Tag: Reference

Back on the spaceship…

We’re moving slowly out of the space dock, heading into clear space.

We can see the people inside the wings of the dock, lining the passages watching the big ship depart. In olden days, on earth, when a ship left port, people on the dock would remain connected to the passengers by streamers, until the ship started to move away.

It was impossible to do that in space.

But, it was a notable day, the first of it’s type, heading out into the unknown, or, later, if the shakedown worked out.

The Captain had decided despite the success of the trials, that he wanted to have one more trial, this time putting the crew through their paces.

I looked sideways, one eye still on the screen, now showing three possible midrange destinations, at the Captain, also looking at the screen.

Uranus was about 2.8 billion kilometers.

Neptune, where our orders were to go, was 4.5 billion kilometers.

I had done the rough calculations on time to destination, in round numbers, basing the speed of light, what we regarded as SSPD 1,000. That was in km’s about 1.8 billion kilometers an hour, give or take.

Our first ships were under SSPD 1, and the series before this ship had a maximum of SSPD 1.25, which in understandable numbers was about 1,349,063 km per hour. Our ship was capable of SSPD 5.

So, given that our previous fastest ship could move at a maximum of SSPD 1.25, the time it would take to the first destination at SSPD 2 (no one ever travelled at maximum) was a little over 86 days, and to Neptune about 139 days.

In this ship if we were to hit SSPD 4.5, the same time frames would be 24 days and just over 38.5 days.

“Put in the co-ordinates for Neptune and once we’re clear of the dock and given clearance, lets start her out slowly on SSPD 2.

The helmsman put in the co-ordinates and set the speed. “Co-ordinates and speed set, awaiting clearance.”

“Very good. Best have a seat Number One, just in case.”

“Yes, sir.” I took a last glance at the screen, now only showing Neptune on the long range scanner, and sat.

“Adventurer, you’re cleared for departure.” The voice of the dock master came over the speakers.

No need for further orders, the helmsman pushed the button on his screen, and there was a slight lurch, and we were under way.

Next stop Neptune.

…

© Charles Heath 2020

In a word: Fourth

When you realize you are the fourth child, you are really hoping that the split is two boys and three girls.  Woe betide you if you are a boy and you have three sisters.  It could also be as interesting, notice I didn’t say intolerable) if you are a girl with three brothers.

Hang on, I know someone who was in that exact same situation.  Fortunately, being a girl and the youngest, she could do no wrong in the eyes of her father.

But I digress (as usual)

The meaning of fourth is self-evident, just count to four and it’s the fourth number, perhaps better explained by the fact it is one after the third in a series

Then we use it with other words like,

Fourth-gear, usually reserved for the highway where one expects to geta clear run.  Of course, with more and more cars on the road, sometimes it’s difficult to get out of second.

The fourth estate, no, not what a rich person owns, along with a lot more one guesses, but another name for the press.

One fourth, your share of an estate, if of course, you have three other siblings.  And, in murder mysteries, usually those fourths seem to die mysteriously, and your fourth becomes a third, a half, and then you go to jail.

in fourth place, where it seems all the horse I back run

And,

This is not to be confused with the word forth, which sounds the same but means something entirely different, like

I’m sure we’ve all been told to go forth and be something or other, which means to go forward or come out of hiding

It is also a Scottish river, one notably called the Firth of Forth, and if it sounds odd, so do a lot things in Scotland

You could also place back and forth, much the same as you would in a hospital waiting for the birth of your first child.

The fourth attempt, let’s look at the main character

So there’s words on paper, and three times I’ve tried to fix it, or, perhaps just make it sound better, because reading it in my head, there’s too little background, and too many questions.

The flow of the story isn’t working for me, so I guess it’s time to sit down and work out what it is I’m trying to say.

The notion that our main character, Graham, is a loser seems to shine through, and that’s not what I’m trying to portray him as.  No, far from it, it’s been a lifetime of bad choices that have put him where he is, and he knows it.

So, in part, this is about owning your mistakes, and it’s my job to make him come across as a hero in waiting.  There’s good in him, perhaps too much, but there is also that attitude that led to all those bad choices, the one that can get him into trouble, and a sort of intransience inherited from his father, that has more or less got him ostracised from the family. 

I want this character to be a chop off the old block, both of whom are the type not to back down, not to say sorry, and, to quote a rather apt allegory, would cut their nose off to spite their face.

