Here I am at the edge

  Lashings of cheese please I won;t deny, I love a bit of crumpet , on the side. Before Brexit, I had always preferred British cheese to foreign cheeses, I have tried several from countries in Europe, and found many to be bland, and most are grossly over-priced. I have no preference to which cheese I add, I do prefer the stronger falvours though.

 Elizabeth 1 People consider the issue of race as an immigration problem as a modern issue, yet Time Team unearthed a proclamation from Elizbeth 1, stating she thought there were too many coloured people in the country, and that was in the mid 16th century.

Not my type of girl  I have no obection to young ladies on sex chat lines; I use to know several ladies who were in the business, they were customers on my wife's catalogue services. However, the trend for "liking" my Twitter posts to get me to visit Adult DAting. com, I do find offensive in a way. The profile images of the girls I find off-putting as most have extra large breasts, which though I cannot prove I suspect are the result of cosmetic surgery . I find some BBW ladies very attractive, this is because have the body structure to make their breasts natural.

I am making waves   For the second time, in as many days, I have had requests for some of my DVD selection for sale on eBay . Again, no sooner had I added the disc than I got the offer.

 A wealth of unwritten stories On my blog, there are many stories ranging from modern romance to science fiction , and beyond that will remain unwritten, why? I am not short of ideas, the cause of the blockade is a lack of  motivation from a lack of readers. I could have gone on writing for many years, what is the point when nobody is going to read what you write ?

 Shifting blame The ownners of the ship that caused the crash at the Baltimore Bridge ae now blaming the tug captains for the incident, saying they left too early. As the ship was already drifting in the tide, the captains had no choice; blame should rest with the design of the ship.  A ship  that size needs to be a double-screw, not a single-screw. The accident was bound to happen sooner, or later, as the ship is too heavy for the propulsion unit to pull, that is what you get when you cut corners. This incident reminds me of an incident off the coast of South Africa many years ago. A French shippong line paid for a team of four tugs to transport an oil drilling unit from its home in Russia , to India , via the Cape of Good Hope . This was a risky venture with four tugs as the Cape is a notorious grave for shipping as you have the warm Indian Ocean current meeting the icy cold South Atlantic currents causing mists. At this point, the project was possible to succeed,...

  A Test of my readership ability As the headline says, I am not putting posts on either Facebook , or Twitter , to see how much effect - if any - they have on the readers of my blog . Judging from the recent figures, I don't imagine I'll see any difference.

 Search Engine Optimiser If you use your computer a lot, you may come across the subject title SEO , or Search Engine Optimiser, and wonder about its purpose.  The purpose of the engine is to seek out links to what you write; this can have two functions. A) The tighter the title is, the fewer reactions you will see in the search. From my blog here is an example, if I typed in Sridevi , I would see posts about her. B) If you use a less strict title, such as actresses from India , though you may not get such an exact reading, you would have a greater possibility of finding your target area.

 Films to watch I have two cases for my film selection, one is for films I have seen and intend to keep; the other is for films I have yet to see. I have no doubt, some of the films I have yet to see will end up for sale on eBay . One of the reasons for this is I bought some films with Reena Roy in, however, as some have  Rishi Kapoor in I will have to revaluate my viewing to find if the film is worth keeping.

 Take care I came across another YouTube glitch last night. I accept putting subtitles on a video is hard, and sometimes words can get misread/ misheard, but to misspell a person's name is unforgiveable in this age of the internet . The person whose name was misspelled is Anil Kappor, the person who put the name to the film had put Anal; there is no excuse as a little research can go a long way. Also he had changed Sridevi, one of the icons of Hindi cinema to Sridavi.

 Keeping my control This post isn't about bad memories as in bad things which happened to me, that is a long list, this post is about memory loss . Once, I had a good memory, and could recall events, or things which haapened years ago, now with age, I have difficulty recalling things in the time it takes to walk up a flight of stairs.

 Flag of Convenience The Baltimore Bridge incident, raises a major concern for me; it not a new concern, but one I have had for many years. What is the concern? My concern is the competence of the captain of the ship; especially  with the growing number of ships sailing under the  f lag of convenience  to get around shipping regulations of the country the ship is registered to. Many of the crews come from Asia , and have little, if any knowledge of English.

