#source: Civvie 11

[tadc-incorrectquotes]

"I feel the urge to comfort him and tell him its alright. But alas, I can't speak. All I can do is murder — and allegedly do science — and maybe that's enough."

- Queenie after abstracting, probably

[thebaseddepartment]

Hey, for the people who want a safe content creator who is edgy but not as complete shithead, disavows the alt-right and supports trans rights, Civvie 11 is a good man. Makes entertaining content on boomer shooters and whatever else he’s interested in. Has funny in universe lore for his character too, as well as being someone who knows what he’s actually talking about in regards to a lot of his games. Honestly surprised more people don’t talk about him since he’s just a good ass dude who was in support of a lot of political struggles for human rights and I CANNOT stress this enough, has no love for the alt-right, which is better then 75 percent of YouTube. It’s funny that a bunch of his newer audience members don’t know this, say some stupid shit, then get dunked on in the comment section. 

Overall, good funny man with good critiques, would watch again. For the screen cap source i’ll leave a Reddit link right below this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Civvie11/comments/m5qyg3/civvie_says_trans_rights/

[sassycassie-s-writing]

Always Right

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): Avengers - Peter Parker/Spider-Man

Rating: PG-11/T-

Original Idea: Spider-Man: Far From Home baby!

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) Brown Recluse is back, babies with a slightly different backstory because Endgame feels! MAJOR ENDGAME AND SM: FFH SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. THIS IS YOUR WARNING!

^^^^^

Peter’s shoulder slammed into the locker next to mine. “Hey!” He grinned at me.

“Hi Pete,” I replied.

“So! Are you going on the trip?”

I slammed my locker. “Nope,” I said, twisting the comb lock and striding away.

Peter ran after me, pushing through students that my smaller stature wove through with more ease. “What? Why?!” he demanded, grabbing my arm to slow me down.

I turned with a glare. “Because I can’t, okay? Look, I know he was your mentor and you miss him too, but he was my dad. I’m just… I’m needed here.”

“New York can survive without Spider-Man for a couple weeks—surely it can survive without Brown Recluse too.”

I smacked his hand off my arm. “It’s not about New York, Peter! It’s about…” I ground my jaw and looked around. Peter and I were still mildly nerdy losers even in a school like this so no one paid us any attention. “It’s about Pepper and Morgan,” I hissed. “They need me. Am I a bad reminder of Tony’s playboy past to Pepper? Yes. But Morgan doesn’t even realize that I’m only her half-sister. She needs me. We’re all that’s left of him. I can’t leave Morgan and Pepper.”

“I thought you were still living with your caretaker.”

“I am. But only because I go to school in the city. Once summer starts I’m going to the cabin upstate to stay with Pepper and Morgan. My caretaker has the summer off to spend with her own family.” I gave him a forced smile and a two-fingered salute. “Have fun on the trip, Pete.”

I ducked through a gap in the crowd of students and headed off for class.

^^^^^

“Fri… FRIDAY…” Dad rasped.

“Dad—no. Don’t. Don’t try to talk. We’re gonna get you some help,” I promised around the tears flowing down my face. “Dad. I’m back now. Me and Pete—we both are. Your family is here. You can’t give up now. Dad, please!”

Dad grasped my hand with the one that hadn’t been charred by the Stones. “FRIDAY… activate… Suit of Armor… Around My World Protocol.”

“Dad—Dad what are you doing?”

The nanotech that made up his suit started crawling up my arm, vanishing off of his body. As it moved, the colors changed—from gold and red to brown and black.

“I…” he breathed. “I knew you were Brown Recluse the day you started. The… mole on your chin… gave you away. You should have gone with… the full-face mask.” He gave me a weak smile. The nanotech kept crawling over my body, spreading down my legs now.

“Dad you’re gonna be fine. Please. You have to be fine!”

“Pete…”

“Yes, Mr. Stark?” Peter squeaked, voice breaking and thick with emotion.

“Take care of her.”

“O-of course, Mr. Stark.”

The nanotech finished crawling. My whole suit had been swamped by it—like Peter’s Iron Spider suit.

^^^^^

I shoved out of my chair and bolted out of the physics classroom, snatching my backpack.

