Brotherly Love

My first thriller novel!
Can be downloaded as an ebook from kindle, ibooks and other sites for ereaders.
As a paperback from www.createspace.com, www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk

This is a story about fear, of somebody out of his depth in a world made strange to him by events he cannot fully comprehend.
It is a novel about Ken Flood being pulled by family loyalties along paths of experience which would be best left unexplored.
Ken Flood lives a quiet life with his wife, Doreen, and two daughters in Plymouth, working as a lecturer in the University. He minds his own business and is relatively happy with life. Until, that is, his brother Norman arrives unexpectedly one day asking for help. Norman works for the government or so Ken assumes.  What his brother asks appears to Ken to verge on an attempt pull him into the murky waters on the edges of crime. Ken has to decide quickly whether to help his brother out of brotherly love or let his brother face his unknown pursuers alone.
Reluctantly Ken agrees to help and soon finds himself outside the law, being chased by people he does not know, trying to deliver a mysterious package, given to him by his brother, to a man he has never met in London.  Along the way there are chance encounters with people who through friendship are willing to help.
Will Ken manage to stay ahead of his pursuers? Can he keep those who help him safe from intimidation? Will he find out who are his friends and who are his enemies? Is his brother using him to hide his own criminal activities?

Womens' equality

I was lying in bed drinking my mug of tea when I heard an item on the news which made me sit up. Luckily I did not spill the tea. It was a woman telling girls that they should take up cheerleading to get exercise. There appeared to be no hint what this implied. It means the girls putting on small skirts and tight blouses to stand waving pom poms at the side of the pitch while their men go out to play sport. Sport is not for girls. Leave it to the macho men. It has always stuck me as strange that in the land where feminism is entrenched there is still this idea that women should stand around and cheer on their men.
Then I got to thinking further. There is still a tendency in the shops to have areas for girls toys and for boys toys.Girls have dolls etc. boys have cars. The packaging for girls is pink, for boys blue. Even Lego has gone along with this trend in designing Lego for girls and boys.

In my latest fantasy novel Princess Daphne, King Ironbrew of the Iron Hills dwarfs said. “ Bancudgel why did you let Dustin and Organta go with this Edward Eastland? Especially Organta. Fighting is no business of a female dwarf. They should be at home providing a comfortable place for the dwarfs to return to. Their place in life is to cook, clean and look after males needs. That includes producing an heir.”

It strikes me that in a great deal of society this is still the case. What a great deal of talent and skill is being wasted.

C0-0p

A question that rings through my head. I wake up to the COE of the Co-Op threatening to resign because somebody leaked his salary details. Then we hear his projected earnings are to be over £3 million. This is absolutely unbelievable. When he was appointed  the CEO of the Co-Op he must have had some knowledge of what business he was joining. What he wants to do is change the nature of the busines. The only trouble with that idea is that the new organisation would not be the co-op. It would be just like any other retailer.
It occurs to me that the co-op should set an example to all other businesses. Why does somebody feel that their contribution is more than 100 times greater than the lowest paid worker. They might think they are superior but by that magnitude?
Maybe a system where basic pay for the boss was 10 times the lowest salary. On top of this there should be a bonus pool at the end of the year. Everybody employed should then share the bonus according to their wages. This way all contributions to success would be recognised.
If the CEO of the co-op is so upset at earning 100 times other employees he should go.

Book Promotion

Have just submitted some of my ebooks into the smash words read an ebook week. The promotion discount off the price of the books for one week.
Tales from the Sea is now at 75% off
The Teacher of the Rombuli, The Return of the Exiles and The Prisoner of Parison at 50% discount.

To see go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1/newest/1

London Underground strike

In my book Managing Transport Operations I show that most passengers do not want to be using transport. The question usually asked by transport providers is what are we trying to sell. Obviously the answer is a cabin, a seat or some space for freight. The proper question to ask is what does the consumer wish to buy. What in reality is the consumer of transport wanting from transport? If the transport consumer could find some way to instantly transfer from one place to another  they would avail themselves of that opportunity. To cut a complex argument short, it is the arrival which the consumer is buying. They want to be at the destination so that they can carry out their wishes.
This argument puts the consumer at the centre of the transport process. The journey has to be accomplished safely so that the passenger or goods arrive undamaged. It has to be accomplished to the time advertised.
Back to Transport for London. Many passengers need reassurance to complete their journey. They do not want to be presented with an array of machines to buy a ticket. To help them negotiate the process, they need ticket office and helpful staff. It strikes me that in the present dispute, the needs of the consumer have been lost in the shouting by both side. One problem is that the great majority of passengers using the underground are daily travellers. Not all. I can think of numerous times when I have stood in the station in another large city in some other country than the UK and found it almost impossible to purchase a ticket. Transport for London should think deeply about their attitude to passengers. It looks on the surface as though they are slipping back into the production idea of transport provision where the needs of the operator are placed before the needs of the consumer.

MANAGING TRANSPORT OPERATIONS by Edmund J Gubbins.
Published by Kogan Page
Available from Amazon.

The Prisoner of Parison changes.

The third book in my fantasy series The Rombuli Saga titled The Prisoner of Parison is over 700 pages long. Niot only is this a long read but the cost is rather high.
I am planning to split this into two novels of about 350 words each. There is a natural division at about halfway through. It is at the point where Edward Eastland and his friends sneak into the Citidal in Parison and manage to rescue Tulka, the leader of the Covenent. It ends naturally when Edward, his sister Morag and Vibrus the dragon enter Tulka's mind and rid him of the control constraints put there by the Black Elves. I am planning to keep the title of this book as The Prisoner of Parison, book 3 of The Rombuli Saga.
Book 4 will be called The Governor of the Rombuli and will then chart the war between the Empire and the black elves.
That is the plan.

Great Train robbery

I was sitting in bed drinking a mug of tea when I heard that Ronald Biggs had died. They played a recording of him speaking about the great train robbery and his life. He showed no sense of being a bad person or doing illegal things. It is alleged that he started his criminal career by looting the houses of bomb victims in London during the WW2. During the great train robbery the driver was beaten up and never worked again. Biggs could see nothing wrong in whatever he did.
This made me think about the way in which many people hide any feelings of doing bad things by some justification. Many people never feel that any of their actions are illegal or morally wrong. This can even apply to leaders of countries and businesses. We only have to look at the way in which Stalin thought he was helping the Russian people. I suspect the North Korean leadership feel the same. Then there are bankers. They show no signs of thinking that they were wrong in the excesses that caused the great crash. Most do not seem to have learnt any lessons from their past actions by the way they are acting at present.
All of this reminded me that I have written about this in a novel called An Ordinary Life. It is about the way people ignore their consciences and justify their actions as good. In the novel, Tom is an academic. He makes love to his students, allows his brother to invest his money in dubious schemes even though they both support left wing causes and gives advice to the Mr Big criminal on setting up legitimate business. All this comes to a head when Tom first has to sanction one of his staff for not only making love to a student but enhancing her marks for an exam. Then his friend is shot and Tom has to decide if he will help  in the revenge of the criminal gang.
An Ordinary Life published as a paperback with www.createspace.com Available for purchase from Amazon.
It is also available for download as an ebook from kindle and for all electronic readers from www.smashwords.com