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Tallyman

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  1. Can you help? News wanted about pavement works and trip hazards Hello I'm looking for regular, current news about any hazards on Sheffield pavements that blind and visually impaired people should know about. I'm part of a team producing a weekly recorded audio information programme for Sheffield's visually impaired community. We record at the weekend, and our members can listen online or via memory stick, which gets posted out to them every week, arriving on a Wednesday. If you know of anything current that you think it's worth letting us know about, I'd be very grateful. We'll get the latest information together towards the end of each week. Anything you spot one week should be something that'll still be there the following week, so it's still relevant by the time our listeners hear the programme. If you spot anything, please let me know the following: 1. What type of hazard is it? (loose paving stones, hole dug in the pavement etc.) 2. What date did you see it? 3. Exactly where is it? (road name, junction, the more accurate the better) 4. How long do you think it'll be there? (there may be a contractor's sign up, otherwise your best guess!) 5. If you've reported anything previously, and it's now gone/fixed, please let me know that too! Many thanks for your help Tallyman for Sheffield Talking News
  2. Thank you, I've done that now. I'd intended to do it as soon as I got home from picking the car up, but of course it fell off before I even got home!
  3. Thank you! Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this, but thank you to the kind person who found my VW hub cap last night or this morning, and placed it carefully by the side of the road. I'd just picked up my new car from The Car People last night - you can imagine my disappointment when I got home and found out I was missing a hub cap. I found it while retracing my route just now. Thank you again, whoever you are!
  4. Sadly, we have just been informed that the server we have been using for storing uploaded stories is no longer available. The company hosting the server has gone bankrupt and we have permanently lost both the use of the server and all the data stored on it. If you have uploaded a story to the server and have not retained a copy on your own computer, I am sorry to say it has been permanently lost. On the positive side, there will no longer be any complicated upload instructions, as the only place you can currently post a story is in the forum here. Just start a new topic with an appropriate title, such as "Story: ..." and away you go. The main reason that we used an external server in the group was as an attempt to protect members' 'first publication rights'. Our understanding was that a story uploaded to a private server and made accessible only to others who had a password would not constitute 'publication', and thus allow writers to also submit the story for commercial publication. The new state of affairs means that this protection, as far as it went, is not available to you. Any story posted in the forum can be considered published. Apologies again if this has caused you any inconvenience, but Ron and I look forward to seeing more of your stories in the main forum. Tallyman
  5. Woolyhead and Akeem B I'm sorry you've been having trouble uploading your stories. The good, and bad, news is that things will now become a lot simpler... Uploaded stories not directly shown as topics in the main forum have been stored on an external server where space had been given to us free of charge. Unfortunately, we've just been informed that the company who owns the server has gone bankrupt and we have lost not just the ability to upload stories to a private site, but also any stories currently stored on it. Please see the announcement in the stickies area for more details. Tallyman
  6. Thanks Yerman I've just phoned the police before seeing your message to report the keys as missing. I'll call again as you've suggested.
  7. Car keys found in Hillcote Close today (8/3/13), near to Hallam School. If you think you've lost them, please PM me with contact details and a description of what you lost. Tallyman
  8. COMPETITION ANNOUNCEMENT Unfortunately, despite efforts to contact him, we have been unable to reach Mr Blue Owl for an adjudication on June's competition. Therefore, Ron Blanco and myself thought the most appropriate thing to do was to pass on our observations of the entries, thank all the participants, but declare no winner for June. Ron will be posting the theme for August, which gives him the chance to try out an idea he's been brewing for a while; it's an interesting challenge, so do please look out for it at the beginning of August. As for June entries, our own observations follow. Please feel free to add your own constructive comments on the entries. Who's revenge, by sci fi We thought it quite a humourous piece. Unfortunately, neither of us know the ins and outs of the original Shakespeare play in order to work out which bits are new and which borrowed. In any case we were glad to see Puck get his comeuppance. If there was one thing that stood out and made it more difficult to read than it could have been was the conversion of perhaps too many words to 'archaic' versions by adding a 'th' at the end. Using a few choice examples would lend the piece historical flavour, but overuse can often detract from the story. A Midsummer Night's Dream, by De Batz It has the feel of being authentic, weighty and dramatic, but we're both embarrassed to admit that we're not sure we 'get' it. Are there historical references that are vital to making a meaningful interpretation of the piece? However, even without that background knowledge, our interpretation is of a man who is taken in by a false messiah, tricked out of his simple life and left demoralised and stranded in a very dark place. Plenty of references to classical stories, and a feeling that we may be hearing from Faust himself, but it would be interesting to hear de Batz's thoughts behind the piece. Thought provoking. A Mid-Summer Nights Dream, by Owethemnowt We really liked this story, and thought the disjointed sentences reflected nicely the pondering thoughts of a shell-shocked man. We are are gradually given the facts of a suicide and drawn into asking the question why she did it. The piece is made more engaging by the inclusion of some 'intimate details', such as those relating to the car keys. We are given pieces of the jigsaw and at the end all is revealed. I wonder if anyone would have completed the puzzle without the last line? Neither Ron nor I would have done, so it was a good decision to include it. Thank you all for taking part, and please have a go at July's theme if you haven't already.
