John A.

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When you can't avoid or report

John A. posted an article on - Dec 7, 2009, 3:08 pm
I just knew you were trouble the moment I— Only because you have no ear— Who is giving the orders? If you have to ask. I will report you to the sponsors...
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Souls untouched

John A. posted an article on - Oct 10, 2009, 7:18 am
Will you love me tomorrow? Yes. How much will you love me? Enough. Enough? Yes. But I want love for eternity. A love they write books about. I t...
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Remember least we forget

John A. posted an article on - Oct 8, 2009, 5:52 am
'Is it true daddy', asked Jake with the honesty of innocence. Before we die perhaps we regain that humility and hope.             George, his father, thought he knew better. 'I...
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Old soldiers never die they just fade away

John A. posted an article on - Oct 5, 2009, 3:35 pm
  'We met on the 9.42 to London from...from...I forget,' said Keith, wiping his brow in the heat.            'It was from Hitchen. Station gone...
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The Enemy Within

John A. posted an article on - Oct 3, 2009, 10:58 am
'Hände bis, Englische hunde.’            Sir, if they don’t shoot you, I will.’ 24 Hours earlier I'm sorry Sir, but I think using Elefanten erinnern...
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When the cure was worse

John A. posted an article on - Oct 2, 2009, 3:04 pm
  I knew as my hand touched her, she was ill; the skin was too scratchy for a woman who had others cook and clean.              'Please take a seat, ' I said, weig...
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Motel Loves

John A. posted an article on - Oct 1, 2009, 12:13 pm
'Did you see that?'              Christie prodded Keith             ’What, Its only six.’             'Look. The woman behind the l...
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The Conspiracy

John A. posted an article on - Sep 30, 2009, 7:13 am
I looked down at the dead body, her green dress mingled with the red of blood. Looking back  I was too silent, the body as stiff as hers, both our eyes dry. I longed to scream, as once we did between...
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When does God approve of Kissing?

John A. posted an article on - Sep 25, 2009, 3:19 pm
Two teenage friends in the 1940’s Fredrick : Why can’t boys kiss? Harold: They can. Fredrick: What boys kiss boys? Harold: Yuk no. Its wrong in the eyes of God....
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The Dreams of Kings

John A. posted an article on - Sep 24, 2009, 5:06 pm
‘Sire, did you dream last night as the witch foretold?,’ asked the Night Lord.            The King looked at the couriers but did not speak. His eyes lost in shadows.  ...
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Switch and the Dark Tower

John A. posted an article on - Sep 23, 2009, 5:20 pm
Switch halted at the door. He was out of breath and out of time- the screams of Help me had stopped.             ‘Emolley hold on I am coming.’ He charged at the door with his shoulder...
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The past may not be your future

John A. posted an article on - Sep 22, 2009, 11:39 am
'Once this was a lake where fish were like a slither of snakes.'             'What else old timer?'             Craig could see that the boys wer...
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Four Jaws you don't forget

John A. posted an article on - Sep 21, 2009, 9:06 am
'They hunt in fours but divide into singles to corner you.’ Rosemary knew—she had lost a finger to one. Hearing the rosters, she jumped up. 'Sir, I want to partner up with Kawasak...
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Love at the movies

John A. posted an article on - Sep 18, 2009, 7:56 am
‘Don’t you just love it when the good guy wins,’ Ryan said, grabbing a handful of popcorn from Meryl’s  carton -his had kept the trailers unheard.             Meryl, just chewed h...
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Guesthouse Manners

John A. posted an article on - Sep 15, 2009, 2:00 pm
  'Don't look now but that little madam has had a second orange juice.'             Harold turned round.             May m...
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Looks aren't everything

John A. posted an article on - Sep 14, 2009, 12:56 pm
  Zelda wiped the grease away from her mouth, she has real class, before saying, 'You don’t want to cross Hash Brown's woman. She did a John Bobbitt, if...
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Script conference from Hell

John A. posted an article on - Sep 13, 2009, 1:40 pm
‘You’ll be Texas toast when I get you.’ ‘Where's the bloody writer.’ ‘What can’t you understand now?’ ‘What he’s saying, the character is supposed to...
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Sticks and stones

John A. posted an article on - Sep 12, 2009, 12:08 pm
‘I ain't firing blanks, its yor eggs that are scrambled.'             He regretted saying it, as soon as he saw her eyes empty             'I'm ...
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The first step

John A. posted an article on - Sep 11, 2009, 9:16 am
'Are you known?'              The words slapped him. What accept that drink doesn’t killed the pain—it merely distracts              'Let yourself be known by...
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Your Family

John A. posted an article on - Sep 10, 2009, 7:31 am
Because they're family is all that Mike got whenever he complained about sharing toys with  some lousy cousin from the sticks.              As a teenager, he saw it as a fat lie. He ...
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Sunday Pancakes

John A. posted an article on - Sep 9, 2009, 6:57 am
'Why can't we make a Frisbee', Maise said. It was the Sunday drought and only morally uplifting activities such as cooking were parent approved.             Harry tentat...
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What we did as kids

John A. posted an article on - Sep 8, 2009, 9:34 am
The crash got them running. Old man Coles was treacle slow but he could hit flies a mile away once cocked up. Gasping hard, they jumped over the hedge ripping modesty away as bullets thundered past. ...
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Listen and you will learn

John A. posted an article on - Sep 6, 2009, 8:28 am
‘Prof Jackson, folks. Put your hands together for the professor.’             ‘So Prof, what made you a Nobel prize winner?’  ÂÂ...
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A Song to live by

John A. posted an article on - Sep 4, 2009, 7:42 am
  Only her face shone in the stage lights, the moon to the audience's stars as recording lenses sparkled back. Her note broke the silence of death to summon hope. Out of the darkness ca...
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Roots

