fallslikesnow

Rockall ( Scottish Gaelic : Rocabarraigh ) The name Rocabarraigh is also used in Gaelic folklore for a mythical rock which is supposed to appear three times, the last being at the end of the world. "Nuair a thig Rocabarra ris, is dual gun tèid an Saoghal a sgrios". (When Rocabarra returns, the world will likely come to be destroyed/ruined) Wikimapia

From the Guardian,  Saturday 1 January 2011 Full article here .  On 15 September 1955, three marines and a civilian scientist from the Royal Navy's new survey ship HMS Vidal were winched from a helicopter on to a tiny, pyramid-shaped outcrop of granite sticking out of the Atlantic Ocean 240 miles west of the Orkneys. It was the height of the cold war and their secret mission was to annex the uninhabitable islet of Rockall and claim it as the last land grab of the British Empire. Witnessed only by a few gannets and sooty fulmars, Sergeant Brian Peel, Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott, Corporal Anthony Fraser and the naturalist James Fisher mixed buckets of cement and erected a flagpole made from old propeller shafts. Then they bolted a brass plaque commemorating the event to the rock, raised the union flag – standing back carefully in case they fell into the sea – and saluted. "In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

I've just had another short story published - this time in M-Brane SF #29 You can buy an electronic copy here . Here's a snippet of 'The Cone' to whet your appetite : It's a forgotten war. Spiraling burns, strange cancers, shrunken hard torsos like fragments of bleached rock. I've heard it's like that over there – whining assholes complaining about the changes pulling out cost. Pulling out always costs -- people hanging from helicopters or eyes of garnets. You choose. We all remember the Stone Field. Impossibly high horizon, low, stained denim sky. It's a work of art that place. Chunks of dirty sandstone scattered across a striated limestone pavement. The sandstone draws the eye, something about the delicately coloured lichen painted across the russet and gray rock. The lichens are gray and gray-pink and gray-blue and so on. A world of very pale grayed out pastels. Some lichen are like paint spills, others are little sharp florets. Look

All the sciences of the world, O Son are comprehended in this my hidden Wisdom; and this, and the learning of the Art, consists in these wonderful hidden elements which it doth discover and complete. It behoves him, therefore, who would be introduced to this hidden Wisdom, to free himself from the hidden usurpations of vice ; and to be just, and good, and of a sound reason, ready at hand to help mankind, of a serene countenance, diligent to save, and be himself a patient guardian of the arcane secrets of philosophy. And this know that except thou understandest how to mortify and induce generation, to vivify the Spirit, and introduce Light, until they fight with each other and grow white and freed from their defilements, rising as it were from blackness and darkness, thou knowest nothing nor canst perform anything; but if thou knowest this, thou wilt be of a great dignity so that even kings themselves shall reverence thee. These secrets, Son, it behoves thee to conceal fr