Graham’s intransience led to his refusal to follow his father into business, refusal to go to University despite having the necessary qualifications, and just to round out the defiance, his choice of women whom he knew would meet with family disapproval.

And these factors, over a period of time, saw him bounce from a low paying job to jobs with no prospects, and a string of failed relationships, until this moment in time, where he was basically on his own, working the graveyard shift as a security guard.  The sort of job where qualifications weren’t looked for and workmates looked like and probably were ex-cons.

There are a few more details like the older brother, Jackson, politician and schemer, the same as his father before him (the seat was passed down through the family), like the younger sister who is a highly successful surgeon, married into immense wealth.  His brother had been less successful in the marital stakes but what he lacked in a wife was more than made up with a string of highly eligible and beautiful women.

And, no, he doesn’t resent the fact they’re rich, or that his parents were, too, just that they treated him with contempt.

It was almost five years since the last time he had seen any of them, that last time he attended the family Christmas in Martha’s Vineyard, the ‘Stockdale Residence’ an ostentatious sprawling fifty room mansion that, in a drunken rage, he’s tried to burn down.

Once again, he had not received an invitation to the next, due in a few days, and it was not entirely unexpected.

Graham has his faults, but that even, five years ago, had pulled him off the road to self-destruction, helped along by a year stint in jail where he learned a great many lessons about life itself, and survival.

The four years since?

A lot of regret, and a lot of repentance.  Life after jail was a lot worse than life trying to defy the family and the system.  There were two roads he could have gone down, and thankfully for him, it was not the wrong one.

So, he’s back on the path, a whole lot wiser, a whole lot tougher.

That might not have been exactly what I was thinking for him over the first three attempts.  I don’t think any character really begins to shine until halfway through, as you find him meeting various challenges in ways even you, as the writer, find quite unexpected.

Is that the end result of being a pantser over being a planner?

I don’t think, even as a planner, you can create a character that’s not going to change, or ever surprise you, as the story evolves.

And somehow I don’t think I’m about to change from one to the other.

Well, not completely.

But there’s more, and no, it’s not steak knives!

© Charles Heath 2020

In a word: arm

Like leg, arm is a word that is mostly associated with a body part.

Like being legless, another description for being drunk, being rendered ‘armless’ means you are no threat, in a rather awful but funny way by saying it.

I guess we all have a dash of ‘sick’ humour in all of us.

However, arm can also be used to describe a part of a structure too.

It could also describe the arm of an ‘armchair’.

But…

Arm also means to give people weapons like guns, usually from an armoury.

I’m guessing that a whole lot of people with arms is an army!

You can also say that taking those weapons away would be to disarm them.

It might take the long arm of the law to do it, too.

And to disarm someone doesn’t necessarily mean to take away their arms, but to ‘charm’ them with your wit and humour.

An arm can also be a river or streams tributary, so I could say instead of staying on the main river, I’ll take the ‘named’ arm, but just remember, sometimes this can be dangerous, getting off the main route.

On a boat, there is a yardarm, and this was once used to hang seamen who committed serious crimes such as mutiny.

A call to arms was to declare war,

And lastly, an arm of the defence services could be any one of Army, Navy, Marines or Airforce.

Just steer clear of the Navy for the aforementioned reasons.

In a word: Dog

Yes, it’s that little or big furry thing that’s also known as man’s best friend, a dog.

But the word has a number of other meanings, like a lot of three-letter words.

It can also mean to follow someone closely.

If you are going to the greyhound racing, you could say you’re going to the dogs, or it could mean something entirely different, like deteriorating in manner and ethics.

Then there are those employers who make their workers work very hard, and therefore could be described as making them work like a dog.

Some might even say that it is a dog of a thing, i.e. of poor quality.

There’s a dogleg, which could aptly name some of those monstrous golf course holes that sometimes present the challenge of going through the wood rather than around it.

Tried that and failed many times!

A dog man used to ride the crane load from the ground to the top, an occupation that would not stand the test of occupational health and safety anymore.

And of course, in a battle to the death, it’s really dog eat dog, isn’t it?

An excerpt from “Betrayal” – a work in progress

It could have been anywhere in the world, she thought, but it wasn’t.  It was in a city where if anything were to go wrong…

She sighed and came away from the window and looked around the room.  It was quite large and expensively furnished.  It was one of several she had been visiting in the last three months.

