Author: christophernosnibor

Writer, ranter, purveyor of postmodern fiction; 50% of the Clinicality Press editorial team, editor at Aural Aggravation, contributing editor at Paraphilia Magazine, and music reviewer for Whisperin' and Hollerin' and Shout4Music. Sleep is for wimps.

1923 Turkish Bath: Cyberterrorism and Virtual Warfare

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The world is full of crazy, crazed and angry people. This much is apparent just from turning on the news, reading a newspaper, sitting in a pub or walking down the street. Some of them have a definite point to make, and are driven to take desperate measures to get their voices heard. However, it perhaps goes without saying that some degrees of extremity are a step too far, and the means never justifies the end. Others, however, simply like stirring things up, getting their kicks by making life difficult and unpleasant for others, and have the sole objective of fucking shit up. There are instances where this can be witty or clever and artistic, and these type of activities I don’t only approve of, but actively enjoy. I’ve even engaged in a spot of mild pranksterism in various forms and guises in my own career of (counter)cultural activity, and it’s this type of thing that the avant-garde thrives upon.   But in many instances, it’s just pointless vandalism and mindless destruction. This very much goes against my life motto of ‘don’t be a twat.’

Hacking websites and screwing with them is one of those things that strikes me as being fundamentally twattish, particularly when the victims are completely random and genuinely innocent. Whisperinandhollerin, the music site I review for, was hacked yesterday. On going to upload some reviews, I was deeply perplexed to see the homepage had been replaced by a large graphic (a detourned Israeli flag with a pair of defecating dogs in silhouette), beneath which appeared the legend ‘1923Turk’ and ‘Fuck Israel.’ The tab contained the information ‘hacked by Gamoscu.’

Being the curious sort, I did a spot of research into 1923TURK. Details are scant, but from what I can ascertain, 1923turk grup are the second largest hacking organisation currently active, having risen from position number four in the hacking ranks just under a year ago. Their attacks aren’t so much widely documented, as much as their presence is widely announced, and each member tags their hacks (in the case of W&H is was Gamoscu, but other members seem to be much more prolific, if the edidence a brief Google search yields is to be taken at face value). YouTube videos, a Facebook page with several hundred fans (which features links to the sites they’ve hacked and defaced), and they even report their own hacks on sites such as zone-h (http://www.zone-h.org/). Zone-h doesn’t only record reported hack attacks and rank the notifiers, but gives further details, breaking down the hacks by category of Single def.  (defacement) / Mass def. / Total def. / Homepage def. / Subdir def. (1923turk have thus far claimed a total of 70,074  defacements across all categories. Yes, well done).

In some respects, this latter ‘claiming’ or attacks is not entirely dissimilar to the way terrorist organisations claim responsibility for attacks. The concept of on-line terrorism is one that does, to an extent, perplex me, not least of all where ‘organisations’ like 1923 Turk are concerned, because precisely what they hope to achieve is so unclear. I mean, are they opposed to the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians? If so, fair comment, but there are other, more appropriate, places to advertise the fact. One of the things I like about music reviewing is that it’s apolitical, and is purely about the art, the music. I, for one, always make a point of reviewing as objectively as possible, and entirely honestly. This means that some acts who may hope for or even expect a positive review might not get what they’re after, but that’s the way it is. And sure, I’m opinionated, but I’d be a lousy critic if I wasn’t. But I do make it policy to review without prejudice, and not to make any comments that could be perceived as overtly political, defamatory or inflammatory. Of course, it’s not all about me, but I definitely speak for all of the site’s contributors here, who write for the love of music, nothing more and nothing less.

According to a thread on the hackthissite forum from 2009, ‘1923Turk Group has hacked the websites which contains child porns, terror propagandas, and all various attacks for the Turkish Nation and Unitary Turkish Republic.’

This particular post continues, ‘There are a lot of special teams in 1923Turk Group. Some of them hack terror supporter sites, some of them hack porn sites, the others hack enemy state sites and enemy company sites etc… They are at a cyber war via enemy of Turks!’ there’s more: ‘It is used for a lot of harmful sites. In addition, they don’t forget their brothers. Especially, East Turkistan (Uyghuristan) and Azerbaijan are important for them. Also, they rejects so-called Armenian Genocide claims. They don’t want to open the border gates with Armenia, because of Nagorno-Karabakh! They know Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan, but now any Azeris don’t live in Nagorno-Karabakh because of the migration! Armenians killed 613 civilians, of them 106 women and 83 children. It is called The Khojaly Massacre. The Khojaly Massacre was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25 February 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War…. Also, 1923Turk Group hacks a lot of states’ sites, universities’ sites, security company sites, organisation sites, big companies’ sites etc. Now, Enemies of Turkia (Turkey) are afraid of 1923Turk Group! Because, 1923Turk Group is cyber army of Turkia(Turkey) and all Turks(Oghuzs, Uzbeks, Azeris, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs etc.) They are the Turks are the ghost soldiers of the cyber world. They sweared as 1923 Turk Group staffs to protect Turkish flag in this cyber world…They will be nightmare for who recognizes so-called Armenian Genocide claims or who supports the terrorist organizations(especially, pkk) or who publish child porn.’

