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Ian R Thorpe
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My career as a Management Consultant ended after I was paralysed by a brain haemorrhage 8 years ago (I'm almost fully recovered) It was an opportunity to return to my first and most cherished ambition, writing. I publish little, it seems unimportant now when I can find readers on the net, but I do occasionally write for newspapers and mags in the UK and also feature on radio programmes. It is far more important to me, having reached burn out once to do what I enjoy rather than that which I may gain materially from.
Writing influenced by Spike Milligan, Tom Sharpe, Steinbeck, Kafka and many others. Poets I like include Dylan Thomas, Tennyson, Browning, Andrew Marvell, Shelley, Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen, Sylvia Plath etc. etc. My fave poet in the whole world ever though is Janet Caldwell. To be quite honest I'm not sure it is just her writing that attracts me. (How's that for wearing my heart on my sleeve Janny-babes. And me an emotionally retarded Englishman too.)
My current project is the building of a Multi Media site to feature verse, prose (fiction and non fiction,) writing on travel, art, nature, and philosophy all available in Audio, Video and text. Its a big job.
Birth Place: Manchester, United Kingdom
Accomplishments: I keep getting my arse kicked for not promoting myself enough, so:
Ian Thorpe has won writing awards for poetry, fiction and factual journalism.
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Books

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 | A Stroke of Luck by Ian R Thorpe Free e-book. A Memoir of Recovery, the medical professions wrote me off, it sounds heavy but is good fun - read the reviews. Will be out in paperback late in 2004 but if you can't wait I am now in the process of loading it as 20 stories here at AD. Download each as they come online or read here.
Update; DEC 2, 2004 The Book will be on sale next week. Return to this page for details of where to...
Download Free Preview!
Ian Thorpe Web Site
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| A Two Faced Poet by Ian R Thorpe Publication of thes muilti media collectof 45 poems has been delayed due to technical difficulties with the publisher (they are not geared up for true multi - media and I do not think background music in midi format and short video clips are really adequate for today's market.
The collection will appear early in 2004 through a different publisher.
Meanwhile I will continure building a prev...
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| Dimensions of Mystery by Ian R Thorpe Following the abandonment of the 3 - in - 1 project due to irreconcilable differences on marketing policy with the publisher this collection will no be published for some time now. Watch this space.
A collection of 8 stories, some of almost novella length, and all having a mystery theme.
Extracts and previews of all will be provided at my "stories" page but this will be an ongoing project....
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Short Stories
 Psycho Benefit Fraud by Ian R Thorpe When the Boggart Blog team read about a New York man who dressed in his mothers clothes to commit benefit fraud they had to do their own take on the story. And boiggart Blog being Boggart Blog that in...
The Vegetarian Shoemaker Of Barking by Ian R Thorpe A mix of fiction and satire here from the pages of Boggart Blog. Some of you might have wondered why I spend little time on Authorsden and why I seldom get around to leaving comments.
Well Boggart...
Dimensions of Love by Ian R Thorpe This is the first story in the Collection "Dimensions of Mystery" which is included on the "Ashless Fire" CD (see my books for info)
Love is the most powerful emotion, but when a powerful love is ...
What the Dickens by Ian R Thorpe A repost - for some reason the body of the text would not display before.
This is a pastiche of the style of Charles Dickens but takes a less sentimental view of what london lufe might have been l...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 1 by Ian R Thorpe Chapter One of my memoir of the early stages of recovery from a life - threatening brain haemorrhage that left me paralysed on the left side. Other chapters will follow at regular intervals.
At th...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 7 by Ian R Thorpe Getting toward halfway now - as usual I will remind you previous chapters are in my stories menu...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 19 by Ian R Thorpe The final chapter. To revisit chapter 18 or go back to the start of the book use the links at the beginning....
The Stranger's Field by Ian R Thorpe This tale of medieval weirdness tells of a village tyrant and bully who terrorises villagers. Even in our spohisticated modern world people can be oppressed by a bullying boss, an overpearing parent o...
Mr. Wilde's Farewell(weirdness) by Ian R Thorpe Another Halloween season trip to the top of the list for this whacky ghost story which won an award for short fiction in 2002.
