Welcome to DavidStedman.co.uk

ANSWERS to DECEMBER 2020 Festive Food and Drink

1 BUCKS FIZZ;

2 CUMBERLAND;

3 CADBURY;

4 MINCE PIES;

5 Will CARLING;

6 PEPSI (real name Helen DeMacque);

7 BRUSSELS;

8 Father GOOSE;

9 CLEMENTINE (Churchill);

10 GRAVES (Robert);

11 Katy PERRY;

12 GALAXY;

13 William Hogarth;

14 PUNCH;

15 Screwdriver;

16 BACON (Francis, Richard, Roger and Kevin);

17 Chevrolet;

18 DUCK SOUP;

19 George Washington;

20 QUALITY STREET

FUN QUIZ ANSWERS FROM NOVEMBER 2020

1) Call The Midwife

2) Gabriel OAK

3) BLUEBELL Line

4) Chris PINE

5) Popeye

6) Hatfield House

7) WALNUTS

8) Stephen King

9) Ian LAVENDER, in Dad’s Army

10) BUTTERCUP, by The Foundations

11) MAYFLOWER (first car I ever bought!)

12) ALLEN

13) Mike HAWTHORN

14) Steel MAGNOLIAS

15) General Sherman

16) SORREL

17) The JOSHUA TREE, by U2

18) 3d / Threepence

19) HYACINTH Bucket, pronounced Bouquet!

20) In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae.

Scientists have found that using a high speed camera, the vibrations of seemingly inanimate objects like these can actually ‘record’ sounds in a room. The incredible technique can be used to identify music, speech and more just by filming objects and monitoring their tiny vibrations.

The research was carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analysing tiny vibrations of objects.

For example, in one experiment the scientists were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a crisp packet filmed from 15 feet (4.6 metres) away through soundproof glass.

 In another experiment, the researchers show how filming the vibrations encountered by a plant’s leaves enabled them to identify that a song playing nearby was ‘Mary had a little lamb.’

‘When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate,’ says Abe Davis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and first author on the new paper.

‘The motion of this vibration creates a very subtle visual signal that’s usually invisible to the naked eye. People didn’t realise that this information was there.’

The algorithm developed by the researchers is able to analyse the motions of an object as a whole when it's struck by sound waves.

As different edges move in different directions, the algorithm aligns all the measurements so that they don’t cancel each other out.

The result is that it can then identify signals of different frequencies and play them back.

This means speech and music can be picked out and identified from the vibrations alone. 

While the researchers’ technique has obvious applications in law enforcement and forensics, they are also enthusiastic about the possibility of what they describe as a 'new kind of imaging'.

In ongoing work the researchers are trying to determine the shape and structure of objects from just their visible responses to short bursts of sound.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

The first time I met Lord Edward he flung me into the sea. I could not condemn him because I asked him to do so. It was an encounter that transformed my life and the fate of my bitch mother England and of barbarous Wales and contumacious Scotland.

        I was born into low station but I moulded myself, slyly, to be almost as influential as the future king, Lord Edward, himself. How did I do that?

BUY 'THE CHRONICLES OF PAUNCEFOOT AND LONGSHANKS' DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP AND A SAVE £1 (PAPERBACK ONLY - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

Dennis got it wrong. He was out by several years.

But don't take my word for it. A far greater authority confirms the mistake. None other than the former Pope Benedict. The retired pontiff states as much in his recently published book entitled Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.

The Pope writes: 'The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years. The actual date of Jesus's birth was several years before.'

The assertion that the Christian calendar is based on a mistaken calculation premise is not new. Many historians believe that Christ was born sometime between 7BC and 2BC. The fact that doubts over one of the keystones of Christian tradition have been raised by the former leader, supposedly infallible, of the world's one billion Catholics, is surely definitive.

Exactly how Dennis the Small calculated the year of Christ's birth is not clear. The Bible does not specify a date for the birth of Christ. Dennis seems to have based his calculations on vague references to Jesus's age at the start of his ministry and the fact that he was baptised in the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius.

It gets worse.

Christ's birth date is not the only fallacy exposed by the Pope in his new book. He also writes said that contrary to the traditional Nativity scene, there were no oxen, donkeys or other animals at Jesus's birth.

John Barton, Professor of the Interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oriel College, Oxford University, commented that most academics agreed with the Pope that the Christian calendar was wrong and that Jesus was born several years earlier than commonly thought, probably between 6BC and 4BC.

Professor Barton states: 'There is no reference to when Christ was born in the Bible - all we know is that he was born in the reign of Herod the Great, who died before 1AD. It's been surmised for a very long time that Jesus was born before 1AD - no one knows for sure.'

It gets even worse . . .

The professor also said that the idea that Christ was born on December 25th also has no basis in historical fact. 'We don't even know which season he was born in. The whole idea of celebrating his birth during the darkest part of the year is probably linked to pagan traditions and the winter solstice.'

Merry Christmas everyone, whatever day you are reading this. It could be as valid as any other day.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

Across the world, three officers battle a hidden evil enemy as well as their own governments to unravel a dangerous mystery. What is the Silk Fist conspiracy, and will they expose the true culprits before it is too late?

Sergeant Christopher Wyatt of the British Royal Protection Squad has been framed by a powerful source from the Russian media. Mistrusted and branded a renegade traitor by the British authorities, he must clear his name by finding the true origin of a series of dangerous attacks. 

Linda Marquez is a sergeant of the United States Secret Service and trusted special assistant to the First Lady, until she is betrayed by a member of the US intelligence services or someone within the White House. No longer able to trust her own government, she puts aside her initial distrust of Wyatt to protect herself from these new enemies and prove her innocence. 

At the Indian Intelligence Service, Premendra Dhawan risks his own career to gather intelligence about the Silk Fist attacks. Together with Marquez and Wyatt, he must decipher a hard won series of clues that point to the upper echelons of the British and American governments, and a devastating attack on a gathering of world leaders… 

Can the three officers put their mistrust and suspicion of each other aside in order to expose the deadly plot? Will they ever discover the reasons behind the attacks? And will the ultimate secret of who is behind the Silk Fist conspiracy be revealed? 

