Endeavour Press2013-05-20T02:25:33-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=endeavour-pressCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Endeavour PressGood old fashioned elbow grease.In Hard Times, We See Ghosts More Oftentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32732022013-05-14T12:20:58-04:002013-05-15T07:33:19-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Prospero's Mirror
Last time we had a global depression the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to buck people up by announcing: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". The trouble is that fear itself can be very frightening. And, whether it is economic or personal, it has a nasty habit of being self-fulfilling.
This may be partly to do with what psychologists call 'hyper-vigilance': when we're anxious about anything we become more cautious and our senses to go into hyper-drive, looking for possible threats. Of course the harder we look the more likely we are to see them. Indeed we have evolved to think we see threatening figures even when they aren't there: after all that's safer than taking the risk of not seeing them when they are there. No doubt this is why it turns out that ghost sightings are more common during recessions. That doesn't mean the dead are really returning because they are worried about the latest growth figures. It is just that we are more likely to see them - or think they do.
A MORI poll found that 19% of British people claim to have seen a ghost, with two in five of us believing in their existence. That might seem strange in a society that has become ever more scientifically advanced and sceptical. Stranger still when you realise that number has significantly increased in recent decades, even as other superstitious and religious beliefs have declined. But of course far from conflicting these trends may actually be linked: Science has pushed back the boundaries of our understanding and arguably undermined other reassuring spiritual beliefs. But Science makes it no easier for us to conceive of or come to terms with the idea of death and our own mortality, and ghosts are often a representation of those fears.
It is precisely because they are such a good metaphor for our other anxieties - be they economic or personal - that people continue to enjoy ghost stories and horror films, whether or not they believe in the supernatural. These stories are cathartic: a sort of escape-valve. They allow us to exorcise our deepest subconscious fears. They let us test-drive and purge these most powerful of emotions in the comfort and safety of our own homes. And when we've finished screaming or laughing or hiding behind the sofa, we can put down the book or turn off the TV - turn on all the lights - and feel safe. Horror provides what M R James, the greatest horror writer of all, called 'a pleasing terror'. So paradoxically horror plays a vital role in allowing us to feel better about the World. And perhaps if we don't purge these fears they might manifest themselves some other, more dangerous way. So we should be careful not to scoff at the enduring popularity of spooks. At times like these, we need our ghosts.
A N Donaldson is author of Prospero's Mirror, a literary gothic novel about M R James.]]>I'm So Excited - The Review from the Crewtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32375242013-05-08T10:16:52-04:002013-05-08T10:28:11-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Flying High
WANT to see what cabin crew look like out of uniform? Go to your local cinema to see Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited. When I went in London at least three quarters of the audience was clearly crew. Leggy girls with deep tans and their hair down? Crew. Buff guys with tight t-shirts and very short hair? Crew. Big groups of twenty-something pals turning up late and strutting across the cinema lobby arm in arm? Crew. The occasional forty and fifty something couple who arrived early and look just a little bit disapproving? Crew.
We're all there to see Pedro A's version of our job. And we like it.
It's not the laugh-a-minute film the trailer suggests. There's some sad and emotional bits in it, after all.
But there's also the dream economy class cabin. That's what I want to see again and again - and in real life.
I won't give away the plot. But the deal is that the plane has to be kept calm. So everyone in economy, including the crew, has been drugged. The camera pans over them all. Passengers are squashed ten across, what looks like hundreds of rows back - and they're all asleep. No babies are crying. No toddlers are screaming. No fit and healthy able-bodied people are pressing call bells to ask for a third Jack Daniels and coke. No angry vegetarians are arguing about their special meals. No old men in socks are doing stretching exercises by the loos. Of course it's wrong, even in a film to just knock the passengers out like this. But doesn't it look peaceful? Isn't it the best way to travel, really?
In I'm So Excited the action - in every sense of the word - ends up happening in Business Class. And at several grand a seat that's only fair, no? In Business the passengers and crew talk about sex, drugs and rock and roll. They have sex, take drugs and skip the rock and roll in favour of The Pointer Sisters. Is any of that realistic? Do crew really do these things? I couldn't possibly say. But I have written a book about it. And now the film's over, I'm back on the other side of the galley curtain making notes for a sequel.
Flying High by Jennie Jordan is out now by Endeavour Press.