John A. posted an article on - Sep 2, 2009, 4:25 pm
'What did dad do,' asked Jack smiling up at her.             She dreaded the innocent questions. How do you explain, a drunkard fumble with neither party remembering what...
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Forgotten Witness

John A. posted an article on - Aug 31, 2009, 3:51 pm
  The stone stood, a relic marking where once the slaughter of the innocents took place. Who now cares for the truth- they were bait for enemy lured to defeat or the myth- a nation born out ...
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How not to ask for a Loan

John A. posted an article on - Aug 29, 2009, 3:33 pm
‘I don't get it.’               ‘Its simple really, I have invested—’             ‘Spent’               ‘Invested my bonus in a spor...
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For better or for worse

John A. posted an article on - Aug 27, 2009, 5:34 am
We are going out whether you like it or not think of the glamour when we are on the yacht. I'm on the mobile. I could wear the little black dress with gold edges. To think, they live in houses wi...
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Strange Fruit

John A. posted an article on - Aug 26, 2009, 4:08 am
The scream was short but it was the signal for the crowd to break up, some at least looking shamefaced. Not always, the ones you expected, Silas would say years later on the rare occasions he let the ...
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Don't Mess With Grandma

John A. posted an article on - Aug 25, 2009, 4:42 am
'I was born here and I die here,’ Evelyn said calmly.             'Listen to grandma here, you'd think she was paying the bills,' the ba...
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Hot and Cold Holiday

John A. posted an article on - Aug 24, 2009, 5:39 am
Outside each tree in the garden was doing a disdainful tango as the rain sighed against the rattling window. It was a jumper day.            ‘My kind of su...
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Getting Chosen

John A. posted an article on - Aug 23, 2009, 5:03 am
    'Yor stuck with yor kin but you choose yor friends,' she said in a take-me-as-you-find-me voice. It wasn’t an invite. Maggie, standing in he...
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A Secret Affair

John A. posted an article on - Aug 22, 2009, 6:47 am
  'You like. Want buy. Big on girls who like boy.'                Phew, from the cover Harold saw that was true b...
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Cold Turkey

John A. posted an article on - Aug 21, 2009, 3:33 pm
'I need a hook-up now,' Jo screamed.             His mother just sat, holding her gun. Tears long gone, now it was a battle of wills.             She had lured him to t...
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Run Rabbit Run…

John A. posted an article on - Aug 20, 2009, 3:48 pm
‘Please it's only a rabbit,’ Dali said, resigned to her irrational reaction.            ‘Oh no, no.’            He saw Lucy’s body go rigid, her nec...
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Witold Rybczynski- One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (2001)

John A. posted an article on - Aug 20, 2009, 7:05 am
QI type discussion on the origins and development of the screw etc. All to down to your landed gentry looking after themselves. Wonderful detailed case study on unintentional consequence- better scr...
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Thomas M. Disch- On Wings of Song (1979)

John A. posted an article on - Aug 20, 2009, 5:52 am
Dystopian vision of a Bible-Belt police state America. The economy has collapsed—with millions fleeing their bodies as "angels" set free by music. We follow Daniel's struggle to find his song ...
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Soseki Natsume-I am a Cat (2002)

John A. posted an article on - Aug 20, 2009, 4:59 am
Life in Edwardian Japan from a cat's perspective. Ten story social satire from the period when Japan modernised—think Diary of a Nobody. Probably hilarious if you are up to speed with the peri...
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Matt Ruff- Set This House In Order (2004)

John A. posted an article on - Aug 20, 2009, 4:14 am
Oddball romantic-drama. Andy Gage is the key 'soul', managing his household of multi-personalities, working in dysfunctional IT start-up business. Matched up by his kooky boss with Penny, st...
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Clashing Obsessions

John A. posted an article on - Aug 19, 2009, 12:27 pm
Where have you been all day, sniffin around skirts?       ‘No, I am trying to find an elegant way of line indenting in HTML .’       ‘That’s not what a healthy boy sh...
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The Pedant's burden

John A. posted an article on - Aug 18, 2009, 10:28 am

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Waiting

John A. posted an article on - Aug 16, 2009, 5:54 am

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When is mine yours?

John A. posted an article on - Aug 16, 2009, 3:00 am

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Sunday Salon: The free spirit verus the stern editor

John A. posted an article on - Nov 30, 2008, 4:25 am
To me at the heart of writing rests imaginative empathy but so often we struggle to tap into this rich source. Roger van Oech's argues that we kill playfulness and imagination with conscious/uncon...
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Childhood Memories

John A. posted an article on - Nov 14, 2008, 12:44 am
I look around and imagine ahead twenty or thirty years. Will what I see still be there? My home, school or street, someone else’s memories of birthdays, school trips, cosy nights in, when I am a dus...
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On boasting: writing for sunday scribbles

John A. posted an article on - Oct 26, 2008, 3:09 am
In my head all writing is good on the page it rises to poor on the 3rd draft I have hope but soon default to unsure When the reader is unsure you have to rewrite in hope that imagination will come go...
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Cultural Amnesia by Clive James

John A. posted an article on - Oct 19, 2008, 2:40 pm
How do you define your humanity, your worth and the meaning of the good life? Did the last book you read, the last poem heard, the choir on Classic FM, the last serious piece of reportage in the newsp...
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Sunday Salon: A quiz

John A. posted an article on - Oct 5, 2008, 3:37 am
Pop me a link back in my comment box if you do one 1 WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE

50 Book Challenge read and completed from January to Mid September 2008

John A. posted an article on - Sep 26, 2008, 3:14 pm
These are the books read for the 50 book challenge by genre collection. I also partially read another 5 books which were cast away into book hell. All but two have been reviewed on my notes of a book...
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