Very thoughtfully Amazon has created an "Author Page" for me but it lists only my first novel, "Out of Time" and none of my other work fiction or technical. Probably a bit of a blessing with regard to "The enemy is within" as the new contract with the new owners of the publisher, Hallmark Press, specifically states that sales through Amazon do not attract a Royalty as the Amazon discounted price means the book is supplied to them at cost.
Still, it is nice to have the additional publicity from Amazon, I can but hope it brings in some additional sales from some of my other works as well. As some will know I have a range of short stories on Amazon US (Unfortunately not available to anyone outside of the US of A) but you probably won't know that I have two text books out there as well, one entitled "Marine Fire Studies" is on sale through the Institution of Fire Engineers and the other is a book on Fire Safety for the NEBOSH examination on Fire Safety Risk Assessment, though on that one I am the editor rather than the author.
And currently I have the next Harry Heron adventure in draft and looking for an agent or publisher..... Here's hoping it finds a market soon.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Saturday, 30 May 2009
How does my garden grow
With difficulty. The Monk does not have the green fingers of his forebears, or of his brother all of whom seemed to have had that magic ability to make things grow. Even Mausi seems able on her mountainside, to be able to coax things into growth where they take one look at the Monk's garden and pull their roots up. Or at least some things do.
Having planted three roses in different parts of the garden, the Monk finds that two have taken off like rockets and are now threatening to take over everything else - while the third keeps trying to commit suicide. Nurture, feeding, watering all seem to have little effect, although, now four years since it was first planted the solitary red rose seems to be trying to get itself going at last.
On the good news front though, the swallows have arrived. A few days ago this nest was damaged and empty, the owners evidently having not arrived with everyone else, or perhaps abandoning it. Today I noticed it had been repaired and this evening managed to catch a picture of the occupant. It seems they have arrived home and have lost no time at all in repairing the nest and setting up the furniture. Judging by the scolding and cajolling Mrs Swallow has already set up her nursery. Considering that this is on a North facing wall, they have chosen the spot carefully as it gets the late sun, yet is sheltered from rain and wind by the soffit and the protruding eave. As foir the construction of the nest, well, all I can say is it's amazing how much mud they have collected and placed to construct it.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Friday at last ...
Is I suspect what a lot of MP's are saying. Though I doubt it will give them any relief from the glare of the media spotlight. Is it just me though, or are there some aspects of this saga which are beginning to resemble the mobs we usually associate with anarchy and the rent-a-mob activities of protest groups?
Take the case of the MP for Bromsgrove, there is an extremely vociferous woman orchestrating a campaign entitled "Julie must go!" She claims to have over 3,000 signatures on a petition she and a small group have whipped up and doorstepped people in Newsagents and Chemist shops around the constituency to sign. Now my understanding of the majority of people approached in this way is that they will sign rather than cause a fuss - ergo, possibly half or a little more than half those signatures could have been obtained "under duress". Then one needs to look at the percentage of the vote that the signatures represent - 3,000 out of almost 90,000 (Or 3%) is not a very large percentage. Therefore the claims that "a majority" of her constituents want her to resign is not true. Then comes the revelation that the lady behind it all is a Party activist for a rival Party. Democracy? I think not, more like mob rule led by the media.
Yes, there is a case to answer by all those who have manipulated the system to their benefit. I wish I could get some assistance with my mortgage and there are certainly improvements I could make to my flat if I could get a subsidy to pay for it. Parliament does need reform, it needs to have some of its powers curbed for sure and we also need to look at Brussels/Strasbourg - the EU trough is, if anything, deeper and even more profligate, though there it is the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and their equally unaccountable "Commissioners" who are the big beneficiaries. Their abuses make Westminster look tame - if we could but get at the information.
The trouble is "outraged" citizenry whipped up to a frenzy by a biased and none to innocent media is not the best way to achieve our reforms. We need an election so we can get rid of our NuLabour/Old Labour Communist/Socialist government. Then we need to make sure that we get -
- an elected Upper House, preferably limited to 33% Hereditary Peers, 33% Life Peers and the remainder Life Peers recommended by Industry, Commerce and Unions.
- The Lower House should be slimmed down - we don't need 646 MP's - and again we need to look at how they are elected. The first past the post system as currently operated is simply a recipe for perpetuating "tribal" voting. There are vast areas in inner cities where the Labour Party could put up any simian hominid and he or she would be elected.
