Welcome to Bookworm

A spreadsheet which is a resource for any word game but specifically for the online word game "Bookworm"

Click here 

Bookworm has a lot of educational benefits in developing vocabulary and spelling for pupils. There is also the small detail that they will enjoy using it. The spreadsheet gives some useful words found by someone who became addicted to the game! 

http://www.crazygames.com/game/bookworm

Classroom Teacher Manual

Climate Emergency

The Emperor Nero was accused of fiddling while Rome burned. Our politicians are so busy fiddling with Brexit that vital changes to combat climate change have gone by the board. 


In an emergency the state can mobilise its resources to invade countries and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Yet that can't get off their collective backsides to deal with a climate emergency.

No wonder people protested.

 Photo from the Worthing Climate Change protest on Friday 20th September

This letter was published in the i newspaper. They managed to get my name wrong but you can't have everything.


Socialist Reviews
Death Agony of Capitalism

Brighton and Hove Libraries

I have been emailing libraries to encourage them to take copies of my book, Darkness in Durrington. So I was delighted to get an email from Brighton and Hove Libraries to say they had already ordered it because it was great to have a book set locally!

TES Resources

Worksheets and other resources on the TES Website. All free. 

 Click here

Classroom Teacher Manual 

Click Here

No One is Too Small to Make a Difference

Greta Thunberg's 2019 publication "No One is Too Small to Make a Difference" sets out her views on climate change and the reason why she sparked off a massive student protest all over the world.

It contains some ideas which Socialists will find sympathetic. In one speech, for example, to the UN Climate Change Conference, she said, "We are about to sacrifice our civilisation for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money, we are about to sacrifice the biosphere so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few."

The Chapter about addressing the Houses of Parliament in April shows her rising frustration. It is entitled "Can You Hear Me?" and repeatedly makes plain that the existing political order is incapable of listening to the demands of the youth because it would mean tearing up their most hallowed beliefs, free enterprise, the profit motive and the divine right of the Corporations to wreck the environment to make a fast buck.

If you are looking for a worked-out detailed Socialist analysis of how capitalism drives climate change this is not the book for you. If you want an insight into the passion which drives the hundreds of thousands of people who are seeking to fight for a future then it is.

No one is too small to make a difference.

Reviews written for the Socialist and Socialism Today #socialistreviews 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Huffington Post apparently

In a smug self-satisfied article in Huffington Post, Peter Winkler, Contributor seeks to rubbish self-published writers. To nail my colours to the mast, I am a self-published writer. So was Virginia Woolf.
Does that make me as good as Virginia Woolf? No.
Did I ever claim it did? No.

She did have a rather more sympathetic attitude to other writers than Peter Winkler though.

King Boris

King Boris came a cropper in Parliament yesterday as every TV viewer saw. The Rebel Alliance insisted that Parliament should take back control of the agenda. This was a blow when he had intended to dispense with Parliament altogether in a move which had been called a coup.

He has as much respect for Parliament as King Charles 1. At least the story of King Charles had a happy ending (though not for him perhaps).

Johnson also saw his Parliamentary majority walk across the floor of the house when Dr Philip Lee joined the Liberal Democrats.

The PM is now in the ludicrous position of threatening the opposition with a general election. This is similar to the position of the comic character Major Neuheim (played by Ian Richardson) in Private Schultz who is always ringing Schultz and threatening to shoot himself.

Dominic Cummings Eugenic theory

Dominic Cummings, special political adviser to the Prime Minister, believes that the rich have superior genes. He said so in a tedious lengthy paper he wrote when he was an adviser to Gove.  Gove was an education secretary best known for his ignorance of education.

The theory is a rehash of the long-discredited concept of eugenics. Eugenics was popular with the Nazi Party

Is Boris Johnson an example of the superiority of the rich? If so I am very satisfied with my inferior working class genes, thank you.

Audio One Man and his Machete

Darkness Project

Good Lord!

Today the i newspaper reports that the Prime Minister will show his commitment to democracy by stuffing the House of Lords with his cronies.

Labour's best response would probably be to abolish the House of Lords. Perhaps they should apply the guillotine although preventing the Peers from parading in fancy dress would be an adequate punishment.

I would be tempted to include the oxymoron "Labour Peers" in the cull. They spend every hour of every day attacking Labour and their natural home is the Tory Party.