  9. If anyone was on Clarkehouse Road last night and forgot their camera, or it didn't work at the crucial moment, or you couldn't make it to see the torch, you might be interested in .
  10. June 2012 theme & competition: A Midsummer Night's Dream Set by mr_blue_owl As the summer solstice falls in June, I would like to set the June theme as 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The stories can be in Shakespearean style about fairies etc, a dream whilst sleeping, a dream as in a 'wish', or anything else that springs to mind. TO ENTER: Competition entries of 500 words or less should be posted on this thread. If you prefer to write a longer story, outside of the competition, then please post it in a new thread with both the title and 'June 2012' in the heading. JUDGING: mr_blue_owl will judge the entries, and will announce the winner in early July. THE PRIZE: The prestige of becoming the SFWG Competition Winner AND the opportunity to choose the writing theme for August 2012. COMPETITION PROTOCOL: All writers enjoy receiving feedback, be it high praise or constructive criticism, but in the interests of competition decorum, please could we ask you not to post your comments on individual entries until after the winner has been announced. After that, please feel free to let rip with as much feedback as you like! Any problems posting/uploading your piece, please consult the guidance 'stickies' at the top of the Forum page. If you still have problems, please contact either Tallyman or Ron Blanco. Have fun! Tallyman
  11. Thank you to everyone who entered the May competition, and a warm welcome to who chose this month for their debut. Please keep entering your pieces in the monthly competitions, they are a real treat to read! This is what I thought as I read through the entries: Sci fi: A neat double link to the theme through a distress call and characters' names. I could sense the anticipation surrounding the opening of the airlock and discovery of whatever may lie on the other side. Because of that, I was a little disappointed at the ending as I wanted to find out why the ship was deserted! Having said that, you did end with a nice futuristic twist to reinvigorate an old theme. Mr Blue Owl: Poetry is so much more difficult to get right than prose, I feel. It needs not just the right words but also the right order, pattern and rhythm. Your piece connected with me in a heartbeat, made me feel so desperately sad for all those involved, gave me a moment's hope and then let it go. It brought tears to my eyes, and I can't think of another poem that's done that for me. Sugarnspice: May really doesn't have a good time of it, does she. I felt for her as circumstances conspired to create the day from hell. I like the imagery of the lemon yellow kitchen and her daffodil mug: bright and sunny like the mood I feel she wants to have, but at the same time as bitter as the reality of her life. And Rodger's shenanigans to top it all off. I wonder what May did next? I almost think she'd offer them both a cup of tea! De Batz: A gritty piece from you this month, a tale of change. It all felt very real and somehow in the right order: the revelation about Mum's 'bloke', then recollecting how she and Dad had met, then his attempts to make Helen seem more of an equal. Helen is clearly fed up with both of them, but I wonder if that's her knee jerk reaction to the news or whether her relationship with her parents had soured over time? Owethemnowt: One word: chilling. No, more words: disturbing, horrific, bleak, and so very well crafted. I really didn't want to linger over the ending at all; it was shocking and unpleasant, but I still had to read it. Your characters were predictably different and painted so efficiently: 'fastening her coat, as if she ever needed holding together' is such a good line (and, with the single word 'ever' included, changing her instantly from vulnerable to invulnerable). Very impressive indeed, but certainly no comedy. This was not an easy decision at all, with a number of very worthy entries. In the end, I couldn't separate two of them and so I am announcing a tie between Mr Blue Owl's heart-rending poem and Owethemnowt's bleak and unnerving tale. Congratulations to you both! On a practical note, Mr Blue Owl is already choosing the theme for June, so could I ask Owethemnowt to do the honours with July's theme? Thanks again to everyone who took part! Tallyman
  12. Thank you to everyone who entered the May competition. I'll be announcing the winner shortly! Tallyman
  13. Hello Craig, welcome to the group, and apologies for the delay in seeing your post. You are very welcome to post your comics in the forum. If the subject fits in with the monthly theme, then feel free to post them in the monthly theme thread (this one is just closing, as it was for May, but check out the June theme). If your subject doesn't fit in with the theme, then just post your comic as a new topic in the forum. We'd all be very pleased to see it! Tallyman
  14. I read 'Long Voyage Back' by Luke Rhinehart several years ago, and would heartily recommend it if you were looking for more books in this vein.
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