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A problem for may aspiring authors is a lack of relevant life experience. Perhaps you wish to to write a book about war - but what is it like to be cold, hungry, and shot at ? Perhaps the subject is the police, or private detection - but what is it really like to be beaten up, to fall from a moving
car, or jump from one balcony to another ? How can an author describe hypothermia on a bleak mountainside without risking life, limb, and lavish royalty cheques ?
The answer is at hand. BorgCo will soon be opening its new Author Experience Centre. Staffed by trained medics, stuntmen, circus acrobats and special effects engineers, with a leavening of former army and police officers, pilots and firemen, it provides, at affordable rates, the chance to experience situations and sensations which might otherwise be difficult or dangerous to try without supervision. Just select the things you need, and off you go. Cough your way through a real smoke-filled hotel corridor - real, thick, acrid smoke, filling your lungs, burning your eyes, leaving you feeling sick and wretched for hours afterwards. Be beaten within 25.4 millimeters of your life by our Royal Marine Commando instructors; experience hallucinogenic or narcotic drugs under the careful supervision of our medical staff - you can even try drunk driving on our secure test track, and feel the whack of the airbag in your face, crawling bruised and bleeding from the smoldering wreckage. Something more exotic ? We have a pride of well cared for but ever so slightly underfed lions, and an excellent replica of an African savannah; an opportunity to amaze yourself with your previously unknown sprinting ability, and agile tree climbing. Float in a lifejacket in dark, freezing, storm-swept water in our environmentally-controlled water tank, until hypothermia dulls your limbs and your senses; struggle at the controls of a plummeting helicopter as a murderous villain tries to strangle you. Feel the stunning explosion of a mortar round alongside your trench, crawl frantically along the roof of a lurching, rattling railway coach roof, or cling desperately to the chassis of a truck as the tarmac rockets past, a hand's span away.
All activities are entered into at your own risk. Payment in advance, money back if not battered, bruised, exhausted, stressed and utterly terrified.
Note that this Centre is dedicated to delivering, in neat, manageable portions, life experiences which are - broadly speaking - partly or entirely negative. However, we are planning to expand the franchise, and a similar establishment offering positive experiences is in the planning stages.
The decision about in which of the two sites to place the "Being Assaulted In The Showers By A 150 Kg Guy Called Bubba" feature is still being argued over.
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I don't recall reading about any of this sort of stuff in my Mills & Boon collection! |
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Ahhh ..... you want our "other" establishment. We will snd you the prospectus in a plain, brown enevelope. |
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// belly dancing class // |
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No, not at all. We can completely simulate the experience of being in one place, then noise and flashing lights, and then being in another place with no memory or understanding of how you got there. It's called a "saloon bar" |
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I'm thinking about writing a novel about a crusty veteran machine-gunner stranded on an island that is chock full of ravishingly beautiful vixens and slow moving, tasty animals. The island is in a temperate climate, gets good wifi, and has rum filled coconuts. The protagonist, lacking an antagonist, resigns himself to languishing on said island. |
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<feigns waiting, but with a tiny flicker of hope> |
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You might think about trying Bag Balm for that crustiness. |
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// thinking about writing a novel // |
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Sounds like you're most of the way there already.... |
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What happens in the novel, other than the central character rapidly expiring from a mixture of obesity, hobnail liver and sexual excess ? Just curious, we will buy the book anyway. |
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Perhaps we should have made it clear that the establishment specialises in, relatively speaking, negative experiences <edit>, although we have noted that guests tend to linger on the Molotov Cocktail practice range somewhat longer than absolutely necessary, and tend to depart reluctantly with big cheesy grins, despite their frizzled hair and singed eyebrows. |
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// crusty veteran machine-gunner // |
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If your machine gun has a crust on it, you are obviously not looking after it properly. If it is an antique, all the more reason to care for it. |
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We recall many abjurations about "keeping your weapon clean and well-oiled", but precisely what that refers to is unclear........ |
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Vixens would smell bad and hunt down the other animals. Maybe women would work better. |
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What [pertinax] said. They don't half scream at night, too! |
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// They don't half scream at night, too! // |
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What, women, or vixens ... ? |
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