It’s hard to watch the scenes of the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami and not be just a little bit terrified. It’s equally hard to imagine that one minute I could be sitting hear at my computer and the next me, the computer and the house I’m in are swept out to sea. But that’s what happened and you feel deeply for everyone...

The world has looked like a very tortured place of late. Hot on the heels of the global financial meltdown we have terrible natural disasters in New Zealand and Japan and much of the Arab world either having or about to have a barney. And then last week we had Comic Relief and the reminder of how bad the business as usual world can be. I suppose one of the modern...

A few years ago, after finishing The Beatle Man, I started to work on a plot for a second book. This I did and I started writing. The book was to be called Terra Exitus. I even got the domain, and did a front cover, what a doofus, certainly a reflection of how well the writing was going. Still like the cover though For a few reasons, I stopped writing it. A certain...

It is a little known fact that Angry Birds was invented in the 1970′s by two small boys in the barren urban landscape of Wester Hailes on the outskirts of Edinburgh. How do I know? I was one of those boys. The other, Stuart Douglas, is so far behind the mobile device times that he thinks Angry Birds is a Jimmy McGovern reaction to something involving Nerys...

Took a wee jaunt to the Five Sisters Zoo this afternoon. Didn’t expect to get many decent photos because it was a dull, grey day but was pleasantly surprised. The zoo itself was great. It’s not big but there is a good variety of critters. And, given that entrance and some lunch in the zoo came to under £20 for me and my daughter, it is genuine value for...