“Miss Marble!” Mr. Llewellyn called after me. “What’s wrong? They’re about to send down the yearbooks!”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t see past the tears welling up in my eyes. I pounded down the hallways at full-tilt, scrabbling through my pockets for my mask. Impatiently wiping tears from my eyes, I shoved the front door open, gasping for breath.

I freed my mask, slammed the gate of the school open, and sprinted across the football field.

Once I ducked out of view of the school, I yanked my mask on over my head and shot one of my webs up into the sky. It latched onto a building and I swung away as fast as I could, making my way from Queens to Manhattan.

To the top of Avengers Tower.

Once there I panted, clutching at my chest with one hand, sticking to the building with the other one.

“Hey. You okay?” a familiar voice asked as there was a soft thump on the glass behind me.

I whirled.

Peter, decked out in his full suit.

“Go away. Have fun on your trip,” I said. “I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

Peter sat down next to me, ripping his mask off and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Then… we won’t talk,” he decided. His other arm wrapped around my front and he just hugged me. He didn’t seem to mind me sobbing into his shoulder, soaking his suit. Just rocked me back and forth.

I thought about a snarky retort that him not talking would be a veritable miracle but didn’t have the brain power to force my mouth into saying it.

He tugged my mask off my head and started stroking my hair.

I cried for several more minutes until I cried myself out and the hiccups from sobbing subsided.

Peter got to his feet and offered me his hand. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go get our yearbooks. I want you to be the first one to sign mine. Got your marker?”

I felt in my backpack until I found the gold marker I’d brought. I held it up and waved it vaguely. “Got it.” Shoving it back in my bag, I zipped it up and took Peter’s hand. He helped me to my feet and handed me back my mask. I pulled my hair back to get it less tangled and pulled my mask back on over my head. The gap in the full-head spandex for my mouth and nose pressed into my skin.

He smiled and slid his own mask on over his curls. “Great. Let’s go.”

Still holding my hand, he swan-dove off the Tower, forcing me to go with him.

We swung our way back to school, found a place to straighten up back in our civvies, and went inside.

“Y’know, it’d be easier on everyone if you told someone on staff who you really are,” Peter remarked as we trudged up the stairs. “If the teachers knew you kept having breakdowns because your dad sacrificed himself, they’d go a lot easier on you for storming out of class and—”

“Not gonna happen,” I snapped, harsher than I meant to. “No one but you and my family and my caretaker know. And no one else is gonna know.” I combed my hair with my fingers. “Thanks for always being there for me, Pete. Enjoy the trip.”

“I promised I would be!” Peter called as we split up to go back to our classes.

“Welcome back, Miss Marble. Everything alright?” Mr. Llewellyn asked. The rest of the class was exchanging yearbooks, getting ready to head out into the hallways to sign friends’ books.

I nodded. “Yeah. Just a… personal problem,” I said.

“Miss Marble, I know this Blip business has been hard on everyone, but your reactions are the most severe. Maybe you should see a—”

“I already am seeing a counselor, Mr. Llewellyn,” I said.

“Well, alright then,” he remarked. He handed me the yearbook that had a sticker on the side with my name on it. “Have a good summer, okay?”

“I’ll try,” I said. I took the book and left the classroom, digging my marker out.

I wove through the sea of people back to Peter’s homeroom.

“Parker!” I shouted. He smiled and ducked under a jock’s arm to make his way over to me. I thrust my yearbook at him. “Wanted you to be the first to sign mine too.” He smiled and swapped books with me.

Dear Pete, I wrote on one of the blank white pages in the back of the book.

It’s been a crazy year, hasn’t it? After the Blip took us both… Pep told me it was YOU who convinced Dad to help bring us all back. He wasn’t gonna, but then he found the internship photo in the kitchen in the cabin, and that’s why he helped the team bring back everyone. He loved you. I love you. Thanks for keeping your promise to keep an eye on me. Have fun on the science trip!

With love,

Miss Stark

I drew a little cartoon spider next to my name and passed it back to him, taking mine from his hand.

“Hey, if you see something really weird and authentic in Italy or France or wherever that’s, like, less than five bucks, get it for me and I’ll pay you back, okay?” I said, cradling my book under my arm and recapping my marker.

“Ye-yeah! Sure thing!” Peter replied.

“And call me if, I don’t know, the world starts to end.”

“It’s… not gonna end,” he complained. “Don’t jinx it.”