 A tragedy waiting to happen My first thought was of how quickly the  Baltimore Bridge collapsed, it reminded me of a game where you need to remove sticks without toppling the pile. My second thought, proved to be wrong after using Google for a little research, was that the bridge could be old, but it was built in 1977. This accident shows again, why you need a competent crew who understand English, I do wonder how some captain's qulify. A few months ago a ship hit Greenland .  Though the water below is not too deep, if you were not expecting to fall, who would expect to fall, you would hit the water like falling onto a concrete floor. On YouTube there are many instances where ships, and lorries have got caught under a bridge; one of the first things I would do when transporting a large container is to check the route for low bridges.

 De Montfort University I realise the possibilty of not using Google for reearching the net these days is small. but for several months I used the DMU library for my search engine . De Montfort University is an electrical educational facility based in Leicester that specialises in technical drawing. For months, I had a recuuring dream about how I imagined the library, I saw wooden bow windows, and beautiful book cases, how romantic was that. Later, I had a dream which was a little scary; I was walking toward the musuem on a pathway alongside a river, I don't know if such a river is close to DMU, but that is of little consequence. I came to a point where an overhanging tree branch blocked my path, despite being a good swimmer I was afraid to enter the water to pass the obstruction.

 eBay extension Over the coming month, I hope to start selling some of my Warhammer Limited Edition books on eBay ; I did this some time ago with a little success. Many of the books are also signed, I never covered the cost I paid, my thinking is I may as well get something back as I never read the books, and there maybe someone who will read the book .

Strange New Worlds  In a world of weirdness, I am getting comments on the blog from a PC Games site is Portugal .

  Boycott Iceland With Asda , and Iceland towing the Muslim line and changing sales policy so as to not offend the beliefs of Islam , they are showing their ignorance. No matter how many Bibles you study, there is no mention of Easter ; Easter is a western sales policy with no base in religion .

 I should not be suprised If we disregard the financial status of Hong Kong , and Singapore , and focus on the history of the areas, I should not be suprised both feature highly in my blog readership. Within my life, 67 years, both were part of the British Empire ; Hong Kong was handed back to China as recently as July 1997.

 Very possibly A recent theory has put forward the idea that Robin Hood was a monk from Yorkshire , why do I have no problem with this? If, BIG if, he did exist, which is yet to be proven. I see no reason for Robin Hood not to have been a monk. Yorkshire is close to the birer with Sherwood Forest where he is supposed to have lived, if people went on crusades to the Middle East , a walk to Yorkshire from Nottingham is not too hard to vigilise, especially as many people were transient, and went where there was work. The reason I believe he did not exist is his name, Robin Hood, Robin/ Robyn was a common name in the Middle Ages , and Hood could have been given as a name to a person wearing a cowl such as monks do. Unlike Richard i, and his brother King John, there is no proof that Robin existed before the story written in the 13th century. Maid Marion does not appear until the Victorian era , they loved their romantic heroes . The village of Robin Hoods Bay is no more than another V...

 They are a pack of thieves When I was able to vote, at the age of 18, I did vote for the Labour Party for two elecetions; I thought they were for the working man but that soon changed, how? During the late 1970's, the party line changed as they were run by the Unions, and each time any Trade Union asked for a pay rise they got it, this lead to endless strikes, and a horrorific inflation rise. Contrary tiopopular theory, Margaret Thatcher saved the UK, she didn't break the Miner's strike, their leader Arthur Scargill did by asking more than the country could pay for coal. The situation became so bad, it was cheaper to pay for coal from Sweden , than to mine ours, add to that he had his men working three shifts on double pay, and the seams soon died off; the only coal we get from the UK now, is called sea coal where the seam has collapsed, and the coal is found on the beach. In more recent times, Bristol City Council , which is run by Labour, made me redundant with th...

 The answer depends on how you qualify good This question has so many variables it is almost impossible to answer. We must quantify good against successful , and the general view against my opinion before we go further. The general opinion is I was a good writer ; I could keep my readers guessing from the start to the last period of the last sentence of my short story . Was I a success ? This is the burning question. According to my sales on Draft2Digital I sold on average 18 eBooks a month over my 10 year period, yet my earnings were less than 1/10th of what I should have been paid. If I was to go by sales, I could class myself as a bestseller, as far as Indie writers go, but as my royalty payments were so small I never thought of myself as a bestselling author .

