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Just bought a Samsung Galaxy S3. All I need now is an IT specialist to park himself at my place for a couple of months to help me make the 8 zillion apps and other gizmos work!! Amazing technology though, it does everything. It brought me a cup of coffee in bed this morning !!

Went to vist the in-laws in Torre Del Mar  yesterday. We were having lunch at a cafe and a lady came round the tables offering good luck charms. I told her that I'm a Capricorn, and Capricorns don't believe in all that astrology stuff. Besides, I think it's bad luck to be superstitious.

Mind you a psychic once said to me "Bless you", I said, "I didn't sneeze", She said "You will, trust me". Do you know that three years later I did sneeze" Now how's that for weird?

My American brother in law asked me if I believed people came back from the dead. I said, "You mean like Republicans?"

I don't believe in reincarnation either, didn't believe in it when I was a rabbit either.

Before we had finished lunch, a woman came round selling raffle tickets for her church. I refused to buy. What on earth would I do with it if I won a church?

And finally: Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.

Although it's raining here on the CDS today, it's still warm. So God & I have reached a compromise....

I see the Middle East has erupted again. Perhaps if Israel returned the occupied territories to the Palestinians, allowed Palestinians free movement in their own country, and stopped building settlements on occupied territory, etc etc, AND the UN positioned itself in great numbers in the region and attacked those that fire first we might get a semblance of peace in the region. An observer on the TV this morning said there is one saving grace for the present conflict, at least the Israeli's won't make a pre emptive strike on Iran whilst this is going on. You've got to feel sorry for both sides of this mess. Why is it always the people who suffer in these conflicts? The UN is, of course, a 'paper tiger' in that whilst strong countries like the US, UK, Russia, and China, have a 'veto', vested interests dictate that nothing will ever get done.

On the British side, I think that William Hague is very hard working, and does the work of two men, Laurel & Hardy.

Apparently a lorry, carrying hundreds of copies of Roget's Thesaurus,overturned on the M11. The Eastern Daily Press wrote that eye witnesses were 'stunned, gobsmacked, dumbfounded, astonished, amazed, bewildered, and overwhelmed'.

Whilst on the subject of 'Overwhelmed'. You can be that and also 'underwhelmed'. But what the hell is a 'whelm'???? It's like the word 'Mammogram'. It brings up thoughts that a lady puts one of her boobs into an envelope and sends it off to someone....

Trading Standards are apparently looking into the cartel on supermarkets who offer 'Cashback' at their tills. They have a case...I mean Banks don't offer milk and potatoes when you make a withdrawal do they?

My lady and I are off to see the latest 'Twilight' film this evening. Not my sort of film but I had to placate her as yesterday she said, "Can I ask a dumb question?" I replied, "Better than anyone I know".

We were going to post a large envelope to my daughter in the UK, I held it in my palm and said to my wife "It feels rather heavy, I'd better put another stamp on it", her reply was, "Don't do that, it'll make it even heavier".

My wife has made a firm resolutiom, she is never going to answer any anonymous letters. She also said she is going to send me emails when I am away with nothing on them. I asked her why, and she replied, "My Mother always said that 'no news is good news'"........

Until I put her right, my wife thought they turned the Niagara Falls off at night to save on electricity.

 Some of my books concern murderers. I've often thought that the best way to get rid of a dead body is to parcel it up and send it to someone via the Spanish Correos. It most certainly will never, ever be seen again!!!

I see the turn out for the elections of Police & Crime Commissioners in the UK is very small. I can understand people not being interested in the Police bit, but we have a lot of crime in the UK and we really need a Crime Commissioner to look after those poor criminals. Of course, he or she would have to be able to speak fluent Romanian.

When I left school I took one of those Career Aptitude Tests. On my score they considered that I could either take up road sweeping or plead insanity. I told the Youth Employment guys that I was willing to start at the bottom wherever I worked....They said I was aiming too high.