“I’ll do my best. Knock on wood,” I said, knocking on his forehead. He snorted and ducked away. “Bye Pete!”

“See ya!”

^^^^^

“Spidey!” I shouted, slinging up onto the bridge and slamming a drone out of the way with both feet.

“Recluse!” Peter exclaimed, voice completely breaking so it sounded like, “ReCLUse!” I snickered. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming on the trip!”

“You called Happy and had him fly the jet to the Netherlands! You really thought I wouldn’t come?!” I demanded, snatching a drone with a web and hurling it into another one. “Why didn’t you call me?!”

“I… I couldn’t remember your number!” His voice broke again, squeaking on “number.”

I wrenched a drone’s power source out and chucked it at Peter. It glanced off his shoulder. “Liar!”

“Okaaay. I was embarrassed to call you after I royally screwed up.”

“Well I had to hear about it from Happy! I’d rather have heard it from you!”

“Can you two have your little lover’s quarrel later?!” Happy demanded in our earpieces.

“Shut up!” I retorted as I tore a drone in half with my bare hands. Or, rather, semi-bare hands. “We’re not having a lover’s quarrel, Harold.”

“Harold?” Peter asked.

“Happy’s real name?” I said.

“Wait really?”

“Focus up!” I threw a drone at Peter that he quickly smashed apart. “We don’t have time to chat!”

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Peter said, grabbing me by the hand and Yeeting me right into a group of drones that I slung all together in a huge web.

“I can’t leave you alone,” I said. “Have to come pick up after you.”

“Shut up,” Peter said.

^^^^^

Peter and I sat on the top of the Shard building, stuck to it with our powers, suits and masks on. “I should be honest with you, Pete,” I said. “Mourning my dad isn’t the only reason I didn’t want to come on the trip.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because… because I was upset that he chose you for EDITH instead of me!” I snapped.

Peter stared at me. “I… didn’t even think about that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Thanks. But I know why he chose you instead of me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I have too much of my dad in me—”

“Hey. That’s what makes you the best—”

“You didn’t let me finish. Dad knew he and I were super similar, but the stuff I got from my mom makes me unworthy of EDITH. And, my dad was what he always was.”

“And what’s that?”

“Always right,” I said. “My dad was always right. Because, ultimately, you’re a better person than I am. That’s why he chose you.”

“Don’t… say that…” he said.

“C’mon, Pete. Let’s go. We should get you back to our classmates so you can fly home together. Happy and I are chartering a jet back to JFK so that I’m not on a public plane.”

“I get that.”

“Oh, and Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“EDITH is a big responsibility. Take care of her.”

Peter smiled at me. “I will. Promise.”

I stood up and offered him my hand. He took it and let me help him stand. Still holding his hand, I swan-dove off the Shard.

“Whoo!” I called as we fell. I heard Peter laugh.

We swung back to the hotel. “See you back in Queens,” Peter said.

I beamed, grateful that I’d left the bottom of my face exposed so he could see my mouth smiling. “See you in Queens.”

[whumpbby]

Symbiote!Jay/Dick

So, I have started to write that mess. 

Starts with some good ol’ wholesome cannibalism and Dick getting a scare of his life. Later on may contain tentacle sex. 

“I have a very aggressive immune system” 

Jay/Dick, with a Symbiote throw into the mix.

It was like some goddamn nightmare brought to life to play in front of his eyes. For a moment there Dick was convinced that that’s what this was, a bad dream - he knew that the chow mein in the back of his fridge was bad, he just fucking knew it and still ate it! Damn Dick Grayson and his stupid, stupid brain that saw soggy noodles as acceptable source of nutrition before his nightly patrol. Alfred was right, he was so not ready to live an adult life, he was simply not equipped to do so! Even Jason knew how to cook for himself and…

...and that brought him back to Jason - who was standing in front of him, as if nothing has happened. As if Dick didn’t just witness his younger brother take a point blank shotgun blast to the chest. As if he didn’t just see the cloud of blood and torn flesh splattering around the man, raining on the ground and the wall they were standing next to. As if Dick’s hands and face haven’t been splashed with that gore, because he didn't think to turn away, because he was sure that Jay had his kevlar armour hidden underneath that worn hoodie and trusted it to take the shot…

He was so terribly mistaken it wasn’t even funny.

