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idkthisisjustforfanfic · 4 years

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C A L L M E C A T, chapter nine

January 2017

We had time off near the holidays, space for all of us was good. The rush of our record deal and newfound fame was suffocating in moments, exhilarating in others.

Niall journeyed back to Ireland and Miles back up north to Massachusetts. Jules’ parents were only in Connecticut, and Harry had already made the trip back to the UK to see his family.

By the time the New Year came, I was sick of being in Florida with no friends and minimal interaction from my parents. Our last night together as a band was the night of my drunken exit, something that we all knew was awkward and tense but didn’t dare to mention the next morning.

Being around my parents made me drink less just because I feared becoming them. Which was probably good for both my liver and my mind, but bad for my emotional state. It had been a few weeks since I’d spoken to Miles or Harry. Jules would check in just to make sure I hadn’t murdered my parents yet, Niall sent pictures of his nephew and the pints he was drinking back home.

I sat on the back patio a few days into 2017, sunglasses on to block the sun and hoping to get a bit of a glow on the unseasonably warm day. My phone buzzed beside me and pulled my attention back to the pool in front of me, my parents were both at work and I finally had a minute without them to gather my thoughts.

Nothing about the sunshine state made me want to stay, especially not the locked door down the hall that had been untouched since 2011. The bed was likely unmade and I was sure dust had collected on the trophies that lined his shelves.

I picked up my phone and read the message that had just come through, one that made me want to abandon my home state more than I already did.

Harry Styles (1:03pm): Random question, are you still in Florida?

I looked around the backyard, boats buzzed by on the water and the waves glimmered in the sun.

Cat Fonder (1:04pm): Unfortunately

Harry Styles (1:04pm): Me too.

I pulled up the phone and read it twice before I pressed the phone icon near his name. It rang once before he answered.

“Hi!”

“What are you doing in Florida?”

“Well--bit of an airline issue, so I ended up on a flight here instead of New York. I’m stuck here overnight.”

“That sucks,” I admitted, turning on my side on the pool lounge chair. “What are you going to do?”

“Well,” he took a pause, but I could tell he’d already decided. “You’re going to come get me at the airport.”

“What makes you think that?”

He laughed on the other end of the phone. “I mean, you wouldn’t let me sleep overnight in the Miami airport would you?” I let out a groan for him to hear, laughed a little when he threw in: “I know you have enough bedrooms at your parents house.”

Marta, our longtime housekeeper and an adopted member of our family, slid open the door to the living room. “Do you want lunch?”

“In a few!” I called back to her. “Harry--you can Uber here if you want.”

“Oh just come pick me up--how far do you live from the airport?”

“From Miami? Like an hour and a half!”

“Which is exactly why I’m not paying for an Uber, Catherine.”

I exhaled through my nose, licked at my lips, already regretting the decision to take one of my dad’s cars into a Miami afternoon. The air was sticky and the climb in my heartbeat made me feel stupid and childish. Harry’s chastising on the other end didn’t help.

“Did you hang up on me? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Cause I’m trying to think of a plan to be in a car with you and not kill you.”

He let out a belly laugh at this, noise from the busy airport terminal was seeping through the speaker and into my ears. “I’ll make sure we don’t lay any hands on each other.”

Goosebumps rose on my skin, his voice almost melodic when he said see you soon!

I grabbed the keys and took a sandwich for the road from Marta, prayed to some type of higher power that I didn’t rear end someone or fuck up my dad’s Mercedes. He drove the Tesla to work, which was good, honestly, because I wouldn’t even know how to turn that one on.

It took me only an hour and fifteen, which didn’t seem like a result of my timid driving but more the lack of traffic and time of day. When I rolled up to the baggage claim and saw him standing on the curb with sunglasses pushed up and a hood over his head, I rolled the window down.

“How’s the disguise working?”

He made a face at me, stuffed his suitcase in the backseat and climbed in front. “You joke, but there were girls who literally cried when they saw me. And a few photographers, I think--which is really weird.”

“Really?” I looked over my shoulder and put on my blinker, hoping to merge effortlessly over three lanes to get out of the hellhole that was Miami International.

“Yeah--don’t know why but people apparently like our band in Florida. Hometown pride, maybe.”

He had a point--apparently my name had been one of the most searched google phrases in the state at the end of 2016. But we weren’t really paparazzi level yet, once or twice in New York or LA when we’d do shows, but they’d yet to really follow us around.

“Okay, well you might have to be silent the rest of the ride if you want to get to Palm Beach in one piece.”

He turned towards me with an amused look. “Do you suck at driving?”

“No,” I said, looking over at him quickly, a car merged in front of me and made me swerve to the side a little bit when I took my eyes off the road.

“Jesus fuck!” He laughed, “oh god--you would be absolutely rubbish at driving. This is actually extremely on brand for you.”

“I’m not rubbish at driving,” I twisted my face. “I’m just out of practice.”

We made it four miles away from the airport before he demanded that I get out and let him drive, arguing that even if the steering wheel was on the other side and we drove on the wrong side of the road, he’d be a safer bet.

He got a coffee at a gas station and took a picture of me with the girl behind the register, more pleasant than I’d ever seen him be. He put the windows down and played me the songs he’d been listening to over the holidays and laughed when he pointed at my hands. “You got a manicure!”

I hid my face, embarrassed at the sellout I’d become. Thirteen whole days in town and my mother had convinced me to sit beside her, watch daytime talk shows while the spa ladies buffed and snipped our cuticles.

She made me, I laughed. You might end up with one too before you leave.

We rolled up to Island Drive right before my parents got home from work and Harry leaned towards the window to get a better view of the house. His mouth hung open when we turned into the shrub-lined driveway. “Jesus, Cat. What do your parents do again?”

“Work too much,” I told him. “Mom’s a dentist and my dad’s a financial advisor. They’re super obnoxious so please try to interact with them at a minimum like Marta and I do.”

“Marta?”

“Housekeeper, my old nanny--she’s part of the family.”

He nodded, still taking in the fountain and manicured lawn when I pulled his suitcase from the backseat. Harry had known that my parents were wealthy--mainly from the time that Miles made me sound like an obnoxious rich kid when we wrote at their apartment. But Harry was apparently surprised by the level of wealth that was held in Palm Beach. His lips parted when I brought him in the front door, views of the water over the crest of the lawn and the pool, eyes landing on mine after a few seconds.

“And you moved to New York, why?”

I kept my voice quiet, didn’t want Marta to hear my bluntness from the other room. “To get out of here.”

But soon she smiled and rushed over, eager to take Harry’s suitcase and bring it to the guest room. She offered him tea and coffee and all of the snacks that he joked he would have held out for if he knew she was here and waiting.

I brought him upstairs to show him the room he could sleep in, around the corner from mine, a view of the side yard and the gardens that a landscaping company tended to every Saturday morning. I laid the ground rules: no mentioning our partying, no mentioning times when I’ve been too drunk. If he wanted a free place to sleep with good food and a king-sized bed, he needed to keep his mouth shut about that stuff.

He saluted me and stifled a laugh. “Yes ma’am.”

“I’m serious,” I told him. “Just be quiet, don’t give them a reason to ask you any questions.”

“Alright--I mean, come on, they can’t be that bad.”

As if on cue--as if Harry showing up in Florida wasn’t enough bad karma for one day--the alarm beeped downstairs letting me know one of them was home. Lorna first, she came in with big sunglasses and greeted Harry with a smile, her hand outstretched for her afternoon glass of Chardonnay before Marta could even hang her keys up by the door.

Frank strolled in a little after six pm, dinner was almost ready when Harry excused himself to the bathroom and I took it as my opportunity to corner my mother before she was too drunk to remember it.

I knocked on her office door twice, waited for her to look up from her computer before I took a few steps inside. “Hi, dear,” she said, a small smile before she looked back to the papers on her desk.

“Hi--I just wanted to uh, ask you a favor, actually.” I approached her with my hands on my hips, unsure if I’d get her full attention or if I’d have to snap my fingers to get her eyes back on me. I sat down in the chair across from her, a formal chess move to let her know I was serious.

“What’s that?” She leaned back in her chair and waited for me to spit it out. Her direct eye contact made me nervous, I stammered over my words and tried to sway her by bringing my dad into it.

“I, uh, just asked dad the same thing--he said it was fine.”

“Just spit it out, Catherine.”

“Can we not talk about Cameron in front of Harry?”

She set down her glasses at this, watched me for a second before she tilted her head to the side. “Okay.”

“Like, at all. Okay? Not even once.”

She sighed, almost as if my request was painful for her to consider. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

Maybe she’d tone it down with a stranger in the house. Maybe not talking about Cameron for someone else’s benefit would make her respect the limit more than she had in the past.

I had hoped for so long that one day it’d stop, one day she’d forget his name or leave it out of conversation even if just for my sake. But my mother was too selfish for that--always forgetting that while she was grieving a son, I was grieving my other half.

I should have known she couldn’t help herself--she had to relive the moment over and over, desperate to keep herself alive in the past as if it was safer than the present. His name slipped out of her mouth like she didn’t even realize it, I nearly choked on my asparagus at the dinner table when she said it.

Harry was busy making small talk about our upcoming album, the studio sessions we’d be heading into once we flew back to the city. “Our manager said it’ll be good timing to release an album, makes us eligible for award season the following year.”

She pretended to be interested, pretended to care for a second about our careers, but then she did it. “Reminds me of the time Cameron won that award--”

“Mom,” I said it quick, my hands falling to the table with a thud, fork and knife in my grasp when I cut her off. “Don’t.”

The noise startled Harry, but the genuine smile on his face only faltered a little. “No, I’d love to hear the story,” he didn’t even have a clue to the fire he was igniting.

“We talked about it mom,” I gave her a death glare--which I could tell threw her off. She was frozen, torn between pleasing her dinner guest and pissing off her daughter, two of her favorite past times.

She gestured at Harry. “Well I don’t want to be rude, Catherine.”

“Dad,” I looked over to see him on his phone, my voice pleading for him to intervene.

“Lorna, leave it alone,” he said, disinterested, phone screen still lit up like he was begging for a distraction.

“Oh,” she sighed, sarcasm threaded in her words. “Right--we don’t go there.”

Harry was across from me, mid-bite of his steak. He looked from me and to my mom, then back, while he chewed. He had no clue what was happening but he could tell he’d said the wrong thing.

My mom picked up her wine glass, brought it to her lips and offered a sweet smile in Harry’s direction. “Nevermind, dear--don’t want to upset Catherine.”

I rolled my eyes and stood from the table, “Harry, do you want to go for a walk?”

He was caught off guard, still uncomfortably in the middle when he nodded quickly, stood from the table and thanked both of my parents for letting him stay the night as I headed for the front door. He hurried out behind me, his voice barely a whisper in the hallway. “Did I do that? Did I fuck up?”

“No,” I said, calling to Marta over my shoulder. “Dinner was delicious, Marta! We’ll be back!”

“What even happened in there?” He asked, still a few steps behind me once we walked out onto the moonlit driveway.

I stopped short and turned around, the anger in my chest was threatening to spill out and onto the concrete. “Nothing--my mother is just fucking stupid and selfish.”

“So the intimidating level of rage coming off of you is not my fault?”

“What? No.”

I spun around again and headed for the street, a left turn towards the familiar route that I’d escape to when something like this happened. He walked beside me on the tree-line street, silent and steady until the neighborhood opened up. The same empty field at the end of the road that gave access to the lagoon, the same location I’d come to so many times after storming away from dinner as a kid. Doing it at 22 felt no different than at 15.

He shoved his hands in his pockets when we stepped onto the grass. “What is this place?”

“I don’t know--an empty field at the end of my street.”

“Is this your ponder spot?”

I looked over my shoulder, his face was lit up by the glow of the streetlights. “Ponder spot?”

He nodded and offered a shrug, “you know, the place you run off to when you need space.”

I bit back a laugh, embarrassed that his words couldn’t have been more accurate. He took my silence as confirmation, followed me over to a picnic table that sat close to the end of the water.

I threw a leg over the bench and let my head rest on top, a groan escaping my lips once I felt his weight shift the structure.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head but didn’t lift it, so he let me sit in silence for a little while. A breeze blew my hair around and after a few minutes, he sighed, like he already knew the answer but wanted to ask anyway. “Do you want to tell me who Cameron is?”

That got me to raise my head. “Definitely not.”

He smirked a little, a tiny nod as if to tell me he wouldn’t push it. He reached a hand over and patted my thigh, chin in his hand as he watched people cruise by on their boats.

For the first time I felt comfortable with him--not pressured or panicked. He brought his eyes over to me and then fished into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small joint, a dimple appeared on his cheek when he said: “I found this in the guest room.”

“Shut up,” I laughed, pulling it from him and sniffing it to inspect. “Did you really?”

He nodded, “which one of your parents is the stoner?”

“Well my mom is too high strung, so--must be Frank.”

He pulled out a lighter and held it up, watched when I placed it between my lips and then inhaled. I passed it over to him, thankful for a buffer between us now aside from the moon and the breeze.

Smoke escaped my lips and floated towards the stars, he drummed his fingers on the table before I passed it to him. “Do you feel overwhelmed ever?”

“Ever?” He laughed at my question, licked his lips and then looked out over the water.

“I mean by the music stuff lately.”

He shrugged. “Excited mostly. Why? Do you?”

I nodded, unafraid to admit that being home brought a different layer of complexity to life. “My parents will just never get it.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not successful.”

I looked down at the faded wood and the fresh coat of polish on my nails. “It kind of feels that way, though--you know, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it really happen?”

He stared at me for a second, sure that I was joking. “You’re mental,” he said. “The tree is down on the ground, of course it fell. Who fucking cares if they were around to hear it or not?”

I nodded, took the joint back from him and took another inhale, reminded of the first time we did this type of thing.