"AS GOOD AS TOM CLANCY AT HIS BEST" GoodReads

SAVE £1 IF YOU BUY 'THE SILK FIST CONSPIRACY' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

a)   Dame Judi Dench (quoted in ‘Memoirs of Mr Showbiz’ by Peter Lewis.

b)  Anjelica Huston (quoted in her autobiography published last year, for the film ‘A Walk with Love and Death’).

AVAILABLE AS PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

What if you had been married for forty years and had never loved your wife?
What if you were bored with your family and your job but were too responsible to abandon them?
What if you looked in the mirror and saw a lifetime of regret and disillusion?
What if you had the chance to change it all before it was too late. What would you do?
Tony Ballard took his chance...

SAVE £1 AND BUY 'SETTLING' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

REVEAL

Not hard to guess that the young soldier was Napoleon Bonaparte and the widow was Josephine.

JOSEPHINE, NOT SMILING

Josephine was born in 1763 on the French colony of Martinique, the eldest child of a plantation owning family. Untroubled by any form of education, Josephine ran wild with the house servants and slave children, sucking on sugar cane which would rot her teeth and turn them into brown stumps. The enigmatic, close-lipped smile seen in all her later portraits was in order to conceal her unattractive dentition.

When Josephine was 15 she was sent to Paris to marry the Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was 17. The bridegroom was horrified by the plump, shy, unsophisticated girl with a thick Creole accent and brown teeth. He put aside his disgust and married her anyway. He sired a son and a daughter and then demanded a separation and returned to his mistress.

Josephine retreated to a Paris convent. She realised that, uneducated as she was, her only hope for a better life was to attract a suitable husband. She learned the arts of seduction and love making, lost weight and softened her Creole accent to a sexy and husky murmur, although there was nothing she could do about those teeth. She then took a string of aristocratic lovers.

When the French Revolution began, Josephine cannily restyled herself as Citizen Beauharnais and swapped her silk gowns for muslin dresses. Her husband was executed and she was imprisoned but on the day she herself was due to be executed, she was released. A year later she met and married Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon was completely besotted by his new wife and wrote copious love letters but Josephine, despite this bombardment of affection, remained lukewarm. Despite Napoleon's amazingly fast rise to power she began a wildly indiscreet affair with a Hussar lieutenant. Unfortunately, some letters revealing the affair fell into the hands of the British editor of the Morning Chronicle, which published them in November 1798. The French navy had just been comprehensively defeated by Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and now the world knew that Napoleon had been cuckolded. His humiliation was complete, his rage and jealousy uncontrollable.

 Josephine retreated to her country house while Napoleon raged about divorce and refused to see her. Finally she rounded up her children and the three of them stood weeping outside his door at five in the morning Napoleon relented. ‘I could not bear the sobs of those two children,’ he declared. But the balance of power in the relationship had shifted. The scruffy little soldier was now First Consul of France and a national hero. Josephine was merely his consort and there were now many beautiful women who longed to seduce Napoleon.

Yet Napoleon could never resist Josephine. It appears that were very compatible sexually. Even after Napoleon was crowned Emperor and divorced Josephine for her inability to produce an heir, the love story continued.

With the passage of the years Josephine’s half-hearted affection for her husband had bloomed into deep devotion. Even the day after the divorce, as she wept at her country retreat, Napoleon arrived to console her and the couple walked hand-in-hand in the rain.

Josephine’s attachment never wavered. His name was on her lips when she died 'of grief' in 1814, aged 51.

And Napoleon's last words? They were: 'France, armée, tête d'armée . . . Joséphine'.

So, the very last word that crossed Napoleon's lips was the name of his beloved ex-wife. Josephine died in 1814. A year later, after his dramatic escape from Elba, Napoleon was defeated by the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. It is generally acknowledged by historians that Napoleon was simply not on form on the day of this vital battle. He was already in poor health, in great pain from various ailments and left the battlefield for perhaps two hours while his subordinates took over. Could it also be that, having lost the love of his life with Josephine's death, Napoleon simply did not truly have it in life?

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

The first time I met Lord Edward he flung me into the sea. I could not condemn him because I asked him to do so. It was an encounter that transformed my life and the fate of my bitch mother England and of barbarous Wales and contumacious Scotland.

        I was born into low station but I moulded myself, slyly, to be almost as influential as the future king, Lord Edward, himself. How did I do that?

BUY 'THE CHRONICLES OF PAUNCEFOOT AND LONGSHANKS' DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP AND A SAVE £1 (PAPERBACK ONLY - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

REVEAL

During the 18^th century, following the Dutch Revolt, the northern Netherlands formed their own republic, while the southern Netherlands remained with Spain. For reasons, mainly to do with trade and far too complex and tedious to relate here, this eventually led to a clash between the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Emperor.

In 1781 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, demanded the return of territory in the Overmaas and States Flanders, as well as Dutch evacuation of Maastricht and the reopening of the Scheldt ports. The Holy Roman Empire was supported by Britain.  France supported the Dutch. The emperor decided to threaten war after being convinced that the Netherlands would not dare react. Joseph ordered three ships, including the merchant ship Le Louis, sail from Antwerp for the Scheldt.

On 9 October 1784, war seemed inevitable. That day the Dutch ship the Dolfijn was sent out to intercept the Imperial ships. The Dutch ship fired one shot, after which Le Louis surrendered.

That one shot must have surely killed the captain or luckily done massive damage to make a well-armed merchant ship surrender immediately?

No, it was one musket round and the only damage done was to put a hole in a kettle. Thus this incident is remembered as the Kettle War. It was a tiny incident but it led to more negotiations and helped to change the course of history.

This is a tongue-in-cheek offering because war was not actually declared and no-one knows how long the incident took, but the Kettle War is certainly one of the most bizarre incidents in the history of international warfare.