The last bar in London in which electronic entertasinment has re...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 18 by Ian R Thorpe Use the lionks at the top and bottom of the chapter to move back or forward....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 17 by Ian R Thorpe Use links at the beginning and end to navigate this FREE e-book
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A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 16 by Ian R Thorpe All previous chapters in this free e-book are available from the menu....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 15 by Ian R Thorpe Use links at start and end to navigate through this FREE e-book...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 13 by Ian R Thorpe Preceding chapters are available in the menu. The rest of the book is coming online at regular intervals....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 9 by Ian R Thorpe If you are new to this serialisation find earlier chapters in the left hand menu....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 10 by Ian R Thorpe The latest chapter in the book. The full text will be available online here as a free e-book just as soon as I have prepared all chapters for AD presentation...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 11 by Ian R Thorpe Sorry about the break in postings, been filming. As usual, newcomers to this partwork can find earlier chapters in the stories menu....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 12 by Ian R Thorpe Usual note, preceding chapters are all available in my stories menu...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 14 by Ian R Thorpe Earlier Chapters are available through the stories menu....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 8 by Ian R Thorpe As usual I remind you that earlier chapters are alredy posted as seperate stories. These postings will build into the full book over the next few weeks....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 6 by Ian R Thorpe Links at the top point tprevious chapter and the beginning. Jump to next chapter with the link at the end....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 5 by Ian R Thorpe Use links at the top to go back to previous chapter or the beginning. Link at end moves to next chapter....
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 4 by Ian R Thorpe Go back to:...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 2 by Ian R Thorpe If you are a newcomer to this free e-book here at author's den, earlier chapters are listed in my "stories" menu. Deatails about the book and an intro are provided in "my books" together with details...
A Stroke of Luck - Chapter 3 by Ian R Thorpe Go Back to:
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Poetry
 The Making And Unmaking Dance by Ian R Thorpe A solstice celebration. Now today, June 21 is Solstice Day and I forgot to update this poem to bring it to people's attention. Oh well, better late than never....
Where Did All The Money Go by Ian R Thorpe A little ditty about the financial crisis....
Ode to Politicians by Ian R Thorpe Nobody ever writes poems about politicians so I thought I'd try....
Rude Food by Ian R Thorpe Who can I blame for this blatant innuendo.... its Janet Caldwell's fault, she encourages me to do things like this (not that I need much enouraging)...
Chasing Bubbles by Ian R Thorpe I wonder if I am first off the blocks with a poem about the meltdown in the financial markets?
This is also a lyric, the music being developed by my songwriting at the moment. The italicised ...
The New Poet Laureate by Ian R Thorpe The identity of britain's new Poet Laureate will be revealed soon and poets all over Britain wait with bated breat hoping it will be their name that is called.
The function of the Poet Laureate is...
Tommy Clod by Ian R Thorpe A new primary curriculum for British schools leaked to the media today suggests traditional subjects like history and geography are irrelevant and children should have lessons in Twitter, Wikipedia, b...
You Just Can't Be Too Paranoid by Ian R Thorpe Another golden oldie. Just for fun and because I love conspiracy theories. For non - UK readers, Lord Lucan was (is?)
an English aristocrat who disappeared after allegedly murdering his children'...
From The Darkness : Vernal Equinox by Ian R Thorpe The latest addition to my Eightfold Year srt, a series of nature and calendar poems based of the annual cycle of pagan festivals. This verse, superficially about the equinox brings in references to th...
Holy City. by Ian R Thorpe The temples of Mammon are on fire. As they burn this poem, a performance piece, seems more prescient than ever....
St. Paddy's Day Limericks by Ian R Thorpe As March 17th, St Patrick's Day approached again it seems a good time to bring these limericks back to the top of the list....
Attack of the KILLER Trousers... by Ian R Thorpe Portentious chords - Ta Ta Taaaaa diddle iddle um. Voiceoverman voice "Have you ever noticed anything sinister about old mens' trousers. The terrible truth is revealed.........
The Headless Horseman (link to audio now fixed) by Ian R Thorpe I love a Christmas Ghost Story. This silly, spooky offering is in the style of the Great William McGonagall (reputedly the worst poet ever published in the English language) who died 100 years ago thi...
Beloved Succubus (audio version of Gothic horror poem) by Ian R Thorpe There seems to be quite a fad for Vampires, Werewolves, ghosts and monsters at the moment no wonder beloved Succubus is my most popular poem at AD. Check out the spooky audio track with the poem perfo...
The Slug and the Snail by Ian R Thorpe The recession is biting globally but the nations suffing its worst effects are those in which the economy depended far too heavily on the housing market, with articialli inflated values underwriting g...
Sandanista by Ian R Thorpe Another song lyric rather than a poem. Selina (the music half of the team) and I did this one as a kind of wished for revolution aganist the power of the big entertainment corporations and a return to...
Danny Boyle: A Song For Oscar by Ian R Thorpe The victory of british director Danny Boyle with his low budget film Slumdog Millionaire is a shot in the arm for the British Film industry so I'm sure you will forgive me a little gloating....