He passed it to me, watched as I let smoke dance through the chilly air before he asked: “Why do you go by Cat?”

Another shrug, how I answered most questions these days. Do you have nightmares about it? Do you think about him all the time? Do you feel easily agitated?

“Just don’t like Catherine. Too formal.”

I didn’t want to get into it. My mother calls me that, my brother called me that, all good reasons to pack up and leave behind in the childhood bedroom that held bad memories.

“I like Catherine,” he admitted. “S’pretty.”

I let my eyes sweep over to him, the moon reflected in his eyes, curls of hair poked out from the beanie on his head. “Just--don’t call me that, please.”

He laughed, completely unaware of the way it made my chest heave in the shower or the way it sent a shiver down my spine when my mom had to cut herself off--Catherine and Cameron--no, just Catherine.

I had to correct her now too. Catherine felt like it needed to be followed by something, another name, the one that had been linked to mine since birth, born two minutes apart.

“I think you’re pretty fucking successful, you know.”

I glanced over at him. “Yeah?”

A single nod. His short hair was still something to get used to, it bent in the wind and blocked his eyes when he turned to look at me. “I will never admit I said this, but, we’d be nothing without you.”

“Well, we only got big once you came along.”

He smirked, “so you’re aware of that?”

I gave him a shove, shaking my head at his stupid ego. His eyes lingered on mine for a second, his knee knocked against mine when he flicked the joint and then he let out a sigh.

I wanted to lean in and kiss him, and I probably would have if it weren’t for Lila. As far as I knew she was home in New York, maybe in Jersey with her parents or siblings, but certainly an obstacle to whatever kind of intoxicated hook up could have happened between us.

I cleared my throat and looked up at the sky. “Do you want to go write a song?”

He smiled, a soft one, nodded a few times and patted me on the thigh again before he stood up and offered me a hand. “I’d love to.”

He followed me back to the house, up the stairs to my bedroom and stared at the ceiling while I plucked at the guitar.

I don’t know where I wanna go,

But it’s far away from here

Don’t know what I’m running from

If it’s you or me, my dear

He watched, listened, nodded along while it poured out of me, more of a witness than a participant.

It’s good, Cat, he said, keep going.

Everybody’s talking now

But no one seems to say a thing

I do my best to drown them out

I just wish that I could be

Somewhere far away from here

Back to myself, back where I could see clear

Somewhere far away from here

Won’t somebody take me far away from here?

Sleep was heavy on my eyelids, Harry down the hall and a rough version already sent off in an email to Niall before I realized he’d said it. Four and a half years of begging him to say it, call me Cat, hoping one day he’d just give in and go along with it. All this time I thought fighting him and pushing him away would make it happen.

It was fitting, I guess, that it was the exact opposite that finally got me what I wanted.

Niall was excited that Harry had accidentally landed himself in Miami, and he was even more excited when he learned that I told him he could stay with me an extra few days before I was due to return to Manhattan and the responsibilities of work.

He was eager to see my town, made me drive him by the high school and the parking lot where I learned--or failed, according to him--to parallel park. He swam in the pool and spit water in my face, completely deconstructing the wall I had managed to build over the last few years with a single glance in my direction.

He promised he stayed because he was having fun, not just because flying home with me meant a first class seat.

It was rare, these days, too, that I found myself on a boat. A few times since the accident, maybe three or four. But his excitement and delight was contagious when he learned my parents still had one--the same one--and it was down on a dock off the backyard.

I let the motor hum to life, pinks and purples splashed over the sky on our last night when he popped a bottle of champagne. I wondered if Lila knew he was here--he seemed undisturbed by his phone and altogether disconnected and unplugged.

I drove us out to the middle of the lagoon, dropped anchor and told him about the time I learned to swim off the back. I was three or four, always in a life vest and completely unaware of the irony that my life was accumulating.

Cam would jump off first, his floaties on his arms as he swam over to my dad who’d be in the water already. My mom would clap and snap pictures, throw us a noodle or two and then wrap us in towels back on board the boat.

Harry was treading water beside me, though, hair dripping wet after he’d pulled off his shirt and shorts.

I laughed when he dared me to jump in after him, said he hoped my swimming skills were better than they were back then. He splashed enough water at me on the boat before I gave in, promised he wouldn’t watch me undress and wouldn’t tell a soul that we’d been this cliché, swimming in our underwear and conversation laced with champagne giggles. So I tossed my shirt to the side and shimmied out of my shorts before I let myself sink under the surface.

When I came up, he was watching me.

“What?”

“Nothing--just--s’been nice to hang out with you.”

I twisted my face at his kindness, crinkled my nose at the friendship that had suddenly blossomed in the cool Florida weather.

The laughter from another boat floated over the waves, a big splash is what did it.

I looked over, searched for the person only a hundred yards away, desperate for their head to emerge from the water, unlike his. My heartbeat was in my ears, throat tight and shoulders tense.

“Where are they?” I asked, my head turning frantically. “Do you see them? Did they come up?”

“What?” Harry followed my gaze and the smile faded from his lips. “What are you talking about?”

A man popped back up, a group of people on the boat cheered for him and sang along the music that hummed from their speakers. Harry could tell something was wrong, I tried my best to slow my breathing when I realized what was happening.

I swam over to the boat, hands clutching the ladder as I pulled myself up. My breathing was sporadic, the images flashing through my head with no option to pause. Allie’s voice, Will’s voice, the feeling in my chest when I knew he was dead and we couldn’t do anything about it.

But I was acutely aware of the moment around me, Harry climbed up to the boat behind me and had a terrified look on his face, green eyes searching the floor for a towel before he draped it over my shoulders.

“You’re alright--Cat, you’re alright, it’s okay,” his arms were around me when a sob slipped out, eyes stung from a mix of salt water and tears. I couldn’t do this, it couldn’t happen here and now.

The waves from that day couldn’t show up, drag me under until I couldn’t breathe like he couldn’t. Not in front of Harry.

“Hey,” he said, moving my shoulders to force me to sit down, his knees across from mine when he looked me in the eyes. “You’re alright, nothing’s happening.”

I nodded, licked at my lips and wiped at my eyes with the towel when I blinked a few times. Feet on the boat, hands around the towel, I could see blue and white and the keys in the ignition. “Okay,” I said, more grounded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated, hands on my knees now to keep them from shaking.

Silence for a minute when I looked back at the other boat. They were fine. No one was drowning. I wasn’t drowning. I was on the boat and Harry was on the boat.

The sun had sunk lower now, almost meeting the horizon when I met his eyes again.

“When did he die?”

“What?”

“Your brother.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He plucked at his lower lip, he dropped my gaze for a second and then sighed. “It’s okay, Cat.”

I felt the water in my eyes at that, let my head swivel side to side to argue his claim. “No,” I said. “It’s not okay. This is why I don’t talk about it.”

“Maybe that’s why this is happening, then. Maybe you get like this because you refuse to talk about it.”

I pulled away from him, angry at his accusation and the way he sounded like he knew me better than he did.

“Unless the two ten-year-olds in the frame above the guest bath are just random people,” he shrugged. “That’s Cameron, right?”

I was caught--unsure where to go and stuck on a boat with him. I didn’t look at him, kept my eyes on the floor and nodded slowly.

He repeated his original question. “When did he die?”

“The summer before senior year of high school. He drowned.”

A breath of air escaped from his lips, like he’d expected a different answer. Cancer, maybe. A terminal illness or something less violent and avoidable.

“Were you--with him when it happened?”

I wiped at my eyes, wishing the tears would stop and the memories would, too. “In the boat--we were drunk.”

He nodded, his focus solely on me when he leaned forward. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You weren’t there,” I said quickly, defensively. “You have no clue what happened.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t. But I know it’s not your fault.”

I cried harder at that, vision blurred when I nodded. “It was, Harry--I didn’t realize how long he’d been underwater. I was too drunk.”

“It’s called an accident for a reason.”

“You’re not supposed to know any of this,” I reminded, eyeing him skeptically when I pulled the towel up to cover myself more. “Niall doesn’t know. Miles doesn’t know. No one knows.”

“Does Jules?”

I nodded. “Cause I’m a fucking moron and got too drunk one night.”

He laughed a little. “Why’ve you been hiding it?”

“Cause college was the first time I was just me. Not Catherine and Cameron, not one of two. I was just me for the first time and it was okay--it wasn’t sad or tragic that I was just me. I wanted it to be normal.”

He nodded in understanding, offered to drive us back to the dock if I showed him how. My parents were upstairs for the night, enough space for us to sit at the counter and heat up leftovers that Marta had made while we were out. He listened when I talked about the nightmares and the flashbacks, followed me up the stairs and nodded solemnly when I made him promise to not tell the others.

He echoed his sentiment on the boat: it’s not your fault. He brushed a piece of hair behind my ear before he leaned in and kissed me outside my bedroom door, softer than before, and most importantly, sober.

He followed me over to the bed, his touch gentle and warm when we slipped under the sheets. It was easy--slow and careful, not like the time before. He made me feel grounded, actually in the moment for the first time in a long time. He didn’t know it, but he made me feel seen.

Something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

It felt different to wake up beside him, knowing he knew and knowing he still thought I was a decent human. I looked over to see him, eyelids fluttered against his cheek when I stirred.

A buzzing on the nightstand grabbed my attention, though, his phone vibrating with an incoming call when the morning sun crept in. A stomach dropping worse than ever, a shiver down my spine when I saw her name, a picture of the two of them side by side.

Incoming call: Lila DiPretto

table of contents | join the tag list + talk to me | the playlist

author’s note: wowowowowowoooooww! A doozy of a chapter I hope none of you hate me too much for all of the emotion in this one! Things are heating up and now Harry knows Cat’s secret.....shit can only get weirder from here!

taglist: @mellamolayla @meganlikesfandoms @afterstylesmadeit @sing-me-a-song-harry @harryinsweatersandbandanas @stylesfics-xx @shawnsblue @avipshamitra @a-secretyoucankeep @groovybaybee @nearbyou @blueviiolence @kiwicherryharry @thurhomish @bopbopstyles @live-at-the-forum @ajayque @mleestiles @ashbabao @anssu-amry @odetostep @bemib @caritocp @ursogoldenshan @rainbowbutterflyboy @bubblegumstyles7 @1142590m @winter-soldier-007 @beingsolonely @sloanferg @ivanacats @mumplans @wastedsweetcreature @harryssugarhigh @wanderlustiing @sunflowers-styles @g0bl1nqueen @stepping-into-the-light @kara-246 @stilljosiegrossie @harrys-cherrry

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saleintothe90s · 3 years

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435. Daily Press, August 1, 1980

Okay, so originally, I was going to do a bit on each August 1st of the 1980s using my local newspaper, Daily Press. There was so much intrigue and drama just for 1980 alone.

Don’t put off shoveling the walk. Your wife might sue you.

“we smoke dope and drink alcohol until 4am!”

If the term “ooh, so edgy” was around in 1980, this dude would be it.

I had never heard of this place in Portsmouth before, so I looked it up. They closed just a few years later, in 1985.

How is that couch comfortable. They still sell that couch for $850. A similar desk costs about $780 today. geez louise. The Coliseum Mall location lasted well into the 90s.

I made this one on the website and it wound up being nearly $1500. Maybe since I work in a library and I’m broke all the time, that seems so expensive.

and they were right! Here’s a nice history on the K Cars from Chrysler. (another one here)

Dang, my Newmarket North Mall history is rusty, I think this later became K&K toys (oof awful name), and then KayBee. Then dead in the mid 90s like the remainder of the mall. But look at that sweet, sweet Newmarket North logo.

...is it just me or do those hatchback Chevys already look old and beat up on the lot?

~merica~

sure enough, L.A.’s flag flew in Moscow.

Days before this baseball player, J. R. Richard was about to have a stroke, the media didn’t believe his complaint of a “dead arm”. Maybe because I was in a mood the day I made this screencaps due to the Olympics, but man I had a lot of Simone Biles feels reading this. The way some pundits tore her up last week.

This next story is just straight out of Matlock or something. A stagehand threw Hagnes down an airshaft after a confrontation inside an elevator during intermission. 1 Last I could see, he’s been denied parole every two years since 2001. 2

Soo, this Sheraton in Hampton was torn down last year after being downgraded to a Quality Inn and then becoming abandoned for years. A few days/weeks/i forgot after it was torn down rats began appearing at the Target across the street! The food section had to be shut down for two weeks. There were rumors that the rats came from the old hotel, but the city manager said “there was no evidence of that”. 3

It seems like back then, there were way more fun things to do at night in Hampton. I mean a seafood buffet at a fancy hotel.

When Hampton first got Steak and Ale, it had to be called Jolly Fox due to some Virginia law about not having alcohol in a restaurants name.

Sup!

Guess what Milton. Nobody is going to be caught dead wearing that visor. I looked up the 127 Fox Hill Road location and looks like it was where Kindercare was when I was a kid?? Um. ok.

stupid question time, why was the dentist buying gold? Was the receptionist assessing the gold? Was the dentist doing it in-between patients?

Finally, I just wanted to share some dreamy lookin’ apartment ads.

1. Shipp, E. R. “CONFESSION DETAILS GIVEN AS OPERA MURDER TRIAL STARTS.” The New York Times, April 28, 1981, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/28/nyregion/confession-details-given-as-opera-murder-trial-starts.html.

2. Hughes, Bill. “Even Model NYS Inmates Face Steep Barriers to Parole.” City Limits, September 17, 2014. https://citylimits.org/2014/09/17/even-model-nys-inmates-face-steep-barriers-to-parole/.

