Kickstarter Project is Now Live!

November 28, 2012 Leave a comment

I am delighted to say that the project to fund the printing of Underminers in physical and eBook form has gone live.

If you click on the link below (which is http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/861859782/publishing-of-underminers-in-physical-and-ebook-fo for those who like texty links) then you will go to my Kickstarter page, which lays out the basic premise for needing a bit of money. Sadly Lulu doesn’t barter, nor does any PoD publisher, so in order to get some important stuff done then I need at least £900 (about $1440) to get things moving.

I have created an FAQ below the main text on the Kickstarter page and will be adding to this as people ask questions – if you have any questions then please comment below this blog, or do it via the project page. Basically, by funding the distribution and publicity of the book you are helping make a wave of undermining get just that bit closer. And remember, I won’t be making a bean out of this – I never have done.

Many, many thanks, and please pass on the link x

Filed under Publication, Publicity

Getting A Kick Start

November 27, 2012 Leave a comment

I made a video, you might have noticed it on the front page, so I won’t repeat it here. The reason for the video was, originally, to accompany a project on Kickstarter, though I rather like it so will probebly put it everywhere – if only to make people feel morerable about civilization and my doomy voice. The Kickstarter project is modest, to say the least.

With some dismay I have seen Kickstarter projects raise hundreds of thousands of Dollars (and now Pounds) for, basically, lumps of pointless shit – such as cameras that record your every living moment, or masks that flash so you can, apparently, have more lucid dreams (yes, it’s nonsense). I like to think that my project is worthwhile and suitably modest – I need just £900 in order to produce copies of the book for promotions and thank-yous, and also to produce a professional standard eBook.

More information and a big splashy headline when the project goes live. At the moment I’m waiting for approval because apparently I haven’t made lots of dramatic statements about how incredibly risky the project is. I can’t quite bring myself to tell them that the only real risk is to the industrial system.

Filed under General Thoughts, Publicity

Exciting, Paper-Related Things

November 17, 2012 Leave a comment

It’s arrived. Or rather, the first “It” has arrived.

Lulu have delivered and the first draft of Underminers was handed over by my friendly postie yesterday just as I was walking to the village soup lunch (posties here do things like that). A slab of paper dound in a shiny bit of card with pictures and words shouldn’t get people that excited, should it? But books are enormously powerful – their tangible, tactile nature trumps anything online in its fuzzy electromagnetic form. Riffling through the pages was a thrill, but straight away I new a few things had to be changed – little things like the colour of the cover text, image formatting, thickness of spacer lines, that kind of thing. It’ll take me a few days to work through the list I’ve made, and then I’ll order another copy which, if it’s ok, will then be available to buy.

Then the fundraising begins…watch this space.

Filed under Publication

New Look, New Text

November 13, 2012 2 Comments

Hello everyone and welcome to my lovely, shiny website. You might have noticed a couple of changes – not least the huge black and white image behind the pages which is, in fact, part of the new front cover for the impending print version of Underminers. Another change is the home page which has, up to now, been lacking anything resembling a proper blurb; now that the text is ready it’s time to make things a little more friendly.

A big thank you to all of my readers up to now. I know it’s all looked a bit stark and bare, but for many (potential) Underminers, something without embellishment is just the ticket. But things change, albeit in this case for the better, because I can happily say that the text on the website is the same as the text that will appear in the printed book, so by clicking on each chapter you are getting what those people who buy the book will be getting, except for free.

Damn! it’s taken a long time. The book proofs are currently with those nice people at Lulu, and a draft copy is being printed so I can do the very final checks on it. It has a cover and it will have a few extra pictures drawn by my very talented daughter, Sophie, once we work out where they will best fit.

Oh, and I will need to raise a little money to get a small print-run done for those who have helped and distribution to friendly media, and also produce an eBook to get the word out even further. Watch this space.

Anyone fancy making me a video? :-)

Filed under Preparation, Publication, Website

The Donald Trump Enigma (One That Got Away)

November 7, 2012 Leave a comment

Following the horrible destruction of the Menie dune system in Aberdeenshire by Trump Golf Scotland, as well as supporting the Tripping Up Trump campaign* ever since its instigation, has been like waterboarding myself on a regular basis then coming up into the sunshine every time I realised that Donald Trump is just another representation of the system most of us are happy to be a part of. The recent UK network premier of You’ve Been Trumped has, at least been a shot in the arm for anyone who symbolically opposes everything Trump and his golfing empire stands for. As for creating real change…

Which is why something I originally wrote for Underminers, but which didn’t make the final cut, seems appropriate for digging out at this very moment. The campaign may have moved on, but the opposition to the capitalist engine remains stuck in neutral.

Donald Trump is merely a symbol, a preposterous parody, if you like, of the unrepentant capitalist system we meekly accept as our lot. If we are incapable of even undermining a parody then what chance is there of undermining the dark heartlessness of a tangible portion of the industrial world. Trump survives all the superficial attempts to damage his credibility – it figures that the system he represents thrives. Trump has succeeded thus far at Menie (unilaterally renamed the Great Dunes of Scotland) not because he is powerful but because he has successfully exploited both the corruption inherent in the system and the lack of any opposition to what he represents. It’s no good opposing Trump “the man” if you don’t oppose Trump “the purveyor of all that stinks in the capitalist system”.

Just one more reason why symbolic protest is no protest at all.

(*Sometime in 2009, I think, I found myself in conversation with some potential anti-Trump activists at an anarchist gathering. The discussion circled around the various forms of direct action that might actually make development a real struggle – I remember suggesting subtly moving surveyors poles and declaring constant Right To Roam as two possibilities. As it happened, Tripping Up Trump publically eschewed direct action, and denied taking part in a spate of “vandalism” in 2010. I believe them.)

Filed under General Thoughts