I remember listening to David Attenborough talking about filming nature and wild animals. He was discussing being honest and how ‘certain’ (Walt Disney) film makers had portrayed animals as they never were for the sake of the story or camera or appealing to audiences preconceptions. So famously in the Disney nature films the lemmings leaping…
Hilarious Press Conference
Cartoon I love the cartoon we chose for publicity and I think Jackie’s animation of it is perfect.
Let’s Talk To The Dead
It is big business in some part of the UK so attend meetings where someone starts talking to deceased people. The techniques involved in pretending to do this are well documented not the least by Erik Weisz (Harry Houdini) who spent years trying to talk to his mother and called all such Mediums charlatans. But…
Montrose
In a few months I will be publishing my first thriller, though it actually was the second thriller I ever write. My agent back in 1990 said I had to write three and I did so though in the two years he was my agent he never got me taken. My first thriller was about…
One World, One Government
One language, one set of laws for all, no passports. Is this a better way to run human civilisation? If you think these are things that make up human civilisation I would assume so. If you think that difference automatically leads to conflict I would assume so. Except in this better world view everything is…
The Lakeside View
Rivers are the most wonderful natural waterways. Here in the UK they have cleaned them up a great deal over the past generation and much of the damage done to them from pollution has been reversed, though there is still a lot to do. The freshness and sound of running water is one of the…
Galanthus Nivalis
The snowdrop has ever been the first flower of spring. Planted out by gardeners to cover whole banks with their seeds, our garden has hardly changed in ten years with most of the clumps of snowdrops staying where they were planted reticent to expand. Until I built the wooden shed and the earth pile from…
Once Upon A Time . . .
there was a dream and a dreamer for all dreams need dreamers and all dreamers need dreams. And the dream was in colour because life is in colour, only thoughts can be black and white. And the colours were all the colours you would expect because they were images of real colours. And all the…
Education
In the insightful book ‘The Boy Who Was Brought Up as A Dog’, Perry points out that in a lifetime of work he discovered the crucial importance of the first three years of life to the actions and reactions of the adult. It is in those years, when we barely speak, when we are putting…
Words Pander
As I have been writing this everyday I remember my mother telling me that words pander. If you are literate you can write and but just because you can write does not make you an artist of any calibre. Words will always flow. She explained this to me on many occasions telling me once that…