30th December 2018

2018. A year of fire, eruptions and tsunamis - and that’s just in government! There’s the usual array of Honours given to the unremarkable whilst the true heroes, those who put their lives on the line for others, with no desire for publicity, are left with nothing. Meanwhile, the man in the street is busy contaminating the oceans with all that festive plastic. Globally, Merkel prepares her swansong, Macron has turned a ghastly shade of yellow and Trump fights a wall of his own making. Elsewhere, nations fight over whose land belongs to whom. My dream for 2019? Taking the criterion that land belongs to those settlers who have the earliest claim to it - e.g. the Jewish people residing in biblical Judea and Samaria, who were ejected by the Romans in AD 135, the Romans then renaming it ‘Palestina’ (the Hebrew word for which is Plishtin, the invader!) - that should solve all land disputes. At the first hint of fighting, a global committee of impartial, learned historians and archaeologists should publish academically-reviewed, historical timelines, the land awarded to the oldest known settlers. That should quench the fires.
A calm, soothing and healthy New Year to you all.

23rd December 2018

A tale of two tiny countries...
All hell was let loose inside the Commons over a sexist comment instead of concentrating on the Brexit chaos and the Irish backstop. And yet, if they had studied tiny Switzerland, they might have wondered how it is that an independent country, surrounded by 5 EU countries, does not have any hard borders. It’s because Switzerland is part of the Schengen agreement. But here’s the interesting bit. Switzerland has had a referendum about staying in the Schengen agreement and the Swiss overwhelmingly voted Leave. So why haven’t we heard about it? Because the Swiss government, in its wisdom, overruled the poll results on the basis that leaving would be too dangerous! And clearly the Swiss did not riot in the streets, going back to polishing clocks or whatever it is the Swiss do. And then came the drones, paralysing a major London airport. In came another tiny country, Israel which, despite its long, continued fight against illogical hatred, still found time to send London its supreme ‘iron dome’ expertise.
‘...It’s a far far better thing that I have done...’

16th December 2018

Watching the Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars) final last night, I was struck by the fact that the public voted not on the dancing expertise but the personalities involved. The same with Brexit it seems. So, ignoring personalities, let’s focus. The crux of the Brexiteer argument: over the last 40 years, too many immigrants (first from Asia, then from the EU) landed on this tiny island, overloading public resources and changing the character of the nation. The Remainers love the free access to mainland Europe and to trade across the continent to maintain economic stability. What do I think? We need to find a way for Britain to stay in the EU for economic and trade reasons but then change its rules from within. We should work to add a necessary clause in the EU rules to recognise that nations of a tiny size like Britain but also an economic magnet need an absolute immigrant-limit in order to function. Otherwise we’re dancing with disaster.

9th December 2018

Order! Order! Pantomime season has arrived.  First the French. Even though the President has totally scrapped the planned fuel tax rise, still the riots continue. Proof positive that once a momentum has started to roll, rationality flies out the window. And the British? Here’s what the Brexiteers have to say: ‘...feels like we no longer own our country;  now just tenants, forced to take into our tiny island way too many unsuitable lodgers. Still reeling from Blair’s earlier policy. Feels like I’m living in a suburb of Bangladesh...’ And from the Remainers: ‘it’s the economy, stupid. Need to be part of the ever-burgeoning federal project of the United States of Europe...don’t care if we’re governed by former enemy Germany. For peace it’s worth it.’ So, what’s gonna happen Tuesday? For the Labour party it’s clear: their vote has nothing to do with Brexit: all to do with forcing out the government and ensuring a General Election. Oh what a circus, oh what a show!

2nd December 2018

200 years ago a little Frenchman with a beaky nose rose to fame but then tried to quell the flames of a French revolution....
Today a similarly-short, sharp-nosed, Frenchman has the same problem.  The people may no longer be sans-culottes (trouser-less) but the whole world now know what gilets jaunes (yellow vests) mean.  What on earth is happening in Paris, a city of culture, high ideals and philosophy?  As with many ‘peaceful’  protest marches, it’s been infiltrated by the extremist hard-left, always trying to smash capitalism. And yet the original rationale for the march was understandable:  workers earning the French average pay of c.€24k p.a. finding it impossible to live in one of the world’s most expensive cities.  Properties there are totally unaffordable, even the appartements costing millions. And yet, the irony is that Macron’s party is neither right-wing nor left-wing, so which bit is it that the French are protesting about?
.....such irony that the present day revolution is fuelled by a party called En Marche!  Don’t think somehow that was meant to be an instruction to the people!

25th November 2018

A recent episode of the Apprentice showed the hapless, egotistical candidates trying to ‘found’ a new budget airline. Significantly, they focussed entirely on their own ideals, rather than what their ‘future customers’ would need. So, their hostesses wore low-cut tops, totally impractical for leaning over seated passengers, Highway to Hell background music and an explosive logo.  Today too many world leaders also live too much in their own little bubble. Macron this week was  surprised that the people are objecting to the new level of state taxes. He’d been so involved in his own grandiose schemes, he’d taken his eye off the ball. Globally, personal salaries fluctuate alarmingly. Whilst the French and UK leaders earn a similar amount of c. £160k p.a., the head of a charity like UNICEF earns c. £390k! Instead of glorying in his own riches, the latter should cut his salary by £300k and give it to the poor people he supposedly works for. Charities should not be run like big business. The moral here is clear: forget about yourself and focus on helping others. That’s what charity is really about.

18th November 2018

Who’s the loneliest - PM May or President Macron?  Here’s what Europe has to say:
Ouest-France, France’s best-selling paper, sympathises with May, calling her ‘courageous and remarkable’ because (unlike Cameron) she’s put country before Party. Italy is bewildered over Brexit. They say Europe should be united, not building walls like Trump. In Germany, Spiegal Online calls May ‘the lonely heroine of British theatre’. And Macron?  Despite troubles at home this week, he’s desperately ploughing a one-man furrow to pursue his global ambitions to be the first President of an idealised United States of Europe.  And me?  It’s a global clash between mass nationalism, each nation desperate to retain its individual identity but then prone to war against rivals, and leftist dreams of a communist-like single Earth - but with one totalitarian world leader fixated on his own power.  Even I’m feeling lonely at the prospect.

