53 and imploding Kindle/Paperback

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this stream of consciousness antinovel twenty-two years ago! I still love it. Here is an excerpt from 53 and imploding . You might find it upsetting!

53 and imploding – another small bit!

How can you be happy when each new panacea for the world’s problems is a system run by leaders with vested interests? And none of them can be trusted?

How can you be happy when the aim of dominant males is to dominate everything that breathes – even if that means annihilating everything that lives – just as long as they end up top dog? Better to be undisputed leader of the last ten rather that a leader of a billion among many leaders of billions. They cannot rest while there is still one other potential leader.

            How can you be happy when your life is all about owning a third DVD player, another TV and a swish car and you feel shit because your phone is the wrong colour, shape or size? When you are obsessed with the label on your clothes, your body shape and muscle definition? When your new IPad cannot shop fast enough? You need a new one.

            How can you be happy when the world is being covered in concrete, corporations buy off politicians, MacDonald’s has a branch on the Amazon river, (which is now concrete lined), the last tree is in a museum and the music you listen to is a product of a mass industry?

            How can art be a commodity? How can creativity be assessed?

            How can you be happy when nobody cares about the scant600 Mountain Gorillas we have left? When the world is so depraved that a rich millionaire can pay a fortune to get hunters to kill three precious gorillas in order to capture a baby gorilla, have it ripped from its dead mother’s arms and hauled off to America so he can have it for a pet?

            How can you be happy when a moronic footballer’s salary is hundreds of thousands a week? Stupid, selfish, greedy Rock Stars, actors and actresses earn millions and babies lie bloated for want of a bowl of rice? A millionaire buys a trip on a spaceship while a whole nation festers in their own excrement?

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Words – Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle

Posted on by Opher

Words is a collection of short stories, anecdotes and writings accumulated over the last few years.
Some were written for fun; some have a more serious tone. Hopefully some will make you laugh, some will make you cry and others make you angry.

God’s Bolt – Paperback, kindle

Posted on by Opher

God’s Bolt

Helen Southcote is looking for a purpose to life through her Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence work on the United Nations Space Station when she watches the Earth destroyed by an asteroid. What can she do next? …

God’s Bolt: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781092713597: Books

In Search of Captain Beefheart – Paperback, Kindle

Posted on by Opher

The sixties raged. I was young, crazy, full of hormones and wanting to snatch life by the balls. There was a life out there for the grabbing and it had to be wrestled into submission. There was a society full of boring amoral crap and a life to be had in the face of the boring, comforting vision of slow death on offer.
Rock music vented all that passion.
This book is a memoir of a life spent immersed in Rock Music. I was born in 1949 and so lived through the whole gamut of Rock.
Rock music formed the background to momentous world events – the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, Iraq war, Watergate, the miners’ strike and Thatcher years, CND, the Green Movement, Mao and the Cultural Revolution, Women’s Liberation and the Cold War.
I see this as the Rock Era.
I was immersed in Rock music. It was fused into my personality. It informed me, transformed me and inspired me. My heroes were musicians. I am who I am because of them.
Without Rock Music I would not have the same sensibilities, optimism or ideals. They woke me up!
This tells that story.

Kindle versus a real book – which is better?

Posted on by Opher

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I suppose that the question behind this is one of ownership. When you have a ‘real’ book you own it. When you have an electronic one there is nothing to own.

It always used to be that when you went round anyone’s house you could always tell everything you needed to know about them from the books on their shelves and the records in their collection. It was an insight into their character. It said reams about them, what they thought and believed.

My house is littered with books and records. That is because I am from that age.

I like the reading experience on a kindle as much as that from a book. But I love books. I love the covers, the blurb, the smell and tactile feel. You can easily flick back to check something. You don’t get that with a kindle.

I don’t like the build up of dust or the huge amount of space they take up though.

You can have all the books you’ll ever need on a single kindle. It takes up no room whatsoever and you can pick it up and take it round the world.

I am a bit of a collector. I like the physical presence of a book.

At the end of the day it is a question of lifestyle. If the reading is the only thing then a kindle is quite adequate. The words carry the story, the meaning and import.

But if there is something more to holding a book.

A book has soul! A kindle feels vacuous.

I’ll go for books and keep my kindle for travelling!