Here I am at the edge

  A changed person Indian actress Rekha is considered by many film viewers in India , to be one of the prettiest ladies on the silver screen in their country, as well as being one of the finest actresses still in work. This wasn't always the case, when she began people called her a flump, unattractive, and a mediocre actress, but during the 70s, and 80's Rekha went through a change of outlook, and transformed herself.  She was the target of an insult from Nargis Dutt , who said Rekha would let men know she was available for a date. I've known young ladies do that, it can be anything from licking her lips to a flick of the hair. There was a time when she was thought to be dating Amitabh Bachchan ; this rumour began because they appeared in several successful films together. His wife Jaya Badhuri was a little concerned at the time, they had only been married a couple of years at the time, but they stayed together.

 The Reader Boom is over                                  All good things come to an end The old saying, "All good things come to an end," is true. For me, it happened this week, the boost to readers of the blog is over; the USA has resumed their position as my top region for readers now Hong Kong , and Singapore readers have had their fill.

 Bribery                          How the mighty have fallen In an astoubding case of bribery , F C Barcelona have been told that as from two days ago they cannot function as a company; and the club is to be closed. All this when they have just started building an extension to the stadium. The case refers to a series of bribes sent to referees over the last decade; this new will rock the soccer world. Only a few months ago, Manchester City were fined heavily for match fixing; if Barcelona can be taken down there are no clubs beyond the law. I did think there was something peculiar going on, several weeks ago ny daughter told me that Lionel Messi offered to cut his pay by 50%, and the club said they couldn't pay his wages.  When one of the largest clubs in football says they cannot pay their players, you know something "fishy" is going on.

 In the mood As I am writing mainly for the blog , I don't feel the need to follow a trend - not that I ever did - if only for the satisfaction of bringing several stories to a close, I am going to attempt to get back in the mood to write .

 The Tragedy Queen The life of Indian actres s Meena Kumari could have been from one of her films. When she died from Cirrhosis in 1972, at the age of 38, her sister, Nargis Dutt , said some vicious comments at her funeral. What Nargis didn't know, or chose to ignore was her sister had been the victim of spousal abuse for years. It was so bad other actors, and actresses begged her to leave her husband, but for a Islamic woman to do that is considered a crime; yet, her husband could legally perform the Triple Talaq for no reason other than he chose to; which he did. What is the Triple Talaq? Islamic men could go to a judge to request the annulment of thier marriage for no reason; all they had to do was say the word Talaq three times over the course of three months, and the deed was done; ladies could not defend themselves. This ruling was changed in July 2019.

 The changing face of Covid He was only a fictional villain, but Dr. Fu Manchu had a dream of world domination. He would love the situation of the modern world, with Covid changing almost as quickly as the wind, and being untraceable as it hides as a variation of other illnesses. The situation is almost like the book " The Satan Bug " by AlistairMaclean , or even The Andromeda Strain .

 Amelia Sell your Haunted House  is an excellent horror mini-series from South Korea showing on Netflix . The idea of selling a haunted building was going to be the focus of my ghost story - Amelia . The central aspect of the story was to have been the discussion between two businessmen about whether they should let buyers know a propert is haunted by the ghost of a nurse who died during the Bristol Blitz ; that part of the story is true. The Bristol General Hospital site has the ghost of a nurse who got trapped rescuing children during WW2 . The discussion would have been from both sides, with one of the men wishing to hide the fact, and hoping nobody would see her. While the other man wished to run the site as a haunted hotel for ghost hunters. As usually happens, my idea, and the end product did not gel.

 Lost in the EU You may not believe this story, but it is true. Last year, I bought some DVDs from Spain , that is nothing unusual for me. What was annoying is that they didn't arrive from the seller on eBay for three months, why? The DVD box set got held up in the Netherlands for three months, no wonder the EU is struggling if their sales are delayed that long.

 Service record Today, I came across my father's service record, from his entollment in 1940 until his demob in 1947.  He spent most of the time in the UK ; when he was posted to India in late 1944, he went on the SS Ranchi which was hit with a bomb, this meant she had to put into Alexandria for two months for repairs.

 A great find As I am unable to buy the Nargis Dutt box set of six films, I shall buy the six-film set of films for Dilip Kumar ; there will be some overlap as they appeared together many times in the 50s, and 60's. Also in the set is Nargis's younger sister Meena Kumari, who was known as The Tragedy Queen Dilip (left) is shown here with Jawaharial Nehru , the father of Indira Gandhi .

