Here I am at the edge

  The Winter of our Discontent I always felt sorry for the people who coukdn't pay for their glasses, and needed to buy cheap ones with plastic frames which were held together by sticky tape - I am one of them now. Several years ago, my family were short of money at Christmas ; we only had food because of the charity from our school who we had helped over the years at various jumble sales . This year, we may be forced to choose between heating and eating as the bills have gone up so much. To add to our discontent, my wife has said her son can come to the house, despite telling the family, and the police this would not be so; he has an ASBO forbidding him to come here, what can you do if he gets invited.

  Hunting Nazis in Spain I admire the Jews who had to live with Germans knowing what they did so they could attempt to bring the murderers to justice. I know I couldn't have lived with people who killed 6 million people, even if was for a greater justice as these people lived their lives.

  Brexit is changing my business strategy With the aid of Netflix , I have moved into the world of Bollywood . It has become apparent to me, this month, I pay the same postage for goods from India as I do fro the EU I fail to see any reason to order goods from the EU when they take longer, and cost twice as much as getting them from America or Sri Lanka

A Private Battle  That is a good question to ask after 13 years as a writer . When I started out, I thought I'd dip my feet by trying to sell an e-book on Amazon ; to see if it was worth my while going into the book market. The answer is no, after over a decade of writing short stories  I am more convinced now then I was then that writing is a risky business, it is dominated by trends and movies, and people with money (nothing new there). The book at the top of the article is on sale; it relates to a week several years ago when I almost died in my sleep; the story is so realistic my editor asked me to change the style in case some of my friends were worried about my health ; the story was written during a period of extreme stress and at a time when I was close to having a nervous breakdown because I was writing so much, and not getting any sleep.

 The big Conspiracy This film with Meryl Streep is forgotten because it covered an incident in the Nuclear Power Industry that the industry didn't wish to admit to. She was framed for threatening to close down a power plant for mishandling Plutonium; evidence was planted in her car after she had been forced of the road, and died, to suggest she stole some of stock. Though fiction , this story is about the possibility of a power plant meltdown and its terrible consequences; though I am not a fan of Jane Fonda these days this film was stifled like Silkwood because of its controversial topic at a time when the push to nuclear was in full steam despite the inherent risks.

  I can do better Watching television  and  Netflix  I wonder what makes a  bestseller ? I have seen two, and started watching a third series based on books by Harlan Coben , and I found them all dull beyond words; that means there are 11 series on Netflix   I won't be watching. I saw a film  based on a book by  bestselling writer  Ramsay Campbell that was again, boring. As for Deadwater Fell ; I know I am more than capable of writing  a better  shortstory  than that, no idle boast; the story could have possibly made a movie, even if the story was over in the opening half an hour, but who had the idea of making a four-hour series of it? Talk about wasting time and money.

Radio Many years ago, i began to read the book Contact by Prof Carl Sagan . The story begins with a radio station receiving a binary message from space.  The message takes a long time to decode as it is thousands of what appears to be random figures, but the team finally crack the code and it is a repeat broadcast of the 1936 Olympics from Berlin . This along with the horror film R-Point from Korea got me thinking when we talk about space litter we think of parts of rockets that fall off, but what about the thousands of radio signals that are sent each day, does anyone in space hear them? I had the idea of writing a short story along this thene, but who would read it?

Tales of Arcadia  A few nights ago, I had a dream of fighting dragons made of crystals; the only explanation I can find for the dream is I must have been subconsciously thinking of the cartoon series  Trollhunters -  Tales of Arcadia which my wife and I had been watching. This theory is borne out by me having dreams of Spongebob Squarepants later in the evening as my wife had been watching Spongebob.

  Writing is for the rich I will say the same thing now as I did over 13 years ago, the only wat to have success as a writer is to be wealthy from the off. You need money to get a degree, if you haven't got one nobody will give you the time of day. Money is essebtial to promote your work, buy the contacts needed to spread the word about the work.

 A new cover The new cover for my fantasy ebook Baal and Drux I hope will raise a few sales; I am also selling the book at a bargain price with a huge reduction.

  Ladies in Power I had to laugh a few years ago, because the media  barons don't know their  history . During the 2016 US election run, there was a lot of hype about the theory from Confucius that if three women come into power the world would end in war. With  Theresa May  heading the UK, Angela Markel  as the German chancellor and  Hillary Clinton  i n the running for US President the media went mad. People we passed that mark over 40 years ago when  Margaret Thatcher  lead the UK ,  Golda Meir  lead Israel and Indira  Gandhi l ead India . One of my fave quotes comes from Golda Meir when she said "there will be no peace in the Middle East while the Arabs hate Israel more than they love their children."  As true now as when she said it, what loving parent would willing turn their child into a walking bomb? Another quote to remember is from Mrs. Gandhi  "You can't shake hands with a closed fist." The irony...

Growing mint Though it has been raining in South Bristol for most of the day; the gardener in me knows this is doing my mint patch wonders.