Kevin McClintock
Bio
Master of Arts, Cambridge writer and teacher. Interests: Cosmology, Philosophy, Theology, Literature, Music, Politics and Science.Stories (19)
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They Have You in Their Sights
Targets used to be something to aim at (see illustration). Nowadays they are (a) a means of control and (b) a sure fire way of screwing up the systems they are meant to regulate. Nominally introduced to ensure that certain services are being delivered or improved (sales, hospital care, student retention etc.), they have evolved into the main point of the exercise, whatever that may be. Want to cut hospital waiting lists? Then do as many ingrown toenails as possible and hey presto! You have met your target! Need to keep a tight hold on the hospital budget? Then avoid all those expensive life-saving therapies and operations, and concentrate on — well, toenails, obviously. Hand-in-hand with the tick-box, targets are the bureaucrats' dream, positive-performance indicating and cost-cutting everything in sight!
By Kevin McClintock8 years ago in The Swamp
My D*d Was a Bastard
1920s Kesh must have been a great place to be a bastard. Despite its railway station, it was a small rural community that more probably resembled the 19th (or even 18th) century than it did the 20th. Village gossip (everyone knew everyone else’s business) would be exchanged at the market as well as the two watering holes (The Mayfly Inn & the village pump), and boy, there must have been some proper tittle-tattle when it was discovered that my grandmother, Margaret, had become pregnant by a local copper.
By Kevin McClintock8 years ago in Families
A Bluffer's Guide To Great Books: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
A warning, a prophecy, or just a story? In retrospect, it can be seen as all three. Indeed, it would appear to have over-fulfilled its literary quota and moved from being a sci-fi inspired future-history novel, to become a piece of historical fiction. The old, worn out debate about its prophetic significance has gone by the board; look around you — do you get the feeling you are being watched?
By Kevin McClintock8 years ago in Futurism