 Australia Not surpringly, the USA is the largest area for my eBook sales from Draft2Digital ; second place goes to Australia , with Canada and New Zealand fighting for third place. What is a little surprising is I have sold several eBooks on the African continent, but not in either Rhodesia , or South Africa . If you are wondering about the UK , we come well down the list.

 eBook sales in Japan My surprise yesterday, was not selling an eBook in Japan , I've sold several from Draft2Digital as they control the Pacific Rim    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/08/pacific-rim.html , my surprise was selling on Amazon . Ot her than the eBook I bought,to try to get some interest in my writing in the UK , I cannot recall the last of my eBooks which sold on Amazon.

 Medicinal choices I am not certain what caused the growth on my liver , one thing I am sure of is my choice to restrict the tablets I take has helped slow the progress, why? Several years, I had to make a choice; I found that some of the tablets I was taking could cause liver, or kidney problems. The choice was to risk a heart attack , or liver failure? Having seen what a liver failure did to my father, I decided to stop taking some of the tablets; I didn't like the option of going to a hospital twice a week for a blood transfusion . At the same time, I found some of my tablets contained a banned colouring, the colouring had possible links to epilepsy .

  The bump in the night Last week, I had another talk with the floor LMAO. The difference with this fall is I didn't know what was happening until I found myself on the floor. I was lying on the floor, laughing; I had trouble getting up as I have weak legs these days. Though I laughed at the time, the result could have been a lot more serious as I missed the legs of my computer chair by inches.

 Now selling in Japan I may not be selling my eBook selection in the UK , but I have been told by Amazon that I have sold eBooks in Japan . In a way I am surprised, but in another way I am not; this blog has for the last few months had a good following in both Singapore , and Hong Kong . I don't know what has sold, or how many; all I know is I have sold an eBook in Japan. One of the first eBooks I sold when I began on Amazon was to a lady in Berlin , Germany .

 One for the crackpots Only in Egypt could an idea such as this be formed, and allowed to proceed. What is the crazy idea? The plan is to divert the River Nile , so visitors can travel past the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo  by boat. It is scheduled to open in 2024, but there is no set date; the project keeps getting delayed, sometimes for the silliest of reasons.

 Is it worth the price?                                     Alexandria People will argue that you cannot put a price on history , but at some point you need to. The best example of this is Alexandria    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2022/11/alexandria.html , in Egypt . The project was to find the main street of the city, in Roman times, which they have done, the problem is, the street is 20 feet below the water table. This means the city nowhas to pay to keep the area from flooding, the pumps will need to be replaced every sim moths as they are not meant to run all day, everyday, and will burn out.

 Confirming my thoughts                                   Indie Alone Recent figure for readers of my blog confirm what I thought for many years; I am the only person reading it in the UK . I thought trying to sell science fiction to the market in the USA would be hard; I was wrong. The hardest thing to do is to sell an eBook in the UK market. In the 12 years since I put my eBooks on Amazon , I have sold less than an eBook a year in the UK.

 The box set                            The one that got away With my interest in the older films from India ; I have come across some very good actors, and actresses in films which are interesting. One such actress is Nargis Dutt , the wife of actor Sunil Dutt , who died days before their son Sanjay Dutt  made his debut film in Bollywood . For several days, I had my eye on a box set of six films by Nargis, but I didn;t have the money to buy it; when I did have the money, I found the set had become unavailable. Though she is attractive, and a good actress, on a personal level, apparently she could be cruel, even to her younger sister who died from chorosis of the liver. She also made some snide comments about actress Rekha .

 I did better than other years                                      Sad, but true Without being sarscastic, this year has been the best for me as a writer in the last decade. How sad is that. I earn less than $1 a month from writing , and I consider it a good year? The reason is that for most of the decade it would have taken my two years, at least, to get this much; I only did this with the help of readers on Apple .

 Should I or shouldn't I? It is the age old issue, even though I have been paid by Draft2Digital this month; is it worth continuing to add to short story selection there as all I earn is $1 a month, if I am lucky? I do have several stories that could go on for longer than the short story length, but is it worth writing any, when nothing is selling?

 I don't know how to spend my wealth                           Sarcasm at its wickedest I am at a loss how to spend all the royalties I earned since my last payment from Draft2Digital which was during the week before Christmas . I could buy a fish and chip meal, or even a DVD to add ot my collection of films from India . After all, $10 doesn't go far.

