Andrew W

Any ideas of how I could go about publicising my first self-published book of political poetry?

It is called "Little Red Verse" and was published through lulu.com - are they any good? They seem to offer decent value for printed works and can handle low print-runs. I am not expecting to sell that many copies, but would like some tips on self-promotion.

All proceeds go to the Socialist Party. I am not looking to make any money out of this, just to spread ideas and hopefully inspire other people to express themselves and stand up for what they believe in.

Attempt at personification and to explore the relationship between predator and prey.

It's for a poetry competition tonight, so any speedy advice would be welcome!

Does the ending work? Is the characeterisation believable? What about the shift from first person to third person and back again?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Common Ground

I calculate the angle of attack,

Alter my approach. Ailerons

Raised; I come into land.

I can spot the tiniest movement

From eighty feet -

Swoop, catch, consume.

It’s all in the preparation,

A pilot’s checklist.

I wear the colour of black,

Creep under their radar.

Addressing worms below

With a mighty V sign.

And you call me bird-brained!

This particular stealth bomber

Sits proudly in the apple tree,

Head tilted, eye fixed

On a single blade of grass.

Assesses the moment to pounce,

The time to stoop.

Readies himself.

Branch resonates.

Sprung into the void,

To devour and feast

On the succulent, fat worm below.

“Don’t eat me!”

Lingua franca

Bridges the elements.

Spans the gulf

Between the foes.

Stunned, the bird

Stalls, falls

A whirl of confusion,

A mass of ruffled feathers.

Just in time, he pulls up,

Regains his composure.

“What?”

“Don’t eat me”.

“For I am a digger, a nourisher,

A toiler and tiller,

A compost-heap of delight.

Without me, you would never

Taste berries, so red and ripe

Or perch on your tree

So lofty and high.

We are legion.

On the work of billions

Your life depends”.

Blackbird eyes his adversary

In a new light.

Pearlescent, deep-jet stare.

“Fat, juicy worm,

My children are hungry.

They cry for food.

Kill or be killed.”

“The same winds which drove you here

Powered your flight,

The same jetstream, the same clouds

The same rain, the same instinct

Causes me to surface for air

When pitter-patter drums the ground.

The same urge to procreate,

To fend for our brothers and sisters

Beats in my heart as it does yours.

We stand on common ground.”

“I am a maker, a delver and digger

Gardener of tender shoots, green leaves.”

Blackbird bends ever closer,

To hear this strange speech.

“To eat me would . . .”

Beak stabs, snaps.

Worm falls silent.

I used to run Windows Vista (probably the worst OS ever) on my computer - slow, bloated, cumbersome, when it became infected with a nasty rootkit virus, which I couldn't eradicate - so I made the switch to Ubuntu and have not looked back - faster, more reliable.

The only drawback I can find is games, but I'm not an ardent gamer so this doesn't bother me. They don't seem as smooth in Linux and the command line is a little bit of a learning curve - but generally everything is quicker, easier, less hassle and less annoying than on a Windows PC. It's also fairly virus proof and you don't need Norton or something slowing your computer down to a crawl.

So is Linux or Windows better in your experience? Which distro? If Linux is so good, then why isn't it more popular? Moreover, it is free! If you are buying a new computer, did you know that about £90 is going straight to Bill Gates for the privilege of getting Windows 7, Windows 8, or whatever the latest update is?

The Curse Of the Albatross

Wanderers of the seas

Mistake our plastics for food.

If only they could understand.

Instinctive – the chicks’ beaks

Plaintive, upheld,

Call for vital sustenance.

Instead – the head of a

Long-forgotten toothbrush,

The hand of a child’s doll.

Flotsam and jetsam of modern life,

Bought to stifle

Clamouring cries of our own offspring,

Impatient for the latest fad.

Many miles from the city,

Our rubbish is transported,

Washed out to sea.

Tragic circles of plastic debris,

Gathered in the gullets and the gizzards of the gulls.