Fine: so as is so often the case, we have a small extremist collective misrepresenting the majority (and while I for one consider myself apart from any majority going, I’m no extremist) and taking their ‘message’ to the rest of the world who have absolutely nothing to do with the situation. I mean, really, how many people surfing for, say, music reviews, are going to grasp the significance of a statement like ‘Martyrs are immortal our land is indivisible’? 

Critics of the tactics employed by the group challenge precisely what their tactics achieve, while supporters claim that they have ‘won fame’ and that ‘Hacked sites’ masters pay attention and see their social messages! 1923Turk Group just warns! It’s a reaction.’ But this again assumes that those who run or visit hacked sites can make out the ‘message’ or give a toss beyond restoring the site to the way it was. Raising awareness to issues is one thing, but there are more useful platforms and channels to do this, and moreover, for any such campaign to be effective, messages must be at least deciperable, if not immediately clear.

So Turkey have condemned Israel over the deaths of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists killed last week… but then, so has the rest of the world. How this has any kind of connection to child porn, or why child porn particularly offends the Turks (more than it offends / disturbs / distresses any other nation) is unclear. But I digress. The UN haven’t exactly praised the Israeli action either, but I don’t see them hacking the NME’s website. The same is true of Whisperinandhollerin, which is neither pro-Israel or involved in pornography of any sort. Again, linking terrorism and pornography into a coherent political framework isn’t easy, and again raises the question, ‘precisely what are they people trying to communicate?’

Ultimately, I would suggest that it doesn’t matter all that much. The bottom line is that war solves nothing, and in any acts of war, it’s always the innocent who suffer. In the scheme of things, a few defaced websites and the like isn’t much, but it’s simply a part of the bigger picture of people needlessly inflicting harm and damage… and for what? It never solves anything. Man is indeed a bad animal. And I, for one, am tired of it.

Resurrecting Michael Jackson

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Ok, so of course I wrote my Michael Jackson blog ‘Is Michael Jackson Really Dead? If So, Could Kanye West be Behind it?’  in the hope that it would be read by a wider and different audience than my usual work. Of course I was deliberately contentious, with a view to provoking some responses (although precisely what sort of responses I would receive, I didn’t really consider). Of course it was an absurd suggestion, to pin Jackson’s death on lamecore rapper Kanye West. I didn’t feel the need to explain that I was mocking targets left, right and centre: the media, the conspiracy theorists, West and, yes, Jackson and his ‘fans’. Of course it was rushed. I knew that there would be an insane media frenzy – it was already in full spate while the news was still breaking. And yes, I’ve long maintained that a good title counts for a lot.

At the time, however, I didn’t truly appreciate just how good my title was, although had I thought about it, it would have been quite apparent. As is the case with every dead celebrity, people are incredulous. Ok, fans and the gullible are incredulous, the conspiracy theorists simply refuse to accept what the media present as ‘fact.’ If Elvis isn’t dead, Diana isn’t dead, Richie Edwards isn’t dead and Jesus Christ isn’t dead, why would Michael Jackson have popped it for real? The circumstances surrounding his death, not to mention the way in which it happened, were truly ideal for the formation of conspiracy theories. So half the world took to the ‘net in search of theories, and facts that they could use to piece together half-baked theories of their own.  Within a matter of days, it was abundantly clear that the phrase ‘is Michael Jackson really dead?’ had serious currency, and my article, being one of the first published under this title, shot toward the top of any Google search using that phrase. Bingo!

Right now, if you simply type ‘is Mic’ into Google, it will offer ‘is Michael Jackson really dead’ (without quotation marks or question mark) as a popular search above, amongst others, ‘is Michael Schumacher the Stig,’ ‘is Michael Ball married,’ ‘is Michael Buble married’ and ‘is Michael Jackson a Muslim.’ Taking the first option yields some 409,000,000 hits. My article is at number two.

Almost a year on, and that phrase remains incredibly popular. The hits were tailing off, though, and the comments were only being posted very occasionally. Still, I’d had my fun, made my point, wound up a fair few idiots who had completely missed the point, and… what’s that, a new conspiracy theory? Jackson is alive and on national television as a burns victim who was friends with the late star? Jacko even paid for some of this guy’s reconstructive surgery? Brilliant! David Rothenberg had even changed his name to Dave Dave to ‘erase’ his past, a man intent on breaking free from his past by adopting a new identity…

Suddenly, my little article, banged out in a couple of hours as a wind-up, which had settled down to receiving a steady 20-30 hits per day, is back up to the region of 150 hits a day… and rising. Jackson may well be dead, but this article is definitely alive and kicking!

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk.

