Popular Culture As Religion: Please Kill Your God

You Monsters Are People's avatarYou Monsters Are People.

A few years after the twentieth century ended the world became terrible. The economy shit the bed, everyone lost their jobs, the government started to become evil, and all educational programing was systematically replaced by “reality” television. It was as if Orwell made a half-assed attempt to write a comedy but it ended up being our actual lives instead of a single work that permanently defamed him. This new world worked out great if you wanted to live in perpetual poverty watching idiots argue wide-eyed about nothing in particular over a staccato soundtrack between fifteen minutes of advertising. But, if you were interested in being more than a culture zombie, things were going to get rough the second you left college and entered the intellectual desert of everyday life.

The internet had become our last bastion of cultural hope but that too had begun the slow decent into repugnancy. Advertising…

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Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

*puts down tablet, picks up book* I think I’m quite ready to read The Two Towers this afternoon.

InterestingLiterature's avatarInteresting Literature

Today is Tolkien Reading Day, an annual event launched in 2003 by the Tolkien Society. (The date of 25 March was chosen in honour of the fall of Sauron in the Third Age, year 3019, in Tolkien’s fiction.) The reading day promotes the use of Tolkien’s writing in schools and library groups, and is celebrated in numerous countries. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together ten of our favourite quotations from John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. The first quotation, about Beowulf, is especially timely because of the recent announcement that Tolkien’s translation of that epic poem is finally going to be published!

On Beowulf and myth: ‘The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender…

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10 Great Quotations from Women Writers

InterestingLiterature's avatarInteresting Literature

As tomorrow (8th March) is International Women’s Day, we’ve gathered together ten of our favourite quotations from women writers. Some are wise, some are witty, some weird; all are wonderful, in our opinion. And what unites them all is that they were uttered (or written) by some of the major female figures in literature. We’d be interested to hear your favourite quotations from women writers, in the comments below – which names/quotations have we missed off?

Austen

‘Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.’ – Hannah More

‘If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time.’ – Edith Wharton

‘There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.’ – Sylvia Plath

‘One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.’ – Jane…

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African Union: We cannot ignore the plight of Berkshire any longer

Very funny satire of The Daily Mail. Puts a few things in perspective as well.

Jape's avatarThe Daily Hawk!

The Daily Mail's Cry For Help Has Been Answered The Daily Mail’s Cry For Help Has Been Answered

by Peter Wilson

Responding to popular calls from the Daily Mail and Nigel Farage, African leaders met in Kinshasa yesterday to discuss the growing floods crisis in the United Kingdom.

‘The images of knee-high water have shocked us all’, said Congo’s President Kabila, whose nation is currently recovering from the most brutal conflict in recorded history since the Second World War.

‘The [Daily] Mail and Mr Farage have made it clear that Britain’s international aid budget, used around the globe to combat AIDS, famine and female genital mutilation, is needed in High Wycombe.

‘Well, we can do one better’.

Governments across the continent have drawn up assistance packages to help the hundreds of Britons forced to sleep in poorly funded community centres, often for days at a time.

‘It is unimaginable’, said Kabila before the assembled statesmen in Kinshasa, ‘In Henley-upon-Thames…

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#TONGUES is HERE!

I will be getting this and reading it, just as soon as I get my tablet to a WiFi connection. Can’t go wrong with a free book.

Emilia's avatarEmilia

Remember to Like, Share, Comment, Retweet, DM it to friends, people you may think might like it (the subtle hint of ‘celebrity’ is used here, especially if a blue-tick kinda person follows you ;)), if you enjoy reading!

For anyone who isn’t aware: Tongues is a short story, which will not even take a day to read. It’s a horror/gore/thriller style, although some people may not find it gory enough (like me!).

It’s a FREE eBook. Yes, free. I’ve written this with the intention of just to reach as many people as possible! The eBook is not about making money, for me, it’s just one thing to be proud of and also, just to cross off the list of things to do this year!

You can download it from my SmashWords profile here: X Marks The Spot.

All you need to remember is the following formulae: Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Lather…

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