Could you leave behind the bustle of modern life and spend a lifetime immersed in nature? In The Way of the Hermit, Ken Smith recounts a life he has chosen to spend alone with the wilderness. Seventy-four-year-old Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands. He lives alone, with no electricity or running water. His home is a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as 'the lonely loch', where he lives off the land: he fishes for his supper, chops his own wood, and even brews his own tipple. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a hermit. For the first time, Ken shares the story of his life. From his working-class origins in Derbyshire, to the formative years he spent travelling in the Yukon and finally how he came to be the Hermit of Loch Treig. Looking back through decades of diary entries, Ken reflects upon the reasons he turned his back on society, the vulnerability of old age and the awe and wonder of a life lived in nature. The Way of the Hermit is a humourous, transcendant and life-affirming memoir.

This Handbook of Visual Communication explores the key theoretical areas and research methods of visual communication. With chapters contributed by many of the best-known and respected scholars in visual communication, this volume brings together significant and influential work in the discipline. The second edition of this already-classic text has been completely revised to reflect the metamorphosis of communication in the last 15 years and the ubiquity of visual communication in our modern mediated lifestyle. Thriteen major theories of communication are defined by the top experts in their fields: perception, cognition, aesthetics, visual rhetoric, semiotics, cultural studies, ethnography, narrative, media aesthetics, digital media, intertextuality, ethics, and visual literacy. Each of these theory chapters is followed by an exemplar study or two in the area, demonstrating the various methods used in visual communication research as well as the research approaches applicable for specific media types. The Handbook of Visual Communication is a theoretical and methodological handbook for visual communication researchers and a compilation for much of the theoretical background necessary to understand visual communication. It is required reading for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in visual communication, and it will be influential in other disciplines such as advertising, persuasion, and media studies. The volume will also be essential to media practitioners seeking to understand the visual aspects of how audiences use media to contribute to more effective use of each specific medium.

Ken Smith (1938-2003) was a major voice in world poetry, his work and example inspiring a whole generation of younger British poets. His politically edgy, cuttingly colloquial, muscular poetry poetry shifted territory with time, from rural Yorkshire, America and London to the war-ravaged Balkans and Eastern Europe (before and after Communism). His early books span a transition from a preoccupation with land and myth to his later engagement with urban Britain and the politics of radical disaffection. The pivotal work marking this shift was his long poem Fox Running (1980), brought to recent attention when an archive recording of him reading it was broadcast by BBC Radio 4's Poetry Please in 2016. His Collected Poems brings together poetry from four decades, including all the work from two earlier retrospectives, The Poet Reclining: Selected Poems 1962-1980 (1982) and Shed: Poems 1980-2001 (2002), together with the posthumously published You Again: last poems & other words (2004). The book is introduced with essays by Roger Garfitt and Jon Glover. Publication coincides with his 80th birthday and with the 40th anniversary of the publication of Bloodaxe's first title, Ken Smith's Tristan Crazy (1978).

The North East Coast presents a selection of true-life accounts from the region's fascinating maritime and seafaring history. Including some of the best stories from his previous books, Newcastle author Ken Smith throws the spotlight on such exciting episodes as Grace Darling and the rescue of survivors from the Forfarshire, the birth of the first purpose-built lifeboat and the career of the illustrious Tyne-built liner Mauretania.

The miners of the North-East, working in the most dangerous of conditions, supplied the coal which fuelled the engines of the Industrial Revolution and provided heating and lighting to millions of homes. Throughout much of County Durham and Northumberland pit communities sprang up because of the need for coal. Mining was fundamental to the development of the region. Illustrated with numerous colour photographs, Echoes of the North-East Miners throws the spotlight on the physical heritage left by the pitmen and their communities, including the numerous memorials and banners which speak so eloquently of their struggles in the face of adversity, their compassion and their enduring spirit of friendship.

Who invented the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong Gun? Who founded Elswick Works, once Tyneside's largest employer? Who built Newcastle's famous Swing Bridge? Who owned the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity? All this was the work of one man - Lord Armstrong of Cragside. Born in 1801 he was one of the most influential men in the North East during the Victorian era. This pioneering engineer was also a great philanthropist. His generosity helped to establish many institutions that still thrive in Newcastle today. They include the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle University and the Hancock Museum. He also gave Jesmond Dene to the city. First published in 2001, this new edition is completely revised with extra chapters and many new photographs.

This Handbook of Visual Communication explores the key theoretical areas and research methods of visual communication. With chapters contributed by many of the best-known and respected scholars in visual communication, this volume brings together significant and influential work in the discipline. The second edition of this already-classic text has been completely revised to reflect the metamorphosis of communication in the last 15 years and the ubiquity of visual communication in our modern mediated lifestyle. Thriteen major theories of communication are defined by the top experts in their fields: perception, cognition, aesthetics, visual rhetoric, semiotics, cultural studies, ethnography, narrative, media aesthetics, digital media, intertextuality, ethics, and visual literacy. Each of these theory chapters is followed by an exemplar study or two in the area, demonstrating the various methods used in visual communication research as well as the research approaches applicable for specific media types. The Handbook of Visual Communication is a theoretical and methodological handbook for visual communication researchers and a compilation for much of the theoretical background necessary to understand visual communication. It is required reading for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in visual communication, and it will be influential in other disciplines such as advertising, persuasion, and media studies. The volume will also be essential to media practitioners seeking to understand the visual aspects of how audiences use media to contribute to more effective use of each specific medium.

From railway engineering to shipbuilding, from iron and steel to rope making, and from pottery to glassworks, for many centuries the banks of the River Tyne steamed, smoked, clanged, banged and bustled with industry of all kinds. Most industries depended on coal, the black diamonds of North East England, for the import of raw material, and the export of goods. With an introduction by industrial archaeologist Professor Stafford Linsley, the authors of Lost Industries of the Tyne explore some of these vanished trades, and working lives that have gone forever. Nostalgia for such dangerous, dirty and often poisonous occupations might be misplaced, but there is much to be proud of in the story of enterprise, ingenuity, invention, and sheer dogged hard labour that made the North East the workshop of the world.

Tropical Deforestation introduces readers to the important concepts for understanding the environmental challenges and consequences of the deforestation. Contributions from scientists and academics in the social sciences and humanities provide readers with an initial 'tool kit' for understanding the concepts central to their disciplinary perspective and the multi-dimensional aspects of deforestation.

An annual favourite, The Herald Diary takes a selection of the funniest stories of the year that appear in The Herald's `Diary' column. From the political trials and tribulations of the year, sports and celebrity scandals and triumphs, and hilarious stories overheard on the street, The Herald Diary has it all, and is a perfect summary of the year.

You can have a lot of laughs in ten years, which is why we have collected the very best of the amusing stories encountered by the readers of The Herald Diary column over the past decade. There was even a Scottish Labour Prime Minister all those years ago, Celtic fans could only dream that their team would begin its quest for 10 titles in a row, and the word Covid was simply a typing error for David or cove. So as everyone could really do with a smile just now, we have combed well over two thousand Diary columns to bring the best of what made Scots laugh over the last ten years, whether it is the sharpest humour from pubs, the daft things children say or the humour from all sides of Scottish courts, the very best are here.