleagues will die of diabetes within a week at the most. Unless you don't like your job - in which case give it a try. (apologies for previously slandering Rachel - she would only diabetes anyone with Battenburg Cakes, never Jaffas.

      

     

     

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    100 Things I Would Like to Tell Her
    (if we ever meet)

    1. You look so pretty in that dress.

    2. And I love your eyes.

    3. I’m in love with you.

    4. Butterflies can be right bastards sometimes.

    5. The largest known prime number is more than 7.8 million digits long. The mind boggles.

    6. Scientists in England have bred tame foxes for pets.

    7. I WANT a tame fox for a pet, very badly.

    8. (Though Labradors are perhaps my favourite beings in all the world.)

    9. Except for you.

    10. I really think I’m in love with you.

    11. Sometimes the world can seem more interesting in monochrome, like old films.

    12. ‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

    13. May Kasahara (in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle) is my favourite novel-character. She wrote so beautifully about the duck-people, and she cried in the moonlight.

    14. I used to have a crush on Kylie, but now I have a crush on Amélie Nothomb. She’s a writer, and she’s French… sortof. Also, she grew up in Japan... I also have a crush on Japan.

    15. (I also have a crush on you, but in a completely different way.)

    16. The greatest love-song ever written to a city is not a song at all, but a movie. It’s called La Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, and the city is Paris… mais bien sûr!

    17. The greatest song about anything anywhere is by The Lucksmiths. They’re Australian, and the song is “The Golden Age of Aviation”. That is my humble opinion, at least right now.

    18. At times it has felt like music is my best and only friend.

    19. Except for Max, the Labrador.

    20. Except that I’ve got a lot of great friends, really… sometimes I’m just an ungrateful swine! I’ve also lost a lot of friends through my own laziness, and sometimes tragedy. I miss them a lot, though some of them I’ve given up on.

    21. I never tell a girl I love her – or even, like – her anymore, unless I’ve already given her up. I’ve learnt to let go in the hardest way.

    22. I want to tell you that I love you.

    23. But I haven’t given you up just yet.

    24. Some people seem to take up just the right amount of space. I find them fascinating.

    25. I myself often feel like I take more space than I should. Perhaps that’s why I stoop and hunch.

    26. I love your posture and the way you walk. The way you cock your head when listening, intently.

    27. Dolphins have two halves to their brain – only one half sleeps at a time!

    28. I once wrote a story in which a dolphin jumper, once, somewhere far away. I don’t remember anything else about the story.

    29. I usually cover up what I’m writing, even if no-one is looking.

    30. Also – I usually find a way of retracting everything I say. Sometimes even before I say it!

    31. If Georges Simenon is to be believed, he slept with a different woman every 2nd night for 60 years! How does one do that? And why would one want to?

    32. A spinning disc travels much faster at its egde than at its centre. I know it makes sense, but I don’t understand how that can work, and my mind boggles.

    33. That’s a line from that Lucksmiths song: “You’re mind still boggles”. I like that word, and I like someone whose mind can still boggle.

    34. And I love you.

    35. Once, in a strong wind in a Dutch spring, I saw pink snow falling. It wasn’t really snow, but petals from a lane of flowering trees so laden that they looked like something from Dr. Seuss.

    36. I’ve only seen real snow actually falling once. That was also in the Netherlands, on my friend Schalk’s birthday. I have photo’s of us in it – hunched and wet in thick coats, but laughing, happy.

    37. Some of my best memories have no soundtrack, like those photo’s. And memories of you when you fell asleep in my arms, breathing slowly through a slightly open mouth. I could feel your heart beating on my chest.

    38. Some people I consider good friends I’ve never met. I haven’t even heard their voices.

    39. I’m friends with them despite the fact that I’m a very bad correspondent. But they hang in there, and so do I – at least, I try to!

    40. I’m even worse at writing love-letters.

    41. But perhaps I’m trying to write one now?

    42. Do you like it so far? It’s supposed to say, simply “I love you”. I hope it does, between the lines as well as what they say.

    43. Coffee-shops are my favourite places in this world, and I adore waitresses who like their jobs. They bring you stuff, and they smile at you

    44. (Although I got my fingers scalded there properly – and I don’t mean with coffee!)

    45. I find it hard to tell if someone means it when they (she!) smile at me, or what they mean when they do.

    46. I even find it hard – sometimes – to tell whether I mean it when I smile at other people.

    47. I’ve found smiles are reversible though: one not only smiles when you’re happy, but forcing yourself to smile can make you happy (or at least, happier!)