11th November 2018

Watching the war veterens on the Royal British Legion programme last night, I realised the complexities of war and the varying personalities of whichever leader was in power at the time...
11/11.  100 years since the end of WWI. This week, President Macron and PM May visited the same railway carriage in Compiegne that Hitler and Petain, the Vichy leader, used to sign that infamous WWII armistice. On Wednesday Macron had to backpedal on his idea to award a posthumous medal to Petain on his WWI exploits, due to global outrage. Each war, though, was fought for different reasons. The first could have been avoided, based as it was on the usual clash of nation v nation, but not the second - where (unlike Stalin) an evil madman was committing racial genocide on his own people and pursuing world domination. He had to be stopped.
.....but, having researched Petain’s life, I see it as complicated. That’s why I wrote my controversial book VICHYSSOISE - showing how a nation’s choice of leader at any one time can go catastrophically wrong. Remember and memorialise all those who tragically lost their lives in war, but be very very careful whom you elect into office...

4th November 2018

Enjoyed a lovely day yesterday with son Jon, discussing everything from Brexit to his forthcoming move to the US and things digital. I’d recently bought an expensive GPS system for the car. Wrong! All you need now, apparently, is to download onto your smart phone an app called Waze, which even allows you to speak your destination. Cost of the app? Free. On his phone he enjoys a game called Aircoin, where you walk around and zap ‘coins’ - a fun free way to increase physical exercise. With the festive season on the horizon and the world literally awash with plastic, we should think sensibly. While we wait for governments to ban all plastic manufacture, we need to ignore all those glitzy advertised gifts which will be ditched a few days later. We don’t need monogrammed cheese boards and the like to show people we love them. The important things in life are talking to family and friends. Whether you live in France/US/UK, use the wonders of tech if you’ve lost your way or to improve physical health but never forget to connect with those you love.

28th October 2018

The clocks went back today, an anachronism. Native Americans say if you cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it on the bottom, the cloth’s still the same length. It’s made me look back at my long life. I remember coats on the bed for blankets, no phone, no TV, no car. And then my teenage years clashed with the twist and shout of the 60s when everything changed, supposedly for the better. No more wars. Respect for everyone. Working hard would ensure good living standards and homes for all. What happened? People got greedy. Riches without working for it. Fast forward to today. Incredibly, holocaust deniers like Robert Faurisson, who died in Vichy of all places this week, spend their time denying the obvious truths of the past. And events, as in Philadelphia yesterday, still result in horrific bloodshed. The clock’s ticking. Don’t blind yourself to past horrors or get embroiled in extreme hatred; learn from the past so when the Spring comes we can all look forward with hope again.

21st October 2018

The clock stopped at 09.13h on this day in 1966 as thousands of tonnes of coal slurry engulfed a village in Aberfan, Wales. This week Cambridge students foolishly said we shouldn’t commemorate Armistice day as it glorifies war. And yesterday there was a huge march in London by those advocating a second referendum vote on Brexit. However, some of the banners (Stop the Tory Brexit) spoiled the message that this was an all-people’s march. The media in general is hugely biased, often omitting serious warlike infractions if the perpetrators are seen as the ‘underdog’. Who chooses which events are to be reported on, thereby influencing world opinions? Whatever happens globally - whether disasters like Aberfan, marches by the people or continued aggression by those currently  proclaimed ‘underdog’ peoples - we, the people, deserve to hear accurate reporting so that we can form our own opinions and help make the world a better place. Stop biased reporting so we can distinguish between what is real and true, like Aberfan, and other ‘selectively-chosen’ events.

14th October 2018

Wasn’t going to mention Friday’s royal wedding but...
..turned out to be quite entertaining, certainly when gale force winds caught a flash reveal of underwear on the steep steps of St. George’s Chapel. However, we were all agog. Did royal protocol allow Fergie to be invited? Surely, as the bride’s mother? Would HM herself put in an appearance, given the unfortunate history of Andrew and Sarah decades ago?  Fast forward and it was a triumph. Fergie, dressed in emerald green, duly arrived, followed by the royal tots all in matching cummerbunds of emerald green, followed by the bride wearing the Queen’s emerald tiara!  At a fashion stroke Sarah had cemented herself back in the royal family. And how lovely to see Eugenie and Jack so dignified and in love. If only Charles and his aunt Margaret had been allowed to marry their first love right from the start...
So, I’m left wondering. Will Sarah re-marry Andrew? Hope so.

7th October 2018

Yesterday when I was young, the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue....
Friday saw French President Macron pay tribute at the funeral of singer Charles Aznavour. A large crowd at Les Invalides in Paris heard that the young Emmanuel grew up singing Aznavour songs such as Hier encore, my own personal favourite. French singers are generally not lauded for the quality of their voice, but for the poetry of their lyrics. I challenge anyone who’s never heard it to listen to the words of Yesterday When I Was Young and not be moved to tears. Yet the Aznavour national tribute on Friday was more than that. He was rightly given the illustrious Wallenberg award in Tel Aviv for his and his family’s efforts in the ‘40s in hiding the persecuted, thereby saving many people’s lives against the tyranny of the Nazis. It’s why I wrote Vichyssoise about the French during WWII. In times of terror, everyone should emulate what the Aznavours did. .
....the friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away, and only I am left on stage to end the play.