- The Civil Service must be cut back. It is too large and too territorial, departments in Whitehall don't consult one another and won't co-operate. This is the Civil Service power base, divide the Ministers against each other and you control them. It has to stop and the Civil Service must be cut back to no more than 10% of the work force in UK Plc - it currently stands at 21%. We can't afford it and shouldn't have to put up with it.
- The issue of the Scottish MP's voting on English legislation must also be addressed. Labour won't, because that will instantly remove their majority - so, again, we must have a general election and the Scottish MP's should be removed or moved to another forum or permitted to debate or vote only on those matters in Westminster which have force North of the Border. After all, Scotland now has a vastly expensive Parliament of its own fully subsidised by the English taxpayers. Why should we pay twice?
- The tradition of "Yah-Boo- Sucks to you!" style political debate, amusing as it may be to the terminally stupid, has had its day. It' time the Parliamentary procedures were completely overhauled and the business of government dealt with in a more mature and sensible manner.
- The electorate is now more literate and, one hopes, better informed than ever before - the possible exception being those who read the "Red Top" daily papers - and it is time we were allowed more say in the business of parliament. All too often the excuse is trotted out that something contentious which we would like to argue "was in the manifesto". Since probably 90% of the electorate never see these wonderful and no doubt extensive (Judging by what is supposed to have been in the present government's) documents, I think it is time that the ballot paper include a full list of every candidate's manifesto wish list and the electorate should answer yes, no or maybe to each item for the vote to count. Anything not agreed by a majority must then be dropped from the Parliamentary slate.
- The Whips Office must go. It has no place in a Democratic society, all it is there for (and it is a remnant of the 17th Century system under Cromwell) is to ensure that the Members vote according to what their party and not their constituents dictate.
- Parliamentarians should be remunerated in the same way the rest of us are - a salary commensurate with performance and reasonable travelling expenses to and from their constituencies. Housing should be their affair, not the taxpayers - if I have to work away from my home, I have to make my own arrangements and claim back on an agreed scale - buying and furnishing a second home at my employers expense is not an option. One accepts that there will be expenses such as running an office for constituents and from which to conduct business - those can be covered by providing staff employed directly by the Palace of Westminster and rented from local councils. Some MP's seem to have rather remarkable offices from which to operate. I am pleased to say that mine seems to have a rather more modest set-up and certainly works hard in his constituency on behalf of those of us who operate from here.
Well, those are my thoughts on this matter, as I said in the beginning, the media frenzy is now beginning to look a little too much like a witch hunting mob for my taste. Mobs never make good governments and nor are the good arbiters of either justice or common sense. Time to back the mob off and redirect the pressure for change in more sensible ways.
Take the case of the MP for Bromsgrove, there is an extremely vociferous woman orchestrating a campaign entitled "Julie must go!" She claims to have over 3,000 signatures on a petition she and a small group have whipped up and doorstepped people in Newsagents and Chemist shops around the constituency to sign. Now my understanding of the majority of people approached in this way is that they will sign rather than cause a fuss - ergo, possibly half or a little more than half those signatures could have been obtained "under duress". Then one needs to look at the percentage of the vote that the signatures represent - 3,000 out of almost 90,000 (Or 3%) is not a very large percentage. Therefore the claims that "a majority" of her constituents want her to resign is not true. Then comes the revelation that the lady behind it all is a Party activist for a rival Party. Democracy? I think not, more like mob rule led by the media.
Yes, there is a case to answer by all those who have manipulated the system to their benefit. I wish I could get some assistance with my mortgage and there are certainly improvements I could make to my flat if I could get a subsidy to pay for it. Parliament does need reform, it needs to have some of its powers curbed for sure and we also need to look at Brussels/Strasbourg - the EU trough is, if anything, deeper and even more profligate, though there it is the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and their equally unaccountable "Commissioners" who are the big beneficiaries. Their abuses make Westminster look tame - if we could but get at the information.
The trouble is "outraged" citizenry whipped up to a frenzy by a biased and none to innocent media is not the best way to achieve our reforms. We need an election so we can get rid of our NuLabour/Old Labour Communist/Socialist government. Then we need to make sure that we get -
- an elected Upper House, preferably limited to 33% Hereditary Peers, 33% Life Peers and the remainder Life Peers recommended by Industry, Commerce and Unions.