3. Sparks, Lisa Vernon. “Rat Invasion Has Kept the Hampton Target from Selling Food for 2 Weeks.” dailypress.com. April 14, 2021. https://archive.is/SftTG

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Treat Your S(h)elf

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien

Others found jobs but got paid far less than men—a fact not lost on cash-strapped employers. It was, one employer said, the only real reason to hire women: “They produce more and demand less.

- Keith O'Brien, Fly Girls

I wish I had read this book when I was growing up as I was in ignorant bliss to the barriers faced by the early women pioneers of aviation. I count myself fortunate that I had a supportive family that despite being conservative only had one ground rule if I was going to do something than see it through to the end. No whining or making excuses. I’m not into cookie fortune wisdom such as turn obstacles into opportunities (however true that is). But when some people tell me I can’t do something I jolly well go ahead and do it.

Describing the feeling of flying is like describing why one climbs mountains. If you really have to ask then you won’t get it. As Louise Thaden, one of the most iconic pioneering women aviators in this book said, “If you will tell me why, or how, people fall in love, I will tell you why, or how, I happened to take up aviation.”

But from about 14-15 years old I was hooked and by 17 I had my pilot’s license. I would learn to fly out in Asia (because we lived there) and in Kenya and South Africa (on family vacations). Flying was the one thing my other ultra-competitive older siblings could not do. They were better than me in almost everything else - triathlons, mountaineering, hiking, polo, horse riding, parachuting - but not driving cars fast or flying. But beyond a childish and immature source of pride I cannot describe the heavenly bliss of piloting a plane over stunning landscapes. I knew early on I wanted to fly as a career and fortunuately the army gave me that path to succeed flying combat helicopters.

My path was much easier because of the women aviators that had gone before me. For pioneering pilots of the 1920s and 1930s, the challenges were enormous. For women it was even more daunting. In this marvellous history, Keith O’Brien recounts the early years of aviation through a generation of American female pilots who carved out a place for themselves and their sisterhood.

Although Amelia Earhart’s story has been recounted numerous times, the addition of the other female pilots makes for a more thorough and enjoyable read that should appeal to readers interested in history, aviation, and women’s achievements.

Despite the sensation they created, each of these amazing women “went missing in her own way.” This is the inspiring untold story of five women from very different walks of life - including a New York socialite, an Oakland saleswoman, a Florida dentist’s secretary and a Boston social worker - who fought and competed against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s — and won.

Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi-day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn in on a manly and deadly pursuit. The derisive press dubbed the first women’s national air race “The Powder Puff Derby.”

It’s a brisk, spirited history of early aviation focused on 5 irrepressible women. Florence Klingensmith, a high-school dropout who worked for a dry cleaner in Fargo, North Dakota, and who trained as a mechanic so she could learn planes inside and out but whose first aviation job was as a stunt girl, standing on a wing in her bathing suit. Louise McPhetridge Thaden a girl who grew up as a tomboy and later became the mother of two young kids who got her start selling coal in Wichita. Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcee was determined to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Amelia Earhart was of course the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled. Ruth Nichols who chafed at the constraints of her blue-blood family's expectations of marrying into wealth and into high society.

O’Brien vividly recounts the dangers of early flight: In shockingly rickety planes, pilots sat in open cockpits, often blinded by ice pellets or engine smoke; instruments were unreliable, if they worked at all; sudden changes in weather could be life threatening. Fliers regularly emerged from their planes covered in dust and grease. Crashes were common, with planes bursting into flames; but risking injury and even death failed to dampen the women’s passion to fly. And yet their bravery was only scoffed at by male prejudice. Iconic oilman Erle Halliburton believed, “Women are lacking in certain qualities that men possess.” Florence Klingensmith’s crash incited a debate about allowing menstruating women to fly.

And yet these women still took off in wooden crates loaded with gasoline. They flew over mountains, deserts and seas without radar or even radios. When they came down, they knew that their landings might be their last. But together, they fought for the chance to race against the men - and in 1936 one of them would triumph in the toughest race of all. And When Louise Thaden became the first woman to win a national race, even the great Charles Lindbergh fell curiously silent.

O'Brien nicely weaves together the stories of these five remarkable women in the spirit of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff who broke the glass ceiling to achieve greatness.

Between the unreliability of early planes – developed through trial and error and liable to have a wing suddenly sheer off midflight – and the virulent sexism that hampered these pilots’ access to better quality planes and the sponsorship they desperately needed, it was a tough road. A female flier could hardly emerge unscathed – with the possible exception of Amelia Earhart, the one name still familiar today, successful in flight and public persona, until she disappeared.

This book then is a fine testament to their accomplishlments. It’s no feminist screed but a very human story of courage and conviction triumphing over fear and self-doubt. As Ruth Nichols, the most accomplished female aviator once said, “it takes special kinds of pilots to break frontiers, and in spite of the loss of everything, you can’t clip the wings of their hearts,”

Little girls should never have the wings of their dreams clipped for how else can they soar?

#treat your s(h)elf #books #reading #aviation #women #flying #flygirls #pioneers #icons #history #personal #bio

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ofnoras · 4 years

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『 candice patton. twenty-nine. cis woman. she/her. 』 oh heavens, is that NORA BARLOW from FAIR LANE i see roaming around mapleview ? minnie may’s always calling them -CIRCUMSPECT & -OBSTINATE. i happen to think they’re not that bad ! they’re a pretty cool PET STORE OWNER and every time i’ve seen them, they’ve always been +PROTECTIVE & +AMIABLE. i hope i see them around again !

hello friends ! my name is elle and i’m super excited to be here !! i’ve been eyeing this rp for a while with bones of an idea and once i saw thia’s connection after my zoom class today, i began to piece the puzzle together ! there’s still more i wish to explore about nora’s backstory and personality, but for right now, this is what i’ve got !

BASICS.

full name: nora june barlow.

birth date: april 10th.

zodiac: taurus.

age: twenty nine.

gender: cis woman.

pronouns: she/her.

sexual/romantic orientation: heterosexual.

current residence: fair lane, mapleview, north carolina.

living conditions: with boyfriend, adrien ryerson.

occupation: owner of pet store, happy tails.

languages spoken: english.

BACKGROUND.

birth place: york, pennsylvania.

education level: college graduate with a bachelors in business administration.

father: franklin barlow.

mother: marian barlow, deceased.

siblings: older brother and younger sister.

birth order: middle child.

children: one on the way !

relationship status: engaged to adrien ryerson.

pets: three year old tortoiseshell cat named lady.

PHYSICAL.

faceclaim: candice patton.

eye color: brown.

hair color: brunette.

glasses/contacts?: wears reading glasses.

dominant hand: left.

height: 5′6″

build: slim.

tattoos: none.

piercings: both ears pierced ( previous belly button ring that closed up ).

allergies: peanuts.

EXTRA.

+ traits: protective, amiable, optimistic ( tries to be, at least ).

- traits: circumspect, obstinate, impatient.

hobbies: knitting, reading, driving aimlessly around town with the radio blasting.

likes: cold weather, animals, pastel colors, making friends.

dislikes: being alone, talking too much about herself, a messy room.

alignment: neutral good.

BIOGRAPHY.

was born on april 10th, 1991 to franklin and marian barlow, their second child and first daughter. grew up in york, pennsylvania until she was eleven and her parents decided to move to mapleview due to being closer to other relatives. though she now lives on fair lane, she used to live on sycamore way up until she moved out. her father was a dentist and her mother a teacher, two paths she never wanted to follow, despite their encouragement. as a family, they were never incredibly close -- her father had quite the temper and three years after moving to mapleview, her mother had an affair. it was the talk of the town and nora, nor her siblings, could escape the gossip. her parents soon divorced and life was never the same after that.

more than anything, nora and her siblings fought. the divorce split them onto sides and their clashing personalities never had peace between them for too long. her brother was too much like her father and her sister never had a nice thing to say. still, when it came to others, nora protected them fiercely and when push came to shove, she always had their back, even if the feeling wasn’t mutual.

as a child, in an environment that made it seem like there was a side to choose, nora chose her father. it was good that she had, as she and her siblings spent their weekdays with him in his two bedroom apartment. the constant bickering and fighting grew worse as they got older, many arguments turning physical or ending up with something broken. nora always tried to be the mediator, but nothing could ever calm anyone down once they’d been riled up. instead, she filled her high school years with clubs and as many friends as she could, keeping herself out of the apartment, always busy.

nora was sixteen when her mother passed away. tragic car accident. the two hadn’t spoken in nearly a year and at first, nora was numb. she was grateful for it, especially when the guilt came next and it never left. her siblings hated how emotionless she was with their mother’s passing, at the funeral, in the days after. it wasn’t that she hadn’t cared, but that everything hit her a week later, once she was alone in her bedroom. there are many reasons nora hates being alone with her thoughts, but her mother’s death was the start of that. it’s also one of the contributors to why she prefers to keep busy.

she distanced herself from her siblings and her father, never quite being as open with them as she once was. nora took a part time job at her dad’s office, working there for a few years until she graduated. with the inheritance from her mother and scholarships, nora was able to leave mapleview for college. she wanted a fresh start and in her mind, she never planned to return to mapleview. nora went to college out west and majored in business administration with the hopes of starting her own business in... whatever made her happy. meanwhile her father’s business closed and he was forced to retire.

after graduating, she planned to follow where business opportunities would take her. all that crumbled when she got a phone call that her father was in the hospital. he’d had a heart attack and nora was terrified that if she lost her dad, the overwhelming guilt she’d felt with her mother would come back. out of her own selfish reasons, she returned to mapleview. her father recovered with surgery, but was never quite the same. his health was declining and doctors were able to determine he had early onset alzheimer's. nora made it her responsibility to come home and take care of her dad, getting a job at the local pet shop while she did. the money she’d been saving up went to a day nurse for her father. he was family, after all.

years passed. when she was twenty four, she met adrien. his charming personality was evident from their first conversation and while it didn’t take much for nora to be smitten with him, she definitely made him work for it. soon after, they started dating, and they’ve been together ever since. with adrien’s job and the both of them being focused on their careers, a future was something far off in the distance. marriage, kids... they’d briefly spoken about it, but left the conversation for down the road. it was never a question that she wanted to be with adrien, but the idea of a family scared her. she wasn’t sure if she’d be a good mom and the unknown was something she didn’t know she could come to terms with. that was, until she got really sick one morning and decided to take a pregnancy test. the positive terrified her at first, knowing they had wanted to wait and that there was no way they were ready... but seeing adrien’s response and thinking about the future definitely got her excited. now her pinterest is full of “nursery ideas” and “first time mom tips”.

it was a year after she met adrien that she became the owner of her own pet store. the place was local, owned by an elderly woman that treated nora like the loving mother she’d always wanted. they both bonded over the years and when she decided she’d be retiring to florida with her husband, she wanted nora to have the business. even as assistant manager, nora couldn’t possibly accept... but then the deed was being put in her name and she jumped at the opportunity. a local place that sells pet supplies and occasionally takes in surrendered pets to care for/find loving homes for.

and that all brings us up to present time ! nora has been pregnant nearly a month at this point, owns and works in her own pet store ( which will have a name soon enough ), and just really loves being back in mapleview. she missed it, she really did. she’s excited for this new path and what the future will bring her for the first time in... well, for the first time ever, really.

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS.

old family friends/neighbors from when she lived on sycamore way.

cousins/relatives that her family originally moved to town for.

perhaps bad tension with the family of the man her mother had an affair with?

exes/childhood friends that drifted apart/competition rivals in school.

someone who has been best friends with nora since she first moved to mapleview.

moms who nora has been bothering about future mom stuff/pregnancy stuff.

frequent customers of her store/people who had adopted animals that keep nora updated ( please, she always Begs for this when people adopt out ).

i’m honestly down for anything !!

if u read all of that ... phew ... idk why u did but THANK U ! i know it’s long ... i’m sorry ... but if you like this, i’ll message you to plot ! i do have discord so if you’d prefer that, let me know, i just don’t have it up right now so i’ll need to know if you wanna switch to that !

#mapleviewintro #abuse tw #death tw #pinned post !

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near-hawthorne-nj · 4 years

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Near Hawthorne NJ

Hawthorne, New Jersey

youtube

Hawthorne, New Jersey, is well-known to be highly diverse. The residents come from various ethnicities. American, Asian, Hispanic, Mexican, and more. This is a place full of different types of people. There’s excellent nightlife, so it’s a perfect location for outgoing people. Living in Hawthorne provides a suburban feel where most of the people own their homes. There are plenty of parks, restaurants, coffee shops, and shopping stores. Most Hawthorne residents tend to be liberal, and the public schools in this area are rated above average. So, if you’re starting to build a family and aim to provide your kids better education, this is a great location.

Hawthorne Dental Associates

Hawthorne Dental is general and cosmetic dentistry. It's located at 625 Lafayette Ave., Hawthorne, NJ 07506. It provides comprehensive dentistry services for families. Patients leave the clinic with a healthier mouth and a more beautiful smile. Besides this, you can also enjoy cosmetic dentistry that significantly improves the teeth and gums' appearance. So, as a result, the patients improve their self-confidence. For children's dentistry, you can trust Hawthorne because your children will get the best possible care while creating a welcoming and warm environment. For a clear brace solution, do not perry because Invisalign is also offered at Hawthorne Dental. The dentists are always ready to help. Simply call (973) 567-7773.

Pascrell, Velázquez Lead New York and New Jersey Colleagues Supporting Harbor and Tributaries Study

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) and Nydia Velázquez (D-NY-07) today led their colleagues in the New York and New Jersey congressional delegations urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to extend the deadline of a water resources management study critical to the region. Read more here

It’s a bit sad to read a new story about the woman who’s in critical condition after the Paterson shooting in Hawthorne. This woman is 41 years old and was shot several times on Wednesday in the morning at the Main Street and Oak Street in Peterson, Passaic County. To continue exact, the incident happened around 1:51 a.m. The victim of the shooting is now being treated at the Saint Joseph’s University Medical Center. So, if you have any information about the shooting that happened, it would be best to contact 1-877-370-PCPO or send an email at [email protected]. Alternatively, anybody who has information should coordinate with the Paterson Police Ceasefire Unit by calling 973-321-1342. I’m really hoping that the woman will feel better and will eb safe.

