For Americans who read my blog, zero at the last count, chokey and porridge are terms meaning prison. Of course it would have been great to be in the Big House if I had an idea for a new story. My latest WIP ran out of steam, not writer’s block but just sheer laziness and lack of inspiration. The WIP has a great chapter with a boat heading deeper into the Golden Triangle, but even that has not shaken of…..
I’m still complying with the edict to stay in doors, although did a little shopping this morning. I was thinking of prison memoirs and came up with Cassanova’s autobiography when he was imprisoned for, being a libertine in the Doges Palace, or Palace of the Leads and Edmund Dante in the Chateau d’If in The Count of Montecristo. The Playwright Brendan Behan wrote Borstal Boy about his incarceration in juveniles prison after arrest for plotting bomb making by the IRA…..
I’ve always tended to think solitary confinement, one of the serious prison punishments was a bit meeeh. I am very happy in my own company, and I only see my wife for any length of time on weekends. That rather smug perspective has been tested to destruction by the C19 pandemic. Although I’m retired, I was contracted to draft some work for my old employers. They have closed the office, and while I can work from home, I miss the…..
I’ve entitled this blog post with reference to Daniel Defoe’s novelization of an account of the 1665 plague epidemic in London. It seems appropriate to refer to this book, given that as in 1665, London ground to a halt as swingeing measures were taken to halt the advance of plague. In those far off days, the link between plague, fleas and rats was unknown so all kinds of quackery and mysticism were used as ways of warding off the plague……
I kid you not, logging on to my blog site really had me feeling like throwing my lap top of the lanai. Any way made it eventually. Anyway, The News: I was interviewed by Al Cole on his nationally syndicated radio show. Apparently he has a huge audience who refer to themselves as ALCOLEHOLICS. Until yesterday I hadn’t any contact with Al, but he’s a great communicator and we had a chat about’The Friends of Eddy Relish,’and soon to be…..
Pax Britannica is probably my favorite of the books I have written. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozKvBw3tdeQ It took a lot work to come up with an alternative history to account for the atom bomb theft. I am still a great fan of the James Bond books, and my starting point was how to retell this story and relocate it to the equatorial West Pacific. The locations of Emananus and Kavieng are real places in New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea. My wife,…..