Follow her on twitter @JetSetJennieJ]]>As Technology Becomes More Ubiquitous, Women Have Become The New Markettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32290342013-05-07T08:57:19-04:002013-05-08T10:42:54-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/The I.T. Girl
Sometimes, caught at the coffee dock, a man will lower his voice and ask me: Why do YOU think there are so few women in IT?
It's a good question. The numbers of women in medicine and the sciences increase steadily with women now making up more than 50% of medical students. But in my 15 years of working in IT, I am still usually the only woman on the team.
It's possible the reason for this is simple: women are just not interested in programming. But is the ratio of men to women in the field an accurate reflection of that disparity in interest? Or are there other factors at play that mean women who might love the job never consider it?
I see two factors that could be in the way. The predominant one being the tech culture. Gaming, comics, gadgets and the massive tech industry have always quite naturally attracted boys. IT and specifically software development is enveloped in this boy's world and from an early age girls probably think that a career in IT means having to enter their club.
But even if the industry could reach women without their feeling pressure to be indoctrinated, there's another persistent factor. In 2005 American economist Lawrence Summers gave a speech at a conference on science and diversity, and suggested that a difference in "availability of aptitude" between men and women could contribute to why women have not risen in scientific ranks. On popular quiz show Q.I., Stephen Fry once commented that women were better at multitasking due to having a wider corpus callossum, where as men were better at maths. Though Science has begun to recognise a relationship between brain structures and abilities, understanding brain development in relation to social conditioning, confidence and identity is another matter. But in a culture that insists on streamlining gender, even when women are exposed to programming, how easy is it to be put off when a program refuses to work? Maybe I should try something with multitasking instead.
As technology becomes more ubiquitous, women have become the new market. My friend's 10 year old never takes her head out of a pony game. This will certainly lead to more women taking an interest in writing software. But I think the solution also starts in school. A programming class could teach kids how to write their own phone apps, for example. It would also encourage analytical thinking and employ mathematics.
We programmers ask this question because the absence of women in the industry becomes more and more marked. But it's not just the absence of women; IT is suffering from a lack of diversity in general. Practices are not challenged the way they should be, with the workforce made up of the same kind of people. We must reach out to those who do not fit the stereotype if we are to evolve.
Fiona Pearse is author of The I.T. Girl, published by Endeavour Press.]]>A Class-Defying Desire To Succeedtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31611032013-04-26T06:03:00-04:002013-04-27T04:24:28-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Benedict Cumberbatch: Behind the Scenes.
IT'S pretty much the best of times and the worst of time for upper class actors in England these days.
On the one hand there's loads of work going round. Period dramas like Downton Abbey and Mr Selfridge are stuffed with posh roles for posh people. Then there's the fact that upper class actors seem to be taking over the world. It's amazing but true that Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hidddleston, Damian Lewis, Dominic West and Hugh Laurie all went to the same school - the poshest of the posh Eton.
But there is a backlash. One of the less lucky Downton actors Rob James Collier (double barrelled name, but born in gritty Stockport and firmly below stairs on the show) has triggered a debate on whether privileged kids with rich parents are getting all the breaks. The story goes that these are the only one who can afford to slog it out at auditions and in low paid jobs before their big moments arrive.
In the middle of all this stands Benedict Cumberbatch. At first glance he's just another lucky posh boy. He went to school at Harrow - which is almost as fancy as Eton. He had Downton- writer Julian Fellows as an old family friend. He admits himself he's 'a posh bloke with a funny name'.
But he's also something more. I've spent the first part of the year digging away at his life to write the new biography Benedict Cumberbatch: Behind the Scenes. I found someone who's got a class-defying desire to succeed. A man whose job very nearly got himself killed in a South African car-jacking. And a man whose professional life hides a very real sadness at home.
There are plenty of surprises in the Benedict Cumberbatch we see in Sherlock, in Star Trek and alongside everyone from Brad Pitt to Meryl Streep in a raft of big films this year. There's actually a man who's feared his background would count against him. A man who thought he'd spend his entire career playing 'slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals'. A complex, workaholic of a man who cancelled every holiday and changed every plan so he could break free from the stereotypes and try to destroy the world in the sci fi hit of the year.