    48. And it gets easier if you practice.

    49. Another thing I’ve learnt – real sorrow can’t really be shared, but happiness evaporates very quickly unless it is.

    50. People say that only you can make yourself happy, and that other people can’t, but that’s not true.

    51. You make me happy.

    52. But that’s because I love you, and not why – so please don’t worry, there’s no obligation, and no expectations.

    53. “If you want me, I’ll be there – a boy to deal with all your problems”

    54. “But, part of the deal is for you to feel something.” (Belle& Sebastian, as if you didn’t know by now!)

    55. It’s impossible to be perfect, because a lot of the supposed virtues turn out to contradict each other: you can’t both be fair and loyal at the same time, for example, or honest and generous. These are the hardest decisisions to make.

    56. Fortunately we don’t always have to be consistent, and help is always at hand. Another good thing is… forgiveness.

    57. Books of philosophy can be as beautiful as any novel or poem: if you don’t believe me, take a look at Roland BarthesA Lover’s Discourse or even Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy.

    58. Every heart should be broken at least once. That’s the human condition, and the condition for humanity.

    59. And no heart can quite be broken twice, because it’s never quite whole again after the first time. That’s a tough one to learn.

    60. I worry about the petrol running out, and about global warming. But I’m not vegetarian (anymore) – does that make me callous, or a hypocrite?

    61. The Eskimo’s (or Inuit: I’m not even quite sure if they’re the same, or if they’re happy with those names, which is terrible of me. I hope they don’t mind)… anyway, as everyone knows, they have 42 different snows: or at least, 42 different words for it. Or do they? I should really find out more about them!)

    62. And there’s a tribe somewhere in Papua New Guinea (isn’t there always?) who do not have a word for “love”. Or so I’m told.

    63. Sometimes I don’t have the words to tell you how I feel when I look at you either.

    64. Numbers can be real or unreal, rational or irrational. I find that odd, somehow.

    65. 2-4-6-8: I always think in two’s when I think of you… if you ask me “2” is the perfect number… which is real and unreal, rational and irrational, all at the same time…

    66. The sky is blue because of ionization in the atmosphere, and the way that diffracts the light, if I remember right.

    67. I don’t know at all why your eyes are the colour they are, and I don’t want to. They’re perfect as a mystery to me.

    68. Some of my friends like me because of the nice guy they think I am; others despite the fact that they know I’m not. I’m grateful to all of them.

    69. True love is always “despite of”, and never “because”, though.

    70. And I will try to love you, despite everything.

    71. Everything solid is more than 99% empty space, according to our current model of the atom, or at least the one we learnt about in high school.

    72. I believe in God, I think, but I’m not always all that sure that S/He actually likes us.

    73. And anyway, the idea of eternal life scares me – I don’t think I’d like it.

    74. I don’t think suicide is cowardly, but it is very selfish.

    75. Some animals will hurt themselves on purpose, but it doesn’t seem like they would kill themselves.

    76. Sometimes it’s better to believe that you’re a butterfly, dreaming you’re a man (or woman).

    77. I do believe the children are the future, though God knows that’s a scary thought if you’ve met a few of the ones I know!

    78. Sometimes people sound like they’re sobbing when they try to laugh.

    79. In a certain light, the mountains round this town like they’re lit from within. They remind me of a rose-quartz lamp my parents have.

    80. I’ve never wanted to make an impression, or leave tracks anywhere; I dream of being a flat and pretty road along which people can walk or walk or wander, making it easier – and more pleasant – for them to get where they want to go.

    81. I don’t think anyone can say they really know me until they’ve seen me dance to music I love – really dance. Preferably on an empty-ish dance-floor with space to move, and the music would be The Flaming Lips: “Racing for the Prize”. That string arrangement… That’s when I really feel like me.

    82. One of my earliest memories is of a holiday in a game reserve and making my parents play a Richard Clayderman tape over and over and over in the car. I’m not ashamed of it, even now.

    83. Why should the only man-made structure visible from space be a wall? Why can’t it have been a bridge instead?

    84. I’d like to hold your hand, cross this space between and hold you in my arms.

    85. Some old composer said that the note of C reminded him of green. Centuries later scientists (who else?) discovered correlations between the frequencies of sound- and light-waves. C corresponded perfectly to green.

    86. One of my favourite stories is “Everything is Green” by David Foster Wallace, and one of my favourite poems is “Green” by Paul Verlaine. (I used to think: I like Verlaine’s poems so much, because I’m so in love with Rimbaud…)

    87. Nevermind the slices… who invented bread?

    88. And how many Japanese had to die before they found the non-toxic part of the pufferfish? How did they know to keep looking?