- The Lower House should be slimmed down - we don't need 646 MP's - and again we need to look at how they are elected. The first past the post system as currently operated is simply a recipe for perpetuating "tribal" voting. There are vast areas in inner cities where the Labour Party could put up any simian hominid and he or she would be elected.
- The Civil Service must be cut back. It is too large and too territorial, departments in Whitehall don't consult one another and won't co-operate. This is the Civil Service power base, divide the Ministers against each other and you control them. It has to stop and the Civil Service must be cut back to no more than 10% of the work force in UK Plc - it currently stands at 21%. We can't afford it and shouldn't have to put up with it.
- The issue of the Scottish MP's voting on English legislation must also be addressed. Labour won't, because that will instantly remove their majority - so, again, we must have a general election and the Scottish MP's should be removed or moved to another forum or permitted to debate or vote only on those matters in Westminster which have force North of the Border. After all, Scotland now has a vastly expensive Parliament of its own fully subsidised by the English taxpayers. Why should we pay twice?
- The tradition of "Yah-Boo- Sucks to you!" style political debate, amusing as it may be to the terminally stupid, has had its day. It' time the Parliamentary procedures were completely overhauled and the business of government dealt with in a more mature and sensible manner.
- The electorate is now more literate and, one hopes, better informed than ever before - the possible exception being those who read the "Red Top" daily papers - and it is time we were allowed more say in the business of parliament. All too often the excuse is trotted out that something contentious which we would like to argue "was in the manifesto". Since probably 90% of the electorate never see these wonderful and no doubt extensive (Judging by what is supposed to have been in the present government's) documents, I think it is time that the ballot paper include a full list of every candidate's manifesto wish list and the electorate should answer yes, no or maybe to each item for the vote to count. Anything not agreed by a majority must then be dropped from the Parliamentary slate.
- The Whips Office must go. It has no place in a Democratic society, all it is there for (and it is a remnant of the 17th Century system under Cromwell) is to ensure that the Members vote according to what their party and not their constituents dictate.
- Parliamentarians should be remunerated in the same way the rest of us are - a salary commensurate with performance and reasonable travelling expenses to and from their constituencies. Housing should be their affair, not the taxpayers - if I have to work away from my home, I have to make my own arrangements and claim back on an agreed scale - buying and furnishing a second home at my employers expense is not an option. One accepts that there will be expenses such as running an office for constituents and from which to conduct business - those can be covered by providing staff employed directly by the Palace of Westminster and rented from local councils. Some MP's seem to have rather remarkable offices from which to operate. I am pleased to say that mine seems to have a rather more modest set-up and certainly works hard in his constituency on behalf of those of us who operate from here.
Well, those are my thoughts on this matter, as I said in the beginning, the media frenzy is now beginning to look a little too much like a witch hunting mob for my taste. Mobs never make good governments and nor are the good arbiters of either justice or common sense. Time to back the mob off and redirect the pressure for change in more sensible ways.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
The child protection monster.
I stumbled across an interesting article on Talking Politics, one of the "official" blog sites here, it asks the important question "are we destroying our children by being so obsessive about 'protecting' them from any sort of reality?" The article, entitled "Britain has an unhealthy relationship with its children" makes a number of telling points. Equally telling, sadly, are the numbers of commenters who simply cannot see anything wrong with our obssessive PC view that children are "innocence personified" until the reach puberty - when, of course, they magically become problem youth.
Everytime I am confronted by unruly and undisciplined children in public I reflect on the fact that the Dr Spock generation have one hell of a lot to answer for - not least the utter devastation some of their little darlings cause. So called "children's courts" are a sick joke and the kids that do get to see the inside of them know exactly how to play the system - yet dare to suggest that they would be better treated to the reality and you find yourself the target of vitriolic attacks from every "children's agency" and social damager available.
One of the commenters made the valid point that, as a youth worker, he or she is terrified of coming closer to any child in their charge than the magic 1 foot without having to worry about being accused of abuse in one form or another. The article is right - Britain has taken leave of its senses on the matter of child welfare and has gone so far that children are now completely divorced from adults, in fact are taught to show them disrespect and with suspicion.
Children are not innocent as anyone who has raised them knows. They can be devious, manipulative and viscious - ask Jamie Bulger's killers - and as any posychologist worth his or her qualification now knows, they don't have the mental wiring sorted out and won't get it sorted out until they have become adults. What is worse, by the time they do they have developed a wide range of "issues" including "anger management" problems and an inability to actually form lasting relationships.
