Jack switched the TV off. He knew the tanks that were approaching the city would arrive eventually; he didn’t need to watch the action unfold on a rolling news channel.
He was worried. Would being a Brit make him more of a target it the army found out he was here?
His thoughts were interrupted by the door buzzer. Uneasily, he walked across the living room of his second floor flat.
“Hello”.
“Jack, it’s me.”
He had been pretty certain it would be Nick, but in these unstable times Jack feared the worst at every opportunity. His first job in a British embassy abroad and he’d certainly been thrown in at the deep end, dispatched to a country in such a volatile political situation. He knew they were there to do a job, but he was also aware of the potential danger that lay ahead.
Nick on the other hand was a ‘been there, seen it, done it’ sort of bloke, not in the least bit phased by the fact that all foreign residents except for absolutely essential workers such as they, had long since left the city.
“Things don’t look good do they,” Jack commented as Nick entered his living room.
“They’ve been better,” he conceded with a shrug. “The folks at home certainly think it’s bad enough to insist all Brits leave town, which is why the likes of you and I have a busy few days ahead of us. The army aren’t far away now and things could get pretty lively round these parts.”
To Jack’s amazement, Nick followed this by suggesting they go out for some dinner.
“I know a great little place a couple of minutes walk from here.”
Then, bringing the tone back to the present situation he added. “If the tanks are backed up with planes, we don’t want to be two floors up.”
The streets of the city were, unsurprisingly, deserted. Jack thought it was a surreal sight for this place was usually so vibrant at all hours.
The small side street restaurant they were heading for looked for all the world to be as shut as everywhere else, but Nick knew the area well, and as they approached Jack picked up the smell of food.
There were only three other people inside as they entered, one waiter and a couple, who turned out to be American.
“Ah! Mr Johnson,” the waiter beamed, welcoming Nick as if it was just a regular evening.
“This is Jack, a colleague of mine.”
The waiter shook Jack warmly by the hand. It was all just so; Jack couldn’t put his finger on how he felt the others were behaving, blinkered, complacent?
“How come you’re open when everywhere else is preparing for the inevitable?” he asked.
“A man’s got to earn a living after all,” replied the waiter, who it quickly became apparent was also the chef. “Plus, you people want to eat don’t you?”
There was no menu, but bowls of rice, vegetables and fish were appearing on the tables of both Jack and Nick, and the Americans.
Just as it seemed the evening was going to pass like any other, Jack suddenly stopped eating and gestured for the others to break their conversation.
”Listen.”
Which they did, and they all heard the sound of gunfire, sounding like it was some distance off, but they knew the city was under attack.
The waiter, still seemingly more concerned with being hospitable than impending danger, pointed to a roulette wheel in the corner of the room. A restaurant off the beaten track, in addition to alcohol being freely available, gambling was a fixture of meal times.
“See this? I say we play. Red we live, and we know no matter what they throw at us everything will be OK. And if it’s black, we have enough time to pray so we go to a better place when the army come.”
If Jack had been in any doubt this man was a nutter before, he knew for certain he was now. Nick however was all for passing the time with the idea of gambling on their very survival. One of those, good at anything competitive types, it was no surprise that as the ball began to lose it’s momentum, it seemed instinctively to know it’s role in proceedings was to head for red.
No sooner had the waiter proposed opening a second bottle of wine to celebrate the long and fruitful lives that lay ahead of all of them, there was more gunfire, and this time, much closer, and accompanied by the roar of engines over head.
“Quick, under the tables,” Nick shouted, “we’ll be safer there.”
There was a huge explosion, shattering the windows. Then, weakened by the force of the bomb that had been dropped nearby, the front wall started to give way, in turn causing part of the ceiling to cave in. Nick’s suggestion they’d be better off in a single story building rather than a block of flats turning out to be proved correct.
Jack remained motionless. As the nearest to the back of the room, he had been the one in the least amount of danger as the building started to collapse. He daren’t move though, what if the enemy were close by? What if he disturbed a part of the building just waiting for an opportunity to fall?
After what seemed like a lifetime, he heard Nick’s voice asking “is everybody OK?”
Jack crawled out from under the table and stood up. He heard first a female, then male voice, confirming that both their American companions were alive at least.
