http://arwebwriting.wetpaint.com/page/MANIFESTO+-+group+2

Chris decided to enter the marathon over a year ago. He had chosen his charity, collected sponsorship and trained every day.

Despite the ups and downs, Chris was now half a mile from the finish line of the London Marathon.

Chris glanced sideways. A large cat appeared – it was breathing hard. Chris slowed slightly to let it pass and noted that it was running for the ‘Cat’s Protection League’.

The finish line was in sight. He’d made it.

Until that day, the day that Scott’s future was taken away from him, the catastrophic accident that changed our Scott for life, nothing could have ever prepared Scott for what was going to happen, nothing could ever prepare anyone for what was about to happen.

Stop, look and listen, but Scott didn’t.

At the age of thirteen, Scott was an energetic and gifted sportsman. He was the teenager that everyone loved, and everyone was envious of his outstanding performances on the football pitch. They said he could have been playing in the premiership at the age of 17.

Until that day, the day that Scott’s future was taken away from him, nothing could have prepared Scott for what was going to happen.

Stop, look and listen, but Scott didn’t.

Original

Memory is a treacherous thing. It can bring us back to happy times, and bring us back to our worst. It can help us in exams, and day to day life. It is what provides us with ourselves. Our memories and what we learn make us who we are. Does it mean that people with amnesia or Alzheimer’s become less of a person?

Some people only have a short term memory, others have no short term memory at all. Children remember almost everything that happens, things that adults don’t take notice of anymore. Sometimes, I wish I could just stop thinking, and forget. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t me, that I could be someone else, in some other time, and live a different life. I’m going to make it happen, one day soon. I won’t remember this life any more.

Edited Version

Memory is a treacherous thing. Our memories make us who we are. Does it mean that people with amnesia or Alzheimer’s become less of a person?

Sometimes, I wish I could just stop thinking, and forget. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t me, that I could be someone else, in some other time, and live a different life. I’m going to make it happen, one day soon. I won’t remember this life any more.

Nobody knew his pain, for it was his alone to bear. It was his decision to enter this paradise each day, and so he had to bear the pain came with it. Only he knew the secret of paradise: that it carries a cost, and that no one may enter unless the price is paid.

At first sight, the hole seemed completely natural: an opening into a subterranean world that man knew nothing about. It bore no resemblance to the other cave entrances nearby, where warrior-monks entered the underworld as a test of their inner strength. To the rare passer-by, it was simply another cave – untouched by mankind, and therefore not worth the danger of exploring.

But those who took a closer look would notice something very unusual: a few feet into the cave lies a series of steps, leading down into the darkness. Hand-carved steps; man-made steps. Steps that beckon the unwary into another world.

Few are those with the curiosity to look into the cave. Fewer still are those brave enough to enter it. Only one has ever had the courage to descend the stairs, and he suffered a breakdown shortly after he returned.

Unmarked Cave; Somerset, United Kingdom

Sooner or later, everyone becomes angry with the fact that they’re being watched, recorded, compared – and criminalised. This guide represents the tools needed to break free from the oppression that we all face.

Step One: Close all banks accounts that you have – or close all but one, and use that one as little as possible. If you pay for everything with cash instead of by cheque or card, your spending habits will be very hard to trace.

Step Two: Work “off the grid” if you can, accepting only cash as payment.

Step Three: Invest in sustainable power, such as solar panels. This will make you more independent, and will prevent your use of electricity from being monitored.

Step Four: Pay to have a borehole dug in your back garden. This shall provide you with fresh water, and increase your self sufficiency.

Step Five: Whenever you go into developed areas, wear clothing that will make you hard to distinguish: a hat, a scarf, gloves, sunglasses, etc. CCTV surveillance is useless if your face is covered.

And lastly, for those who are more determined to evade the system:

Step Six: Learn the basic skills of hacking. Using these, you will be able to encrypt your emails, ensure that your browsing habits remain secret, and surf the net anonymously.

Step Seven: Don’t have a house telephone. Use only an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile phone – using two or more increases the effectiveness. Basically, if your phone isn’t registered, your phone calls can still be monitored – but they cannot be tracked back to you.