    89. There are a million ways to die and still seem alive.

    90. But it’s possible to find a way of living that gives you immortality in a single (and in every) moment of even a short life. I’m still figuring that one out.

    91. In some religions – and computer games – a god will die if there’s no one left to believe in him or her or it, and to love them.

    92. People project a lot of themselves into religion… The important thing is to believe in something, I guess.

    93. And I believe in you.

    94. Hemingway, I think (or was it Vonnegut? Or someone else entirely?) defined family as there where “when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Actually, I think it was Robert Frost.

    95. I was never a swinger of birches as a child – I was too scared. I was scared of so many things…

    96. But I’m not scared of you.

    97. And I love you.

    98. And I love you.

    99. Yes, I’m pretty sure I love you.

    100. Oh, and another thing…

    Johan Hugo

    (More by this author)

     

      

     

     

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    the rug that didn't need to fly

    Sundays are the best days.

    If you come by our beach on Sunday you can see me hanging from the washingline at the edge of our garden, securely fastened by red and white clothespegs that match my stripes (the people I live with are like this: they think of colours), talking to the wind all the while.

    And if you sit in what I've come to call our yard for a while perhaps you'll be able to hear our conversations. On a typical day you'll hear him whisper about flying and far away places. There are colours in his words, light and motion. He talks of leaves falling from trees and lanterns hanging in front of windows and stripy rugs swaying in all sorts of places, just as I am here when he does this to me, when he boasts, describes, and promises, and tempts me, and asks me to please, please, please let go this time and follow him...

    He swears that we can fly together.

    I think he fancies me a bit, if you ask me. But then that's slightly irrelevant and I think it would be better if I had started from the beggining - the beggining of the story I tell him every week before I shake my head (metaphorically, but firmly nonetheless) and say no. No. I won't. This is the best place on earth; the only one where I need to be.

    And I think that, were you to come to our beach on a Sunday and to look at all that I spend my Sundays looking at you would just have to agree. There are a few metres of thin pale sand between our garden and the sea. There are also sand dunes and reeds. On the right there's a row of houses that look a bit like ours and a bit different; on the left there's and a creek. On both these sides the borders of our yard are defined by a low fence, but the third side is marked by little more than said clothesline and half a row of (yet undecided as to whether to survive or not) roses, which makes it feel like the yard is pouring out onto the beach. Or like the beach is ours...

    But then I, at least, think it is.

    I think that Alfie feels the same way, because the first thing he does on Sunday mornings is run out of the back door, arms outstretched and shouting, through the yard, between the sheets that are usually hanging next to me, on the sand; until he reaches the water, where he stops for a moment before running back. Or, rather, that's where he usually stops, because we should not forget that day five Sundays ago that is when he got a little too excited and ended up knee-deep in ice-cold water...

    Alfie is three years old. I know this because Alfie's mum asks Alfie a lot of questions and he answers each one at least twice. He has an older brother who is five and a half and is called Charlie (Charlie isn't that less excited about the sea but just a little more sensible) and a baby sister who seems to be about to be named Lou, and he goes to visit his grandmother on Saturdays. When he comes back it's late and dark and he's not allowed out on the beach, which he's not too excited about. So he makes about it on Sunday mornings. It makes sense now, doesn't it? I know all this because I've lived with these people for three months.

    Three months is a long time: there are (about) thirteen Sundays on which to be seduced by the wind in them. There are about one hundred-and-fifty-three chances for Hannah (who is Alfie's mum) or Emmy (who is her best friend and Charlie's godmother) to spill their coffee on the floor. As for the times Alfie loses something on the way from his plate to his mouth, those are more than the grains of sand in his shoes every evening (when he reluctantly agrees to come back in.) Furthermore Lou has to be stopped from chewing my edges seventeeen times in three months (most of which during the past week; she seems to have grown fond of the idea) and Charlie has enough time to discover a toy car, three coloured pencils, a butter knife, a postcard someone had sent his parents and twice as much as his pocket money in coins under me (and on each occasion swear he has nothing to do with it, which I can assure you isn't entirely true.)

    Oh and let us not forget Tom, who is Alfie's dad and a bit more careful than everyone else who frequents my kitchen. This makes him think he has to straighten me out every second time he passes by the sink. I'm not telling you how many times he did that in three months because frankly, I'd gone crazy had I been counting those... But I think you must know what I mean by now.

