Annual halloween story

The annual halloween story is written in draft and is in pre-production stage.

Somehow.

Huckleberry will be returning here on the blog on October 31st for his final revelation...

Poem - Ant country

'Go to the ant you sluggard!'
So I went to the ants.
And they were all asleep.
And the only difference between us was that I knew that I was asleep.

To the survivors...

Stuck on a strange, mad island? Trying to survive and missing those who have left the tribe? Welcome to Britain 2020 and well done on making it this far...

Think happy thoughts.

Tidy home. Stay sane. Live lives.

The picture above is recent street art. You may have seen similar social media memes. The word, as you probably know, for such things is 'lionising'. It is a relatively benign form of stereotyping. In years to come it may be studied in universities (when we get to 'the other side', God willing). Whether or not the NHS staff are angels, it is notable that this is the perception on Day 32 of lockdown. But do you think any groups of people are being demonised at the moment?

Do you have any reservations, in month two of lockdown, about the loss of personal and communal freedoms?... anyway... 'Tidy home. Stay sane. Live lives.'

And think happy thoughts...

Free non-fiction ebook for the thoughtful...

I sometimes have this fantasy in which I think certain businesses and shops should distribute their goods for free, indiscriminately. I have it particularly with jewellery stores when I walk by. I imagine them casting gold and emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds into the street. A kind of outrageously generous sharing with whoever may be passing by.

My naive fantasy is unlikely to come true but that doesn't mean I cannot give away what I have created at this time, even if banks and jewellers don't ('Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you...')

One other thing I would like to say about these present times. True colours are not shown when there is some great crisis. True colours are revealed when everything is calm. What is revealed in a crisis is either whether you are classy or not. And that is a different thing.

So, here you go - this freebie is called 'Irony - Evidence for God'. I have suffered so much for this book. It has always felt as if I have been punished a little by the Universe (c), in subtle, ironic, intimate ways for even daring to write it.

How can irony be evidence for God? The thoughtful will already see the problems with that since most ironies are negative. But you will have to read it if you want to find out.

I am no Voltaire. But I am no Scrooge either - I'm doing what I can in this crisis and offering this for free for the next five days (that's all I am allowed to do by the big A). You will either need a kindle or a kindle app on your phone or laptop.

So, here is the link... Irony - by Nick White

The beautiful cover is by my brother Adam, who is an artist. You can see his work here.

And here is the book trailer I created... 

Free ebook novella - Destiny and Dynasty

Never say I don’t give back. As an act of subtle virtue signalling and shrewd business reputation management I am offering free downloads of my novella Destiny and Dynasty from today.

I can only do this for four days as Kindle Direct Publishing only allow a four day promotion. But... If you need an escape, you will find it a fun read with no sign of a virus anywhere (unless you want to call the Ravenscrofts viruses).

It isn’t a long read at around 45,000 words and I think that is good for these distracting and scary times. I know that I prefer to write shorter works. So go ahead, download it to your Kindle if you have one, or save it for a rainy day. If you don’t have a Kindle you can get the Kindle app for your device for free if you download it from an app store.

You can read the blurb and reviews on Amazon on the link. I have a worry that I haven’t corrected some typos in the ebook version, so if you are really bored you can count the typos. I think there are eight but you can prove me wrong if you are so minded and let me know in the comments. Hopefully the story won’t bore you that much. But I may have corrected them. Can’t remember.

I'm sure you didn’t want a blog on my thoughts on the current crisis. I have a slight concern for my readers. All I can say at the moment is that we should at least hold on to our God given freedom of expression.

Here is the link... Destiny and Dynasty for Kindle

Check out my other titles here, especially my non fiction book Irony – Evidence for God, for the writing of which I have had so much trouble on so many levels.

Enjoy.

I See You - on fire

In Birmingham, there is currently an exhibition of the ‘I See You’ tapestry for the charity Open Doors at St Martins in the Bullring – a kind of sowing together of an expression of love for women who are being tortured and killed across the world because of their faith.

In between work sessions I went to see it.

And then it came to me. The idea…

I could do this… Open Doors and persecuted Christians are so neglected that there might just be a way for me to make the whole thing a little more… public. Pragmatism. I stood outside St Martins in the Bullring, where the event is taking place, and I realised that I could simply buy a plastic petrol filled canister, sneak it into St Martins, pour it over the tapestry and set fire to the whole expression of goodwill. Then they would listen. Then the tolerant British people would be persuaded that all this is real and that we really need to support charities like Open Doors. A little radicalised, I warmed to the idea, like a fire burning in my brain. Sure, I would get caught most likely, but it would be for the greater good, for a cause. 

And, as my family know, I have a track record of burning places down (so be very careful if you harm me or mine… I have matches and sometimes make bad choices).

I thought I had better pray about it before the action occurred as I didn’t want collateral damage and felt it might be seen the wrong way. Unfortunately (and rather boringly), God seemed to be hinting that I should not actually physically burn down this thing as I would be hated and misunderstood. Instead, it seemed he wanted me to be writing the words that you read right now.

I have to admit, my motives were not entirely pure. The exhibition, some pictures of which you can see, seemed to only contain the very best designs. Now… I’m not saying that the UK Christian community is competitive, but in this case, I’m saying that Capitalism has infiltrated the Christian church. Some of these designs were great. They were on fire. And where was my design? It wasn’t there! I felt betrayed. Well, wouldn’t you? Sure, I had been busy and had only used stickers and felt tip pens, but that was no reason not to put my selfless artwork on show. Instead, supporters like this, got the limelight, supporters who clearly were more interested in display than anything else. What kind of cruel trick was this from The Almighty ©?

To give some context, as I fear I may have been a little confusing so far... Last year there was a Christian charity campaign called ‘I See You’ by a great charity called Open Doors whose task it is to help persecuted Christians around the world from the relative safety of the West. The campaign was aimed at suffering Christian women and supporters were sent pieces of cloth and asked to embellish them with the words ‘I see you’, both to show suffering female Christians that they were not forgotten and to show the Government in the UK the amount of support there was for those who are tortured and persecuted because of their faith. The cloths were presented to the great and the good, to Parliament, and are now going on display in churches.

I was busy when I did mine. But I dutifully sent back the cloth with my design and with a few tasteful stickers on it. I took pictures of my design but sadly my phone and pictures got erased in a bathroom flood which made my Samsung J3 go kaput. Which rather put out my fire. I emailed our MP, Gavin Williamson, asking him to support the Open Doors event and meetings for the umpteenth time and was only slightly alarmed today when for all of his words of support I heard that he couldn’t be arsed to attend the event.

So I didn’t burn down the display. Instead I wrote these words which you are kindly reading.

But the worst of it is this… I don’t actually know that God really said in my religiously inclined brain: ‘Don’t burn it down, write a blog about it instead.’ Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I fear I have made a fundamental error and offended The Almighty © (as usual). I think my idea was probably better. If I had carried out my plan I really do feel that I could have said in a courtroom,  at the end of my life and Judgment Day ©? , ‘I can explain everything… well, most of it’.

Anyway, if you want to support Open Doors, I could not recommend them more. They need all the publicity they can get. But I bet my idea would have worked better.

P.S. Please do not be tempted to burn down places. The repercussions are a bad experience.

https://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/stories/advocacy-190925/