But that wasn’t the worst part, oh no. Not the shot, not the way Jason’s side exploded with viscera, not even the small, punched-out sound he’s made as he started to fall.

Nope. That was horrifying, sure, Dick felt himself freeze like he’d only done a few times in his life (because Jay wasn’t even supposed to be there, not in his civvies, not at the business end of a shotgun, shielding Nightwing from a sneak attack he was too stupid to expect… he wasn’t supposed to die in some stupid, moronic robbery in some rundown 7/11, because Dick didn't have even a half of what it took to tend to a wound this horrific!) and didn't move fast enough to catch Jason as he fell - but he was, somehow, fast enough to throw his escrima stick with deadly accuracy and snap the weapon out of their attacker’s hands.

It clattered onto the wet concrete - and Jayson stopped falling.

Like a puppet with its strings pulled taut, his body halted its descent in an impossible position - knees bent, hands out, back nearly parallel with the dirty pavement… like a movie paused mid-take, Jason just stopped.

Then, after a beat that was barely enough for Dick to blink, his knees tensed and he stood back up in a move so smooth it was unsettling to the very core. He rose to his full height in front of the confused robber and for a moment Dick thought some of the blood got on his brother’s face, because the red spreading around his head couldn't be anything else, could it? Jason didn't have his helmet, as far as Dick knew, he was at the shop as a customer, unarmed and in civilian clothing...

That train of thought ended abruptly when the red helmet opened its mouth (the helmet that usually didn't have a mouth!) really, really, really wide and the wannabe robber’s head disappeared between the closing jaws.

Right in front of Dick’s eyes, a headless body slid noiselessly to the ground, blood bursting in a fountain from the severed neck. Jason swallowed audibly, turning around, and Dick could see his throat expand and his sternum rise and drop in an impossible way, because there was no way a human could just swallow someone’s goddamn head! It wasn’t! Even a guy as big as Jason… who was suddenly quite a lot bigger than he’s been a moment ago, stalking towards Dick like a predator, head lowered and face hidden behind the blood-stained helmet...

“Jay…” Dick ground out, only at that moment realising that the distance between them grew, because bis legs started to retreat before his mind decided to do so. That distance was quickly shortening, through, with every step of the mons... “Jay! What the hell…  You were...”

There was still a hole in his chest, a sprawling landscape of torn flesh and shattered ribs and something Dick didn't want to recognise as ribs. And, oh God, Jason has never lost his penchant for zombie jokes, but this - this was taking it way too far! “Jaybird...”

In the dim light in the alley on the back of the store the holes in the helmet looked at him like the eyes of a beast, opalescent and emotionless. The lack of taunting, lack of scathing words, lack of anything that he’d learned to associate with Jason sent a shiver down Dick’s spine and his mind into a panicked spin, trying to make sense of the situation.  

And the body, don't forget the body.

How could he even begin to forget about the damn headless body!    

“Jay…”

“What the fuck is going on here?!”

Oh yeah, the other robber, returning for his buddy. Dick forgot about him!

The man - kid, honestly, he was no more than a kid! - crashed through the back door, took one look at his headless accomplice and, probably out of shock, decided to raise his handgun and shoot.

Somehow, Dick knew what was about to happen and he was moving before the knowledge solidified, dashing to the side, using the wall as a springboard to vault himself over Jason and the two clumsy shots, to slam into the kid, disarming him in one move and…

“No!” He gasped when he was grabbed around the waist and torn away, thrown back from the young idiot he was trying to save. “No, Jason no!” He struggled with what held him, but it was no use, his fingers couldn't find any purchase in the gooey, slippery mass pinning him to the wall. “Jason, stop, don't...!”

The voice that answered him didn't belong to Jason.

Maybe, in some other dimension, if someone took the younger man’s voice and put it into a blender with a handful of gravel, nails and old transistors. It was a growl, but it was also a buzz, like a lion trying to hiss.

“We need a new liver and lungsss,” it came out of the mouth that formed in front of the helmet, too wide to be human and filled with too many teeth. “Your friend dessstroyed our own… ssshame.”

