We’re near the end, and it’s a little late to be having second thoughts…
But…
Yes, there’s always a but there somewhere, isn’t there?
I have been thinking about the end, and it has changed a few times in the last week, based on how the story has progressed. It seems the end I had in mind was not really the end that would work. I had them heading for the stars.
Silly me.
The notion that the death has been restored sounded a lot better. And I did;t want to keep them underground for four hundred years, so I halved it to 197 and a half, for the moment.
I’ve also been thinking about Elsie and over the course of several hundred pages I made her good, bad, indifferent, evil, horrible, nice, and everything in between. Can one person be so many different things?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
The only thing I’m sure of at the moment is the rewrite is going to be monumental.
Oh and I forgot to brag about the fact I reached the 50,000 word mark yesterday.
Yea!
…
Word written today 1,628, making a total of 51,678 words
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
Is that a video game on the computer, or I’d that a board game with friends?
In reality, I didn’t play games with friends because I’m a poor loser. Especially monopoly.
But to play a game often means you take on a persona or a role, as one, or one of many.
Personally, I like role-playing games like dungeons and dragons.
I’m going to a play
This is a stage production of a scripted story with various people in roles.
A play can have a star, a lead actor in a pivotal role to draw in the viewers
I’ve been to good plays and bad ones with great actors and some not-so-great ones.
A play can be hard to understand, it can be a musical with singing and dancing, or it can be rollicking good fun where the audience dances in their seats.
The worst play I ever saw was Dr Zhivago, it never seemed to end.
The best play, The Pyjama Game, with John Inman from Are You Being Served, a British comedy TV show.
I’m going to play the game
There’s a slight difference between this and the first example because it means instead of doing something your own way, you’re going to do eat everyone else does, prompting the analogy, you’re going to fight fire with fire.
Yep, even the explanations can be confusing. You have to love the English language for being that.
I’m going to play a role
So many connotations to this one. For instance, I’m going to be someone I’m not. If I’m a kind person, then I’m going to pretend I’m mean.
I’m going to join a group of like-minded people and help further their cause, that is to say, together we changed the course of history, and I had a role in that.
Let’s hope it was for the betterment of mankind and not a leap towards infamy.
And of course, if you play a part in a play, it means you are pretending to be someone else. I like the idea of playing God, but that’s usually the lead actor, I’m usually the janitor, servant, or just plain dogsbody.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And the story:
It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.
The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.
He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.
The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.
Where was he going?
“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.
“What?”
“I think he’s made us.”
“How?”
“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”
“How far away?”
“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”
It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”
“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”
Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.
Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.
Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.
Or so we thought.
Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.
“What the hell…” Aland muttered.
I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication where he went.
Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.
I looked up. Nothing.
Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”
Then where did he go?
Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.
“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”
I’d lost him.
It was as simple as that.
I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.
I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.
It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.
This is not a treatise, but a tongue in cheek, discussion on how to write short stories. Suffice to say this is not the definitive way of doing it, just mine. It works for me – it might not work for you.
There are two methods of writing, planning, sometimes meticulous planning, or flying by the seat of your pants, or being called a ‘pantser’.
The first has it all planned out before they start writing, from beginning to end, knowing what the end result will be. The second, well, we like to write and see where it takes us.
I like to think I fly by the seat of my pants, you know, like the reader who takes up the story and starts reading, not having a clue where it’s going to go. I prefer that blissful ignorance, of course, until I run out of ideas, roughly the equivalent of hitting a brick wall
Or that common enemy all writers have, the dreaded ‘writers block’.
I’ve tried both methods.
Each work, but in the case of the ‘planner’, you need to know where it’s going to start what’s going to happen in the middle and have the end firmly planted in your mind.
Not much good if a rotten character is making you angry and you want to kill him off, and in the most excruciatingly painful manner.
Flying blind gives you a little more creativeness and be able to go around a corner and see what’s there. It also allows for those complete changes of direction you come up with in the shower, the place that is a fertile ground for new ideas just when you’re running out of them.
But it can sometimes play havoc with word counts and if you’re trying to fit into 2,000 words, 5,000 words, or a lot less, taking the story where it wants to go is not a good idea, and sadly, I tend to let stories run their course.