Quite elegant too, as the hotel had its origins dating back to before the revolution in 1917.  At least, currently, there would not be a team of KGB agents somewhere in the basement monitoring everything that happened in the room.

There was no such thing as the KGB anymore, though there was an FSB, but such organisations were of no interest to her.

She was here to meet with Vladimir.

She smiled to herself when she thought of him, such an interesting man whose command of English was as good as her command of Russian, though she had not told him of that ability.

All her knew of her was that she was American, worked in the Embassy as a clerk, nothing important, who life both at work and at home was boring.  Not that she had blurted that out the first tie she met, or even the second.

That first time, at a function in the Embassy, was a chance meeting, a catching of his eye as he looked around the room, looking, as he had told her later, for someone who might not be as boring as the function itself.

It was a celebration, honouring one of the Embassy officials on his service in Moscow, and the fact he was returning home after 10 years.  She had been there one, and still hadn’t met all the staff.

They had talked, Vladimir knew a great deal about England, having been stationed there for a year or two, and had politely asked questions about where she lived, her family, and of course what her role was, all questions she fended off with an air of disinterested interest.

It fascinated him, as she knew it would, a sort of mental sparring as one would do with swords, if this was a fencing match.

They had said they might or might not meet again when the party was over, but she suspected there would be another opportunity.  She knew the signs of a man who was interested in her, and Vladimir was interested.

The second time came in the form of an invitation to an art gallery, and a viewing of the works of a prominent Russian artist, an invitation she politely declined.  After all, invitations issued to Embassy staff held all sorts of connotations, or so she was told by the Security officer when she told him.

Then, it went quiet for a month.  There was a party at the American embassy and along with several other staff members, she was invited.  She had not expected to meet Vladimir, but it was a pleasant surprise when she saw him, on the other side of the room, talking to several military men.

A pleasant afternoon ensued.

And it was no surprise that they kept running into each other at the various events on the diplomatic schedule.

By the fifth meeting, they were like old friends.  She had broached the subject of being involved in a plutonic relationship with him with the head of security at the embassy.  Normally for a member of her rank it would not be allowed, but in this instance it was.

She did not work in any sensitive areas, and, as the security officer had said, she might just happen upon something that might be useful.  In that regard, she was to keep her eyes and ears open, and file a report each time she met him.

After that discussion she got the impression her superiors considered Vladimir more than just a casual visitor on the diplomatic circuit.  She also formed the impression the he might consider her an ‘asset’, a word that had been used at the meeting with security and the ambassador.

It was where the word ‘spy’ popped into her head and sent a tingle down her spine.  She was not a spy, but the thought of it, well, it would be fascinating to see what happened.

A Russian friend.  That’s what she would call him.

And over time, that relationship blossomed, until, after a visit to the ballet, late and snowing, he invited her to his apartment not far from the ballet venue.  It was like treading on thin ice, but after champagne and an introduction to caviar, she felt like a giddy schoolgirl.

Even so, she had made him promise that he remain on his best behaviour.  It could have been very easy to fall under the spell of a perfect evening, but he promised, showed her to a separate bedroom, and after a brief kiss, their first, she did not see him until the next morning.

So, it began.

It was an interesting report she filed after that encounter, one where she had expected to be reprimanded.

She wasn’t.

It wasn’t until six weeks had passed when he asked her if she would like to take a trip to the country.  It would involve staying in a hotel, that they would have separate rooms.  When she reported the invitation, no objection was raised, only a caution; keep her wits about her.

Perhaps, she had thought, they were looking forward to a more extensive report.  After all, her reports on the places, and the people, and the conversations she overheard, were no doubt entertaining reading for some.

But this visit was where the nature of the relationship changed, and it was one that she did not immediately report.  She had realised at some point before the weekend away, that she had feelings for him, and it was not that he was pushing her in that direction or manipulating her in any way.

It was just one of those moments where, after a grand dinner, a lot of champagne, and delightful company, things happen.  Standing at the door to her room, a lingering kiss, not intentional on her part, and it just happened.

And for not one moment did she believe she had been compromised, but for some reason she had not reported that subtle change in the relationship to the powers that be, and so far, no one had any inkling.

She took off her coat and placed it carefully of the back of one of the ornate chairs in the room.  She stopped for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the wall, one representing Red Square.

Then, after a minute or two, she went to the mini bar and took out the bottle of champagne that had been left there for them, a treat arranged by Vladimir for each encounter.

