And the beauty of the islands… We sunbathed on Whiting Bay beach and walked some of Arran’s coastal path. Then in Mull we visited the croft where our nephew was staying with friends – breathtaking views. Not a midge or a wind farm in sight!! Not that the midges spoil the views just one’s enjoyment of them! With the proposed desecration of our beautiful country, the wind turbines will also kill wildlife including the bats (which by the way eat midges!)

This morning I was on Good Morning Scotland talking about e-books with Gary Robertson.

Today is Easter Monday and we have a free download of A Million Tears and Mayhem on Kindle. Please tell friends and family if you read this in time.

My new thriller, Corruption, is just finishing being edited and hopefully should be out on Kindle shortly.

While on a personal life I couldn’t be happier, I look at the world around us and feel despondent.

Look at the basics. We have never had so many politicians. We have MEPs, MPs, Scottish Assembly Members, regional councils etc. We pay for them all. They all have reasonable salaries, decent pensions (except MEPs who have very generous salaries and pensions beyond avarice), decent pensions and very generous expenses (except MEPs who have exceptionally generous expenses).

We are paying for a level of incompetency we don’t want and, more to the point, don’t need. What are we to do about it? Do you ever wonder what these people do on a day to day level? Last week I think I found the answer when I read the following:

Lord’s prayer: 66words; 10 Commandments: 179 words; US Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words; US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: 7,818 words; EU regulations on the sale of cabbage:……….. wait for it ……… 26,911 words!!!

Writing thrillers has, in many ways, been cathartic. They allow me to vent my spleen against the powers-that-be hence the reason the stories have a degree of politics mixed up in them. In Debacle for instance a group of bankers and politicians are taken prisoner. I have had great feedback on the book, with many a reader saying “tongue in cheek” why would we want to rescue the hostages?

In the past most MPs had done many other things in their lives before taking up politics. Many had been through the war and had seen and experienced hardship. Or had worked in factories and trade unions or been in business. Nowadays people read politics in university and then decide which party to join, first as a researcher then working through the system before, they hope, getting a safe seat. Check out the level of idiocy we have in the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament, the UK Government and the European Parliament.

Hang on! They do little, earn good salaries and have generous allowances. Who, one wonders, are the idiots? Us or them?

Anyway back to my birthday on 11th February. As a thank you to my readers, in case they missed it last time, we are again offering the FREE Kindle offer. But this time for both A Million Tears and Mayhem. These will be free to download all day on the 11th. So please spread the word. But we didn’t want to leave non-kindle readers out, so are offering A Million Tears for £2.50 (plus £2.50P&P) up until the end of February. Signed and personalised this will make a great Valentines or Mother’s Day gift.

Thanks again for all the emails…… now back to Nick who is currently chasing baddies in a Swiss ski resort!

Or at least it is for most people.

Me? I’m lucky. I can live in a world of my own making, my own choosing where the good guys win and the bad guys have a rotten time.

I also find that bad weather is conducive to writing. I can stay in my study, coal fire burning and escape to anywhere I like. For instance, the new Nick Hunter I am now editing has him chasing the bad guys in Switzerland over the New Year. Though I have to confess that even as I am writing it I wish I was there, enjoying the skiing and especially the apres ski.

I have just found a great site called Goodreads for book lovers. I have rated the books I have enjoyed as has Dorothy. If you register with the site be sure and “friend” us by selecting our names. That way you can see what books we love (and hate!). As we are both avid readers it will also be great for us to see your recommendations.

I have to start working on another national tour around the country soon. It does actually take a lot of planning to travel the UK, agree book-signing dates and find suitable places to stay that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

What a dreach (my favourite Scottish word) winter we have had. My son and his family were over from Switzerland and for 2 weeks it didn’t stop raining. And a couple of massive storms thrown in for good measure. Still, with television at its usual level – aimed at 12 year olds (I’m being generous when I say that) – a good book is a great way to spend an evening. Vince Flynn never disappoints. Or you could try A Million Tears or one of the Nick Hunter thrillers. Mayhem is still under a £1 for Kindle readers.

I hope 2012 is a good year for everyone.

Still, our grandson of 2 years will be visiting and isn’t it wonderful how the kids inject life into us? And as we all know, we can enjoy having them, enjoy the wonder and awe they will be feeling over the Christmas period and then, joy of all joys, having borrowed them, we can give them back! Just about perfect.