This art historical faction novel probes the mystery of Caravaggio's death in the context of a time travel adventure. We meet the great 16th-17th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and his towering genius and flawed personality. The story is a murder mystery woven around the true facts of Caravaggio's life and told by a modern narrator.  A compact time travel device brings Caravaggio into the 21st century. It also spirits the narrator back four hundred years to meet celebrity suspects among Caravaggio's fellow artists, friends, lovers and patrons. Clues are traced from period writings and paintings including Caravaggio's own masterworks, which are reproduced in full colour so that the reader can attempt to solve the mystery themselves or simply gorge on the astonishing images produced by Caravaggio's hand.  Known facts about Caravaggio's life are kept intact but the plot is ingeniously peppered with plausible inferences that intensify and enrich the dramatic and entertaining content. It is a fact that Caravaggio murdered his love rival and incurred the death sentence from the state and vengeance from his victim's family. It is a fact that Caravaggio's body disappeared after his death despite the fact that he was the most famous artist in Europe. But if mute on Caravaggio's actual cause of death in 1610 history seethes with motives and teems with suspects.

SAVE £2 IF YOU BUY 'THAT TERRIBLE SHADOWING' DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR DETAILS 

The highlights of Massimo's first four games for United included, on his debut, flapping helplessly at a free kick and allowing Sami Hyppia to score; conceding five goals against Chelsea in his next outing and, in his final appearance, allowing a tame shot from Matt Le Tissier to roll gently through his legs and into the goal.

After four games United had had enough of Massimo. His four appearances had cost the club £1.1 million each, plus a great deal of embarassment.

MASSIMO TAIBI

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

Across the world, three officers battle a hidden evil enemy as well as their own governments to unravel a dangerous mystery. What is the Silk Fist conspiracy, and will they expose the true culprits before it is too late?

Sergeant Christopher Wyatt of the British Royal Protection Squad has been framed by a powerful source from the Russian media. Mistrusted and branded a renegade traitor by the British authorities, he must clear his name by finding the true origin of a series of dangerous attacks. 

Linda Marquez is a sergeant of the United States Secret Service and trusted special assistant to the First Lady, until she is betrayed by a member of the US intelligence services or someone within the White House. No longer able to trust her own government, she puts aside her initial distrust of Wyatt to protect herself from these new enemies and prove her innocence. 

At the Indian Intelligence Service, Premendra Dhawan risks his own career to gather intelligence about the Silk Fist attacks. Together with Marquez and Wyatt, he must decipher a hard won series of clues that point to the upper echelons of the British and American governments, and a devastating attack on a gathering of world leaders… 

Can the three officers put their mistrust and suspicion of each other aside in order to expose the deadly plot? Will they ever discover the reasons behind the attacks? And will the ultimate secret of who is behind the Silk Fist conspiracy be revealed? 

"AS GOOD AS TOM CLANCY AT HIS BEST" GoodReads

SAVE £1 IF YOU BUY 'THE SILK FIST CONSPIRACY' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

His name was Kurt Friedrich Gödel, born in 1906. His fame chiefly rests on his two incompleteness theorems. They were published in 1931 when he was 25 years old, one year after finishing his doctorate at the University of Vienna.

These theories apparently revolutionised the science of logic and can be investigated on the net, but their import is way beyond the understanding of your Gradgrind host, and it is with Gödel's character that this article is concerned.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and over the following years the Nazis rose in influence in Austria, and among Vienna's mathematicians. In 1936, Moritz Schlick, whose seminar had aroused Gödel's interest in logic, was assassinated by a pro-Nazi student. This triggered a severe nervous crisis in Gödel. He developed paranoid symptoms, including a fear of being poisoned, and spent several months in a sanitarium for nervous diseases.

Gödel married Adele Nimbursky, whom he had known for over 10 years, in 1938. Their relationship had been opposed by his parents on the grounds that she was a divorced dancer, six years older than he was. This opposition could not have helped his mental well-being.

After the Anschluss in 1938, Austria had become a part of Nazi Germany. Gödel and his wife fled to the USA where he was well known after several lecture tours.

In December 1947, his close friend Albert Einstein accompanied Gödel to his US citizenship exam. Gödel had confided to Einstein that he had discovered an inconsistency in the US Constitution, one that would allow the US to become a dictatorship. Einstein was concerned that Gödel's unpredictable behaviour might jeopardize his chances of becoming a US citizen. Everything went smoothly until the judge happened to ask Gödel if he thought a dictatorship like the Nazi regime could happen in the US. Gödel then started to explain his discovery but the judge, forewarned about Gödel's idiosyncrasies, cut Gödel off and moved the hearing on to other questions and a routine conclusion.

Gödel spent the rest of his career at Princeton University. In later life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and illness. The obsessive fear of being poisoned that had plagued him earlier in life returned and he would eat only food that his wife had prepared for him. Late in 1977, his wife was hospitalized for six months and could no longer prepare Gödel's food. In her absence, he refused to eat. Eventually he had to be hospitalised but he still would not eat, fearing that the doctors and nurses were trying to poison him. He died in Princeton Hospital weighing only 4 stone and 6 pounds (approximately 30 kg).

It is ironic, not to say tragic, that a man who had revolutionised logic could not work out his own salvation, i.e. if I do not eat at all I will certainly die. If I eat what the hospital prepares for me I might die, but is it logical to assume that the staff of an entire hospital are out to poison me? Therefore the best option to eat hospital food and try to keep alive until my wife recovers.

As with many academics, and without being unsympathetic towards Gödel's mental problems, he was brilliant at logic but not blessed with enough plain common sense.

His beloved wife Adele followed him to the grave in 1981.

KURT AND ADELE PICTURED AT THEIR WEDDING

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

The first time I met Lord Edward he flung me into the sea. I could not condemn him because I asked him to do so. It was an encounter that transformed my life and the fate of my bitch mother England and of barbarous Wales and contumacious Scotland.

        I was born into low station but I moulded myself, slyly, to be almost as influential as the future king, Lord Edward, himself. How did I do that?

BUY 'THE CHRONICLES OF PAUNCEFOOT AND LONGSHANKS' DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP AND A SAVE £1 (PAPERBACK ONLY - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

The methane gas released by 90 flatulent cows caused an explosion in a farm shed in Germany, damaging the roof and injuring one of the animals, local police said.

In a statement, the force said high levels of the methane gas had built up within the structure in the central German town of Rasdorf on Monday thanks to animals belches and flatulence, before “a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames."

The subsequent blast damaged the roof of the cow shed, Reuters reported. Emergency services who attended the scene took gas readings to check for any potential further blasts.

One of the cows was injured and had to be treated for burns it sustained during the incident, a police spokesman added.