And sometimes I like the idea of writing three different endings, and then can’t choose which one I like the best.
So, role model I am not. I like writing, and when I’m in the ‘zone’ it’s like I’m in another world.
It wasn’t such an outlandish idea, as much as it was hard to prove it was possible. That is, of course, traversing very long distances in a very short amount of time.
Yes, space is a vacuum, and stuff floats, and can be propelled quickly, just not quickly enough that it would not take a long time to get to the edge of our known universe, given our current technology.
And time wasn’t something we wanted to spend getting there and back
Now, out of thin air, a rather quaint but inapplicable expression to describe where we were now, we had two myths shattered, that we were alone in the universe, and that we were at the limit of how fast we could go.
I got the distinct impression the people we just met had the answers. We just had to find them, well, catch up with them first, and ask them if they would share.
Whilst we were standing by the ‘Ionosphere’, I summonsed both Chalmers and the duty scientist to my day room, to prepare for the update from number one, whom I had advised earlier to relay over the secure channel.
…
But before I got the time to brief them on my theory, number one reported in.
“Firstly, there had been only one casualty and as far as we can tell. Everyone was affected by what appears to be a short stoppage of the life support systems which virtually put everyone to sleep. All of the major systems are back on line, except for the propulsion unit, which, it seems the override cut in when the ship exceeded the maximum speed. The chief engineer is rebooting the controlling computer system which should fix the problem. No one, not even the designers of the propulsion unit, or the ship itself, expected it would ever exceed the maximum design speed, an error that the chief engineers will be taking up with the manufacturers if and when they get home.”
“We can assume then the ship will be able to resume its voyage.”
“Yes sir. I’ve advised the Captain we’ll be standing off until they advise everything is back online.”
“Any explanations as to what happened?”
The Captain of the ‘Ionosphere’ spoke, “One of the scientists discovered what could only be described as an anomaly, with the same sort of properties a black hole has, though it was not a black hole. We headed towards it and then suddenly we were being pulled into it, though there was no discernable hole on the viewer. We tried to escape it, and apparently failed. The last thing I remember, or anyone else for that matter, was the ship going dark, like everything had stopped. Until I was woken by your officer. I cannot explain how we got here, except to say that under normal circumstances, it would take many months to travel the same distance.”
“Did you see any other ships about?”
“We were the only people in that quadrant, as far as I was aware.”
Number one came back at that point, “The sensor log shows there might have been something out there, though it didn’t define what it was. I’m sending a download of the log over as we speak for analysis. One possibility though, based on the information we’ve been using to follow the ship that kidnapped the Captain, is that there is similar energy readings recorded just before the jump.”
Chalmers was first to speak, “When you say jump, what exactly does that mean?”
“We have been looking at the log, and it’s recorded a jump that started near Jupiter, to where we are now. Based on my understanding of astrophysics, and given the short time frame, the only logical explanation is that they were sucked into a sort of black hole, or a rupture in time/space. Whatever caused it, it’s in the realm of science fiction.”
“So was the notion that there was another intelligent life out here, and yet we have found that not to be the case. Whoever these people are, I suspect they have conquered the ability to travel long distances, very quickly, especially if they are, as they said, from another galaxy.”
“You have met other life?” The captain of the ‘Ionosphere’ seemed surprised.
“Yes. They attacked one of our freighters on its way to Venus and stole the plutonium rods needed to keep the base there going. They also kidnapped our Captain, and we were in pursuit of their vessel when we discovered your ship drifting. And it’s my theory your ship may have been dragged into a vortex left behind as they move from location to location. A theory my people will be working on, unless they come up with a better explanation.”
Number one came back, “I’ve just been advised by the Chief Engineer, everything is back online, and we’re no longer needed. I’ll make sure the data transfer is complete and we’ll depart. Anything else?”
“No.”
The transmission complete, I turned to the two scientists. “Soon as you get the data, find out what happened. When we run into these other people, I need to know the right questions to ask them.”
“The odds are we won’t understand,” Chalmers said.
“I thought it was universally acknowledged that if we did find intelligent life out here, the one universal language would be science.”