Hawthorne, New Jersey

Link to map

Driving Direction

3 min (0.8 mile)

via Royal Ave and Lafayette Ave

Fastest route

Hawthorne

New Jersey, USA

Head north on Royal Ave toward Ashley Pl

0.3 mi

Turn left onto Warburton Ave

413 ft

Turn right at the 2nd cross street onto Lafayette Ave

0.5 mi

Turn right

Destination will be on the left

98 ft

Hawthorne Dental Associates

625 Lafayette Avenue Hawthorne,

New Jersey 07506

#dentist near me #dentist hawthorne #hawthorne dentist #cosmetic dentist hawthorne #cosmetic dentist near me #cosmetic dentist #dentures near me #dentures hawthorne #dentist #dentures

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ultimaid · 4 years

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📂 Can we hear more about the smilin’ west? It’s really interesting.

aw i’m glad!

hmm... well i might as well just list everyone’s roles in the au, since they probably won’t all appear in the fic!

boris “doc habit” habit: former ranch hand and equine dentist turned vigilante. he inherited a great deal of money when he murdered his father and now he spends his time hunting and killing abusers, exploitative politicians, racists, corrupt officials, and anyone else who earns his wrath.

kamal bora: an independent ranger working in a small west texas town. assigned by the mayor to track down and apprehend doc habit by any means necessary. (these means end up being falling in love with him.)

wallus breadbear: kamal’s business partner, handles the legal and financial side of things while kamal does investigative work. extremely suspicious of doc habit.

marv truncler: mayor of the small texas town in which kamal and wallus work. mostly the mayor because he’s good enough at his job to run unchallenged in local elections for years.

jimothan botch: owner and barkeep at the local saloon in the small town. familiar with all the town’s residents, and especially familiar with the newcomer, trencil varnia.

tiff webber: plays piano and sings at the saloon. close friends with jimothan and known as a minor celebrity in west texas, as well as being one of the most beautiful women in town. men would do anything for her, but she’s taking a bit of a break from men right now. (she is Not taking a break from the local photographer.)

mirphy fotoparat: resident journalist and photographer. she makes most of her living doing work for the local newspaper and taking portraits of rich folks.

parsley botch: jimothan’s son and the owner of the local bank. he gets robbed maybe once a week and is just sick of it at this point. he wanted to move up north and practice law, but didn’t have the heart to leave his tiny hometown behind.

randy hapukurk: from new york, moved down to texas to get “inspiration” for his novel and stayed when he started gettin’ friendly with a worker at jimothan’s saloon. his book didn’t sell very well, so now he works at the bank with parsley while trying to write another one.

gillis socco: works at jimothan’s saloon, mostly breaking up bar fights and keeping troublemakers out. he’s a real softie on the inside, though, jimothan swears it.

trencil varnia: a gardener and florist who just recently moved to the small texas town with his daughter, nat. a good friend of boris’s from his ranch hand days and provides a place to stay when boris is on the move. usually pretty reclusive, but very friendly with the local saloon owner.

nat varnia: trencil’s preteen daughter. doesn’t like that they don’t live in a big city anymore. close to boris since she was a child, calls him “uncle boris”.

trevor garbo: local kid living in the small town. one of nat’s first friends upon moving there. scrappy and rambunctious, spends a lot of time causing trouble around town and “investigating” the residents.

tim tam: a child living in the town. known to walk into stores and take things without so much as looking the shopkeeper in the eye. the shopkeepers are used to them by now. some leave out items labeled “FOR TIM TAM”.

putunia: a young girl with a big imagination who desperately wants out of her parents’ house. she’s gotten far too used to bruises and blood. she wants to be the one fighting bad guys, not the person being attacked.

lulia fame: owner of a local jewelry store and tailor’s shop. she had dreams of moving to hollywood to star in silent films, but is currently tied down to the small town in texas. she doesn’t mind, though; her wife is here.

jerafina tabouli: local schoolteacher. loves the kids and the town she lives in, especially her wife, but sometimes wishes some “action” would shake the place up.

dallas smuth: freelance artist who often gets work as a sketch artist for justice systems in adjacent towns and cities. he doesn’t like doing that, would much rather make his own art, but it pays the bills, and he’s rather good at it.

borbra luddington: local ranch owner who raises chickens and horses. often provides horses to kamal and wallus when they need them.

questionette: from new orleans, with an accent that renders her difficult to understand for the others. rides horses as a hobbyist, but is looking to do it for a living, and has a particular fondness for the luddington ranch.

ronbo: he’s just a rodeo clown

gerry podunk: town gremlin

#pretty sure thats everyone #asks #the smilin’ west #smile for me #ask games

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shepparddentistry · 1 year

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Latest Dental Technology - AIMS Dentistry at Sheppard

We at AIMS Dentistry at Sheppard provide SOPROLIFE technology, which allows us to see what was previously invisible to the naked eye. This technology allows us to detect tooth decay at various phases of development, allowing us to choose the most appropriate therapy. Autofluorescence technology enables us to detect occlusal or interproximal decay in its earliest phases, as well as distinguish healthy from infected tissue in order to treat just the diseased tissue. To know more visit https://dentistryatsheppard.com/new-patient-specials/ or call us at 416-497-6161.

#Porcelain Veneers North York #Root Canal Services North York #Root Canal Treatment North York #Wisdom Tooth Extraction North York #Wisdom Teeth Removal North York #dental cleaning in North York #Dental bonding North York #Kids Dentist North York

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tisthenightofthewitch · 5 years

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GHOST'S TOBIAS FORGE ON FILM PLANS, COPIA'S FUTURE, "DARKER, HEAVIER" NEXT ALBUM

Bandleader also talks Metallica, Mercyful Fate, why a Ghost biopic would be "like premature ejaculation"

The Gospel of Cardinal Copia began barely a year ago, his birth as the new frontman of Ghost neither virginal nor particularly miraculous. But there he stands, a religious man of style and mystery: left eye icy blue and blazing, dressed in fine liturgical threads, leading a band of Nameless Ghouls in silver masks through songs of plague and vermin, love and death.

In the eleven months since the beatific release of Ghost's epic fourth album, Prequelle, much has happened in the world of this wildly theatrical metal act from Sweden. The first of these events was the reveal of Tobias Forge as the living, breathing mastermind behind the masks and papal vestments. Though he's never explicitly stated as such, it's widely understood that it's been Forge all along behind the mic, disguised in corpse paint and/or latex masks, first as a series of consecutive demonic popes called Papa Emeritus (Nos. I-III), before reemerging in 2018 as the grimly debonair Cardi Copia.

Prequelle was a medieval concept album that became a hit, spreading the word of Ghost to a growing congregation, in the U.S. reaching No. 3 on the Billboard album chart, and the Top 10 across most of Europe. An American tour filled theaters and last year delivered Ghost to select arenas in Los Angeles, New York and Montreal. It was all a preamble to Ghost's upcoming Ultimate Tour Named Death, a true arena tour of North America, where the band will deliver a fully realized, theatrical rock show of stained glass and fireballs this fall, beginning Sept. 13th in Bakersfield. (Ghost is also openingfor Metallica this summer on a "WorldWired" European stadium tour.)

"For some reason and luckily for me, I have never really crumbled in front of challenges — maybe going to the dentist," Forge tells Revolver. "I've always got a kick out of doing challenging things. More than anything, it just forces me to go further."

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As a lifelong devotee of Queen and Kiss, Forge is a true believer in the power of rock's epic sweep. Taking Ghost to its fullest potential as operatic spectacle is the ultimate fantasy-come-true for Forge, who birthed the band with few expectations a decade ago with a trio of satanic metal tracks.

"There were definitely moments where I had to walk into the arena in the morning and pinch myself a little bit: All these trucks are ours? All this is just for us?" Forge says of his experiences at the handful of headline arena shows Ghost performed last year in America. "I've always wanted to do this since I was a child. I've envisioned it so many times that I don't know really where the dream ended and it sort of went into reality."

Out of costume and out of character, Forge is a friendly and contemplative figure, a seemingly humble rocker and family man behind Ghost's larger than life image. And there is much still to be done as he heads into this final leg of Ghost's Prequelle cycle. To accompany the tour, he's just completed a new series of online video "webisodes" that dive deeper into the mystery of Copia through Gothic intrigue and comedy.

"There are a few episodes coming in the future that might bring some clarity as to who this fucker is," Forge says of Copia, without offering details. "My hope is that he gets to become Papa Emeritus IV. That is the goal. It just takes time and it takes effort. And that is what he's proving now."

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The videos are an essential part of the band's mythology, and now Forge is close to realizing his ambition to create the first feature-length Ghost movie. If all goes well, the film will be shot before the end of the year.

"If it wasn't for the fact that I ended up finally being a musician, the one thing I really, really want to do in my life is cinema," Forge says. "Any chance I can have to do that, I'm definitely grabbing it."

There had been discussions about this over the years. As an especially visual band, with its own cavalcade of insane characters, the potential was obvious, but things often got stuck on the form a movie might take. "Most films about bands are biographical, and I see no reason to tell our story yet," says Forge, who still considers Ghost to be in its early years. "It's a little bit like premature ejaculation. You have to have a career first and then you can tell the real story, so that was never an option. And when you yank away that, what do you have? Well, that would be a fictional story."

He's confident that the story of the film has now been figured out, and would partly take place around a live concert. Figuring out the location, budget, etc. will make all the difference.

"The cog wheels are turning on that one," he says. "We're just trying to figure out a lot of the practicalities. Making a film is a big endeavor. Another problem that I have had over the course of my career is that I don't have a shit-ton of time. I am also a father of two kids and I'm married. I try to not to break my back. I've been so close so many times to overworking and I said yes to everything just because I was so keen on not losing momentum. I've learned over the years that it's really important not to do everything at once."

Beyond the film and the final leg of this tour, Forge is contemplating what comes next when he returns to the studio in 2020 to begin work on a new Ghost album. He's leaning toward a harder, riffier sound this time. He'll start in January and finish that summer.

"I want to make a different record from Prequelle. I want it to feel different," says Forge, being careful with his words to avoid misleading fans. "If I dare to say heavier, people think that it's going to be Mercyful Fate all the way ... but I definitely have a darker, heavier record in mind."

Prequelle, he says now, was "a little ballad heavy." The next one will lean more in the imposing direction of 2015's Meliora without repeating the same ideas. He's worked to make each album different, starting with 2010's gloomy, metallic debut, Opus Eponymous.

While the sound and message of Ghost remains rooted in the initial ideas he first had when he wrote the riff to "Stand by Him" as a mostly unknown metal player in Sweden, years before first trying on the pope attire. He's also made a point of evolving as a lyricist.

"I have always pushed myself to write the songs that we don't have instead of going back — it maybe would've been a smart move to just try to replicate Opus," he explains. "I can regurgitate. I grew up with metal. It's in my DNA, so I can formulate death-metal lyrics easily. But I try not to repeat myself on that.

"I like to make the Metallica comparison — where Kill 'Em All is a little bit more crude, on Ride the Lightning they started writing about more real things. It had more depth," he adds. "I'm not going change everything and just talk about politics, but I believe that if you have people's attention, you have responsibility to weigh with your words a little. Sometimes that is hard. I find that harder than the musical challenges."

Even so, the unexpected opportunity to take his vision of Ghost to ever larger scope across multiple albums and now onstage at arena-scale is a challenge he welcomes.

"I try to remind myself every day that it's pretty mind-blowing that we got to this spot. You need to try to appreciate 100 percent and do the best every day and nurture," Forge says, then adds with a laugh, "At the risk of sounding a little religious, this is a gift that you've been given."

All rights owned by Revolver Magazine

#The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Cardinal Copia #Tobias Forge

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glenoakdental · 3 months

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At Glenoakdental.ca, you won't have to search far and wide for a North York kid dentist. Our dedicated team offers a wide range of treatments, from general dentistry to more advanced procedures including dental surgery.

Child Dentistry in North York

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deargrilledcheesusyouredelicious · 4 years

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the big brave tiger and siobhan

“You’re not coming with me?” Heather asked her mum and dad, disappointment evident in her tone. She didn’t want to go off with a virtual stranger. Especially one who worked for the dentist! “You promised that I could watch them fix your tooth!”

“You’re going to get to see that,” Mummy’s tone was one of exceeding patience. “Daddy and I just need a couple moments to ourselves, that’s all.”

“But why?” She demanded. “That isn’t fair. I want to stay with you.”

Daddy offered up a rather miserable cough. “Hettie--”

“Hettie?” Heather echoed. “Hettie what? You know that the dentist hurt me! Now you want me to meet him all on my own?”

“Dr. Fitzpatrick wasn’t the dentist who hurt you, and you know that,” Daddy reminded her. “I don’t want Siobhan to bring you to meet him without me and Mum, but you’ve already met him, remember? At the florists?”

“That was different! You said he wasn’t a dentist when he wasn’t here!”

“Heather, please--”

“I won’t tell you again,” Mummy sounded rather cross. “Please, Heather, just go with Siobhan. Just for a few minutes.”

Heather scowled. “You promise that it won’t be for a long time?”

“I promise. She’s going to show you a treasure chest, remember?”

Heather was conflicted. “What about Penny?” She didn’t want to take the dog from Daddy, but what if he left her behind when Dr. Fitzpatrick made him go into the scary room for his appointment? Penny would be scared to be alone in the waiting room. “Will you and Daddy take good care of her?”

