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Life is made up of debits and credits, as Kipling wrote, long accounts have to be paid — mistakes, misconduct, misdeeds, all the mischief and harm they cause, exact payment which has to be met by someone, not necessarily those that cause the trouble; all too often by innocent victims. The recent industrial strife, destruction and violence, despite the plausible excuses for it, will have disastrous results, a colossal debit in the nation's accounts; and the mass of the people, the vulnerable groups including several millions of elderly pensioners, the handicapped and sick, are under no illusions who will have to pay. The posturing defiance — “heads held high”, bands playing martial music — the complete lack of concern or regret for others will make no difference to the overtaking retribution.

From earliest times the land and all it produced to feed and sustain those who dwelt on it was mankind's greatest asset. From the Biblical “land of milk and honey”, down through history to the “country of farmers” visualised by the American colonists when they severed the links with the mother country, those who had all their needs met by the land were blessed — they still are! The inevitable change brought about by the fast‐growing populations caused them to turn to industry; Britain introduced the “machine age” to the world; the USA the concept of mass production — and the troubles and problems of man increased to the present chaos of to‐day. There remained areas which depended on an agri‐economy — the granary countries, as the vast open spaces of pre‐War Russia; now the great plains of North America, to supply grain for the bread of the peoples of the dense industrial conurbations, which no longer produced anything like enough to feed themselves.

At the commencement of this decade, leaving behind the “striking seventies”, we christened it the “anxious eighties”, for there was a profound disquiet and uncertainty among most of the population, a fear that things were going to get worse, but they could have hardly expected the catastrophic events of the year 1981. The criteria of quality of life are its richness, grace, elegance; by the promise it contains; inspiration and purpose, hope, determination (to survive, to make certain that the evildoer is not permitted to succeed), love of one's country — pro patria, of other days.

Examines Laughlin Currie's experiences in helping to implement the New Deal, a new monetary system of Roosevelt's administration implemented during the 1930s.

This chapter considers the influence of horror on the production of commercial gay pornography. I see this influence reflected especially in the production and popularity of gay pornographic films inspired by horror franchises from the slasher and ‘torture porn’ cycles that have been remade in recent decades. Nine texts are selected for analysis – from the slasher genre: Bryan Kenny’s 2010 A Nightmare on Twink Street (inspired by the A Nightmare on Elm Street series), Andy Kay’s 2012 Black XXXmas (inspired by Black Christmas), Frank Fuder and Angel Skye’s 2009 Halloweiner: Friday the Fuckteenth and Chi Chi LaRue’s 2016 Scared Stiff (both inspired by the Friday the 13th series), Bromo’s 2017 Cream for Me (Scream series); and from the torture porn genre: Jett Blakk’s 2006 Bonesaw, John Bruno’s 2006 Rammer and Bryan Kenny’s 2010 Raw I and 2011 (with Andy Kay) Raw II (inspired by the Saw franchise). The specificity of the horror genre is addressed, as is the importance of gender. But particular focus is directed toward the structural aspects of gay porn parodies and the degree to which horror parodies in particular have the potential to blend pornographic homosex with graphic violence, perhaps most extreme in the slasher and torture porn horror variants. Other potentialities are also explored, such as for the easing of narrative/sex porn tensions.