Destiny Calling!

Do you believe in fate, destiny, preordination? Or do you think its all hogwash, hokum of the worst kind?

I can't say that I believe everything happens for a reason but I do think that some things are pointers to the way ahead...

When the children go back to school I will immediately move onto two separate things. One is to write a novel that has been waiting a long time to be set down on the screen, and the other thing is to edit Ascension, so that the courageous Jess Stone can have her story presented to an audience.

And it was Jess and her tale which was on my mind this morning as I awoke. So imagine my surprise when I saw the name of my newest twitter follower...Alek Cole.

Alex Cole [ok so it is slightly different I grant you] is a key character in Ascension. He is the man whose motives are unknown.
Is the finger of fate pointing? Damn right it is...

Happy Reading!

NEWS!

One of my very first reviews ever, was from a gentleman in Hawaii who raved about The Owners, Volume I, and insisted it should be compulsory reading in schools.
 
I have never forgotten those kind words, and will be eternally grateful, Richard Sommery-Gade. So today I am posting here to say that your comments were perhaps far-seeing.
 
Yesterday, I discovered that my books were being considered for schools not only in England, but in Egypt! So keep your fingers crossed for me folks and I'll let you know what happens.

Happy Reading! 

Press Release.

Bromsgrove author Carmen Capuano will be counting the cars racing by on the Aston Expressway this autumn, when the large digital billboard located there is displaying an advertisement for her latest book.

“I really can’t believe that my novel will be up there for everyone to see – it’s almost beyond my wildest dreams!” said the popular writer. “Thousands of cars pass that spot every day – and now they will see the cover of Split Decision!”

To add further to Carmen’s excitement, WHSmith in Birmingham will be stocking the newly released book on its shelves, facilitating its shoppers’ searches for a good read.

Said Manager Adrian Rankovic of the decision to put Ms Capuano’s novel on display in a prime spot in the window, “We are aware of exactly what our customers are looking for in a book. They want something they can fully immerse themselves in; good writing with a great plot. So if they haven’t already discovered Carmen Capuano for themselves, we are happy to bring her to their attention.”

So things may not quite be “written in the stars” yet for the Midlands author, but they are certainly getting higher in the sky.

Party Time!

Come to my book launch, eat cake and have a good time...

An old memory...

I was in Bromsgrove town today. It had just started to rain heavily as I drove past a particular building, sparking a memory of a talk I gave there around this time last year, so I have reposted it for your amusement.

Here it is...

But what I really want to tell you about is yesterday, when I conducted my author talk at the Women's Institute.

I had never been to a WI meeting before and felt strangely excited at the prospect. The WI holds a strange fascination - images of a secret ceremony reminiscent of the Mason's was almost what I expected, symbolic vestments and ritualistic handshakes what I was on the look-out for, and animal-sacrifice what I almost feared!

Instead of any of those things I found a group of exceptionally pleasant and welcoming ladies, who discussed events with the easy familiarity of  long-held friendships.

A slightly older audience than I am used to, they were nonetheless attentive and interested with a notable exception. One elderly lady, well into her late-eighties either fell sound asleep during my discourse or actually died. It was a toss up between the two as to which was the most likely outcome.

Now I am not known for my boredom factor, so I surmised that this narcolepsy must have been due to the lady's age rather than the sound of my dulcet tones, however it did make me start when I looked up from reading my book excerpt to find her with her head rolled forward onto her chest and looking as pale as parchment.

"Oh God, someone get a mirror and let's check if she is breathing!" I wanted to shout but casting my gaze around I found that I was the only one who was wide eyed with panic...clearly this was not a one-off event.

I struggled to continue the reading, worried about the welfare of my elderly listener. So when another of the ladies drifted off, I knew I was done for! I kept my eyes on the page and stifled the giggles that threatened to well up in me.

I think it was only the applause at the end which roused them [or perhaps the vibrations restarted their hearts, who knows?]

But even so they were a truly wonderful group of women and if I ever get to their advanced age, I hope someone lets me nap when I am tired :)

I know the rest of the group enjoyed the talk immensely and I even gave them an extra laugh at the end of the session, when leaving my car in their car park, I popped over to the supermarket a few minutes away and then had to return to the car with two heavy shopping bags in tow, wearing a white summer dress in the sudden torrential downpour.

