Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland (1)

I’ve finished reading Gunshot Road and I was left breathless. Whoa !!! Still under the impression, I’m wordless. As an appetizer I found this page in the Internet, The Story of my Book: Adrian Hyland on Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland, were you can find this brief excerpt that I would like to share with you.

‘Emily Tempest, having just taken on a job as an Aboriginal Community Police Officer, is investigating a death at a roadhouse. Her sergeant sends her in to get some food.

I stepped out, once more, into the blasting heat. Jesus, what a day: I felt like a pig on a spit. If a heat-seeking missile were to arrive on the scene it wouldn’t have known where to start.

I walked around the side of the pub, past the toilets, the delightful melody of 150-proof piss crashing into a urinal.

I stepped in the front door. Polished wood, whirling fans. Shafts of green-gold light streamed among bottles and mirrors.

The bloke behind the bar—Sandy, I assumed—wasn’t quite as polished: still youngish, but with an air of general disintegration. He had a DIY haircut and the fiery complexion of your everyday outback alcoholic.

He spotted me, and his eyes flicked at the dog-box window by the bar. A lot of these places still kept one for the blacks. His mouth started to move.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I warned him.

He suspended his instincts for long enough to look at me properly, changed tack.

‘What would you like?’

‘Some respect. And while you’re working on that, five steaks. I’m with the police’

He went to the kitchen window and said something to a steamy man in a once- white singlet whose appearance brought to mind my father’s advice regarding roadhouse cuisine: always check for body parts.’

Tomorrow more, stay tune.

>Summary of the World

>

I copy and paste from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm#Summary

Maybe this information is outdated but it is worth remembering from time to time.

If we could shrink the Earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this:

81 would be from less developed countries with a gross income per capita and year of US$ 3,580, 19 would be from developed countries with a gross income per capita and year of US$ 22,060.
There would be 61 Asians, 12 Europeans, 13 Africans, 9 would be from South America and the Caribbean, and 5 from North America including Canada.
75 would be non-white, while 25 would be white.
60 would mistrust their own government.
No wonder, that the governments mistrust their people.
60 would live within 62 miles of a coastline.
50 would be female, and 50 would be male.
50 would rely in some manner on coastal and marine habitats for food, building sites, transportation, recreation, and waste disposal.
48 would live on less than US $2 a day.
48 would lack access to basic sanitation.
47 would be urban dwellers.
The world’s urban areas are expected to surpass rural areas in population around the year 2005
29 would believe in witchcraft.
25 would live in substandard housing or have no home at all.
20 would live on less than US $1 a day.
17 would be under 18 years old.
16 would lack access to safe drinking water.
16 would be unable to read and write.
14 would suffer from malnutrition.
10 would live in least developed countries.
8 would have Internet access from home.
4.5 would be citizens of the United States
1 would be infected with HIV/AIDS.
1 would be near death, and 1 would be near birth.
Only 1 would have a college education.
Half of the entire village’s wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people, and most of them would be citizens of the United States.
When one considers our world from such an incredibly compressed perspective, the need for cooperation, tolerance and understanding becomes glaringly apparent. (The bold are mine)

(credit goes to the author, whoever that is!
I read the "Summary of the World" for the first time in the internet, but its origin seems to go back to the Twenties of the last century.
Fascinated from this simple concept OWNO has extended its content
Sources: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UNICEF, Population Reference Bureau (PRB), Habitat For Humanity and others.