Friday 24 December 2010

A Heroine for the Internet Age


A HPANWO book review

Author’s website:
http://judecalverttoulmin.blogspot.com/
Fleur-de-Lys Publishing: http://www.fleurdelyspublishing.com/

As a writer I often become acquainted with other writers when we are drawn together by our mutual profession. I make an effort to read the books by people I know and if I think they’re up to standard I review them on HPANWO. My Adventures in Cyberspace by Jude Calvert-Toulmin is one such title. Like I did, she's taken the courageous and creative step of self-publishing her literature.

My Adventures in Cyberspace is a very absorbing and poignant saga following about a year in the life of a Sheffield housewife called Dominique Du Bois (Du Bois means “wooden” in French, but she is nothing of the sort!); it is semi-autobiographical, as the author admits in her bio, and very candid and honest. It's thoroughly analytical of the character's own psychological landscape and describes her highs and lows with imaginative and perceptive metaphors and similes (You'll never look at an elastic band in the same way again!). Dominique is in an unfulfilling marriage and generally stuck in a rut with her life until she discovers the fun and frolics of Internet forums. There she quickly makes friends... and enemies; the latter is inevitable because the Net is a paradise for bullies and sadists who can snipe and gripe while cowering behind the impunity of a keyboard and monitor. However one poster comes to her rescue, a rock-climbing Yorkshireman by the username of "Ben J". Slowly and graciously Dominique and he fall in love, without even having met. "Ben J", or Ben Johnson to use his real name, is also unhappily married and both he and Dominique have to disengage themselves from their current situations in order to become a couple. This causes heartrending mayhem as, not just Ben and Dominique's current spouses, but their "friends", relations, acquaintances and hangers-on desperately try to hold them apart with envy, possessiveness and spite. On top of all this Dominique is haunted by memories of her past, her mentally-ill mother, her vindictive stepmother and her estranged adolescent daughters. But despite all of this she and Ben persevere in their relationship, spending romantic and stylishly-pornographic weekends away together, looking forward to the day when they can live as a couple, in peace and happiness. By the end of the book I was yelling out in support for them, highly emotionally-involved in their plight. Dominique is a real heroine for the Internet Age and somebody many readers will identify with, whether you're male or female. This is only the first part in a trilogy and it ends with the main character experiencing a spiritual revelation, just at the brink of her success. They've made it, but have they? I'm looking forward to Part 2!

One of the aspects I liked most about this story is the way the central male character, Ben, is portrayed. We live in a world governed by the Conformist mind-controlling media, of which regular HPANWO-readers will have seen me discuss many times. I’ve spoken of my concerns that the male psyche is being manipulated and engineered by programmes such as EastEnders, Hustle and various Reality TV shows. See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/07/grimlys.html . My Adventures in Cyberspace challenges this Conformist value because unlike so many other male protagonists, who are very ruthless and acquisitive individuals, “Ben J” is described as being very kind and compassionate; “open-hearted” and sometimes “naïve”. Far from being repelled from him, as a Conformist female character would be, Dominique finds these qualities in Ben very appealing. So there’s a subtle but distinctively seditious streak to Jude’s novel which gave me great satisfaction.

Interestingly, like in the book, I only know Jude and her partner Brian through the medium of the Internet. We were all members of the discussion forum of a well-known mainstream journalist. To begin with it was a wonderful forum, one of the best ones I’ve ever been on. Unlike many celebrities, the host used to contribute to the forum himself and we all became friends. Sadly the host made a rather bad choice of member to administer the forum and pretty soon this administrator began dishing out wildcat bannings based on the flimsiest of excuses or as a result of private disputes. Jude and Brian were part of this purge. I left the forum soon afterwards in protest. I went back to lurk a few times and saw that the place had been totally ruined; its spirit of interest and openness gone forever. A good forum is a very fragile thing and can fail so easily therefore I make a lot of effort to be a fair moderator of the HPANWO Forum. Like Jude and her character Dominique, I’ve been on the receiving end of Internet bullying and stalking; it’s not pleasant. However, as I say in this review, my contempt for Internet bullies adds to my determination not to give in to them. Something else I share in common with Dominique.

Latest HPANWO Voice articles: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/12/israeli-roswell.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/12/zecharia-sitchin-1929-2010-official.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/11/north-korea-is-very-bad-indeed.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/11/prince-william-gets-engaged.html

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And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2010/11/evans-land-audio-book.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2010/11/illuminati-speaks-william-and-kate.html

Friday 17 December 2010

Andrew Johnson Newspaper Ad




I was flicking through the Oxford Journal, a free local newspaper, a few days ago and saw something that convinced me I was hallucinating. There was a full-page advertisement for Andrew Johnson’s Checktheevidence.com website, a massive and fascinating collection of information (I was flicking through the Oxford Journal, a free local newspaper, a few days ago and saw something that convinced me I was hallucinating. There was a full-page advertisement for Andrew Johnson’s CheckTheEvidence.com website, a massive and fascinating collection of information (http://www.checktheevidence.com/cms/). The ad showed a photo of Chemtrails and also links to various Chemtrail research and campaigning sites. A few months ago somebody had contacted me on YouTube and asked me about pooling our resources, chipping in and buying a Truth ad in the mainstream press. I was not hallucinating; Andrew Johnson has done just that. The ad came with the disclaimer: “The views expressed in this advertisement are those of the advertiser and not necessarily those of the Oxford Journal.” Well done, Andrew! This is one of many excellent ideas of “spreading the word”. There are others that are just as effective, and less expensive if you can’t afford to do what Andrew has done. You can print flyers; leaflet in the street or put them through people’s doors. Stickers in public toilets are a good way to do things. You don’t have to go out into the streets with a megaphone, so don’t let anyone make you feel guilty if you don’t do that. You'll eventually find your own way.

Activities like this really stick it in the face to Skeptical analysts like Michael Barkun (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Barkun ) In his very patronizing and uninformed book Culture of Conspiracy Barkun stated that “Conspiracy Theorists” like me don’t really want to wake people up or spread the word. We secretly like the fact that we’re in a “cultic milieu” of privileged information. We like being able to look down on “Sheeple” and our information would lose its exclusivity, like a devalued currency, if too many people knew about it. Well I hope this shows Barkun that that is totally untrue. There’s nothing I’d like more if everyone in the world knew what I do! I’d love them all to make films and articles that make my own dissolve into insignificance! Then the world will change and we can have freedom! I don’t enjoy being part of a small community of Truthers. I never use the word “Sheeple” and don’t disparage those around me who do not yet accept what is really going on vis-à-vis 9/11, UFO’s, the spiritual cover-up etc.

I now feel a few regrets that I didn’t get together with that fellow YouTuber and get some of us into a group to produce an ad. I have very few resources, but if we all put in a few pounds it wouldn’t take long until we had enough for the fee for a newspaper ad. The Oxford Journal is published by what used to be the Pergamon Press, Robert Maxwell’s company that gives us The Daily Mirror and The European, not a hotbed of radicalism by any mean! So it goes to show that papers will publish anything so long as the customer pays. Of course the editors and owners would love to censor it, but, as I said in my interview on the Richplanet Starship,(See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-interview-on-richplanet-starship.html) there’s a limit to what can be covered up by force. So let’s go for it!

Latest HPANWO Voice articles: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/12/zecharia-sitchin-1929-2010-official.html
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And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2010/11/illuminati-speaks-william-and-kate.html
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