Ten Thousand Days

The End Of The World As We Know It

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:04:00 +0000

You may have heard people talk about 2012. Some people say it is the year when the world will end.

By Steve Andrews & CJ Stone

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It

The Power of the Light

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:19:00 +0000

CJ Stone tries an alternative therapy that is set to cleanse his soul and aura. The question is: is he evolved enough to step into the light...?

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Power-of-the-Light

Hair Pie

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:18:00 +0000

Crosby Stills Nash and Young sang a song about it. In those days hair was a revolutionary statement. But what's its purpose? That's the question on CJ Stone's mind.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Hair-Pie

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You Can Write To King Arthur

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:16:00 +0000

King Arthur is this ex-biker, ex-soldier, ex-builder (not necessarily in that order) who had a brainstorm back in the eighties and decided he was King Arthur, after which he donned a white frock and a circlet, and has been causing various kinds of trouble ever since.

I wrote a book with him once.

http://hubpages.com/hub/You-Can-Write-To-King-Arthur

LSD Refugees

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:14:00 +0000

I've just taken LSD. For the first time in 25 years. That little brown drop of liquid, placed on the end of my finger and ingested some 30 minutes ago, is about to play havoc with my sense of self...

http://hubpages.com/hub/LSD-Refugees

Columns III: War and Asylum

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:13:00 +0000

In the controversy surrounding the issue of asylum seekers, we tend to forget some of the very real human stories that lie behind it. It's too easy to see it as an "issue" and to forget that these people are human beings, with mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers who love them, with hopes and aspirations just like ours, who suffer just like us, who laugh just like us, who dream just like us, and who die just like us.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Whitstable-Times-Columns-II

Baghdad Girl

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:08:00 +0000

She is fifteen years old and she has just finished her exams. She likes cats. She has a blog which consists almost entirely of pictures of cute little kittens rolling about on well-tended lawns, or relaxing, stretching and yawning, or playing with balls of wool. She is like most teenage girls the whole world over.

Her name is Raghda Zaid and she lives in the United Arab Emirates. She used to live in Baghdad.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Baghdad-Girl

Columns IV: Welcome to the Future

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:06:00 +0000

These days we seem to be under the quaint illusion that the progress of civilisation is the same as technological innovation.

Every day there are hundreds of new products on the market; from mobile phones that take your picture, to palm-top computers the size of cigarette packets; from cars without pistons, to video streaming; from vacuum cleaners without dust bags, to "Blue Tooth" technology that allows you to use your computer in any location. All of this is seen as "progressive", as if the accumulation of more and more gadgets was really the measure of human worth.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Welcome-To-The-Future

Computer Troubles

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:04:00 +0000

I’m very worried about my computer. It’s been doing some very odd things of late. I tell it to do one thing and it does something else. It’s like a recalcitrant teenager throwing a permanent paddy, stamping its foot and going off in a virtual sulk.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Computer-Troubles

Atlantis

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:03:00 +0000

“...for these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable… Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others…”

With these words, from the dialogue of Timaeus, written in about 360 BC, the philosopher Plato would unwittingly launch a deluge of speculation, investigation, argument and counter-argument, that has lasted the better part of 2,500 years.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Atlantis

Samhain and Cider

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:03:00 +0000

Samhain. Halloween. The season of darkness. Grim clouds scutter like thin grey rags under a sombre sky. This is the time of the ancestors, the time of the ancients, when spirits roam the land. The time of the dark awakening.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Samhain-and-Cider

Vlad the Impaler

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:01:00 +0000

“Tepes” means “Impaler”. He got his name because impaling was his preferred method of execution. This is how it was done. The victim had his legs yanked apart, by horses attached to ropes, and then a sharpened stake about the size of a fist was inserted between the buttocks, up the anus. The stake was greased with pig-fat to allow ease of inserting, and to stop the body shock that might cause the victim to die too quickly....

http://hubpages.com/hub/Vlad-the-Impaler

Angels of New York

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0000

We came in on the George Washington Bridge on the Interstate, but you could see the city long before that, from deep inside New Jersey somewhere, the jagged line of skyscrapers flashing between the hills and trees...

http://hubpages.com/hub/Angels-of-New-York-Part-I

Sweet Nothings

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:34:00 +0000

They are just here, that’s all, in this place of borders, on the threshold of becoming. What do their faces tell us? Are they sisters? Are they friends? It’s not clear, even, when these photographs were taken. There is an archaic quality about them, as if the camera is a time machine and we’re looking through the lens to another time, another era, maybe a century ago.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Sweet-Nothings-The-Small-Schoolgirls-of-the-Borderlands-in-Eastern-Anatolia-by-Vanessa-Winship-A-Review