On Yer Bike! Rights (and Wrongs) of Way

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In my previous blog, I considered the current seeming obsession with ‘rights’ – the right to free speech, and so on. Well here’s another: right of way. To clarify, the ever-contentious debate over vehicle / cyclist / pedestrian rights of way.

I should perhaps point out two things before I continue: first, I’m all too aware that everyone seems to believe that they have right of way wherever they may be on the highways and byways, and while I’m no fan of motorists (to put it mildly), but get rather annoyed when cyclists claim that they are legally entitled to go wherever they so wish, and equally by pedestrians who insist that the right of way is theirs, and that if they choose to walk down the middle of the road, then they should expect all traffic to stop. Second, I’m not in the habit of blogging anecdotes-cum-rants, or rantecdotes, and generally find other people’s tales of what annoyed them today quite tedious. However, this one I just couldn’t leave.

Ok, so I’m rarely in the best of humour on my way to work in the morning. Juggling multiple jobs in addition to my writing, I’m usually short on sleep, and so rather crotchety. However, I’m also fairly awake and cogent: I’m something of a morning person. I just happen to hate my job, and also get annoyed by groups of schoolchildren walking five abreast at a quarter of a mile an hour.

Cyclists, pedestrians, motorists… it makes no difference to me. Returning to the point I made in my previous blog, it’s not about ‘rights’ or even ‘responsibilities.’ My rule for living: ‘don’t be a twat.’ So when people are walking three or four abreast and I’m on my own, it’s difficult for me to reduce the space I occupy in order to make way for them. I have permanent bruises on my shoulders from almost daily pedestrian collisions, but what can I do? I can’t go less than single file.

So yesterday I was walking toward town with my wife. Our journey takes us through an underpass beneath a railway line, and the route is shared by both pedestrians and cyclists, with no marked divisions for either. Seeing an oncoming cyclist, my wife went ahead of me and we proceeded in single file and pulled in to the right. A third pedestrian remained to the right, but there was still what looked like a navigable gap in the middle.

The cyclist – a middle-aged woman – clearly thought otherwise, and without really slowing down, veered straight toward me as Mrs Nosnibor, ahead of me, rounded the corner out of the underpass. I maintained my trajectory: I didn’t really have anywhere else to go, and besides, I figured she would surely apply the breaks before she landed her front wheel between my knees. Inches away from me, I pulled away a little, but with a wall inches to  my right, didn’t have much scope for evasive action. She, meanwhile, weaved to her right by a few inches and ploughed straight into my left arm. It hurt.

‘This is a cycle path, you know!’ she shouted irately.

‘It’s also a pavement!’ I retorted, similarly irate and not just a little bit shocked. Yes, I had meant footpath, but my full vocabulary often escapes me at 7.45am when I’ve just been hit by a lump of pedal-powered metal.

‘I know!’ the idiot shouted over her shoulder as she regained momentum, leaving me no opportunity for a further response. Not that I’m sure how I would have made a comeback to such an evidently nonsensical rejoinder.

Rubbing my bruised arm, jarred to the shoulder, shocked, and above all enraged, I continued on my way, ranting inchoately about the fucking bag who clearly thought she had the divine right to mow through pedestrians just because. The question is, would she have continued her collision course and berated me for failing to evaporate into the air in order to make way for her if I had been a small child or an elderly person? Of course, I don’t know, but I’d be curious to see the scenario play out again in different circumstances. One has to question the logic and mental capacity of someone who goes straight toward the largest target – the two pedestrians close together instead of the one walking alone – or, better still, the space between the two objects. Was she trying to make a point, or just a complete fuckwit? Again, I don’t know.

Believe it or not, I’m actually all in favour of cycling. It’s an economical and environmentally way of getting about, not to mention a good way of incorporating some light exercise into a person’s daily routine. So yes, I’m very much in favour of cycling. Responsible cycling that it. Wearing a helmet, high visibility clothing, lights when appropriate, riding on the road or in the cycle lane or on cycle paths rather than the pavement, and following the flow of traffic (the number of cyclists I see riding the wrong way up one way streets is just insane)… that’s responsible cycling. Oh, and not being a twat. Is that really so much to ask?

 

 

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Know Your Rights (A Party Election Broadcast by the PLAGIARIST Party)

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It’s been rather difficult to avoid the looming election in recent days. Well, if you’re in the UK, that is. British politics doesn’t have the international But then, the way the media have been going overboard on the coverage, you might have been forgiven for thinking that the campaigns started months ago and that this was a global revolution rather than something that occurs with comparative regularity and frequency in our small island nation. Nothing like blasting all sense of perspective in a quest for ratings. It certainly feels like it’s been a very long and protracted run-up, and there are still several weeks to go. The quality of the coverage in he mass media is hugely varied, although on the whole, lacks depth and isn’t all that informative. For the most part, we’re told endlessly about where the party leaders are visiting and what issues they’re going to be addressing, but apart from a brief 3-4 bullet-point summary of the manifestos, very little information is being given about what the parties actually stand for. Small wonder many people are confused or don’t care. Nothing like overkill to turn people off.