Where does he go from here? He's starring in a Dreamworks film about Julian Assange. He's filming the new series of Sherlock in Wales. And he's trying to rebut the critics by laying down as deep a professional footprint as possible. He's the first to admit he grew up in a 'privileged bubble'. But there's a lot more to his life than that. He was a boy in a hurry and he's turned into one of the most driven actors of his generation. His journey is the perfect template for anyone who's hungry for success. Wherever they went to school.
Benedict Cumberbatch: Behind the Scenes, is out now as an e-book from Endeavour Press.]]>Costello, Thatcher, and the Renewed Relevance of an Old Protest Songtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30837182013-04-15T07:32:18-04:002013-04-15T09:29:43-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Pump It Up: Elvis Costello's 100 Best Songs.
In the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher's death last week, those who didn't feel too sentimental about her time in power looked to an Elvis Costello song almost 25 years old to speak for them. That song, 'Tramp The Dirt Down' from the 1989 album Spike, was a brutal excoriation of what Costello felt were the awful side effects of the policies Thatcher enacted as Prime Minister.
The song makes its case over a bed of medieval-sounding folk music, and contains the incendiary send off, 'When they finally put you in the ground/I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.' Costello borrowed this bit of bile from Bob Dylan, who expressed a similarly dire wish on 'Masters Of War,' a takedown of U.S. war profiteers from 1963.
Many might find it beyond the pale to wish someone dead for any reason, but it's interesting to hear the similarities in the songwriters' reaction to their corrosive compositions.
Dylan in the liner notes to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: "I've never really written a song like that before. I don't sing songs that hope people will die, but I couldn't help it in this one. The song is sort of striking out, a reaction to the last straw, a feeling of what can you do?"
Costello in a 1989 interview about 'Tramp The Dirt Down': "It's an honest emotional response to events, and writing it was like casting out demons or something. And the song itself is the result of a form of madness, because when you get to that point of thinking these thoughts, actually wishing somebody dead, it really does become a form of madness. It's a psychopathic thought. And it's fucking disturbing to find it in your own head. But it would be cowardly not to express it. Because once it's there, if you don't get it out, it's only going to come back and haunt you some more."
Great minds, and great songwriters apparently, think alike.
For those who can't handle the dark territory covered by 'Tramp The Dirt Down,' check out Costello's more nuanced attack on a Thatcherian initiative: 1983's 'Shipbuilding'. The song, inspired by Elvis' disgust at the Falklands invasion, is a beautiful, melancholy meditation on the effect that armed conflict has not just on the soldiers but also the loved ones they leave behind.
'Tramp The Dirt Down' may be the timely song for Thatcher-bashers, but 'Shipbuilding' is Elvis Costello's most profound protest song, since its target is not just Margaret Thatcher, but the ultimate inanity and futility of war itself.
Jim Beviglia is the author of Pump It Up: Elvis Costello's 100 Best Songs, published by Endeavour Press.]]>Even After More Than a Century and a Half, the Secession of West Virginia Still Seems Bizarre...tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30674202013-04-12T05:33:58-04:002013-04-12T07:12:57-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/The Secessionist.
The American Civil War produced many stories, most of them of battles, heroism, and the overcoming of great odds. It also produced its share of offbeat schemes and political maneuvers. Perhaps one of the strangest of these concerns the founding of West Virginia.
April 16 marks the sesquicentennial of President Lincoln's proclamation admitting West Virginia to the Union as the 35th state. That proclamation marked the successful conclusion of an unusual, if not bizarre maneuver by the western Virginians to separate themselves from Virginia.
Virginia had long been dominated by powerful plantation owners and factors from east of the Blue Ridge and south of the James River who skewed the political system against the western counties, some 300 miles from the coast and more than 200 miles from Richmond. In the 19th century, these counties provided an ever increasing share of Virginia's wealth and commercial interests in the region chaffed under the government in Richmond.
These interests longed to set up their own state within the Union, but they faced a seemingly overwhelming obstacle: the US Constitution requires that, if a new state is to be formed out of the territory of an existing state, the latter must consent. Then in 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union it occurred to them, why not secede from Virginia?
Despite its bizarre nature, their scheme worked: they held several conventions that concluded that any governmental act to secede from the US was void, and consequently any government that took such an action was not legitimate. Once that was declared, the next step was to proclaim themselves the legitimate government of Virginia, adopt a constitution, elect a governor, legislature, and US senators and congressmen, and, while they were at it, consent to the formation of West Virginia.
