A week of high's and lows, ups and downs, toing and froing, coming and going. Some fun, some far from fun. But the one thing you can say for the past seven days... they were a week.
So what happened:
1. A people carrier, a tank and a jet fighter were all on parked on a fairway at Celtic Manor in Newport. The members of the golf club must have been overjoyed and anyone who had booked months in advance to have a quiet golfing holiday buying Cameron, Obama and the rest a beer in the hotel bar. Surely the world leaders didn't need to meet at a golf club, any old Travelodge would have done. Having said that, last time it was Gleneagles that took the strain, so maybe they do need the odd hole in one! Let's hope it's not all golf and they actually do some good.
2. The Islamic State morons, once again proved they have nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with pure vitriolic hate and terrorism. They have to be stopped now, and the radicalisation of our children needs to be halted at schools, mosques and universities. It has to be said that it's down to the Muslim community to handle that one.
3. England once again showed their true cricketing prowess in a One Day International match. Bring back Geoffrey Boycott and Beefy Botham!
4. Poor old Luke Donald was left out of the Ryder Cup team, while Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter were picked as wildcards in his stead. I have to agree with the decision though. Poulter is such a fighter and so passionate, while Westwood always does well in the Ryder Cup. Luke Donald isn't having a good year and although he's a very technically precise player, he's not as passionate as the other two. Let's hope Obama, Cameron and crew get off Celtic Manor so the team can practice!
5. A Jamaican who had spent some years in prison (for rape, I believe) and was being expelled from the UK, suddenly remembered he was gay as he boarded the plane in handcuffs. He was immediately take back to prison (presumably) and is now allowed to stay in the UK on the basis he might be persecuted in Jamaica because he's gay, plus of course he has the right to a family life. Was he gay when he was raping women, or had he forgotten? Besides, if he's really gay, who would know in Jamaica, unless he was going to tell them. He certainly never told anyone in the UK before! The "Get Out Of Jail Free" card!
6. In line with event #5 Manchester United's new signing is having problems. He's being paid £300k a week and he's being given a gratis club house (it won't be a 2 up, 2 down) so he's hardly going to be a drain on the UK economy, in fact at current tax rates we'll benefit to the tune of £120k a week and you can bet he won't be shoving the rest under a mattress! Local garages, clubs and boutiques must be rubbing their hands in anticipation! The problem is his work permit isn't quite right and without that he can't come into the country. He should have said he was a gay Jamaican.
7. Also on the question of immigration, the migrants in Calais are getting more and more desperate, even to the extent of climbing into the boot of a private car. The man in question wasn't discovered by the driver until she was in Dover, by which time it was too late and the population had increased by one. With well over a thousand migrants at the port of Calais trying to get to the UK by any means, and many more heading that way, the situation is critical. Open borders in the EEC is fine, providing all countries are equal, but they never will be, and the poorest people from the poorest countries will always try to get the better off to improve their lives. That was always going to happen, so why didn't our politicians recognise the fact instead of pussyfooting around talking about Human Rights Acts?
Now we have the mayor of Calais talking about closing the port. Not good.
8. On a personal note, we booked a week's holiday in Tunisia and plan to visit Carthage, something I've always wanted to see. We need the break after my daughter's wedding and the wind down from that!
9. After some weeks trying to get action, BT have eventually agreed to disconnect one of the BT lines I have in the house (one was for home and the other for business). We only now need the home line as I've effectively retired to become a blockbusting success as an author! The trouble is I have BT Infinity Broadband on my business line and I want it moved across to the home line. Trying to explain that to India has been a nightmare. They threatened me with massive penalties if I cancelled and large fees for doing the work. On one occasion the line just went dead. Eventually I spoke to someone in the UK by pretending I wanted to buy something and after much slow explaining got the guy to understand what I want. The engineer is coming Monday to do the entire job. Firtsly BT are charging nothing to do the work and secondly there is no penalty (Yah, Boo Sucks to India!). Better than that my home tariff including broadband has gone down by nearly £10 a month and I no longer pay for the other line, a saving of over £60 a month!. On top of that I will now be able to get BT Sport for nothing, even though we have Sky! Result!
Naturally Royal Mail tried to deliver the hub / router yesterday while I was out, and even though there was a big label on the slim box saying it was designed to go through a letterbox, they took it away and I had to drive 6 miles today to pick it up.
9. Marit Meredith's long-awaited anthology of poems and stories for children called The Shambelurkers Return came out in paperback this week. At the moment it's available from Lulu, but it will be out on Amazon hopefully next month. Proceeds go the children's section for NAS which desperately needs the money. It's actually also a rather good read!