A Bleak Year  One more sale All I neeed to be paid my royalties from Draft2Digital is one small eBook sale; I think the reason I haven't been paid since before Christmas last year is the 30% tax deduction I have to pay. By my calculations I stand at $9.75c, any small sale will allow me to cross the $10 minimum to get my royalty fees. I can't thank readers who bought my eBooks via Apple too much, without the several sales from them I doubt I'd be near the target until at the earliest, May next year.

 Before the Age of the Musical You may wonder why I set those dates? The dates are what I would class as the Golden Age of Indian Cinema https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-beginning-of-golden-age-of-indian.html , my opinion; I am sure you could argue otherwise if you like musicals. I agree films of the period had a musical element, few films of any era do not, but the musical was part of the story, not the story. Since 1998, the cinema in India has been the realm of the "Three Khans ," and they have turned the film industry into a musical factory https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-three-khans.html   based on their singing , and dancing abilities. Few films are produced which do not have either Salman Khan , or Shah Rukh Khan in these days.

 American Civil War We could argue over this for ages, but to my mind, there are some unquestionable reasons why the Confederate states lost. There is no doubt the South had better jorses and riders, but they had the wrong type of horse. They bred quarter-horses for speed and dexterity, which is fine when you go to the shows, but in war speed is not what you need. The stronger, slower, horses bred in the North were able to carry artillery pieces. The only people in need of a fast horse are outlaws, and the Pony Express . The South had the money, but the North had the factories needed to produce guns. The South has some cities, but most of the major cities are in the North - as they are today. The land in the South is sparcely populted, making it hard to defend, and easy to infiltrate, most of the men in the South were gentry used to the riches that cotton provided. Men in the North were used to hard work as they worked in factories. Most of the people in the North were immigran...

 It is Impossible We accepted that Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, but he didn't, nore has anyone else, and nobody will, why? First of all, man is incapable of attaining the speed beeded for the task; to run a 4-minute mile you need to run at over 16 MPH, not many professional cyclists can keep that pace with all the modern equipment. The main thing to get used to is that Roger Bannister was not at the front running into the wind for most of the race, so he was fresh for the run-in, like most of the athletes who beat the record; they run as a group, switvhing runners who take the wind to keep the agreed winner fresh, To give you a thought, if we could run this fast for this long, we could outrun both the cheetah (the fastest land animal), and the bulls at Pamplona . This brings me to a funny incident in the Munich (?) Olymic games; as I said, most of the races have a pattern, you have three grades of runners. Front runners, usually athketes who are there to keep the...

 Hell on Earth You may think this is an impossibiltiy, but it could happen. Online reports tell of an  Earthquake every 2 1/2 hours in a 24-hour period. While many could be a tremor, coming this close together there would be no respite for the ground.  If you drop a stone in a pond, the ripple may be small, but when you add the next ripple the effect is doubled, and so on. People don't realise Spain rests on the edge of three tectonic plates. In the late 18th century, a tsunami which began in mid-Atlantic swamped Portugal , and cities as far inland as Seville reported waves of over 50 feet. The damage was so much, the city was saved by being put under martial law, and haing an army officer delegate jobs. In the late 19th century, a huge wave began in the North Sea which swept across the Netherlands and Northern Germany leaving several cities under water for days. The city of Herculaneum in I taly sits on a bed of magma    https://hereiamattheedge.blogsp...

  I have read few Science Fiction books It may come as a surprise to know that despite the success of my science fiction series Forgestriker , the first of the seven eBook series is shown above. I have read few science fiction books . Most of my reading has been on various aspects of history ; the irony here is that though I have read many ghost , and gothic horror stories, none of mine have sold. Years ago, I took a short test online to see how well my knowledge of America stood up against the US public knowledge, it turned out I knew more than the avearge American does about US History . I was at one time quite knowledgable about the geography of the USA , these days I need Google to find many places. I am finding my knowledge of India is also lacking, mainly because I was using information from maps printed before 1948 when Pakistan was formed from the Punjab region.

 I know my strength and it scares me To this day, I am sure my wife's son considers me a coward for not fighitng him; every day I suffered verbal abuse , and threats   from him, and yet I never brought myself to hit him, I did defend myself when he attacked me three times. One reason is he was not worth going to jail for, but the main reason is I knw my strength, and I am scared of letting my guard down as i knew I could do some serious damge to my opponent; this is no idle boast, when I was 11 I hit another child who angered me, and cracked three of his teeth. When he complained to his parents about what I did, all they said was "You were told not to do what you kept doing." After 30 years of arguing with him, I stopped, I knew I was right, and that is what mattered to me. As Mahatma   Ghandi 's passive violence philosophy said, "It takes a better man, not to fight," sadly that is not always possible. But, violence does beget more violence. I knew that af...