Inscribed by fragile feathers,

Bones of wings that never had a chance

To exult on the soar of an updraft.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

See short video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGhtSTs0J1s

For example - some facts about the corrupt ex-Tory, now UKIP MP here - http://juniusonukip.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ukip-ne...

Do you think members of the House of Parliament should be barred from ever holding office again, if found guilty of corruption?

Employees would be sacked if they did these things, yet politicians get away with it.

Won't public sector cuts merely make things worse - they will reduce tax revenue coming in, add to the money claimed by the unemployed and reduce people's spending power, as well as cutting vital services?

Is the government's approach completely wrong? Should Labour councils refuse to cut services and launch a campaign to force the government to back down (as Liverpool did from 1983-87 and Poplar in the 1920s)?

If this is not done, the alternative is a deeper recession, isn't it?

Report today in the Independent summarising the findings of a study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which 'found "no association" between higher immigration and joblessness'.

See link - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/imm...

So why all the concern about immigration from the far-right - is this just racism, pure and simple? Shouldn't we value the contribution of immigrants - they "tend to be young, well-educated, prepared to work for low wages and imbued with a strong work ethic"? Could a case be made for encouraging more immigration, not making it harder for people to settle elsewhere?

Following the furore over her tweet "White people love playing divide and rule. We should not play their game" - should Diane Abbot resign?

1) This could be taken as racist, since it is making a generalisation about a group of people based on their race - not all white people "love playing divide and rule".

2) Yet Diane Abbott herself said that it had been taken "out of context" and was referring to the history of British colonialism, "which is a bit much to get into 140 characters".

I think it was foolish of her to try to reduce a complex historical issue, i.e. racism to a single tweet. However, I do not think this is racist, because the dominant ideology of capitalism has always been "divide and rule" - in this case a reference to the "black community" made by a white journalist. Diane Abbott is correct, I think, in criticising this position - it is made by someone outside a specific community, with no first-hand knowledge of institutionalised racism. However, she acknwoledged that she did put this rather crudely and followed her tweet up with an explanation. Still, her basic premise is largely correct - throughout history white people have played "divide and rule" in order to exploit and rule other races.

I think the MP should apologise and this was a foolish use of twitter, but I do not think it is a resigning matter, and she did have a valid point, even if it was phrased badly. What do you think?

From lancaster unity (anti-BNP website)

http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2011/07/bnp-tread...

If that is an obviously biased source - then what about this from Stoke - a former heartland?

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/BNP-Finished-...

Or this from the right-wing UKdemocracy website:

http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/bnp/77885-bnp-fini...

Are the far-right now reduced to political incompetence, impotence and infighting? I hope so.

See - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/campaigners-recreate-jarr...

The march is a re-enactment of the 1936 Jarrow Crusade - demanding decent jobs for young people, a reinstatement of Educational Maintenance Allowance and free education from nursery to university. It is currently in Coventry - its route will take it through Rugby, Daventry, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Luton and London, finishing on the 5th November.

Their blog can be read here - www.jarrowmarch11.com

I think it is vital that young people stand up for a decent future, so that is why I (though a bit longer in the tooth than most of the marchers) joined in from Nottingham to Nuneaton and will be joining again from Daventry to Milton Keynes.

Anyone else fancy showing their support by turning up to one of their protests, buying a T-shirt or making a donation on the blog?

Background

The BNP took offence at the Marmite Love / Hate Party, which allegedly was an attack on the BNP. They said that the Hate Party's leader "Steve Heaving" resembled Griffin.

Having watched it, I think the advert is parodying party political broadcasts in general and not targetting anyone specific. The only reference to nationalism (apart from putting all Marmite Eaters in Guernsey) is the bulldog flag behind Mr Heaving. He also looks nothing like Nick Griffin.

Instead of turning the other cheek at any perceived slant, the BNP responded with a youtube broadcast with a jar of marmite displayed prominently. Quite rightly, Unilever sued the pants of them and the sad fiasco has cost them around £100,000. After losing a similar amount in lost deposits after the elections - they now face financial ruin.

