Rich Mills Page 1

Rich has been writing for thisisUll.com from it's launch in August 2003. His tremendous contributions vary widely from news and current affairs, poetry, humour, interviews, fiction and many articles. Rich's contributions are listed below.. Page 1, Page 2, Page 3,

Art - The History of LSD Blotter Art Compiled by Rich Mills
	Blotter Art is a term that refers to the artwork that liquid LSD is dropped onto. The artwork is printed onto blotter paper and then perforated into tiny squares or hits, which can be torn apart into easy to manage quantities. In 1938 LSD-25 (or diethylamide Read more...

Articles - A Secret Revealed - The Hutt Street Party! 18th April 2004 By Rich Mills
	For many years I had heard of the myth of the Hutt Street Party. Spoke in whispers across the Avenues enclave for years, many had heard of it, quite a few had been to one, but still many it seems are in the dark. Basically it goes like this.. By word of mouth you get to hear about the party, which goes on in the house on Hutt Street. Hence the name! Read more...

Articles - Sunday 12th September - Reclaim The Streets Benefit Gig At The Lamp, Norfolk Street By Rich Mills

	Reclaim The Streets is about people and communities. Re-asserting that the streets belong to us! The world belongs to us!! Come along and support Hull's Reclaim The Streets at their benefit gig on Sunday 12th September. There'll be loads of local bands and DJ's Read more...

Articles - Stranger In A (Not So) Strange Land By Rich Mills

	Another escape plan successfully put into action, and we were on our way back up to the heartland of God's own county. North Yorkshire was the destination, and a few days of tranquillity being at one with nature herself. This time it was the solstice and we took our friend Mark with us. The first place we headed for was a farm near Read more...

Drugs - Hull Top 10 Drugs Hell?! by Rich Mills
	In an Observer article of Sunday 12th May 2002, Hull was described as "Britain's new drug capital". Another 'TOP 10' status for us not to be proud of! It sometimes feels like we should just give-up and walk away from this city that seems day-by-day to be going further down the toilet. So why do we bother, why do people like myself battle day-after-day to reverse this trend? Why do we go out on the streets putting our lives at risk for the sake of the apathetic masses that sit at home watching the TV, moaning about the state of the world outside? Read more...

Community Media - Coming Up - Sunday 22nd August - Friends of Cropton Park Family Fun Day By Rich Mills
	On the Sunday 22nd August there will be a Family Fun Day on Cropton Park, Bricknell Estate. The day will start at 1:00pm and finish at 4:30pm. The current Lord Mayor John Fareham will be in attendance. During the day there will be various event and activities for people to get involved with. These include tombola Read more...

Community News - Endike Community Care Open Sweet Charity Shop By Rich Mills
	On Monday 11th October a welcomed resource opened up on the Bricknell Estate. Endike Community Care, opened the doors of their new charity shop Sweet Charity, on Hartoft Road. The shop was officially opened by Lord Mayor John Fareham. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The 1st One Hundred Words Are The Hardest By Rich Mills

	He'd started that first sentence many times, deleting it and starting over again. The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, taunting him, daring him to write something. He stared at, became hypnotized by it. Time ticked by, blink, blink, blink. His mind was just blank, blank, blank. Then in a sudden rush to fill the white expanse with black he started banging away at Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Graveyard Shift By Rich Mills

	The taxi office is beige with nicotine and age. Battling with the Sandman, my weapons of choice, cigarettes and coffee, dispensed from the whirring-gurgling coffee machine. Of things I've done for money this is the lowest. Six calls all night, only TV to numb the brain. Cups, and corners filled with cigarette butts. I wait for the dawn. Then my replacement comes on, Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 17 By Rich Mills
	29th November 2040 The information is coming thick and fast. The latest version of Arc-iSearch is a truly amazing piece of AI software. It sweeps across the huge net archives, sniffing out the smallest of references, eliminating the irrelevant with an intelligence that grows as it goes. I set it on its way yesterday, now it has started to Read more...