“Of course,” Mummy cooed. “We’ll take the very best care of her. I promise.”

Heather didn’t bother to justify her mother’s comment with a response. She was infuriated. They’d lied to her. Daddy and Mummy had promised that they’d never leave her with another sitter, and they’d just fobbed her off on stupid Siobhan at the first opportunity. Did they think that she was too dumb to notice that? Sure, Siobhan may have been known as a dental assistant, but it seemed blatant to her what her true role was: being stuck in charge of Heather while Mummy and Daddy did grown up things that Heather wanted to be included in.

“I’m just going to take her into the staff room,” she could hear Siobhan telling her parents, while she did her best to ignore their presence. “I promise, Paul, nothing will happen to her.”

“What do they care?” Heather demanded. “They just want to get rid of me!”

“Heather!” Mummy chastised. Heather cringed at the tone of her voice. “We don’t want to ‘get rid of you’. Daddy just needs a few moments to himself. All you have to do is go into the other room with Daddy’s friend Siobhan. You even get a toy.”

Heather wanted to tell her mum that she hated her, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice the words. She didn’t hate Mummy. She loved Mummy. Even if Mummy was being very mean to her, and making Daddy be mean to her too. She didn’t want a stupid toy from the treasure chest. She wanted to sit with Daddy and help him feel better.

“You’re mean!” She settled on. “You don’t listen to me at all!”

“Heather Louise!” Daddy said in a tone that Heather had never heard him use before. “I want you to go with Siobhan, now. When you get back, you’re going to apologise to your mother.”

Heather scowled. “I don’t have to apologise to her! She’s got to apologise to me! Why are you being mean to me?”

“Come on,” Siobhan encouraged. “It’s okay, Heather. I understand. Nobody enjoys having to make an emergency appointment at the dental surgery.”

Heather had little desire to go with Siobhan to see what she was sure was a torture chamber. She wanted to stay with her mum and her dad, but Mummy seemed exhausted, so she hadn’t wanted to push her luck. Even Daddy had seemed willing to force her to go, and he hated the dentist. What was the point of going with Daddy to the dentist if he was going to be taken away from her? That wasn’t fair. All Heather wanted was to be close to her mummy and her daddy. Now they’d sent her off with some stranger!

Sure, Daddy had said she was kind, but she worked for the dentist. How could someone who worked for someone who hurt people be kind? She didn’t understand.

When they got into what Heather assumed was the staff room, Siobhan asked if she wanted to sit down. Heather surveyed the room with tear-filled eyes. There was another fish tank filled with the colourful fish she’d been admiring in the other room. The room had several comfortable looking chairs to sit on, and a settee. While Heather would have normally agreed to sit down on one of them, it was all suspect to her. It was a dentist’s office, after all.

“I don’t want to,” Heather whispered. “The only thing that I want to do I can’t do.”

“You’ll be able to see your parents in a few minutes,” Siobhan said in response. Heather shook her head. That hadn’t been what she’d meant. She desperately wanted to suck her thumb, but she knew better than to admit that in front of someone who worked for a dentist. “Oh, do you mean getting a tiger?”

“Mummy and Daddy think they’re too dangerous.” Heather rolled her eyes. “They’re just big cuddly moggies with tiger teeth.”

“I don’t think that my parents would let me have a tiger, either,” Siobhan told Heather, and Heather let out a sigh. It wasn’t fair that the dentist and Daddy agreed on this. She loved Thisbe and her teeny tiny kittens, but she had gotten to see some tigers at the Central Park zoo when she’d still lived in New York, and promptly became enamoured of the creatures. “Have you seen the tigers though?”

“The tigers don’t live here,” Heather did her best to modulate her tone. Not only did it make her sad that she might never see the tigers at Central Park again, there was also the fact that her admittance was going to lead to questioning. She didn’t want to get upset and have to deal with Siobhan attempting to comfort her. It was a stupid thing to get upset over, really.

They were just tigers.

If only the tigers were really the issue. Heather just didn’t want to admit to her companion that she wasn’t originally from England. Sure, she had pretended that she believed Daddy was her dad, but Heather wasn’t stupid. People pretended that all the time, at least while Daddy and Mummy were there. When they weren’t, it was another story.

“They live where I lived before. There was a zoo there. Mummy took me to see them.”

Heather desperately wanted to suck her thumb, but she forced herself not to. She didn’t care how nice Daddy claimed Siobhan was. She worked for the dentist.

“Daddy hasn’t taken you to the London Zoo?” Siobhan asked her.

She shook her head. “I didn’t know there was a zoo here,” she admitted. “Do they have tigers?”

Siobhan nodded. “Of course they do,” she said. “Mummy tigers and daddy tigers, and little tigers like you.”

Heather knew that the little tigers weren’t going to be like her. How could they be? They were born here, in London. The baby that Mummy was pregnant with would be like them. Heather wasn’t. She wasn’t even like the little tigers in New York. They’d been born at the Zoo. The sign (Mummy had read it for her, because she had taken her before she had learnt how to read) had informed her and Mummy that the tiger cubs had been born in captivity.

Heather had been born in a place called Tucson. She didn’t think the London tigers had been born there.

“The little tigers aren’t like me. They’re from here. They’re not from stupid New York.”

Heather didn’t think that New York was stupid, but she knew that everyone in London did. Especially the kids that she’d gone to school with. Every day she had had to listen to comments about everything. How she looked, how she dressed, whether or not her dad was her dad, and, most galling of all, how she spoke. Daddy had told her that she had a perfectly lovely voice, but Mummy was the only one who’d agreed with him.

No one had believed he was her dad, either. That had hurt most of all. Daddy had even gone to the school to try to convince them, and nothing had come of it. The headteacher had promised him that she would put a stop to it, and she had: she’d put a stop to Heather’s ‘complaining’ by swatting her with the school’s cane.

Not that she’d mentioned that incident to either of her parents. She hadn’t wanted to make them angry at her.

“Is that where you’re from?” Siobhan asked her, in what seemed to be a curious tone. Heather eyed her warily. “New York?”

Whenever someone found out where Heather was from, all of the hard effort she’d put into assimilating into an accent like her dad’s completely evaporated. She hated it. All she wanted was for people to see her as a McCartney, not a liar. She wasn’t a liar. It wasn’t her fault that she was both a McCartney and from New York.

“It doesn’t matter,” Heather whimpered, after a moment of silence. She twisted a lock of her hair around her finger. “The tigers were from there, that’s all. Some of them were babies,” she recalled. “They were so tiny. Not big at all. Mummy told me that they were called cubs. She told me that they would be big like the mummy and daddy tigers one day.”

“Did your dad go with you?” Siobhan asked. Heather glanced up at her, and she slowly shook her head. Mummy had taken Heather to the zoo before Daddy had come to New York.

“Daddy wasn’t there,” she answered, hoping that her evasive answer would satisfy Siobhan’s question. “Me and Mum, we went after she took pictures of some of her mates at the zoo. I’d wanted to go with her, but she’d told me that taking pictures was her job, so I needed to stay with the sitter.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory. “I don’t know why she took me to the zoo afterwards,” she added. “She’d already been.”

“I think she took you to make you happy,” Siobhan replied. “You had a good time, didn’t you?”

“I liked to see the animals. But, I told you, that’s in New York. It’s different.”

“You know, I’m not from here, either,” Siobhan informed her, her accent lilting. “It was hard for me when we moved here from Derry. That’s where I was born.”

“I thought you were from Ireland.”

“Northern Ireland,” she said. “Derry’s where we lived, though. It’s like how we live in England, but London’s a city? Do you understand?”

“We lived in New York,” Heather admitted. “In Manhattan. I don’t like to talk about it because I hated it. Grandpa Lee made me go to a school where everyone made fun of me and his dentist tormented me, and everyone made fun of me for that, and then Mummy had to work all the time, and she had to leave me with babysitters. Sometimes she took me to the Fillmore East with her,” she added. “I liked that. I felt so grown up. Mummy went to London for a few weeks and when she came back she had my daddy with her,” she continued, not willing to look Siobhan in the eyes, but at least willing to speak to her. “He wasn’t my daddy then,” she admitted. “Mummy told me that he was someone she loved very much and that she hoped that we might want to become a family together.” Siobhan smiled at Heather when she said that, and she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t a big deal, was it? Siobhan had a pretty smile, though. It reminded Heather of Mummy’s. “At first, I called him Paul. He brought me Penny, because he had a dog at home and he wanted me to have a dog, too. When Paul came...Mummy didn’t have to work so much anymore. When she did work, he was there, so I didn’t have to have a baby sitter. He told me that he didn’t mind being with me. I don’t know why he does now.” Her lower lip wobbled. “Maybe it’s because of the baby? It will really be his. No one will ever say otherwise. Maybe he realised that.”

“I don’t think that it has anything to do with you,” Siobhan told her. Heather was surprised when she knelt on the surgery floor. “Your dad, he’s never been great at coming to the dentist. I think that he’s had some bad experiences at other dental surgeries,” she elaborated. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the right fit, like when you didn’t like the babysitters your mum found for you?”

“Daddy said that your daddy wouldn’t let him take his pills,” Heather recalled, in a rather accusatory tone. “This is your daddy’s fault. Daddy wouldn’t be so upset if he took them to feel better.”

“I know,” Siobhan admitted. “Maybe that was the wrong thing for him to suggest.”

“What do you mean?” Heather demanded. “He said that Daddy needed to try something called laughing gas. I don’t even know what that is. Is he going to hurt him? I don’t want him to get hurt, Siobhan.”

“My dad wouldn’t have wanted your dad to get this upset,” Siobhan told her. Heather deigned to look her in the eyes. “I think that he wanted to try the laughing gas on him so that he might be able to drive you home.”

“Daddy doesn’t like making Mummy drive,” she supplied. “She didn’t drive a lot when we lived in New York, and they drive on the wrong side of the road here.” She scratched the side of her face. “Maybe he’s nervous because of the accident he got into? It sounded scary. I saw a picture of what he looked like.”

“You saw the film they did for Paperback Writer?”

She shook her head. “No, Uncle Mike took a picture of Daddy after he got hurt. It made me sad to see. I wish that I’d been there, so I could have given him a hug.” She shrugged her shoulders. “What does laughing gas do?”

“It will make your dad not feel anything that my dad does at all,” Siobhan told her. “He’ll get really giggly, you know? Really up?”

Heather wondered if she meant how Dad and Mum got when they smoked the special cigarettes. She vowed to ask them if that was what Siobhan had meant later. She didn’t want to get Daddy in trouble with the dentist.

“I like when Daddy laughs,” she admitted. “It makes me happy. Sometimes he makes me laugh, too.”

“He’ll probably say some daft things when he’s on it.” Siobhan grinned at her. Heather managed to smile back. “It’ll be okay, honest. I think that Daddy and Mummy just needed a few minutes to themselves, that’s all. You can get them some stuff from the treasure chest.”

“Is it really okay if I get something for the baby?”

“I bet it would make your mum and dad happy.”

Heather liked that idea. “I know that they love us both,” she insisted. It was important that Siobhan know that. “I just didn’t want them to leave me.”

“I think that your daddy needed a moment with just your mummy so that he wouldn’t have to pretend that he was okay being here. Even though my dad would never hurt him. Sometimes the procedures make your mouth feel funny.”

Heather drew in a deep breath. “Grandpa Lee’s dentist hurt me,�� she admitted. “He went to the school that I went to in New York and he made all the kids who hadn’t had dentist appointments see him for an appointment at the school. He thought that I was still sucking my thumb and he yelled at me, and when he poked at my teeth it really hurt. I had to sit on a folding chair. I wanted Mum and no one would get her for me. Everyone at school made fun of me.”

“I’m sorry, Heather,” Siobhan said. “None of that should have happened. It won’t happen here. There’s a comfortable chair for you to sit in, and Mummy and Daddy can both stay. My dad won’t make you have a dental cleaning alone.”

“Daddy won’t want to be there,” she whimpered. “The dentist scares him.”

“No, Heather, that’s not true,” Siobhan assured her, her tone gentle. “Your dad...he doesn’t like the dentist, that’s true, but he’ll be there for you. I promise. I remember once, I was upset because the kids at school were teasing me about my wires, and about my accent. I was in the waiting room crying, because my dad was in with a patient. I didn’t want to interrupt him because the patient was having an important procedure done. When your dad came out, he asked me if I was okay, and he sat down beside me while I cried. He didn’t care that he was still at the dental surgery or that his ride home was waiting for him, or that he was on enough painkillers to knock out a horse...he really wanted me to feel better. A couple of days later, he stopped by here to bring us tickets to one of his concerts. He made me feel really special. So, I’m sure that he’ll stay for your appointment and hold your hand. Maybe he’ll even sing for you.”

Heather scrubbed at her face. “I like when he sings to me. Sometimes he and Mummy sing together when he plays the piano, or the guitar.” She sighed. “Can I pick out the things from the treasure chest?”

Heather didn’t want to hear about Siobhan having had to get wires. Wasn’t it bad enough that they were in a dental surgery and she was forced to pretend she believed that Siobhan was nice? She didn’t want to hear about poor Daddy being forced to get his teeth pulled, or the dentist subjecting his own daughter to the dreaded braces. She loathed the fact that what she’d assumed was only a lie to her grandfather to get her away from his evil dentist had turned into the reality of having to have a dental cleaning.

There was something that she was curious about, though. Had Daddy really gotten Siobhan tickets to one of his concerts? Heather was a bit jealous. Mummy had been to see Daddy and his band play when they’d come to New York, before he was her daddy, and now even Siobhan had been? That wasn’t fair.

“Did you get to go?” Heather asked. “To the concert. Did your daddy let you go?”

Siobhan nodded. “He did.”

