Memories of Another Me?
There are moments when I am overwhelmed with a strange feeling. It’s as if I remember events or things or perhaps hints of events or things that never actually happened. Sometimes, it’s like an ache yearning for something that seems lost or unclear. The feeling that there is something strange about things is a part of this sensation. Bizarre? To be honest, I think it is this feeling that I had as a child that lead me to imagine that I was not really here at all but instead I was sat in a small room hooked up to a machine through which I experienced a virtual life knowing that outside my room was an endless corridor of such rooms…. The feeling sometimes is so strong that I am sad
Read More »How Different Are People
If you needed a reminder of just how different people are take a look at any book on Amazon with a number of reviews – even Shakespeare’s sonnets. There you will find the entire gamut of people’s perceptions as reviews. The Last Observer, my paranormal novella, has quite a lot of reviews as well and I was just going through them on Amazon and Goodreads to see what people thought. There are 25 reviews on Amazon.com and it has an average of 4.4 out of five which I will happily take all day. The book has 17 5-star reviews, 4 four-star, 2 3-star and 2 one-star reviews and no two-star reviews as yet. But consider some of the comments…. We have this on the one hand – “This book was
Read More »Do You Believe in Magic?
An angel instructs a 14th Century magician to wife swap? A man that lives forever having discovered the secret of immortality? A man who can project fire from his belly and water to put out the fire? A 14-year old who already had three degrees and spoke five languages in the 15th Century? An English artist who painted spirits with his eyes closed? An alchemist who wrote the laws of physics? A man who paralysed his Nazi guards with a spoken word? A man who could levitate and fortell the future? All of the above are historical people. They were Wizards, Warlocks and Magicians. They practiced alchemy and natural Magic. One was an ordinaed member of the church as well. They discovered the secret knowledge and sometimes, they wrote about
Read More »Vysehrad
This weekend, we were in Prague. A beautiful city with lots to see including Vysehrad. We had never been to Vysehrad for some reason and so that is where we spent Saturday afternoon. Vysehrad has some magnificent views of the river and the city. It also has a church – St. Peter and St. Paul. They charge money to look around the church so we did’t bother but we did wander around the churchyard. Don’t ask me why but that cemetery really creeped me out. It had a sense of something unpleasant and rotten. It left a deep and gloomy impression on me that I am yet to entirely shake off… Cold aged stone has lost its polish The words still legible mourn Moss grows and the ground is damp
Read More »Allergic to Beer?
Woe is me! I am forced to conclude that I am allergic to something in beer. I love beer, especially Czech beer, but it hates me. Last night, I had four glasses of beer with a friend. This morning, I am dizzy, throbbing headache, my right eye is swollen up and my sinuses too and I have a sore throat on that side too. In short, I feel pretty crappy to say the least. I have been getting this sort of reaction to most beers this last few years but this time is the worst. If I drink wine, whiskey or anything else, I am fine so it really is beer. My father suffered the same fate. The older he got the more beer seemed to dislike him. A pint of
Read More »God Visited My Blog Last Night
I had a visitor to my website over night. According to his email address his name was God.God at yahoo.com to be precise. However, based on the content of the message left to greet me this morning, God had very little to do with it. I had thought about reproducing the content of his email here but I won’t. The person who wrote it belongs to that small group of people who feel that God has given them permission to hate and take retribution. Just like the people who are ISIS, beheading and killing for God, this, I suppose ‘christian’, believes he represents God and God’s will and uniquely has the power to identify his adversary. I feel sorry for these people. God is love and love knows no bounds. The
Read More »People are Funny
People. We are a strange bloody lot don’t you think? There is a woman down our street who we often meet walking her dog. If we have our dog with us too she will cross the road to avoid us glaring the entire time. What is bizarre about this is that dogs like to sniff each other don’t they but her she protects her dog from contact with all others muttering to herself and glaring her glare at other dog and owner. Why? Today, I made a comment on a global warming story. I expected a reply or two it is par for the course but the reply I actually received blew me away. It said “Look mate, I have an O level in science and I got that O
Read More »Real Ghost Stories Online
Tonight, one of my stories – Medium – from My Haunted Life Too was featured on the Real Ghost Stories online podcast (January 27th edition). Real Ghost Stories Online is a website that does a show via podcast available on iTunes. According to the site, the show is a combination of interviews, verbally submitted ghost stories and written ghost stories sent to us by listeners all over the world. It’s very professionally done and really a great listen. The website is filled with great features too. I recommend it. Tonight’s podcast is available on iTunes and will be also available below – don’t miss it. Medium begins at 16:55 in the podcast.
Read More »Battle Cry! (From My Haunted Life 3)
Here is a short story from My Haunted Life 3 – out now on Kindle….. My Dad told me this creepy story several times when I was growing up. His childhood wasn’t so great and so he liked to escape at weekends or whenever he could. His best friend, Jack, and he, loved to cycle, camp and hike around East Yorkshire and that’s what they did just anytime they could. It was the years directly after the war and there was little traffic or other people to bother them. One night, they pitched their small two-man tent in a farmer’s field near Long Marston. They knew very well that, in the vicinity, many years ago, a battle had taken place there during the English Civil war – The battle of
Read More »Your Life is One Big Lie
One of the central themes of all my writings – even the My Haunted Life series – is the nature of reality and the role that we may play in dictating that. Over the last twenty or so years (if not my entire life really), I have read, meditated on, studied and discussed this topic and the process I have come to several conclusions. One of these is that I now believe that much of our world is an illusion. It’s easy to draw analogies with movies like the Matrix here and I and others often do but what I mean is a lot of what we think we know isn’t real. It isn’t truth nor fact. I once said (and thought it was rather cute) – “The more I
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