Bitter Fruit (social comment) by Ian R Thorpe After some dreamy and reflective stuff recently the ROCK AND ROLL POET is back. This was written for performance specifically for a Greenpeace gig last month but my son, who does my music stole it for...
Graduation Blues by Ian R Thorpe University education is presented as a panacea for all economic and social ills. But the academic envioronment and the life of the mind do not suit everybody. And if nobody works in factories making s...
Pavlov's Cat by Ian R Thorpe I think most people know the story of Pavlov's Dogs, an experiment in behaviourals science to show that all higher mammals have the ability to learn in the same way humans do......
Brown Bread by Ian R Thorpe There's a tradition of rhyming slang in Britain, some expressions can be very amusing others quite puzzling. Here's a pice that was part of my performance st yers ago. It makes fun of a very famous TV...
Valentine's Day Limericks by Ian R Thorpe Just for fun...
A Tribute to McGonagall (just for fun) by Ian R Thorpe McGonagall is allegedly the worst poet ever published in the English language and although I love his work it is for all the wrong reasons. Elizabeth (Lucas) Taylor no less slapped my wrist ever so sw...
The Secret of Invisibility by Ian R Thorpe I decided to trot this oldie out again as we are marking disability awareness week or something over here.
The poem describes my situation some years ago....
Afghan Woman by Ian R Thorpe As the conflict in Iraq diminishes so the Afghan war escalates. The Taliban are resurgent and control most of the country outside the main towns.
It was allso predictable of course, Britain has be...
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Articles
 A Career In Substance Abuse? Sounds Just The Job For Me. by Ian R Thorpe It isn't often we stumble on a dream job like the one found in a publiic sector recruitment supplement this week. Great humour (or humor) from satire blogger Ian Thorpe...
Stone Throwing Chimp Shocks Scientists by Ian R Thorpe Will humans always be the most intelligent life form? Can our position be usurped as other animals evolve to replace us at the top of the food chain? It seems possible as a chimp in a Swedish Zoo show...
G20: World Leaders Kick Off A Witch Hunt by Ian R Thorpe I know its a bit of a cheek bringing this article along over a week later but I have been very busy. It is still an amusing and enlightening piece though and worth the effort of reading it I hope....
Girls Alone (News From The Girls School by Ian R Thorpe Thgeories abound these days, the trouble is the more theories we have the worse things seem to get. This is particularly true in education where each new theory about how to improve education is follo...
Italian Vampire's Grave Discovered by Ian R Thorpe Ghosts, ghouls, boggarts kelpies, werewolves and creatures of the ether world have played tricks with human imagination for thousands of years. The most persistent and frighteining of all supernatural...
Women In Labout (not pregnancy but political satire) by Ian R Thorpe The UK Labour party, nominally a social democratic political movement has always had a tendency towards authoritarianism and as such attracts a particularly humourless type of feminist. They respect e...
V2G: Technology You Can't Believe In. by Ian R Thorpe It was obvios to the experienced political obserer that when Candidate Barack Obama promised "Change You Can Belive In" what he really meant was "Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose" 9pendants pl...
Scientists Have Doubts About Doomsday Machine by Ian R Thorpe A story about the Large Hadron Collider, the so called Doomsday machine kicked off controversy about cutting edge science again this week....
The flame still Burns Tribute to Robert Burns) by Ian R Thorpe A tribute to Robert Burns and his poetry on the 250th anniversary of the Scottish poet's birth...
The Method, The Madge and The Myth Of Eternal Life. by Ian R Thorpe Madonna's personal trainer is the latest fitness expert to offer advice for a price on how to lose weight and be healthy. Do we need it?...
Exploding Cheeses Of Terror by Ian R Thorpe The war on terror is ongoing as our elusive enemy constantly devises new and more effective weapons to undermine the west by spreading fear and panic. Read here Boggart Blog's report on the latest....
Christmas Resistance (social comment) by Ian R Thorpe Feeling oppresssed by Christmas? Then this is for you....
The Christmas Story Re-examined by Ian R Thorpe Around this time of year we start to see articles talking about remembering "the real significance of Christmas." The writers usually talk about the bith of Jesus and other Christian fairy tales. So t...
Paris Art Shock: Nude Models Are Revolting by Ian R Thorpe This article appeared earlier this week on Boggart Blog the top UK comedy blog written by my sister and I. Our editorial policy on Boggarty Blog can be summed up in the phrase "We never sacrifice a jk...
Education: Pupils To Be Rewarded For Healthy Eating by Ian R Thorpe The ideas proposed by government officials to persuade children to eat more healthily just keep getting whackier....