The animals can emit up to 500 litres of the greenhouse gas methane each every day through belching and flatulence. Cows also release large amounts of ammonia.

This art historical faction novel probes the mystery of Caravaggio's death in the context of a time travel adventure. We meet the great 16th-17th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and his towering genius and flawed personality. The story is a murder mystery woven around the true facts of Caravaggio's life and told by a modern narrator.  A compact time travel device brings Caravaggio into the 21st century. It also spirits the narrator back four hundred years to meet celebrity suspects among Caravaggio's fellow artists, friends, lovers and patrons. Clues are traced from period writings and paintings including Caravaggio's own masterworks, which are reproduced in full colour so that the reader can attempt to solve the mystery themselves or simply gorge on the astonishing images produced by Caravaggio's hand.  Known facts about Caravaggio's life are kept intact but the plot is ingeniously peppered with plausible inferences that intensify and enrich the dramatic and entertaining content. It is a fact that Caravaggio murdered his love rival and incurred the death sentence from the state and vengeance from his victim's family. It is a fact that Caravaggio's body disappeared after his death despite the fact that he was the most famous artist in Europe. But if mute on Caravaggio's actual cause of death in 1610 history seethes with motives and teems with suspects.

SAVE £2 IF YOU BUY 'THAT TERRIBLE SHADOWING' DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR DETAILS 

REVEAL

Operation Steinbock was the Luftwaffe night time bombing raid against southern England from January to May 1944, introduced for the sake of propaganda purposes and as retaliation for RAF Bomber Command's massive raids on German cities.

The Luftwaffe committed nearly 500 bomber aircraft for Operation Steinbock. The attacks were concentrated on the Greater London area. In Britain, it became known as the Baby Blitz, or Little Blitz, owing to the much smaller scale of operations compared to the Blitz of 1940 to 1941.

Britain and the RAF were much better prepared to meet the German onslaught than they had been just two three years before, with better radar and anti-aircraft batteries and much better fighters and night fighters. The operation achieved little, and the Luftwaffe lost over 300 aircraft during the five months of operations before it was abandoned. Some shrewder Luftwaffe commanders wanted to retain the bomber force against the predicted Allied invasion due in 1944. Eventually the revenge attacks were diverted in an attempt to disrupt preparations for the impending Allied invasion of France, but Operation Steinbock had depleted the offensive power of the Luftwaffe to such an extent that it could not mount any significant counterattacks when the D-Day invasion began in June 1944.

Operation Steinbock was the Luftwaffe's last large-scale bombing operation against Britain. In the future only the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket bombs were used for striking at British cities.

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, had taken the suggestion to Adolf Hitler that the Luftwaffe bombers be retained for defence against the forthcoming invasion. After an hour, the Reichsmarschall returned. A German officer who was present described the scene:

We were met with a shattering picture. Göring had completely broken down. With his head buried in his arms on the table he moaned some indistinguishable words. We stood there for some time in embarrassment until at last he pulled himself together and said we were witnessing the deepest moments of despair. The Fuhrer had lost faith in him. All the suggestions from which he had expected a radical change in the situation of war in the air had been rejected; the Fuhrer had announced that the Luftwaffe had disappointed him too often, and a change over from the offensive to defensive in the air against England was out of the question.

Britain must have breathed a sigh of relief that the Fuhrer and the Reichsmarschall were not only mad, deluded, but arrogant and stupid as well.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

Across the world, three officers battle a hidden evil enemy as well as their own governments to unravel a dangerous mystery. What is the Silk Fist conspiracy, and will they expose the true culprits before it is too late?

Sergeant Christopher Wyatt of the British Royal Protection Squad has been framed by a powerful source from the Russian media. Mistrusted and branded a renegade traitor by the British authorities, he must clear his name by finding the true origin of a series of dangerous attacks. 

Linda Marquez is a sergeant of the United States Secret Service and trusted special assistant to the First Lady, until she is betrayed by a member of the US intelligence services or someone within the White House. No longer able to trust her own government, she puts aside her initial distrust of Wyatt to protect herself from these new enemies and prove her innocence. 

At the Indian Intelligence Service, Premendra Dhawan risks his own career to gather intelligence about the Silk Fist attacks. Together with Marquez and Wyatt, he must decipher a hard won series of clues that point to the upper echelons of the British and American governments, and a devastating attack on a gathering of world leaders… 

Can the three officers put their mistrust and suspicion of each other aside in order to expose the deadly plot? Will they ever discover the reasons behind the attacks? And will the ultimate secret of who is behind the Silk Fist conspiracy be revealed? 

"AS GOOD AS TOM CLANCY AT HIS BEST" GoodReads

SAVE £1 IF YOU BUY 'THE SILK FIST CONSPIRACY' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

REVEAL

He wasn't. He was born in Scotland.

Samuel Greig was born in 1736 in Inverkeithing in Fife. He entered the Royal Navy at a very young age but was soon marked out for promotion because of his keen ability in the performance of his duties. He attained the rank of Lieutenant at the same time was war was brewing between Russia and the Turkish Ottoman Empire.  Britain sided with the Russians and agreed to send skilled officers of the Royal Navy to the Russian Navy with a view to improving its operational capability. Lieutenant Greig was selected as one of these officers and his abilities soon attracted the notice of the Russian government.

He was rapidly promoted to the rank of Captain and sent to join the Mediterranean fleet under command of Count Alexei Orlov and Admiral Grigoi Spiridov. In July 1770, the Russian fleet engaged a superior force of fifteen Turkish ships plus frigates and galleys near Chesma Bay in western Turkey. The initial conflict was indecisive. As the day wore on, the Turkish fleet drew closer inside Chesma Bay where the ships were well-protected by shore batteries. Notwithstanding the formidable position the enemy had taken up, the Russian admiral was determined to pursue and destroy them.

At one o’clock in the morning Captain Greig bore down upon the enemy in command of a flotilla of fire ships. Greig  set the match to the fire ships with his own hands. Once this perilous duty had been performed, he leapt overboard and swam to his own boats while under a tremendous fire from the Turks and the imminent risk of being killed by the explosion of his own fire ships. The Turkish fleet was totally destroyed. The Russian fleet attacked the town and batteries on the shore and by nine o’clock in the morning there was scarcely a vestige remaining of either town, fortifications or fleet.