They drove past me out of the car park, literally rolling in their seats at the sight of the stupid, never-quite-in-the-real-world author with her hair plastered to her scalp and her dress stuck to her skin...

And as for the two old ladies who fell asleep? Well I will forever remain in their memories as that young author with the relaxing voice...

Happy Reading. :)

Split Decision review

Reviews of Split Decision are beginning to come in now.

Here is what one reader had to say: "I could not put your book down last night and ended up finishing the novel and going to bed really late! Certainly it is the best yet in  my opinion." Thanks Sheila from Edgbaston!

Happy Reading!

It's a new day...

Here are my options for the day.

1. Write some more - not really an option with the kids around.
2. Clean the house - what AGAIN?
3. Go and decorate the new house - not in the right frame of mind, besides I worked there yesterday and need a break.
4. Do something exciting with the kids - whether they want to or not.
5. Do all of the above - this is the most likely option knowing me.
6. Do nothing - impossible.
7. Fritter away the day in spontaneous and unplanned fun...now I like the sound of that...

REPOSTED AS REQUESTED BY YOU

I referred to this post during Holiday Heaven or Holiday Hell  but some of you could not find it, so here it is again, just for you!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. Mine unfortunately was a mixed bag and I suspect it will continue to be so for some considerable time :(

Anyway as they say in Scotland, "out with the auld and in wi' the new!"

Now I would like to tell you a little tale of what happened to me just before Christmas.

'Twas the night afore Christmas [actually it was the 23rd but what the heck] and all was still and quiet all around. I had a friend staying over and the house was festive and Christmas looking. Tinsel adorned picture frames, cards littered the mantelpiece and hearth and there was a large glowing fibre-optic tree in the lounge window and another two scattered around the house.

As usual I had several items which had just sold on Ebay, one of which was my old dining room table set and I was awaiting its collection. My friend and I had just returned from walking the dogs and both humans and canines were dishevelled and muddy.

The children were excited and all around us there was much high pitched talk and laughter, children racing each other up and down the stairs and causing the biggest dog to whirl around and around, trying to catch her own tail in anticipation of some extraordinary event. The very air was charged with adrenaline and the scent of some long awaited pleasures and surprises.

It was at that precise moment that the doorbell rang and I ushered in a very dapper looking Asian man who turned out to be my Ebay buyer. Having returned late from the walk, I had not had time to dismantle the table as I had assured him I would do, so I did as any insane Scottish five-foot-two author would have done - I lied!

"I was thinking that to save you the bother of having to assemble it with all its various parts," were there various parts, I had no idea but I was into the bluff now and damned if I was going to fall at the first hurdle I encountered, "and as I knew you were bringing a big van for the collection," I had known no such thing but luckily he had turned up in a big white van, "you might want to take it out assembled and save yourself some bother." I actually managed to nod sagely at myself as if it was the best idea ever spoken aloud.

The dapper Asian gentleman agreed. So we began, the Asian man at one end of the table and my friend at the other. We tried to manoeuvre it through the lounge door into the hall ...no way was that happening! The legs of the table almost jammed in the door frame and we had to beat a hasty retreat.

But of course there was the piece de resistance - the patio doors which led from the conservatory to the back garden. We got the table back through the double doors from lounge to dining room and then dining room to conservatory and finally the outside with no ill effects. But the brick walls of the side passage which leads from back garden to front were a daunting obstacle. Unbending and unyielding they stood steadfast in their foundations and taunted me with their narrow confined space.

There was nothing for it but to dismantle the table - there would be no other way of removing it from the home. My mind searched through the old memories of the ex-boyfriend who had assembled the table originally. I remembered there had been a lot of cursing and many tools and instruments used in the process. But for goodness sake, it was a table...not a build-your-own-house-kit, how complicated could it be? Then I remembered that half-way through the job he had left to buy some bolts...there were bolts holding the table together! My blood ran cold. How on earth was I going to get the table dismantled with the new owner looking on? In absolute panic I turned to my friend.

Like a horse fed on a diet too rich in oats I must have resembled nothing more than a panicked little pony [I would have liked to say horse but that's stretching the truth a little too thin.]