UK Prime Minister Is Made A Caganer by Ian R Thorpe Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been given an unusual accolade. This year his face will be one of those used on the Caganers, figures that are an essential part of Christmas Nativity tableaux in the C...
Happy Health And Safety Bonfire Night by Ian R Thorpe America celebrates Halloween, in Britain t was banned by Oliver Cromwell who gave us Guy Fawkes night instead. Recently health and safety concerns (code for pokenosing by the Politically Correct polic...
Poo Nine From Outer Space by Ian R Thorpe Over the past few months the UK's Ministry of Defence have been releasing from the archives files concerning reported encounters (of the third kind?) with Unidentified Flying Objects. Some are just pl...
How Iceland went bankrupt - A Boggart Blog explainer by Ian R Thorpe Another step forward was made in Boggart Blog's mission to dominate the global news media last wee with the introduction of Boggart Wickedpediawith the aim of preventing news consumers from understand...
Palin's Resistible March To The Presidency by Ian R Thorpe In the best traditions of satire I ridicule both sides in the election. This post, a complete spoof based on Democrat smears of Sarah Palin rather than any real news, balances my previous snipes at Ba...
International Talk Like A Pirate Day Story by Ian R Thorpe I just can't let Talk Like A Pirate Day Pass without doing something special so here is todays exclusive from Boggart Blog, the UK Blog where my sister and I prove its possible to be mad while remaini...
It’s Not The End Of The World (or is it?) by Ian R Thorpe On WEednesday 10th September 2008 the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN Research centre in Switzrland will be switched on. Some scientists say it could trigger the destruction of the Universe and ever...
Palin Pick Shows McCain Is Not A Dead Parrot by Ian R Thorpe Barak Obama's campaign has been declarted a joke free zone, with gangs of Politically Correct Police who have drunk the Junior Senator's Kool Aid patrolling the web ready to accuse anyone who makes jo...
Queen Victoria's Kickers Sold At Auction by Ian R Thorpe It is always astounding to read of unlikely objects being sold at auction for surprisingly high prices. Since the birth of e-bay of course the sales and the prices have become even crazier....
Liberals Complain McCains Jokes Are Not Funny But... by Ian R Thorpe Complaints from the political correctness police that John McCain's jokes are racist, sexist and otherwise politically incorrect should be dismissed. All the prominent figures in the Obama camp have h...
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News
 Poetry Life and Times Interviews Janet Caldwell by Ian R Thorpe My favourite task ever....
Ian Thorpe on Christian Radio. Unbelieveable by Ian R Thorpe But not as odd as it sounds, I was there to provide a non - christian POV in a discussion of where the church stands today....
Season's Greetings by Ian R Thorpe Not really news but.......
July Poetry Life and Times by Ian R Thorpe New Issue Online now...
Poetry Life and Times by Ian R Thorpe Poetry Magazine...
Ian's Audio online at last (specially for halloween) by Ian R Thorpe I promised some audio tracks almost a year ago....
Multi - Media and poetry - the future by Ian R Thorpe Ian's interview at PLT...
The Sceadugengan by Ian R Thorpe
Ian Thorpe announces Greenteeth network (You can work the title out for yourselves.)...
Ian's blog rises from the ashes by Ian R Thorpe The blog revived...
New Solstice Poetry Set Unveiled by Ian R Thorpe Announcement...
Free e-book now being made available at AD by Ian R Thorpe A serialisation...
A Blog Revolution by Ian R Thorpe Relaunch of my blog as a vehicle for comedy...
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Links
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| Boggart Network News
Simply the UKs top comedy blog. Consistently funny.
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Machiavellian
Politics, business, religion, media, showbiz, everything, you should never be surprised at the tricks of those greedy for money, fame and power. Read this blog where LITTLE NICKY MACHIAVELLI TELLS IT LIKE IT IS.
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ianrthorpe.gather.com
more fun with this very lively web2 site.
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boggart blog
probably the funniest blog in the world, but the humour is not for the faint hearted.
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Additional information
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| After two years in which personal projects have kept me busy away from the web for most of the time I am now working on a bleeeding edge creative arts site to be called GreenteethMM. This is not a comment on the standard of dentistry in Britain (I have to say my dentist is excellent and so are my teeth) but a weird and wonderful multi-media pleasure dome beneath the surface of an algae covered bog. Jenny Greenteeth is a boggart or water spirit who drags unwary travellers into her mysterious lair, from whence they never return. My visitors will have plenty of lifesavers to grab however once they have crossed into the land beneath the bog they may never want to leave. |
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Contact
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