30th September 2018

Yesterday Him indoors made a painful decision about his beloved, but ageing and now unaffordable Land Rover. Elsewhere in Bham, today begins the Tory party conference. Last week saw the Labour conference, where FB was awash with US WTF comments about images of a sea of Palestinian flags being waved!  Neither the average American nor I can understand how any country, at a major political rally, would be waving someone else’s flag. Par contre, we can expect a sea of Union Jacks at the Tory conference here, where they propose a new Festival of Britain, nearly 70 years after the original one. That’s the choice for voters:  one party which promotes someone else’s flag, never flies the Union Jack and believes in discredited Marxist policies or the party which understands that the only way to improve citizens’ lives is via free enterprise in the face of global competition and digital technology. Like Him indoors’ problem, are the Labour ideals now aged and unaffordable?  A decision will soon need to be made.

23rd September 2018

Feeling a little depressed. Is it the political impasse this country’s going through at the moment?  Theresa May in Salzberg looked fabulous in that designer red jacket, making Angela Merkel look very dowdy. However, the red jacket didn’t help the PM as she was summarily ridiculed and humiliated by the other EU leaders. What short memories they all have. Doesn’t Poland remember how we came to their aid 70+ years ago?  And France, as new boy Macron idly dreams of his future role as President of the United States of Europe - can it be they too have forgotten how they would have been caught forever in that no-man’s land of Nazi occupation if it hadn’t been for Britain and the US?  Well, as I stare out at this rain-sodden autumnal Sunday, I haven’t forgotten. My late father would be saying Germany’s already won, strutting the EU stage. And there’s poor, isolated Theresa in her red jacket....the hills are alive with the sound of Brexit.

16th September 2018

Is Corbyn another Petain - ‘peace’ at any price? My first impression on moving to France was how insular the French seemed.  What could have happened in the past to affect every single French citizen in such a marked way?  As a writer, I delved into original French texts to discover more. It soon became clear. A whole nation is guilt-ridden because of the actions of one man: Philippe Petain. This weak and old Vichy leader took the seemingly ‘easy’ route to peace by signing an armistice with Hitler. Corbyn too doesn’t see the point of war. But Churchill knew well enough.  Yes, try diplomacy with normal, educated world leaders but you can’t negotiate with tyrants and evil dictators. I’m not sure Corbyn can tell the difference! Voters beware: at general elections, make sure you vote for the one who fulfils the following minimum criteria: university educated, proven knowledge of national and global issues, balanced mental abilities, young and fit enough to deal with difficult global issues in a calm, measured way.  Petain was deficient in at least two of these criteria. Worried about the UK? Read my novel VICHYSSOISE to learn more about what went wrong in France. authl.it/52l

9th September 2018

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
         Will Rogers
Listening to BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions is always good for a laugh. What a choice for the British people at the next election if it’s Jeremy Corbyn v Boris Johnson. Extreme Left v Extreme Right. Everyone will want to tick the box ‘None of the above’. What we need is a centrist Macron-type party, but it seems our system can’t cope with that. Where are the Lib Dems when you need them? Nowhere!  On Brexit, a recent poll asking whether voters wanted a new referendum scored 59% yes, but apparently it’s much too late for that.  So what’s to be done? Compromise is the order of the day. I believe the way forward is to adopt the Canada+ model: solving the Irish border and trade issues in one. And the  Corbyn v Johnson, Punch n Judy pantomime?  I say get rid of them both, replacing them with educated, well-spoken ‘centrist’ members who are able to enunciate their policies clearly without any endemic racism or behind the scenes shenanigans. That’s the way to do it!

2nd September 2018

If I’d written that in a few months time all British customers living in the EU look like losing lending, deposit and insurance access to their own UK bank accounts, you’d think I was writing a new Orwellian fantasy. But I kid you not. The look on the face of new Brexit Minister Dominic Raab says it all really as he scratches his head and contemplates a ‘no deal’ agreement with the increasingly inflexible Barnier. It also looks like curtains for poor old Gibraltar. Brits there should start arming themselves against an increasingly hostile Spain, who historically always claimed ownership. And here, the UK papers headline aggressive ‘be prepared’ notices to one and all.  I almost expect posters going up in every suburb, complete with Lord Kitchener image and accusing finger, shouting “your country needs you”.  Next I expect posters of a woman wearing utility clothes urging us all to dig for victory. And here at chez-nous? Already I have a crate into which each week I stockpile essential foodstuffs for the oncoming armageddon. With my history, I have to be prepared.

26th August 2018

“..In the distance a humming sound reached his ears, increasing steadily in its velocity as a dark shape circled overhead. He looked up and saw, through the light of the streetlamps, the insignia of a British military plane...Out on the tiny airstrip there was a screech of tyres on concrete, sparks flying on impact, then dissolving into the heat of the night..Inside the plane, the pilot, distinctive in close-fitting cap and goggles, hauled them unceremoniously into the cockpit....Like a huge, monstrous bird, the British military plane raced along the runway, picking up speed until with one graceful movement its tiny wheels lifted off the ground, clearing by inches the flailing fists of the wrathful Germans..”
Lamplight. 

If ever you wonder why the referendum vote swung away from mainland Europe, read the sentiments in the above extract taken from my WWII novel Lamplight (click the icon on the right.) To be British back then was everything. Everyone in this region is invited to a special #RAF100 event featuring the Red Arrows flying spectacularly over Birmingham’s Victoria Square: date: Sun 26 Aug 2018, 15.00h. For all lovers of old planes, the history is there. The RAF was formed in 1918, making it the oldest individual airforce in the world.  And there’s the enigma: it’s individual, nothing to do with any other country.  That’s what I hear Brexiteers saying all the time. They want to feel British, not beholden to anyone else. For the future, who knows? But today we’re all celebrating those magnificent men in their flying machines.

