Category: Social commentator

Lazlo Ferran: Memories of the 1960s – School

Prepare to have all the myths of how school was Heaven in the 60s blasted away and for myths that it was Hell to be destroyed. This is what it was like for me.

Take a guided tour of my school.

I spent my school years, until the age of fourteen, in our county. Now, I am not saying our true-blue ultra-conservative county was backward, but the last time I looked at the council’s website it had chains running down each side! That was back in the 90s. In the 60s, they were just about as blue as you can get, and they certainly believed in giving every child’s sanity a run for its money.

The county’s model of education was simple: your kid had to pass their special Twelve-Plus exam to get a proper education. (All counties had the Eleven Plus, but we had the Twelve-Plus for grammar school applications and our school didn’t do the Eleven-Plus.) Anything else was failure and rewarded with being sent to a ‘secondary-modern,’ which in our county meant a school for dunces. There you would never get the chance to do O-Levels or A-Levels and you would certainly never go to University. So every day of your school life, you were having the message ‘Success is everything’ rammed down your throat. Unfortunately, the flip-side of this philosophy was the message that ‘your humanity is nothing.’ It was only many years later that we would all discover Hans Eysenick’s IQ-based formula for the eleven-plus and twelve-plus exams was all based on fake research. Continue reading “Lazlo Ferran: Memories of the 1960s – School” →

Is the UK Film Industry becoming puerile?

News
This week’s post will be brief. I have only just completed a big promo for Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate. Sales were satisfying but now I need time to write. Whisper it: I have just started work on Ordo Lupus III. So:

DO NOT DISTURB!

The Devil’s Own Dice: FREE in Exchange for Review
Today is the last day you can download occult thriller The Devil’s Own Dice for free on (Link no longer available) in exchange for a review. Here is what some people are saying about it: “Amazing tale” “Richly satisfying” “Highly recommended” Make sure you make the most of this unique opportunity and grab a copy NOW! Continue reading “Is the UK Film Industry becoming puerile?” →

When will repression of creativity stop?

In this day and age, when the creative industry accounts for 8% A of the UK employment (3% in USA, 2012 B) and 5.2% C of UK economy (3.2% of total US Goods and Serviced income 2012, more than the travel and tourism industry D), why is it creative people are still considered outsiders, barely better than criminals, and forced to do paltry 9-5 jobs to support themselves while earning either nothing from their art or actually have to ‘pay to perform’?

It’s time this victimisation stopped!

As far as we know, in ancient Babylon, Egypt and Ancient Israel music was well-established as the ‘conscience’ of society. It was certainly legitimised already in religious ceremonies and temples, where musicians may have earned their crust, and was almost certainly employed in secular community activities such as drinking, feasting and dancing. In the latter, it was entertainment for the masses. This would eventually become the role for which it would generate the most income. Musicians, certainly religious ones, were respected by the community but probably payed a wage similar to many service-sector workers, a subsistence wage. Continue reading “When will repression of creativity stop?” →