Dick could almost see the kid from behind the hulking form, held against the wall just like him, pinned to it by an arm that morphed at the elbow to stretch into a red mass of gooey tentacles, slick and undulating as they wound around the kid’s upper torso, neck and the bottom half of his face, rendering the struggling captive mute. Unable to defend himself. Unable to do anything other than be terrified.

“Jay! Or whatever the hell you are… let him go!”

If only he could reach his other escrima stick or switch on the defences in his suit, maybe the electric shock would be enough to get free and then… as soon as that though appeared, his hands, that were struggling to untangle the red mass from his middle, were grasped back by it and slammed into the bricks over Dick’s head.

The thing’s head (it could not be Jason, it simply couldn't be! It was some doppelganger that took his form, like Clayface or…) turned back and Dick did his best not to shiver under the even stare of the opalescent eyes.

“Dickiebird ssstay sssilent,” it hissed at him, the nickname startling him into a flinch. “We will take care of it sssoon… after we make sssure the hossst livesss…”

“Host?” Was Jay somewhere inside of this thing? Was there a way to reach him? “Jason, listen to me! Stop this thing frommgh…!”

The appendage that slipped between his teeth was much less yelding than the first impression implied, it settled over his tongue, heavy and cloying like the silicon paste his dentist used once to make Dick’s first retainer when he was a kid. It brought nearly the same impression of his brain firing up warnings that he’s about to choke and suffocate, even though he was left with enough air.

“Birdsss can live without tonguesss,” the thing sounded almost fond while Dick froze at the open threat. “Husssh, now...” The fondness evaporated when the head turned back to the robber. “You, on the other hand… shot our ssspleen… ”

Dick struggled for all he was worth, powered by pure, unadulterated panic in the kid’s eyes, but he was helpless in the grasp of something that was barely solid enough to grip, but strong enough to hold him down with almost no effort.

No, no, this was not happening, - he tried to tell himself as the tendrils around the kid tightened and his struggles ceased, as the glassy eyes rose to the narrowed patches of glowing pearlescent white staring down in unmasked hunger. As the maw full of jagged teeth opened wider, drool dripping down the bottom lip and a black foot-long tongue slipped out… This wasn’t real, just wasn’t! Couldn't be! It was a bad dream - Dick’s got dosed with something by Crane or Ivy, he had to trip and slip into some alternate reality, because in his reality things like this simply didn't happen!

Where was police when you needed them?!

Dick moaned in distress when the tendrils cupping his face shifted, dry, but still completely gross, curling up, snaking through his hair and over his eyes. Before he knew it, he was effectively blindfolded - which did nothing for his nerves, honestly.

“He wouldn’t want you to sssee...” That was the last thing he’s heard before the muffled whimpering ended in a wet crunch and the darkness underneath his eyelids swallowed any conscious thoughts.

[kupwaratimes-fan]

J&K: Policeman On Leave, Civilian Injured In Grenade Blast Near Aalimasjid Eidgah

J&K: Policeman On Leave, Civilian Injured In Grenade Blast Near Aalimasjid Eidgah

Policeman On Leave, Civilian Injured In Grenade Blast Near Aalimasjid Eidgah Srinagar, Nov 11 : A policeman on leave and a civilian were injured in a grenade blast at Aalimasjid Eidgah in central Kashmir’s Srinagar on Wednesday. Official sources told GNS that suspected militants hurled grenade near CRPF’s 161 battalion camp, injuring a policeman who was in civvies and one leave besides…

[justxcomthings]

[image source]

JXT: The last enemy in a snakeman terror mission was a chryssalid, who touched one of my 11 surviving troops. The resulting zombie was able to change into another chryssalid and then change the soldier that shot it. The new zombie went after the civvies. This continued until all but one of my soldiers was turned or dead. As I tried to get the survivor to abort the mission, a chryssalid got into the Skyranger. I lost all my best officers, equipment, and first Skyranger because of one lousy chryssalid. 