Similarly, there’s nothing like a lot of tedious hot air spouted by people who don’t appear to live in the same world as the rest of us to perpetuate disengagement, and there’s no shortage of evidence that much of our society is disenfranchised and has no interest in politics or the political process – Facebook groups like ‘I Bet I Can Find A Million People With No Interest In The UK Election’ are just one of almost countless examples of people who are more interested in telling the world how much of a turn-off politics is than they are in changing the political landscape.

Personally, I’m not nearly as apolitical as I sometimes claim to be. I am deeply frustrated with politics, but always cast my vote, if only because I feel more readily entitled to complain about how crap the government is, and that the wrong party got voted in. It’s alright, it makes me feel better, at least in the moments when I’m not mired in despondency over the futility of participating in a democracy where ‘the majority’ who wield the collective power are the very people I  spend my entire life battling against in my writing and in my daily life. People are ignorant, stupid and selfish: of course those who vote are going to vote out of ignorance, stupidity and selfishness, whatever their personal agendas may be. Moreover, I believe a spoiled paper makes for a far more effective statement about those standing than a non-vote. The latter says ‘I can’t be arsed.’ The former says ‘I turned out to vote, but none of you represent me in any way. Change the system, change the parties!  So however disaffected and disillusioned I feel about our rigged and flawed democratic political system, I have the right to vote, and I’m going to use it.

But about my ‘rights’… I recently completed a survey that required me to select from a menu which election issues were of greatest importance to me. One choice was ‘human rights.’ We seem to be obsessed with rights at present – even more than usual. Charity appeals are begging for my money, showing pictures of emaciated children in Uganda, while telling me that every child has a right to an education, and that clean water is ‘a basic human right.’

Now, far be it for me to suggest that education or water are luxuries, but, well, I think we need to get a handle on differentiating rights from needs and wants – right?

The trouble is, so many of those who vocally and vociferously defend these rights – not only their own, but, more often than not, those of others, to the extent that they become rights campaigners and crusaders, are also those who demand protection, restriction and prohibition… in the name of rights. People have a right to walk down the street without fear of being assaulted, or harangued by druggies or drunkards or homeless people… and so shout for tighter restrictions on alcohol, drugs, begging without considering that one individual exercising their rights to personal freedoms will invariably impinge on another individual doing precisely the same. The ‘right’ to demand security, or the freedom to do this, that or the other, can be countered by the ‘right’ to drug oneself up to the eyeballs, the right to kill oneself through gross stupidity. Blocking a person’s right to get horrendously wasted by demanding the right to ‘safety’ may have the best intentions at heart, but is it ‘right’ that one set of rights should take priority over another? This seems to me like a case of two rights making a wrong. Moreover, who should determine which rights are more right?

The mainstream media – and not just the tabloids, I might add – thrive on a good bit of moral outrage, and there’s rarely a week that passes without there being a revelation concerning something un-PC that someone has said or written. From Ross and Brand’s public mauling (which ultimately didn’t ruin their careers, and besides, they’ve got more than enough cash to see them through retirement if it had) over ‘lewd’ and ‘offensive’ answerphone messages to leaked internal emails passed amongst civil servants (rather unimaginatively) poking fun at the Pope (you can’t speak ill of a nazi sympathiser who covers up child abuse when he’s a man of God: he’s got divine rights, I assume), there’s never a shortage of energy to expend on such comparative trivia when there are real issues to be ignored. So those who complain about, say, offensive comedians are on difficult terrain: the ‘right’ to free speech means that individuals have the right to express views that others may not want to hear. Not wanting to hear those views is their right, too. But to expect to be able to defend someone’s right to be offensive – as long as they don’t offend you by touching on topics that are personally sensitive is a blatant double standard. Take for example the couple who went to see a Frankie Boyle stand-up show. With tickets at £20 a pop or whatever, it’s probably a fair assumption that they enjoy his brand of ‘humour,’ and as such they must’ve known what they were in for. Alas, they decided it was all too much when he referred to Down Syndrome children as mongers – because their child has Down’s. Ok, but they’d’ve been laughing themselves silly if he’d focused on spackers or spinos instead, right?

Reported – so surprisingly – in the Daily Mail, the couple in question were portrayed as being able to take a joke, but that Botyle had gone too far: ‘Former marketing executive Mrs Smith said: ‘Throughout his show he made fun of disabled people. But when given an opening he launched into a puerile, childish and ignorant attack on Down’s syndrome sufferers. ‘It wasn’t funny.’

Mr Smith, managing director of an online book company, said: ‘We’re fans of comedy. We’ve been to lots of live stand-up shows. We knew what to expect, or we thought we did. This was out of the dark ages. Not the material of a highly regarded comic. I’m still fuming. We both believe in freedom of speech but Boyle’s jokes were borne from ignorance and based on stereotypes.’