For his vital part in this action, Captain Greig, was immediately promoted to the rank of Admiral, an appointment confirmed by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.
Admiral Greig now began a programme of improving the Russian Navy which has earned him the title of 'father of the modern Russian Navy'. His services were handsomely rewarded by a grateful nation. He was three times decorated by Catherine the Great and elevated to the high rank of Admiral of the Russian Empire and Governor of Kronstadt.

Greig next distinguished himself in 1788 during the Russo-Swedish war. Swedish forces planned an invasion of Russia on three fronts but the implementation of the plan required the Russian navy to be contained within ports at Reval and at Kronstadt. The Swedish navy attempted to blockade these ports but Grieg took an evenly matched fleet to sea to meet them.

The Battle of the Hogland, as is known, ended when the Swedish ships were forced to withdraw on account of low ammunition. The Russians suffered more than their Swedish attackers but Greig had done what was needed from a strategic viewpoint and the invasion plans were postponed and never fully resurrected.

Several days after winning the Battle of Hogland, Greig was attacked by a violent fever and was carried back to Reval aboard his flagship. News about his condition was relayed to the Empress Catherine. She immediately despatched her best physician to Reval but all the doctor's skill was unavailing.

Admiral Samuil Karlovich Greig, as he is known in Russia, died on the 26 October 1788 at the age of 53.

SAMUEL GREIG, FATHER OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY

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What if you had been married for forty years and had never loved your wife?
What if you were bored with your family and your job but were too responsible to abandon them?
What if you looked in the mirror and saw a lifetime of regret and disillusion?
What if you had the chance to change it all before it was too late. What would you do?
Tony Ballard took his chance...

SAVE £1 AND BUY 'SETTLING' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

SERGEANT NORMAN JACKSON

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

The first time I met Lord Edward he flung me into the sea. I could not condemn him because I asked him to do so. It was an encounter that transformed my life and the fate of my bitch mother England and of barbarous Wales and contumacious Scotland.

        I was born into low station but I moulded myself, slyly, to be almost as influential as the future king, Lord Edward, himself. How did I do that?

BUY 'THE CHRONICLES OF PAUNCEFOOT AND LONGSHANKS' DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP AND A SAVE £1 (PAPERBACK ONLY - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

REVEAL

Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by this question but researchers in Australia claim to have come up with the definitive answer. Zebras have such a striking pattern in order to confuse predators. Using computer models the scientists have proved that the striped pattern creates an optical illusion when zebras move, especially as a herd. By analysing photographs and video footage of the animals, the team found that the black and white patterns translate as misleading information in the eyes of other creatures. This confusing sight protects wild zebras from a range of predators, from tiny insects to big cats. Many animals, including humans, have ‘motion detection mechanisms’. These neural circuits process the direction something appears to be moving based on how its contours appear. Optical illusions of this kind that often trick humans include the barber-pole effect, where the spiral of stripes appears to move upwards when the pole is spun.

Previous theories for the function of zebra stripes included social communication signals, camouflage at dusk or dawn in grassy habitats, and the so-called 'dazzle' effect when being pursued by predators or blood sucking insects. According to the new research, the narrow vertical stripes on a zebra’s back and neck combined with the wide diagonal stripes on its flank give off unexpected motion signals, which become stronger when a herd moves. These illusions cause pests and predators to mistake the zebra's movement direction, causing biting insects to abort their landing manoeuvres and chasing predators to mistime their attacks. During wartime, warships were sometimes painted with similar ‘dazzle’ effects to disguise their size or direction of travel, and such camouflage proved remarkably effective.

IS THUS A LARGE CAPITAL SHIP OR TWO OR MORE SMALLER SHIPS?

LOOK CLOSELY . . . YOUR LIFE MIGHT DEPEND UPON IT, JUST LIKE THE ZEBRA

(IT’S TWO MOTOR TORPEDO BOATS)

This art historical faction novel probes the mystery of Caravaggio's death in the context of a time travel adventure. We meet the great 16th-17th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and his towering genius and flawed personality. The story is a murder mystery woven around the true facts of Caravaggio's life and told by a modern narrator.  A compact time travel device brings Caravaggio into the 21st century. It also spirits the narrator back four hundred years to meet celebrity suspects among Caravaggio's fellow artists, friends, lovers and patrons. Clues are traced from period writings and paintings including Caravaggio's own masterworks, which are reproduced in full colour so that the reader can attempt to solve the mystery themselves or simply gorge on the astonishing images produced by Caravaggio's hand.  Known facts about Caravaggio's life are kept intact but the plot is ingeniously peppered with plausible inferences that intensify and enrich the dramatic and entertaining content. It is a fact that Caravaggio murdered his love rival and incurred the death sentence from the state and vengeance from his victim's family. It is a fact that Caravaggio's body disappeared after his death despite the fact that he was the most famous artist in Europe. But if mute on Caravaggio's actual cause of death in 1610 history seethes with motives and teems with suspects.

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The woman who was executed that day in 1917 was Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, Europe's queen of unbridled eroticism, an exotic dancer, courtesan, harlot, great lover, spendthrift, liar, deceiver and thief.

But was she also a German spy?

That is the reason why, in the fevered atmosphere of France in World War I, with the Kaiser's troops encamped within its borders, she had been executed. She was accused of causing the deaths of tens of thousands of French soldiers, a crime that would forever make her synonymous with seduction and treachery.

Sex was the driving force of Mata’s life. In the Dutch town where she grew up, her shopkeeper father lavished extremes of affection on his "little princess". It made her vain, self-centred and spoilt, and with an insatiable longing for male attention. At 16 years old she bedded her headmaster.

Mata was tall and elegant, with flirty dark eyes and a dark olive complexion, and the restless teenager set about finding a man to take her away from the stuffiness of Dutch society. Through a Lonely Hearts ad, she met Captain Rudof MacLeod, a hard-living, hard-drinking officer home on leave from Holland's colonial wars in the East Indies. She didn't care that he was 22 years older than her. There were problems almost straight away. She couldn't keep her eyes off the other officers and, as she was the first to admit, did not have it within her to be "a good housewife".