There were two champagne flutes set aside on the bar, next to a bowl of fruit.  She picked up the apple and thought how Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden, and the temptation.

Later perhaps, after…

She smiled at the thought and put the apple back.

A glance at her watch told her it was time for his arrival.  It was if anything, the one trait she didn’t like, and that was his punctuality.  A glance at the clock on the room wall was a minute slow.

The doorbell to the room rang, right on the appointed time.

She put the bottle down and walked over to the door.

A smile on her face, she opened the door.

It was not Vladimir.  It was her worst nightmare.

…

© Charles Heath 2020

In a word: Angle

We all know this to be an intersection of two lines like a crossroad is at a 90-degree angle

But…

It’s an angle bracket that keeps the shelf up, hopefully with books on it.

Did you know that it was something someone did in order to get something?

She began to angle for an invitation to a party that she would not normally be invited to, or he has angled his answers to the prospective employer in a bid to be more likely to be selected for the position.

It can also refer to a position, or judgement, so that someone might say, try and see it from my angle, or another angle.

Or that it refers to fishing, and the fisherman or woman is known as an angler.

It can be a position from which something is viewed, or in crime parlance, the CSI people will work out the angle of the bullet’s entry do they can locate the position of the shooter.

Angle can refer to people of Germanic origin, such as an Anglo Saxon

And, here’s something even I didn’t know, in Astrology, it is each of the four cardinal points of a chart, from which the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth houses extend anticlockwise respectively.

In a word: Pad

Here is another of those three letter words that can have so many meanings that it is nigh on impossible to pin it down.

You have to use it in a sentence which all but explains it.

For instance,

A pad might be a writing pad, or a note pad, something on which you can write, notes, stories, anything really, even doodles.

Cats, dogs, a lot of animals have padded feet.  I’d say, for a cat, those pads would be like shock absorbers.

You can pad an expense account with false expenditure in an accounting sense, I’m sure a lot of people are tempted to do so.

I know places, where a single man might live, is called a bachelor pad.  So many men like to think they may have one, but it takes money to buy the accouterments of seduction.

Then there’s a medical dressing, a square of gauze called a pad, usually absorbent and soaked in disinfectant to help protect and repair a wound.

Shoulder pads, for broader shoulders

KInee pads, for when crashing off a bike

Shin pads for soccer, and ice hockey players

A helipad which is for helicopter landings and takeoffs, much the same as a launch pad for rockets.  Unfortunately, rockets do not generally have a tendency to land, not unless they are bombs, like the V1 and V2 rockets of WW2.

It could also be someone walking around a house in socks, the man stealthily approached the thief, padding silently in his socks so he wouldn’t be heard.

And lastly,

A place for frogs to hang out, ie, the flat leaves of a water Lilly.

Any more?

I’m sure there is, just let me know.

 

Searching for locations: Siena, Italy

The Piazza del Campo is one of the greatest medieval squares in Europe.

It is shaped like a shell.

This is where the Palazzo Publico and the Torre del Mangia are.

At 102 meters (334 feet), the bell tower is the city’s second tallest structure.

When it was built in 1848 it was the exact same height of the Duomo to show that the state and church had equal amounts of power.

Around the edges of the Piazza are a lot of restaurants, where you can sit in the shade, have a plate of pasta and sip on a cold limonata.

I looked out the back door and saw this…

Spring turning into summer

I have to say the sight of pure blue skies again means that the warm/hot weather is back, time to switch the air conditioner from heating to cooling, and to stock up the refrigerator.

Since last year we bought a new fridge, one with the ice maker and cold water outlet so we don’t have to make ice the laborious way, and run out right at the wrong moment.

It’s also going to be excellent weather for writing now that I’ve almost cleaned up my writing room, and almost put away all of the books in the shelves which now adorn all four walls.

Last count there was over 3,000 books available to read, and I have written my own library program in Microsoft Access, simply because there are also over 10,000 fiction and non fiction eBooks in my library and I needed to keep track of them somehow.

There are quite a few books on how to write, writing propoer grammar (which sometimes is not my strong point) and endless dictionaries and thesauruses. There’s even half a dozen crossword dictionaries, because I usually spend an hour being distracted by the Times crossword and the New York Times crossword.

I’m still trying to work out how to do the cryptic crosswords.

But, with that all out of the way for the day it’s time to get back to the writing desk. The words are not going to write themselves, are they?