Lips pulled back in a tight grimace and eyes rolling wildly, I assured the buyer that my friend would have the table dismantled in a jiffy. The Asian man went back outside to tell the van driver that there was a delay. It was at this point that it started to rain.

Huge sheets of glacier drops shattered to the ground, soaking everything in their path within seconds. Like rapiers, the raindrops sliced through clothing and footwear; mini heat-seeking missiles which leached the warmth from bones and the humour from hearts.

I could tell that by now the Asian gentleman was no longer impressed. I went back inside to see how my friend was faring.

Like an old beloved relative who is past his prime but wishes to be shackled to the home he has known and loved for so long, the table seemed to be resisting all his efforts to dismantle it. And even more unfortunately the house appeared to be colluding with it! I watched transfixed as the first screws were removed and promptly fell into the cracks between the dining room floor boards. I lunged across the room and using a butter knife, began to frantically gouge the minuscule gap in order to retrieve the screw. Hair plastered to my scalp by rain and the thin sweat of fear and embarrassment I grappled with it until I managed to clasp it in my damp palm.

Meanwhile my friend had moved on to the bolts. The table fought bravely, seeming to withdraw the bolt heads deeper into their holes and securing them there with a determination I had not known an inanimate object could possess. My friend persevered. The table resisted. My friend grunted and groaned. The table remained quietly victorious. Until with a quickness of wrist and keenness of eye my friend held the table a certain way, twisted the bolt whilst simultaneously pushing away from it and in one fell swoop, the table was finally undone, mastered, defeated.

And somewhere inside the very pit of my stomach it felt like a hollow victory...perhaps it was the presentiment of things yet to come...

We carried the table remains outside. By now the unrelenting rain had turned to hailstones of the most frightening kind. Huge balls of ice struck us as we hurried the wooden parts to the two men waiting in the white van.

It was on the first return journey that my friend turned a peculiar shade of white. "Get a bit of paper and take down their registration," he hissed at me theatrically.

"Why," I hissed back, just as theatrically [I hate to be outdone and have a terrible competitive streak.]

"Just bloody do it!" he sniped back, seemingly in a mood not to be outdone. But something about the thin set of his lips and anger in his eyes made me bite back any words which came immediately to my mind.

So it was that I stood outside of my house, in slippers and drenched clothing, in front of the van and tried to look as if I were inconspicuously eyeing up my neighbours property when in fact I was memorising the licence plate of the van for God knew what reason.

But being me, I could not bear the suspense and begged my friend to let me know what all the cloak and dagger stuff was about.

"You know when we went out with the first lot of wood from the table?" he said slowly, as if talking to a demented five year old.

"Yes?" I said, trying and failing to hide my annoyance.

"Well I noticed my car door was slightly open and the glove compartment lid was down... and my satnav is gone! Those men have stolen it."

"Well, I will go and confront them!" I said, feeling like I could now take on the world even though my knees were knocking. I told myself it was temper and sheer anger but in the calmer light of day as I write this I am less afraid to admit that yes, there was a little bit of fear in there too.

"No!" he said. "They will deny it and you have no right to search them. "We will have to phone the police."

I watched the two men battle the elements and lock up their van, all the while willing myself to go shove a banana up their exhaust pipe or a nail in their tyres, anything, everything that would prevent their leaving and prompt them into full disclosure and repentance, culminating in them returning our stolen property.

But of course, none of that happened. instead I snatched the money for the table from the man from behind a half-closed door and then slammed it shut in his face, hating myself for being so inadequate.

Then I reached for the phone.

The police, I have to say were very understanding. They were also very quick. Unusually so. I guess that should have started alarm bells ringing in my head...

"We have a rapid response team on the way and there is a helicopter in the area," the 999 controller informed me.

"Oh, um, ok," I responded. "But you will probably not be able to catch them, they left a few minutes ago," I explained.

"Do you know where they were headed caller?" she asked.

"They are on their way back to London," I related what they had told me.

"London, eh?"

Ok so at this point I should have known that things had become more than a little farcical I guess. But you know what? When wrapped up in the situation as it is actually unfolding, you cannot always see the wood for the trees. In my defence, Your Honour!