Dr Spock and his cockamamy ideas on child raising and his slavish followers who refuse to even consider the evidence growing around them that they are wrong in spades have a great deal to answer for. Tragically the demise of our society is a likely outcome - but, from what I have heard some of these idiots saying, that is what they intend and want. I hope they like the world their indisciplined and aggressive "children" create.
Everytime I am confronted by unruly and undisciplined children in public I reflect on the fact that the Dr Spock generation have one hell of a lot to answer for - not least the utter devastation some of their little darlings cause. So called "children's courts" are a sick joke and the kids that do get to see the inside of them know exactly how to play the system - yet dare to suggest that they would be better treated to the reality and you find yourself the target of vitriolic attacks from every "children's agency" and social damager available.
One of the commenters made the valid point that, as a youth worker, he or she is terrified of coming closer to any child in their charge than the magic 1 foot without having to worry about being accused of abuse in one form or another. The article is right - Britain has taken leave of its senses on the matter of child welfare and has gone so far that children are now completely divorced from adults, in fact are taught to show them disrespect and with suspicion.
Children are not innocent as anyone who has raised them knows. They can be devious, manipulative and viscious - ask Jamie Bulger's killers - and as any posychologist worth his or her qualification now knows, they don't have the mental wiring sorted out and won't get it sorted out until they have become adults. What is worse, by the time they do they have developed a wide range of "issues" including "anger management" problems and an inability to actually form lasting relationships.
Dr Spock and his cockamamy ideas on child raising and his slavish followers who refuse to even consider the evidence growing around them that they are wrong in spades have a great deal to answer for. Tragically the demise of our society is a likely outcome - but, from what I have heard some of these idiots saying, that is what they intend and want. I hope they like the world their indisciplined and aggressive "children" create.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Ain't technology wonderful .....
Except, of course, when it drops you in it big time. For some time now I have used a Hewlett Packard PDA as a diary and as a note book. It was always backed up to Outlook on my PC and even though it had previously crashed twice I was always able to retrieve my appointments and my address book by connecting it to the PC and reloading the data. Then I upgraded my Microslosh Office to Office 2007. Initially on the cheapest option for that package. Mistake, the Office 2003 suite conflicted with it and so, in a moment of sheer stupidity - I uninstalled 2003!
Wait for it - that removed Outlook which I had not acquired in the 2007 bundle. No problem thinks I - I'll just reinstall that and reconnect the PDA. Except something in the PDA Synchronising prgramme no longer worked. It would not reconnect and would not share.....
So I contacted Microslosh and discovered the problem, I had the wrong programme package. More cash changes bank accounts and now I have the righ package installed. Except the PDA still won't talk to the PC.... OK, so now I need to contact HP to get the programme changed, in the meantime praying that the PDA wouldn't have a wobbly. I should have known, the PDA crashed today, wiping out my appointments, my address book and every note I have mdae in it. Nothing I can do will make it talk to anything else (I did have some of the information backed up on a laptop - but the PDA won't talk to that either!) and now I have to try and contact everyone I can recall having an appointment to meet and everyone whose address I can recall being in the damned thing - and try to get the information back somehow.
I guess it just proves, yet again, how dependent we have become on these electronic gadgets - and how helpless we are when they drop us in the doo-doo. At least I'm not entirely alone - I see the Gorse Fox is having a Technoclasm as well.
Wait for it - that removed Outlook which I had not acquired in the 2007 bundle. No problem thinks I - I'll just reinstall that and reconnect the PDA. Except something in the PDA Synchronising prgramme no longer worked. It would not reconnect and would not share.....
So I contacted Microslosh and discovered the problem, I had the wrong programme package. More cash changes bank accounts and now I have the righ package installed. Except the PDA still won't talk to the PC.... OK, so now I need to contact HP to get the programme changed, in the meantime praying that the PDA wouldn't have a wobbly. I should have known, the PDA crashed today, wiping out my appointments, my address book and every note I have mdae in it. Nothing I can do will make it talk to anything else (I did have some of the information backed up on a laptop - but the PDA won't talk to that either!) and now I have to try and contact everyone I can recall having an appointment to meet and everyone whose address I can recall being in the damned thing - and try to get the information back somehow.