“I wish that I could go to a concert,” she admitted. “It isn’t fair. Mummy got to see Daddy play, you got to see him play, but not me.” She wrinkled her nose. She didn’t know if she was supposed to admit that the Beatles were fighting. She knew that Uncle John being in the princess castle was supposed to be a secret. Daddy seemed to think that, at least. Heather didn’t want to make him angry again.

“Have you asked your daddy?”

Heather shook her head. “No, Daddy doesn’t like to talk about work when he’s at home,” she informed her. “He told me that we were going to have a big party for the record that’s coming out soon! Mummy and Daddy met at the one for Daddy’s last record. So, I asked him if we could have a big party for this one, and if I could go. At first, he pretended that he didn’t want to have a big party for the record,” Heather told her. “I don’t know why. He worked so hard at it. Sometimes he and Uncle Ringo were the only ones who worked. I tried explaining that to him but he still pretended he didn’t want to, so I had to explain how Mummy had been to one and I wanted to go to one too.”

Siobhan giggled. “You must be looking forward to it?”

“Uh-huh,” she chirped. “Da said that he’d take us to the store that they own let us pick out pretty dresses! He said that we could get whatever we wanted.” Heather could hardly wait. Her excitement dimmed as she recalled the last thing that her dad had said to her in the waiting room. He’d been so angry at her. She still didn’t understand why. She tried so hard to make mum and dad happy. “But that was before. He’s mad at me, now. He yelled. He’s never yelled at me before. I didn’t mean to be bad, Siobhan, honest.”

“I don’t think that he was mad at you,” Siobhan told her. “Look, Heather. I think it may have upset your parents when you didn’t want to go with me, because they needed a few minutes alone. I think your dad needed a break from being brave.”

Heather pondered this. “But, Daddy is always brave,” she said. “Honest! Why wouldn’t he just tell me he was scared? I’m scared of lots of things. I would have understood.”

“I don’t know, Heather.”

Heather didn’t know either. She was sure that Daddy knew she was scared of things. Wasn’t that why he and Mummy let her spend the night with them sometimes? Because of her bad dreams? Now he was trying to pretend that he never got scared? Daddy was so silly sometimes.

She decided to change the subject. They’d approached the treasure chest, and she wanted to pick out the best treasure ever for the baby. Even though Mummy insisted the baby wouldn’t be there for a long time, Heather didn’t see the harm in getting the baby a treasure.

“I’m gonna be a big sister,” she gushed, the excitement she felt about her new role overruling her trepidation at appearing anything more than aloof towards the dental assistant. “Mummy and Daddy asked me if I wanted to be a big sister, and I told them yes, so now they’re going to have a baby. But not for a long time. Mummy said during the summer.”

“Do you want a brother?” Siobhan asked her. “Or a sister?”

Heather shrugged. “I want a sister,” she admitted. “But I heard Daddy tell Mummy he wanted to have loads of babies with her. So if it’s a boy, that’d be okay. I just want the baby to come. Mummy says when it’s older I can share a room with it if I want to.” Heather did. She felt it unfair that Mummy had said no to it from the beginning. “Da said that the baby won’t care if it looks like him and I don’t, because he said that I look like Mummy. Mummy’s so beautiful.” She glanced up at Siobhan. “Are you a big sister?”

“Yeah, I’m the eldest,” she told her. “Just like you.”

Heather had never seen such a pretty treasure chest before, and Siobhan told her that she had decorated it herself. While Heather would have never normally contemplated complimenting someone who worked for the dentist, she put aside her principles for the moment. Heather couldn’t believe that she could pick out a treasure for everyone, even the baby. There were so many treasures that she didn’t know what to choose.

“I want the horse,” she told Siobhan. “I think that Father Christmas is going to be bringing me one. I told Mummy and Daddy that that was what I wanted.” She cradled the figurine in her hands. There were three other horses in the treasure chest. They were different than the one that Heather held, but she wanted to give them to Mummy and Daddy. And the baby. Even though she knew that the baby wouldn’t be born for some time. “I want to get everyone a horsie.”

“What kind of horse are you getting?” Siobhan asked. “Do you mean a stuffed toy?”

She shook her head. “No, a real horse. Mummy and Daddy already have some. I want one of my own, so that I can ride on it by myself.”

“I’ve ridden horses,” she told her. “I used to show them.”

“Show them what?” Heather didn’t know what Siobhan meant by the comment, but she was confused by the fact that she had shown horses things and then stopped. “Did they get bored? Is that why you stopped?”

“Oh, no. Show means...it’s a fancy word that means I used to ride them in competition.”

“Do you still like horses?” Heather asked. “Even though you don’t ride them in competition anymore?”

“Of course I do,” she assured her. “I just got too busy, you know? I was studying to be a dental hygienist.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why? You don’t seem scary.”

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jas-michaud · 5 years

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⌠ DOVE CAMERON, 21, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, JASMINE “JAS” MICHAUD! according to their records, they’re a THIRD year, specializing in LINGUISTICS, CULTURE, & ASSIMILATION + AWARENESS TRAINING, BREATH CONTROL, HAND TO HAND COMBAT; and they DID go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of ( ever-changing nail art, watercolor flower tattoos & coco mademoiselle perfume ). when it’s the ( libra )’s birthday on 9/30/1998, they always request their CLAFOUTIS from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation.

hey ... y’all ever seen angus, thongs and perfect snogging ... bc thaz how jas is pronounced ahksjvhdf

me aggressively refusing to play americans continues with jas, who is from our (america’s lol) neighbor to the north, canada! my dad’s family is so canadian they barely crossed the border a hundred years ago and just stayed in upstate new york for generations.

i say that so any canadians reading this kno i’m trying my BEST

i think! jas is from quebec, so she’d be from a city that’s french-canadian. probably montreal because i’m not creative OR a suburb of it, at least.

her parents are very nice, very normal, people. they were high school sweethearts, with three children. jas is the middle child (yikes. just kidding, i) and she has two sisters!

her mother is a kindergarten teacher and her dad is a dentist bc i’m basic!

when she was still young, just after starting school, her aunt came to visit and stayed for a couple of weeks before proposing she take jas for the summer, since she rarely got to see her nieces. but she is not a kid person (and had none herself) so it’d be easiest if she only looked after one of them 👀

jas was down, so her parents were like okay! and thus began her very preliminary spy training. her aunt was often traveling, because no shit she was a Spy but ofc jas’s parents didn’t know this and jas herself was never told this outright. but as she grew up, spending summers with her aunt, it became...how do u say...obvious lol

by the time she went to high school, her aunt asked if she would be interested in going to an elite spy prep school in canada and she decided...yeah she liked the spy thing, she wanted to do it “for real” and ofc her parents were thrilled when she got into some exclusive fancy boarding school

her aunt mostly trained her for hand-to-hand combat and obstacle courses, especially when she was younger, which is why she’s drawn to that subject. it comes naturally and we love an easy A (jk perhaps, perhaps not!)

as she got older, her aunt would put her through “tests” where she had to pretend to be someone else or her aunt would set her a task to perform and see if she could do it, out in the world around strangers. it was, of course, a form of assimilation but jas is studying it more because of the things she didn’t do. the one thing her aunt got to do that she didn’t was leave, travel, and jas spent all of her childhood with her parents, her aunt or at her prep school so she has a huge desire to travel as part of her work in the future

personality things: she’s “obsessive” because jas is extremely detail oriented, when she does something it has to be as close to perfect as humanly possible. she’s not obsessive about other people or relationships or even grades it’s! like...she’s obsessed with nail art, with getting clean straight lines, with making polka dots that are all the exact same size and thickness. and she changes her nails constantly and looks at every occasion as a chance to do appropriate nail art so lmao. she has siblings and she has a good relationship with them, and with her parents, but having spent so much time with it being just her and her aunt, she was trusted to, expected, to do a lot of things on her own and she’s very comfortable being on her own but she loves other people too! and she loves to talk and weirdly loves listening just as much? just! human interaction is neat. her aunt was not a big talker, so she’s comfortable with silence, but she would prefer to have a conversation. she can be a little scatterbrained but definitely NOT when something is important to the other person, or...in general. okay see ya bye!

#gallagher:intro #me not forgetting to write an intro??? revolutionary

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Anonymous asked: My granddaughter is 16 and in the us navy sea cadet program here in the USA. She hopes to become a naval aviator. She love reading military books. Any recommendations for her. Her mom says she reads anything military from equipment to history. I could use advice on a reading list to buy books for her. William Law

Thank you William for sending me this. It’s certainly one of the most interesting asks I’ve ever had the pleasure to reply to because it involves my love of Classics and also being a former military aviator.

So I put some thought into it because I can sense a kindred spirit in your grand daughter. She must be a remarkable young girl if she is as focused and committed as you say she is in terms of her life goals. If I may say so she is also blessed to have a grandfather like you who recognises the value of reading books to aid her and inspire her.

I have tried to confine myself to the narrow parameters of recommending books that can appeal to a precocious teenager that have a connection to naval and maritime themes (rather than the landed military) and have a general connection to women in the navy or as aviators. So the list is broken into personal memoirs, naval and maritime history, fictional works, and finally a select Classics list.

If you will indulge me I have included the Classics because I firmly believe a grounding in the Classics (from as early age as possible) is so culturally enriching and personally rewarding. In my experience the wisest military leaders and veterans I have ever had the privilege of knowing were grounded in the Classics.

To my mind Classic history, literature and poetry belongs in any library relating to maritime affairs. It provides a flavour of sea life, helping strategists understand this alien element. Just as important, it enlivens the topic. As you will know, ships and fleets do not make history; people do.

It is by no means a comprehensive list but something to start with. I’ve decided not to give you a bullet point laundry list but add some notes of my own because I found it fun to do - and in doing so I found myself looking back on my teenage years with equal icky amounts of embarrassment, regret, foolishness, fun, and joy.

1. Personal memoirs

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

‘Poetry in flight’ best describes this 1942 memoir from aviatrix Beryl Markham of bush flying in Africa and long-distance flight, which includes her solo flight across the Atlantic. Lyrical and expressive her descriptions of the adventure of flying continue to inspire generations of women pilots, including myself when I learned to fly.

Markham was a colonial child and was raised by her father on a remote farm in Njoro, British East Africa (present-day Kenya). After a tomboyish childhood spent roaming the Kenyan wilds, she moved upcountry to Molo, becoming a racehorse trainer. There she saw her first plane and met British pilot Tom Black, who became her flight instructor and lover. Soon Markham earned her commercial pilot’s license, the first woman in Kenya to do so, and began to freelance as a bush pilot. Much of West With the Night concerns itself with this period in Markham’s life, detailing her flights in an Avro Avian biplane running supplies to remote outposts or scouting game for safaris.

Since airfields were essentially nonexistent in Africa at the time, Markham’s flights were particularly dangerous, punctuated with white-knuckle landings in forest clearings and open fields. In fact the dangers of African flying claimed the lives of a number of aviators. Markham eloquently describes her own search for a downed pilot: “Time and distance together slip smoothly past the tips of my wings without sound, without return, as I peer downward over the night-shadowed hollows of the Rift Valley and wonder if Woody, the lost pilot, could be there, a small pinpoint of hope and of hopelessness listening to the low, unconcerned song of the Avian - flying elsewhere.”

Markham’s memoir shies away from personal details - she is rumoured to have had an affair with an English prince - and straightforward chronology, instead focusing on vivid scenes gathered from a well-lived life. Rarely does one encounter such an evocative sense of a time and place as she creates. The heat and dust of Africa emanate from her prose. Anyone interested in aviation, in Africa, or in simply reading an absorbing book will find much to like in its pages. Ernest Hemingway, a friend and fellow safari enthusiast, wrote of Markham’s memoir, “I wish you would get it and read it because it really is a bloody wonderful book.”

It is a bloody brilliant book and it’s one of the books closest to my heart as it personally resonated with my nomadic life growing up in foreign countries where once the British empire made its mark.

I first read it on my great aunt’s Kenyan tea farm during the school holidays in England. I got into huge trouble for taking a treasured first edition - personally signed by Markham herself - from the library of my great aunt without permission. My great aunt - not an easy woman to get on with given her questionable eccentricities - wrote a stern letter to the head teacher of my girls’ boardng school in England that the schools standards and moral Christian teachings must be in terminal decline if girls were encouraged to pilfer books willy nilly from other people’s bookshelves and thus she would not - as an alum herself - be donating any more money to the school. It was one more sorry blot in my next school report.

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien

For pioneering pilots of the 1920s and 1930s, the challenges were enormous. For women it was even more daunting. In this marvellous history, Keith O’Brien recounts the early years of aviation through a generation of American female pilots who carved out a place for themselves and their sisterhood. Despite the sensation they created, each “went missing in her own way.” This is the inspiring untold story of five women from very different walks of life - including a New York socialite, an Oakland saleswoman, a Florida dentist’s secretary and a Boston social worker - who fought and competed against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s — and won.

In 1928, when women managed to get jobs in other male dominated fields, fewer than 12 had a pilot’s license, and those ambitious for prizes and recognition faced entrenched sexism from the men who ran air races, backed fliers, and financed the purchase of planes. They decided to organise: “For our own protection,” one of them said, “we must learn to think for ourselves, and do as much work as possible on our planes.” Although sometimes rivals in the air, they forged strong friendships and offered one another unabated encouragement. O’Brien vividly recounts the dangers of early flight: In shockingly rickety planes, pilots sat in open cockpits, often blinded by ice pellets or engine smoke; instruments were unreliable, if they worked at all; sudden changes in weather could be life threatening. Fliers regularly emerged from their planes covered in dust and grease. Crashes were common, with planes bursting into flames; but risking injury and even death failed to dampen the women’s passion to fly. And yet their bravery was only scoffed at by male prejudice. Iconic oilman Erle Halliburton believed, “Women are lacking in certain qualities that men possess.” Florence Klingensmith’s crash incited a debate about allowing menstruating women to fly.

