Life can be gloomy, and this is off-set by bright colour in the home, office, workplace, and in the world generally. This book merges theory with practice and may contribute to the arts industry in some modest way by describing the quest to make colourful art. The Daubs projects may also help the general debate of what art is, and who an artist is. It is my privilege to provide an account of the Daubs, (so far), and I hope that you will be able to take from it some encouragement in respect of your own art projects. 'The brighter the colour the brighter the mood' drives the story.

Adventure was one thing, art another, but the main driver for the trip to Timbuktu was to help raise funds for research at the University of Edinburgh for FragileX. Further details can be found on the website, London to Timbuktu for Fragile X. 50 countries visited and now, along with a group of friendly individuals, I had just driven through the Sahara. With these muckers I had ventured deeply into the dark-continent. In this uncertain world there is no guarantee that you will return from any journey, large or small. Some intrepid adventurers like the Victorian, Alexander Gordon Laing, who made it all the way to Timbuktu, but sadly never made it back to his homeland of Scotland - he was slain en-route. I write this promotional e-book to introduce the e-book From Blackpool Tower to Timbuktu, (and back again). The main thing I have learnt is a guess at the scope of things that are yet to be learned - a big scope. Travelling to Timbuktu was part of that scope. A significant theme of this book is autobiography in order to describe the motive; the attempt to make art. I see no fixed issues, rather developmental journeys. I hope you glean something here and that may inspire your own endeavours and that you enjoy this promotional e-book, an introduction to the larger e-book, From Blackpool Tower to Timbuktu, (and back again). Jerry Gordon

Jerry Gordon has done an invaluable service in this collection of interviews with some of the brightest minds of our time conducted between 2008 and 2012 for New English Review. These are remarkable people actively striving to defend and to define what is best in Western culture, including politicians such as Geert Wilders and Arieh Eldad, intellectuals such as Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Sam Solomon, Nina Shea, Robert Wistrich and David Yerushalmi, theologians such as Richard L. Rubenstein and Mark Durie, activists such as David Beamer, Elsabeth Sabaditsch Wolff, Lars Hedegaard, Jonathan Hausman and Charles Jacobs, cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks, and journalists Erick Stakelbeck and Kenneth Timmerman. All of them provide fascinating insights into their efforts to fight the complacency and resignation that has contributed to the current state of Western decline and Islamic resurgence.

The destructiveness of passion, both earthly and supernatural, makes cities bleed and souls burn across worlds, through endless time. Experience the spiritual side of the zombie apocalypse in "The Days of Flaming Motorcycles" and transcend both hell and nirvana in "Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch's Damnation." Look into "The Mad Eyes of the Heron King" to find the beautiful brutality written in the moment of epiphany or "Go and Tell it On the Mountain," where Jesus Christ awaits your last plea to enter heaven-if there is a heaven to enter when all is said and done.Horror's top authors and promising newcomers whisper tales that creep through the mists at night to rattle your soul. Step beyond salvation and damnation with thirty stories and poems that reveal the darkness beneath belief. Place your faith in that darkness; it's always there, just beyond the light.