[bbcbreakingnews]

Govt move to increase retirement age & slash pensions triggers uproar in military circles

NEW DELHI: A twin-pronged proposal by the defence ministry to increase the retirement age of officers and slash pensions of those seeking premature retirement has triggered yet another major controversy in the 15-lakh strong armed forces. The defence ministry’s move comes in the backdrop of the urgent need for cadre restructuring in the Army, Navy and IAF amidst the ballooning pension bill adversely impacting military modernization. “The aim is also to retain trained manpower for longer tenures,” said an official. But it has also led to widespread criticism in the 65,000-strong officer cadre on the ground that it will undermine the measures taken over the years to keep the armed forces “young and fighting fit’. It will also be a “strong disincentive” for superseded officers to seek a second career in the “civvy street”, they said. As per the October 29 letter issued by the department of military affairs (DMA) headed by chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat, the retirement age for ranks up to Colonels in the Army and equivalents in Navy and IAF will be raised to 57 years from the existing 54. Similarly, it will be 58 years for Brigadiers (from 56) and 59 for Major-Generals (from 58). Lt-Generals will continue to serve till the age of 60, with military chiefs serving till 62 as before. The retirement age for jawans and JCOs (junior commissioned officers) in non-combat arms like logistics, technical and medical branches will also be raised to 57 years. As for retirement benefits, officers will get only 50% of their entitled pension if they take premature retirement (PMR) after 20-25 years of service, 60% after 26-30 years and 75% after 31-35 years. At present, military officers as well as their civilian counterparts become eligible for pension (half of the last salary drawn) after completing 20 years of service. “The draft GSL (government sanction letter) should be processed for the perusal of secretary DMA (Gen Rawat) by November 10,” says the letter, accessed by TOI. After the implementation of most of the provisions of the one rank, one pension (OROP) scheme for ex-servicemen in 2015, the pension bill has hugely expanded. The defence pension bill for retired military and civilian personnel for this fiscal, for instance, is a staggering Rs 1.33 lakh crore. But the fresh move to slash pensions of those taking PMR, which comes after several controversies ranging from taxing of disability pensions and “monetization” of defence land to restrictions on CSD purchases and ex-servicemen contributory health scheme (ECHS), has led to an uproar among many serving and retired military officers. They contended the DMA has “no jurisdiction” to alter pension formulae. “Salaries and pensions are approved by the Cabinet after being decided by pay commissions and expert committees. Any such move will be challenged in court,” said a senior officer. Moreover, the proposals go against the measures taken to reduce the “greying profile” of the armed forces. “The bulk of officers are superseded in the steeply-pyramidal promotional structure of the armed forces. Many of them take PMR for a second career after becoming eligible for pension after 20 years. If these measures are implemented, they will be forced to serve till retirement to get full pension,” said another officer. Unlike civilian government employees, military personnel retire by rank at comparatively younger ages. All jawans retire in their mid-30s and JCOs in mid-40s, while most officers retire in their early-50s, with the aim being to ensure the military remains young and fighting fit.

The post Govt move to increase retirement age & slash pensions triggers uproar in military circles appeared first on BreakingNews.

source https://bbcbreakingnews.com/2020/11/04/govt-move-to-increase-retirement-age-slash-pensions-triggers-uproar-in-military-circles/

[pcgamesplay1]

DOOM (2016) - The Build up to Doom Eternal Hype | See our Special Promotions #Action #bethesda #DOOM #DoomEternal #FPS #PCG1 #SpecialPromotion Source: Civvie 11

[salutethepig]

My Dad's pigs

Well, strictly, there weren’t his.

OK, I’d better give you some more background hadn’t I? There’s already some words on my Mum in this blog from earlier, so it seems only right that he also gets a fair crack of the narrative whip in my ongoing pig tales. And I’m actually more than a little surprised that I’ve not got around to talking that much about them — except in passing — until now, some years after the blog was started. So, sorry to you both! I love you; it wasn’t a deliberate slight 🙂

But first, here’s a shot of the (in-)Famous Five. Not sure where this was taken but I’m the one on the right in the back row. By the way, you will note that my pristine discriminate suss vis a vis clothes, hair-cuts and general hard-core posing, has always been with me…

Dad had an interesting, varied life. He’d been a merchant sailor on the Russian Convoys in WWII. He’d graduated from the Royal College of Music as a pianist and, initially at least, taught piano, but after he’d met my Mum (met up again that is; they’d split up and gone their separate ways, until Mum went down to Devon and, so her version goes, “dragged him back to Oxford and away from that other woman”), five children came along in rapid succession and it was soon apparent that the measly pay offered a music teacher wasn’t enough to support us all. Taking a cue from his own Dad, he re-trained as an accountant and started working for firms up & down the country. We moved. A lot. By the first 10 years of my life, I think we’d had 4 or 5 different places we called home.