I’d call that hypocrisy myself. Moreover, this is simply one of countless examples of the way people become indignant about ‘rights’ – not only their own, but the rights of others. Far be it for me to suggest that campaigners of any form of rights act in self-interest, but I can’t help but feel that for many, there is a strong element of self-righteousness intermingled with the purer motives. Perhaps I should qualify this by stating that I do believe in equal rights for all. That, however, is my ideal world, and I find it necessary to accept that the reality is rather different. That’s life. Similarly, I would hope to live in a world where everyone lives harmoniously, respects one another and can agree to differ without killing one another, where everyone respects the rights of others and takes advantage of the rights they have and are able to apply in their daily lives with due care and common sense. I won’t even mention ‘responsibilities,’ at least in the clichéd context of rights. Very well, perhaps I will.

The point is, we all have rights, we all have responsibilities, we all have needs and we all have wants. Not only is it important to understand the difference, but it is also important to understand cultural and social differences. Not all rights, responsibilities, needs or wants are applicable to all individuals across the globe, and to project our own understandings and standards on others is not always appropriate. The ‘right’ to access university education in Britain is not, for example, likely to be of great interest to someone who aspires to be a waiter or a bricklayer, or who is destined to receive an apprenticeship to continue the family trade of, say, brewing. Similarly, the right to clean running water won’t hold too much appeal for mudskippers or marshland wading birds (animals have rights too, of course, as we’re often reminded).

In light of this, my own personal philosophy is simple, but covers pretty much all aspects of life quite effectively: ‘don’t be a twat.’ Perhaps I should stand as an independent candidate in the next election and use this as my campaign slogan. Whether anyone would be willing to vote for me would be an interesting experiment, and no mistake. You should all vote for me, of course, because you know I’m, right (although politically to the left)… right?



And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk.

Christopher Nosnibor: Writing Machine

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2010: the story so far… 1 anthology – edited and containing 2 previously unpublished prose pieces

2 new short pieces of fiction published in zines (both in consecutive issues of the superb Paraphilia)

9 interviews conducted with authors who contributed to the Clinical, Brutal… anthology.

1 interview given, to one Lucius Rofocale

91 music reviews published at Whisperinadhollerin.

Much more in the pipeline.

Just because the blogs have been less frequent shouldn’t be taken to mean I’ve not been working…..

What Have You Been Doing? Managing the Real / Virtual Life Balance

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When push comes to shove, real life activity
has to take priority over virtual life. Similarly – and I’m not the
most fiscally-motivated person in the world – real paid work sometimes
has to come before that which doesn’t pay. So, what with various social
activities strategically placed to give me  a break from the
time-consuming, if reasonably paid work that the new semester brings,
and other academic and real-life things to attend to, the writing of
blogs and new rants, essays and works of fiction hasn’t had much of a
look in this week. This looks likely to be the shape of things for the
next few weeks, maybe longer, too.

However, I have been
conducting interviews with some of the truly remarkable authors who
contributed to Clinicality Press’ Clinical, Brutal… An Anthology of
Writing with Guts’ that I edited and was published late last month.
Whaddayaknow, as people they’re every bit as interesting and
thought-provoking as their fiction.

The interviews are being
posted at the Clinicality website, and so far I’ve interviewed Jock
Drummond, Karl van Cleave, Antony Hitchin, Richard Kovitch, D M
Mitchell, Dire McCain, Vincent Clasper, and, most recently, Jim Lopez in
what proved to be an expansive and incredibly informative exchange.
These can all be read here: http://clinicalitypress.co.uk/ClinicalBrutal.aspx

There
are more to follow, inlcuding Stuart Bateman, Constance Stadler, Maria
Gornell and Pablo Vision.

Please, go and read the interviews, and
explore the work of these illustrious wordsmiths. There should be
enough there to keep y’all going while I’m keeping a low profile…

And if you’ve loving my
work, buy
the book!

Slogging My Guts Out: The Day of Reckoning as Things Turn Brutal

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This week is a big week for me. The book I’ve edited and been heavily involved in at every stage – from design through to promotion, and beyond – is out on Monday, the 25th. Clinical, Brutal… An Anthology of Writing With Guts is a book I’m immensely proud of. It looks the business, and the contents are even better. Of course, I can only take so much responsibility for the contents. The authors who contributed have all delivered truly amazing works – as I knew they would. As the submissions flowed in, I felt the burden of responsibility to deliver an introduction and overall book that did these pieces justice grew. I like to think I’ve succeeded. The authors I’ve had feedback from so far, and the other Clinicality staff, have been brilliantly supportive, not to mention excited.

Some of you may be aware that I’ve been conducting interviews with some of the contributing authors, partly as a means of promotion, but equally because I’m curious to dig deeper into the minds of the twisted sick fucks behind the writing. Some of these have already appeared on the Clinicality website and over on Clinicality Press’ MySpace blog. There are more to follow in the coming weeks.