I guess it just proves, yet again, how dependent we have become on these electronic gadgets - and how helpless we are when they drop us in the doo-doo. At least I'm not entirely alone - I see the Gorse Fox is having a Technoclasm as well.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
I wonder ....
According to the BBC website today in history saw the following events -
Now it may be just me, but I think they've been rather selective in their 'events'. Habeus Corpus I would agree is a good piece of law - unlike the majority of the laws imposed in the last twelve years in the UK - and we can probably do without public hangings. Mind you, a few of those would probably put an end to some of the street gangs and mindless violence among some sections of the community. The final one though is hardly as earth shattering an event as the Left try to make it out to be. In fact it ignores the fact that the apartheid laws were based on the 1910 Constitution that was written for South Africa here in Whitehall - against the advice of the South African politicians. And the laws establishing apartheid were certainly not enacted or enforced from the same day as the election. Perhaps it is just another attempt to paint anyone who doesn't follow the accepted "liberal" mythology of humanist "goodness" as Fascist. I note that none of Lenin's, Stalin's or Mao's excesses are ever commemorated or mentioned by this coterie and there is an outright denial of the fact that Fascism was a response to the excesses of socialism in its most virulent form - communism.
So, to redress the balance a little here are some of the other events which occurred on this day in -
1894: Tsar Nicolas II crowned Tsar of All the Russias.
1805: Napoleon had himself crowned King of Italy.
1637: Captain John Mason attacks a Peqot village and wipes out 500 women and children among the Indians.
More recently -
1924: President Coolidge of the US brings in immigration restrictions in the US as a deliberate isolationist policy.
1940: Operation Dynamo begins - the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk
1972: Thomas Cook passes from State Ownership to a private Consortium in the first step toward dismantling the socialist theft of private enterprise.
The list is quite impressive for today, if you want to read more The History Channel website gives some pretty comprehensive and somewhat less selective results.
On this day (26th May):
· 1679: The Habaeus Corpus Amendment Act requires the showing of 'just cause' for imprisonment over 24 hours.
· 1868: The last public execution in Britain - the hanging of murderer Michael Barrett - takes place at Newgate.
· 1948: The Afrikaner National Party wins the South African general election and introduces 'apartheid'.
Now it may be just me, but I think they've been rather selective in their 'events'. Habeus Corpus I would agree is a good piece of law - unlike the majority of the laws imposed in the last twelve years in the UK - and we can probably do without public hangings. Mind you, a few of those would probably put an end to some of the street gangs and mindless violence among some sections of the community. The final one though is hardly as earth shattering an event as the Left try to make it out to be. In fact it ignores the fact that the apartheid laws were based on the 1910 Constitution that was written for South Africa here in Whitehall - against the advice of the South African politicians. And the laws establishing apartheid were certainly not enacted or enforced from the same day as the election. Perhaps it is just another attempt to paint anyone who doesn't follow the accepted "liberal" mythology of humanist "goodness" as Fascist. I note that none of Lenin's, Stalin's or Mao's excesses are ever commemorated or mentioned by this coterie and there is an outright denial of the fact that Fascism was a response to the excesses of socialism in its most virulent form - communism.
So, to redress the balance a little here are some of the other events which occurred on this day in -
1894: Tsar Nicolas II crowned Tsar of All the Russias.
1805: Napoleon had himself crowned King of Italy.
1637: Captain John Mason attacks a Peqot village and wipes out 500 women and children among the Indians.
More recently -
1924: President Coolidge of the US brings in immigration restrictions in the US as a deliberate isolationist policy.
1940: Operation Dynamo begins - the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk
1972: Thomas Cook passes from State Ownership to a private Consortium in the first step toward dismantling the socialist theft of private enterprise.
The list is quite impressive for today, if you want to read more The History Channel website gives some pretty comprehensive and somewhat less selective results.
Monday, 25 May 2009
Abbey Fete
Today was the Abbey Fete and the nave was turned over to its medieval use as a market place. In the picture, the Town Crier has just called for silence to introduce the Vicar who is introducing the Town Mayor who opened the fete. They are stood in front of the Rood Screen which separates the "Church" from the "Nave".
The view down the nave from the clerestory was spectacular as always and it was great to see the Abbey come to life as a centre for the community it serves in this way. We are fortunate indeed to have such a versatile space and such a beautiful one.
The day has been a great success and the hard work and effort everyone put into it has made a huge contribution to the annual income we need to generate to keep ourselves afloat financially.
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