Step Eight: Lastly, this is the step for the most hardcore evaders: those who never want to be found. Before you engage in any of these steps, change your name and move location several times – preferably from country to country. This creates reams of administrative data about you and makes you difficult to track: only the tax man will still be able to find you, if he tries hard enough!

1. Take can of beans and open with a tin opener

2. Place it in a non metal container

3. Put in a microwave for three minutes

4. Take two pieces of bread – brown or white, one or two – and put in toaster for two and a half minutes – or longer if toast is preferred well done.

5. Stir beans halfway through cooking

6. Take toast out of the toaster

7. Spread on the butter

8. Place toast on plate

9. Pour beans over toast

10. Enjoy!

I’ve just been reading an article on the BBC about how Iceland have been branded terrorists – basically, Iceland’s bank gets in trouble, and Britain realises that it has a significant amount of money invested in said bank. So, what is our government’s glorious solution? They use the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to seize all Icelandic assets in Britain.

I’ve often ranted about how our freedoms are being slowly eroded by our current government and its campaign to eradicate all freedom of thought, speech and movement – but this just takes it too far. Could Iceland really help the fact that they’re the latest victims in the economic slowdown? Is it really diplomatic to dump them in the same category as the 7/7 bombers?

When are people going to wake up and realise that we’re no longer free? That soon all of our electronic devices will be monitored, live? That saying the wrong thing – and there are a lot of things that are currently considered wrong – could lead to being detained without charge or legal representation for up to a month? Come on, people, this is madness!

This week, the burden’s fallen on me to review a number of blogs that revolve around ‘lifestyle’. Now since this is a particularly convoluted genre (hobbies? interests? sports? career?), I hadn’t really got a clue where to start. As with all people lost on the back roads of the net, I did the only thing I could.

Yes, I visited Google.

Now, without further ado, here are three randomly chosen ‘lifestyle’ blogs, and my thoughts on each one:

Charles & Marie

At first sight, this website doesn’t seem quite…right. For starters, there aren’t really any blogs visible – and there are various things for sale, besides. In fact, it just seems to be a mass of images, random paragraphs, and overpriced-yet-unnecessary items.

Looking closer, however, there are actually blog posts on the website. They’re just fairly well hidden (ignoring the text ‘navigator’s blog’ which – lets be honest – isn’t that noticeable): scrolling down a little, you can find thumbnail pictures which, if you hover over them, give snapshots of the blog they link to. It’s kind of nifty, but then you remember that you actually had to find that out – it wasn’t that obvious when you entered the site.

So, this blog may be colourful, well endowed with images and fairly useless wares: but for the purpose of being a user-friendly blog, it’s a failure.

PumaTalk Lifestyle

This blog is more promising: simpler, easy to navigate, stylish and humorous. Well, it is at first sight: scrolling down and looking at the blog posts, the reader will find out that the blog focuses solely on the Puma brand of trainers. New designs, adverts, people sponsored by the company, you name it. Not really my cup of tea.

Functionally, however, the blog is pretty spot on: there’s a box to the right describing the reasons why the blog exists, and each post is written with simple sentences and small, easy-to-scan paragraphs. The writer even throws in various pictures, videos, and bullet-pointed (or numbered) information, to break up the text even more. Readers will be able to find out what this blog’s about pretty easily, and then will be able to scan through the posts themselves and get the gist of what they’re saying, without too much effort.

All in all, bit of an odd topic for a blog – but the way it’s designed and written is superb.

Scripps News

This is easily the most appealing blog I found, stylistically speaking. It’s quite a standard layout – items of interest on either side, posts in the middle – but that’s the beauty of it: it makes it much more accessible.

The posts on the front page are only previews of each actual blog – so that the reader can scan each post, and choose the one that interests them. I find this feature pretty useful, because it takes so much less time to scan for what I want to read. The posts themselves vary from post to post – but that’s because they’re sourced from different news outlets…and besides, it’s all part of the charm.

So, if you want to see how well structured blogs can be – or if you particularly like reading American news – Scripps News is definitely the place to start.