Reality Is What You Make It

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

Bear Nation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What to do at the end of the World

One particular mystical-magical sect committed mass suicide. This seemed an illogical act to me. The end of the world means we're all going to die anyway, so why pre-empt it? Personally I'm glad I kept my options open and stayed alive.

http://hubpages.com/hub/What-To-Do-at-The-End-Of-The-World

The Khabs is in the Khu

Actually there may be a partial truth in this. It is certainly true that by the use of repetition, incantation, slight of hand and magical gestures, anyone can weave a spell to cast an illusion over the whole world.
It's what Tony Blair and George Bush have been up to all the time. Abracadabra, hey presto. Look: they've conjured a "war on terrorism" out of thin air!

The Khabs is in the Khu

Transylvanian Journeys Brand New Post at HubPages

http://hubpages.com/hub/Beyond-The-Forest-Journeys-to-the-Heart-of-Transylvania

This HubPage is the story of my journey to Transylvania and how it affected me.

In some ways, I think, it changed my life.

I've seen many things over the years, but nothing has ever touched me like that Transylvanian landscape.

I wrote the story in about two days nearly two years ago now. It is very intense.

It iss meant to be the first chapter of my book, Borderlands, about my time living in Romania, but unfortunately I was unable to find a publisher for it. I think it works by itself, however. Anyway, if people like this I will publish more of the book in the weeks to come.

It might be a little bit long for a HubPage, I don't know.

Let me know what you think of it by leaving a message at the bottom of the page.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Beyond-The-Forest-Journeys-to-the-Heart-of-Transylvania

We're Here Because We're Here

This is the only known picture of Ivor Coles, who died in September 1915, most likely in the 2nd Battle Of Loos, which took place on the 25th of September that year.

In the picture Ivor is about 12 or 13 years old. He was 18 when he died.

After he died he "disappeared".

There were no records of his death. There was no grave to show where he was buried. There wasn't even an inscription on the Menim Gate, on which is carved the names of all of those whose bodies had been lost in the carnage of the First World War.

Ivor Coles became a non-person, not even a statistic in the records.

This is the story of Ivor Coles, how he got lost, and how, ninety years later, his family found him again.

It is a story of loss and redemption, told with poignancy and insight, with pictures and music, links and maps to go with it.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Were-Here-Because-Were-Here

Other stories by CJ Stone on HubPages:

Riding With Lady Luck: a journey across Europe in a Grand Cherokee Jeep

The Bard of Ely's Nature Conservation Site : A visit to Tenerife to see Steve "Bard of Ely" Andrews.

Down in the Dumps: how to survive a barium enema

Healing Hands

I’ve been saying this for a few years now: therapeutic massage should be available on the National Health.

Everyone should be able to get a weekly massage from a qualified practitioner.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Biodynamic-Massage-in-Whitstable

Karl Marx Lives!

The following is from a letter sent to me by my old good friend Dave, about a famous building (see above) in the great European city of Vienna where he lives. As he says:

"It's called Karl-Marx-Hof (Karl Marx Court), and is the longest residential building in the world. For its time incredibly advanced for council housing.

"Well, it was of course renamed under the fascists (from 34 to 45) and at the end of the war the American commander of that section of Vienna (like Berlin divided into British, French, Russian and American zones) was a little bit worried about the locals' plans to restore the original name.

"So he called on the expertise of an emigre Austrian, Joseph T Simon, who was then an officer in the US army. According to Simon's autobiography, he was asked, among other things, "Did you know this Karl Marx personally?" "Was he a member of the communist party?" "What was his position on the Soviet Union?"

"Simon, who had been a member of the revolutionary socialist (social-democratic)youth movement in the 30s replied that, no he didn't know Marx personally and since Marx died in 1883 he obviously wasn't in a position to know anything about the Soviet Union, but that he was highly appreciated by social democrats.

"The army commander then sent out an internal army mailing saying that Mr Simon was extremely well informed about Marx and that he credibly argued that Marx wasn't a communist at all, but was closer to the Viennese Social Democrats, so there was no reason to change the name of the building --- so it's still called the Karl Marx Hof to this day."

Thus Karl Marx lives in the name of public building in Vienna.

For my latest story please go to:

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

Poisoning the Atmosphere

Have you looked at the sky recently? It´s like a motorway up there.

On one day last week in the space of less than ten minutes I counted at least seventeen aircraft. It was nearing sunset so all the lines of exhaust fumes were lit up like little streaks of phosphorescent pink candy scattered about across the sky. Later, as it began to get dark, I could make out the aircraft lights blinking on and off like secret messages in Morse code.

What strikes me is how we have diminished the power of the heavens. We look into the sky to see evidence only of ourselves. The stars have disappeared behind a barrier of light haze and air pollution and all that´s left is aeroplanes.

When I was in Transylvania last year I saw the Milky Way in a clear sky for the first time in years and it was breathtaking. There was no light pollution and the sky was utterly black. Looking up was like being cast adrift in an ocean of stars. Millions of stars like a tidal surge arcing across the infinite sky.