That Was The Week That Was!
Blog on, Dudes!
Friday, 5 September 2014
Monday, 25 August 2014
A wedding!
With the exception of the odd fight, few events bring people together more than a wedding, and few people are more proud than the bride's father!This past weekend it was my turn, when my beautiful daughter married her wonderful fiancee Ben. We had three days of perfect weather, and the venue and catering couldn't have been better.
We started on Friday with a golf match for 21 of the guests, including myself, which gave me the opportunity to meet many new acquaintances and make many life-time friends.
We couldn't have asked for a better weekend, of son-in-law.
I've attached some photos .
Please wish the happy pair happiness!
Friday, 15 August 2014
Occasionally at the foot of my weekly Friday evening blog post I put a link to my books on Amazon, but not often. Let's face it, people don't read my blog so they can be directed to a site where they can spend their hard-earned money.... minimal though the cost may be.
But tonight I'm going to break the habit of a lifetime and make this a selling blog, mainly because a week ago today the second book in my Temporal Detective Agency series, Trouble With Swords, was published by Crooked Cat as both an eBook and paperback. The next day I had a book signing at The Book Shop in Lee-on-the-Solent at which the shop staff dressed up as characters from the book and I took along Excalibur. We sold lots of books, including a load of Leap of Faith, the first in the series!
Tomorrow I'm signing at Calliope Gifts in Alton and I know it's going to be great fun.So, on to the selling bit! If you haven't already bought a copy, then PLEASE do, especially if you have teenage kids. Please also tell people about it and share the links.
Trouble With Swords is available is an eBook for the promotional price of 99p / $1.66 at the following link:-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trouble-Swords-Richard-Hardie-ebook/dp/B00MEWG5D8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1408123213&sr=1-1&keywords=richard+hardie
And Leap of Faith is available on Amazon at:-http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Richard-Hardie-ebook/dp/B00GQHXSHS/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1408123213&sr=1-2&keywords=richard+hardie
Friday, 8 August 2014
Interview with Tertia. Founder of the Temporal Detective Agency!
My interview tonight is with a 15 year old time travelling apprentice wizard whose early adventures were immortalised in the book Leap of Faith... released last by Crooked Cat Publishing and are now continuing in Trouble With Swords. It’s none other than Tertia, one of the founders of The Temporal Detective Agency.
Tertia, it’s a pleasure to be talking to you again today, especially as the first time I heard your name was 10 years ago. Mind you as you travel in time you haven’t aged at all, while I (allegedly) have the odd grey hair now.
Er... what are you doing?
Counting the odd grey hairs. Could take me a week or two, I reckon, and Marlene would definitely have to take her shoes and socks off!
You mean Neets? What’s to tell? We originally came from near Camelot, where our families had small farms until they were burnt to the ground by the Black Knight. He was a nasty bit of work. Then we travelled through Merl’s Time Portal to the 21st century and here we are!
Hang on. A Time Portal? What’s that?
You wrote the bleedin’ books. Why’d you need me to tell you? You’re the writer guy!
I know, but many of my blog readers won’t have read Leap of Faith yet let alone Trouble With Swords, so they’ll be stunned that time travel really exists and is being used by a couple of teenage girls. Humour me.
Okey Dokey. Neets (that’s my cousin Unita to you) and I sort of inherited Merl’s cave and with it came her Time Portal. And, like, we’re going to use it aren’t we?
Merl? I don’t think I know her.
Yeh. You know, Merlin the wizard. She’s Merl to me. You must have heard of Merl Grey tea? She invented that years ago. So anyway, we started the Temporal Detective Agency with Merl’s sister Marlene.
Merlin had a sister? Merlin was a woman?
But why did you come here? Why didn’t you stay in Camelot?
It’s obvious. We moved to the 21st century because the cases were much more interesting and mostly because the toilet facilities are SOOOO much better. Flushing loos and toilet paper. Bliss! Besides which it took you nearly ten years to get us into a book and Neets and I wanted to have a little chat with you as to why it took so long. I mean.... scribble, scribble, scribble, and it’s done! What took you so long?
Never mind that. We’ll have a chat later. If you came to the future, how come you still live in a cave?
Don’t get huffy, writer mate! It may be a cave to you, but it’s home to me, Neets, Marlene, Galahad and the cats. You think Dr Who invented the “bigger on the inside than it is on the outside” bit. Come off it, we were years ahead. Actually centuries ahead. Hot and cold running waiters. Our cave is a bleedin’ mansion! So many wings, it’ll probably fly away!