Death Agony of Capitalism Kindle Version 

Socialist Reviews Kindle Version

Kashmir Repression

China is the world’s biggest dictatorship; India, the biggest democracy. I wonder if it feels like that to people in Kashmir? 

 

Wikipedia says:

“Human rights abuses in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir state are an ongoing issue. The abuses range from mass killings, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual abuse to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech. The Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Personnel (BSF) and various separatist militant groups have been accused and held accountable for committing severe human rights abuses against Kashmiri civilians.”

Chapter and verse are to be found here

 The response of the CWI (Committee for a Workers International -  Socialist organisation) can be found here 

Kashmir crisis: Attack on democratic rights must be opposed

NSSN TUC Congress Rally

Brighton: NSSN TUC Congress rally

Fight together to defeat the Tories!

• The annual lobby of the TUC by the National Shop Stewards Network

Sunday 8th September 2019, 13-00

Holiday Inn, Kings Road, Brighton BN1 2JF

 

 

 

Strike Against Privatisation

The link is here

Privatisation is an unmitigated disaster for jobs, and services. Can we mention the immorality of making money out of people’s suffering?

Bradford health workers are standing up for their rights. 

People don’t often say this, but it’s an issue where Jeremy Corbyn is right! 

God Save the Queen?

Perhaps the solution to fans booing the anthem would be a better National Anthem. "God Save our Gracious Queen" does not appeal to people who disbelieve in God or the Queen or both.

"You'll Never Walk Alone" has a lot to be said for it. It's hopeful and positive and does not involve grovelling to a monarch.

Of course there's The Red Flag but perhaps that's the music of the future.

Letter to the i newspaper

 The pitiful increase in NHS spending will 
not compensate for the hostile environment the Tories created for the NHS.

It is a bit like someone stealing a twenty then expecting credit for 
giving me a fiver.

All the best

Derek McMillan

Labour and Anti-Semitism

The gutter press and the BBC compete to see how often they can put "Labour" and "Anti-Semitism" in the same sentence.

They don't need facts or figures. So far they have produced neither. They just repeat their version of events ad nauseam.

It is not journalism. It is time some journalists sought to get to the truth behind the smears and innuendo.

Reviews written for the Socialist and Socialism Today

  Click here

Monsters

According to the media, Harold Wilson was a left-wing monster. They branded Neil Kinnock as a left-wing monster. They even called the inoffensive Ed Miliband a monster. Now they have the same attitude to Jeremy Corbyn.

Can't you giants of journalism come up with a new idea between you? 

 

Reviews written for the Socialist and Socialism Today

  Click here

Police Cuts under the Tories

With a fanfare of publicity, the Prime Minister has announced plans to increase the number of police officers by 20000. That sounds like a lot. The number of police officers has in fact fallen by 20000 under the Conservatives since 2010 so this is the equivalent of someone pinching your wallet and then expecting praise for giving it back.

Under the remarkable headline "Jeremy Corbyn is Right" (something the media seldom admit) Channel 4 ran a fact check which verified the scale of police cuts under the Tories.

The results are here

Dixon of Dock Green was a work of fiction, like many of the things the Prime Minister says.



Reviews written for the Socialist and Socialism Today

  Click here

Unite's case against Universal Credit

10 reasons why Universal Credit should be stopped

1. Unbearably long waits for claimants to receive money
2. People can only apply for Universal Credit online making it inaccessible for many
3. Not enough help for claimants when the system fails them
4. Rent paid directly to claimants instead of Landlords causing people to get into arrears and even to lose their homes
5. Letting agents are already refusing to rent to anyone claiming Universal Credit
6. Cruel sanctions for both in-work and out-of-work claimants
7. Payments only go to one named member of a household
8. Universal Credit takes 63p in every £1 people earn
9. Universal Credit leaves many working families much worse off than the old system
10. People in part-time work could be forced to give up work that suits their disability or family life in order to take up worse paid full-time work or risk sanctions.

The Unite Campaigns page is here

Characters in The Miranda Revolution

The Miranda Revolution is being reissued in 2019.

Here are the main characters:-



The Dictator   
The Dictator has no name. His father did but nobody was permitted to use it. He made sure his son was only ever called “The Dictator's son”. There was no question of his daughters being allowed to inherit and no question of more than one son surviving.