Places to Visit - Thailand By Rich Mills
	Expressing the experience of being here in Thailand is difficult to put into words. The sensorial experience is so mind blowing that you begin to feel overloaded. However it is the smallest of things that grab your attention, and stick in the mind. We are waiting for a taxi to take us down to the ferry, so that we can go over to the small island of Koh Maak. This is where we will get the full Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 16 By Rich Mills
	"What music are you into, man?" The American exchange student who had earlier introduced himself, without any regard for Alan's need to be alone, suddenly threw a curve-ball of a question like this in his direction. "Well I listen to..." What followed was a definitive list of bands from Alan's wide-ranging rare vinyl and CD collection, he even Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 15 By Rich Mills
	They always cut it close but their timing was always impeccable, arriving at the house right on schedule. Schedule was a bad choice of word as they'd never been organised enough to have a schedule, let alone keep to one. Chaos was their maxim really. Everyone else thought that their apparent external serenity was one of infinite calm. However, this was Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 14 By Rich Mills
	Remember, remember the fifth of November. Alan smiled to himself, he felt she'd smile back. As with all days leading up to any Bonfire Night he could ever remember, the gods were restless. A storm in a D-cup had met her PR-effect match, and the media for mindless meat-eaters was polishing off the shit-dish, like the ginger tom who'd Read more...

Articles - Made In Hull: Stories 1969 - 2005 Part 4 By Rich Mills

	Through the large glass double doors I could see a number of other residents. All were transfixed by the pretty flashing lights emanating from the box in the corner, but I knew they were all fully aware of Laura and I approaching. We stood for a moment watching the specimens through the glass, briefly examining their static behaviour as they gave nothing away except a sense of loss. Read more...

Articles - Made In Hull: Stories 1969 - 2005 Part 3 By Rich Mills

	Waiting in A&E. Too much time spent sitting, waiting, hour upon hour. I wanted to get up and leave so many times, but I knew that I had to stay and keep waiting. For all our sakes! The intensity of the situation made my head ache, but I breathed through it and sunk my head into my hands, still waiting. Among the drawn-out periods of waiting there were breaks, Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 13 By Rich Mills
	From: "audioally" To: "Black Star" Subject: BASF C90 tape transcribed and identified Date: 28 Nov 2040 12:09:06 Hello there, Thanks for the opportunity to investigate the origins of the BASF C90 tape that you forwarded onto me. As I understand you found this in an open box with other items, it hasn't been too badly damaged by the elements and Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 12 By Rich Mills
	"Whoa, I think I'm gonna be sick." Alan spoke the words out loud for the captive audience of one. Days of wine and roaches had taken their toll, numb now becoming a commonplace emotional placebo in uninvited preferences to those of active and creative thought processes. Clearing his head while reviewing the short dopey ramblings he'd so Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 11 By Rich Mills
	I don't know how to explain this, or if there is anything to explain. Something happened last night, but I'm not quite sure what it was, or what it means. If anything! All I can do is document it. I've been up a couple of nights, working, writing, digging through more of Alan's files. I fell asleep at some point I think, had this sharply vivid dream. Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 10 By Rich Mills
	Full ashtray, dry mouth and thoughts connected with his inordinate hunger were momentarily sidetracked by a juggling jester, the sight of which threw him off the long-winded path he'd set out on. He picked himself up, dusted himself off and looked back from whence he came. Blocking his way, being directly in front of him, as usual stood Read more...

Articles - Ten Foot Titans By Rich Mills

	Long summer Sundays when I was a kid were spent running around, plastic machine gun gripped tightly in my hands, throwing myself onto the hot concrete as imagined bullets flew overhead. Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat. Andy came running full pelt down the ten-foot, Uzi tucked close to his side, spraying invisible hot lead along the side of Brown Owl's fence. Jamie bursts out of his back Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 9 By Rich Mills
	The analysis of the VHS tapes have come back. Keith reports back that indeed one of the tapes did contain episodes of He-Man, along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget and Battle of the Planets. Be worth something to an animaphile out there. I will stick it on eBuy-GUM, the online Global Underground Marketplace. Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 8 By Rich Mills
	Alan carelessly tossed the apple core in the bin next to his computer. Constructed in a moment of sheer mindless boredom, the waste-paper bin was an amalgam of newspaper strips and PVA glue, coated in a thick yellowing layer of varnish. Stuck to the outside, sandwiched in between the Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 7 By Rich Mills
	I've pulled more stuff from the box-o-stuff. I now know that it belonged to someone called Alan Miro. It seems he was a student in Hellville over the end of last century. I've found diary entries, half finished essays, random rantings, emails, and all manner of fragmented files and documents that give me Read more...