Tell me about your names Tertia and Unita. They're unusual.
Not really. They're not our real names - which incidentally I'm not going to tell you - but Merl had a terrible memory, so instead of always getting our names wrong she gave us numbers. She only ever had three apprentice wizards at a time so they were always called Unita, Douvet and Tertia. Get it... One Two and Three. Simple!
What happened to Douvet then?
Ok, let’s move on to the Agency. Is it profitable?
Depends what you mean by profitable. Er... no! Mind you, we don’t turn work away and we have a motto “No job too small. No fee too big”. Catchy, isn’t it? Well, we thought so anyway, but we’re still working on the fee bit. Mind you our clients tend to be royalty and you know what they're like with money. Ask them for a few quid and they just look blankly at you.
In Leap of Faith you have some pretty hair-raising adventures battling ship wreckers and smugglers. Can you tell us what happens in Trouble With Swords?
No way, José! If I tell everyone what an incredibly hair-raising set of adventures the Agency had in Camelot, Ancient Rome, Elizabethan London and Egypt they won’t need to buy the bleedin’ book. If I told you we met two Roman emperors, Cleopatra and Shakespeare, we'd be giving the game away. Get your head screwed on, writer man, Blimey!
Good point, Tertia. So will there be other books about you and the other members of the Agency?
You’re asking me? Look, we’ll have the adventures, no problem, because we’re having fun. But it’s up to you to put finger to keyboard and tell the world what we’ve done. So what’s the answer, smart guy?
When you put it like that, Tertia, as long as you and the Agency are having adventures and I enjoy writing them up for you, there’ll be more Temporal Detective Agency books. Deal?
Right! Now let’s get back to the party and have some fun before Neets’s cats eat all the virtual food and Marlene drinks all the booze! Are we done?
I suppose we must be if you put it like that.
Great! Only last thing, and I’m only going to shout this once... BUY THE BLEEDIN’ BOOKS. You can get them at the following links.
and
Trouble With Swords is available on Amazon at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trouble-Swords-Richard-Hardie-ebook/dp/B00MEWG5D8/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_1
Trouble With Swords is available on Amazon at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trouble-Swords-Richard-Hardie-ebook/dp/B00MEWG5D8/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_1
Both books are also available through most independent bookshops in the UK and on line through Foyles, Waterstones and Lovereading4kids.
Richard's website is:
Richard blog is at
Friday, 1 August 2014
Posting a blog every week when it's expected to be there at around 7.00pm every Friday isn't as easy as it might sound.
Honest!
During that time my blog has had over 36,000 views, averaging around 1,400 per month which is fantastic and many thanks to everyone who looked in to read my thoughts and drivel.
So where are you?
You're all over the world and the table below only shows the countries with the most views
Kenya, Chile, Israel, Sweden and Taiwan all visit regularly.
During that time I've interviewed some fascinating people, both famous, infamous and not so well know. Currently broadcaster Sue Cook is the most viewed interviewee with nearly 1,500 views, with author Many James with 1,400.
Interviewing the great Bernard Cornwell was a thrill and I was amazed when he agreed to answer my sycophantic questions! Actually he was very open about his private life, how he got into writing and what his intentions are for his various historical series. The big news is that there will be more books!
It's not all been about interviewing people though. I've also blogged about our wonderful UK bankers, whose reputation for wholesome integrity has become somewhat tarnished. Some, not all, have shown themselves to be sharks, thieves and greedy idiots though believed themselves above the law. Banks themselves believed that tax was for the "little people" not for them, and profits were to be divvied out as bonuses. The bank remuneration committees were made up of other bankers who in turn expected their bonuses to confirmed on a scratch-your-back-scratch-my-back basis. Bankers give estate agents and bad name!
I also blagged about the plague of call centers, which lately has included a company that keeps phoning telling me it has been reported that I'm having nuisance call which they can halt by putting a black box on the back of my phone for a chunk of money. The scammers will think of everything.
Oh yes, and then there were scammers. There are so many, from the Nigerian "I want to give you $10m" Nigerian email scam, to the old fake Viagra scam, the phishing scams, the Inland Revenue rebate scam, to the "you have a virus, let me download a fix to your computer" scam
It's been an interesting blogging time, but I'll only blog if people enjoy reading my posts and I love comments.... so leave a few!
Blog on, Dudes!
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