Xavier Hollands
Torturer to Wolf-Dietrich with an aversion to actually torturing anyone but mental powers which compensate for this.

Tilly Hollands  
(nee Brandwine) Wife of Xavier. Her name really is 'Tilly'. It is not short for Matilda. See also Sister Lam.

Wolf-Dietrich Von Raitenau     
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Somehow he gets roped in to Xavier's battle with The Dictator. See Appendix 1.

Kaspar 
Reporter who turns up in Ye Olde Boar with an amazing tale about The Dictator. There is more to him than meets the eye.

Neeta and Petra
The Dictator's twins. Possibly the Devil's. Petra has a deeper voice. This is important as they are otherwise very hard to tell apart.  They have been brought up to torture and kill without mercy.

Will   
Rebel #1 – a member of the Revolutionary Committee.

Garcia 
Rebel #2. Garcia is an intelligent and very attractive young man as he would be the first to tell you.


Karl   
Rebel #3. He was named after Karl Marx. A bold move by his parents who never told anybody and claimed it was an “Uncle Karl” he was named after.

Ygael
Rebel #4. Ygael is the Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee at the time the story opens.

Father Simon   
The Priest of St Michael's Church. Quite a contrast to Wolf-Dietrich as a man of God.

Marcos 
The man with the car and pimp to Sarah.

Sarah   
A bone-thin street girl. Marcos is her pimp.

Sister Lam     
The persona Tilly chose to adopt in the Dictatorship.
Geert Hollands
Adoptive Mother of Xavier. Her greatest wish was to meet a well-manicured young man she could take as a lover. Be careful what you wish for!
Terrance Hollands      
Father of Xavier, former ICI employee and scientist.

Mitch  
Pimp#1.

The Man        
Pimp#2 and uncle of uncles. Real name Cedric.

Doctor 
Pimp#3 real name Phil.


Shelly/Sheila/Suki     
Under-age Girl#1 Mitch's girl.

Delia/Lucy/    
Under-age Girl#2 one of The Man's girls.

Maria/Jenny    
Under-age Girl #3 The Doctor's girl and daughter of Miranda.

Lucas  
Street thug.

Connie 
Girlfriend of Lucas.

Miranda
Consort of The Dictator. Although Miranda is worshipped as a saint, there are in fact many “Mirandas” at the time our story opens. One is the mother of Maria/Jenny.

Charles
Cousin of Father Alon and owner of the cafe where the street girls hang out when not working.

Father Alon    
The priest of Saint Miranda's Church and cousin of Charles.

Captain Brand  
Female “handler” of the satanic twins.  She is a tall dark-haired woman in her mid forties.

Quin   
Jailer and torturer. A pupil of Captain Brand.

Lynda or occasionally Morganna
The Doctor's replacement for Jenny.

Darijus Dagys  
Under-secretary for communications


Sergeant  Marach
One of the soldiers who side with Miranda.

Sergeant  Michael 
One of the soldiers who works with Sister Lam.

Commander Nelson
Head of security assigned to deal with the street gangs under The Dictatorship.

The Boss
Leading gangster in the capital city – has information with which to blackmail anybody and everybody.

Soldiers
A whole cast of ordinary soldiers who find themselves doing extraordinary things for Saint Miranda.

Guild Care Computer Club on Tuesdays

I have a total of two computers but in the past, we have managed because people have brought in tablets, phones and laptops.

The main program I have used is https://www.learnmyway.com/ but some students have also come up with their own ideas of websites to explore. There are thousands of websites out there.

Trump, knave or fool?

If the Commander in Chief is telling the truth when saying he ‘hasn’t a racist bone in his body’ then surely that makes his remarks even worse. It shows he is either too ignorant to realise his remarks are racist or he is dishonesty seeking racist support for the next election. 

Mental Health Charter

The NEU Mental Health Charter deals with a range of issues in schools. A staggering ninety per cent of teachers surveyed by the union said they were considering leaving the profession because of workload and stress. This is an issue which needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. Mental ill-health is not an inevitable part of working life. 

The mental health charter is intended as a focal point around which staff and school/college leaders may collectively develop tools and strategies specific to their needs and aimed at reducing stress. The charter seeks to ensure that the well-being of staff is reflected in the culture, organisation and management of your school or college.

