Here I am at the edge

  Ancient History Historians have been wondering how the pyramids of Egypt  look so much like the buildings in Angkor Wat for a long time. Could they be missing an obvious link? To the Egyptians, the Ankh was considered to be the staff of life.  Is it beyond belief that ancient Egyptians journeyed to Siam , and Ankh became Angkor Wat?  It is thought that Polynesians traveled from their homeland to Hawaii , so could earlier people have traveled to Peru , and Angkor became Inca?

 Apocalypse Now While scientists ponder what would happen if the caldera of the  Los Palmos  volcano sank into the  Atlantic Ocean , nature has thrown a curveball into their theories with a volcanic eruption in  Hawaii  which may well destroy the island.  The eruption could sink the island because mount  Mouna Loa  has chambers linking to other volcanoes apart from occupying over 2/3 of the island. The disturbing thing about this discussion is that nobody has considered that Los Palmos will cause severe damage to Portugal, far more potent than scientists calculate would happen to the USA.

 Egypt Two years ago, after more than a decade of searching, the royal quarter of  Alexandria, Egypt, was discovered by greek archeologist Calliope Limneos-Papakosta in the Shallat Gardens . Talk about the 11th hour; she was an hour away from giving up the search when she came across the head of a statue, which turned out to be Alexander the Great , after whom the city is named. There is one major problem, though; the discovery was made over 30 feet below the level of the modern city and also below the water table, which means the city now has to keep the pumps running, or they will have a swimming pool half the size of Central Park , New York .

  DVD to tape I find myself in the position of doing something I haven't done for many years; I am going to transfer some of my DVD material from India to tape, then back to DVD.  The reason for this is I have several films I wish to keep, but as they were for the Indian market, they have no subtitles. The task is relatively easy as I used to do it years ago when I taped films and tv series I liked but could not buy.

 Over 1,000 copies sold. The headline does not lie, but the truth lies beyond that catchpenny phrase. A catchpenny phrase is the same as a headline grabber. My  Forgestriker  series has sold more than 1,000 e-books, but when you look at the sales figures, you see why I cannot accept the bestseller title . Those sales have come over more than a decade; while that might appear promising, the truth is that I sold, on average, two copies in the series a week over the 12 years the series has been on sale. How can I claim to be a best-selling writer when I earn less than $1 a week from  writing ?

 Indian Police Service I realize that a certain degree of artistic license is to be expected in selling a series or a movie, but from the series I watched on Netflix from India . It would appear the IPS are no more than thugs in uniform. I am sure the situation isn't that bad - at least not in most cities; once you get more than five miles from a town, you are in a "bandit country" where the local crime lord is the boss.

  The State Emergency To this day, the name of Indira Gandhi arouses either admiration or contempt, depending on who you talk to in India . While the daughter of Pandit Nehru is remembered for being the only lady to become Prime Minister, she is also hated for the action she undertook when in 1975, she declared a national state of emergency and violated many human rights, not the least being a mass vasectomy that was sanctioned by her son, Sanjay Gandhi . One of her best-known idioms was "you cannot shake hands with a closed fist."

MIA Pearl Harbor  As a social historian and a lover of mysteries, one aspect of the attack on Pearl Harbour intrigues me more than anything else. This fact is the disappearance of a Naval Lieutenant days before the attack. The officer was known for his long mountain walks; he reported to the sick bay two weeks before the attack with a broken collar and a fractured wrist.  While he was off-duty sick, one day, he took another of his walks, this time, he did not return, and to this day, the body has not been found, The most common supposition is he fell off a cliff and died from his injuries; this does not explain the non-appearance of his body. Another possibility is that he came across a Japanese spotter base days before the attack and was killed to conceal the events of December 7th, 1941 . Some people would say the USA fired the first torpedo of the war in the Pacific by sinking a Japanese submarine close to the harbor, but the question is, what was a submarine doing that cl...

   Colombia It will seem hard to believe, but here we are in the IT age of the 21st century, and there is a section o f Colombia  even the drug lords avoid. The area is so remote and covered with forests that even LIDAR (Light Detection and Radar), the most up-to-date technology for viewing through forests, cannot penetrate. There were several expeditions to the area, but nobody returned; this area could be the setting for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's book The Lost World .  I read an early copy of the book and even contacted the society to try to find out how close the films and tv series are to the book, but I got no reply. From my reading of the book, I can say other than the romantic element added to sell the film, there are several other major differences between the book and later versions.

 Ardennes 1944 While the weekend of the 24th of November will be celebrated in the USA as Thanksgiving , I give my thanks at Christmas to the 19,000 US soldiers who died during the winter of 1944 in the Ardennes Offensive AJA The Battle of the Bulge  without whose help Europe would have fallen to the Nazi jackboots as the French Generals said the Germans would not drive tanks through the forest, even though it almost happened only 20 years before.