Nonetheless, she bore him two children, and they returned as a family to his new posting in the colonies. There, in the exotic surroundings of Indonesia, their marital problems multiplied. Her dark skin made snobbier women suggest she had native blood in her. To the men, however, her looks were seductive, and she made the most of it.

The marriage deteriorated into sharp quarrels, too much drinking, rows about money and accusations of infidelity. But what destroyed the union was the tragic death of theior son at the age of two. The boy's death shattered both parents. MacLeod left the army and the family returned to Holland. There they separated. She was now penniless. She had to earn money. Sexual favours were her only useful assets.

 In 1903 she left for Paris where she would recreate herself as a model or an actress in that most sophisticated of cities. She relied on prostitution and then discovered a talent for dancing. From her experiences in the East Indies she invented what she called "sacred dances". They were exotic and seemed to have some mysterious eastern mythology about them but, most of all, they involved her ending up all but naked. It was a brilliant move. She began by performing in private homes, but soon the stories of her "artistry" and, above all, her nudity were passing round the salons of Parisian high society. She wore a beaded metallic bra, which never came off - she was self-conscious about her tiny breasts - but the veils covering the rest of her floated free as she danced in "slow, undulating, tigerlike movements".

First there was her name - Mata Hari, meaning "sunrise" or, more literally, "the eye of the day", in the language of the Dutch East Indies. Then there were the stories to the press, that she was the daughter of an Indian temple dancer who had died giving birth to her, that she grew up in a jungle in Java.

Her life became an unending performance, both on stage and off. Her success seemed unstoppable and the money came rolling in. But she still managed to spend more than she earned as she travelled Europe and America, picking up lovers, dropping some, keeping others.

 MATA HARI

By 1908 the lesser theatres were overrun with imitators doing Oriental dances. The dance work was now more irregular and increasingly she would have to rely on her men friends for her livelihood. She went bankrupt but still refused to cut her prodigious spending or alter her outrageous lifestyle.

In May 1914 she signed a contract to dance for six months at the Metropol in Berlin, starting in September. The political situation overtook her. When war broke out in August that year, she was stuck in a belligerent and increasingly jingoistic German capital with no money and no job. Her fur coats and money had been seized. She charmed a Dutch businessman into paying her train fare to Amsterdam.

Back in Holland she was visited by the German consul, who told her he was recruiting spies. He gave her 20,000 francs and a code name, H21. She took his money but didn't take him seriously. She told herself the cash was compensation for the furs taken from her in Berlin and threw away the invisible ink he gave her. It suggests she never had the slightest intention of spying for Germany and felt no guilt or obligation to do anything for the money she had accepted.

British counter-intelligence suspected her of spying on the basis of no real evidence whatsoever. A copy of their report was sent to intelligence officials in France, Britain's ally against Germany.

Back in Paris, Mata resumed her glamorous life, living at the Grand Hotel and with plenty of men in uniform to keep her occupied. She did not know that two secret policemen were tailing her. They steamed open her letters, questioned porters, waitresses and hairdressers and collected abundant evidence of her love life - but not of espionage.

Her main intention at this time was to get a permit to go to the town of Vittel because she was desperate to see the man with whom she had fallen deeply in love, a Russian captain 18 years her junior named Vadime. For that, she had to apply to the head of French Intelligence, Captain Georges Ladoux, an ambitious man who had staked his reputation on France being riddled with foreign spies and his being able to destroy their network. He was in need of an attention-grabbing case to prove the worth of his bureau. He regarded Mata as little better than a prostitute; she thought him small-minded and coarse. They fenced words with each other. She wanted her pass to Vittel. He agreed, if she promised to enlist as a spy for France.

Mata Hari was known by sight throughout Europe. Her comings and goings were reported in gossip columns. Wherever she went, she was the centre of attention. It is difficult to imagine a woman less able to engage in clandestine activities. But she accepted his offer on condition that she was given enough money to pay off her massive debts and settle down with Vadime. The great seductress wanted to retire but it was too late. Ladoux was convinced she was a German spy, as were the British.

Mata went to Vittel and had a blissful interlude in the spa town with her Russian. On her return to Paris, Ladoux sent her on her first mission, to German-occupied Belgium where she said an ex-lover could steer her into the arms of the German military governor. But Belgium proved impossible to reach and she ended up in Spain. There, she turned her charms on a German captain who told her secrets about German manoeuvres in North Africa.

This information she passed on to Ladoux, believing she was doing his bidding, earning the million francs he had promised her. Instead, she had fallen into his trap. Her meetings with the German captain would be turned against her, twisted to claim that she was handing over French secrets to the enemy rather than teasing out German ones.

On February 10, 1917, a warrant for her arrest was signed by the French war minister. Three days later, police officers knocked on the door of her hotel room and found her eating breakfast in a lace-trimmed dressing gown. She was not, as wild rumours around Paris soon claimed, naked.

At the Palais de Justice she faced the investigating magistrate, who wrote later: "From the very first interview, I had the intuition that she was a person in the pay of our enemies. I had but one thought - to unmask her."

It did not seem to matter that no-one could produce the least bit of evidence against her. Nor could anyone point to a single document, plan or secret that she passed to the Germans. Suspicion, envy and the prejudices of small-minded men would triumph. After her death, one of her prosecutors conceded the truth by saying: ‘There wasn't enough evidence against her to flog a cat".

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Across the world, three officers battle a hidden evil enemy as well as their own governments to unravel a dangerous mystery. What is the Silk Fist conspiracy, and will they expose the true culprits before it is too late?

Sergeant Christopher Wyatt of the British Royal Protection Squad has been framed by a powerful source from the Russian media. Mistrusted and branded a renegade traitor by the British authorities, he must clear his name by finding the true origin of a series of dangerous attacks. 

Linda Marquez is a sergeant of the United States Secret Service and trusted special assistant to the First Lady, until she is betrayed by a member of the US intelligence services or someone within the White House. No longer able to trust her own government, she puts aside her initial distrust of Wyatt to protect herself from these new enemies and prove her innocence. 

