So, I’m not dead. I don’t appear to be in any unusual risk of shuffling off the mortal coil, either. Which is nice. I stopped posting because I was laid flat with bronchitis, but it’s been arthritic pain that’s stopped me resuming over the last month. In other words, I’m OK, just ouchy. I’m scheduled to start the next level on the treatment pyramid within a couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to muster the determination to resume service here before then. Honest!

So thanks for sticking with me — and many, many thanks for your well-wishes and concern — and the Great Game and Ghostwoods will resume soon.

If you liked this insane selection of pictures, check out All Lies and Jest by author Kate Harrad. It’s got were-mosquitos, irritating elf wannabes, Holographic Evil Jesus, homicidal Christians, a girl who changes her personality more often than her shoes, and a very healthy dose of snarkiness. I think you’ll like it. 

Let’s be honest about criminality, however. Despite the lies we’re fed to persuade us to remain moral, upstanding citizens, criminal activity often pays very well indeed. The hours are pretty good on the whole, and the risks are actually quite minimal. You don’t have to commit a perfect crime. You just have to commit one that’s harder to solve than general bulk of dumb crime. Prison is always a threat, but the danger of ending up there is actually much lower than you would imagine. In most of the industrialised democracies, the percentage of crimes resulting in a successful prosecution barely scrapes into double digits.

There are worse things than prison, of course. Murder is a danger when all your colleagues and contacts feel comfortable ignoring the law, particularly if they stand to make a lot of money by bumping you off. There are certain sectors of the criminal world where this is a particular risk – the drugs sector being the most notorious. But there are plenty of dangerous legal jobs too, such as being a test pilot, mining and, most lethal of all, fishing.

In fact, crime really only gets genuinely dangerous when you get sloppy, stupid or greedy. If you take a patient, professional attitude and think things through pretty carefully, the risks are comparatively minimal. It is an area where earnings can be impressively high, too. There are even some scams that manage to exploit loopholes and remain perfectly legal whilst still being really very criminal in their nature. Fraud can be a wonderfully grey area if you do it just right.

An interesting new trend in modern crime is the development of the criminal equivalents of the mega-corporations – if there’s a difference, that is. The old crime societies like the Mafia, the Yakuza, the Triads and the Cartels used to be fractured into highly antagonistic little warring units. Modern management theory changed all that, however. Everyone realises you can make much, much more money by working together. The new groups are known as the Transnational Criminal Organisations, or TCOs – giant international criminal groups, run just like any other large modern business, but without even the vestigial sense of restraint that the corporations still retain. The TCOs stay highly flexible, build on each others strengths, pull together to create world-spanning process chains, and even work with each other to defeat minor nuisances such as major world governments. The new crime lords aren’t Dons. They’re accountants. It’s a brave new world of criminal opportunity…

Don’t be fooled into believing in a rosy image of the criminal world, however. There is one unavoidable cost. No matter how much you may consciously believe you have no conscience, or that other people deserve what you’re planning to do to them, the fact remains that harming other people unnecessarily is against our basic natures, and its wrongness is written deep in our unconscious minds. Take on a criminal career, and you will do massive damage to yourself. Sad perhaps, but true. Of course, there are always people who think the rewards are worth the price.

They’re wrong.

A close relative of Oscàr's

Do you have a girlfriend?

Let’s just say that I do have a rather beautiful Bromeliad.

I’m concealing my identity only because I don’t want to bias your answer. so… do you? Tell!

Alright, I suppose I deserved that!

I’m not on the meat-market. Will that do?

A Bromeliad. You mean, like a plant? Is your “plant” a good kisser?

Not especially, no. But it’s a wonderful, sensitive listener, and it’s impressively independent.

Does it have lingerie?

Its nether regions are wrapped in a flimsy piece of red material, yes!

So given your plant status, there’s probably no chance that you’d go out with me then?

Well, obviously that depends. Maybe you and the plant could have a head-to-head debate, like during presidential elections…

So are you saying then that the plant is fulfilling all your needs? Because I have lingerie. And you know… hands and stuff. And all my body parts have names, like my left foot is named Susan for example.

My! You’re keen.

Perhaps my needs are minimal… Try me, and we’ll find out. And please give my best regards to Susan.

There are carious other bits that are going to be jealous if I give your regards to Susan. Venus, Lola, Brigitte and Star in particular. Star has quite a crush on you. Perhaps we’d better have a date so you can meet them all at once.

I sympathise with your problem. Nothing worse than a jealous Star, eh?

So a date is probably a good idea. If you beat the Bromeliad in the debate series, anyway.

Are you really going to make me debate a Bromeliad? I’ll wear stockings…

Come on, don’t tell me you’re scared…

Where and when will this debate take place?

At a time and place of my choosing. Feel free to send me a list of suitable dates and venues.

Twenty minutes, your bedroom. If the Bromeliad can be there, so can I.

I’ll believe it when I see it. If you’re planning to parascend in, I suggest wearing sturdy boots so you get through the double glazing rather than plunging 14 storeys to a messy death!

You might just agree to a normal date rather than putting me through all this. You some sort of plantophile, I guess. I hope she (?) makes you very happy.

Oh, come on! If you can’t even face down a fecking jungle plant, what chance do you have against a crazed writer?

The Bromeliad, by the way, is caller Oscàr.

You could have just told me you already have a girlfriend. What’s her name?