The waiter, so confident when the roulette wheel produced red, hadn’t been so lucky.
Task: this was the final homework piece. We had to write something, between 800 and 900 words, based on the narative structure of a piece we read in class. For what it's worth, what I've written is a almost exact retelling of a dream I had a couple of days before the homework was due in.
Tutor comment: you have departed from the original to the point where the influence is undetectable. This is fine. It did the trick of getting a piece written. The central episode - the roulette wheel at the restaurant - is very promsiign, but the writing at times is a little muffled by cliches: "thrown in at the deep end", "not in the least bit phased", "couldn't put his finger on". Given more space to develop the story, you could have gone into more detail about the
psychological impact of such an extreme situation on these characters.
Well done on what has been a very good term's work.
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Friday 4 February 2011
A Beginners Guide to Rugby: written for TheFirstPint.co.uk
February is a big month for rugby fans with two major competitions kicking off. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy will battle it out for the Rugby Union 6 Nations Championship, a title which allows the winner to proudly call themselves the best in the Northern Hemisphere going into this year’s World Cup. Meanwhile, teams from England, Wales and France are preparing to get stuck into another Rugby League Engage Super League season – a gruelling nine-month contest between 14 teams, climaxing in a grand final at Old Trafford in Manchester.
“Wait a minute! I thought rugby was rugby, what’s this Union and League thing you speak of?” sports amateurs may ask. “I’ve seen on TV, big blokes rolling about in the mud, fighting over a ball that’s shaped like an egg. You mean I might have been watching two different games and not even realised it?”
Ah- yes, perhaps you have. And before you say it all looks the same, it really is not! People in places like Gloucester, Wigan, Leicester and Hull get very precious about which is better.
To spare you the inconvenience of having to ask a diehard of one of the two codes to explain, here are a few basic points for starters:
Rugby Union has 15 players per team while League has 13.
The points awarded for scoring are different – you get 5 points for a try in Union, 4 in League.
The Union season runs from September to May; the League season from February to October.
In League a team is permitted to attack for as long as their opponent can complete 6 tackles, after which they either score, use their own creativity to win another six tackles or, as is often the case, hand over possession to their opponents.
In Union there is no tackle limit, meaning teams must win possession during open play. In both codes, possession can also be given away through penalties being awarded for rules not being adhered to.
Overall, Union’s international competition is far stronger, with a greater number of countries expected to have a chance at winning the 2011 World Cup in Union than will for the League World Cup in 2013.
Although League has a top level professional team in London and the game is widely played in the Capital, London, like much of England south of Sheffield, is a Union country. However, go north into Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria and it’s very different. Cross the border into Scotland and League is nowhere, with Union fighting football for attention.
Geographical divide in history
Geography is a very important part of the introduction to Rugby and the very reason why we have two forms of the sport at all.
In the 19th century, teams from North and South were happily competing with each other. But those playing the game in the South were often from public schools and privileged backgrounds and on the whole wealthier, which means they could play on a Saturday and not be concerned with losing a day’s pay. Clubs in the North, however, would be fielding teams predominantly made up of minors, factory workers and other working class professions. Players were faced with the dilemma of having to take time off work in order to play Rugby.
The Northern clubs took the bold step of paying their players by way of compensation for the money they were losing for having to take time off from the day job. Bradford and Leeds were the first to be charged with going against the spirit of the game. To say this didn’t go down well with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), the Southern-based rulers of the sport, is an understatement. The RFU believed the game should remain amateur and so the Northern Rugby Football Union was founded in 1895, followed by the creation of Rugby League. Union eventually turned professional in 1995.
For the most part, Union is the dominant code globally, except in Australia, New Zealand and some regions in France, where League is more popular.
London – a blessed land for rugby lovers
Those of us in London are lucky enough to be able to see top level professional Union and League. Not only do we have England Union internationals at Twickenham and League’s Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, but The Stoop in Twickenham is home to the duel code club Harlequins. As one of the most famous names in club Rugby Union, Harlequins have existed since 1866, although in their early years they were called Hamstead.
The history of Harlequins Rugby League has been far shorter and much more difficult. Founded in 1980 as Fulham, the club has moved around the Capital, changing their name on a number of occasions. They have had their current name and home since 2006.
