Chris Al-Asward

Last night I leaned of some sad news, Chris Al-Asward also known as Lethe Bashar died in July just after his 31st birthday. This came as a bit of a shock as I was just wondering where he had got too so went to check his twitter profile. Being the brains and drive behind Escape Into Life I hadn't noticed a complete absence as his other twitter account was still going strong being the one that drove his EIL project.

On his profile page was a tweet saying he had tragically died I couldn't believe it and felt crushed at the same time and then that sinking feeling of - do I have the right to be this upset - after all I have never met him in the flesh. He lives the other side of the world but he had found me on twitter and had encouraged me in the realms of art and writing.

When I have pain flare ups I sometimes cannot sleep and he was often there to talk too. I started my art journal because of a side project he started with the idea of it being sold in the EIL shop. I've took far longer on this than I have expected but I love working on the Art/Visual Poetry Journal.

It is also through him that I found The Flying Trilobite a young artist who seeks to combine science and art, I can't remember but I think he was profiled on EIL. And it was then through him I found the paleo-art site Art Evolved finially giving me a way to combine the two parts of me - The Artist and the Scientist.

Part of my anguish last night was having not noticed that someone I regually talk to was gone, I know the last few months have been pretty much a wipe out for me but still Also as Alaric agreed with me - what of his books? His work? His Art? His Creations? What would happen to them?

I have been told since that there are plans to publish these and everyone is working hard to mantain the websites. The is also a Prize in the pipelines The Chris Al-Asward Prize for braking down the barriers in the arts.

I did cry and it made me realise that my definition of friendship is probably quiet different from most peoples. I am sad that Chris is gone. I spent last night trying to track down all his sites and stuff - getting stumped for a while until I remembered he'd gotten rid of one of his twitter accounts and stuff like that.

I also signed his memorial book.

TYCHRIS

Recording Poetry

Tuesday I went into Cheltenham to record poetry Cheltenham's Arter Dark magazine videoed me and three others doing a variety of poetry and prose (our own work). It will be appearing on their site in a couple of weeks

May’s Challenges

Well for April I managed the poem challenge NaPoWriMo but failed at Scriptfrenzy as basically I didn't know what I was doing - sigh. But though I was a bit sad about my Comic book script I have learnt alot and have the beginnings of something. Next year I would have my storyboard ready and waiting rather than spending the month working on that before starting the script (apparently I'm doing this bit the wrong way round anyway but I can't write the script without the storyboard - I know I tried!).

Anyway May starts off with NaPiBoWriWee which for those of you who hate the acronymes is National Picture Book Writing Week - the challenge is to write seven picture books in seven days. This sounds scarier than writing a novel in a month to me personally but there you go!

I'm going to use the story ideas from PiBoIdMo and write the stories to go with them. I will be keeping track of this project on Orange Monster.

Of course this is only going to take up the first week of May so what else am I going to do? Well I have designated May my FiPoMo (and yes I have just made this up!) which stands for Finish Project Month. It's all very well me doing these writing challenges but if I never polish them afterwards and do something with them they are so much dross.

I have a big extensive list - most of which I wont get round to but the top priority is the Monster game followed by some book editing and publishing!

Higgs Boson Anthology

I have a poem published in an Anthology about theoretical particles

The Higgs Boson Anthology

A Case For the GMC

As some of you know around the time we started this blog my uncle died in horrific circumstances in Hospital and it has only just come before the General Medical Council which will probably produce little result.

There have been arguments over weather it was mansluaghter, murder or gross negligence etc...

I ended up holding Benny down whilst the emergancy physiotherapist attempted to manually pump his lungs out where the feeding tube had been switched on whilst in his lung

This broke his ribs but was the only hope to save his life by this point plus there were many things wrong like no water reservior in the breathing machine so he was drying out. Benny had Downes' Sydrome and was very scared that night, he was getting better and though it could be argued his quality of life was low - he thought he had a good deal as long as there was enough cake.

Basically even if it was done as a mercy act it was definatly NOT, it was horrible and he was scared and the knock on effect in the family where people have held themselves to blame becuase they trusted doctors to know when to switch the feeding machine on. (Benny when scared could fight over being fed).

Anyway - this is not the only case like this I have been hearing off. Al's grandmother was put on a drip with no Gloucose in it (as was Benny and also a friend of mine and Al's who was in hospital due to forgetting to eat :/ ). The Doctors told family that if they fed the old woman they would no longer get any state help to look after her. A nurse has told me a similar story about her grandfather which was one of the reasons she wont work for certain hospital trusts.

So as far as I can tell there is illigal euthenasia in our hospitals or something very amiss in the way we educate drs and nurses! And worse people who want to die and plead are kept alive and those who can not defend themselves are dying in the most horrific ways such as being what amounts to being starved to death or drowned.

I can only hope that it is ineptitude and they aren't really viscous killers and that an education reform could fix these things. My own experience of hospitals is that they are indeed very broken and need a massive over haul. Including sacking all the foot shufflers who pretend they can't here you're heart monitor alarm go off >:(

Anyway I started this post becuase I've written a poem about that night at the hospital and was intending to post it but thought I should add in some background.

A Case for the GMC

Wizzen broken monkey
Skin grey
Wrinkeled crepe paper
Downey whiskers
Sharpe dowdy white
In striped pajarmers
Convict of the ward
On death row
Drowning in food
A mistake
A cull?
Tortured
by those who save
Broken ribs
From pumping you out
Cracked lips
From resusitation
Now blue
Eyes revolve
As a horse in panic
They can not save you
They can't now
But they did not want to
Did they?