 I will leave writing for those with money I am turning the clock back, I am returning to my first passion of reading . I will leave writing to the people who have a good education , can afford the publicity , and have the coutage to beat the odds to get a contract. I can't say I am disaapointed, that would indicate at some point I felt I would succeed as a writer ; I was never that person, even when my science fiction series was selling well. I don't depart empty-handed, I learned a lot, and also had many of thoughts confirmed during my time as a writer.

 On why not to write I know I could write a book , that would not sell; the book would be about the many reasons not to choose the path of a writer .

 No expansions planned Unless there are some offers to buy DVDs , my store on eBay will not be exapnding in the foreseeable future.  I have over 60 DVDs for sale, some including Shah Rukh Khan , Salman Khan , and other names from Bollywood today, but there is little interest even with stars.

 Some of the ladies are superior to the male actors The way Bollywood headlines it's films is both offensive, and degrading to many of the actresses In my view, many of the actresses in the cinema in India , are equal to, if not better than the actors they appear with, but are treated as no better than a pretty face; in some cases, they are in a film so they film has some degree of selling. In Hollywood duting its heyday, they had headlinerrs such as Clark Gable and Carole Lombard ,  and William Powell and Myrna Loy . Though the male lead is first, the title reads as a pair; in Bollywood, the title would read male lead, second male lead, female. By adding the comma, you are saying this person is lower in status than the person before.  In the case of Salman Khan , I find it hard to believe actresses such as Raveena Tandon , Vidya Balan , and Rani Mukerji are classed inferior.

  Why don't I join Writing groups? There are many reasons why I rarely join a writing group online; though my friend in Seattle sends me links. One of the main reasons is over the years, I have found many of the sites are a scam , out to make money of writers who believe the site will help them. The only people who benefit are the people running the site, you usually get asked to buy their books to help sell your book . Another reason is I find the sites do depressing, when I read teports of book sales, and think how I struggled for over a decade before I realised the Draft2Digital network was keeping most of my royalty fees.

 The stupidity of Muslims The two tales I am about to tell, did happen. Story 1 A young girl went to college, then University, and got a degree , what did she do with her education ? Better the life odfwomen in a male-domunated world, no. Enlighten the world to see Muslims as not being terrorists , no. What DID she do? With all that education, she was going to take Nestle to court as her Topic bar had no nuts LMAO. I would have taken the case to court, to show her how many bars of  chocolate  the firm makes per hour. Not forgetting, the loser pays the  court  costs. Story 2 If you thought that was funny, this is better. Several years ago a Muslim man hacked a site called TravelWest, he thought it was a site for all travel in the west, how silly is that. TravelWest is a Bristol travel firm that people in Bristol have not heard about, so the effect was lees than zero.

 How much faith do you have in Cybersecurity? Last week, a young lady contacted me on Twitter, this made me laugh, I am  almost old enough to be her grandfather so I had my thoughts on why she contacted me. I was right, she wanted me to sign up for Cryptocurrency . There is no way I will go anywhere close to going digital; a man in Newport , Wales , throw out an old computer ; on the hard drive he had over £5 million in his digital wallet in shares, so what did he do? He contacted NASA to try to find his computer in a waste dump. One reason I don't want to get in involved in the SCAM is every transaction you do gets flagged by the police , crypto is linked to worlwide crime ; it is so bad, China banned trading it, if they ban it it has to be bad as they have more links to Cybercrime than anyone. Another reason is there is so much activity, the computers needed use as much electricity as Belgium , and Switzerland combined and raise the temperature of the planet by 3 degree...

 Panic in the Cybersecurity realm I wouldn't be surprised to hear of masses of job losses in the Cybersecurity realm soon. Large companies such as Facebook are getting hacked weekly; the casual user most ask themselves is it worth the cost if a major company get ne hacked?

 Cybersecurity firm panic I always doubted the value of Cybersecurity ; if somebody wanted to hack your pc, there is little you can do. This year, proves my point, so far Facebook , Meta , Messenger , Leicsestershire County Council , Sainsbury , Tesco , and now Greggs have been hacked. If these people with money to buy the next gen technology can be hacked, what hope is there for the regular computer user? It does make you think, who will be next?