And a couple of early shots of them attending someone elses’ wedding and, in the second, their own.

[I’ve even recently attempted to map some of the houses — it’s available here as The Bulow Clan homes for any of you stalkers out there — and, using Street-view, took a look at how they’re doing now. It’s quite surprising quite how much hasn’t changed from my memories of them, memories in some cases, from over 40 years ago]

Whilst it meant that we were forever making & then saying good-bye to short-lived friendships (at first those children next door, or just along the road, then later, those at primary school), it also resulted in us becoming a superbly well-tuned and tight-knit fighting unit, skilled at packing up one day and then efficiently moving these 7 people, their dog and their furniture to a new location, the very next day. I think I said before that my Mum could easily have organised the Normandy landings — her grasp of logistics was that good. We were the civvie equivalent of the Royal Engineers, moving men, vehicles & supplies through a devastated wasteland.

Here’s a later retirement shot — from the back garden in their nice, newly built, modern house. Finally, my Mum got to have a house that she didn’t have to look after all the time. Didn’t stop her still doing so, mind you…

And then, just like that, Dad gave up the life of an accountant and became a pig farmer. Well, in my memory, it was like that. In all likelihood, it took probably a few weeks or months — at least — to convince my Mum that this wasn’t the most insane idea he’d ever had. Dad was bright (and funny and kind), but sometimes you wouldn’t know it. He also could (and did) drink. And that was a problem at times. I recall being driven by him (in retrospect, a very pissed him) at high-speed around Bournemouth, where we were visiting his parents and after he’d had a row with Mum. He was often pretty useless with money; rather surprising for an accountant and I recall Mum keeping separate little pots for each bill and, once or twice we kids and Mum had to hide silently under the bed and pretend that we weren’t in, when the milkman (or similar dunned debtor) came a’ knockin’.

But become a pig farmer he did. There were, I’m sure, some sharply hissed, unkind words from behind the closed bedroom door or from the front-room, as they discussed it, but again, in my memory, we just effortlessly and calmly segued into our new lives on farms. Dad had always loved pigs, working with them in Devon, so, whilst an unexpected change of tack — at least to us — maybe not a total bombshell for my Mum. Who knows now? But there we were. Living in farm cottages as Dad never owned his own farm; he was always a tenant farmer. But one big advantage of this was that the job came complete with a large house. I’m sure the wages were pretty crap but at least they didn’t have to find rent money and were able to have separate bed-rooms for (most) of us!

Here’s the place at Kingsdown, in Kent. We moved here when I was just 11, from the previous farm in Essex. This was the last one he worked at and it specialised in careful, highly skilled breeding programmes. Now. this pristine, white house is divided into two properties but when we were there, it was all ours. Complete with nests of rats under the garden shed. An endless source of fun for us and the family and farm dogs. Corn fields behind. Bluebell woods on the horizon. And an old Royal Marine training ground  further along the farm road — dangerous as all hell, full of collapsing tunnels, hidden drops and unstable sandy banks, so therefore irresistible to us.

And here, the farm buildings that housed the pigs, now looking almost deserted (and a likely asbestos health & safety nightmare), but these were where Dad worked, where we all ‘helped’ him and, from the concrete jetties, where the animals were loaded and off-loaded. The grain store and chute, at the back, was another treasure trove of rats for hunting. Oh, and it also had a large oil-drum sized tub of black molasses given to the pigs to supplement their diet. Scooping a fistful out when no one was looking, was a treat for all of us kids.

And so, as I said therefore, not his pigs. But as far as the porkers and we were concerned, they may as well have been. He loved them. He cared for them. He bedded them down when they were ill, supervised their births, farrowing, feeding, growth and deaths.  As a breeding experimental site, we had quite tight access controls (for that time); and the occasional foot & mouth outbreaks nearby meant we often went into lock-down and once — luckily only the once — we had to watch as all the animals there had to be killed and burnt. An horrific sight, sounds and a smell that lingered in the air and clothes and even the hedgerows for days afterward. A lot of us cried that day. Including my Dad.