Needless to say, this scheme sparked a good deal of debate in Washington, but practical politics prevailed and West Virginia was admitted, enhancing President Lincoln's political position in a nation weary of a long and costly war.
The so-called legitimate government of Virginia took up residence in Alexandria just across the Potomac from Washington and, once Richmond fell to Union forces, sought to take control. But it received no support and simply faded into history, while the work of the convention that created it lives on as West Virginia, the Mountain State, 35th state of the Union.
John Frye is the author of The Secessionist, published by Endeavour Press.]]>We Have Mother's Day, Father's Day...But Water Day Is Worth Celebrating as Welltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28997242013-03-18T08:06:07-04:002013-05-18T05:12:01-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Water Secrets The Simplest Way to Health and Beauty.
It's National Water Day this Friday so maybe this is a good moment to think about this wet stuff and why it's so important to us. So why? Perhaps because it's synonymous with purity - every one of the world's great religions uses water symbolically as purification. Or because of its magical adaptability - transmuting from liquid to solid to vapour before our very eyes. Or the fact that we are 75% water ourselves. And then there is the fact that so much of the world has so little of it that they can use although the planet is composed more of sea than land.
The healing properties of water were recognised by the Greek physician Hippocrates (c.460-377BC) but were known and used long before then. King Solomon (c.1015-977BC) and the Queen of Sheba built palaces on the shores of the Dead Sea to benefit from its therapeutic powers, while Cleopatra used its water and mud as part of her beauty regime. The Romans, of course, built baths over thermal springs everywhere they went. In the eighteenth century, spas - from Baden-Baden to Bath - became all the rage and anyone who could afford it went to "take the waters".
And water is essential on the inside, too. We can go for weeks without food but without water we die in just a few days. Even a little dehydration is injurious to our health. The Volvic Hydration Report undertaken on employees in 1000 workplaces in 1999 found that we begin to feel thirsty at 1% dehydration. At 2% our ability to work starts to diminish. At 4% we start to feel lethargic, apathetic and bad-tempered and more vulnerable to stress, with feelings of nausea. Death occurs at 20%.
So for the sake of your liver, kidneys, immune system, digestive system and skin, on World Water Day, raise a glass (or preferably seven) of nature's champagne.
Anna Selby is the author of Water Secrets The Simplest Way to Health and Beauty published by Endeavour Press Ltd.]]>Same-Sex Marriages Need Equal Rights Before It's Too Latetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26607652013-02-11T06:34:17-05:002013-04-13T05:12:01-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Out of the Blue.
The clock is ticking.
I was reminded of this stark reality early Sunday morning on 10 February when I awakened to the news that a dear friend and personal hero, chief warrant officer Charlie Morgan, lost her long battle with breast cancer. Charlie was so many things to so many people - adoring mother, loving wife, proud soldier and veteran, cancer survivor, American hero, and civil rights champion. While engaging in her second battle with terminal breast cancer, Charlie chose to selflessly tackle a more daunting task - to do whatever she could to end the discriminatory law known as the 'Defense of Marriage Act' or DOMA. She took on the public battle in the media and joined the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's class action lawsuit as a plaintiff. Charlie didn't need this fight nor ask for it. But she took it on to protect her family after her death and to fight for thousands of service members and veterans who are denied basic rights, even after the 2011 repeal of 'Don't Ask/Don't Tell.'
Under DOMA, a federal statute enacted in 1996, US states and the federal government are not required to recognize the legal marriage of same-sex couples. DOMA codifies discrimination and denies legally-married couples thousands of basic rights, including family military benefits, insurance benefits for government employees, Social Security survivors' benefits, immigration, and the filing of joint tax returns. Finally, this March, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear a case that will eventually overturn DOMA and guarantee benefits and rights for thousands of military/veteran couples and families. President Obama has rightfully refused to defend DOMA in court, and just this past year, he has come out in support of legal rights for all same-sex couples to enjoy the rights, benefits, and privileges of marriage. What began with the repeal of DADT has accelerated the hands of time.
The clock is ticking.
Recently, we've witnessed court decisions in Mexico and overwhelming votes in both French and British parliaments supporting marriage equality. In November here in the US, three states passed marriage equality by popular vote for the first time, following 33 defeats over the last decade. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Our march toward equality has been long, but it is moving ever faster these days.