 Mousehole A copy of this oil painting hung in my parent's house for decades' I love the painting, the frame could have been nice if it had been varnished, not given a coat of white gloss paint. Each time I viewed the painting, I tried to think where in Whitby it could have been painted, I hvae been to Whitby many times; I had an uncle who lived there. No matter how I tried I couldn't revall a sight like this in Whitby - I'm not suprrises - when my mother died, and the painting passed to me, I had the opportunity to research the painting, and its location. It was painted at Mousehole (prononounced Moussel) in Cornwall .  No matter where it was painted, I am in awe of the men who built the gates, tose divers were many genaerations before the SCUBA equipment designed by Jacques Coustea . I was given the opportunity to go diving with a friend I had in the RAF, I politely declined. I was a good swimmer, but I have a thing about having my face covered, I can't use a f...

  Lowest blog figures Disregarding the amount of readers in Hong Kong , for this blog , Canada  leads the field; which shows how few readers I get, when second place gets only 15 readers a day. With less than 100 readers a day is it surprising I feel depressed about writing ?

 Modelling In my younger days, I did a lot of modelling - not thar kind - I used to be an avid model maker . Two things, other than having a family stopped me, difficulty with my eyesight at close range, and my hands devolped a tremble. One of my earliest models was an Ariel Square 4; shown above. I have always been a motorcycle fan, than a car fanatic, I also enjoyed watching trains, not the newer engines. I had some hilarious moments, such as leaving a model under a lamp to dry the glue, and ending up with droopy wings.

Sibling rivalry In her teens, Nutan was told by her mother, that she was considered unattractive compared to her sister Tanuja , and would have trouble finding a husband. Of the two ladies, I prefer Nutan to her sister, apparently, so did many people as Nutan won the first Miss India in 1951. As for success, Nutan held her place alongside Nargis Dutt , Meena Kumari , M adhubala , and other great actresses of her era. Tanuja? At best, a very mediocre actress who struggled, and who is best known as the mother of actress Kajol .  

 Too many ongoing expenses Because of various factors within Egypt , the country struggles to keep afloat, and they have more problems now than in the last decade.  The latest problems concern the discovery of the main street of Alexandria , they found it, but it is over 20 feet below the water table. They need the pumps going all day, everyday or the site will flood within two hours. The other problem concerns the ever-expanding opening date for the Grand Egyptian Museum , outside Cairo .

  A slight difference in weight I am now the lowest weight I have been for over 20 years. I didn't go on a diet , or have any set plans on weight loss . I put the loss of weight to a change in how I cook , and cutting down on sugar, as I drink very little coffee these days, comapared to what I used to. I have to admit, I was concerned that as I don't go for my walks, the weight would build up, but it hasn't

 A Roman myth Since Roman times , the story has been they put the Druids to the sword because they practised human sacrifice; including burning people in wicker effigies. At best, this was propaganda as an excuse for their slaighter; more likely it was lies to subjegate any possibility of an uprising. Why do I think it never happened? The science of the project makes it impaisauable. I am not saying the crafts needed were not available, they were, sadly they are no longer practiced. Let us view the physics of the topic. People to this day burst into flame for no apparent reason, but the heat needed to turn flesh and bone to ashes is so intense a naked flame won't do. What would the accelerant be? You need a substance that retains heat long enough for the flame to ignite the willow.  Then we have the willow itself, to bend it into shape the wood has to be kept moist, or it will break. Moist wood will not burst into flames, it will smoulder. Location,location, location To set...

 The end of the discussion In the months since I took this novel off the shelves at Draft2Digital, I have been thinking of either updating it, or putting the original story back to sell. A few moments ago, I came to the decision to "ditch it" as it won't sell. It had been on sale for three years, and all I got was hate comments as the story was set in Israel . I did toy with the idea of extending the story to encompass an ending in India . I did this as I started another story about India, which was going well, then my motivation died, and I can't find the drive to write at length.

  We shared some life history Certain people in Bollywood accused actress Meena Kumari of faking tears, as she could cry, almost at will; the lady later said it was a trait she had. I can inderstand why, after reading a little of her life, all she had to do was think of what had happened, and it would make anyone cry. From the age of five, she was the breadwinner of he family. Certain aspects of her life, I had to endure too. She was told she was unwanted, her parents wanted a boy - I late late in life, I was unwanted, which explains a ot of how I felt over the years. She had a failed marriage, my marriage almost failed, no fault of my wife's; it was her son who caused the problems. Her husband was not accepted as he had cildren from another marriage, my family was not accepted for the same reason. She suffered with Chronic Insomnia , I do as well; sadly, being Hindu , she could drink milk which has been my saviour. Her doctor advised a tot of whisky which as her condition got wo...