O'Brien nicely weaves together the stories of these five remarkable women in the spirit of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff who broke the glass ceiling to achieve greatness.

Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot by James Stockdale

Thoughts on issues of character, leadership, integrity, personal and public virtue, and ethics, the selections in this volume converge around the central theme of how man can rise with dignity to prevail in the face of adversity- lessons just as valid for the challenges of present-day life as they were for the author’s Vietnam experience.Vice Admiral James Stockdale, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, served in the U.S. Navy from 1947 to 1979, beginning as a test pilot and instructor at Patuxent River, Maryland, and spending two years as a graduate student at Stanford University. He became a fighter pilot and was shot down on his second combat tour over North Vietnam, becoming a prisoner of war for eight years, four in solitary confinement. The highest-ranking naval officer held during the Vietnam War, he was tortured fifteen times and put in leg irons for two years. It’s a book that makes you think how much character is important in good at anything, especially being a thoughtful and wise leader in the heat of battle.

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life And Maybe The World by Admiral William H. McRaven On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better.

Admiral McRaven's original speech went viral with over 10 million views.

Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech, McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those of people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honour, and courage.

The book is told with great humility and optimism. It provides simple wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve more, even in life's darkest moments.

Service: A Navy SEAL at War by Marcus Luttrell with James D. Hornfischer

Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell is more known for his other famous best seller Lone Survivor but this one I think is also a thrilling war story, Service is above all a profoundly moving tribute to the warrior brotherhood, to the belief that nobody goes it alone, and no one will be left behind. Luttrell returned from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan with his bones shattered and his heart broken. So many had given their lives to save him-and he would have readily done the same for them. As he recuperated, he wondered why he and others, from America's founding to today, had been willing to sacrifice everything - including themselves-for the sake of family, nation, and freedom.

In Service, we follow Marcus Luttrell to Iraq, where he returns to the battlefield as a member of SEAL Team 5 to help take on the most dangerous city in the world: Ramadi, the capital of war-torn Al Anbar Province. There, in six months of high-intensity urban combat, he would be part of what has been called the greatest victory in the history of US Special Operations forces. We also return to Afghanistan and Operation Redwing, where Luttrell offers powerful new details about his miraculous rescue.

Throughout, he reflects on what it really means to take on a higher calling, about the men he's seen lose their lives for their country, and the legacy of those who came and bled before. I did rub shoulders with the US special forces community out on my time in Afghanistan and whilst their public image deifies them I found them to be funny, pranksters, humble, brave, and down to earth beer guzzling hogs who cheerfully cheat at cards.

The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh

Being one of the classics in aviation history, this well written book is an epic aviator’s adventure tale of all time. Charles Lindbergh is best known for its famous nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927 as it changed the history of aviation. “The Spirit of St. Louis” takes the reader on an extraordinary trans-Atlantic journey in a single-engine plane. As well as provides insight into the early history of American aviation and includes some great fuel conservation tips!

20 Hrs. 40 mins by Amelia Earhart

How can any woman pilot not be inspired by Amelia Earhart? Earhart's first transatlantic flight of June 1928 during which she flew as a passenger accompanying pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot Louis Gordon. The team departed from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on 17 June 1928, landing at Pwll near Burry Port, South Wales, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. The book is an interesting read but I much prefer her other book written in 1932 The Fun Of It. The book is Earhart's account of her growing obsession with flying, the final chapter of which is a last minute addition chronicling her historic solo transatlantic flight of 1932. The work contains the mini-record of Earhart's international broadcast from London on 22 May 1932. Earhart set out from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland on 20 May 1932. After a flight lasting 14 hours and 56 minutes Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The work also includes a list of other works on aviation written by women, emblematic of Earhart's desire to promote women aviators.

2. Naval and military history

The U.S. Navy: A Concise History by Craig L Symonds

Symonds’s The U.S. Navy: A Concise History is a fantastic book from one of the doyennes of US naval history. I cannot think of any other work on the US Navy that provides such a thorough overview of American naval policy, navy combat operations, leadership, technology, and culture in such a succinct manner. This book is perfect for any reader - young or old - just wading into the waters of naval history and not knowing where to start, or for someone who wishes to learn a little bit about each era of the navy, from its founding to its modern-day mission and challenges.

His other distinguished works are more in depth - mostly about the Second World War such as the Battle of Midway and the Normandy landings - but this is a good introduction to his magisterial books. His latest book came out in 2019 called World War II at Sea: A Global History. I have not read this yet but from others who have they say it is a masterful overview of the war at sea.

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll

Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military became the most divisive issue facing the new government. The founders - particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams - debated fiercely. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect from pirates or drain the treasury and provoke hostility? Britain alone had hundreds of powerful warships.

From the decision to build six heavy frigates, through the cliff-hanger campaign against Tripoli, to the war that shook the world in 1812, Ian W. Toll tells this grand tale with the political insight of Founding Brothers and the narrative flair of Patrick O’Brian.

The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson by Roger Knight

The starting point of Roger Knight’s magnificent new biography is to explain how Nelson achieved such extraordinary success. Knight places him firmly in the context of the Royal Navy at the time. He analyses Nelson’s more obvious qualities, his leadership strengths and his coolness and certainty in battle, and also explores his strategic grasp, the condition of his ships, the skill of his seamen and his relationships with the officers around him – including those who could hardly be called friendly.

This biography takes a shrewd and sober look at Nelson’s status as a hero and demolishes many of the myths that were so carefully established by the early authors, and repeated by their modern successors.

While always giving Nelson his due, Knight never glosses over the character flaws of his heroic subject. Nelson is seen essentially as a "driven" personality, craving distinction in an age increasingly coloured by notions of patriotic heroism, traceable back to the romantic (and entirely unrealistic) depiction of the youthful General James Wolfe dying picturesquely at the moment of victory in 1759. Nor does Knight take Nelson's side in dealing with that discreditable phase in 1798-99, when he is influenced, much for the worse, by his burgeoning involvement with Lady Hamilton at Naples and Palermo. Knight accepts that this interlude has left an indelible stain on Nelson's naval and personal record. But he traces the largely destructive course of Nelson's passion for Emma with appropriate sensitivity.

Nelson was a shrewd political operator who charmed and impressed political leaders and whose advancement was helped by the relatively weak generation of admirals above him. He was a difficult subordinate, only happy when completely in command, and capable of great ruthlessness. Yes he was flawed, but Nelson's flaws, including his earlier petulance in dealing with higher naval authority - only brought fully under control towards the end of his career - pale before his remarkable strengths. His outstanding physical and moral courage and his inspired handling of officers and men are repeatedly and effectively illustrated.

1812: The Navy’s War by George C. Daughan

When war broke out between Britain and the United States in 1812, America’s prospects looked dismal. British naval aggression made it clear that the ocean would be the war’s primary battlefield - but America’s navy, only twenty ships strong, faced a practiced British fleet of more than a thousand men-of-war.

Still, through a combination of nautical deftness and sheer bravado, a handful of heroic captains and their stalwart crews managed to turn the tide of the war, besting the haughty skippers of the mighty Royal Navy and cementing America’s newly won independence.

In 1812: The Navy’s War, award-winning naval historian George C. Daughan draws on a wealth of archival research to tell the amazing story of this tiny, battle tested team of Americans and their improbable yet pivotal victories. Daughan thrillingly details the pitched naval battles that shaped the war, and shows how these clashes proved the navy’s vital role in preserving the nation’s interests and independence. This well written history is the first complete account in more than a century of how the U.S. Navy rescued the fledgling nation and secured America’s future. Daughan’s prose is first-rate, and his rousing accounts of battles at sea will certainly appeal to a popular audience.

I was given this book as a tongue in cheek gift from an American friend who was an ex-US Marine officer with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was obviously trying to rib me as good friends do. But I really did enjoy this book.

Among the most interesting insights is Daughan’s judgment on the effect of the American invasion attempts in Canada; all ultimately defeated. Demanded by enthusiastic War Hawks unencumbered by knowledge or experience who predicted that the Canadians would flock to U.S. banners, these incursions became the groundwork for a unified Iraq Canada - Ha!

What I liked was the fact that Daughan places the war in its crucial European context, explaining in detail how the course of the Napoleonic Wars shaped British and American decision making and emphasising the North American theatre’s secondary status to the European conflict. While they often verbally castigated Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, American leaders were in the uncomfortable position of needing Napoleon to keep winning while they fought Britain, and his defeat and (first) exile to Elba prompted an immediate scramble to negotiate a settlement. Despite its significance, few historians have bothered to systematically place the War of 1812 in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, and Daughan’s book does exactly that.

Empires of the Seas: The Siege of Malta, The Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Centre of the World by Roger Crowley

In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, the great Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic clash between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world.

In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiralling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar.

Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality.

Empires of the Sea is a story of extraordinary colour and incident, and provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilisations.

One hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander by Admiral Sandy Woodward RN

Written by the man who masterminded the British victory in the Falklands, this engrossing memoir chronicles events in the spring of 1982 following Argentina’s takeover of the South Atlantic islands. Admiral Sandy Woodward, a brilliant military tactician, presents a complete picture of the British side of the battle. From the defeat of the Argentine air forces to the sinking of the Belgrano and the daring amphibious landing at Carlos Water, his inside story offers a revealing account of the Royal Navy’s successes and failures.

At times reflective and personal, Woodward imparts his perceptions, fears, and reactions to seemingly disastrous events. He also reveals the steely logic he was famous for as he explains naval strategy and planning. His eyewitness accounts of the sinking of HMS Sheffield and the Battle of Bomb Alley are memorable.

Many in Whitehall and the armed forces considered Woodward the cleverest man in the navy. French newspapers called him “Nelson.” Margaret Thatcher said he was precisely the right man to fight the world’s first computer war. Without question, the admiral’s memoir makes a significant addition to the official record.

At the same time it provides readers with a vivid portrayal of the world of modern naval warfare, where equipment is of astonishing sophistication but the margins for human courage and error are as wide as in the days of Nelson.

3. Fiction

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

The majestic novel that inspired the classic Hollywood film The Caine Mutiny with Humphrey Bogart. Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life-and mutiny-on a US Navy warship in the Pacific theatre was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II.

The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna

It’s a fantastic novel that inspired a Steve McQueen film of the same name. Watch the movie if you haven’t, but read the book. It’s impossible to do a story of this sweep justice in two hours, even with the great McQueen starring.

Naval friends tell me The Sand Pebbles has been a fixture on the US Chief of Naval Operations’ Professional development reading list, and thus all mariners should be encouraged to read. And it’s easy to tell why. Most American seafarers will interact with the Far East in this age of the pivot, as indeed they have for decades.

Told through the eyes of a junior enlisted man, The Sand Pebbles recounts the deeds of the crew of the fictional U.S. Navy gunboat San Pablo during the turbulent 1920s, when various parties were vying for supremacy following the overthrow of China’s Qing Dynasty.

It’s a book about the mutual fascination, and sometimes repulsion, between Americans and Chinese; the tension between American missionaries and the sailors entrusted with protecting them; and China’s descent into chaos following the collapse of dynastic rule.

How do you separate fact from fiction or myth when writing a historical novel. Wisely, McKenna lets the reader to conclude there’s an element of myth to all accounts of history. Causality - what factors brought about historical events - is in the eye of the beholder. The best an author of historical fiction can do, then, is devote ample space to all contending myths and leave it up to readers to judge. Sailors, missionaries, and ordinary Chinese get their say in his pages, to illuminating effect. Authors report, the readers decide.

Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War by P.W. Singer and August Cole

The United States, China, and Russia eye each other across a twenty-first century version of the Cold War, which suddenly heats up at sea, on land, in the air, in outer space, and in cyberspace. The fighting involves everything from stealthy robotic–drone strikes to old warships from the navy’s “ghost fleet.” Fighter pilots unleash a Pearl Harbor-style attack; American veterans become low-tech insurgents; teenage hackers battle in digital playgrounds; Silicon Valley billionaires mobilise for cyber-war; and a serial killer carries out her own vendetta. Ultimately, victory will depend on blending the lessons of the past with the weapons of the future.

The book’s title, Ghost Fleet, comes from an expression used in the U.S. Navy that refers to partially or fully decommissioned ships kept in reserve for potential use in future conflict. These ships, as one might imagine, are older and naturally less technologically sophisticated than their modern counterparts. Singer and Cole cleverly use this concept, retiring older ships and weaponry in favour of newer versions with higher technological integration, to illustrate a key motif in the book: while America’s newest generation of warfighting machinery and gear is capable of inflicting greater levels of punishment, it is also vulnerable to foreign threats in ways that its predecessors were not. The multi-billion dollar, next generation F-35 aircraft, for instance, is rendered powerless after it is revealed that Chinese microprocessor manufacturers had implanted malicious code into products intended for the jet.

I’m a huge sucker for intelligently written thrillers and I found Ghost Fleet to be a page-turning speculative thriller in the spirit of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. The debut novel by two leading experts on the cutting edge of national security, it is unique in that every trend and technology featured in the novel - no matter how sci-fi it may seem - is real, or could be soon.

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian (Aubery-Maturin series)

This, the first of twenty in the splendid series of the famous Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship’s Irish-Catalan surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson’s navy are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.

I have the first editions of some of the series and I have treasured them ever since I read them as a teenager. I felt like stowing away on the first ship I could find in Plymouth. The Hollywood film version by Peter Weir with Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey is a masterful swashbuckling film and perhaps a delightful way into the deeper riches of the other novels in the epic series.