The clock is ticking. For Charlie, we must all double our efforts to end DOMA and do whatever we can to accelerate the hands of time and ensure equal rights for all. I have no doubt that we will achieve full equality, gain acceptance, and become full citizens. It's just a matter of time. How much time it takes depends on us. The clock is ticking.
Victor Fehrenbach Lt Col, USAF (retired) is the author of Out of the Blue, published by Endeavour Press Ltd.]]>Is the Future a World Run by Strong Women With Weaker Men?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25887352013-01-31T06:24:41-05:002013-04-02T05:12:01-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Good Sex, Bad Sex, No Sex.
Why are boys apparently more assertive and confident than girls? Young women seem to have more issues with self-esteem than young men, they need approval and affirmation from an early age. Boys on the whole are more likely to be risk-takers. Girls tend not to break the rules, they are more compliant. When it comes to attention-seeking, girls can be devious and manipulative, whereas boys just shout louder or behave badly in more obvious ways.
These gender-specific roles play out in school. The advantages for young women is that they are now making the most of their education and forging ahead while the boys lag behind. Men may lead in high-tech careers and entrepreneurship but women are overtaking them in medicine and law, although they are under-represented in the boardrooms. There is still a gender pay-gap but many women are becoming economically independent and often out-earn their partners.
What effect is this having on the male psyche? Many men feel emasculated by their successful partners, who are often experienced as dominating and castrating. They may feel unable to meet the sexual expectations of their demanding partners, who want them to be as sexually strong as they are. Others are happy to be more involved in childcare and housework. But when the gender roles are blurred or reversed, sex often goes out of the window. Equal roles, when there is little differentiation between the sexes, can so easily lead to living side by side like siblings or flatmates.
More and more women are choosing not to have children because they realise that motherhood and career ambition are often incompatible. Any kind of work/life balance requires paying other women to do the housework and look after the children. Most working mothers need a wife rather than a house-husband.
Back in the nursery little girls still want to be pretty in pink princesses and boys are more physical but at some point these stereotypical gender roles are changing. Is the future a world run by strong women with weaker men? It's too early to tell, but rapid social change will have a price. Relationships and families will continue to evolve, but the traditional model is already faltering.
Carol Martin-Sperry is the author of Good Sex, Bad Sex, No Sex, published by Endeavour Press.]]>Who Plotted Against Alfred Hitchcock?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25450992013-01-25T05:35:43-05:002013-03-27T05:12:01-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Darkness Visible: Hitchcock's Greatest Film.
Fat, ugly man falls in love with beautiful girl and reacts badly when rejected. It's one of the oldest clichés in the world and the version where he is not rejected is commonly filed under Beauty And The Beast. Propose such a scenario to a movie company and the idea would surely be rejected. Not, apparently, if the ugly fat man is called Alfred Hitchcock and he's dead and cannot defend himself.
It's entirely possible that Hitchcock was a horrible man, guilty of despicable crimes, but we have no real evidence one way or the other. The BBC film The Girl promotes itself as a 'true' story, based on interviews etc., but they all come from one largely discredited book by Donald Spoto. The film presents Hitchcock as an ogre obsessed by his new star Tippi Hedren during the filming of The Birds. But there are so many inaccuracies you would need a calculator.
In essence what went wrong between them was that Hitchcock signed Hedren to a long-term contract. There was nothing unusual in this. Producers spending millions turning unknowns into stars wanted to protect their investment not hand a ready-made star to other producers. In order to win their star-making roles in Lawrence Of Arabia, for example, both Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif had to agree to a long-term contract with producer Sam Spiegel. Albert Finney, first choice for Lawrence, refused and did not get the part. It cost Paul Newman $500,000 in 1959 to get out of his contract with Warner Brothers. So these were pretty much a fact of life.
Hitchcock got his Hollywood break thanks to a seven-year contract with David O Selznick in 1940. But the point about such contracts was for the producer to make money, either by using the 'employee' in his own films or farming them out to other producers for a fat fee, substantially more, usually, than the actor was being paid. Hitchcock loved money, all Hollywood did, the place was built on the stuff, so it's inconceivable that, if Hedren refused other projects after Marnie, that he would not sell off her services to the highest bidder.