“That was true based on what we knew before today. Now we know there’s intelligent life out here, everything has changed.”
“Then buckle up for the ride of your life. I want answers sooner rather than later.”
It had been billed as the longest commercial flight in the world. London to Sydney.
Previous times it had been flown, it was devoid of passengers and cargo, except for a few reporters and airline staff; not more than about 20.
The plane, state of the art, was capable of flying twenty-one hours straight. We would only need Nineteen and a half. It was the first flight of its kind, and we were the first to participate in what was being touted as history-making.
I was on board only because I’d won a competition. To be honest, I couldn’t believe my luck.
I guess it was the same for the other 287 of us on board. With baggage and cargo included, oh, and not forgetting fuel, I guess our biggest concern was getting off the ground.
It wasn’t long before that fear had been dispelled, though for a moment more than one of us thought we might not get into the air. There were collective sighs of relief when we finally lurched into the air.
Once the seat belt sign went off, the First Officer spoke to the passengers, more or less telling us we were going to make history and to sit back and enjoy the in-flight service.
I guess it was ironic that as someone who didn’t like flying I was in this plane. The thing is, I didn’t expect to win the competition. But, I was on board for the experience and was going to make the most of it. I’d brought half a dozen crossword books.
I woke from an uneasy sleep about two hours before I e plane was due to land. The cabin lights had come on, and breakfast was about to be served.
Everyone else was in varying states of awareness. Some hadn’t slept at all, which was what usually happened to me, and they looked like I felt. Bleary-eyed and half awake.
I looked at the flight path in the headrest in front of me, and it said we had about an hour and fifty minutes, and from the outset, precisely on time. We’d had headwinds and tailwinds but neither had any lasting effect on our arrival time.
Something else did. After breakfast had been cleared away, and we were all getting ready for the last hour of the flight, word came through from the flight deck that we had to go into a holding pattern due to a problem on the ground.
The first question on everyone’s mind, did we have enough fuel. The Captain, this time, allayed that fear.
But, I was sitting over the wing where I could see the engine. I was not an expert but I thought I’d heard a murmur, the sort an engine made where the fuel supply was running out.
Perhaps not. Perhaps it was my overwrought imagination after not enough proper sleep.
Another half-hour passed, and I could feel a change in the plane’s flight. I was now listening and waiting and interpreting. The Captain said the problem was resolved and we were cleared to land.
That’s when the engine outside my window stuttered, if only for a fraction of a second.
Fortunately, we were well into our descent, and I could see the ground below. Now, going through some low cloud, the ride became bumpy, and I was sure it was covering the more frequent stuttering of the engine, and once, I was not the only one to hear it.
As the wheels went down and clunked into place, I think the engine stopped, though I couldn’t be sure, because there was little or no change in the plane’s flight other than a slight change in the plane’s speed but not its rate of descent, and none of us would have been any wiser had the pilot, in his usual calm manner, not told us there was a small problem with one of the engines but there was no problem with landing, and we would be on the ground in ten minutes.
In fact, the landing was, as any other I’d been on, flawless, even though I was sure I heard a slight stutter in the other ending, but by that time we were on the ground.
The only difference between this and any other landing was the accompaniment of several emergency services trucks, and the fact we were not going to a gate. Instead, we were taken to a bay not far from the runways, and then calmly taken off the plane.
From the ground, just before being loaded onto a bus, I could see the plane, and it looked the same as it had any other time.
What did bother me was several words spoken by what looked to be an engineer. He said, “That plane was literally flying on vapor. What you’re seeing is 228 of the luckiest people in the world.”
If ever there was an excuse to buy a lottery ticket…
It’s almost done, and another story has made it to fruition.
I have to say, this one started as a short story. I was in the process of writing 26 new stories for next year’s April A to Z Blog. That notion of being able to write a short story every day, particularly the length mine seem to get to, has become quite daunting.
This one was called Behind the Green Door, and the little note I made for myself to prompt an idea, a game show with a difference.
I’m not quite sure what I had in mind as I was writing those titles.
Another example title: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining – a romance ala Hallmark. As if I could stick to the brief! Every romance I’ve written has veered off into adventure territory.