  Minutes from death Readers of the blog will be aware of my post about the day I almost died in a car crash    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2015/11/german-efficency.html .  Last night, a chilling fact came to my mind, if my friend hadn't taken my advice to travel on the faster highway and taken the route described by a friend who lives in this area, We would have still been on the road at the time I found the loosened wheel nuts on the car. It's a sobering thought that I came that close to death (again).  I have thought for years I have a guardian angel; some people would say you die when the Lord feels you have reached your target. In that case, I wish I could have a clue what direction I should take, as time is running out.

 Sales Dried up I was pleased to get the early sale this month from Daft2Digital ,  but I thought it would be all I had  for the month ; I was correct.

 Russia loses again Three hours ago, the Russian Army started to pull out of Ukraine . This retreat proves what I said when Putin  sent the tanks in, he was fighting a guerrilla war using outdated Imperialist tactics and was bound to lose as they did in Afghanistan .  For the same reason, Germany could never have taken the UK, even with help from Oswald Moseley 's Brownshirts, a group of Nazi supporters during the Second World War . The US had to adapt quickly during the Indo-China ( Vietnam ), but they also lost there.

 Jealousy When I look back over the years I have been blogging , there are some gems of humor are among the hardships. One of the funniest moments came when I was chatting to a young lady in Montana ; she claimed to be related to a Cherokee princess, so naturally, we were talking about Native American topics. I never had the opportunity to get to know her as her boyfriend/ partner butted in and told me to stop "chatting her up." I had to laugh, we could hardly be further away, and he thought his position was under threat. Nothing was further from my mind; when I chat with a lady online, I only assume she wants to talk. What she wishes to speak about is her choice. Some time later, I was chatting to a lady, as we got on well, we decided to meet. Things did not go well, if I had been superstitous I would have delayed the meeting, but it was Valentine's Day when she wanted to meet. We agreed to meet on the 13th, which that year was a Friday. Almost from the start things wen...

Greenland 2011 The image on the cover of my ebook suspense thriller Glacier of Death  cannot be retaken as this area of Greenland was destroyed by a volcanic explosion in 2011 that brought airlines in the northern hemisphere to a halt and probably caused some insurance firms to close as this could be classed as an act of God. The story follows the actions of one of the characters in my earlier, highly-rated  short story Nerja.  

Amazon Author  To sell ebooks ,   I may have to become a genre writer . On Draft2Digital , the genre would be science fiction ; the choice for Amazon would be just as easy as the only book that sold well(?) is my highly-rated Native American spirituality short story,   Nerja .  The story came to me as I watched a video of a small aircraft flying over Manchester . I thought what would happen if it disappeared among those offices with hundreds of people watching, leaving no trace. My story is about two men of different religions in a small plane flying over Canada when the aircraft has several problems. This story is the first part of a two-part story, but the second part has been ignored,

  Rishi Sunak Prime Minister,  Rishi Sunak , is finding out that it is easy to criticize people with power; as long as you don't become that person. Leader of the Opposition,  Keir Starmer , knows his position is safe   despite the continued  Starmer Out  campaign because he knows nobody is either willing or capable of replacing him. Again, I am reminded of a  quote  from a play by  William Shakespeare , this time  Henry iv,  when the king said  Uneasy is the head that wears a crown."  It is easy to criticize someone, but harder when you are put in power and have to live up to the promise of doing better; this is yet another reason the  Labour Party  will not get the ability to run the country.  Recently,  Yvette Cooper , shadow Home Secretary, had to be reminded after a comment about uncontrolled immigration; her party under  Tony Blair  opened those doors.

 Petra A small moment of happiness came to me last night; I found a film on eBay that I've been after for about three years, and I can download the subtitles for the movie.  The film is about a young painter from Spain who is seeking her father,

   An Arab Proverb. In some cases, this is true, as Japan found out when it invaded China . Japan thought that as the Chinese were fighting each other, they would be an easy target - wrong - they may have been fighting each other, but when an outsider attacks, all political issues are put aside for the country's good. This is not always the case; a person I used to know - the same writer I referred to in Author Missing   and I shared a common dislike for another author on one site I was on. This made several writers on the site assume we were friends. Nothing could have been further from the truth as I despised him as much as our familiar foe.

 I am not a Puritan. I am not against drinking in moderation, nor am I against smoking. I don't gamble, but I used to until about 35 years ago.  I gave up smoking for the sake of our children, and I gave up drinking alcohol after an embarrassing moment on a bus home many years ago.  My wife and I have never been one for taking holidays, we far prefer a data out in this area as there is a lot to enjoy. To some people, it would appear we lead a Puritanic life; we don't it's that we prefer to take care of our money; these days, with air strikes and companies leaving travelers stranded when they go bust, a holiday at home is relatively safe. Money is not the root of my happiness; being content with your lot gains more pleasure; I have said often some of the unhappiest people I have known are those chasing money as they never appear to reach their goal.