God. I _told_ you. It’s Oscàr.

I’m try to face down the FECKING JUNGLE PLANT but you just told me to wear boots and crash through your flat window, Tim. What the hell makes you think I would be caught dead in BOOTS?

I’m quite sure that properly reinforced and sharpened stiletto heels would have much the same effect.

So… look. I really like you. You’re smart, funny, attractive. Isn’t there some way around this whole … Oscar dilemma? I’m asking you now, seriously. Star will really be depressed if you say no.

You have some worrying self-worth issues. Oscàr is a BROMELIAD. They cling to jungle tree-leaves and suck moisture from the air. They’re not known for their debating skills. Why are you so concerned?

I see. It’s the whole sucking moisture from the air thing that’s got you on about this PLANT. I have some pretty awesome skills in that skill set myself. Which you MIGHT find out if you would just go out on a normal date with me.

Well, that is certainly a point in your favour, and one that I’ll bear in mind for the final tally. But please, don’t think of it as engaging in a debate. Think of it as becoming part of a large family of exotic flora.

I’m beginning to think that a cheese shop with no cheese would be almost Nirvana-like. I’ll debate the plant. Why don’t you ask me the questions right now? If I win, I’ll come over. If the plant wins, I’ll retire to an exotic plant farm.

Oh, no! That would never do. You have to be able to hear each other’s replies, and react and interact accordingly. Otherwise, it’s just not a debate — it’s a mere _test_!

Do you have a solution for this problem? Because I am getting a little flustered. And Star is, frankly, conspiring with Venus and Lola about tying you up in a basement somewhere.

Oh, well, that sounds promising…

Really? Does it have to be an actual basement?

It might be for the best. Bromeliads don’t like basements.

What if I brought a friend for the Bromeliad?

Make sure the friend has read Proust, that’s all I’m saying.

You expected me to debate a Bromeliad who’s read Proust? In BOOTS? I’m beginning to wonder if this whole dating thing is a good idea. But ALRIGHT. When?

I believe the next full moon is on March 30th, so that would seem a good opportunity.

Look. I’ve got a couple of body parts who shall remain nameless (Star!) who are not going to give me any rest until I (can we be honest?) do something to you that starts with f and ends with uck. And it’s not firetruck. Haven’t you got anything sooner?

My god! I haven’t been Friar Tucked since grade school. Your Star is a public menace! How about the 12th?

Alright. I hope it’s worth it. It’s going to be torture. You know, teaching my Bromeliad to read and all. Are you any good at it?

Good? No! I am a jayneeous!

So… aren’t you curious about who I am?

Well, the way I see it is, if you’re capable of abseiling through my 14th floor bedroom window wearing stockings and stilettos, you’re at least worth stacking up against the Bromeliad.

Wait. What? I thought we got out of the debate part with the tying up and the plant companion whose read Proust. I want to make love to you, Tim. Don’t you see what I’m saying? Can’t we just flat out… you know… ?

Hey, I’m not that easy! You want my sweet loving, you gotta earn it. You gotta go up against the Bromeliad!

Fine. You know what? I’m going to sacrifice a couple of pairs of my stockings and let Venus, Lola and Star have their way with you. Fuck doing this the normal way. Fair warning.

Bring. It. On. I’m not scared of three random body parts and a few chunks of hosiery!

Oh, it is ON. It is SO ON. If you hear a noise at your window in oh, about fifteen minutes, don’t worry. It will NOT be a woman in stockings, stilettos, a 34D bra and a pair of symbolic (read: miniscule) panties carrying a trained Bromeliad and some rope.

I’ll leave the window open.

I’m sorry! I suck!

Unfortunately, I’ve been overloaded with work on a critical, Top Secret project for most of February. I know that’s dull of me, so as a little bit of a consolation, I thought I’d tell you the things that I’m (more or less) allowed to reveal about it. Hopefully, my publishers won’t put a price on my head.

Put simply, it’s a treasure hunt.

The book (which will be available globally) takes the form of a series of images, accompanied by passages of text. Each image/text combination contains a series of clues, which taken together will point to a specific solution. As a theoretical f’rinstance, a large bear on its hind legs in a picture could suggest a Russian link.

Each of the solutions, taken together, will then point to the final answer.

The first person to solve the answer, and submit it after a specific date, will win money. A _lot_ of money.

The answer exists in only two places: my head, and a highly-encrypted DVD locked in a secure bank vault. Obviously if anything dodgy happens to me — I vanish, get kidnapped, die suspiciously, etc etc — then the whole deal is off. Finding the answer won’t require any specific skill or cultural background; literally anyone could do it, if they try. Fortunately there’ll be no question of going out into the countryside with a shovel and metal detector :)

Pot of Gold by Tao Zhyn

So it’s a really exciting project. I’m not allowed to reveal the title yet, but I can tell you that I’ve been thinking of it as The Labyrinth.

The one piece of advice I’d give to anyone hoping to win is to get to know the way I think. It’s good advice for any puzzle; the better you understand the mind that created it, the easier it is to solve it. There may — just may — be clues hidden here in the blog, and other places where I can be found online. Later on, I’ll probably have a specific Twitter feed and blog too, but I’ll still drop little nuggets here for just you :)

Oh, and no, I’m afraid I’m not open to bribes!

The Noughtie List.