"So will you let me know what happens?" I asked.

"We have stopped them and are doing a full search on them as we speak," she stated triumphantly.

Now whilst we had been on the phone I had heard several police sirens but could not bring myself to believe it was in response to my call. But yes, it appeared that indeed it had!

Then the police controller said something which made it all fall into place. "We were in your area anyway as there have been a number of thefts within the past twelve hours, many involving satnavs and we think it is a gang targeting your area. With your help we might just have caught them. Hang up now caller as a constable is on his way to your house with more information."

I thanked her and duly hung up.

No more than ten minutes later, two very soaked PCs arrived at my house with a satnav.

"Is this it?" they asked brandishing the said article in my face.

"No," I stuttered dejectedly. "Did you find any others?"

"Well here's the thing..." he said slowly, strangely using that same tone of voice my friend had used on me earlier, the one that made me feel about knee high to a grasshopper and only half as intelligent.

"We searched the men extensively. We made them empty everything out of their van." He didn't say 'in the torrential rain and hail' but I felt the words anyway. "We made them unlock every box and empty out every holdall and bag in the van..." And oh dear God the feeling in my stomach was telling my head and heart things it did not want to know.

"We looked everywhere and there were none of the stolen goods from any of the houses." He looked me in the eye and we both knew he knew I was an idiot. "Is it possible that the theft had occurred before these men arrived and that their arrival was just a coincidence?"

It was of course the only logical answer and I was doubly humiliated. Not only had I caused innocent men to be pulled over and virtually strip searched but I had not even been aware of the burglary in the very first place!

I bowed my head in shame and felt the weight of life upon my shoulders as the policemen trudged away, back to the innocent men who waited still bent over their van in the rain and hail, searched and grappled with to within an inch of their lives. Treated like ghetto drug dealers - because of me!

So now every time I  go to my Ebay account and view the feedback, I cringe. Nothing has been posted there - yet - but I imagine it nonetheless. It will read something like this:-

"Avoid like the plague. This woman will lure you to her home with promises of Ebay bargains but whilst you are there she will waste your time, snatch your money from your hand and then have you strip searched by the police on departure. AVIOD AT ALL COSTS!!!"

So dear readers, this blog post is my way of an open apology to those poor innocent men.

Now can I interest anyone in an only slightly used dishwasher?

Anyone?

[N.B. The above is a true story - unfortunately for all participants.]

Breaking news...

Big exciting news... My latest novel is going to be displayed on a giant media screen on the Aston Expressway AND WHSmith will be stocking Split Decision in their stores!

I can't tell you how excited I am! I will be standing there gazing up at the display for hours on end no doubt.

People often ask what it is like to see your name on a book or to hold in your hands something that you created. The answer is that its a strange feeling. A novel is a piece of work that a novelist doesn't just write, they imagine it into being, so to hold it finally in your hands is rather surreal, almost magical, in the truest sense of the word.

I will keep you posted about the advertising date and perhaps you will be passing by at just the right time...

I know I will :)

Coming Event!

Don't forget that this Thursday you can find me at Lord Morton's Tearooms, where I will be giving a talk about my books, my love of writing and my plotlines.

For details contact 01299851201. I can't wait to see you there!

Happy Reading!

Small but perfectly formed.

I'm not good with directions. I seem to have no knowledge of which way up to hold a map and whether a turn is to the left or the right...and yet I managed to find my way to an event I had been invited to, at Bar Opus in Birmingham, even though I tend to get lost if I stray too far from New Street.

Bar Opus is situated at Snowhill, an area I am not at all familiar with. Large windows front the building and there is an outside seating area too. Initially I took up residence there, happy to watch the world go by in all its hustle and bustle.

In addition to the shoppers outside, I had a good view of the staff working in the open plan kitchen and this is something I have always enjoyed [not to see other people working whilst I am relaxing, you understand] but to see how professional chefs carry out their trade.

Looking at the menu, I have to say it wasn't extensive, but it did offer some interesting food combinations with some ingredients being prepared in such as way as to make the completed dish both unique and enticing. 'Scorched lemon' was one such ingredient. How and why anyone would chose to scorch a lemon is beyond me, but I was assured by one of the customers that it gave an edge to the dish it was used within.