The charter clarifies the legal responsibility of decision makers to look after the mental and physical well-being of workers in education. We all know from bitter experience that without an effective trade union organisation the law is a dead letter which decision-makers can safely ignore. Where the union is strong, management have to sit up and take notice.

The link is here

Waterstones

A selection of my books is available from Waterstones but only online. It is the devil's own job to get their shops to accept them.

https://www.waterstones.com/author/derek-mcmillan/2461486

Blockheads

Neil Dury writing in the 'i’ is amusing or pathetic depending on your viewpoint. He wants the Labour leader to stand down. He neglects to tell us who he’d prefer. Nor does he explain how Jeremy Corbyn, who has thrashed his Blairite opponents in two leadership elections, can be removed. Anyone would think Dury was a Blockhead.

Times Education Supplement Resources

I received the following from the TES

Hey h,

Since you became an author on 28 May 2012, you’ve had:

Reviews

29

Views

18531

Downloads

9329

They insist on calling me "h" but I assure you I am not a corrupt police officer or indeed four corrupt police officers.

The page is here

 

Historical Report

I received a Historical Report from Amazon. This totals all sales of my e-books since 2011.
Figures for paperbacks are not included



Total sales 982
Free ebooks 9007
Income over that period

USA 297 dollars
UK £178
There are also figures for

Euros 16
Yen 70
Rupees 41
Canadian Dollars 1.78
Brazilian Reals 9
Nothing from Mexico
Nothing from Australia

So the only sense in which I am a best-seller would be "Best-selling book about a French Bulldog who goes into Space" or "Best selling book about a detective agency in Durrington"

Meanwhile this blog has 105,194 visitors at the time of writing, which is not bad.

Space Dog Alfred - three worksheets

Space Dog Alfred - three worksheets - one cloze exercise, one discussion starter and two wordsearches. Suitable for year (grade) 6 or 7  but you can decide for yourself.

Click here to download

#spacedogalfred

Space Dog Alfred is now available from Amazon, paperback and Kindle

Click here to see details

Kindle is cheaper but harder to wrap up and put under the tree. The library is your cheapest option. The ISBN is  978-1517351182

 

 

 

 

#worthingflash

List of contributors to http://worthingflash.blogspot.com

A big thank you to:

J. L. Dean

Simon Marriott

Jo Bruce

Meghashri Dalvi

Rajan V Kokkuri

Maureen Wells

Angela Petch

Patricia Feinberg Stoner

Ron James

Sarah Starr

Frances Edington

Janet Hardcastle

Vijay Pant

Tony Roberts

Josie Gilbert

Don McBeth

Margaret I Holmes

Régine Demuynck-Mandinga

Ron James

Peter Redfarn

Julie C Round

Paul Beckman

BGR Buckley

Niles Reddick

Laura Solomon

Bronwen Griffiths

Heather Turnbull

Annemarie Musawale

John Brantingham

Nod Ghosh

John Sheirer

NJ Crosskey

Pace Rainbird

Cathy Cade

Lesley Truchet

anon

Twinkletoes

BBC plays down protests against Trump

When the leader of the opposition is speaking at a protest against racism and islamophobia on the occasion of Trump's visit, the BBC emphasises that Trump will not be bothered by the protests and will not even see them. Presumably Trump does not know how to use a television. 

In any case, protesting against the disgusting attitudes and behaviour of Trump is more important than whether he can handle a remote or not.

God Help America.

Tories strapped for cash

The i newspaper has a story that the Conservative Party is in a financial crisis on top of everything else. The story is here.

I imagine your heart bleeds for them as does mine. I am sure people who are Universal Credit claimants will want to give a few bob to the poor old Tories as soon as their Universal Credit payments actually arrive.

Or perhaps it would be more appropriate for the Tories to suffer. It has been their policy that people should be punished for being poor. The number of suicides among Universal Credit claimants bears testimony to that. The heartless and callous way they have been treated is something which the Tories would probably benefit from. 

It is time they learnt what it is like being strapped for cash.

The Tories' Dilemma

A stand-off between the nasty party led by "whoever" and the nastier party led by Farage will leave the crisis in the Tory Party even worse. Just imagine the heart-searching. (Set aside whether they actually have hearts).