So being unemployed I used to sit in the local park. One day I watched two Council workers. One dug a hole, then they had a smoke and a cup of tea, then the other man filled the hole in. They then had another cigarette and a cup of tea, moved on a few paces and did the same thing again, one dug the hole, fag and tea, then the other filled the hole in. I was intrigued. I asked one of the men what on earth they were doing, he replied that, "There's normally three of us, but the third man who plants the trees is sick today".

I applied to the local TV station for a job as the man who totted up the Pollen Count, which I saw on the weather part of the news in the summer. They said there was no such job and hung the phone up. I worked it out why there was no such job. Too difficult....every time anyone sneezed you'd have to start all over again.

I thought I wanted to be a Fireman, but it turned out that I just liked smashing in doors and breaking windows with a big axe.

My brother gave me good advice when I thought about joining the Army. "If at first you don't succeed, Bomb Disposal is probably not for you, Joseph".

As you may know, my wife is blonde. She lacks confidence too. She got a job as a Receptionist, but kept answering the phone, "Hello, can you help me?"

My wife came from a poor family, her Father was in the timber business, but only in a small way. He sold toothpicks. Her Mother was a professional carol singer.

My wife's off to her Art class very soon. She loves Art. I suppose I should be jealous but he's such a nice guy, and he's had a hard life. Prison is tough you know, especially fifteen years of it for armed robbery.

There you are ! After my discussion with God, He knows not to mess with me ! It's now sunny. I'm sitting on my terrace writing this on my laptop. The only cloud in the sky is a little black one that seems to be hovering a bit...*^@?>#~.......

I thought I had better finish this for my husband Joseph. His chair just got struck by lightning. I found him all black and smoking in the corner of the terrace. The Xanit doctors reckon he should be OK by Monday or Tuesday, God willing........

Yippee!! My grandson has just phoned me to tell me that he has been selected to represent Norfolk at Rugby on Sunday in a game against Suffolk. We may look at flights to see if we can get home to watch him. What an achievement, I am so proud.

OK God, enough is enough ! It's been raining for a few days now and forecast to do so until Sunday. I didn't really mean it when I said Spain needs the rain....well I did, but could you see your way clear to exclude the CDS from my observations?  I got up at five to write some of my latest novel, and sat mesmerised by the fantastic lightning display....thanks for that, I am suitably impressed by your power, now can we get back to boring old sunny days please???

More days than not I get up before my wife, but if she beats me to it I know when breakfast is almost ready, I can hear her scraping the toast, and the faint smell of burning reaches my delicate nostrils. Mind you her boiled eggs are brilliant. They are always a surprise, she has such a vast array of how to present them, some come out with the softness of a drain cover, occasionally they appear like a Norfolk stream, and on some occasions I have to use steak knives to cut them. We have no need to buy heavy door stops in our house.

My mother was a good cook, well I thought she was. As a young guy I had no one to compare her to until I had my first school dinner. I couldn't wait to get home to tell her that they did cabbage and sprouts that were green and not the blanched white type she cooked. Also they did Yorkshire puddings. She said indignantly that she did Yorkshire puddings every Sunday for us. I didn't know, I thought they were crispy biscuits.

She was a good Mum though in every way. I remember she was always telling me off about my weight. I came in after a night out, and she said "Look at your big stomach, what on earth would you say if that was on a woman?" I replied that, "Half an hour ago, it was".

I eventually went to my GP about my weight, He said to take more exercise and advised me to take a daily walk on an empty stomach. I didn't....I couldn't find anyone who would let me. He also told me to stop eating Big Macs as they were dangerous, I asked him why, and he said I could get the buttons stuck in my throat!

Everything I eat and drink has been proven by the medical profession to be a deadly poison, everything I don't eat or drink because I dislike them has been proved to be indespensable to a longer life....

I drink Green tea, my Mother reckoned that had it not been for tea the British would never have won both world wars.

The Japanese don't eat much fat. The French do. The Japanese don't drink much red wine, the French and Italians do. All of these countries experience less heart attacks than the British and the Yanks. It means only one thing.....It's speaking English that kills you !

Hope you have a good weekend, God bless.

Been raining all day here on the CDS. Good for the reservoirs but gets a bit boring after  a while doesn't it. I'm OK because I have no distractions whilst writing my novels, which I really enjoy doing, but my wife is not a great TV watcher, and she only paints for a few hours at a time so she is getting bored.

