Today, 12 January, marks the birthday of Jack London who was born Jack Chaney in San Francisco, 1876. Three of his works have had a profound influence on me. White Fang, first serialised in 1906, and Call of the Wild, 1903, were the most significant works of fiction that inspired my PhD about wolves in […]

Every three years or so I reread the original James Bond novels. Each time their world becomes more and more distant to ours. A world of casual racism where lesbianism could be cured by a strong man. A world where it was possible to smoke seventy a day and drink all night, yet remain physically […]

Today’s blog is dedicated to the HMRC staff at Regent Hill, Brighton, whose office is about to close. I spent the most enjoyable years of my career there and wish everyone there well for the future. It is not their fault that successive governments have attempted to hide fiscal failures by taking the service out […]

  My 53rd short story, Ma Gohardy’s Shop, is in Trump Utopia or Dystopia, an anthology of speculative fiction from Dark Helix Press. Released as an eBook on Christmas Day with print copies available in January.  

Today is the final of the Rugby League World Cup. Australia, ten-times winners, defend their title in their own country which is also the home of a popular domestic league. Everything was set for a successful tournament, but few have bothered to watch. Australia could only attract 30,000 to last week’s semi-final in Brisbane, 16,000 less than for the […]

This week I found myself in the unusual position of agreeing with a politician. It was nothing to do with the Queensland election where candidates and parties prefer criticising opponents to promoting policy. Instead it was Michael Gove, the British environment secretary who said, “There is an unhappy tendency now for people to believe that the raw and authentic […]

This week I’ve heard a lot about the power of positivity and remain unconvinced that it offers any solutions. It might make people feel good temporarily, but it doesn’t solve any problems. It is not a message embraced by politicians, quite the opposite. They avoided the difficult vote on same sex marriage by delegating to […]

Patricia Cornwell was not the first person to accuse Walter Sickert of being Jack the Ripper. In his tale of a royal conspiracy derived from Sickert’s alleged illegitimate son, Stephen Knight suggested that the artist was the third man in a carriage of killers. In 1988 Jean Overton-Fuller speculated Sickert’s guilt, based on a tale […]

My next short story will appear in Trump Utopia or Dystopia, a new anthology from Dark Helix Press, available electronically in December and in print in January. The premise for authors was simple. Speculative fiction about Donald J. Trump, showing the world created by his policies. In the week that Trump authorised the final release […]