19th August 2018

When, one year ago, we were speeding back to Birmingham, I had visions of shopping in all those giant department stores of my youth: Lewis’s, Rackham’s, Grey’s, Debenham’s etc. But this week Rackham’s successor, the glam House of Fraser, was taken over for a song by Sports Direct, and the others seem to have simply disappeared. Oh how I used to love swanning around, spraying the expensive perfumes when the exquisitely-groomed sales girls weren’t looking. France, of course, more or less invented le grand magasin. If you read Zola’s novel Au bonheur des Dames (a paradise for ladies), you’ll see that in 1860 Paris he based his story on the original Le bon marche superstore, which itself put local market stalls out of business. But now? Birmingham is to introduce a new expensive pollution tax for city centre shoppers arriving by car, marking the death knell of traditional city centre shopping. Despite the Chancellor vowing to redress the tax burden between store and internet sales, buying stuff from Amazon just won’t be the same somehow. Sigh.

12th August 2018

When I worked for undergraduate admissions, August was always a nervy time. This week, as we approach A-level D-Day, how different things look. In 1970 only 8.4% applied for a place; now it’s nearer 50%. But even this is down by 3.4% this year. A combination of more stringent exams plus £9,000 p.a. tuition fees plus too many graduates chasing too-few graduate level jobs tells its own tale. Now there’s the Brexit effect. EU students pay the same fees as UK students but, after graduating, many return home without paying back their loans!  But after March presumably EU students will have to pay far higher overseas fees. The Education Secretary needs to get a grip to redress the balance. Introduce just two types of school at 11: academic grammar schools and high-powered technical schools allied to industry offering apprenticeships. Only then will August Thursday admission day have real meaning again. Want to find out what goes on behind the corridors of power in academia?  3RD DEGREE MURDER. authl.it/4ia

5th August 2018

Europe is feeling the heat in more ways than one.  Brexit fears increase exponentially as the March 2019 D-day looms. I decided against calling it B-day! If we make too much fuss, the government may crumble and bring in a Corbyn government espousing extremist Communist policies. And what of the poor British expat still stuck in the limbo land which is the EU? Should we then have another referendum? What would the choices be this time? Or is all this too complex and dangerous to put to the man in the street (who largely just wants less immigration)? Britain needs urgently a new Centrist party like Macron’s En Marche to guard against the real fear of extremism. So, as Theresa liaises with Emmanuel in his glorious summer Med retreat, don’t think that’s what they’ll be discussing somehow. The long hot summer of oppression continues.

29th July 2018

Yesterday was the weekly BBC Radio 4 question/answer programme about topical news items. On the inevitable discussion about Brexit, at last views were given on whether the UK can survive on its own.  Some people are already stockpiling food(!) whilst others talked about bringing back our long-lost British manufacturing industries. From childhood, I recall world class British trademarks like Rolls Royce, Bentley, Land Rover, plus jewellery, cutlery, pottery, Axminster, Wilton, Cadbury’s, the wool and cotton industries etc. Some marks still exist, of course, but are sadly now owned or made elsewhere. Would it be so difficult to reinstate such factories and buy back the original brand names that our forefathers worked so hard to establish? Think of all that British goodwill over many decades, now lost. Couldn’t we at least emulate the French in charging less insurance for home-grown products, thereby reinforcing the impetus to buy British? Sounds like war time spirit all over again. Him indoors says even that’s probably made by the Chinese. Enough to drive a man to drink..

Blog extra

UK politics is full of accusations against the Labour party of Holocaust denial. Such thought processes tend to happen in those who are desperate to justify their innate anti-semitism, however illogical, and despite reams of historical proof and witting testimony.  It’s over 70 years since WW2. Does the world never learn?  

I’d love to start a discussion on Facebook over who made the right decision in those dark days: Churchill in England  on declaring war on Hitler and everything he stood for, or Petain in France on signing an armistice with Germany in a misguided attempt to protect his people from war? 

Everyone should make sure they are aware of what actually happened both before and during WW2 in the UK, Germany and France. Read LAMPLIGHT (authl.it/4q0), then VICHYSSOISE (authl.it/52l) and let me know your opinion.  If you’re quick, you can get each of them for just 99p/99c until Friday 27th.

Only with education can we hope to change hearts and minds.

22nd July 2018

On Friday our local Conservative councillor knocked on our door. He was interested to hear we’d spent some time in France and inevitably asked: why did you go and why did you return? Clearly I pointed him to my books Pensioners in Paradis and From Paradis to Perdition. But we also discussed the increasing problem of urban knife crime, not just here in Bham but around the world. In France, Macron’s security aide is facing the sack for violently beating protesters. Elsewhere, with Trump, Putin and Kim seemingly now bosom buddies, seems to me that defence spending needs to be rationalised away from old, war-type troop deployments to inner city protection from youth gangs and cyber warfare. Local police just can’t deal with it any more. With Mrs May too busy making a Brexit camel from the idealised thoroughbred horse, and the EU leader Mrs Merkel busy agreeing gas deals with Putin, who’s going to solve local, urban issues? Maybe I should write another book.

15th July 2018

A week of hopes dashed, resignations and a visit. In the end England came 4th in football’s World Cup. Reasonable, I suppose, in that - unlike the US World Series - we really mean all the countries of the world. Upsetting, though, as the whole nation expected to bring the Cup home again. And then, on the crumbling political front, we suffered the ignominy of two senior members of the Cabinet resigning, making the already shaky Brexit negotiations ever more fragile. Then, along came the President of the USA, putting his foot in it in his own inimitable way. First he appears to upstage HM The Queen by standing in front of her. Then, at a stroke, he allegedly suggested Boris Johnson would make a better PM than Mrs May and stated that the new white paper - so painstakingly put together by the government to allow us to continue trading with the EU after Brexit - would mean no future trade deal with the US. Fake news? More like an own goal Mr Trump.

