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We would like to inform that Micro Art Studio has signed an agreement with Colin Smythe Ltd., Terry Pratchett’s manager, authorizing us to make the official Discworld miniatures. The miniatures representing heroes from the Disc World will be approximately 30 mm scale, metal casted. For a start we prepared a line of five models. The official release is planned on the end of October / beginning of November but if you plan to visit Spiel Messe Essen this year we’ll have them in pre-release on our stand [Hall 6, stand no. 140 - center of the hall].
Best selling novelist Terry Pratchett won a standing ovation at the Tory conference today when he made a moving plea for more to be done to combat the rising toll from Alzheimer’s disease.
Mr Pratchett, author of the Discworld books, recently donated one million dollars for research after being diagnosed with an early onset form of the disease.
As guest speaker, he warned the country was facing a “tsunami” of dementia suffering and the load on the NHS and society as a whole could become “unbearable”.
Mr Pratchett, who is not a Conservative, said: “If the disease is not stopped or slowed, the country will have to deal with a large population of helpless elderly.”
Insisting that “big” decisions were required soon, he asked: “Is there going to be a government of any stripe willing to put its money where its mouth is .... or will dementia remain the most feared disease of the over-55s, facing ....loss of dignity and all too often the chemical cosh”.
He likened his own experience of Alzheimer’s, for which there is no cure, to a “slow motion car crash ... with always, at the back of your mind, the thought that sooner or later you’ll go through the windscreen”.
Cancer patients were seen as “brave battlers,” while dementia sufferers were regarded in some quarters as “superfluous old-farts”.
People laughed about the disease. But there was an “element of fear”.
With more than a million people forecast to be suffering from the disease by 2025 the cost of dealing it will run into billions of pounds.
“The toll of this nasty disease is greater than you think. An appreciable number of people in this room will be affected by it. Dementia isn’t a disease of the bumbling elderly. People get it in their 50s and 60s.”
Pausing occasionally due to the effects of the disease, Mr Pratchett said the strain on carers and their support was “bad enough now”.
With a rising number of sufferers, he warned that unless more research was done to combat Alzheimer’s: “Before long the effects on the NHS and society as a whole will be far too heavy. The load will be unbearable. What is unthinkable is to do nothing at all.”
Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacytrousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She's certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship's parrot. As it happens, they are not alone for long.Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things - including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing - and start to forge a new Nation.Das Cover der britischen Ausgabe von Nation.
As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children's novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau's ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone's lives!