    This series of charming events started on what I think was a Thursday, but I can't be sure, because before that day time didn't really exist. It's not that objects don't have a soul before they belong to people, as people often think; it's just that they forget and they need someone to remind me. That was the day when Emmy picked me up and I suddenly found myself dangling above big basket in a big shop under bright lights, and someone was smiling because of me. She showed me to Hannah who smiled too and put me in a big yellow bag and took me home. Ever since colours have had names, the days of the week have had colours and me, I've had a reason to be.

    But it's not gratidute that keeps me from running away with my occasional (and, I suspect, rather unfaithful) lover; it is happiness. And even when, on long, dark (and wet) Saturday nights I catch myself dreaming of the floating, bright world he promises, I'm never tempted so say yes. I just hope that one day, when I'm old, when my bright green and white and red and blue stripes will have faded, I won't be thrown away (my people aren't like that, anyway.) I will be neatly stored away (by Tom) or just stored away (by Hannah) at the bottom of a picnic bag, and I'll get to see the world with the people I love.

    Dimitra Daisy
    (More by this author)

     

     

    Note: This story started out a long ago because of a collage and of a poem for children about a crocodile who had never thought of flying, and one day, when I have more time, I'll make sense...

     

     

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    DJF

    Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of your death. I once wrote a really poor story about you. Terrible it was, all Kelmanesque (and no-one can do Kelmanesque like Kelman can do Kelmanesque)- I hadn't yet found my voice- and I suppose I still haven't but I am nearer to it.
    Eight years is a long time. I don't think about you that often, and when I do it's usually with the belief that you haven't gone anywhere, and I suppose you haven't really because you are here with me as I write this.
    You had the biggest cock I had ever seen in my entire life, and I remember Imogen telling me how she couldn't fit you all in, and that night she fitted me in with aplomb and I wasn't sure if I was happy or sad that she managed to fit all of me in. I guess I was happy.
    "You- Yes YOU! with your skin-tight jeans and your hi-tec shoes"
    I remember we were 14 and we had decided to form a band, and that was the first line of the first song we ever wrote together. It was also the first line of the only song we ever wrote together. We were too busy with life to actually stop and document it.
    We broke 3 sets of chandeliers during Italia 90; One at your house after we thought we had scored against Holland, then one at mine after Platt scored in the last minute of extra time, then one at Glen's house when Lineker scored to put us 3-2 up against Cameroon.
    Glen has gone too. Did you know that? Four months after you. I hope you are keeping each other company.
    You wouldn't believe what's happened to me! The way my life has gone. Sometimes I think it's all fiction. Sometimes I wish it was all fiction.
    I haven't seen your mum in eight years. I don't feel ashamed at all. Why would she want someone there reminding her of her dead son?
    Dead son.
    I was going to delete that.
    Because it isn't true.
    Because it is true.
    Now I remember why I don't think of you that much- It's because I can't bear the thought of never seeing you again.
    I am looking out of my window. The sun is beginning to cast shadows on the walls.
    We were Madchester before Madchester. We were miles ahead. Measuring the size of our flares in your front room, drinking out of date Special Brew, waiting, waiting for what?
    Somebody is delivering something. Hang on a minute.
    Oh, it was nothing.
    Now where were we?
    Where where we?
    Where were we?
    Oh
    You've gone.

    Paul Williamson

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    The End.

    "Tell me a story."
    "What about?"
    "I don't know, just tell me a story."
    "Ok. Once upon a time there was a girl who got so sick of her boyfriend keeping her awake each night asking for stories so she brutally murdered him with a blunt knife while he slept. The end"
    "That's not very good."
    "You didn't ask for a good story."
    "You wouldn't really murder me with a blunt knife would you?"
    "Depends on what mood I was in I suppose. Maybe it would be easier just to smoother you with a pillow. Less blood to mop up… Hey! Don't put the light on I want to sleep!"
    "I just wanted to check you were lying. You were lying weren't you?"
    "No. I really mean to murder you while you sleep. Didn't I tell you about my criminal record?"
    "Stop it. You're freaking me out now."
    "Ok I will stop. Switch the light off and we can go to sleep."
    "Will you tell me a proper story first?"
    "Hmm… let me think for a minute"