The problem was - nobody was interested. As far as Hollywood was concerned she was not the next Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn and, without Hitchcock's filming style, which very much protected a novice actress, she lacked the technical skills to convince other directors that she could handle the parts on offer. Unfortunately, Hedren believed her own publicity, just about the worst currency in Hollywood, and thought she could bring in the audiences for a non-Hitchcock film. Equally unfortunately for her, she was wrong. She found parts (in The Countess From Hong Kong and Tiger By The Tail), but not stardom. Her last big film, budget-wise, was a disaster. Roar cost $17m and made $2m.
The moral of the story - don't believe everything you read in books.
Brian Hannan is the author of Darkness Visible: Hitchcock's Greatest Film , published by Endeavour Press.]]>How I Learnt That Beauty Is More Than Just Skin Deeptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25251202013-01-22T07:24:21-05:002013-03-24T05:12:02-04:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Skin Deep.
"What happened to your face?"
As a victim of a brutal mountain lion attack in which half my face was ripped off, I fully expected this question to become commonplace. People are naturally curious. They can't help but stare. But, in the nine years since the attack, I have only been asked this question twice.
Why is that?
Through intimate conversations with close friends, I came to realize that most of them had no idea how deeply I have been affected by the attack. Some were afraid of prying; worried I would deem their inquiries inappropriate. Most were concerned that their curious questions would release a flood of emotions I had buried deep within myself.
In January of 2004, I was ambushed by a killer cougar during a mountain bike ride in a local Southern California wilderness park. With the help of my good friend and a group of strangers - a miracle of circumstances, really -- I survived. Although I eventually returned to mountain biking, every time I explore the wilderness, I think of the attack. Perhaps, to outsiders, and even my close friends, it appears as though I was left unaffected by my experience. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Despite being a private person by nature, I decided it was time to bare my soul and expose my true feelings about the attack. By speaking out, I feel that perhaps I can help others fight their own private battles. The questions I faced and lessons I learned during my nine-year journey are universal.
How can I deal with such a traumatic accident? How can I possibly maintain a positive outlook when facing such overwhelming circumstances? Will life ever return to the way it was before? Will my friends and family abandon me when I need them most?
These questions plagued me in the beginning of my journey but, over the course of nine years, I found answers to them all.
In my new book "Skin Deep," I dig deep to allow readers to experience the brutal attack and painstaking recovery right alongside me. I expose my deepest fears and divulge my greatest revelations. I describe my heartache as well as my victories. Through this journey, I hope to leave readers uplifted and empowered. My hope is that my book will reveal new strength in readers and give them the boost they need to overcome obstacles in their own lives.
Let's take this journey together.
Anne Hjelle is the author of Skin Deep, published by Endeavour Press. ]]>Wally Hammond: Gentleman and Playertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23746662012-12-28T07:11:11-05:002013-02-27T05:12:02-05:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/Wally Hammond: Gentleman & Player
When Alastair Cook made his record 23rd test century in England's recent test series in India, Wally Hammond's name briefly reappeared in the cricketing press. Hammond had set the record at 22, later matched by Colin Cowdrey, Geoff Boycott and, also in that recent Indian series, Kevin Pietersen. It was one of the rare occasions that Hammond's name was mentioned nowadays, yet many consider him England's best-ever test player.
Walter Hammond had almost all the attributes of a Boy's Own hero. Handsome and broad shouldered, he was immaculately turned out in his whites as he was off the field. He moved with a languid, easy grace, taking slip catches that few could match and sometimes even comprehend. His batting was all elegant orthodoxy, his cover drive of exquisite beauty and power, his fast-medium bowling delivered from the most classical of actions. He won matches for Gloucestershire almost on his own and came through the professional ranks to captain England to their biggest win in an Ashes test.
Sir Len Hutton, who played against Bradman, declared him "the finest cricketer I played with or against. Walter was the complete cricketer and I never tired of watching him." RC Robertson-Glasgow wrote "there is not one, not Bradman, not Constantine, who could stand a full and unbiased comparison with Hammond as he showed himself in the decade from 1925 to 1935; when he could make a hundred or two against Australia, then bowl down their first three wickets, then make with ease at slip a catch which others would not merely miss but would not have even rated as a miss."
Several commentators rated Hammond above Bradman. Bradman was considered suspect on poor wickets, Hammond could master all types of wicket and was a better fielder and bowler and Hammond was a stylist whereas Bradman's batting was more utilitarian.
