Blog
I’ve upset Douglas Carswell and, it would seem, all of UKIP
Last night I was somewhat surprised to see Douglas Carswell, the only UKIP MP, on Newsnight again commenting on Inheritance Tax; a subject that I don’t really remember UKIP campaigning on in the election. This made me wonder why he was asked to take part in that...
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Back in 2004 I remember seeing Susanna Clarke on TV promoting her book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a book about two magicians in England at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. I recall that the book was inevitably labelled as Harry Potter for grown-ups, which was...
Isn’t it about time we paid more tax?
We’ve been hearing about millions using food banks in every part of the country, we can’t pay care workers for their travelling time and the NHS is falling apart. Now we hear that it’s taken a week for us to send three helicopters to Nepal after an earthquake has...
May Morning – the spirit of spring with a canoe in your trousers
I’ve been up all night, or at least I feel as though I have, my body clock’s all out of kilter but it’s May Morning, the sun’s shining and the year has begun. I swear I saw some cow parsley in the hedgerows this morning although it’s not normally out until end of May...
Russel Brand or None of the Above?
Russell Brand wants people to show their protest by not voting. People have been not voting in steadily increasing numbers for decades and things have stayed much the same during that time. That form of protest has been labelled voter apathy with pundits claiming the...
Why I will be joining the Green Party this weekend!
It’s said that the Greens aren’t going to get a place in the TV debates for the 2015 General Election. The explanation for this is that UKIP have experienced a groundswell of support over the last year or so. They did well in the recent euro elections and their sudden...
Sainsbury’s play the pipes of sentiment for Christmas
Reactions to the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert have been bouncing around the social media world for the last day or so. It’s a genuinely moving piece of film (it moved me to tears but then again so do some episodes of Star Trek) and it’s very well made. It’s thoughtful...
Imperial opening of parliament
We had a fun start to the day today with a geektastic YouTube clip found by a colleague over the weekend. If you are not a geek read on at your own peril. The video was of some old computer floppy disks that someone had put together and programmed to play music. (You...
Why did they not ask the eagles to take the One Ring to Mordor?
There was a post on Facebook earlier today that asked why, when the Council of Elrond decided that the One Ring should be destroyed, did they not decide to use the eagles to take the ring to Mount Doom and drop it in instead of laboriously walking it all the way to...
A ban on the C word
Okay, now I love you all dearly, mostly because I hope you will buy my books and tell your friends what fun they are, but here's the thing.I've just seen the first Facebook post of someone mentioning the 'C' word. (Not that one, the worse one that should only be used...
Quantum raindrops and Manchester United supporters
Quantum physics tells us that all the atoms in an object could jump a quarter of an inch to the right in a uniform fashion, almost like a short range teleport, but it's extremely unlikely. Have you ever noticed when driving in rain that you swear you felt a drop of...
Every man and every woman…
Aleister Crowley, the infamous Victorian occultist and all round bad boy, once beloved of the Beatles, believed that everybody had potential to develop to their ultimate fulfillment. Later, in the Sixties as The Beatles were putting Uncle Aleister on the cover of Sgt...
Formula 1 – ruined?
I'm a bit of a fan of Formula 1 motor racing. I've been watching it on and off for many years, mostly off during the years of Schumacher/Ferrari domination. When one driver or one team becomes dominant it gets boring. I didn’t watch the last couple of seasons because...
Is Facebook the new Jesus?
We used to get out moral guidance from religious leaders, now we get it from social media. There was a story going around Facebook recently about an elderly woman who refused to sit next to a black man on a flight. The flight attendant sympathised and went in search...
Sinkhole, after the rains came… and came… and came
On Saturday morning I stepped out into the street after climbing out of bed at the crack of 10.30 only to spy police cars and a small crowd at the top of the street. Asking a neighbour what the fuss was I was told that the road had been closed because of the sink...
Reality, atomic science and the Pope
This is something I wrote when I was recently asked to contribute to the Huffington Post Weird News, but apparently it was too weird for them; then again it's not really news. It's just a bit of nonsense really. According to physics we might be living in a simulation....
Here’s to loads more great readers
Well this is the big day. I'm now formally announcing that I've moved my blog over from the old Blogger/Blogspot platform to here at Wordpress. If you are an existing follower from the old blog you should be able to follow on this one by clicking the follow button...
Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay – book review
Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay by Dr David Waldron and Christopher Reeve I read this book as research for a project I'm working on. I could tell you what it is but I'd have to kill you. Needless to say I write in various genres, fiction and non fiction, all sorts of...
A license to bill?
I’ve long been troubled by the movement towards licensing the software that we all need to do business and, increasingly, to function in the modern world. The rise of the smart phone is only accelerating this with use of multiple devices, cloud services and the like....
The secret life of Robert Peston, super hero crime fighter extraordinaire
I was talking to a friend recently about characters in comic books and it struck me how Robert Peston is really just like Batman.We were discussing how comic heroes often have sidekicks as a device to help the author establish the detail of a story. It's particularly...
Google have your granny in their computer
I’m a little disturbed. Those of you who have met me might suggest that’s an understatement. It seems Google and others have been harvesting phone numbers and addresses of people from all over the world and the data they are harvesting is for people who do not even...
Into The Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story – book review
Into The Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story by John Yorke Ostensibly this is a book about story structure in film rather than books, but the lessons are the same so it’s useful to writers of any sort, be they scriptwriters or novelists. Most writers of fiction will...
To be philosophical or not to be philosophical
I've finally started working on the manuscript for the book of the great travelogue tour. So far I've got 39 documents of rough notes that need a lot of editing. The plan is to put another layer of thoughts over the top using ideas that developed later thus filling in...
A journey through the 39 historic counties of England
Starting on May 1st 2013 I embarked on a travelogue tour of the 39 historic counties of England. The plan was (and still is) to write a book about the journey. These posts just give a flavour of the trip, the book will be a different thing altogether. The list below...
From castles to bunkers via salty sea dogs and the wastes of London
Day 35 to 39 - Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, Hertfordshire My plans for Kent were twofold. For a few years I'd wanted to visit Dungeoness, particularly after a friend told me that it is the only place in Britain that is officially a desert (on account of its low...
Four days in the south of England
Day 31 to 34 - Wiltshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Sussex The day in Wiltshire was hot and sunny. I escaped Dorset as quickly as possible via Weymouth and headed to Salisbury and on to Amesbury. I've been to Stonehenge loads of times, usually for the summer solstice, so...
The West Country – the end of the earth and back
Day 27 to 30 - Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset I had no idea what to do in Somerset but I'd heard of the Cheddar Gorge so I set the sat nav with no idea what to expect. Leaving Gloucestershire after watching the Severn Bore for a second time in the morning, with...
A day of rest followed by…
Day 25 and 26 - Herefordshire and GloucestershireAfter Shropshire and the industrial museums at Ironbridge and Colebrookdale, which resulted in some nice photos at least, Herefordshire was a day off. I'd arranged to visit a friend who lives in The county and since he...
Northamptonshire and across the south midlands to Shropshire
Day 21 to 24 - Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire After the news from the tyre people in Leicestershire I decided that I really must get the brakes sorted. So my first priority was to find a brake centre on my way to Northampton so it was a...
The Peak District and Sherwood can be relied upon, the National Space Centre cannot
Day 17 to 20 - Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire After leaving Cheshire I headed into the Peak District. One thing I knew about Staffordshire was that that it forms part of the Peak District so I thought go for the impressive landscapes if...