If you’re prepared to travel out of London then Union clubs London Irish can be seen in Reading, Wasps in Wickham and Sarrisons at Vicarage Road in Watford. The latter play selected home games at Wembley Stadium where crowds of over 50,000 gather.
League names to look out for include London Skolars (who play in National League 2), plus ammetre sides South London Storm, West London Sharks and Greenwich Admirals, all of whom have seen players move on to Harlequins and in the case of Greenwich, England. There are also countless Union clubs to catch a game at, including Esher, Richmond and London Scottish.
This article was written for
www.thefirstpint.co.uk
“Wait a minute! I thought rugby was rugby, what’s this Union and League thing you speak of?” sports amateurs may ask. “I’ve seen on TV, big blokes rolling about in the mud, fighting over a ball that’s shaped like an egg. You mean I might have been watching two different games and not even realised it?”
Ah- yes, perhaps you have. And before you say it all looks the same, it really is not! People in places like Gloucester, Wigan, Leicester and Hull get very precious about which is better.
To spare you the inconvenience of having to ask a diehard of one of the two codes to explain, here are a few basic points for starters:
Rugby Union has 15 players per team while League has 13.
The points awarded for scoring are different – you get 5 points for a try in Union, 4 in League.
The Union season runs from September to May; the League season from February to October.
In League a team is permitted to attack for as long as their opponent can complete 6 tackles, after which they either score, use their own creativity to win another six tackles or, as is often the case, hand over possession to their opponents.
In Union there is no tackle limit, meaning teams must win possession during open play. In both codes, possession can also be given away through penalties being awarded for rules not being adhered to.
Overall, Union’s international competition is far stronger, with a greater number of countries expected to have a chance at winning the 2011 World Cup in Union than will for the League World Cup in 2013.
Although League has a top level professional team in London and the game is widely played in the Capital, London, like much of England south of Sheffield, is a Union country. However, go north into Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria and it’s very different. Cross the border into Scotland and League is nowhere, with Union fighting football for attention.
Geographical divide in history
Geography is a very important part of the introduction to Rugby and the very reason why we have two forms of the sport at all.
In the 19th century, teams from North and South were happily competing with each other. But those playing the game in the South were often from public schools and privileged backgrounds and on the whole wealthier, which means they could play on a Saturday and not be concerned with losing a day’s pay. Clubs in the North, however, would be fielding teams predominantly made up of minors, factory workers and other working class professions. Players were faced with the dilemma of having to take time off work in order to play Rugby.
The Northern clubs took the bold step of paying their players by way of compensation for the money they were losing for having to take time off from the day job. Bradford and Leeds were the first to be charged with going against the spirit of the game. To say this didn’t go down well with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), the Southern-based rulers of the sport, is an understatement. The RFU believed the game should remain amateur and so the Northern Rugby Football Union was founded in 1895, followed by the creation of Rugby League. Union eventually turned professional in 1995.
For the most part, Union is the dominant code globally, except in Australia, New Zealand and some regions in France, where League is more popular.
London – a blessed land for rugby lovers
Those of us in London are lucky enough to be able to see top level professional Union and League. Not only do we have England Union internationals at Twickenham and League’s Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, but The Stoop in Twickenham is home to the duel code club Harlequins. As one of the most famous names in club Rugby Union, Harlequins have existed since 1866, although in their early years they were called Hamstead.
The history of Harlequins Rugby League has been far shorter and much more difficult. Founded in 1980 as Fulham, the club has moved around the Capital, changing their name on a number of occasions. They have had their current name and home since 2006.
If you’re prepared to travel out of London then Union clubs London Irish can be seen in Reading, Wasps in Wickham and Sarrisons at Vicarage Road in Watford. The latter play selected home games at Wembley Stadium where crowds of over 50,000 gather.
League names to look out for include London Skolars (who play in National League 2), plus ammetre sides South London Storm, West London Sharks and Greenwich Admirals, all of whom have seen players move on to Harlequins and in the case of Greenwich, England. There are also countless Union clubs to catch a game at, including Esher, Richmond and London Scottish.
This article was written for
www.thefirstpint.co.uk
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