8th July 2018

Thursday was the NHS’s 70th birthday. I was born a few months beforehand, a time when my father was still in the army and we couldn’t afford a doctor, so my mother, in labour,  had to bang on the wall to fetch our neighbour. But the following 5 July Aneurin Bevan brought nurses, doctors, pharmacists, opticians and dentists all together under one organisation. Medicine was now free for all at the point of delivery. But it was clear from the start that money would run out, so in 1952 prescription charges of 1s (5p) were introduced and a flat fee of £1 for standard dental work. However, since then decades of immigration have increased the population, people now live longer and modern expensive drugs mean that Bevan’s original concept simply can’t cope. If we’d stayed in the EU, at some point our beloved NHS would probably have morphed into a hybrid EU health system. So, what to do? No amount of funding will ever be enough, especially as our population continues to rise. We may have to follow the French route of 70/30 split - where everybody bar the old/infirm has to pay something. That’s the only way to keep the system going. Happy birthday NHS!

1st July 2018

The most compelling image of the week was not the football but the one of Prince William standing silently, with outstretched arm on the ancient, biblical stones of the Western wall...
Today in France marks the burial at the vast, domed Pantheon on Paris’s left bank of a remarkable woman, Simone Veil. As a survivor of the Holocaust, she and her family joined the 76,000 Jewish people forcibly expelled from France during WWII. Who’d have thought, back then in the worst of times, that a slim, slight woman would rise in France’s patriarchal society to become France’s choice today to be placed amongst the country’s ‘great men’.
....How fitting, then, that in the very same week that Prince William drew the world’s attention to the Holocaust by visiting the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, that a resilient French Holocaust survivor and champion of the Jewish people, should at last be remembered for her achievements. That is why I wrote Lamplight and Vichyssoise - one small step by me too, lest we forget.

24th June 2018

The house opposite has white and red England flags in the window. I’m surprised the police haven’t been round to arrest our neighbours for racial incitement, as threatened with pubs all around the country supporting our team in the World Cup today. Of course, some English fans have been rowdy in Moscow, but it was ever so. But what’s the alternative to nationalism? 110 years ago the British author Israel Zangwill wrote a play called The Melting Pot, received well in Washington, applauding the merging together of the peoples of America. But in Europe there is no melting pot. Just look at Germany or Italy, where the policies of the last 10 years have produced political meltdown. Instead of  what Merkel wants - fusion for Europe under her supreme direction - it’s heading for fission, an explosive European future, with Brexit the igniting spark.  So, will England win their game against Panama today? Possibly, but will they win the Brexit war?

17th June 2018

Ever feel like running away from the 9 - 5 rat race?  Where would you go - somewhere warm where you could relax away from people, traffic and all your worries? 13 years ago we did just that, and at first it was a wonderful adventure. But then Brexit changed all that. The annoying thing is that, if British expats living in the EU 15 years+ had been allowed to vote, Brexit wouldn’t even have happened! But now the EU is crumbling and essential truths are emerging that Germany has, all-along, been skewing things in its favour, to the detriment of smaller countries. Should we still have moved away from friends/family all those years ago? Come to my FB online party to launch the book that reveals all, and tell me what you think. When? This Wednesday-Thursday, 20 June. Time? Any time from 10 am UK time. How? Just click the link below on the 20-21st and add your views in the comment box. Cost? Free. Guest author opinions covering the US, Israel, Portugal and Africa. Prizes, music from Billie Holliday, Sinatra to Slade, and a quiz. See you Wed-Thurs!
www.facebook.com/events/1766387210093900/

10th June 2018

I see that even Simon Cowell has ditched his mobile phone. As a writer I’ve always embraced social media. It’s given me wonderful opportunities to reach out to a global audience, even when living in the depths of rural France. But...
Back in the ‘80s when the internet was developing, the concept was totally alien to me. Growing up in a capitalist society, I understood that if you wanted something, you had to pay for it. And if you wanted more, you paid more. That was the world of basic economics. A trader provided. The consumer paid. But then someone offered you the world for free.  Suddenly you could communicate, grow an audience, advertise, do research etc and it didn’t cost a penny. Or so I believed. But only now do I understand. We are actually paying the highest price of all, selling our souls to Big Brother.
.....be very afraid.

3rd June 2018

Mamoudou Gassama, 22, left his home in Mali and trekked across Burkino Faso, Niger, Libya and Italy to arrive, undocumented, in France. Whilst most illegal immigrants in France hide from the authorities at a time of rising restrictions against them, Mamoudou didn’t think twice when confronted by a domestic situation in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Now labelled Spiderman by Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo, the video of him scaling, singlehandedly, up 5 storeys to rescue a 4 year old dangling from a balcony, has gone viral. The child’s father had not only left his son alone whilst shopping, but also delayed his return by playing Pokemon Go on his cell phone. Whereas in Britain Mamoudou would have probably been deported, in France he was awarded citizenship and given a job as a firefighter. At a time when across Europe, innate hatred of immigrants created Brexit and also the new government in Italy, one man - plus the power of digital tech - reminded everyone of the word Fraternite. Bravo Mamoudou!

27th May 2018

Make no mistake. The clock’s ticking for Europe. Its only hope is if a miracle happens and Britain stops the exit before the ref blows the final whistle. Don’t just take my word for it. Great minds like French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy say the same “The EU will collapse because when the body is deprived of its brain and heart, its spirit dies.” And I thought the French didn’t like the British. He says the British were asked a stupidly simple question about a very complex problem - at best foolishly irresponsible, at worst sinfully illegal. If next March arrives without a second referendum, the die is cast. Already cracks in the EU are evident, with first Greece and now Italy on the brink of pulling out due to bankruptcy. And all the while Germany prospered. Was the whole EU project flawed from the start with the cards stacked heavily in Germany’s favour to the detriment of everyone else? Faites vos jeux, Mesdames/Messieurs.