 Phone gaming Though I have a new computer , which I use for research , rather than pc gaming . I usually play games on my phone; to the extent I am having to postpone buying this book from eBay , as I had to top my credit up, which is something I didn't do for many months. I have bought the book, and I am disapponted in it. or did I expect some more than the book is about? I hoped for stories of ghosts and demons from India ; what I got is little more than a list of the ghosts and demons.

 Sharing posts on Facebook For some time, my friend in Seattle has been sharing my blog posts to her Facebook page, and yet the site is losing ground for readers to Twitter each day.

 Raj Kapoor Reading about the lives of Bolllywood actors, and actresses has me wondering, did Nargis Dutt say nasty things about Meena Kumari , and Rekha because she considered herself unattractive? Her bitterness could have stemmed from being turned down for marriage by Raj Kapoor ; but he was a married man of several years, what did she expect? Meena Kumari died of alcoholic poisoning , the reason for this is she was a victim of spousal abuse for seeral years, to the extent she often needed help to cover her bruises. Rekha is considered the epitomy of Indian beauty these days, but when she starteed out, nobody would hire her as she was considred a "flump." It does make me wonder, what would Nargis think of today's cinema icons, such as A ishwarya Rai , H uma Qureshi , and  Priyanka Chopra ? I have seen them in films, and though I consider them attractive, their acting leaves a lot to be desired. My opinion of Nargis? She was an attractive lady, even if she could b...

 Not for the first time - nor the last Before you imagine this post to be about either Thought Leadership lessons, or Brainwashing techniques; I can assure you it has nothing to do with those horrid experiences. This morning, as many times before, my mind triggered a reaction which woke me. Usually, in a dream it will indicate the need to relieve myself. Sometimes, as today, it will wake me with the sound of someone knocking on the door when there is nobody there.

  The strange world of my blog Few things about my blog suprise me these days, but yesterday did, why? Not only is the USA dropping behind the UK for readers, yesterday I had more readers in Israel than the USA; that shows how few I had in the USA.

  Hong Kong takes the lead from Singapore Hong Kong has taken the lead from Singapore as the main group of readers for my blog , with Canada in second place ahead of the UK . The USA are lagging back with the also-ran group these days.

 Miles apart but the same scam Years ago, the Police , and the banks warned people of the Lagos scam ; so called as it originated in Nigeria . Someone will contact you with the oppportunity to get rich quick - use rule 101 - if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. In the Lagos scam, they said if you sent £1,000, they would send £7,000 back next month. Bitcoin is similiar, they tell you that you can quadruple your outlay in three months; I don't know much about stocjs and shares, but that sounded "iffy" to me. Some months ago, out of the blue, I was contacted by an attractive young lady from New York ; that immediately sent the warning flag up the pole. The more she went on about the benefits of investing, the more I wondered how much she stood to gain. There is only one thing certain with Bitcoin, as soon as you start trading, any trasnsaction you do will be flagged by the police in all countries.

 The tragedy of 12 years as a writer Several weeks ago, I closed my Amazon Author Page , I saw no reason to keep it open as it hadn't sold an eBook in over a decade.   The result of my action is I have teo restock my Kindle library from next month, that is no big issue;  the majority of eBooks in the library I bought to help others in the misguided belief they would buy some of mine to help me - what a FOOL - I also bought one or two of mine, to see if the sales would cause a rise in rankings, they didn't.

 The Keep I may have the answer to a mystery which puzzled me for years. I say I may have, the write-up is similiar, in general, to the book i recall reading many years ago; at the same time it has major differences, or maybe I thought I read somethings which were not in the book. Author E Paul Wilson said he was so disappointed with the movie of his book he didn't want anything to do with the film; over the years, the film has become a cult classic like Dune . The irony of the story is I have a copy of the film in my library, from years ago.

 The useless Facebook For me, Facebook is no use; which is why when it went down last week I wasn't worrired if it didn't return for a few days. I only use Fb for messenger , to contact my family. Viewing the blog figures for the last 24 hours, Twitter is now outrunning the site by a factor of 17 to 1, though both sites used to get the same posts.