I also considered rounding up a selection of news, reviews and so on, but again, it just felt like old hat.

When I thought about it some more, it became fairly obvious that I was woefully underqualified to talk about 2009 in any meaningful sense except one — how it seemed to me. That may not be a ‘fully leveraged’, ‘needs-focussed’ or ‘vertically segmented’ view of the year, but it does have the virtue of being honest.

My main sense of 2009 was of a lull between storms. 2008 was tumultuous, peaking with the global economy screeching right up to the very edge of total catastrophe, and with Obama’s victory at the American polls. Last year, by contrast, felt like we were all holding our breaths, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Governments world-wide poured torrents of money into the banking sector. The financial sector immediately stopped wailing doom and went back to binging itself stupid on cash. The sense of terror eased, but circumstances didn’t change all that much. We’ll have to start paying for those bail-outs soon… but we didn’t really start in 2009.

A nice picture of the Algarve in Portugal. Irrelevant, but so much nicer to look at than politicians or swine flu victims.

Swine flu and terrorism were the two huge sticks we were told to be scared of in 2009, but neither actually smacked us. Swine flu deaths, whilst tragic, were less than those from regular flu, and effective terror attacks were pretty much non-existent in the west. Even global warming, the big long-range Bête Noire of modern life, had its fear aura slightly blunted by the scandal over made-up data.

None of these things have gone away, and any one of them could still potentially become a hideous nightmare — yes, including the economy — but for 2009, they were little more than phantasms.

We had some things to distract us, as usual. In the US, Obama made some pleasant noises to the cameras without really achieving anything much; In the UK, we somehow spent most of the year being shocked that our politicians were greedy and unscrupulous, but even then, the MP Expenses firestorm didn’t really change anything in the real world. I was particularly revolted to note that everyone, everywhere seemed to be astonished that an ugly woman should possess a good singing voice and be a nice person.

As for my own life, I spent most of 2009 wrestling with arthritis. I’ll spare you the tedious details, and just say that Christine Miserandino’s Spoon Theory is as perfect a summary as you’re likely to find anywhere. I didn’t have any family dramas, massive job stresses, or relationship crises, unless you consider continued supply shortages in all three areas to equate to problems. Forgive me if that sounds downbeat; it’s not supposed to. I got back to the UK late in ’08 after several years Dubai and Australia. My arthritis only really started taking off in ’06, so for two years I’d been working around it, but not actually seeking treatment. I simply didn’t have enough money to do so whilst abroad. One of the reasons I came back home to the UK was to start getting the disease properly treated, and that’s what 2009 was about for me: working my way up the treatment ladder step by step. In that sense, it was a firm success. I hope to move up to drugs that can actually keep the disease fully at bay in 2010, at which point things like having ‘a life’ can resume!

In summary then, 2009 felt like a year on hold — both for me personally, and for the world at large. I suspect that my experiences have coloured my perceptions, but they’re the only ones I have.

This is the full transcript.

Dunedin by DownUnderPhotos

Ghostwoods: Hi Lyn. Good to talk to you again. This time, you’re going to guide me through a Remote Viewing session, is that right?

Lyn: Right. Let me run over to the closet. I have a stack of targets for teaching class today. I’ll just grab one of those.

GW: OK, great. I haven’t done any preparation but I guess it’s not really necessary for this sort of thing.

Lyn: Let me see. I have one here.

GW: Ok, great, what do I need to do?

Lyn: Ok, first of all you need to write down your information — name, location, starting time, and so on. You can do that later for this. You do need to write down the starting time now though.

GW: OK, right.

Lyn: I can give you some coordinates. Have you worked with ideograms?

GW: I have done some ideogram things so I know what you mean by that, yeah.

Lyn: Ok, sometimes we tell a viewer what their work is. We don’t tell them anything about the targets, but just what the intentions of the brief were. Do you want that, or do you want to go into it cold?

GW: No, I might as well go in cold, I’m game.

Lyn: OK, sounds good, that’s the best way, that’s nice. OK, let’s see, let me give you some numbers to write down. Are you ready? OK. 060221000011.

GW: 060221000011.

Lyn: Right, OK. Part of the reason of those numbers is to get your pen moving so you don’t have to start with it cold to get the ideogram, so let me give those to you again and as soon as you write the last one, just go ahead and make the ideogram, your pen will be moving already.

GW: Ah, OK.

Lyn: OK. 060221000011.

GW: OK.

Lyn: OK, um, look at the ideogram, feel your way along it, see if there’s a change in the feel of it anywhere. If there is, register that point with a little tick mark.

GW: Whoa, yeah! There is!

Lyn: Are there any more? Is there Only one tick mark / only one change, or is there more?

GW: Uh, there’s a second change right towards the end as well. I can’t define what the changes are, but if you… well, something feels a bit different.

Lyn: That’s it. That’s all you’re looking for. So we have an ideogram that has compacted into it three different gestalts. Now take each one in turn, over to the right, look at each one, and trace the shape of only the first one.

GW: Right. Do I tell you what the shape is?

Lyn: Yeah.

GW: Okay. Umm.

Lyn: It only has the three dimensions — like it goes across, it goes up, it goes down…

GW: Oh, Ok. It starts off slanting upwards, then goes straight down.

Lyn: OK good. Touch that part of the ideogram, see how the pen feels under the paper. Is it hard, soft, rough, smooth, slicky, sticky…

GW: It feels soft.