    "Are you still awake?"
    "Yes I was just letting you think."
    "Damn! I thought I'd got out of it. Oh well here it is:
    "It was a damp, dreary day when Felicity Page stepped out of her front door. She fully intended to make her visit to the outside world as quick and painless as possible and so she had thought long and hard about where she would go first and what route she would take. She headed purposefully to the post office, stood inline to send three parcels to different corners of the world. As she handed them over she silently wished them safe journeys. Next she went to the grocers and bought broccoli, potatoes and a quarter of roast chicken for her tea. Finally she went to the newsagent and bought two lottery tickets. Feeling smug that her trip had been such a success Felicity returned home and put her groceries away. The End"
    "That can't be the end! Nothing happened!"
    "Well it was. Not all stories are exciting you know? Besides I'm tired and can't think of anything else"
    "Well where did she send the parcels to? Did they arrive safely or were they intercepted by spies?"
    "She sent the parcels to three friends in Seattle, Dublin and Oslo. The parcels arrived on time and even if they had been intercepted, the spies would have only found mix CDs and a some chocolate."
    "Hmm ok. Well in that case are you sure Felicity just went straight home? She didn't land herself in the middle of some sort of crazy adventure? Or meet a bunch of interesting and exotic strangers?"
    "No she definitely went straight home, and she only talked to the people in the shops. The woman who served her in a post office was called Audry, the man in the grocers was Albert and women in the Newsagents was Angie."
    "Do you think it was a significant that all of their names began with the letter 'A'"
    "No. It was just one of those strange coincidences that are always happening."
    "OK if nothing interesting happened while she was out did she win the lottery?"
    "Umm she won £10 but then used that to pay some of her phone bill"
    "So that really was the end?"
    "Yes it was. I'll tell you more about the boyfriend who got brutally stabbed if you like?"
    "No"
    "So can we go to sleep now?"
    "Yes"
    The End.

    Rachel Queen

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    A love poem called intentions

    The sea makes the rain,
    And the rain rides the wind,
    And the wind blows to land,
    Where the rain will fall.

    The rain finds the seed,
    Lying deep in the land,
    And the land and the rain,
    Make the roses grow.

    And a man who does walk,
    On his walk finds a rose,
    And the rose he does pluck,
    To his love he brings.

    And his love sweet she smiles,
    And her smile he does spy,
    So he plants her a kiss,
    Which does grow to the sky

    And the rain rides the wind,
    And the wind blows to land,
    Where a rose does grow,
    To be plucked by my hand.

    Nima   

      

      

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    ‘Free’ Trade

    For decades we have been told that free trade is the road to reducing poverty and even to democracy. ‘Free trade’ policies are now promoted as a magical cure-all not only by parties of the right but by supposedly ‘centre-left’ governments like Tony Blair’s in Britain.

    We were told that we ‘owed it’ to central European former-communist states to let them join the European Union, as though granting them membership was a sacrifice made by everyone in the EU for the long-term good of all. In fact, due to lack of sufficient EU regulations – for instance no European Union minimum wage - the benefits are restricted to very few people in any of the countries involved.

    As the Financial Times (31st October 2002) put it -

    ' For foreign investors the region has two main attractions. First, it offers low-cost high-skill labour in politically stable conditions, located close to the wealthy markets of the EU. Next, it is a vast and underdeveloped market for goods and for services.'

    Tony Blair has made his ‘campaign for Africa’ a central plank of his election campaign. It promotes the reduction of restrictions on imports from African countries. It doesn’t mention that the other side of the coin involves demands free trade policies, privatisations and cuts in welfare spending by their governments as though this will end poverty in Africa.

    In fact African governments have been persuaded by the World Bank , the IMF and donor governments to adopt free market ‘Structural adjustment policies’ and their successors ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers’(which are basically SAPs and like them increase poverty rather than reducing it) as conditions for loans from the World Bank and IMF. The result has been that Africa has been the only continent in the world to see its per capita GDP fall – the only continent to become poorer. As well as becoming poorer the distribution of wealth has become more unequal, as it has worldwide – pushing many of the poorest Africans into starvation.

    European Commissioner and former British government minister Peter Mandelson are even attempting to use the Asian Tsunami to push through free trade between the EU and countries hit by that disaster on the theory that this will help economic recovery in these countries.

    If we were to adopt the solution of removing all barriers on trade who would benefit ?

    Would it be the people sewing together Nike trainers for pennies a day in Indonesia or Sub Saharan Africa? Unlikely. As in the case of central European countries which joined the EU the primary beneficiaries would be those who are already wealthy – senior executives of multinational companies and their share-holders. Even if the economy is booming the poor will see no increase in their incomes as the benefits of economic growth on the free trade model are so unequally distributed. As prices will rise based on average incomes most people may end up worse off in real terms as their incomes are not rising but those of a very small, already wealthy, minority, are rocketing.