So how why has Hammond's reputation not retained high? This is something I sought to examine in Wally Hammond: Gentleman and Player. He played his cricket in the shadow of Bradman, whose dominance has eclipsed others. Hammond, unpopular with team-mates and journalists, was moody, and uncommunicative. When captaining England in Australia he shared a 900-mile car journey with Hutton and the only thing he said in the whole journey was "Look out for a garage, we need some petrol." As a captain he rarely encouraged or praised others. He retired to a foreign land and died relatively young.
But ultimately history's neglect has less to do with anything that he did or was, and more to do with the game's historians and commentators too lightly forgetting the cricketing genius that was Walter Hammond, one of the best test cricketers the world has ever seen or is likely to.
Roderick Easdale is author of Wally Hammond: Gentleman & Player published by Endeavour Press.]]>Scottish Football: Where Did It All Go Wrong?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23281262012-12-19T04:49:25-05:002013-02-17T05:12:01-05:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/The Greatest: Scotland's Best 11
There was a time - and it now feels about as long ago as Bannockburn - when Scotland was regarded as the breeding ground for some of the world's finest footballers.
Denis Law, Jim Baxter, Kenny Dalglish, Billy Bremner, Dave Mackay: these and a few others paraded the Scottish saltire just as proudly as the Brazilians shimmied their samba, the Germans raised their foaming steins of lager and the Italian Azurri strutted their way to World Cup Finals.
Indeed Scotland - a small nation of five million souls - qualified for the World Cup final stages in two-thirds of the tournaments which they entered between their first appearance in 1954 and their last appearance in 1998. This is quite remarkable, considering that virtually every country on the planet was invited to join the tournament, and that the majority of these countries are significantly larger in every respect than is Scotland.
Five of these appearances, however, occurred consecutively between 1974 and 1990. Since then, Scotland have qualified only once (1990) in the last five tournaments and are certainties to miss out on Brazil in 2014. How can this have happened? How can the nation which virtually invented the game in the 19th century - and certainly discovered the arts of passing, heading and crossing - now be languishing in 70th place in the current FIFA rankings, sandwiched between Uzbekistan and Guinea?
Certainly the players who delighted spectators with their skill and courage between the mid-1970s and early 1990s were a conjunction of talents which may occur infrequently in footballing nations. For instance, where today are Hungary and Austria who, in the first half of the 20th century, were the dazzling stars of the international game?
But the malaise is deeper than mere coincidence. Scottish footballers were from the 1960s until the 1980s some of the most exalted footballers in the English game. Where are they now? They have been replaced by other foreign players, now representing the majority, who ply their trade in the English Premiership with clubs able to pay the vast transfer fees and wages demanded by the superstars. So who needs Scottish players? They're hardly visible in England, and the skills they may have picked up in England they now have to learn at teams like Dunfermline or St Mirren (no offence, boys).
The days of footballers acting as role models for younger kids have also disappeared. Recent Scottish footballing failure has led today's kids instead to emulate musicians and get-rich-quick merchants, and play mindless games on the internet. The relaxation of the primacy of football at school level might also be a factor. And the recent dominance of Celtic (and, until recently, Rangers) has been due mainly to foreign players. The Old Firm's policy of buying the best players from smaller clubs remains, but these gifted young men often find themselves now in the reserves, learning nothing.
So until all this changes, or Scotland again start winning a few games of football, the situation will worsen. Where are you now, Denis Law, when we need you?
Rab MacWilliam is author of The Greatest: Scotland's Best 11 published by Endeavour Press.]]>Why We'll All be Taking the Tablets This Christmastag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22938832012-12-13T11:54:19-05:002013-02-12T05:12:01-05:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/The Instant Guide to Android
If early forecasts are anything to go by the nation looks set to go tablet mad this Christmas. No, we're not talking pharmaceuticals here but tablet computers. Those sleek, shiny devices that look like an overgrown mobile phone or a haunted picture frame are taking the leap from geek must have to mainstream gadget.
So what's the attraction? You might think that if you have a laptop computer or a smartphone you don't really need a tablet. Well, it's true that a tablet can't really do anything which isn't possible on these other devices but that's not the point. The two big advantages of a tablet are that it's more easily portable than a laptop and it has a bigger screen than a phone, these combine to make it uniquely versatile. You can use it in odd moments when you wouldn't have time to open and boot up a laptop. Tablets are ideal for checking the news and weather over breakfast or looking up a recipe in the kitchen. Thanks to the larger screen - the most popular sizes being seven- or ten-inch - you won't be squinting at microscopic text as you would if you tried to do these things on your phone.