 All Creatures have a Spirit                I don't class my stories as ghost stories A lot of my early reputation as a writer is based on writing what many people say are ghost stories - I don't class my early stories as ghost stories - why? The story above is the exception to the rule. I believe all creatures have a spirit within them, and I also believe the Cherokee proverb "Within each of us is two wolves, one is clam and peaceful, the other is angry and vengeful - it is up to us which we feed." Another adage to live by is from Confucius "If you set out on a trail of revenge, be preapred to dig two graves." It is a point of debate whether I wrote ghost stories, or not, my view is that I was writing stories about lost souls trying to cross to the other realm; they were not intended to be scary. I can write scary stories, one such story, which is not published , is so scary it gave me bad dreams for several night, and I knew what was h...

 I am passed caring It may appear I go on too much about not being paid by Draft2Digital ; the truth is I go on, not because I am angry at being the victim of a scam , which I am, but to warn others of the risks of the site. Truth be told, I accepted I won't get paid by them months ago. 

 The OMG Factor                                  It's all in the Headline. To get my posts read I need to come up with a good headline ; an example of this is my previous post "Crash Landing," it has had half-a-dozen reders so far. Some posts don't get that many readers in a week.  The short story  image on the this page, which is for sale, has a double-meaning now. I wrote the story about a time when I almost died in my sleep, after a week of not being able to sleep; now it can be taken as the end of my days as a writing , as I am not writng another eBook .

  Talks with the floor Last night, for the second time in a month, I fell out of bed. I am not hurt, fortunately, it took me a while to get back to bed as I have little strength in my my lower body. The strnge thing is I think the fall may have triggered a dream which followed; in the dream, I was walking along a rocky platform that stretched into the sea. I came to the edge of a platform that stood high above the ground, to get down I had to leap down, when I got the the edge I looked down and shuddered at the height. Then I came up with the thought "If you attack the jump, you won't get hurt," so I jumped down, and landed with no injury. This segment of the dream could have been triggered by the films from India I watch, where people take jumps from a height, and land as if they'd stepped of a kerb.

 eBook limit I decided not to add anymore of my eBook selection to Google ; one reason is the site gives the eBooks away if you have an account. I won't miss the sales from there as I made about $10 in three years. My aim is going to be to try to keep the blog running, at least for this year; after that, who knows?

 The tables have turned These days I find writing even a shor t story for this blog a struggle. The major issue, as always, is why bother when so few people will be reading the post?  I did have a good spell a few days ago, several posts had over eight readers; I realise this is not a lot when you take in the millions of people who use Facebook and Google; but it's all I have to on.

 The Fourth Khan The cinema in India is dominated by trio known as The Three Khans ; they are not related, and to my knowledge they are only distanlty related to the royalty their names suggest. Shahrukh Khan is by far the biggest jewel in Bollywood now. Salman Khan runs Bollywood, which covers most of the large cities in the area. Aamir Khan is a big mane across Asia in the world of movies too. The fourth Khan, is Saif Ali Khan , and the only one in the group with royal blood in living memory, his father was the last Nawab of Pataudi  - a minor royal in the Bengal region - also his mother Sharmila Tagore hails from one of the major Bengal cimena families.  There was a fifth, Irran Khan, but he died from a virulent case of cancer , at the age of 54; only days after he buried his mother. The Khan name is common in India; mainly because a lot of the north was occupied for centries by the kings of Persia .

 Whiteout                                        Ice Ghosts Shortly after I wrote this short story , in 2011, I had the idea for a story about an escaped convict being involved in a police chase as the days get shorter in the frozen north of Canada . Having flown across the frozen wastelands, I can imagine the problem of getting snow blindness ; the area is a desert of unending ice. One of my late friend's daughters used to joke that her mother didn't drive in the winter, until one day she got caught behind a lorry in a whiteout . When she got home it took her husband two hours to free her hands from the sterring wheel - she never joked about the situation again.