Lyn: OK good. So you have one that goes up-down, soft.

GW: OK.

Lyn: So now you make a WAG – A Wild-Ass Guess!

GW: OK! Well, if I was going to guess wildly, I’d say this was something like mud or quicksand or some surface that feels fluid, but not necessarily quite as fluid as normal water.

Lyn: OK let’s just call it land then, mud becomes just the generic thing for land. Or do you want to make it water?

GW: Ah… Um. No, I’m going to stick with land.

Lyn: OK, go to the next one and do the same.

GW: Ok that feels a lot firmer. Can I say hard?

Lyn: Yeah, uh-huh, but would that… you start out with 7 basic gestalts: Land, Water, Motion (activity, movement), Space, Biological, Man-made and Natural. Would it be any one of those?

GW: Uh, well…

Lyn: One of the reasons I ask is because all of these images are selected for having one or more of those as the content. This feels hard?

GW: I don’t get a feel of artificial, so I guess I’m going to have to go with land again?

Lyn: OK, sure.

GW:… But harder land, like stone versus mud.

Lyn: So, basically you have harder land and softer, muddy land. So go with the third, see what you get there.

GW: The third gives me an immediate impression of sharpness, spikiness. I think maybe its metal or something, so I’m going to go with man-made for that.

Lyn: OK, sounds good. So we have two types of land and some man-made. The monitor at this point always says “there may be other gestalts. Do you want to take the coordinates again?” It’s totally up to you. It doesn’t mean there are more gestalts, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just the only patter that the monitor can use at this point.

GW: Uh, no, I’ll stick with this one ideogram, thanks.

Lyn: OK, then let’s, say, describe the man-made. What you do now is try to focus on the man-made and try to get sensory descriptors such as colours, sounds, textures, tastes, smells, and senses like that. Now I need to tell you, in this early part your mind is still winking about the site so you might get descriptors of something that’s not man-made at all but we’ll sort that out later. Right now you’re just going to get descriptors from the entire site, don’t worry about whether it applies to the man-made. Any colours, any sounds, smells, tastes, textures, the ambience?

GW: I’m, um, getting, um… bright.

Lyn: Good. You’d write that down.

GW: Yep. Um. I think it’s kinda like a sheer or flat surface. I’m going to go back to the comment about sharp, that’s still there.

Lyn: Sure. Good descriptor, write it down.

GW: Um, the only colour impression I’m getting is metallic, but I’m not sure whether it’s my mind getting in the way.

Lyn: Don’t worry about that. Your mind will take care of itself. Don’t analyse things.

GW: Can I use a word like row? I get a sensation of a repeating set of shapes, if you see, like a row of things?

Lyn: OK. When you wrote down metallic, did you write down metallic colour?

GW: Yeah. Maybe a sound, a bit like a high-pitched whine, a mosquito noise, not loud but quite faint, cool temperature. That’s all I’m getting from that really.

Lyn: OK. In parentheses — anything I say to you should go in parentheses, to show I wasn’t giving information, and to separate what I give from what you perceive — so let me, say, describe the metallic colour, to pick one at random here.

GW: Something… bronzey sort of colour, yeah, bronzey I guess.

Lyn: OK. Mentally tap on the colour. How does it sound?

GW: Dull! Which is quite a surprise… I was…

Lyn: Put your hand on. Temperature?

GW: That’s… the cool I was picking up, it’s cool to the touch.

Lyn: Feel to either side of it, of the metallic. Do you get any textures, temperatures, sounds, smells?

GW: I’m getting a rough feel, like brick. It’s warmer as well.

Lyn: Warm, you say?

GW: Warmer than the metallic.

Lyn: Mentally stop and listen for sounds, do you hear anything?

GW: Uh, I don’t have much confidence in the perception, but the first noise that hit sounded like a car rushing past quickly.

Lyn: OK.

GW: But I’m not sure, it didn’t feel in quite the same part of my mind, so I’m not sure if its imagination or not.

Lyn: Oh, don’t analyse. Every time you analyze a perception, it tells your subconscious, “I don’t trust you”. And so, whatever you get, put it down on paper. We have a way of doing the summary, once you get really in touch with the site, then you use these adjectives and you go back and then you can evaluate each one of these… because then you’ll have stronger contact with the site. So while you’re doing the session it doesn’t matter what you put down, because if its garbage, it’ll get thrown out later.

GW: OK, cool, thank you.

Lyn: So, mentally…

GW: I’m getting quite a lot of sensation of wind generally.

Lyn: Ok, good, good, write it down. You may be subliminally picking up the window I’m sitting beside, it’s blowing thru here like crazy. Do you get any perceptions of colours, sounds, tastes, textures? No matter how slight.

GW: OK, I’m getting cloth.

Lyn: Is that a cloth texture?

GW: Yeah.

Lyn: Ok, write down cloth texture. We keep nouns out of remote viewing, because as soon as you say a noun you lock yourself into an idea. You said cloth texture, a while ago you said brick, you wouldn’t write down brick, you’d write down brick texture. Look down, do you get a colour?

GW: Dark. Darker, dark.

Lyn: Ok, darker colour looking down?

GW: Yeah. Uh. Something of a yielding, crunchy…

Lyn: OK, You’re talking about the dark now?

GW: Uhh… Yeah.