Those of you who use electronic gadgets to read books may like to know that TURMOIL will be available through Amazon – Kindle within the next week or so.

I have also written another Nick Hunter in record time. I have chosen a subject which is highly topical yet we don’t think has been written about up until now. That is one heck of a claim. So watch this space. If I am wrong no doubt somebody will correct me!!!

Finally, last Saturday we went to see the Status Quo concert in Glasgow. It was a packed audience. The music was excellent (especially the Roy Wood Band). However what spoiled it was the intensity of the flashing strobe lights. It is a while since I have been at a concert but in my time I have seen the Beatles, Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Freddie and the Dreamers and a number of others. Of course they didn’t have the technology in those days but the concerts were brilliant because we were there to see the performers. The little I have seen of the X factor (trust me that is VERY little) the lighting and special effects are way over the top. That is fine – these youngsters are not experienced performers and probably need the effects. But Status Quo? Do the bright and overpowering effects enhance or detract from their music? I’d love to know what you think. Dorothy saw them at Knockhill a few years ago, without a massive stage production, and said the experience was far more enjoyable than on Saturday. So if anyone from the Quo’s management team are reading this…….

Have a great Christmas and New Year and, hopefully, I’ll see you next year as I travel the country visiting towns I would normally speed past while racing down a motorway.

The vast majority of us have been aware for years that huge problems were looming ahead. Problems that will overwhelm us and will be left for our children to sort out. Yet the politicians insist on continuing down the same track at the end of which is Armaggedon. At the start of this morning’s Nicky Campbell show they quoted Italy’s debt as 1.6 trillion and by the end of the show the experts were quoting 1.9 trillion!! Both Dorothy and I were brought up by mothers who handled the family finances. They did this along the lines of Charles Dicken’s Mr Micawber. For any younger readers of this blog, the Micawber principle is:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

How can the politicians have got it so wrong? – I don’t even know how many zeros are in a trillion! If only they had followed the principles of our parents generation – putting something away for a rainy day. As a child I well remember my post office savings books where 50% of my pocket money was invested every week – not something I see happening with today’s children. By the way Meg Griffiths in A Million Tears is based on both my mother and mother-in-law. Strong women, very much the backbones of their families.

I’m an author and if I had written a novel 10 years ago about our current international debt fiasco, I would have been ridiculed. Yes, most of our politicians have never had a proper job. Yes, most of our politicians do not understand that in order to have economic growth people need to be spending money – a great deal of money. Yes, they have no understanding of the fact that all of us are now reducing debt. Hence there won’t be economic growth at the level we need to solve the problems they have created.

Do you ever get the feeling that the lunatics are running the asylum? I do.

One last thing about Nero. First, there was no such instrument as the fiddle. It wasn’t invented until the 16th century. Secondly, as always, the story was written by those who won the war against Nero. Hence, the battle for Europe and the Euro will be written by Europe’s politicians, if they continue with political unity and Europe’s bankruptcy. Somebody please hand me a sick bag.

When I was at sea as a naval officer, one of my tasks was to fix the ship’s position. Today, we press a button and we get an immediate position to within yards of where the ship is steaming. In those days, I had to use a sextant, it took at least 30 minutes to plot the ship’s position, and after months of training I became good enough to be able to report to the captain that we were within a mile or two of the position plotted.

Most of my life I have had to use maps. They have varied from small scale country-wide maps to large scale Ordnance Survey maps where 1 inch was 1 mile. Going long distances and arriving at your destination took planning. Today your computer tells you how far you will be travelling and your satnav will tell you how to get there. To the door of your destination. It will even speak the language of your choice!

I wrote A Million Tears using an Olivetti portable typewriter whilst sitting on an oilrig off the coast of Nigeria where I was in charge of a saturation diving system. The ribbon dried out and I used to have to smash the keys down to make an indentation on the paper until I could buy a new ribbon. Today I have progressed enormously. I now use Windows 3.1 and write on an IBM Think Pad which 20 years ago cost us just over £2,000.

In my youth we had BBC1. Then ITV. Then BBC2. Now? Now there are hundreds of channels, with a huge variety of programmes (mostly rubbish as we all know) and we can record them, store them and watch them at our leisure.

As a writer of fiction, I can allow my imagination to run wild and think of things that don’t exist. One example was the explosives detection torch in “Mayhem”. Although I dreamt it up, I have subsequently learnt that in the last couple of years something similar has been made.