At the Indian Intelligence Service, Premendra Dhawan risks his own career to gather intelligence about the Silk Fist attacks. Together with Marquez and Wyatt, he must decipher a hard won series of clues that point to the upper echelons of the British and American governments, and a devastating attack on a gathering of world leaders… 

Can the three officers put their mistrust and suspicion of each other aside in order to expose the deadly plot? Will they ever discover the reasons behind the attacks? And will the ultimate secret of who is behind the Silk Fist conspiracy be revealed? 

"AS GOOD AS TOM CLANCY AT HIS BEST" GoodReads

SAVE £1 IF YOU BUY 'THE SILK FIST CONSPIRACY' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

The scientists found that treating adult cells with acid takes them back to an embryonic state in under 30 minutes. This discovery is an enormous step towards  the time when human organs and tissues can be re-grown.

Experts in the field of stem cells have hailed the research as ground breaking and say, if replicated in humans, it could herald a new age of personalised medicine.

Turning cells back to an embryonic state, also known as a pluripotent state, means they can then be turned into any other type of cell in the body. Previously that could only be achieved through genetic manipulation that was time consuming and costly but the Japanese scientists found that cells taken from new born mice effectively lose their identity within 30 minutes of being exposed to mildly acidic conditions, so the new cells could be seen as a ‘blank slate’ from which any cell could emerge depending on its environment.

Instead of the acid treatment triggering cell death or tumour growth, as might be expected, a new cell state emerges that exhibits and unprecedented potential for differentiation into every possible cell type. Thus a cell originally intended to become a cone in the eye, for instance, could possibly be used to re-grow a lost limb.

These new acid-treated stem cells offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases including Alzheimer's, spinal cord injury, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. They could be used to regenerate organs, stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, or create skin grafts.

Experts say the development was likely to speed up the development of technology in everyday clinical practice although warned that was still years away. Whether human cells would respond in a similar way to comparable environmental clues, it stills remains to be shown.

If it works in humans, this could be a revolution that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patient’s own cells as starting material.

There is that most taunting of words . . . 'if'!

Which reminds of one of my favourite responses:

After invading Greece and receiving the submission of other city states, Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) sent a warning message to the formidable warrior state of Sparta. Philip said: 'If I win this war, you will be slaves forever.' The Spartan ephors replied with just one word: 'If'. Subsequently both Philip and Alexander, who went on to conquer most of the known world, wisely avoided Sparta entirely.

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The first time I met Lord Edward he flung me into the sea. I could not condemn him because I asked him to do so. It was an encounter that transformed my life and the fate of my bitch mother England and of barbarous Wales and contumacious Scotland.

        I was born into low station but I moulded myself, slyly, to be almost as influential as the future king, Lord Edward, himself. How did I do that?

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As any cat owner knows, cats do what they like however much you try to train them. The specially trained espionage moggy promptly ran straight into the road where it was killed by a passing taxi cab. End of Operation Acoustic Kitty.

P.S. Why do the Americans choose such obvious and pious code names for so-called secret operations. The whole point of code names is that if the enemy get to hear of them then the code names give no indication whatsoever of the real nature of the operation, such as Operation Overlord, or Husky or Chastise during World War Two. But Operation Acoustic Kitty? They might as well have called it Operation We've Adapted A Cat To Spy On You Commie Scum. Or code names like Desert Shield or, nauseatingly, Preserve Freedom. They might as well not have code names at all!

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Across the world, three officers battle a hidden evil enemy as well as their own governments to unravel a dangerous mystery. What is the Silk Fist conspiracy, and will they expose the true culprits before it is too late?

Sergeant Christopher Wyatt of the British Royal Protection Squad has been framed by a powerful source from the Russian media. Mistrusted and branded a renegade traitor by the British authorities, he must clear his name by finding the true origin of a series of dangerous attacks. 

Linda Marquez is a sergeant of the United States Secret Service and trusted special assistant to the First Lady, until she is betrayed by a member of the US intelligence services or someone within the White House. No longer able to trust her own government, she puts aside her initial distrust of Wyatt to protect herself from these new enemies and prove her innocence. 

At the Indian Intelligence Service, Premendra Dhawan risks his own career to gather intelligence about the Silk Fist attacks. Together with Marquez and Wyatt, he must decipher a hard won series of clues that point to the upper echelons of the British and American governments, and a devastating attack on a gathering of world leaders… 

Can the three officers put their mistrust and suspicion of each other aside in order to expose the deadly plot? Will they ever discover the reasons behind the attacks? And will the ultimate secret of who is behind the Silk Fist conspiracy be revealed? 

"AS GOOD AS TOM CLANCY AT HIS BEST" GoodReads

SAVE £1 IF YOU BUY 'THE SILK FIST CONSPIRACY' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

The Danish brewery Carlsberg bought Niels a house . . . next to the brewery . . . and installed a pipeline directly from the brewery into the house so that Niels could have free beer, in unlimited quantities, for the rest of his life.

Never mind the Nobel, that's a prize!

YOU'D THINK NIELS WOULD LOOK HAPPIER

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What if you had been married for forty years and had never loved your wife?
What if you were bored with your family and your job but were too responsible to abandon them?
What if you looked in the mirror and saw a lifetime of regret and disillusion?
What if you had the chance to change it all before it was too late. What would you do?
Tony Ballard took his chance...

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A company called Antaco has been given a €1million grant by the UK government to build the country's first plant for converting sewage into energy. The process is called Hydrothermal Carbonisation (HTC) which converts sewage, agricultural waste, food waste and slurry into carbon and water. 

The end product, named biocoal, does not contain sulphur, which means that it burns more cleanly and qualifies for renewable energy subsidies.

Over the past five years Antaco has developed a process that turns biological waste into biocoal. The technology is unique in its ability to convert 100 per cent of organic matter into a high heat value biocoal. 

This process solves two major issues by diverting waste from landfill and by providing a carbon neutral fuel. The UK Government grant will enable Antaco to progress to the next stage of building and commissioning its first prototype plant which will be producing approximately 500 tonnes of biocoal by March 2014.

 Biocoal slurry can be dried into pellets and used as a direct replacement for fossil coal in existing power generating facilities, as well as in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and household boilers. 

Use of the HTC method could cut the operating costs of any sewage plant by half, slash its energy use by 73 per cent and reduce carbon emissions by 95 per cent, according to a study by the University of Zurich.