The décor was a little retro and the overall effect of the place was small and sophisticated with an extensive range of alcoholic beverages on display. But there was one thing I didn't like - the two unisex toilet cubicles. Now quite frankly I don't want to share a bathroom with a man unless I intend to marry him! And as the two cubicles were separate, I couldn't see why one hadn't been allocated to men and the other to women.

I don't know what men think about this latest trend, but I can tell you one thing - women don't like it! It may well be very cosmopolitan but its also downright embarrassing for men and women alike!

So if you fancy a quick drink in a lovely bar with perhaps a bite to eat from an interesting menu, then Bar Opus is the place for you. Just make sure your bladder is empty before you arrive, otherwise that woman queuing behind you just might be me.

Split Decision - out now!

Holiday Heaven or Holiday Hell?

 

I have just returned from a holiday in Spain. Am I calmer after the break, more relaxed, less wound like a coiled spring? Probably not. For the truth is that the moment you are home, yes, literally that moment, it becomes clear how much you have to do just to get back on track with everyday life. All the lounging about and dipping into sun-dappled pools is nothing more than a memory and even that seems distant.

Add to this the fact that there were elements of pure fiasco during the holiday and I have to wonder if all the frantic organising was even worth it.

It certainly started with an adventure. I had pre-booked [and pre-paid] airport parking as that seemed like a sensible thing to do. But as I approached Birmingham Airport it became clear that Car Park 7 had no road signs leading to it, unlike numbers 1-6.

Not owning a sat. nav. anymore, [if you want the ludicrous story of how that was lost, you will have to go back to a blog post from about a year ago] I resorted to reading the directions I had printed out. Let’s just say I drove around the same island five times, each time taking a different exit, only to return defeated.

By this time my blood pressure was up, the kids in the back were starting to ask when the plane took off and would we be on it, and I was still none the wiser.

The time was fast approaching 5am when we were due to check in for our flight, and everywhere seemed deserted. There was no one around to even ask where I should have been heading.

In desperation, I pulled in to Car Park 1 and pressed the button on the intercom for assistance. I explained that I was lost and needed help to find Car Park 7. Unfortunately the disembodied voice didn’t seem to know where that was either! There followed an interminably long wait whilst he consulted a map and finally delivered the sage advice that I should, “Go back to the roundabout and pick up the signs for number 7.”

Defeated, I had to reverse the car out of the one-way system, invoking incredulous stares from the other motorists and head back to the same island I had already been around five times!

Since most of them led to other car parks, I chose the one route which didn’t and followed it for some time in the hope that it would be right. Guess what? I still didn’t find the car park I needed. I returned to the original roundabout. The time was 5:30am and I was in a cold sweat.

This time I pulled into car Park 5 and up to the intercom barrier. I pressed the button and waited. “Look I’m lost. I have paid for Car Park 7 but I can’t find it. I have been around and around… and if you don’t help me I am going to miss my flight and …”

I was cut off by a bored voice. “Oh, it’s you again. Didn’t you find it then?” Now don’t ask me why it never occurred to me that it would be the same man from Car Park 1, but it didn’t. Then to have him state the blatantly obvious was almost too much for me. I felt steam coming out of my ears. Very slowly, one vertebrae at a time, I felt myself turn towards the little camera that regarded me so intrusively. Behind my eyes I saw an image of how I must appear to him and I sharpened my gaze.

Before I could say anything I heard him clear his throat and say anxiously, “Wait there. I will get a supervisor to direct you.”

Wait there? Where did he think I was going to go? Round and round the roundabout on a pleasure jaunt, whirling suitcases and children from the car window in wild abandonment, in the hope that some of them would land close to the terminal and might actually make it to the plane?

Finally a supervisor arrived. It took only a short conversation for him to see that by now directions were going to be lost on me. He opened up the barrier and let me park, for which I will be eternally grateful.

By the time we got to the duty free shops, all my previous cares had been forgotten. Almost. Gleefully, my ten year old daughter and I sampled the perfumes and the make-up, drawing on our hands thick lines of every colour available.