In most households it's probable that Santa's budget won't stretch to an iPad. And since Windows 8 tablets haven't yet made it to the North Pole in significant numbers it's likely the tablet you find in your stocking will be running Android.
From the launch of the first Android phone in 2008 Google's mobile operating system has grown to a worldwide market of 500 million active devices. This popularity means that there are thousands of apps available to enhance the versatility of your tablet. Whilst some of these have serious intent, allowing you to get directions or access documents on the move, what tablets are really about is slumping on the sofa. A tablet is a great tool for reading an ebook, listening to music, watching videos or commenting on Facebook as you watch the Christmas special episode of Downton. Not having a keyboard makes them resistant to mince pie crumbs too.
This of course is likely to turn us all into even bigger couch potatoes than we normally are at this time of year. But don't worry, come the time for New Year's resolutions you'll find Android has plenty of fitness apps.
Ian Barker is author of The Instant Guide to Android published by Endeavour Press.]]>Why We'll Always Want Mummy (How King Tut Invented the Slasher Film)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22366452012-12-04T08:11:49-05:002013-02-03T05:12:01-05:00Endeavour Presshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/endeavour-press/The Race Of Scorpions (A Lady Serpent Egyptian Murder Story)
Ninety years ago this month, the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings. Instantly, Tutmania swept around the world. A decade later, the dead pharaoh arrived in Hollywood and changed the shape of the horror film for ever.
When King Tut's tomb was opened, the world was fascinated by the sight of these chambers, sealed forever, waiting for the King to reawaken. Cheated of a proper afterlife, it didn't take long for the world to invent one for Tutankhamun. Frenzied rumours spread of a (made-up) curse killing off the archaeologists who'd opened the tomb ("Death shall come on swift wings to all who enter this tomb"). From this curse came the idea of 1932's The Mummy. Frankenstein's Monster was misunderstood, Dracula was peckish, but the Mummy was angry.
The Mummy laid down the pattern for the "revenge from beyond the grave" movie - in which a disfigured serial killer hunts down a succession of victims, and single women should be afraid, very afraid. As well as spawning countless remakes and sequels, The Mummy also gave birth to such unkillable creatures as Friday 13th's Jason, Halloween's Michael Myers, and even the notorious Leprechaun (star of such films as Leprechaun IV: Lep In Da Hood). All share the central idea behind The Mummy - that, if a character's story is good enough, death is not necessarily the end.
The world gazed at the remarkably-preserved corpse of young Tutankhamun and speculated that it was almost plausible that it could live again. Often concealed like the Phantom of the Opera, The Mummy set the trend for serial killers hiding their mad staring eyes behind a mask that would later be taken up in everything from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the Halloween films.
Similarly, the relentless, almost laughable unkillability of the villains in these films owes a lot to The Mummy - if he has been reincarnated once, why not keep coming back for more? As long as there are victims, and a plausible enough excuse for a curse, then there's no reason why death shouldn't keep coming on swift wings.
But what about the victims? The original Mummy was unjustly killed and out for revenge (becoming, over quite a few follow-ups, the bandaged serial killer). Although there wasn't really a Curse of Tutankhamun (the tomb's discoverer, Howard Carter, lived to a bitter old age), the Ancient Egyptians handed out terrible tortures to grave robbers in this world and the next. A classic Mummy film sees a succession of archaeologists suffering for their work. This gradually evolves into the archetypal horror film where bad things happen to a group of co-workers (be they the scientists who discover a long-crashed space ship in the Arctic in The Thing, or the negligent summer camp teachers in Friday the 13th).
The Mummy also sets the precedent for a shambling-gaited undead menace, in many ways a template for the classic zombie. While zombies are after your brains, many Mummy films have also seen the central figure driven by a need to rebuild himself by harvesting the internal organs of his victims.
And, finally, there's the power of Love. The 1920s press decided that Tutankhamun died from love and hate (it's possible he was bumped off in a palace coup so that his political rival could marry his queen). The 1932 Mummy is looking for the reincarnation of his lost love. She's both virginal and uninterested. Look at the last person standing in your favourite horror films - whether it's Sigourney Weaver at the end of Alien or Jamie Lee Curtis at the end of Halloween - could they be the reincarnation of Tutankhamun's wife?