warwick cairns

The Devil’s Party

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Sometimes unrelieved goodness can get rather cloying. Sometimes you need the destructive power of negative energy, just to shake things up and just to restore balance in the world.

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Injury Time Revisited

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The bones of my pelvis had twisted, and in particular the curved structure at the front known as the pubic bone or pubic arch had pulled apart and ‘opened up’

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Murder. And Admin

a single shot rang out. It was a signal for which the soldiers had been waiting, dressed and armed; and upon the sound of it they turned upon their hosts, dragging them from their beds and slaughtering them in front of their homes.

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A visit to the clinic – From In Praise of Savagery

When I got to the front of the queue the medicine-man’s assistant took hold of my shoulder with one hand, and with the other he pushed a pin or needle into my skin and lifted it up towards the medicine man

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Warwick Cairns is away

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WARWICK CAIRNS IS AWAY

but we have managed to get hold of a sneak preview of the front cover for his new book.

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The profound truth of guilty pleasures

I think all of the ‘important’ things about a person – their principles, their opinions, their positions on the issues of the day – I think that none of them matter anywhere near as much, or are even half so revealing, as the little, inconsequential, guilty pleasures they can’t help but be drawn towards

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The Law and Lawyers – Robot Wars for Pedants

It is my impression that making a career out of the intricacies of the law has less to do with wisdom and compassion and more to do with having a somewhat legalistic mindset. And it is my impression that to work in litigation in particular you have to be up for something of a scrap as well. Because litigation, when you look at it, is a form of Robot Wars for pedants.

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Nice Day For A White Wedding

We were talking, in this mud hut, about the lives and customs of the places in which we lived. The two Turkana were particularly keen to learn about marriage customs in England, one of them having recently married for the second time; and they were amazed to hear that we could have only one wife where we came from. Amazement turned to frank disbelief when the matter of bride-price arose. Or rather, the lack of bride-price.

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Elsewhere

And how while you’re doing what you’re doing now, and while you’re thinking what you’re thinking now there are whole other lives going on in which you are nothing, and whole other places where you are not, and which you will never see, from the home of the man you pass each morning on the way to work furthermost depths of empty space.

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Nobody Likes A Quitter

There are people who seem to go out of their way not to have pleasure, or who seem to think that pleasure is somehow frivolous or unworthy while there are more important things to be done.

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