However, my work is done – for now – and so I’m heading off for my annual Coleridge Kick and will be off-line for a while. I sign off with the suggestion that you buy the book – not for me, but because it’s a cracking read: the list of featured authors is a veritable catalogue or roll-call of the most exciting cult authors who’ve been making waves (and tunnels) on line in the past couple of years or so. Their work deserves to be read, and I’m proud to have worked with them on this project. The list of contributors is as follows:


Pablo Vision
Kestra Faye
Jim Lopez
Radcliff Gregory
Díre McCain
Stewart Home
A.D. Hitchin
Richard Kovitch
Christopher Nosnibor
Lee Kwo
S. F. Grimm
David Mark Dannov
D M Mitchell
Jock Drummond
Lucius Rofocale
Stuart Bateman
Karl van Cleave
Vincent Clasper
Constance Stadler
Bill Thunder
Christopher Bateman
Simon Phillips
Maria Gornell


Clinical, Brutal… will be available from Clinicality Press on Monday – either direct or via the POD printer – and will be on Amazon and countless other places, ranging from Barnes and Noble to Tesco fairly soon (it’s something Clinicality has no control over in terms of precise dates).



The Clinicality website is HERE.

Low Profile – Another Blog on Blogging

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People – the ‘general public’ – have short memories. The collective memory is getting shorter, as is the average / collective attention span. This isn’t necessarily indicative of an increasing level of stupidity, so much as it appears to suggest that we, as a species, have reached our capacity in terms of evolution. We can only absorb so much information, and human brain simply isn’t built to process and retain everything it’s bombarded with in the Internet age, this age of media and information overload – at least not on a conscious or liminal level.

We’re expected to take in and retain more than is physically possible. When presented with so much information from so many sources, it comes down to a simple choice between quality and quantity. The popularity of Twitter, flash fiction, etc., etc., suggests that the latter wins out almost every time.

Small wonder, then, that if you’re not receiving constant updates, tweets, bulletins, and all the rest, people soon forget. Failure to update a blog for a few weeks and it’s dead, the audience moves on, because they want new material and they want it now! Celebrities can make headlines on account of their inane Internet postings, or similarly sink without trace. If you’re not on-line, then really, you don’t exist. And having a media bod or one of your ‘people’ take care of such business isn’t good enough: social networking has created a certain expectation that personal pages and profiles equate to a direct line to the artist. An unreasonable expectation? Perhaps, but keeping the fans happy is what it’s all about. They’re the ones paying the wages of any given artist.

The trouble is, creating and maintaining a web presence requires a degree of effort, and is time-consuming. Indeed, maintaining any kind of profile and remaining in the public eye – without reaching overkill – requires a degree of effort, and is time-consuming. Do you really think it’s possible to do a Salinger nowadays?

I recently read an article on writing a successful blog. Unsurprisingly, it was presented in the form of a list – ten essentials for a successful blog or somesuch. One of the points was that content should be new, original and exclusive. Fair enough. The article – which I refuse to link to and grant it further unwarranted authority – also suggests that a successful blog should be well-written. If only! I’ve seen no shortage of incredibly successful (if one measures success in terms of popularity, which seems to be the general benchmark in blogging terms) blogs that are atrociously written. It would also have been nice if the author had taken her own advice.

Another point was that a successful blog must be updated daily. At least. The author’s contention was that readers demand new content, and if a writer can’t keep up with that demand, why should they expect readers to return to their blog? Now, I’ve long believed in the adage ‘content is king.’ But my interpretation of this is that content should be considered, and have a degree of depth – actual content. After all, there’s no shortage of superficial fluff, and a little bit of real meat can go a long way. This returns us to the quality vs quantity debate.

Obviously, writers write, and many writers of books – fiction or otherwise – through the years have relied on other forms of writing, such as journalism, as a means of establishing a steady income and raising their public profile. It beats working in a fast food joint, after all, and is good exercise. Continual writing keeps one sharp, can improve a writer.

Today, whether it pays or not, everyone is expected to have a blog. And what writer wouldn’t have a blog? The trouble is, meeting the expectations and obligations maintaining a blog brings can take a writer away from their actual job of writing. It’s all very well promoting oneself and one’s writing through blogging, but it’s counterproductive if one reaches the point that there’s nothing to promote and the blog becomes the end in itself.

It’s possible that we’re now reaching the point that blog saturation will bring about a new wave of blog abstainers. So many blogs, so little time! So much writing, and for what? How much more content does the world need? I for one can’t possibly read all the blogs I subscribe to, and find it impossible to work and read blogs concurrently. I’m not necessarily convinced that, as Stewart Home claimed in his final ‘Mister Trippy’ blog that blogging is dead, or even that the days of the blog are numbered. However, I do think that the blogosphere may be subject to change, and (hopefully) shrinkage as we move into the new decade. Ideally, there’ll be fewer blogs, with the crap, crass, poorly written and substance-lacking ones falling by the wayside. I daresay that the reality will be the exact opposite, but I can dream.

