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SITE FOR SORE EYES!
No frames or dynamic html on this site! Stone-age browsers
On this page you'll find some short stories, film reviews and other things that I have written, as well as some personal material and photos. I hope you'll find at least some of it interesting. If you would like to talk about anything on this site or about life in general please send me an e-mail and I'll get right back to you. And PLEASE sign the Guest Book. Have a nice day! |
THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK
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One of these three is David Gardiner, the man who failed the Turing Test. See if you can discover which it is. Here is a clue: don't use dress-sense as your sole criterion. | ||
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REVIEWS OF THIS SITE
"In terms of star-rating, I would award this one a black hole"
"The counter-example to so much that is exciting and vibrant in English writing today"
"Gardiner is a writer of the future and always will be"
"Mr. Gardiner's tireless efforts at self-promotion make this site a difficult one to avoid, but well worth the effort"
"This one does for web page design what Atilla the Hun did for diplomacy"
"If web-design were music; Mr. Gardiner's website would be the screeching of a blade of grass caught between two thumbs and blown upon."
".... writing powerfully evocative of the twilight of a mediocre career..."
"Is there no beginning to this man's talent?" |
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A WORD OF INTRODUCTION About the stories...
The purpose of this introduction is to give visitors some idea of what these stories are all about and which of them, if any, they might want to read. The full index of everything on the site can be found further down the page. This is just a selection.
If you like any of the stories, or even if you don't, please e-mail me or sign the guest book and let me know. |
Click above to hear some of the stories read by the
author. Video clips and guest songs too!
COCO CATERING, SHEFFIELD
First class catering for weddings, parties and all events anywhere
around the Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire
and Nottinghamshire area. Trust me, I have inside information
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The Other End of the Rainbow The second Rainbow Man collection containing 25 of my newest stories is now available from all on-line bookstores, or you can order your copy here and I will be happy to sign it for you. If you live in the UK and have a PayPal account please click on the button below and follow the instructions. I am charging £7 only per copy, which includes inland postage. Don't forget to include your postal address in the 'message' section of the PayPal order form.
When you've read the book please e-mail me and let me know what you think of it.
Have a look at the November 2008 launch of the book (at The Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green) on YouTube. There were lots of other readers present and also music sets from local singer/songwriters Rick Hayter and Tim West. |
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SECOND EDITION (CONTAINING TWO EXTRA STORIES) PUBLISHED JUNE 2010 BY MERILANG PRESS at £7.99
When you've read the book please e-mail me and let me know what you think of it. |
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Reviews of The Rainbow Man (first edition, 2003)
The stories themselves are a joy. They are very much that very thing, short stories, which now tend to be disappearing in a welter of "Art".
...Gardiner has the talent to depict character successfully in few words and work that character logically in his given setting.
...He creates scenes and characters which work and which make you think.
Review by Chris Williams
You pick up this book with its charming exterior thinking you are going read a collection of equally charming short stories, seasoned perhaps with a little grit to raise it above the tame, but what you actually get are jawdropping vignettes of the sort of lives only a writer of David's calibre could relate with such vivid and at times disturbing realism and all this whilst at the same time managing to avoiding the usual, the jaded and the hackneyed to ensnare your attention. Nothing is as it seems and the more mundane the surface, the more layers there appear to be; we are talking about a true literary onion here, multi-layered and quite able to bring tears to your eyes.
Binnacle Press Book of the Month Review
...without exception all twenty-three of the stories, exploring life both familiar and unfamiliar, leave the reader with something to think about, and linger in the mind long after the final page is turned.
The Irish Emigrant
James Joyce meets Ray Bradbury in David Gardiner’s collection of tales wrapped in the imaginings of children who hear a Cassandra/Wandering Jew-type sage mutter such things as “Ye know the trouble with youse northerners, your memories is too bloody long!”
From the secretly vengeful ex-nun propitiating a religious fraud on a smugly progressive church in “Immaculata” to the lovelorn man and woman in “Blind Date,” each thinking the other is too good for them, Gardiner’s characters face the loneliness of illusion and the loneliness of truth. As the war criminal of “Letting Go” asks, “That’s all you want of me? The truth? A small thing like that?”
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AVAILABLE FROM SECOND EDITION JUNE 2003 NOW AVAILABLE
Buy it from here – signed and dedicated in accordance with your instructions, for only £7.00 inclusive of postage (UK) |
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Solid Gold Anthology The best short fiction from Twenty-three of the very best short stories that have appeared in the magazine since its founding by Omma Velada in 2004, including some specially commissioned for this anthology and stories by the Gold Dust team members. Edited and introduced by yours truly. Buy it for just £7 from this site, including postage (UK) Also available from Amazon and all the usual on-line bookstores |
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for overall excellence Awarded by Gold Dust magazine to exceptional and outstanding writers' sites in recognition of the contribution they make to the enjoyment of writing, the fostering of creativity and community among writers and the achievement of the highest standards in the literary field Read current and past issues of Gold Dust at our HOME PAGE |
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(I wouldn't take the Gold Dust award too seriously, since, if you think about it, I awarded it to myself)
PLEASE DON'T LEAVE WITHOUT VISITING
ABOUT MULTIVERSE
Multiverse is a hyperlinked multi-worldline story,
where the reader's decisions determine the path that the
story takes. At the time I created it this was a trendy new
idea, now it has become a bit old hat and Passé, but I still like this one.
INTERNET PROWLER 5
BEST EXPERIENCED
WITH A FRIEND, IN THE BATH, SLIGHTLY PISSED
HAVE BEEN USED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS SITE
Don’t forget to sign the new Guest Book, or my friends from Sicily will be very upset.....
TOTAL NUMBER OF 
VISITORS TO THIS SITE
SINCE MOSES WAS A
RED SEA PEDESTRIAN:
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PRINTER FRIENDLY This web site is so printer-friendly it will cuddle-up to your printer, flutter its eyelashes at it, and sleep with it on the first date. Of course if it is seeing other web pages at the same time it may become jealous and resentful. ROBOT FRIENDLY Dear Visitor, if you are a robot or artificial arachnid of any description I would just like to say how very welcome you are and I hope you find all manner of key-words and hyper-links that are to your complete satisfaction. I have seen all three of the Terminator movies and would like to keep on the right side of all robots. |
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These pages were originally cobbled together on a steam-powered Compaq Presario difference engine, using WordPad, and occasionally some help from Word 97 and Serif PagePlus 5. The photographs were beaten into submission using Adobe PhotoShop 5. So if it looks like a dog's breakfast blame the writers of those packages, not me. All persons everywhere are entirely coincidental and should not be construed. Thanks for dropping by. Watch how you go and come again soon. |
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DISCLAIMER |
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Are you still here? Don't you have any home to go to? You want just one more item do you? All right. Here it is. The very LAST WORD. |