Beat to Quarters by C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower series)

Horatio Hornblower remains for many the best known and most loved of these British naval heroes of Napoleonic Age. In ten books Forester recounts Hornblower's rise from midshipman to admiral, during the British navy's confrontation with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. For readers, the books work as a window into history because of the outstanding details that appear in these books. Through this singular series, according to critics, C.S. Forrester - like Patrick O’Brian - has contributed his own uniqueness to the confluence of fact and fiction.

They are above all ‘ripping good yarns’, with fast-moving plots, stirring battle scenes, lively dialogue, and vivid characters, but they also offer a picture of the British navy during the period; and Hornblower himself is an original and memorable literary creation as fictionally charismatic as James Bond.

Young Hornblower is introspective, morose, self-doubting. He is crippled by the fear that he does not have the qualities to command other men. He is harder on himself than anyone else would dare to be – and is, simply, one of the most complete creations of character in fiction. This is why many teenagers love Hornblower because they can see something of themselves in his adventures from from chronic self-doubt to soaring swashbuckling self-confidence. Hornblower is much more relatable than the brooding seasoned Jack Aubrey for instance.

I recommend reading the books in the order they were written rather than chronologically. In the first written novel, Beat to Quarters (also published as The Happy Return), we find Hornblower in command of a frigate in lonely Pacific waters off Spanish Central America. He has to deal with a mad revolutionary, fight single-ship duels with a larger vessel, and cope with Lady Barbara Wellesley (who provides a romantic interest to the series).

In A Ship of the Line Hornblower is sent into the Mediterranean, where he wreaks havoc on French coastal communications before plunging into a battle against the odds. Flying Colours is mostly set in France: in it Hornblower escapes captivity and returns to England a hero. In The Commodore he is sent with a squadron into the Baltic, where he has to cope with the complex politics of the region as well as helping with the siege of Riga. And in Lord Hornblower a mutiny leads to involvement with the fall of Napoleon — and brings him to prison and a death sentence during the Hundred Days. Forester then went back and described Hornblower's earlier career. Lieutenant Hornblower is perhaps my favourite of the Hornblower books.

Piece of cake by Derek Robinson

It’s an epic tome covering the opening twelve months of World War Two, from the phony war in France to the hasty retreat back across the Channel and then the valiant stand against the might of the Luftwaffe in what became known as the Battle of Britain.

The book follows the exploits of the fictional Hornet squadron and its members, a group of men who work hard and play harder. Though fiction, this immaculately researched novel based on an RAF Hurricane fighter squadron in 1940 highlights the ill-preparedness of Britain in the early stages of Word War Two.

Its British black humour is on full throttle with its nuanced observations of class politics and institutional ineptness. The manic misfits, heroes and bullies of Hornet Squadron discover that aerial combat is nothing like what they have been trained for. The writing sears the reader’s brain and produces some of the finest writing on the air war ever put to paper.

Be warned, though, this story isn’t about one specific character or ‘hero’. Indeed, just as you get to know a pilot, they are either chopped or killed; such is the nature of war in the air. Even though this is initially frustrating, you soon come to realise just how authentic Robinson’s storytelling is, and that this is exactly what it must have been like to be part of an RAF squadron on active service, never knowing who of your comrades would be alive from day to day. And, although the war proper for Hornet squadron doesn’t start until late in the book, when it does come the rendition of the dogfights in the air are so gripping that you’ll feel like you are actually there, sat next to the pilot in his cramped Hurricane cockpit, as Messerschmitt 109s scream by spitting death from all points of the compass.

All in all, this is a thoroughly entertaining (and educational) novel, and a must read for anyone interested in the RAF and how so few stood against so many. It has the dark humour of Heller’s Catch 22 but with a very distinctive British humour that can be lost on other foreigners. I recommend it as a honest and healthy antidote to anyone thinking of all pilots and the brave deeds they do in some deified light when in fact they are human and flawed as anyone else. Anyone who’s ever been a pilot will recognise some archetype in their own real life in this darkly comic British novel.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim has it all. It's not just a novel of the sea but a work of moral philosophy.

Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

In my humble opinion the greatest aviation fiction book ever written. It made the celebrated French aviator famous and Antoine de Saint-Exupery would go on to write the timeless classic The Little Prince.

Saint-Exupéry, though born into French nobility was always the odd one out as a child. Portly but jovial, he had bags of courage and curiosity to match his thirst for adventure and travel. He doggedly pursued his dream of becoming a pioneering pilot. In the 1930s he was an airline pilot who flew the north African and south Atlantic mail routes. During the long lonely hours in the cockpit he had enough time to accumulate experience and reflections which could be fit into Night Flight.

The novel itself narrates the terrifying story of Fabien, a pilot who conducted night mail planes, from Patagonia, Chile, and Paraguay to Argentina in the early days of commercial aviation when it was dangerous and pilots died often in horrendous accidents. The book romantically captures the danger and loneliness of these early commercial pilots, blazing routes in the days before radar, GPS and jet engines.

Night Flight is a good gateway into his other aviation themed books. Each of them are magical in capturing the austere feelings of seeing the world and its landscapes from above. Southern Mail, The Aviator, and Wind, Sand and Stars are fantastic reads.

Night Flight is inspiring for every pilot by sharing a unique magic of piloting an airplane.

These books changed my life as it inspired me to fly as a late teen. I still re-read Saint-Exupery’s writings sometimes as a way to tap into that youthful joy of discovering the wonders of flying a plane and when the impossible was only limited by your will and imagination. I cannot recommend his novels highly enough.

4. Classical

The Odyssey by Homer translated by Emily Wilson

Homer should the read at any age and for all seasons. I’ve chosen Emily Wilson’s recent translation because it’s good and not just because her publication was billed as the first woman to ever translate Homer. Wilson is an Oxford educated Classicist now a professor of Classics at Pennsylvania. Every discussion of Emily Wilson’s Odyssey is prefaced with the fact that hers is the first English translation of the poem by a woman, but it’s worth noting that Caroline Alexander’s Iliad (Ecco 2015) was also published as the first English translation by a woman to much less hoopla (to say nothing of Sarah Ruden’s Aeneid, Yale University Press 2009).

While a woman translating Homer’s epic is certainly a huge milestone, Wilson’s interpretation is a radical, fascinating achievement regardless of her gender. Disregard the marketing hype and the Wilson’s translation of Odysseus’ epic sea voyage home still stands tall for its fast paced narrative.

Compared with her predecessors’, Wilson’s Odyssey feels more readable, more alive: the diction, with some exceptions discussed below, is straightforward, and the lines are short. The effect is to turn the Odyssey into a quick-paced page turner, an experience I’d never had reading this epic poem in translation.

The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians by Thucydides translated by Jeremy Mynott

This is the classic treatise about what is essentially rowboats and spears of one of the most important and defining wars of Western civilisation. A long story of people killing one another, cynically justifying their cruelties in pursuit of power, making gross, stupid and fatal miscalculations, in a world devoid of justice. It's a long, drawn out tragedy without any redeeming or uplifting catharsis. If you are not already an extreme pessimist, you will lose all illusions about the inherent goodness of human beings and the possibility of influencing the course of events for the better after you read this book. You will be sadder but you will be wiser. Thucydides called his account of two decades of war between Athens and Sparta “a possession for all time,” and indeed it is the first and still most famous work in the Western historical tradition.

People look at me in a shocked way when I tell them that you can learn 90 percent of what you need to know about politics and war from Thucydides. Maritime strategy falls among the remaining 10 percent. If you want to read about the making of strategy, Clausewitz & Co. are your go-to works. If you want big thoughts about armed strife pitting a land against a sea power, Thucydides is your man. Considered essential reading for generals, admirals, statesmen, and liberally educated citizens for more than 2,000 years, The Peloponnesian War is a mine of military, naval, moral, political, and philosophical wisdom.

Finding the best and most accessible translation (and commentary) is key otherwise you risk putting off the novice reader (especially the young) from ever taking an interest in the Classical world e.g. I would never give the Thomas Hobbes translation to anyone who is easily bored or is impatient with old English. There are many good modern translations to choose from and here you have Strassler, Blanco, and Lattimore that are more used in America. Richard Crawley’s is the most popular but also the least accurate.

My own personal recommendation would be to go for Jeremy Mynott’s 2013 work which he titled The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. Mynott was a former publishing head at Cambridge University Press and emeritus fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, as well as a leading expert on birds and natural history. Mynott’s aim is to re-introduce Thucydides to the reader in his “proper cultural and historical context”, and to strip back the “anachronistic concepts derived from later developments and theories”. Hence the name of the book: The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, not, as it is usually called today, The Peloponnesian War.

But what is in a name? In this case, a great deal, since it contains Mynott’s mission statement in miniature. He has dropped the conventional name for the work, for which he correctly says there is no evidence from antiquity, in favour of a less one-sided title derived from Thucydides’s opening sentence. This is just one example of the accretions which Mynott’s edition aims to remove, so that the reader can come closer to being able to appreciate Thucydides’s work as it might have been received in classical Greece. In my humble opinion it is a minor miracle that Mynott has achieved in conveying in modern English the literary qualities of this most political of ancient historians.

The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

I’m deliberating ignoring Victor David Hanson’s book on the Peloponnesian War (A War Like No Other) not because it’s not good (because it is in parts) but because I prefer Prof. Donald Kagan’s book. Professor Kagan at Yale is one of the foremost scholars of Ancient Greek history. He has written a concise but thorough history of the Peloponnesian War for a general audience It's not the least bit dry for those with an interest in ancient history. The book’s an easy read. Kagan’s writing style is clear and straightforward.

Like any scholar worth his salt, Kagan is conversant with the scholarly consensus, with which he is for the most part in step, though he occasionally offers alternative scenarios. Much of the book is simply riveting. Like when the Spartan general Brasidas retakes Amphipolis, or the naval battle fought late in the war for control of the Hellespont. Woven throughout is the longer story of the Athenian turncoat, Alcibiades. Kagan’s analysis of the tactics and strategy of the conflict always seems on target. Interestingly, despite their reputations, the aristocratic Spartans usually come across as vacillating and indecisive while the democratic Athenians are aggressive and usually seize opportunity with successful results. Kagan refrains from drawing analogies to modern politics, although there’s certainly plenty of opportunity for it.

Professor Kagan preceded this one-volume history with a four-volume history of the war that took him around 20 years to write. That four volume series is a much more detailed and academic consideration of political motives and military strategy. But with this single volume, Kagan was able to produce a fast-moving tale, full of incident and colourful description easily readable for the general reader.

Lords of the Sea by John R. Hale

This book spans the history of the Athenian navy, starting with its founder, Themistocles, and carrying the story through to the fall of Athens - its real fall at the hands of Alexander the Great, not the brief unpleasantness at Spartan hands - in 4th century B.C. Along the way Hale furnishes a wealth of details about naval warfare in classical antiquity. Lords of the Sea profiles Athens' seafaring culture fascinatingly, probing subjects on which Thucydides remains silent. An invaluable companion to Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, and a rollicking read to boot.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations in Koine Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. It is possible that large portions of the work were written at Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. Some of it was written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia, because internal notes tell us that the second book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova (modern-day Hron) and the third book was written at Carnuntum.

It is not clear that he ever intended the writings to be published, so the title Meditations is but one of several commonly assigned to the collection. These writings take the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs.

When US Vice-Admiral. James Stockdale was shot down and became a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he attributed his survival to studying stoic philosophies, particularly Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations.” Aurelius, the Roman emperor, wrote his simple rules for living by candlelight and they have been a source of strength for the thoughtful man of arms or the cultured citizen ever since. I also think teenagers would gain a lot from reading Meditations than endure reading angst-ridden nihilism of many tacky teenage books out there.

SPQR by Mary Beard

Anything by Cambridge Classics professor Mary Beard is worth reading. Everyone loves Mary Beard, fast becoming one of Britain’s national treasure. I’m not just saying all this because she was one of my teachers at Cambridge. I think SPQR is a wonderful book. Ancient Roman history is so very dense and intricate that it can be difficult to teach and learn about. Mary Beard makes it accessible- and she goes through it all, from the early days right up until the present day.

Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? Mary Beard provides a sweeping revisionist history to get to grips with this thematic question.

‘SPQR’ is just four letters, but interwoven in those four letters are thousands of years and pages of Roman history. Cicero used to talk about the ’concordia ordinum.’ He said there was a harmony between all the orders in Rome. It’s like a pyramid hierarchy structure. At the top you have the ′senatus′ or the Senate—the aristocrats, the rich men who make decisions. Underneath that you have the ’equites’ who we don’t talk about as much , but they have their own spheres of power. They’ve got a bit of money and are a lower level. And underneath that you’ve got the ’populus’ or the people. SPQR is the harmony between the senatus and the populus and how they work together. That’s where Rome comes from: it’s not just about the Senate. The Senate can’t work without the people and vice versa. So ‘SPQR’ is basically a four-letter summation of the Roman constitution. It’s what it should be, though often isn’t. One of the reasons why - and she writes about this very well - Rome falls apart is because that relationship of harmony and hierarchy does fall apart under Caesar and Pompey in the 1st century BC.

Imperium by Robert Harris

This is one of my favourite novels, even if it weren’t classical, because like all Harris’ books it’s written like a smart thriller. I’m a huge Robert Harris fan. A lot of Robert Harris’ books are quite similar: they have a protagonist and you see the story - all the machinations - through his eyes. In Imperium we see the life of Cicero through the eyes of his slave, Tiro. We know Tiro was a real person, who recorded everything Cicero wrote.

The late Republic is one of my favourite periods of any period of history ever. You get all the figures: Cicero, Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Octavian, Antony and Cato. Robert Harris paints compelling portraits of these people so nicely that even with Crassus, say, who comes up every so often, you get a sense of who he is. There are actually two more books in the trilogy: Lustrum and Dictator. Once you get to Dictator, you know who Julius Caesar really is, you know why he’s doing it.

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