20th May 2018

The wedding of the year. Bar none.  A royal soap opera par excellence. The BBC camera panned to:
    Prince Charles and Camilla,  as Harry and Meghan were asked Do you forsake all others..?;
    Harry’s face when the congregation were asked if there was any reason why the marriage should not take place (i.e. is your ‘real’ father present, potentially negating your royal status?);
    Harry’s previous girlfriend, looking unhappy at how things might have been;
   Philip’s face at the ‘jokey’ shenanigans of the American bishop;
   Victoria Beckham arriving without a smile for anyone, appearing to disdain anyone she perceived to be of lower status than she;.
   The bride’s mother sitting all alone, regal in her dignity, but with scarce a greeting from anyone.

And yet it was a wondrous spectacle. The choirs were wonderful, the mediaeval setting amazing, the couple handsome and very much in love, cheering crowds. Sunshine all around. Undoubtedly it’s what England does best. Could America do it or France?  No! Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

13th May 2018

The French are puzzled...No, not about Eurovision but about when Harry meets Meghan next week. The one thing the French envy about Britain - and it is probably the only thing - is the royal family. Ever since the last tumbrils rolled up to the Bastille in the 1790s, they’ve bemoaned the fact they no longer have a royal head of state. They, like the Americans, love the splendour and pomp that only a royal family can bring. So, all French eyes have been fixated on the wedding next Saturday. But, what’s this they read? That a family worth £400 million can find no budget for feeding the 2,000 peasants so carefully selected to fill the otherwise empty grounds of the chapel at Windsor. “Bring your own sandwiches” decreed the embossed royal invitations.  What? said the French, the land of le bien manger. Where’s the royal cuisine?  Quel catastrophe! Even Marie Antoinette would have provided cake....

6th May 2018

This week in 1869 saw the opening of the Folies Bergere on 32 rue Richer, 9th arrondissement, Paris, where a troupe of high-kicking girls displayed an element of je ne sais quoi. Today very different folies are taking place in Paris as yet more students take to the streets to protest, as in 1968, against government plans to modernise out-dated working practices. Elsewhere in France, a museum in Elne discovered that 60% of its paintings by local artist Etienne Terrus were fake, only discovered by accident when a curator tried to re-hang them. He found that some of the artwork was on material that didn’t exist when the paintings were supposedly produced and some of the painted signatures were so recent they could be wiped off with a glove. Wonder what President Macron thought of all this as he continued his globe-trotting quest?  The French may still be revolting, young people continue to kick out at old folies but, as with Monet, Degas and Renoir, first Impressions are de rigeur!

29th April 2018

A week of babies. Poor Alfie Evans lost his life at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool after they switched off his life support system. But the big question: should the UK government have banned Alfie’s family from taking him to Italy for treatment? Who does the child belong to, the parents or the state? In complete contrast came news of Prince Louis Arthur Charles, his surprisingly French name coming hot on the heels of President Macron’s love affair with Donald Trump in Washington. That new kid on the block, Macron, seems to be spreading his influence far and wide in his pursuit to be the first President of a United States of Europe. Yes I know that Prince Louis was probably named after the late Louis Mountbatten, but go tell that to France! And who does baby Louis belong to, William and Kate or the State? I’ll leave you to decide.

21st April 2018

Increasingly I need hospital appointments for different ailments, often at the same hospital. However the different departments sometimes ask me to arrive on the same day but at completely different times. I had one at 10.15 a.m in ophthalmology and another in audiology at 5 p.m. This week I was listening to the BBC’s Today programme where they were discussing NHS issues like this, so I sent them the following response: “..Why doesn’t the NHS adopt the French carte vitale and encrypt every person’s medical history onto one medical card. Then the NHS could co-ordinate each persons’s different health issues, avoid appointments hours apart on the same day and encourage separate hospital departments to liaise over each patient. Ergo, treat the whole person, not each illness.” Maybe I should have quoted Macron, who said recently “..we need bottom up democracy..” No answer to that!

15th April 2018

Some 46 years ago, the British trades unions were in full cry. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie - out, out, out! Who could forget? Certainly not me back then in a cold house without heat nor light, no rubbish collection nor even burial services! Today in France, President Macron is studying exactly how Mrs Thatcher turned things around. On the one hand he was elected as a man of the people in a country steeped in die-hard trade unionism. On the other, he’s a committed European, wanting to match Germany’s famed efficiency step by step. But how to change the unions without getting his head cut off? He knows he’s right. As a symbol of post-war regeneration, the rail union SNCF, for example, remains a bastion of unionised labour, heavily subsidised despite being currently c.50bn euros in debt! Yet still the union insists on a retirement age of 52! Bon chance M. Macron. Let’s hope the banlieus don’t soon resound to the cry Mannie, Mannie, Mannie - sortez, sortez, sortez!

8th April 2018

Wednesday marked 50 years since Martin Luther King Jnr was shot in Memphis, whilst shouting out the need for freedom to live without persecution. Elsewhere, whilst the leaders of Qatar and Bahrain were telling the world that Israel had a right to their own land, others continued their fight to eradicate Israel completely or to propagate yet again that insidious trope, anti-semitism. In the ‘peaceful’ West, the French were on the march again against President Macron’s attempts to modernise France’s obsolete working practices. They don’t realise how lucky they are. I wrote the following poem some time ago, which I think Martin Luther King would have liked:
At early ‘morn I had a dream
that man would cease his evil scheme
Blazing battles, suicide missions
Murder, hatred, crazed seditions
Plumb the depths, re-appraise
Be none so blind, none so fazed
Halt the fight, tribe v tribe
suffused with hate, with diatribe
But see with eyes afresh from birth
We’re all one tribe - that of Earth!