Vote Farage and get Corbyn? Vote Johnson (or "whoever") and get Corbyn?

Ironically only the Liberal Democrats can save the Tories if people are trusting enough to vote for them. The LibDems showed their principles when they ditched the issue of tuition fees and made a dirty deal with Cameron.

The BBC report that Vince Cable rejects the result of any election the Liberals didn't win. So it's back to Lloyd George in Cable-land.

A Labour victory is not guaranteed and Labour will have to fight for every vote. However, the effectiveness of the Unite poster campaign against the revolting Tommy Robinson shows what can be achieved by the Labour movement working together.

The BBC persist with their myopic vision of Brexit vs Remain. Whenever a Labour representative tries to say there are other issues which will exist outside or inside the EU the BBC insist they are dodging the issue.

Although I have been expelled from the Labour Party I still believe socialists should work for a Corbyn-led Labour government. A vote of no confidence in "whoever" would be a good start. A Labour movement campaign for a socialist programme would be a good follow-up.

Dodgy Dossier Campbell

Alistair Campbell has sought public sympathy by talking openly about his depression as part of a wider campaign to demystify conditions often regarded as mental illness.

However, the Iraq war in which he was an accomplice of Tony Blair made many people depressed and thousands dead. That is the difference.

Arab Weekly says the following "The British secret service, known as MI6, knew that Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, whose real name is Ali Muhammad Abdul Aziz al-Fakheri, was tortured and failed to blow the whistle despite saying the agency had been “tempted to speak out.” MI6 officers witnessed Libi being sealed alive in a coffin before being loaded onto a military plane bound for Egypt where he was tortured. Despite this knowledge, MI6 sent questions to be posed to Libi by his torturers and received regular updates on what he was saying. One of his tips was that al-Qaeda was linked to Saddam’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and three terrorists had been sent to Iraq for training."

"As it turned out, the intelligence turned up by Libi’s interrogators was bogus. Oddly enough, a man will say almost anything when he is sealed in a claustrophobic environment such as a coffin, subjected to electrocution, beatings and many other forms of torture. Libi later told the CIA, after he was transferred to its custody, that he lied about the intelligence just to make the torture stop." 
The full story is here

Wikipedia says the following: "There were 460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. Overview: Iraqi death estimates by source Summary of casualties of the Iraq War."

 







Campbell has blood on his hands.You would think those deaths would weigh on his conscience.

The latest exploit of this bog-standard Blairite has been to vote Liberal Democrat in the Euro elections. At the time of writing he has not been expelled for this despite the fact that he appears on the BBC every five minutes to attack the Labour Party in one way or another.

General Election Now?

There are two types of people. Those who believe in false dichotomies ... and those who don't.

There are plenty of problems which will not be solved by remaining in the EU or by leaving.

So a decision to call a vote of no confidence in whoever becomes prime minister will put the issues of austerity and privatisation back on the agenda.

And about time too.





The Miranda Revolution 

#StopUniversalCredit

Here’s what you can do to get involved:

• Help organise an event in your area. Unite will send you campaign materials, provide support & guidance, and help you promote your event; all you need to do is let us know your plans (event time & location) and we will guide you through the rest.

• Encourage members of your community to complete the #StopUniversalCredit on-line survey.

• Sign and share this #StopUniversalCredit petition.

• Help promote our National Day of Action.

• Share this information with your contacts.

• 'Like' us on Facebook.

Game of Thrones Sequels - CONTAINS SPOILERS obvs

The finale of "Game of Thrones" is supposedly the final final last episode. And I'm the Queen of Sheba.

This programme leaves the way open to a number of sequels which will distinctly not be about the iron throne which was consumed by dragon fire. Samwell Tarly's suggestion of a republic was rejected with contempt. This is as it should be. The aristos only surrender power when they face losing their heads.

Arya sets off on a voyage of discovery and Arya's journey looks likely to be the most interesting strand to the story.

Tyrion comes across as a great survivor and any series which does not include his sardonic view of life and repeated demands for wine would be a shame.

Jon Snow goes north of the wall to the place where the whole story began. The King of the Dead has met his fate but John Snow's story seems unfinished.

The history of the kingdom of the North can hardly be coming to a conclusion with the accession of Sansa to the throne.

And, as Tolkien observed, it is a mistake to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.