Now lots of cosmetics claim to be waterproof… but few actually are. In the toilets, I lathered up my hands and worked at the smears of green and blue and red, rubbing and scraping at my skin. The make-up refused to dissolve and wash away but it did move, smearing itself over both hands, so that it looked like I had been bare-knuckle boxing with Mike Tyson. Again and again I washed my hands, each time more frantically than before, cursing under my breath so that I must have looked more than a little like a modern-day Lady Macbeth. All that was needed was for me to shriek, “Out, damned spot!” and I might even have got an Oscar.

So as usual we ended up making a frenzied dash for the plane, with me trying in vain to hide my monstrous looking hands from everyone. I took solace in the family pack of chocolate raisins I had bought for the journey, doling them out for myself and the children.

It was a turbulent flight, particularly noticeable when on one jolt, I dropped several of the sweets and they clattered softly to the floor. Embarrassed, I tried to pick them up and dispose of them – no mean feat when the seating space seems to have been modelled on the dimensions of mankind from the 1950s, when men were trim and women had waists, but I got most of them up.

It was only when I uncontorted myself that I discovered the people across the aisle were watching me in fascination. It seemed they thought I was so panicked about the turbulence that I had adopted the safety ‘brace’ position.

Safely ensconced in my seat once more, I hoped that I had finished providing them with free entertainment. But I’m afraid the show was not yet over. It was only when I stood up to go to the toilet that I realised not all of the chocolate treats had fallen to the floor. Some had slipped onto my seat, becoming effectively squashed and melted under me.

Do you have any idea what a few squashed chocolate buttons and raisins look like when congealed to the seat of your jeans? Mortified, I blazed a trail to the toilets, cheeks crimson and with the sound of my children’s guffaws still ringing in my ears. I may never live that memory down.

I had booked a hotel in Benidorm because of the dates we needed to have and the price I was happy to pay, added to the fact that I wanted a hotel which was close to the beach and which offered nightly entertainment. Now at this point are you all shaking your heads? I thought so.

And to be honest Benidorm was everything people say it is. But it is also beautiful, with long sandy beaches where the sea is both warm and crystal clear and fish swim unafraid around your toes.

Cloistered within the walls of our hotel by night, there was none of the anti-social behaviour that might have been acted out on the streets and many clubs and bars of the town, but there was still that flavoursome sense of excitement, that in the warm air, scented with exotic flowers and coconut suntan lotion, anything might happen…

I even managed to convince myself that I could look as enticing as Halle Berry famously coming out of the sea in one of the James Bond movies, so I tried it. Hair slicked back by the tide, bikini rucked up to cover my most wobbliest of bits, I emerged, white and short limbed from the foamy waves.

The film score which was playing in my head, stuttered and died as I caught my big toe on a rock concealed under the water. Pain shot up my foot and I stumbled, feet flailing under the water, trying to find purchase and finding only the rock. Again. I went down like a lead balloon, hair straggling over my face and inhaling a great lungful of salt water.

But this holiday also provided a number of firsts for me. I had never taken the children abroad on my own before and it was a bitter-sweet experience. I sat alone watching the nightly entertainment, my teenage son off messaging his friends on Facebook and my daughter playing with new friends, and although the shows were on the whole very good, I felt I cut a rather pathetic figure, there on my own. This was highlighted during one of the acts, when a comedian picked on me as being clearly alone in a swarm of huge family groups and asked what my name was, where I was from and whether I was married or not.

Reluctantly giving the answers, I was dismayed to be asked more; how old was I and did I have children? Giving the answers as I did, starkly and without embellishment, I almost felt like I was on a game show dating site:- ‘And now here’s Carmen, all the way from the Midlands, give her a cheer! Carmen is single, 48 and has three children!’

So when the Adele tribute singer came on, perhaps you will forgive me for shedding a quiet, surreptitious tear at my aloneness.

In general though, the entertainment was really good and my thanks go out to JJ Jones who was the Neil Diamond Tribute and to Andy, the Rod Stewart tribute, who were both photographed with my newest novel, Split Decision. [See earlier posts]

In particular I must mention the fact that JJ Jones donates all proceeds from the sale of his CDs to a charity in remembrance of his daughter.