    Rather than levelling up by increasing the income of most people in the third world the vast majority would not see their wages increase at all. In EU countries and North America on the other hand there would be two possible effects – lower wages or increased unemployment as businesses based in Europe or America are unable to compete on costs with plants operating in the third world paying poverty wages to workers who are not allowed to form independent trade unions.

    This is the reason that almost every textile and clothing factory in Britain has now closed down. Burnley – where the racist British National Party has had local councillors elected – was one town where unemployment rocketed as a result. The bigots of that party wrongly diagnosed the problem as being caused by immigrants or blacks and Asians – in fact it’s caused by free trade policies and the dominance of large companies. Just as in the 1930s unemployment caused by free trade dogma is leading to poverty and racism.

    Free trade was also meant to bring democracy wherever it went. Trading with China after the Tianenmen square massacre in 1989 was meant to spread ‘democratic values’ from America and Europe. That hasn’t happened either.

    In China free trade ‘reforms’ have certainly led to mass unemployment, cuts in unemployment benefit, the leaders of independent trade unions being jailed or sent to insane asylums, more industrial accidents as for instance managers on performance related pay send miners down pits which they know have an underground fire in them and the continued use of torture in a one party state.

    In China as elsewhere ‘free market reforms’ have made the poor poorer, the middle class poor and a tiny minority very wealthy.

    Even Hong Kong has seen rocketing unemployment partly due to further privatisation and deregulation

    So the majority of people under the rule of the Chinese government are benefiting neither in being taken out of poverty nor in having greater freedom from oppression. One party states or dictatorships and the multinational companies work quite happily together. They both want the same thing – to ensure that they are part of a small minority who get a vastly disproportionate share of money and power

    As each new trade agreement with China is signed though and even with China admitted to the World Trade Organisation there has been no sign of any democratisation. The numbers of people tortured or executed without a fair trial in China and the countries it illegally occupies (including Tibet) remain as high as ever.

    Nor has government aid led to democratisation or poverty reduction because it, like ‘free trade’ policies has not been aimed at producing either but at creating ‘investment opportunities’ for companies based in the donor nations.

    British aid to South Africa has funded, and been made conditional on, the privatisation of Johannesburg’s water supplies. The resulting water charges mean that those on the lowest incomes can’t afford piped water at all and has resulted in large numbers of deaths from a dysentery epidemic.

    Water privatisation in Colombia led to water riots after most people could no longer afford water – and large profits for British based companies.

    In Iraq the combination of wholesale privatisation of public services, cuts in provision of food to the poor and the war and occupation have done what seemed impossible and doubled the malnutrition rate among children to a rate higher than that in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and UN sanctions – when over 350,000 children died above the normal rate died as a result of sanctions. Iraq, once a relatively wealthy country, now has a child malnutrition rate as high as that of most Sub-Saharan African countries with one in four Iraqi children not getting enough to eat.

    The new head of the World Bank is Paul Wolfowitz, one of the members of President Bush’s administration who pushed hardest first for war in Iraq and then for privatisation and ‘free trade’ there.

    There are real alternatives to these policies that can reduce poverty and death from disease (many caused by lack of clean water), malnutrition, starvation and other results of poverty.

    One part of the solution would be to make aid conditional not on ‘free trade’ policies but on democratisation, an end to all torture and to execution without trial ; instituting or increasing minimum wages , working conditions and environmental protection regulations as well as legalising and protecting trade unions independent of governments , companies and governing parties.

    The second part would be, as the World Development Movement puts it, ‘fair trade not free trade’. The people of third world cannot possibly develop their own small businesses in competition with first world multinational companies. They must be allowed to protect their economies with trade barriers until they can build up their own economies and businesses to a level where they can hope to compete on a level playing field.

    With their economies developed , a proper welfare state and public services to give protection to the unemployed and those on lower incomes , and decent minimum wages and trade unions third world countries could then benefit from trade.

    Currently ‘free trade’ benefits only the top executives of the largest companies and their investors and increases rather than reduces poverty. Nor is it even ‘free trade’ or ‘competition’ but a complex monopoly of a few massive firms controlling each sector of the economy.

    If you want to donate or campaign to help actually reduce poverty around the world rather than increase it in the ‘developed’ and the ‘third’ world then you visit the World Development Movement website or the Right to Food campaign.

    copyright©Duncan McFarlane 2005

    Duncan McFarlane

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