1st April 2018

I’ve never liked practical jokes. So April Fools’ Day for me is a stupid tradition. In France in 1508 poet Eloy d’Aqueval called it Poisson d’Avril. Perhaps the news of the new post-Brexit blue British passport being produced by the French should have been announced today. Where’s the French passport produced? The French would laugh at such a question. Something with such serious national security issues, of course needs to be made by the French. This overrides normal global trading and tendering laws. The French also understand how to preserve manufacturing jobs in their own country. Why are there so many French cars on their autoroutes? Because of a clever ruse where French car insurers give driver discounts for French-made vehicles. Whatever next for Britain - a monarch who comes from Germany??  Now, for real humour - and not just for today either - pre-order my comic sequel From Paradis to Perdition on authl.it/9v7, and follow a year in France written in Him indoors’ Jack Benny-like style. Enjoy!

Blog extra

FROM PARADIS TO PERDITION. A YEAR IN FRANCE. The much-awaited sequel to the bestselling Pensioners in Paradis has arrived!  And here’s the good news:  it’s now available to pre-order at just £1.99/$2.99 and won’t be debited until 20 June 2018. 

What on earth could have happened to change the English couple’s joie de vivre and their love of all things French? Did they hit that je ne sais quoi that essentially divides the French from the English? Or was it that dratted Brexit referendum that threw a spanner in the works?

We all want to know!

So, draw up a chair, pour a tot of whisky or a glass of (French!) wine, and enjoy the fine art of self-disparagement.

To pre-order right now from wherever you live (click on your flag):  www.authl.it/9v7

Enjoy!

25th March 2018

Carcassonne. A beautiful, mediaeval French cite normally thronged with tourists. I remember riding around the ancient battlements on the horse-drawn caleche. But not this week.  I remember taking the audio tour of the castle and puffing up all those cobbled hills to the numerous cafes and restaurants, viewing the blissful countryside from on high. But not this week. This was the week where yet another terrorist killed and injured innocent people. And this was the week when a French gendarme showed incredible bravery. How to stop more innocents being shot in the future? Same solution as in the US.  Everyone gets angry at life’s injustices, so it’s imperative no-one has access to a weapon. So, a) an armistice for citizens and gun groups to hand in all guns to the local police prefecture, and b) a ban on the manufacture and sale of all guns. What a fitting tribute that would be for a brave, brave gendarme. Anything is possible where there is sufficient will.

18th March 2018

For the first time, two of Israel’s Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from c.200 BC and written in Hebrew and Aramaic - the language of the Jews of Palestine - are to be displayed publically in Denver. One reads Musar LeMevin, instruction to One who understands. Two artifacts, two messages to the world. Absolute, unequivocal, undeniable proof that Israel has always been the land of the Jewish people, and the importance of understanding. Stephen Hawking, who died this week, knew that. To be able to explain his supreme knowledge of physics from a physically-useless body he used a remarkable, world-beating voice microchip developed in Israel. He died on Einstein’s birth date and the 300th anniversary of the death of Gallileo, Hawking’s now famous instruction being Look to the stars not to your feet. Maybe the title of his book should read A short history of timing?  In an increasingly dangerous world, we should all learn something from both Israel and Hawking. Biblical history is shouting to us from the cosmos. Understand each other before it’s too late.

11 March 2018

It’s all about women. Thursday was international women’s day and today in the UK it’s mothers’ day. Is the old Weinstein era over? Golda Meir had it right when, at a time of multiple rapes and her advisors proposing that there be a safety curfew for women, she said ‘If there’s to be a curfew, it should be for men - the perpetrators - not the female victims!’ For centuries outstanding women were overlooked in favour of  men. Rosalind Franklin did all the hard work in the discovery of DNA but the Nobel Prize went to two men, Crick and Watson. Many women writers had to hide behind male pseudonyms to be taken seriously. Today many researchers doubt that the plays by Shakespeare were written by one person. Think of the difference between the kingly battle plays and those like As you Like it, where Rosalind dresses as a man. The latter is much more likely to have been written by a woman who knew that the only way to get noticed in a man’s world was to dress as a man. In today’s UK politics, I get irritated when Theresa May is bullied every week at Ministers’ Question Time by an overwhelming number of men in the Commons. No other country seems to do this. I believe there’ll never be global peace until every leader is a woman!

4th March 2018

Half a million pages read. That’s what my publisher says, so it must be true. My intention when writing the above book was to show the comedy of life. Does the world ever learn from this comedy of errors? I see that, here in the UK, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was awarded the Sean Macbride Peace Prize. Who was Macbride?  Former Chief of Staff of the IRA!  A friend showed me last week a till receipt for a purchase from Amman Airport, Jordan. The printed place name on the Jordanian receipt? Palestine! From around the globe, I see that the world’s male leaders are still jockeying for personal glory by either increasing the land area of the country they lead or, as in the case of the EU, by pressing for an ever more grandiose Federal United States of Europe. I’d like to think that the latter is for the good of the people, but my feeling is it’s more to increase the prestige of France and Germany over an enlarged empire. Didn’t they learn anything from WWII? The older I get, still the comedy of errors continues.

25th February 2018

At the Baftas last week, the women wore black - part of the #metoo brigade. How mindsets have changed. In the ‘70s I worked in the education sector, a time when sexual exploitation of women was not only rife but girls colluded with it, not wanting to appear square. Jimmy Savile was on TV in everything from pop shows, Jim’ll fix it to government clunk-click ads and dance group Pan’s People heralded the new, no holds barred, era of lude dancing. One lecturer thought it hilarious to walk from one typist to another, running his thumb down our backs to unhook bras within. Also he invited 2 naive secretaries (yes, I was one) to the film show he showed to 3rd year undergrads of explicit porn, pausing and even reversing the reel at the most salacious moment. One girl student ran out of the lecture theatre in shock to ribald applause from her fellow students. It was common for professors to have affairs with their PhD students, and I never understood why this didn’t affect the credibility of their theses. TG mobile phones hadn’t then been invented. In today’s totally different mindset, all would be sued.
Want to read more about life in 70s/80s UK universities? 3rd Degree Murder. authl.it/4ia. You’ve been warned!authl.it/4ia

18th february 2018

Strange week. A small earthquake here yesterday. Bruno went berserk. Elsewhere in the world, France and Germany are using Europe as their means for personal glory and grandification. Their ultimate dream? A United States of Europe, with them on the throne, lording it over ‘lesser’ nations. Self-appointed captains. And the US? Social media is at war over the Florida school shootings. It reveals what is so obvious to the rest of the world. Americans are so obsessed with their 2nd amendment they can’t see the wood from the trees. The world has changed since that was first introduced but they have refused to change it. Decades ago, after the school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, the UK banned all guns. Result? Not one school shooting since. It’s not rocket science America. Modernise your outdated 2nd amendment and ban all guns and shops selling them. Probably need an earthquake to realise it though.

