2. The guy from The Village People

3. Sequoyah. He invited the Cherokee written language, or at least the modern version.

4. Michael Horse. Deputy Hawk from Twin Peaks

5. Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman. Albert  Hostein in The X-Files amongst many other things.

 To start with the book gives a good grounding on the problems of the day: the troubles with the different maritime powers and all the geopolitics that comes with it, the problem of not being able to work out longitude, the rise of Amsterdam and the Dutch East India company(VOC) and some highly heretical theologies doing the rounds at the time. All this is worked in neatly with details of the harsh conditions of the passengers on the ship, where a trip form Europe to Holland could take upto two years such as lack of food and water, scurvy and suchlike.

 The three main protagonists are each extensively researched to give some understanding and insight into how they were influenced by and indeed influenced matters. The latter half of the book is taken up with the moral decay and depravity of men seeking riches and power. A tale of struggles on a small archipelago against not just the elements but of corruption, madness, blood lust and weakness of will. All this taking place miles from any help without much hope. None of the details is glossed over, and some people may find the book positively ghoulish in places. Two in every three people dies, which is worse than the as death count.

 However don’t let this put you off, if you would like a glimpse into the psychological state of humans, written in a neat and clear way, that is impeccably researched and unputdownable then give this a go. It’s not all doom and gloom either, there are acts of courage that really stand out and the final paragraph before the epilogue is poignant and good ending. This is a book that will gain you a real insight into history.

 Although seemingly Godless and alone, he shows the ultimate loyalty to Lear in his madness and follows him through all his pain and ridicule to eventually die off stage, or at least this is hinted at. I always wonder on this most ambiguous character and his oddness. For me this has to be one of the enduring characters of any play. The modern world may well have suited the Fool, in fact he probably would have fitted right in.

What conclusions did I draw from this unusual business? Well firstly my subconscious is utter rubbish, even in a dream state I can’t do what I want to do because it holds me back, maybe I should try cutting it out. Just a thought. According to a dream website(if we suppose the village was part of the dream)

‘To dream that you are in a village, represents restrictions. It may also indicate that you are unsophisticated, but well-balanced. Alternatively, it signifies community, simplicity, and tradition.’

 The first part makes sense but the unsophisticated bit is ridiculous, after all I have read ALL the Famous Five books and I stick my little finger out when I drink tea. Come to think of it I am well balanced as I don’t fall over much. All dreams though are subjective, with either memory or the person ‘interpreting the dream’ so like a lot of things it is all down to your own personal experiences.  So on that note, my dream means that I am actually brilliant, an enigma if you will, and that I live near a village. Sorted!

I can’t remember the last time i rang someone up purely for a chat, normally there is a motive for me getting in touch and then i text or Facebook as it is cheaper.  I very reallymeet people i like, perhaps i have high standards or more probably i am being picky. I am happy with the few friends i have but sometimes wonder if i am missing out, then i consider that i am not a social animal really so i am actually better suited to communicating with most people online.  Although i am a classic loner type figure, i am never bored with my time which is filled up with trying to learn and understand everything.

Would it matter if i was on the Pitcairns? Maybe, as i’m not to keen on fish but really but on the plus side if anyone came to visit me, or i them, it would be an epic and scenic journey. I think this idea has legs i may see where it leads.

This got me thinking and checking all the Hitler/Nazi comparisons that are made on Amazon and random blogs. There are so many out there it borders on the ridiculous, also humourous as most of these people do not understand what terms such as Nazi and fascist(for example) actually mean, they seem to be blanket term for ‘bad people and things’ or indeed for people who just disagree with their own point of view. Luckily according to Godwins rule if any of the above terms are used in the wrong context then the argument is lost by that party and if you don’t agree, then you are probably a fascist too.

As a postscript the title makes it seem like i’m railing against the government(indeed any government) but i am not bemoaning the stat of anyones politics,although certain systems of late need to be shaken up… it was meant to be fascination but with the ’st’ inserted it takes on a new meaning. Words are fun!

http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/fullscreen.php?game=6-Differences

http://www.addictinggames.com/fivedifferences.html

Where has the mystery gone? Thee are a few left but it’s not like it used to be when parts of the world map were left blank but for a phoenix or sea serpent.  Maybe that should be put on all these celestial maps that come in astronomy magazines, it would make them seem exciting whilst harking back to the olden days when they could make proper mysteries.   Whilst we are on the subject i have noticed that when TV documentaries air, after every ad break they repeat what has happened and what the point of the programme is. It depresses me that TV bosses either think we are to thick to understand the concept of what they are saying or that they think they can get away with half a show full of repetition filler.  Still maybe this is just me showing i’m old before my time. Again.

Having said that i started a beast of a book today. namely War and Peace, at 1444 pages it will be the longest book i have ever read if not the longest story(that would be Stephen king’s Dark Tower series). It looks intimidating but that’s not the reason for my trepidation at tackling such a lengthy tome, the thing that worries me is the names of people. As with Crime and Punishment it took me a good eighty pages to get all the characters sorted in my head even though the number was relatively small. Characters were referred to by either first, last or patronym (generally a middle name based on the fathers name or any other ancestor, of course for ladies see matronym), coupled with the fact that three characters have the same name and a few had similar names then you can see why i struggled. Apparently War and Peace has a total of 500 characters gracing it’s pages so we shall see how i get on.

 Something else that has occupied my time today is uncommon typography, i tackle all the trendy issues, me. Some have amusing names, like fist, lozenge and interrobang, my favourite being the interrobang which combines a speech mark and an exclamation mark. In these lazy days when kids think punctuation marks are on a keyboard solely for the purpose of making faces we should bring back the interrobang. It saves time and ink, in fact if you added all the spaces together when people needlessly end a sentence with ‘?!’ and we could save a lot of trees. People we could save the world just with one punctuation mark. I propose that we stand using the mighty interrobang whenever we need to or indeed whenever we can until people catch on. All we need now is a punctuation mark that can somehow trap carbon and stop wars at the same time, the search continues….