An earlier farm was also the cause of more than one or two nightmares for me. The pig manure was swept into huge underground pits (using what were, in effect, giant rubberised Squeegee mops) from where it was rather (to me) ingeniously pumped out, through a network of pipes either onto the nearby fields or into tankers for disposal elsewhere. Leaning over the manhole covers, seeing the churning, stinking dark, seething mass below, made me wake screaming in the night as I ‘watched’ Dad slip into it and get sucked away.

Gentle reader? Of course, it never happened. For which I for one am profoundly grateful. He went on to live for another 30 years or so.

But “what about the pigs”, I hear you cry? “Tell us more about them”?

Despite (or rather because of) the intensive breeding attempts, these weren’t anything special — certainly not rare breed types, just pink & large — except in their ability to grow quickly to weight, to be low in fat, to produce large litters. You know, the same as everyone else, the same as almost the entire rest of the world was looking for. We (Dad and his fellow pig-herds) were ‘guilty’ of the crimes I’ve previously excoriated the English farmer for. I suppose we could claim that this was a different time and that we “knew no better”, and in all honesty, I think that’s pretty much the case. I don’t recall anyone then extolling the benefits of the old style pigs — hardier, tastier, able to live outside — whilst calling for them to be retained. The dash for profit was headlong and Dad’s employers weren’t immune to that siren call. So these ones weren’t kept outside; they lived in inside sties. The floors were concrete (although they had huge quantities of fresh straw changed twice daily to move around on, root round in, dig for their food in). Food was generally high-energy pellets. They got given some fruit on occasions. But precisely because this was a breeding farm and the owner was paranoid about infections or diseases from outside, pigs weren’t allowed the scraps and swill from school canteens that we saw used on the earlier farms.

Ideal? No. Unfeeling? Yes, pretty much I guess. The sows had large-ish farrowing crates even then, so the natural bonding that should occur was less likely to happen. We docked tails. We de-tusked the boars. They didn’t get to run around outside, to root, to dig, to play in the way that this most sociable of animals needs to. And whilst I never saw anyone treating them cruelly or unkindly, still, this was a processing operation. I’m not happy looking back at the lives these animals led because of us.  I’m unsure how to end this piece. For the time and place, they had a better life than some and Dad was uniformly caring of them. I suppose that’s the best I can say. Somehow though, it doesn’t seem a fitting epitaph for all the work and care and effort that he put into his animals. We never really spoke about this or how welfare for animals had changed when we’d both got older. And I regret that. And I miss him. Of course. But I think he’d have approved of my coming back to write about these lovely creatures. Thanks Bernie. For everything.

Oh, and one last thing? As far as I know, we’re not related to this branch of the extended Bulow Clan. We visited there whilst living in Florida. A beautiful place, calm, green, verdant. And yet. And yet. The stench of slavery — like burning pork — doesn’t wash away, even in the torrential Florida rains…

In 1821, Major Charles Wilhelm Bulow acquired 4,675 acres of wilderness bordering a tidal creek that would later bear his name. Using slave labor, he cleared 2,200 acres and planted sugar cane, cotton, rice and indigo. Major Bulow died in 1823, leaving the newly established plantation to his seventeen year old son, John Joachim Bulow.

After completing his education in Paris, John Bulow returned to the Territory of Florida to manage the plantation. Young Bulow proved to be very capable. John James Audubon, the famous naturalist, was a guest at the plantation during Christmas week 1831. In a letter to a patron, Audubon wrote:

“Mr. J.J. Bulow, a rich planter, at whose home myself and party have been for a whole week under the most hospitable and welcome treatment is now erecting some extensive buildings for a sugar house.” Bulowville, Florida December 31, 1831.

Bulow’s sugar mill, constructed of local “coquina” rock, was the largest mill in East Florida. At the boat slips, flatboats were loaded with barrels of raw sugar and molasses and floated down Bulow Creek to be shipped north. This frontier industry came to an abrupt end at the outbreak of the Second Seminole War. In January 1836, a band of raiding Seminole Indians, resisting removal to the West, looted and burned the plantation. It would never recover. Bulow returned to Paris where he died the same year.

Today, the coquina walls and chimneys of the sugar mill remain standing as a monument to the rise and fall of the sugar plantations of East Florida.

  My Dad’s pigs was originally published on Salute The Pig

[mileena--kahnumm]

Ok so went back to NBlood tweaked the mouse sensitivity working great now.