 My Amazon Bestseller The reason Holding Richmond  is my Amazon bestseller , not Nerja is HR twice sold 7 eBooks in a day; a feat not achieved by my Draft2Digital bestselling eBook Forgestriker . HR is a vampire short story which I wrote at the time of the first Twilight Saga story . The story got rejected by a competition for being too short. I wrote Nerja in 2010 after a trip to Canada. The story is the first part of a double, the other story is called Glacier of Death , book 1 is set around Lac La Biche were I stayed with my late friend. Book 2 is set on the Yellowknife oil fields ; that area was recently on fire with smoke being seen hundreds of miles away.

 Amazon Rating                                     For Charity According to one writer in Australia, if a book is above the six million mark at Amazon it can be classed as a bestseller ; this charity book written for the Sandy Hook massacre during Christmas 2012, will soon drop below the mark. The book's sales did not impact on my sales, some writers say being in an anthology helped their sales; that has not happened to me, and I was in several charity books for children over the years.

 A futile search Many years ago, several friends, and myself, set out to try to trace eBook sites giving our eBooks away. After a month, we checked the results, there were few sites that appeared on more than one list; we decided to cancel the search as it was plain there were are so many pirate sites, it would be impossible to trace them,

 Review sites Over the years, I have investigated the world of so-called freelance writing ; most of the sites who claim to want a writer are looking for writers for reviews, and are no more than a scam . They claim you can earn hundreds of dollars a week, but they don't tell you that you need to spend as much to get products from them to review . Many go as far as saying you need to buy equipment from the site before you can begin to write the reviews.

 Why Bother?                                         It's a Scam I know I am a cynic, but I have been been trying to sell eBooks for 15 years, and the eBook Publishing business has gone from good to bad to being a scam , in my opinion. The problem is that Draft2Digital have created a monopoly in the buisness of eBook publishing . Their site is linked to numerous lending libraries which are bad news for a writer . While your eBook may be read D2D don't pay out until a certain number of readers take out the books, and as that number is never disclosed, you can go on forever, and not be paid. The other option is Amazon ; the issue here is unles you make a name for yourself you cannot expect to sell, and how can you sell if nobody can find you?

 My Followers The blog is supposed to have 27 people who follow it, I wonder how many of those read my posts? Probably none. Several of the people are from my days on a writing site based in Germany , and some people follow anonymously. If 1% of the readers of the blog in Singapore bought an eBook I would be extremely happy, and write more often, but that is not the case.

 Police chase I'm a Celebrity The strange world of my dream s produces funny stories. Last night, I was being taken to court under police escort, the crime - I don't know - during my journey I kept escaping from custody; as I kept escaping I became a minor local celebrity . I did give myself up in the end, as I was so tired. At one point, the police said I must be a local as I was using little-known lanes to escape; I told everyone I had never been to the city.

 DVD Selection Now my writing has slowed to almost nil, this gives me time to watch some of the movies I have recently bought about India from eBay ; I have built up such a rappor with sellers I often get great offers https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/09/i-need-to-be-careful-on-ebay.html , I often buy three or four DVDs instead of the one or two I intended to buy; all the films I would have bought at a time a little later. The picture above is from a series called "Delhi Crimes" the stories are based on True Crime stories; the first story happened in 2012;it is about a mass rape and the murder of a young girl. I can recall reading about the incident online, and it never stopped horrifyig me how men can treat ladies in this way.

  Back to Writing Ghost Stories With nothing moving in the eBook sales area https://www.draft2digital.com/book/ , I am writing for pleasure now https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/07/question-time.html .  I plan to continue writing about India    https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2023/06/project-india-update.html , and to start writing more ghost stories https://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.com/2022/12/do-i-believe-in-ghosts.html  again, some may be set in India.

 Generous Offers I need to be careful when I buy from eBay these days. Several of the people I buy from are sending me offers which I have to resist from taking up. The situation is caused by me buying so many films from India that I have to restrict my buying until I have watched some of the films I have bought. This may mean I will lose some of the offers, but it is something I have to accept' it is so easy to overspend. My wife is delighted with the books I get her, she is building up a collection of Nero Wolfe and Fu Manchu stories. I did buy her some Inspector Ghote books, but she said they were hard to read; I got these as we used to listen to the stories in audiobook format years ago.

 Some Solace If my eBook collection is not selling, at least I can have a little solace seeing that some of my posts on the blog are getting more readers than usual. I have been asked several times to write about my time in the Royal Air Force , the truth is I never took notes as I didn't think anybody would be interested; so, my memories are few and trying to write about them would be hard.

 Shock me World It would rock my world  to find I had an eBook    https://www.draft2digital.com/book/ sale, and it would shock me to find I'd been paid for the sale of the eBook https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Alan+Place%22 .