Stringent European and national directives mean that sewage sludge cannot be spread on farmland and is an expensive overhead. It is estimated that it would cost €750m to refurbish one of Europe’s power stations but HTC creates a fuel that can be used in existing power plants, so it would save millions in energy infrastructure costs.

Next time you disappear to the john with a newspaper and someone asks where you are going, just tell them you are off to help save the world.

This art historical faction novel probes the mystery of Caravaggio's death in the context of a time travel adventure. We meet the great 16th-17th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and his towering genius and flawed personality. The story is a murder mystery woven around the true facts of Caravaggio's life and told by a modern narrator.  A compact time travel device brings Caravaggio into the 21st century. It also spirits the narrator back four hundred years to meet celebrity suspects among Caravaggio's fellow artists, friends, lovers and patrons. Clues are traced from period writings and paintings including Caravaggio's own masterworks, which are reproduced in full colour so that the reader can attempt to solve the mystery themselves or simply gorge on the astonishing images produced by Caravaggio's hand.  Known facts about Caravaggio's life are kept intact but the plot is ingeniously peppered with plausible inferences that intensify and enrich the dramatic and entertaining content. It is a fact that Caravaggio murdered his love rival and incurred the death sentence from the state and vengeance from his victim's family. It is a fact that Caravaggio's body disappeared after his death despite the fact that he was the most famous artist in Europe. But if mute on Caravaggio's actual cause of death in 1610 history seethes with motives and teems with suspects.

SAVE £2 IF YOU BUY 'THAT TERRIBLE SHADOWING' DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR DETAILS 

The powder, called Solid Rain, looks like sugar and is made of an absorbent material called potassium polyacrylate, capable of soaking in liquids up to 500 times its size. 

The water absorbed by the polymer can be stored for up to a year without evaporating - the only time it is extracted is when it is by the roots of plants when the can be added to soils to produce water for plants. 

Solid Rain is an absorbent polymer called potassium polyacrylate. 

A whole litre of water can be absorbed in just 10 grams of Solid Rain, which then converts into a thick, translucent gel. The liquid retained by the polymer will stay there for a year without evaporating or seeping out. 

It can only be extracted when its added to soil and comes into contact with the roots of plants.

Solid Rain was created by Mexican chemical engineer Sergio Jésus Rico Velasco. He initially wanted to find an absorbent material that could be used in nappies to absorb lots of liquid in a small space. 

Velasco later realised that his potassium-based polymer could be used as a way to cure Mexico's drought problems.

Solid Rain sells for around £17 ($25) per pound.

According to magazine Modern Farmer, the Mexican government conducted a one-season sample study on farmers using Solid Rain in the semi-arid state of Hidalgo. 

Farm plots showed up to 300 per cent increases in crop yield when Solid Rain was used.

Solid Rain recently won the Ecology and Environment award from the Fundacion Miguel Aleman, and it’s been used in Mexico for a decade. However, Velasco didn't market it heavily and it only went one on sale in the U.S last year. 

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

Across the world, three officers battle a hidden evil enemy as well as their own governments to unravel a dangerous mystery. What is the Silk Fist conspiracy, and will they expose the true culprits before it is too late?

Sergeant Christopher Wyatt of the British Royal Protection Squad has been framed by a powerful source from the Russian media. Mistrusted and branded a renegade traitor by the British authorities, he must clear his name by finding the true origin of a series of dangerous attacks. 

Linda Marquez is a sergeant of the United States Secret Service and trusted special assistant to the First Lady, until she is betrayed by a member of the US intelligence services or someone within the White House. No longer able to trust her own government, she puts aside her initial distrust of Wyatt to protect herself from these new enemies and prove her innocence. 

At the Indian Intelligence Service, Premendra Dhawan risks his own career to gather intelligence about the Silk Fist attacks. Together with Marquez and Wyatt, he must decipher a hard won series of clues that point to the upper echelons of the British and American governments, and a devastating attack on a gathering of world leaders… 

Can the three officers put their mistrust and suspicion of each other aside in order to expose the deadly plot? Will they ever discover the reasons behind the attacks? And will the ultimate secret of who is behind the Silk Fist conspiracy be revealed? 

"AS GOOD AS TOM CLANCY AT HIS BEST" GoodReads

SAVE £1 IF YOU BUY 'THE SILK FIST CONSPIRACY' (PAPERBACK ONLY) DIRECT FROM THE MATADOR BOOKSHOP - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS

If you answered William the Conqueror, William I, also known as William, Duke of Normandy or (not to his face) William the Bastard, you are wrong. William may have been ruler of England by right of conquest but the rightfully proclaimed King of England was a 15-year-old boy named Edgar (the) Atheling, or Aedeling, meaning 'son of a noble'. Before the Norman conquest the kings of England were chosen, or elected, by a body of nobles called the witan or witangemot.  Directly after Duke William's victory at Hastings, the witangemot selected Edgar Atheling as the rightful King of England. Young Edgar was shamefully betrayed and double-crossed by his advisers and the most powerful English nobles and was forced to submit to William the Conqueror before he could be crowned. William went on to be crowned as King of England on Christmas Day 1066, but from October 15th, 1066 to December 10th, 1066, Edgar Atheling was King of England, which begs an interesting question. Edgar went on to live an adventurous life, taking part in invasions and Crusades, but it is not known whether he had any children. If he did, there may be someone living in England today who is a direct descendant and who could be considered as the rightful monarch of England by those who believe that William the Conqueror usurped the throne. It could be you! Whoops, there goes my knighthood if Her Majesty ever reads this!

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The first time I met Lord Edward he flung me into the sea. I could not condemn him because I asked him to do so. It was an encounter that transformed my life and the fate of my bitch mother England and of barbarous Wales and contumacious Scotland.

        I was born into low station but I moulded myself, slyly, to be almost as influential as the future king, Lord Edward, himself. How did I do that?

BUY 'THE CHRONICLES OF PAUNCEFOOT AND LONGSHANKS' DIRECT FROM MATADOR BOOKSHOP AND A SAVE £1 (PAPERBACK ONLY - SEE BOOKS SECTION FOR FULL DETAILS