Trees

King Edward VII park, Willesden, 21/5/2012

Save Our Seven libraries

The campaign to save Brent's libraries fighting the good fight at the Queens Park book festival today.

Advert by Gombeen™

Introductory offer for Kindle. Free for 5 days only, closing Wednesday. "Time Out, Carmencita" a long story by S. J. Moran.

Brent Labour culturecide

A speaker with babe in arms, in front of burly security men, speaks out against the attempt yesterday to strip the books from Kensal Rise Library. Brent council failed to complete the destruction of the historic library on the last day of the ousted Labour leader's term in office. Maybe they thought it was a good day to bury the library, maybe they thought nobody would notice, maybe they thought that nobody cared, because they themselves don't care, because they themselves are philistines and moneygrabbers? There's no maybe about it. (Ed.)

Soakio

First view from the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower – video

"Jonathan Jones takes a trip up the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower in the Olympic village in Stratford, east London, and speaks to the artist Anish Kapoor and engineer Cecil Balmond about the £22.7m structure. The London mayor, Boris Johnson, who persuaded the steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal to provide £19.6m towards the cost, reveals his view on the finished tower while Newham residents living in its shadow share their mixed opinions" (Guardian Online)

The views are awesome. You'll also hear a bit about Tatlin's tower, intriguingly not quite ruled out by Kapoor as (perhaps satirical?) source, as well as Babel, of course, but also Trajan's column/tower. It's a fine bit of work by the Guardian, as long as you take the Jonathan Jones' somewhat flighty interpretations with a pinch of salt. He is amusing with it, though. (Ed.)

The Spirit of Youth by Freda Skinner

Roundwood Park

"The outdoor pool was closed and filled in by the time I visited in 1992. Staff at the indoor pool told me that it closed in 1989. A statue (The Spirit of Youth by Freda Skinner) was then still standing in the outdoor pool, although it has now gone. This entire complex is due for complete redevelopment into a new leisure centre, with the old lido site (still clearly visible at the moment) due to become a sunken lawn." The statue was relocated to Roundwood Park." (Ref. Brent)

What a pity the lido was lost. We are ruled by barbarians. Everything is destroyed and replaced with sordid tat. A lido and an indoor swimming pool are as different as life and death. (Ed.)

Saturday Lie In

Rattlegrating wheelets of the holiday bound,
Monotonous cooing of pigeons in the eaves,
Hill-gearing reveille of a diesel ghost bus.

Curtain run swish of the earliest ones,
Hated clapping of the wake up machine,
The rolling modality of bed locomotion,
And spreadeagle into diagonal torpor.

Return the postman to sender unread.
Not awake at this address for Witnesses,
Adventists, Latter Day Saints or salesmen.
Strip off, fall back, try to catch the last dream.

--
Stephen Moran

Fighting dog tree damage?

Willesden sports centre

Big funfair 4th to 13th of May

Roundwood Park

King's Hall youth club, Harlesden Road

Link: Website

Nice tune

Ram: Heart of the Country, Paul and Linda McCartney (official)

Borage? Correction: Green Alkanet. (Thanks)

There are lots of these in the meadow area, beside Willesden sports centre.

Included in Wildflowers of Willesden Meadow

Short story master to judge Willesden 2012-13

The Willesden Herald is pleased and excited to announce that David Means, one of the very top short story writers in the world, has kindly agreed to be the judge for our next short story competition. David Means' stories have a diamond-like sharpness and clarity, in which we visit locations, society and climates as vividly as in a waking dream. I couldn't point to Sault Ste Marie on the map but I feel I've been there. I've never hung onto a train but I sort of know what it's like now. I've never lived in an apartment in New York, or slept rough but... you get the picture. Writers, there are still a few months before the competition opens but you have your work cut out for you! (Ed)

Links
Wikipedia: David Means
The Spot by David Means review by James Lasdun in the Guardian
Interview with David Means in the New York Times
Short stories by David Means in The New Yorker
NY podcast: David Means reads Chef's House by Raymond Carver
David Means' author page at Faber and Faber

Trees in Roundwood Park

The wind was bringing blossom down like a blizzard today.

Peter Avenue

4:24 pm

West Africa Children's Appeal | Donate | UNICEF UK

West Africa Children's Appeal | Donate | UNICEF UK

There is a famine in west Africa.

In the UK you can text FOOD to 70007 to donate £5 to Unicef's appeal. Ewan McGregor assures us in his appeal video today that the money will go to feed the children. Here's another Unicef video about the crisis and there is a donate button beside the video on YouTube.

And the result is...

12 April 2012: The results of the international Willesden Herald short story competition 2012 as judged by Roddy Doyle were announced at Willesden Green library centre tonight. First prize went to "Winter Lambing" by Virginia Gilbert. Equal runners up were "Curtains" by Charles Lambert and "Frost Heave" by Geraldine Mills. Thanks to all who helped tonight, more details to follow.



"Liars' League actors read extracts from six stories shortlisted for the international fiction prize, plus the winner and runners-up are revealed." The actors in order of appearance on the night: Susan Moisan, Camila Fiori, Silas Hawkins, Rob Witcomb, Adam Diggle, Will Goodhand. (More)

Links

Announcement: Willesden 2012 short list
Introducing the authors of the short-listed stories 2012
Save the Library Centre/Keep Willesden Green
Facebook event listing and comments

Reports (adding as discovered)

Nick Holdstock (including excerpt from "Half")
Charles Lambert
Mary O'Shea (on Facebook comments: "A mug?")
Mikey Delgado
Willesden Green Writers' Group
The Library Lab
The writing of "In the Service of the Demon"
A mention at Blake Friedmann agency (new)
Geraldine Mills: When Someone Believes in your Writing (new)




Read all the short-listed stories in New Short Stories 6 from:

The Willesden Bookshop, Library Centre, 95 High Street, Willesden, London NW10. Please support our local bookshop. Website

Amazon.co.uk (free delivery UK)
Publisher direct (delivery price varies)
The Book Depository (free delivery worldwide)
Amazon.com (possible free delivery in the US)
Barnes & Noble
Powells

Available worldwide. To order from your preferred supplier, please quote: "Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 6" (Publisher Pretend Genius Press, 2012). ISBN: 978-0-9778526-6-6

Supported by Willesden Green Writers' Group

Want to buy a British passport?

Your immigration issues are over. Get yourself down to Willesden post office, where you can buy a British passport for £3.99.

This Must be the Place trailer

Motorcycle training centre

Motorcycle training at Willesden sports centre, 7 days a week

Kickstarter project update - rewards

We've been going through the list of supporters and rewards and trying to get them all sent out.

If you chose a PDF copy as your reward, please check your email, as those have now been sent.

Most of the books have been dispatched or are in hand with Amazon.

We have sent emails to five more people whose addresses or book choices are still unknown.

Some of the money was used to increase the number of author copies from two to five per author this year. Some is going to providing the rewards. Some is going to the printing costs. When the dust settles I will publish a breakdown of where all the money went.

Thanks to everyone who backed the project on Kickstarter. Any problems or questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via Kickstarter or here.

Steve Moran

Harlesden Road

Thursday, about 8 pm

Brazilian beauty salon & Garnish restaurant

High Road, Willesden

New mobile web version

Instead of trying to show the desktop sized pages, there is now a slimmed down layout that appears on mobile phones. It works rather like other phone apps and includes touch screen workings and all that jazz. It omits all the lists of links from the sides of the original template though.