As for me, I intend to keep on bloggin’ for the time being. Do the blogs raise my profile? Possibly. Do they help sell books? Maybe, just a few. But as I do have some bigger projects I’m wanting to concentrate on, don’t be too surprised if the blogs are less frequent.

One final word on blogs, though: remember, success is all relative…



 And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk… and hey, there are always the books you can buy.

A Reflection on ‘A Reflection,’ or, 2009: A Year of Four Quarters

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Well, I did it: I wrote four stories and published them as limited-edition pamphlets at quarterly intervals through 2009. I can’t exactly recall how or why the idea came about, but the objective was to release the literary equivalent of a series of singles that together form a set. I could have published a collectiom of short stories, but having done that in 2007 with ‘Bad Houses’ I decided I needed a new strategy, a new challenge. Moreover, as the publishing industry is as fucked as the music industry, it’s down to the writers themselves to come up with innovative new strategies for getting their works not only out there, but sold. There’s no small irony in the fact that, as a music obsessive, I elected to employ an old music industry tactic in the form of the limited edition for my 2009 project. After all, there’s nothing like a limited edition to create buzz, not to mention a potential future collectable.

By using the same artwork but in a different colour for each publication, the thematic unity of the contents would be reinforced by the visual presentation (while also recreating the effect of coloured vinyls – sort of). Having declared that I would be producing these pieces, I then had to do some serious writing. At the same time, I was aware that there was a very grave danger of overkill after a fairly prolific couple of years, with ‘Bad Houses’ and ‘C.N.N.’ in 2007, ‘THE PLAGIARIST’ and ‘Postmodern Fragments’ and a proliferation of magazine publications in 2008. Consequently, I decided I should cut back on other works save for a few carefully and strategically selected contributions – primarily in Paraphilia Magaine, which I believe is the best zine out there right now, and THE place to be seen.

I didn’t set out with any specific theme in mind, although other pieces I had already been working on suggested emerging concerns – obsessions may perhaps be a more accurate choice of word – and so I decided to focus squarely on these issues in ‘Lust for Death.’ It didn’t so much stare death in the face as take it outside and challenge it to a bout of bare-knuckle fisticuffs, while also taking a new approach to narrative, recounting the same events from three different narrative perspectives.

Despite wanting the publications to be quite closely linked and thus evidently part of a sequence or collection of related works, it was essential to me that I tried a different approach for each story, and set myself a new challenge. As such, the styles of the stories are varied, although I’ve been pleased with the results on each occasion, while also feeling a sense of achievement  knowing that I had pushed myself every time.

 ‘Before the Flood’ took a slightly more oblique approach to issues of (im)mortality. Taken from a much larger piece the tone was also rather different, and more overtly literary. The third pamphlet, ‘Counting the Hours’ was a more introspective piece, with events confined to a single hour in the life of an agoraphobic first-person narrator. Because I was in the process of moving house at the time of its publication, I didn’t do a great deal to promote it, and this was reflected in the sales, which were, frankly, abysmal. Disappointing, to say the least, as this is, in my opinion, the strongest of the three (not to mention the longest by far).

I was almost tempted to ditch the project at this point, but having some this far, I got back on that bike and rode it… hard. The result is the fragmented, multi-voiced, many-angled ‘A Reflection,’ which revisits many of the themes of the preceding works of the series, and even echoes some of the narratives contained therein, while interweaving these with my own personal reflections on events, concepts and even the writing process of the series and other (dis)connected texts. It’s as close to autobiography as I’ve come in any of my (published) works, although it’s a most postmodern literary exercise, in that it intentionally blurs the boundaries between author / narrator / character, fact / fiction, biography / fabrication. Moreover, as much as it is ‘a reflection’ on the past tear and the closing decade, it’s also a hint of the direction my writing is heading, the avenues I’m inclined to pursue over the next couple of years.

I intend to publish less still in 2010. Paid work and a focus on the completion of longer works mean that shorter pieces will simply not be viable. In addition, I have a substantial hoard of works – including 2 novels and 2 novellas – that lurk unpublished, and submitting work is easily as time-consuming as producing it. The reviews and blogs will continue, and there will be more fiction and rants. But less is more, and while exposure is the way forward in any quest for ubiquity, there is such a thing as overkill, and there are other avenues yet to be explored.

Anyway, 2010 will kick off in dramatic style with the launch of the ‘Clinical, Brutal’ anthology that I’ve edited and am inordinately proud of, and I have a stack of pamphlets in the office just waiting to be dispatched. They’re only available via christophernosnibor.co.uk and are sure to be worth a packet in another ten years’ time!

‘A Reflection’ is officially published on December 30th. Orders are being taken now at Christophernosnibor.co.uk.