We´ve forgotten how awesome the Universe is. The Milky Way is the heart of the Galaxy in which our tiny sun dances and plays. It is one galaxy amongst millions. Each galaxy consists of billions of stars - billions of suns - each one of them a white-hot nuclear furnace of unimaginable power, unimaginable strength. To look up at the stars is to be reminded of this. To look up at the stars is to measure ourselves against the Universe and to know how insignificant we are.

It takes millions of years for the light from the furthest galaxies to reach us. Looking at the stars is like stepping into a time-machine. It´s like looking deep into the past to a time before our own fragile little planet was born.

Instead of which we look up and there´s some guy in a Cesna buzzing about catching the sunset, there´s a stray passenger plane from Gatwick flying to Lanzarote, and a few high-flying jets on some obscure military manoeuvres leaving plumes of smoke across the sky.

How much does it cost to send a military jet into the upper atmosphere, to catapult one man half way across the globe? How many gallons of aviation fuel does this use?

We´ve been taking this world of ours for granted. Now is the time to start asking questions. Whose purpose does any of this serve? Who gave the orders for these planes to take off? I don´t remember being consulted about it.

Have you noticed how the exhaust trails from those high-flying jets seem to hang around for a long time in the air? You look up into the sky and there´s not only live aircraft skimming the ionosphere, but evidence of previous ones left in long white streamers criss-crossing the whole expanse.

The official name for these streamers is contrails, and the official explanation is that they are the result of water vapour caused by engine exhaust. This doesn´t explain why they hang around for so long, however, nor why, as you watch them, they spread out and start to turn into something resembling a fine white mist.

The question is, what mess of chemicals are hidden in this mist? What effect is this having on our delicate atmosphere?

We can´t go on poisoning the world like this.

The Gorilla In The Room

Things are not always what they seem.

For instance a credit crisis is not necessarily a crisis. For some people it's an opportunity rather than a crisis, a chance to buy up failing businesses at knock-down prices.

Meanwhile the war on terror is not really a war, and the front page of your newspaper does not generally give you the news.

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

Masochist TV

I must be some kind of a masochist. After my last blog, in which I was complaining about the state of the telly these days, I’ve actually ended up with MORE telly.

I have subscribed to one of those on-line digital TV packages with 53 channels and the ability to record and pause live programmes.

This all sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is. Who would want to pause or record most TV programmes anyway?

As for the 53 channels, anyone who has Freeview will already be familiar with them. They consist of the five terrestrial channels, news channels, kids’ channels, supplementary channels - such as ITV2 and Sky 3 (which mainly consist of repeats of 80s American TV shows) - lots of radio channels, plus – my favourite! – a whole heap of shopping channels for those of us who can’t even be bothered to get off the sofa while indulging our consumer habits.

Hand me the handset I want to buy something. How about some kitchen essentials, bed and bathroom furniture, filter products, watches, travel bags, electronic equipment, makeup, fashion accessories? I could get some new diamante bra straps and matching swimming caps to go with my latest beach wear.

There’s something glaring and hysterical about these programmes, something noisy and randomly garish, like being trapped within a glossy shopping catalogue-world with a psychopathic salesperson for company. The world finally gone insane.

I’m not quite sure how I ended up with this. I was after broadband, but somehow the salesperson on the end of the phone managed to persuade me that I needed all of these supplementary packages too.

So I’m a wired-up person. I am wired into the world-wide network. I mean that literally. I’ve just been counting the wires. I have a TV, a vision box, a CD Rom player, a radio, speakers, an external hard drive, a laptop, a wireless router, a telephone, a table lamp, all plugged into the same socket in the same room.

That’s ten electrical leads: plus one telephone cable, one TV aerial cable, speaker leads, scart cables, mouse cable, plus leads connecting all the electrical appliances to each other.

It’s amazing: all of this snake’s nest of advanced technology making it possible to record the latest repeats of Celebrity Come Dine With Me on More 4 + 1 while on-line shopping, listening to the latest top-ten downloads and looking up the TV viewing figures on the internet all at the same time.

Celebrity Come Dine With Me. This has to be the most inane celebrity TV concept programme ever devised: celebrities you’ve never of heard of cooking up food you’d never eat in rooms you would never visit with people you don’t like. People famous for not even being famous doing mundane things we all have to do anyway, like cooking food.

Whatever next? Celebrity Come Shop With Me? Top Ten Celebrity Nose-Picking Moments? I wouldn’t put it past them.

I’ve just looked up the viewing figures. On one night Celebrity Come Dine With Me netted 2.9 million viewers. Let’s say it’s a four part series. So that’s 11.6 million hours of people’s lives spent absorbing this drivel.

That’s 1,324 years – or nearly nineteen whole lifetimes - of people watching dreary people with personality disorders backstabbing each other while preparing and eating food on TV.

Welcome to the future.

It’s more frightening than you could ever have imagined.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

With more than half of Europe's wild bears within its borders, the Romanian forest is the ideal place for some bear-stalking. By Chris Stone

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Stalking-in-Romania

First published in Wizzit, Wizz Air In Flight magazine, February 2008.

http://www.wizzmagazine.com/features/2008/feb/follow-that-bear.html