Enough Already…
I have had a lot of ideas doe Miranda over the month. Making her a robot was fine at the start, but then it evolved into a robot that was very hard to tell from the real thing.
Originally I wasn’t going to give her Elsie’s persona. She was just going to be loaded up with memories of her, so Elsie wouldn’t be forgotten.
I had no intention of making Elsie the creator of the life-like robots. But, then, when I thought about men being involved, it veered off into weird territory, because men don’t quite think the same as women, and have other ideas for female robots, and super soldier is not one of them.
I liked the idea of making her a guidance counsellor, to see those who were going to meet their end a little easier, and it seemed like I had gone exactly where I did;t want to go. Making her the robotic equivalent to Michael’s wife of many years might seem cruel, but it salved my conscience for about ten minutes.
But this is a different society borne out of disaster and forced to find a new way to live over a very long time in difficult circumstances. One thing I can say, in my imaginary world, men might be in charge, but women are the people who make it work.
When I discussed the story with my three granddaughters, as I do quite often with all of my stories, they were surprised. They, like me, could not begin to imagine what the world would be like in 200 years, except it would be without mobile phones and computers, cars, except for the odd electric vehicle, that men and women would be on equal footing, and that everyone would get along, after a fashion, because there was always an oddball or two.
But the warning was that we were always just a short distance away from there being classes of people (like in India where they are labelled castes), such as the university types, the professionals, not self-entitled but a little above everyone else, the working class, the tradesmen, the people who keep everything working, and the nerdy types, university educated, but they live on their own planet. They were unanimous in believing that over time in such a confinement, crime would become non-existent.
After all, where can you hide?
But just the same, because of human nature being what it is, there would always be the odd person who would steal, be envious of his or her neighbour, have affairs and illicit relationships, kill, irrationally or not, and want to wage war on others because sadly that’s who we are.
Oddly enough they never considered 200 years in confinement a cause to go stir-crazy!
…
Word written today 1,389, making a total of 53,067 words
To start with, we first joined this tour at stop number 6.
We had to find it first and that meant some pedestrian navigation, which took us first to the City Hall, a rather imposing structure, which we found later had a profound effect on Philadelphia sports teams.
According to the map, stop number 6 is Reading Terminal Market, Convention Centre, on 12th street on Filbert. This was where we bought the tickets and boarded the bus that had a rather interesting guide aboard.
His favorite says was “And we’re good to go.”
Soon we would discover that his commentary was more orientated towards a younger audience, not that it bothered us.
Given the time restraints, we had, this was always going to be about looking and learning.
Stop number 7
City hall, Love Park.
This we had seen on our walk from where we left the car at the Free Library, near the Swann Memorial Fountain in Logan Park, the landmark that Rebecca had remembered from her last visit to Philadelphia. Of course, then, it was not quite so frozen.
Love park, of course, was only notable to us in that it had a sculpture in place with the word Love rather stylized. Apart from that, you’d hardly know it as a park
The city hall, well, that was something else, and when we looked at it, before going on the tour, it was a rather magnificent stone edifice.
After, well the guide filled us in, tallest building, highest and largest monument on William Penn, you get the gist. 37 feet tall, when eclipsed, the Philly sports teams all suffered slumps of one kind or another, until the problem was rectified. Interesting story.
Stop number 8
18th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, or Logan Circle
This is the location of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. A place where the Pope decided to give an audience and sent the city into a spin.
The same church has very high windows for the reason in the early days there was a problem with people wanting to throw Molotov cocktails through the windows. A bit hard when they’re so high up.
Benjamin Franklin Parkway, of course, is interesting in itself as an avenue, not only for all of the flags of many nations of those who chose to live in Philadelphia. We found ours, the one for Australia
This was also the stop where we needed to get off once the tour was finished, and time to head to the car, and go home, but that’s another story.
Stop number 10
Is that the stature of the Thinker, made famous, at least for me, from the old Dobie Gillis episodes, of God knows how many years ago?
Or, maybe it’s just the Rodin Museum on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
There’s a whole story to go with that Statue and the fact it is one of many all over the world.
This one was made in France, cast in 1919 in Bronze, and is approximately 200cm x 130 cm by 140cm.