Lyn: OK, in parentheses, put down that it applies to whatever it is that’s dark, that lets us know you’re talking about the dark.

GW: OK, I see. The obvious mental conjecture there is that I want to say gravel, but I know I probably shouldn’t.

Lyn: OK. Put Gravelly, and then put I know I shouldn’t say gravel. You want to record everything that goes through your mind.

GW: OK.

Lyn: Then mentally reach with your hand and touch that darker part, move your hand across it or through it. see how it feels.

GW: Uh, it feels unpleasant actually. Sticky and cold.

Lyn: OK, good. Put your nose to it and smell, how does it smell?

GW: Uh, it’s a smell that reminds me of resin — pine or something, not quite like that. I could say resiny, but I can’t put my finger on it. Almost but not quite chemical. I don’t think it is chemical.

Lyn: OK. Listen for sounds, tastes, textures. Any shapes or sizes you might have perceived.

GW: Tall. Tall is an immediate response.

Lyn: Ok good.

GW: With that tall is an impression of straightness, and a fair amount of thinness. So it’s not like a mountain, which would be sprawly, but more like a ram-rod sort of tall.

Lyn: OK, good. Make sure you get all that down, and keep describing it all.

GW: Uh. Piercing. Hmm. Resonant is a word I’m getting from somewhere.

Lyn: Alright, good, make sure you write it down.

GW: And, uh, cool temperature again.

Lyn: OK, good. Move to the cold temperature and describe it. You see, in RV we can only cue you with things you’ve given to us, sort of messing around on your own words, so describe that which is cold temperature.

GW: Is that in with the tallness still?

Lyn: Oh, it is?

GW: Well, with the darker stuff underfoot I got a feeling of coldness, and then with this tall straight thing, I get a coolness with that too. So do you have a preference to which you want?

Lyn: Uh, whichever one you think you need to, and make sure you make a note of which. If you’re with the tall thing now you may want to stay with that.

GW: Yeah, I’m pulled to the tall thing. Uh. It feels smooth. Part of me wants to say flat, part wants to say round. So, I don’t know, some hybrid shape going on there. Or something. Um. There feels quite a lot of it. I guess I mean that… I’m not sure what I mean.

Lyn: It’s hard, isn’t it!

GW: Yeah, it _is_ hard! Um, right. It’s like maybe there’s more than one?

Lyn: OK, that’s a perception.

GW: Um. It’s quite heavy, in mass terms. Quite massive. I feel I should be able to shake it around but I can’t really.

Lyn: Make sure you write that down. This massive, can you describe more of it? It’s colour, texture? Slap it, see what sound it makes. Kick it, see if it reacts. Put your nose to it, see if it smells.

GW: It feels… pretty solid. Like if I slapped it, I’d hurt my hand.

Lyn: Good, write that down.

GW: I’m not getting any sense of smell. But I’ve noticed in the past that smell is a perception I don’t often get.

Lyn: That’s my case too. I have to remember there’s a difference between me not getting a smell and the perception that there is no smell.

GW: Yeah, it’s a subtle distinction. All I can say at this time is I’m not getting a smell.

Lyn: Ok, good.

GW: Um, let’s see if I can hit something more specific. Uh… _That’s_ interesting. I feel it _could_ move, as if it is something that has the potential to shift position.

Lyn: Good, write that down.

GW: Just not to my hand, y’know? I couldn’t push it. Just for example like a truck — I couldn’t push a truck, but a truck could move. I’m getting an impression of black and red. Uh. Together I think, close together. Maybe like some kind of badge or sign or something.

Lyn: A badge or sign? OK. Those are nouns. Go ahead and write them down, but remember they’re nouns, so don’t put too much faith in them.

GW: I’m getting, it’s almost like I’m being pulled a short distance. I’m getting a more natural feel underfoot, which implies that before, underfoot was more artificial.

Lyn: Oh, no. No, Don’t make implications. You’ll get your logical mind in there and it’ll just muck around and mess you up all over the place. SO if you’re now getting natural underfoot, that’s what you put down.

GW: OK. I’ll go with a green colour, rather than a brown or a sandy.

Lyn: OK, at this point let me ask you a question, do you have an idea in your mind of what the target is? Even vaguely?

GW: Vaguely, yeah.

Lyn: You need to just write that down over to the side and get rid of it, ‘cos that’s your logical mind trying to make sense of all this. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong or right, just that it’s logical.

GW: What I’m pulling down here to get rid of is radio telescope array.

Lyn: Oh. Heh. Very good.

GW: That’s a fair old logical construct there.

Lyn: I’ll cheat a little bit here and tell you that’s not what it is. Dump that imagination and get it out of your mind.

GW: The broader scale impressions I’m getting are… involve repeated artificial elements in a more natural setting. But I don’t know how to really characterise that as a…

Lyn: You just did!

GW: Oh, I guess so. OK. So we’ve ditched that stuff, off to one side.

Lyn: Well we’ve ditched the radio telescope. The descriptors, I can’t give you feedback about those, but you dump the nouns, you keep the descriptors.

GW: Right. So at this point do I continue probing for impressions?

Lyn: Yeah, at this point we continue getting impressions until there comes a moment when it seems one of those impressions is in front of you or beside you or overhead or whatever and at that moment you say to yourself, you know, it was overhead or beside me or something, and then you write down how it made you feel, and when that happens you’re in what’s called phase three — and in phase three you try to start sketching.