The Power of the Light

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:40:00 +0000

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Power-of-the-Light

Reality Is What You Make It

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:11:00 +0000

http://hubpages.com/hub/Reality-Is-What-You-Make-It

Bear Nation

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:01:00 +0000

It was after this that I first heard a bear speak. It was Lydia. She was walking up and down by the fence making this noise. It is a unique and unmistakable sound, like a plaintive nasal cry, slightly wistful, slightly melancholic. The Latin name for bear is "Urs" and that is exactly the sound they make. "Ur?" It's a question. There's a questioning tone to it, like something you might ask of the mountains, of the wind. Something slightly sad. "Why have you left me, Ur? Where have you gone, Ur? Why do all us creatures have to die?" You can hear the peaks of the mountains in its voice. You can hear the breathing nearness of the wind. You can hear the echoes of the forest. You can hear the lonely miles of travel. You can hear mortality and loss.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-1

I Don't Write For Money I Write For Love

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:57:00 +0000

So, you have to ask, what is the difference between a professional writer and an amateur? The difference is that a professional writes for money, of course, and demands a proper rate of pay. This is reasonable enough you might say, and it's certainly true that I could do with being paid for some of the things I write. But the real truth is that most of these professional writers not writing for themselves. They write for an editor who works for a proprietor whose main purpose is to fill his paper with advertising. So in the end, most writers are writing for advertisers.

http://hubpages.com/hub/I-Dont-Write-For-Money--I-Write-For-Love

Riding With Lady Luck

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:47:00 +0000

I'd driven through the night, through the darkness and through the rain, hearing the squeak of the windshield wipers rubbing back and forth sluicing diamonds from the glass, watching the lights from in front and from behind, mile after mile of road in this great arc across a continent, sweeping though invisible landscapes and the shadows of mountains, like dark, unseen presences, through Germany and through Austria, through unknown borders between sleeping nations, through dreams and night time stirrings, through the first flickers of light on the horizon, the rising dawn, to this place - not even a name on a map - a toilet-stop in Hungary.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Riding-With-Lady-Luck

Mothers Club in Erdington

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:45:00 +0000

Mothers Club in Erdington, Birmingham, an early psychedelic music venue, opened on the 9th of August 1968 with a performance by Duke Sunny, and closed on the 3rd of January 1971, with a blockbusting three-band show by Quintessence, Stonehouse and Happy. The following is a personal record of that club, and that era....

http://hubpages.com/hub/Mothers-Club-In-Erdington

Down in the Dumps

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:43:00 +0000

I was very, very nervous. Not so much at the prospect of any pain (I'd been assured it wasn't too painful) as at the humiliation of bending down to the scientific rigours of the medical establishment: being slapped on a table and pinned down like a specimen in a medical experiment, while they pumped alien substances into my back-passage, no doubt with the prime intention of blowing away the last vestiges of my human dignity.

As it happens, that's exactly what it was like.....

http://hubpages.com/hub/Down-In-The-Dumps

Strange Daze on Fantasy Island

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:41:00 +0000

In a sense Steve looks at the human life-form in exactly the same way. It is weird and fascinating to him. It is a sign of Life - the Big Life - that weaves and patterns its way through the world in all it's peculiar, variegated splendour. But he's not at all caught up in human self-promotion, or in the out-of-kilter human belief that only human things matter.

In other words, Steve just hasn't got the slightest notion about politics.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Strange-days-on-Fantasy-Island

The Romance of Space

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:37:00 +0000

There was a great movie on Channel 4 recently, called In The Shadow of the Moon, about the Moon landings.

It contains archive footage of the nine missions that went to the Moon between 1968 and 1972, plus interviews with some of the guys who took part.

There's something about those men. A quality. A presence. A sense of wonder. It's as if, having stepped upon the surface of the Moon, having felt its gravitational embrace, they have left something of themselves back there which still speaks to them through all that distance of time and space.......

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Economics-of-Space-Exploration

The Bard of Ely's Nature Conservation Site

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:36:00 +0000

Once he dyed his hair turquoise. That must have been a very strange sight, a lurching, bespectacled, purple-headed giant with a green beard, looking like something that had just stepped out of a flying saucer, just popped down to Earth to do some shopping at the local supermarket.....

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Bard-of-Elys-Nature-Conservation-Site

How To Catch a Great Crested Newt

noreply@blogger.com (CJ Stone) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:34:00 +0000

I have nothing against Ringed Plovers. I'm sure the Ringer Plover is a very nice bird. The one I saw seemed perfectly decent to me, hopping along by the stagnant pool, pecking amongst the pebbles, looking for grubs. And I'm glad for all the Ringed Plover in the world that there ARE still places where they can grub about in, as it were, grubbing up the grubs to get their daily grub....

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Catch-a-Great-Crested-Newt