11th February 2018

Have just returned from visiting our son who’s moved to a beautiful English village. To help him we donated some household appliances but it was the goodie bag containing Marmite that really perked him up. As a vegetarian, its B12 components are essential to boost his health and well-being. Looking around the world I see that the North Korean leader’s sister has been used as a diplomatic tool to build relations with S. Korea but was this merely a subtle, cynical weapon against America? In Gaza children are indoctrinated from birth to hate the so-called ‘enemy’ Israel. It even uses toys and ‘educational’ books to teach innocent children to kill and maim others. This isn’t how to treat family members. In an increasingly uncertain world, family is often all we have and the ones we trust the most. Don’t use them as a weapon; give them love; give them Marmite to heal themselves. Only then will the next generation be fit to spread the love without inner hate.

4 February 2018

Social media is a wonderful thing.  I joined a FB closed group re-living via photos and anecdotes scenes from my home town.  At 16 I got a job with W & T Avery’s, a weighing machine foundry in Smethwick. I reminisced  about my time there as a junior, where every morning I had to fetch from the works canteen everyone’s order of hot ‘breakfases’ as they called them. Horrible hot, greasy, brown paper bags and woe betide me if I got anyone’s order wrong. We all had to clock in at a punch machine and at 4.55 pm all would line up to clock out, then wait for the siren. Complete bedlam as hordes would then surge out homewards onto the cobbled inner foundry road, risking life and limb from all those men on bikes, khaki haversacks on their backs, wheels squeaking on the greasy cobbles. Who’d have thought that today, 50+ years later, someone would publish a photo of a colleague from those days? Yes, FB can dig out a past murky memory and remind you it all really happened. Great for people of a certain age, even aiding against rising dementia!

28th January 2018

Vigicrues, the French flooding agency, has never seen anything like it. Already the waters of the Seine swirl around the waist of the famous river statue, once famously reaching its beard. In Israel archaeological experts have discovered the remains of a large army plus chariot pieces near the Red Sea. Evidence that the Israelite bible story, where rising waters consumed the Egyptian army, really happened. So, flooding was endemic centuries ago, long before so-called man-made causes. Globally, house builders on coastal sites and on large river plains should construct buildings on stilts. Wherever possible man should choose to live in the centre of a land mass, well away from tidal surges and river overflows. I believe there’ll come a time when in, say, the US most of Florida will someday be submerged and whole islands disappear. Time for global warming conferences to focus not on potential causes but on dealing with it!

21st January 2018

Why do we put so much emphasis on likeability in public life? In the beginning I had such hope in Obama. He looked good, was charming to all, a fantastic orator and as the first African-American President he would heal the world. But in the end he was disappointing, appeasing everyone but risking nothing. Result: nothing happened. Macron is similar: looks good, articulate, nice to all. Trump?  None of the above! Let’s look at examples of past genius stars, those who broke the mould and had original talent. Al Jolson, early 20C singer, instrumental in converting African jazz to Western tastes; Sinatra, master of musicality; McEnroe, precocious tennis talent. Common denominator? All had personality problems, the first two extending to dubious lifestyles offstage, the latter breeching common behaviour norms on court. Analysis? When voting, don’t choose a potential friend; choose someone who’ll get things done. In the arts/sport, just go with exceptional talent. Nothing else matters.

14th January 2018

In The Times yesterday: French Hospital Offers Help For Cancelled NHS Operations. That headline epitomises the differences. Both countries have a similar population, each has excellent health staff, yet the system in one works perfectly; in the other it doesn’t. Why? For we who have experienced both, the answer’s obvious. It’s human nature that if, for 70 years, something is offered free of charge to all, it will be abused. In a nutshell, every sore finger ends up in A & E. Ask any Frenchman and he’ll say he’s entirely satisfied and proud of health care there. The French government pays 70%, the citizen 30%, the latter free to the low-paid and longterm sick/disabled. The rest have access to subsidised top up insurance (not commercialised as in the US) to cover the 30%. Everyone legally entitled to live there has a coveted carte vitale. Every ambulance/medic/pharmacy etc thereby gets instant digital access to your medical history, essential in emergencies. Wake up Britain. Time to learn from Macron when he visits on Thursday.

7th January 2018

I’m looking down on the new year and speculating. What’s going to happen, both politically and personally?  With Trump there’s a conflict in my mind. On the one hand writers like Wolffe paint him as totally incompetent, whilst I believe the President has achieved something wonderful and historic in recognising the incontestable: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. (Just check the bible if you don’t agree!) On the 18th the French President will visit London and preach what Britain is doing wrong, but I’ve got a longer memory than that. Listen M. Macron: we saved you in ‘45. Theresa May should present him with a copy of my book Vichyssoise if he doesn’t believe her!  On a personal note, I seem to be unique in writing in every genre possible. Experts tell me I should stick to just one. But when did I ever listen to them? I am human, therefore I must follow my own heart. So this year my sequel in the travel/comedy genre is out in June, and - are you listening M Macron? - my new project is book 3 in my wartime noir thriller series called Locomotive. Watch this space.