Every aspect of our lives is now controlled or influenced by a computer. The power of the smallest chip is mind numbing.

My favourite topic – Books! I remember seeing the first e-book reader a few years ago. I thought “this will never catch on – too clunky and awkward”. Now look at the Kindle. With the power it has to hold so many books you can carry almost a library on a machine slightly bigger than the palm of your hand. You can even change the size of the print. It is no wonder with the reduced price it will be one of this year’s most popular gifts for Christmas.

No generation will ever experience these huge changes within their lifetime. No other generation will appreciate and be awed by technology the way we are. They will take it in their stride and come to expect ever greater power and innovation. Smaller, cheaper, faster.

What, I often wonder, would David Griffiths of the Tears Saga have done in today’s world. Like me I suspect he would have been in awe. My son, Richard and my daughter, Louise are in accord on one fact. I’m a Luddite. Albeit a nostalgic one for my trusty sextant.

My books are now on Kindle by the way.

THERE is a touch of James Bond about Welsh thriller writer Paul Henke’s military background.

He became a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, had adventures around the world as an underwater explosives expert and survived a machine gun attack by the IRA.

But unlike 007, Paul prefers a drop of whiskey to a vodka martini and he is happily married with two children.

And he is not averse to playing practical jokes on the Royal Family, once tricking Prince Charles into taking a mouthful of cold tea on a sea voyage.

He has been a thriller writer for the past eight years, with his latest book, Turmoil, the fifth instalment of his Nick Hunter series of anti-terrorism fiction novels.

It tells the story of a plot to bring a plutonium “dirty bomb” to London and efforts by Hunter’s International Force Against Terrorism to stop it.

And the author says the fictional plot is something real-life police and anti-terrorism squads are constantly thinking about.

He said: “We have the Olympic Games in London next year and one of the greatest fears is the detonation of a dirty bomb.

“Such a weapon might not have the immediate killing power of a conventional nuclear bomb which terrorists do not have the ability to produce.

“But it could still claim many lives, make whole cities no-go areas for years and cause massive disruption.”

Paul was born and raised in Church Village in Rhondda Cynon Taf, the son of a Polish immigrant father who came to the UK during World War II.

He was educated at Pontypridd Boys’ Grammar and from an early age had a burning desire to be a Royal Naval officer.

He said: “With my surname and Welsh accent, I did not think I would get a chance but I was taken on at Dartmouth Royal Naval College.

“When I got there, I was the only one without a plummy accent but I served 23 enjoyable years in the Royal Navy.”

After graduating from the college, he signed up for an underwater mine disposal course.

He said: “The £1-a-day danger money had nothing to do with it, of course.”

He later captained minesweepers, used plastic explosives to blow up live World War II mines floating around the British coast and travelled abroad helping other nations to dispose of deadly undersea booby traps.

On a Royal Navy boat at Carlingford Lough in 1976 on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, he and his crew mates were sprayed with machine gun fire by IRA men, thought to be involved in gun running.

He said: “We chased them for a while but they disappeared. It was a close run thing.”

Paul said he passionately believed that today’s war fighting soldiers were not getting the support they deserved from the UK Government.

He said: “I was in America once and met a couple who were over there to spend $1,000 on a kevlar vest for their daughter who was in the services.

“They had been there a year before to buy one for their son.

“I think it’s disgusting kit like that is not automatically given to the boys and girls fighting for us abroad.”

The writer spent a year working on ships with Prince Charles, who he became friendly with.

He said he once sent a bottle of cold tea in an empty bottle of Famous Grouse whiskey to the royal by rope.

He said: “I replaced the seal when I took out the whiskey and put in the cold tea. That was wise because another crew mate told thePprince ‘Don’t trust Henke, he’s probably p****d in it’.”

“When he saw the seal still on, he opened it and took a swig then spat it all out.

“We became friends. He’s a nice bloke and was very popular in the Navy. He sent me a letter just last year.”

Paul began his writing career in Nigeria when he was involved in a diving project as a private contractor after leaving the navy.

He said: “You can get bored at sea and people deal with it in different ways. I started to write.”

Paul has also produced a series of historical books known collectively as the Tears Saga about generations of the fictional Griffiths family who left Wales in the 1800s for life in the New World.

The writer now lives near Loch Lomond, Scotland, with his wife and two teenage children.

He said: “I fell in love with Scotland while at the Rosyth Naval base but I still go back to Wales a lot and still have family there.”

Read More @ Wales Online