Does this only show up the BNP to be very sad / arrogant / paranoid / totally devoid of humour and completely inept? What do you think?

Personally, I would rather their racism was defeated politically, by a mass movement of ordinary people demanding a working class party that would act in the interests of all those who are facing cuts at the hands of the Con-Dem coalition. But if the BNP have to be smashed by Unilever, then I don't care. I just hope that they crawl back into the sad, far-right oblivion of the National Front, where they came from and keep their sad, misguided, bigoted views to themselves.

Do you agree? Are any BNP sympathisers on here going to defend this fiasco?

See a few videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH3CaTtYyBU&feature...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moehMa91clo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay8D39ojQsg&feature...

See link:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-untold-batt...

The battle between the Luftwaffe and the British Air Force was very closely fought. Hitler was attempting to subdue Britain to prepare the way for a ground invasion.

I think two key factors were to result in our victory:

1) The heroism of the Polish 303 squadron - the most efficient squadron in the British Air Force, hardened pilots who flew closer than others and brought down more Nazi aircraft.

2) Radar.

Has the contribution of Polish pilots during the Second World War gone unrecognised?

What do you think?

Would this lead to a more representative government?

All the main parties are going to slash public services when they are elected. The only party which is standing up for ordinary people and has a track record of militant action is TUSC.

What do you think of their policies? Can we fight back against cuts and privatisation of our public services - NHS hospitals being closed, libraries being shut, social services being cut, attacks on benefits and welfare, on students? Do our public services need to be cut, while the rich still get away with tax avoidance and non-doms stash their wealth in tax havens?

See below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_20...

http://www.tusc.org.uk/policy.php

Is it time to vote for a real alternative, with honest, fighting MPs on the same wages as those they represent?

You don't vote for personalities or for a leader of a party, you vote for a set of policies held by a political party.

The Lib Dems have not changed their policies on anything - so why the sudden surge in popularity?

See below

http://www.vote-no-to-bnp.org.uk/2010/04/bnp-steal...

Would you vote for a party that is so clearly lying to the British people? Can you trust them on anything after reading this?

Have the BNP become embroiled in infighting again? Does this latest debacle show the BNP's leadership for the petty, short-sighted thugs which they are? Do you think this will discredit them completely as any sort of credible political party?

See below for more details:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bnp-...

I hope so.

TUSC is standing in around 40 seats across the country - it would be nice to have some recognition on the election page. Why not add them to the election page Yahoo!?

See their homepage at http://www.tusc.org.uk/

Not very long ago, Jean Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front in France was in the run-off for the presidential election with a substantial share of the vote. Now it seems that voters are deserting the FN in droves.

From this question in French (which I will translate). I think this is also relevant to Britain, what do you think? I don't think the BNP will get anywhere in the next elections, but even where they have got councillors, the evidence here is similar - that they are losing not gaining popularity.

Pourquoi le FN ne gagnera-t-il jamais une élection, une seule?

Why haven't the Front National won any elections, even a single one?

Voici déjè un élémént de réponse:

Here is one reason why this might be the case:

http://news.fr.msn.com/m6-actualite/fran%E2%80%A6

77% des français préfèrent la diversité...

77% of the French prefer a diverse, multicultural society.

Avez-vous d'autres explications à cette constante du FN qui est de perdre les élections?

Do you have any other explanations why the far right constantly lose elections?

Labour has passed laws to make protest illegal, but are reluctant to act when there are clear cases of incitement to racial hatred. Groups such as the far-right English Defence League's limp excuses that they aren't racists won't fool anyone.

This is Labour's mess and they need to clear it up. They can't leave it all to those brave souls who turn out to meet these thugs and tell them they aren't welcome in our communities.

In the wake of 17 arrests due to the EDL marching in Stoke this month, do you agree that we need to stop them marching wherever we can? Should Wetherspoons, at least, ban them from their premises?