GW: Ok, because that sensation of natural underfoot did come with an impression that I had shifted position.

Lyn: Oh, OK. You shifted in relation to it?

GW: In relation to the target in general, yeah. It felt like I came forward and across, to use directional terms.

Lyn: Very good. That would be what’s called an AI. And you had an emotional reaction to the movement. Can you describe that reaction?

GW: Mild relief.

Lyn: Uh good, very good. Your emotional reaction you have is your reaction and it is NOT a descriptor of the site, and in order to get rid of that emotional you have to declare it as a noun. At this point, it would be a good thing if you could start sketching any of these shapes you get, or anything — sketch the underfoot or the tall thing and see what you get.

GW: OK. I’m a horrible artist, but I’m aware that’s not really the point to it. Um. <sketches> As I’m starting to sketch, I’m starting to get conscious impressions, the sort of stuff I should probably be trying to put aside as static.

Lyn: How do you mean?

GW: Well, like, sketching the tall, I’m getting something which my mind is saying looks like a fence, a bit tall chain-link fence.

Lyn: Yeah, you put the nouns to the side, but what are the descriptors you’re getting? How would you describe a chain link fence? This particular chain link fence?

GW: Tall, massive, flexible I suppose, cold, metallic colour, dark underfoot as well. That’s the stuff I’m sketching there. Um. An emotional impression of oppressiveness. Trying to see if I can sketch… more freely, more generally.

Lyn: Uh, the tall, you said it looks like a fence, move to the top of that, see what you get.

GW: Um, partly I’m getting… I think my mind wants me to be picking up sharpness. I’m picking up sharpness. But I’m also at the same time getting the impression also of a ball on top, but the two are fairly contradictory so I’m not happy about that.

Lyn: Oh don’t worry about that, it doesn’t have to make sense to your logical mind!

GW: OK. Well, those are the impressions I’m getting.

Lyn: OK. Whatever is up there, can you touch it, try to get its texture, colour, shapes and sizes?

GW: Texture is prickly.

Lyn: OK

GW: Almost… compound.

Lyn: Ok, good.

GW: Artificial.

Lyn: Ok, good. OK, um, do you want to find more, or… Do you want to do a summary, or continue probing?

GW: Well…

Lyn: I know at this point if you’re like every remote viewer in the world, you’re thinking you haven’t got anything.

GW: Sort of. I don’t know entirely where I’m going with this. It would be tempting to push the session as long and far as possible, just for the experience if nothing else, however at the same time, for what we need for the magazine and for your time… I don’t want to be, y’know, a hog or a freeloader or whatever.

Lyn: Oh, no problem, in fact if you want to go longer if we run out of time, we can go longer. It’s always up to the viewer to say “I think I have enough” or whatever. You’ve been describing the target so you’re doing well.

GW: Wow, thank you. I think for the moment I’d be interested to go through the summary process and see how things wrap up.

Lyn: OK, good. What you want to do at this point is to say the target has elements of land and then what was it another type of land, and then what was the third one, man-made? So once you have that, that’s the first paragraph of your summary. So then we take the first land, and we’re going to write a paragraph about it, and we say “The first land is:” and we go back through the session. Now, at this point you are going to have to evaluate each thing you said as to whether it describes the first land or whether it describes something else. You know, you’re winking around the site. If it describes the first bit of land, then you have to decide whether or not you still feel its true. If it describes the first bit of land and its true, then you write it into your summary. This is where all the garbage falls out. So what can you tell me about the first type of land that is there, in terms of texture, shape, size.

GW: I think the land I was picking up first… that’s this natural, green, natural background setting. I haven’t gotten very many adjectives from it as I can tell.

Lyn: Well, you got soft, you at one point you said muddy, and I think you said almost liquid but you couldn’t tell, and the temperature?

GW: Neutral to coolish.

Lyn: OK, and did it have a smell?

GW: Not that I’m perceiving. Fresh, my mind wants to tell.

Lyn: Fresh. And any colour?

GW: The green was the only colour I picked up.

Lyn: Ok, start a new paragraph and say the second type of land was…

GW: OK The second land was dark. The texture was rough and particulate to a certain extent — smooth from a distance but rough close up, if you see.

Lyn: Make sure you write that in. And is it hard or soft?

GW: It’s quite hard.

Lyn: Quite hard, OK.

GW: And, um, it was the cold, sticky and unpleasant.

Lyn: OK, good.

GW: I have that resin smell with that as well.

Lyn: Oh, OK, good. Did you have anything else for that?

GW: No.

Lyn: Ok, then you start a new paragraph, and say the man-made was…

GW: OK, the man-made is definitely hard, massive and tall. I’m going to stick with flexible, cold and metallic as well.

Lyn: OK, good.

GW: And the sensation of wind moving.

Lyn: OK. How would you describe the wind, texture or sound?

GW: It sounds thin, if wind can sound thin. It feels quite cold. I don’t think it would be nice to be out in.

Lyn: Good, make sure you write all this in. And you had heard a whine?

GW: Yes, I’d got a whine, and a dull thud from thumping it.

Lyn: OK good, and there were repeated…

GW: Repeated artificial elements, yeah. And then, this prickly artificial compound sharp ball sensation for the top of the elements.

Lyn: Ok good.

GW: And this sense of movability.

Lyn: Good, ok.