Over the Border(s) (RIP): The Changing Face of Consumerism VII

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While there’s been talk of ‘green shoots’ and other such piffle relating to an imminent recovery in the market and of the economy, the evidence of recent events suggests that such positively has been, and remains, somewhat premature. Now, it’s my opinion that those who say that the end of the recession is in sight are those who are gullible enough to believe what they hear in the news. Of course politicians want us to believe that things will be rosy in next to no time, and talk up ‘consumer confidence.’

The trouble is, I can’t see where this additional consumer spending is going to come from when redundancies are being announced on an almost daily basis – or where these people with cash to burn are going to spend it given that there are a diminishing number of shops trading.

Last week, our city centre Threshers began its closing down sale. Within a couple of days the shelves were looking extremely bare. Ok, so I rarely shop in there, not least of all because I tend to brew much of my own beer. I don’t think however that my lack of custom alone has brought about the demise of a chain of off-license stores.

I was more concerned by the news that Borders has gone into administration. I’m a big buyer of books, and while I do purchase a lot of my books second hand, and many via Amazon, I have been a regular shopper in Borders, too. I do think that Borders was significantly better when it was owned by its American parent company. I remember when Borders first opened in York, being bowled over by the range of books, in particular US publications. On relocating to Glasgow in 2000 and finding the largest Borders in the UK, I was in book heaven.

Valco Capital Partners, the private equity company that took over in the summer steered the chain in a more mainstream direction, serving up the same 3 for 2 offers on bestsellers as Waterstones ad WHS. And so it is that I’ve found myself increasingly forced to turn to on-line stores to obtain the books that I want. It goes without saying that commentators will blame the Internet for ‘stealing’ trade, but in instances like this, I can’t help but feel that the trade’s been surrendered, handed over to the on-line stores on a plate.

Even so, Borders still carried a far better range of stock than its competitors, and what concerns me is that once again, the disappearance of the chain can only lead to one thing: reduced customer choice. The fact that there’s choice on-line is not the same. Much of the immense joy of perusing the shelves of a bookstore is not knowing what you want until you find it. Through the years, I’ve made many browse purchases, including my first discovery of Stewart Home, whose Slow Death I happened upon in Virgin in Oxford in 99. There have been terrible days in my life where I’ve completely turned things around by going to my local bookshop, picking up something that, on the basis of the cover and the blurb and a quick flick of a couple of pages, appears to be just what I need to lift my mood – or reflect it – and immersed myself in an impulse book buy until things have improved. That can’t happen with on line shopping. I’m not impatient, but sometimes we all need instant gratification.

What’s more, browsing just isn’t the same. ‘Other people who bought this’ recommendations are all too prescriptive, too obviously designed to steer the shopper in a certain direction, can all to easily be rigged to operate as another marketing technique. Browsing is a truly random, arbitrary and physical experience. No-one else can browse on your behalf.

It’s surely through browsing that a great books are sold, and while many some have the advantage of being included in those stack ‘em high, 3 for 2 offers and therefore stand a chance of being the third bonus book that someone throws in simply because it’s free, small publishers simply can’t compete.

This is perhaps the biggest concern raised by the collapse of Borders – a chain who have been pretty good at accommodating small, even local publishers, and were forward-thinking enough to incorporate a print on demand element within some of their stores. Yes, the future of publishing is something that is affected by this latest development in the retail sector. In the first instance, no Borders equals one fewer outlet through which publishers – and consequently authors – can make their works available. For me, there’s a personal dimension to this story also: the plan had been to approach the Borders in York and Leeds to see if they would be willing to stock Clinicality Press’ Clinical, Brutal anthology, given Clinicality’s position as a ‘regional’ publisher. Granted, only a couple of the authors in the book are remotely local, but that’s hardy the point: the point was exposure, pure and simple. Another door closes…

Worse still, if new authors are more likely to be discovered by readers through browsing, then the virtual elimination of browsing from book shopping culture means that only established authors – or authors that readers intentionally set out to buy books by – are going to sell. The result will be that publishers – already reluctant to try new authors because of the increasingly tight bottom line – simply aren’t going to take risks on unknowns. Before long, there will come a point of total stagnation… and then what?

Chances are the long-term outcome of all of this will be a dramatic revision of the way books are sold, the way the publishing world operates – a brave new world, in much the same way that the music industry revolution that is currently under way is seeing bright new ways emerging from the dark ruins of what was once a seemingly unshakeable empire. But right now, it’s rather hard to be optimistic.

Some time ago, I posted a blog pondering on the future of publishing, suggesting that these are exciting times for tiny publishers with innovation on their side and for authors who are willing to adopt the punk ethic in their approach to writing and (self)publishing. I still believe this, but also believe there are some difficult times ahead. It’s going to be a long and difficult struggle for survival. But I’m up for a fight…


If you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk… and if you’re really loving it, feel free to purchase a book or two, since you can’t get them in Borders.