But my most enduring memories of this holiday? Well apart from the looks of purest joy on the faces of my children, it would have to be sitting on the balcony with the strains of Spanish music played on an acoustic guitar, filtering up from below. The music seemed to play with the noise of the passing traffic like a cat with a mouse, sometimes feigning passivity, at other times being assertive, taking control and bending the other noise to its will.

Spain is the land of my grandfather, the origin of my name and so perhaps it is a part of me in a way that I almost can’t define. Looking at my children, I now think it may well be a part of them too.

 

Book Launch announced!

Coming up...

Look out for my blog about the Neil Diamond Tribute Act, as well as my interview with 'Tina Turner', coming soon.

I will also be posting a blog about my holiday adventures - hold onto your hats!

Not Lost In Space

There is a growing worry in British industry. There is a dire fear that we might not have enough engineers and physicists coming up through the educational system to satisfy the needs and demands of our technologically advancing society.

It is certainly a fear of which Richard Noble, past holder of the land speed record and Director of ThrustSSC, the company behind the vehicle which holds the current speed record, is well aware. That’s why he is working with schools and the education system to encourage interest in his forthcoming land speed record attempt.

But two youngsters from Bromsgrove have proved they are already ahead of the game. Dylan and Oscar Rees, along with some help from their dad, Olly, a teacher, recently launched a teddy bear successfully into space, capturing the whole thing on film. Using items they sourced themselves along with their dad’s help, the boys used a polystyrene box that had been used to deliver fish as insulation, along with heat packs from a local discount store, GPS equipment from a mobile phone, and a weather balloon, to fashion the craft which got as high as 80,000 feet, twice the height the average aeroplane flies at.

The family were granted permission from the Civil Aviation Authority and given several launch dates which were dependant on weather conditions. It was particularly important to the boys that they could retrieve the bear, ‘Uranus’, after his voyage.  

“We knew the risks because it was going 80,000 feet,” said Dylan, 12. “We waited two days to get it back and had a two hour drive.”

And it seems that the successful experiment may have far-reaching consequences. Already it has sparked much media interest, with national newspapers clamouring to get the story and the YouTube video is receiving world-wide interest. The footage has been shown in the boys’ schools and classmates have been enthusiastic about the event.

So could a new generation of physicists and engineers have been sparked by this project? It certainly seems that way. Dylan was already very interested in science and maths, having won the Ogden Trust Award for science in schools when he was 11, but the project has given him further insight into what a career in the sciences or engineering could offer and he hopes to eventually become a physicist or astrophysicist.  He said of the event: “It has given me something that I can say, I have done this.”

Brother Oscar, 9 agrees: “I think it will change my future a little bit. I wouldn’t think we couldn’t do that because we are just ordinary people. We did it. When I am older I will do it again. Maybe even in on a bigger scale.”

Dad Olly was also fired with enthusiasm: “We might try a rocket car next.”

So watch out Richard Noble - there might just be an up-and-coming challenge to your supersonic car and its land speed record attempt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNtHVlQTzGk

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/

 

 

 

.

Stars in my eyes...

I bet you didn't realise that all the biggest stars are now reading my book, did you?

Here are just two of them, Neil Diamond

 

and Rod Stewart.

 

 

 

Don't you think they both look really pleased?

 

;) Happy Reading!

Me and Dean Koontz on the beach.

Would you like to see a picture of me and Dean Koontz on the beach together? You would? Yes, I thought so.

Here it is...

 

 

 

Joking aside, when I am going on holiday, it is always one of his books I choose and since my very first paperback of Split Decision had just arrived, I took that too, so you see Dean and I really were on the beach together ;)

Back home now, I am working on a post to tell you all about my adventures, so keep your eyes peeled.

Happy Reading!

Thanks y'all!

Thanks to my publisher P'kaboo and my agent Paul Thompson; to all my friends and lovely book buyers. Split Decision is now out as an ebook. The paperback is coming soon. I'll keep you posted.


Sorry if I have driven you half mad with my fretting and constant talking about my engrossing characters but now you have the chance to see what all the fuss was about.

I would like to say that the time has come to relax but you know me, there's another book in the offing now, so if I were you, I'd reinsert those earplugs fast!

Happy Reading.

Read all about it!

My newest book, is now out. Follow the link to take a look at it.

 http://www.pkaboo.net/splitdecision.html

Happy Reading!