GW: I had a cloth texture, but I can’t place that.

Lyn: OK, we have an ‘other’ paragraph for stuff you can’t place.

GW: Ok. That would include the cloth texture, the sound of a passing car, the black & red composite patch…

Lyn: Ok. Oh, ok, I see what that is.

GW:…and a general sensation of brightness, which I hadn’t tied to anything. OK, that’s everything one way or another.

Lyn: OK, do you want to know what you were viewing?

GW: Hell yeah, absolutely.

Lyn: It’s the world fair from 1931, the man who invented air conditioning. It’s a display stand, and there are 10 girls in very very short skirts holding snow shovels and ice picks and, uh, the snow shovels are all vertical ‘cos these girls are lined up in two rows and right in the middle, between the two rows, is Louis Carrier, who invented aircon and there is a sign over to the side which says “Air Conditioning”, and um the picture itself is in black and white and the article heading is in red and black, so what you were seeing as the fence is this long row of snow shovels and ice picks — not like you’d use in a refrigerator but like you’d use… — and uh, the sharp is definitely there and the top is round and made of a wooden handle that spills onto a metal bone-like thing that goes down the shaft. I think you did pretty well. The entire scene is just cold.

Remote Viwing target image

GW: That’s interesting. Nothing like any concrete image or visualisation I had in my mind at all!

Lyn: This is one of the things people learn they don’t like about remove viewing — all these nouns they come up with, and you come up with pictures, you know, of telescope dishes and everything… But there is a an archway over this thing that is slanted and it is the thing he’s walking out of, and it forms an arch over these women that were standing there. You come up with these nouns and you think you have a picture of the target, but your subconscious mind says “Go ahead, have your imagination, but I’m going to give you the descriptors of the real target.” You get in your mind one thing and then you describe something else, the real target! In classes, they look at the picture and say “Oh, that’s not what I was scanning”, and you go back and have a look at the target and the descriptors and it’s 90% accurate.

GW: Looking back over the descriptors, I can see where it’s coming from. I would certainly associate whine with air conditioning units, yeah! Fascinating.

Lyn: Well, while the session wasn’t what we Texan’s call a “real barn burner”, it was VERY impressive for a viewer of your level of training and experience.
You got the dark flooring underneath the ice.
You got the ice itself, saying in the beginning that it was wet and almost liquid.
You described the snow shovels and ice picks very well (I would have focused on the legs, myself!)
You very accurately described the sounds of the air conditioners and the “fresh” smell of the shaved ice.
There were several other minor things about the target which you accurately “nailed”, as well.
All in all, a very impressive session, and it helps me get my point across. I don’t want to show people that I can do it… I want to show them that they can do it.

GW: Well, that’s very generous feedback. Thank you very much.

Lyn: Thank you! It’s been a good session, you did very well.

I gradually discovered that in his mind, being an introvert meant that I was like the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Introvert equalled quiet, brooding, twisted, obsessive loner, the sort of cabin-dwelling troll who owns fourteen different assault rifles and a very, very big stack of tinned beans. I assured him it was nothing like that, but he was still shaken.

Introverts Are People Too by Headlessness

In the modern psychological* sense, about 30% of the population are generally considered to be introverted, and 70% extroverted. At the simplest level, introverts are people who find it draining to socialise, and recharge with time alone or with closest companions. Extroverts are the opposite, recharged and revitalised by company, and drained by quiet time. People fall somewhere on a scale between total extroversion and total introversion** — even the wildest social butterfly needs a moment to rest now and again, and the most reclusive hermits still need a modicum of social contact.

There are other tendencies which generally accompany this broad division. Introverts often have good imaginations and rich inner worlds, and a good understanding of themselves and other people. Introverts are more likely than extroverts to be intelligent, depressed and creative; to have low self esteem and sedate clothes; and to be less assertive, happy, obese and criminal. They tend to have close friendships rather than acquaintances; strongly extroverted people may have a horde of acquaintances, but few close friends.

When it comes to interaction, introverts like to have a chance to think and observe before acting, and to be cautious with what they’re saying unless they’re with a group that they know and trust. Large social gatherings can quite easily overwhelm most introverts due to the high levels of stimulation involved.

Ducatti Monster by Mark J. Sebastian

Introversion and shyness do not go hand in hand, however. A shy person avoids social situations because of fear, and most sufferers long to be social butterflies. Introverts can be extremely outgoing for bursts of time, and often have no social anxiety, but they find the experience draining, and less rewarding than extroverts do. Introverts value social time highly, they just prefer to get deeper and more personal with a small group than to have light conversations with a range of people.

Introverts have a fairly tough time of it in Western society. Our societal structures are all highly extroverted. Aggressively assertive people are by far the most likely to succeed at work. The media is full of outgoing, bubbly types who avoid self-awareness like the plague. Top politicians are charismatic, arrogant charmers. The ideal of leisure time that we are shown is to go out on the town to busy venues full of glittering people and meet up with lots of chattering friends. To many introverts, that sounds like a good description of hell after a long week at work.

It doesn’t help that most extroverts find it hard to understand the idea of introversion. Extroverts are focussed outwards, on the world, and tend not to indulge in a whole lot of soul-searching. It is natural to them to seek company, so the idea of anyone finding that hard to manage is utterly alien. It’s a bit like having a friend who needs to spend an hour a day with their head underwater, keeping their gills wet. As any introvert growing up in an extrovert family will attest, extroverts generally falsely assume that introverts are grumpy, aloof, shy, cold, disinterested, or being superior. Usually, nothing could be further from the truth.

