Book Sales Dynamics
It’s been an interesting couple of months as sales of my books have moved up a notch. However, what I find interesting is how on any day,my books do well in the US or the UK but not both. There really is a pattern to this. One day, like yesterday, I sold 8 kindle books – all but one from the uk site of Amazon. The day before it was 5 Kindle books and all in the US .com site. Is this a function of how Amazon reports sales or is this real? If it’s real, why? The My Haunted Life book has been doing well selling 2-4 copies a day for about 6-weeks now and I have given away around about 120 free copies too. My Haunted Life Too
Read More »A Tale of Two Cities
I was born in the city of Kingston Upon Hull known by all and sundry as just plain Hull (‘Ull). In 2011, the population of Hull was 256,000 although the Hull area must be significantly more. Today, I live in the city of Brno in the Czech Republic. It too is a working-class city with a heavily industrialized past and it is a bit bigger coming in at 371,000. I like both cities in terms of their location, attractions and so on. Brno is a bit more attractive but likely that is simply because it is a bit more varied in its architectural styles and it has many more green spaces and parks. What utterly amazes me is the difference in an aspect of city life and that is personal
Read More »Flight School
After working as a rig geologist in the North Sea, I developed a real fear of flying. I really didn’t enjoy the helicopter rides and even fixed-wing aircraft rides scared me. If I knew I had to fly then I would worry for days before the flight. It was OK when I was working in the UK as flying wasn’t something that I did too frequently but when I moved to the USA, flying suddenly took on a whole new level of importance. Flying was viewed like taking a bus there. I knew something had to be done but what? As it turned out, there was an annual air show at Addison airport in Dallas. We decided it might be fun to go and we took our son. It was
Read More »Utterly Overwhelmed and Angry
I know that I have written about this before but I really am now totally overwhelmed by US taxes as I think are many overseas US citizens. US citizens living overseas are treated like criminals by the USA and heavily penalized in the form of a growing web of complex rules and reporting requirements that even the IRS doesn’t actually seem to understand and that now required specialist tax assistance (i.e expensive). When you add to that filing in the Czech Republic – which is actually relatively simple – it is just too much. Tomorrow, I head to Prague where I will review and file tax returns for each year from 2009 – 2013. I will also file a whole array of other special tax forms and reports to the
Read More »Nationalism
At college I joined the territorial army. The union jack and the national anthem always stirred my emotions. I was deeply proud of being British. I even flirted with nationalist politics but was frankly put off by the other people I met on the right wing fringes of the Tory party. Even then, I liked to buck the trend. It was trendy to be a leftie so I did the very opposite like the contrarian Aquarian that I am. But I grew up. Firstly, I traveled a lot. At first inside the UK with three years in the midlands, a year in Leeds, three years in Glasgow, three years in Aberdeen, 3 years in London. To be honest, my parents liked travel too so even by age 16 I had
Read More »Stranger Than Fiction – The UK Pedophile Story that Won’t go Away
For decades there have been rumors about a pedophile ring at the highest levels of British society. From time to time, bits and pieces would bubble up in newspapers and then just as quickly, the story was gone again. The story was always there though in the background as whispers, innuendo and rumor. It was a story picked over by conspiracy theorists who no doubt embellished it with lurid stories of satanism, black magic, lizards, aliens, murder, royalty and much much more. Indeed, much of this was truly stranger than fiction but throughout there was a core of substance to these stories. Since the Saville case came to light, the existence of such a pedophile ring involving powerful people and going to the core of British society has been proven.
Read More »Overpriced, Overdone but Beautiful
So what am I talking about with a post title like that? The United Kingdom actually. I left the UK in 1992 and emigrated to Texas where I spent a good 17-years before returning to Europe and settling in the Czech Republic. Periodically, of course, I get to go back on business or a for a family visit. Over priced – The UK is expensive. How do people there manage? So far as I can tell, salaries have gone up incredibly since I left but despite the fact that people seem to earn what I would have thought of as ‘silly money’ back in 1992, prices appear to have risen even faster! Being in the West Midlands this last week, I paid over four pounds for a pint, had toast,
Read More »London and the Brits – Observations
I had a quick trip to London this week and I have decided that London is almost unrecognizable to me these days. So much development work and a real shift in eating habits over the last 20-years means that I really am lost there. I started my career as a Geologist with BP and after moving down from Aberdeen and a spell at the BP Research Center, I was moved to Britannic House – the tower block on the edge of the City of London. Being in the City, I retraced my steps from the Bank tube station as I would have walked to work some 20+ years ago and not only did I recognize very little but I couldn’t find Britannic House at all! I came home thinking it
Read More »Who is Lisa Ann?
I must confess to having read a story on one of the newspaper sites about the browsing stats published by a pornographic outlet called Pornhub. Apparently, the average Brit visits this site for just under 10 minutes a day if I understood it correctly which is just behind the US but significantly more than much of the rest of the world. Most revealing was the fact that a small town called Ware wins the award for most compulsive pornography viewing town in the UK. I have vaguely heard of Ware but that’s about it. Actually, the data, if you can stomach it, is pretty revealing. Apparently, what does for an American isn’t a Brit’s cup of tea and there appears to be a good deal of nationalism when it comes
Read More »I Don’t Believe You!
I went to CNN briefly this morning, glanced at the headlines and suddenly realized something. I don’t believe the stuff you write CNN or BBC or any of the other mainstream and controlled outlets. I don’t believe you Mr. Cameron, Mr. Clegg, Mr. Milliband, Mr. Obama. I don’t believe a word you all say. This is a sad development because there was a time that I did. What is published on CNN and BBC isn’t news. Its opinion. It’s spoon feeding the masses what someone wants them to believe. It doesn’t matter much what the story is it will have an angle. Its insidious and its increasingly obvious. Truth be told – and I am shocked by this myself – I would believe the Russian news service before I believed
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