Opinions - Reclaim Your Rights - The Disorganised Collective
	Around a 100 people gathered in Pearson Park on Saturday (18th September), for a Reclaim the Streets protest. Unfortunately around only 30 of those people were protestors, the rest of the numbers were made up by the police. Now there are a number of reasons why the ratio between protestors and police Read more...

Articles - Made In Hull: Stories 1969 - 2005 Part 2 By Rich Mills

	Much of the lower half of his face was carpeted with a dense mat of short-cropped wire. Stroking his hand across his chin, he evoked a long distant memory of adolescent profundity. Another's name floated into his mind, Pat, he'd always thought that was a girl's name, short for Patricia. However Pat was also the name of his former college lecturer, from when Read more...

Articles - Made In Hull: Stories 1969 - 2005 Part 1 By Rich Mills

	A romper suit with plastic feet, dancing to the transistor radio placed high up on the kitchen shelf. We really did have a mouse that lived in the skirting-boards of the kitchen, didn't we? Lift the lid on the Danset, slap on the vinyl, drop the needle. Here comes the crackling sounds of my deep grooved and somewhat scratched Pinky and Perky LP, Jungle Book Read more...

Current Affairs - The Election 2005 - Another One Crossed Off The List by Rich Mills with 7 page photo gallery by Mo

	The Election 2005 was a colourful and amazing spectacle, especially closer than most to the action. Not for me the putting of an X against the name of some stranger, who is then supposed to represent your interest in Parliament. No I was much more involved in our democratic process. Acting as a Polling Agent for Martin Deane of the Green Party, I spent the day at the very Read more...

Going Down - Make Poverty History Demonstration in Edinburgh 2nd July 2005 by Rich Mills
	Having been a political activist for many years now, when the Make Poverty History demonstration came around, we just had to do something about it. The result being that with a lot of work from Martin Deane collecting money in, we managed to send a hundred people up to Edinburgh for the day. Along with another hundred or so who made their own way up to Scotland, Hull was well represented. Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 6 By Rich Mills
	Alan relaxed back from the machine and letting his head flop backwards, closed his eyes, and stared into the void at the back of his eyelids. Opening his eyes and raising his head back up to its correct position, he panned the room. Two demijohns Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 5 By Rich Mills
	I slept the long sleep, dead to the world; I lost a day in there somewhere. Now refreshed I'm ready to start transcribing what I've found. The two VHS video tapes seem to contain a variety of TV programmes. I'm going to get Keith down to give these the Read more...

Articles, - The Drugs Box By Rich Mills

	The Drugs Box; I'd heard of these things, I'd even seen one once, but never had a chance to have a go on one. So when I got the chance to see one in action I jumped at it. As an ex Drugs Worker, particularly having worked with young people, one of these would have been invaluable. A fully interactive, touch screen, educational tool, ideal for use Read more...

Articles - Has It Only Been A Year? (A Personal History of thisisUll.com) By Rich Mills

	Well in actual fact it's been just over a year, but the title of this piece was long enough without starting to split hairs on the timing of this piece not coinciding with the actual anniversary of thisisUll.com. Now I'm proud to say I was there at the Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 4 By Rich Mills
	Addict vaccine, social behaviour training, helicopter strafes overhead, government propaganda drenched lo-fi media docu-slice-of-life info-mercial broadcast, fed straight to your hole. (Written on a Planet Coffee branded paper napkin.) The napkin referred to above was Read more...