Stop number 11
Eastern State Penitentiary. NW corner of 22nd Street and Fairmont Avenue.
This had a rather interesting story attached to it and had something to do with ghosts, but I wasn’t listening properly to the guide’s monologue.
But, later research shows, the fact it was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world. Many also think it is haunted and is a favorite for visiting paranormal visitors.
Built around 1829, it was the first prison to have separate cells for prisoners. It held, at various times, the likes of Al Capone and Willie Sutt
Stop number 18
The Philadelphia Museum of art, where we stop for a few minutes and look at the steps which were immortalized in the movie Rocky, yes he ran god knows how far to end up on the top of these steps.
Sorry, but I’m not that fit that I would attempt walking up them. The view is just fine from inside the bus. Of course, they might consider cleaning the windows a little so the view was clearer, but because it’s basically Perspex and scratched so that might not be possible.
Stop number 17
Back at Logan Circle, or Square if you prefer, but on the other side, closer to the Franklin Institute. Benjamin Franklin’s name is used a lot in this city.
After that, it’s a blur, the Academy of Music, the University of the Arts, Pennsylvania Hospital, South Street, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the USS Olympia, Penn’s Landing, and past the National Liberty Museum. I’m sure somewhere in that blur was the intention of seeing the Liberty Bell, but I think I heard that it was not on show, and only a replica could be seen.
So much for the getting as an opportunity to see the real liberty bell, crack and all..
We get off and stop number 27, or Number 1, I was not quite sure.
What were we after? The definitive Philly Cheese Steak.
What happened yesterday is history, but that’s not necessarily how we view what is history and what isn’t.
Similarly what is and what isn’t history is usually decided on by academics, because history texts that are used in schools are not written by ‘the man in the street’ authors. They’re usually university types who specialise in a particular field, or specialise section of history.
Even then one doubts that what is written is not a consensus of a panel.
So, when we talk about re-writing history, that takes a very brave bunch of people who want to buck the norm.
Our history, that which was taught when I went to school,. about our own country, Australia, started in 1770. Some brave soul tried to say it began earlier than that, before Captain Cook and the British arrived, out up a flag pole, and declared it belonged to Britain, like in 1606 when the Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the Cape York peninsula, only it wasn’t called that then.
And he might have been as surprised as Captain Cook that there were people here to observe their arrival. Yes, people had been living in this country for tens of thousands of years before the Europeans arrived.
But that was not what we were taught. No, Captain Cook, 1770, the a fleet of ships in 1788, and off we run as a new country, and a dumping ground for Britain’s convicts. Our history starts there, and then meanders through time, dividing the country up into states, having famous explorers like Burke and Wills, and Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson, Hume and Hovell.
And we commemorate all these people and those who were in charge over the years, with names of states, cities, rivers, mountains, everything under the sun. You’ve only got to glance at the list of hundreds of these forefathers and explorers to see just how many places in this country were named after them.
No heed was taken of what they may have been called before because no one really understood the languages of the first people who lived here. And they never seem to rate as a matter of study for us children back then.
Now, as people have begun to realise our history goes way, way back, and that there should be a nod to those inhabitants, they are considering re-writing some of our history to incorporate these people. And change the names of places to their original. A famous instance of recent renaming is of Ayers Rock, now called Uluru.
Even then, Australian History didn’t rate very highly, and I have to say, as a child at school 50 odd years ago, I learned more about the British Empire/Commonwealth, and about the English kings and queens, than we did about our own Governor Generals, Prime Ministers and State Premiers.
Could I tell you the name of our first Prime Minister? No. I can say when Australia became Australia, yes. 1901. Can I tell you the first King of England? Yes, William the Conqueror in 1066. There were kings before that but they only ruled of parts of England.
But over the years since I have read the odd book of Australian History but for some reason it never quite seems as colourful or as interesting as that of England or Scotland, or even some of the European countries.
Now, since I’ve been reading about what’s happening in the United States I have begin to take an interest in American history, and it, too, seems to suffer the same problems we have with ours, a bunch of academics decided what it was, and what it would not include, and then there is this thing called the 1619 project.
Wow, that seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 