Most introverts are warm, kind, interesting people with a lot to offer, often including a unique view of the world. Give them the space they need, and you’ll find it greatly rewarding.

Contemplative by DCvision2006

If you’re an extrovert, here are ten simple things to remember to help you get on well with the introvert in your life.

1. “No thanks” doesn’t mean your introvert thinks you — or your offer — are boring.

2. If an introvert wants to be alone, it’s a not a sign that anything is wrong. Just the opposite; for introverts, being alone is a pleasure.

3. Most introverts will be horrified by a large surprise party.

4. If an introvert has been having a good time out but suddenly goes quiet, they’ve probably just run out of steam.

5. Most introverts will want to leave the party long before you do.

6. If you want to bring an introvert out of their shell, talk about thoughts and feelings, or about a hobby they’re into, and remember to leave plenty of space for them to talk. They won’t make a hole in the conversation to talk into, so if you just keep going, they’ll let you.

7. You know how you feel about a night in the pub? That’s how introverts feel about a night reading a book, playing computer games or watching DVDs.

8. If a chore involves communicating with strangers — taking something back to a store, say — then it’ll get done faster and better if you do it instead.

9. Take it as read that most introverts aren’t going to want to sing in the karaoke / be the first on the dance-floor / go start chatting to random strangers / meet a whole bunch of your acquaintances / &c. They’ll be grateful if you don’t try to pressure them into things.

10. Do still make the offer to do group things, even if you expect your introvert to turn it down. Sometimes they will be in the mood, but low assertiveness means that they’re unlikely to ask if they can come along.

* Well, pop psychology anyway.

** People who fall in the middle are sometimes referred to as Ambiverts, if you feel the need for some useless jargon.

At least, that’s what they told me later, so it’s probably all utter rubbish. Personally, I slept through the whole thing.

Devil's Dyke by Dominic's Pics

It was a pair of teenagers who woke me up, freeing themselves of the burden of their shared virginity somewhere overhead. Persistent little sods, frankly. Hell of a place to pick to get frisky, too. I’d been out of it for ages and ages, and it was a long, slow drift back towards consciousness while they kept up the racket above me. It was the magnitude of her lie that really snapped me out of it, though – he must have been getting jumpy about the amount of time they’d spent up on the mound.

She had a penetrating voice, and I heard her clearly. “Light above, don’t worry, no-one’s going to find us. I love you.”

The lad’s future unfolded in front of me. Her brothers would arrive on schedule, and when they had finished with him, he was in for a quick, shamed marriage and years of hen-pecked drudgery. How tragic. I grinned into the darkness, and suddenly realised I was awake.

I was lying on a stone plinth in a low, dome-shaped chamber at the base of the mound. The floor was littered with blessed icons and holy symbols, scattered there liberally by the exorcist who’d put me there – Garrod? Jerrod? I forget, now – but they’d lost their virtue down through the years. Most had decayed into shapeless blobs, anyhow. My vault had been built from stone, but I could see that they’d filled in their entry tunnel with earth. I flexed my arms and legs, then swung myself round and sat up.

Crypt by Sekhmet Neseret

Not even a moment of dizziness. Only the Arm of the Light Incarnate would come up with a spell of living death that protected the victim from muscle wastage.

I edged forward cautiously, and bands of white fire immediately sprang up around the plinth, a ward to keep me from being moved. I snatched my legs back up onto the slab immediately, feeling the sting where the energy had singed them. The sudden light was painful, the intensity and colour as bad as the actual brightness.

I shaded my eyes and squinted, until it was comfortable to see again. The vault didn’t look any better illuminated than it had in the pitch blackness. Those flames had to be dealt with. I forced myself to relax, breathing slowly and deeply, and calming my body piece by piece until I’d gained some tranquillity. Then I seized that empty space and concentrated on it, feeding my thoughts and emotions into the void one by one until there was nothing left. With quiet came perception, and an awareness of energy and form. A solution followed. I reached down through the void, down and down again, into the howling, hungry abyss beneath, and dredged up a word, a foulness cloaked in sound. It fought me, clawing as I dragged it into my mind. I held it there a moment, savouring its decadence, and then spat it into the chamber like a thunderclap.

The walls shook, the barriers of flame guttered and died, and I leaped off the plinth, laughing, to stand up straight for the first time in over a dozen centuries.

Up above, I could hear my inadvertent saviours making a panicked exit, whimpering about the ‘Devil’s Hill’. I’d probably have laughed at that, too, but my good mood had just been spoiled by the realization that I was going to have to dig my way through twenty feet of solid earth with my bare hands. You’d have thought the oh-so-merciful forces of Light Incarnate could at least have seen fit to leave me a shovel for when I finally broke free.

I crossed the chamber and started digging, using a couple of the holy icons as primitive trowels. The exorcist, Yared or whatever, had been damned lucky, catching me after the battle of Scribrand Pass. The five nations had been on the point of collapse, and I’d been so eager to crush them I’d taken my eye off the ball. I had utterly exhausted myself, kept nothing back for emergencies. Stupid of me.

Well, this time it was going to be different.

Screw politics. I was going to the beach.

–

(unrelated:)