I see that in a poll across Europe that 90% were in favour of Obama. Even the British Conservative Party support an Obama victory......now that is really strange! I can never see the sense in the USA system, in that last time the US people voted for Obama on the basis of his policies. One of those policies was to introduce Medicare.  So he got elected, but the Republican majority in Congress stopped his Medicare bill from coming to fruition. So you have 'democracy' in the USA? I don't think so. Or maybe you do, for those rich enough who don't give a damn about their fellow Americans who happen to be poor. It's a good job for the rich Americans that they own the media, otherwise the working class in the USA might become aware of the total unfairness of the system under which they live. I saw the documentary recently of those poor dispossessed people who live in the storm drains underneath Las Vegas.They were ordinary working class American people who were unfortunate enough to lose their jobs, and then their homes. I am not ashamed to say I wept at their plight.

Thanks to a Socialist government in the late 40's in the UK we have a safety net of healthcare, and other plusses. It's not perfect, and we do get spongers and lazy scumbags, but for the majority of people that might need it at some stage in their lives its there. The rest of Europe has copied the UK's policies with regards to this, and are better off for doing that.When the minimum wage was introduced into Britain, the Tories and other right wingers said it would destroy businesses, it didn't. Businesses continued to flourish.

You've got remain cheerful though, my father said to me once, "Remember the kettle, always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings"

I see a Tory MP is going to Australia to appear on a TV 'In the Jungle' show. I hazard a guess that the creatures she'll meet in that Aussie jungle are far less dangerous than the buggers in Westminster !

I took up speed reading, I read 'The Bible' in less that three seconds, mind you that's only two words.

Someone asked me once that as a journalist did  I know a lot of politicians, I replied "I know some, but I prefer real people".

This RAF serviceman who was with me in Singapore, wrote fourteen letters a week to his girlfriend in the UK. He told me that after six months she married the postman.

At the Theatre Royal in Norwich they once had a topless lady ventriloquist, no one ever saw her lips move.

I think I've got a plan to shorten the dole queues, make everyone stand closer together.

Won't it be a great day when the NHS has all the resources it needs, and the MOD has to hold garden fetes to raise money to build a nuclear submarine?

Thanks for email Chas. Just for your friends to know, my 1st book was "Every Day's a Monday". and my 2nd one was "The Tuesday Empire". The first one was based on my own experiences in prison in the Middle East, and the second was based on some Timeshare characters that I know, and the dodgy deeds that one or two told me they got up to. They are both available from 'Bookworld' here in Spain. On Amazon, Kindle, and all good book stores.(The books that is, not the dodgy deeds).

Obama or Romney? We'll know in a couple of days. America, land of democracy? Where anyone can become President? Well yes, provided you're a multi-millionaire, or have millionaire backers. They will, of course, want something back in return if you get elected......Republicans will want you to cut taxes and to shelve Medicare, especially those that have shares in Insurance companies, or who don't want a couple of cents on their taxes, and that would leave 50 million Americans without the benefit of medical assistance when they need it most. I often wonder if those Republican Americans go to church on sundays declaring themselves 'Christians', and believing it. Their policy is the policy of either being born into wealth, or climbing up the ladder and making yourself wealthy and then pulling the ladder up behind you and calling unfortunate unemployed, and sick Americans lazy and shiftless. If Jesus comes back to Earth look out Republicans, he may want to chat with you. Perhaps he'll give them tips on how to put fires out, because in the great scheme of christian belief Republican politicians may get very warm in the next life. Funny but I used to think of Maggie Thatcher in the same kind of mix, a bit like Florence Nightingale, the lady with the lamp, except with Maggie it was a blowlamp !

Someone asked me the other day what I thought of the House of Lords, I said I thought that it provided excellent evidence of life after death.

I have to replace all four tyres on my car soon. The saleman who sold it to me said I'd get a lot of pleasure out of it. He was right, it's a pleasure getting out of it....

Apparently I suffer from kleptomania, when it gets really bad I take something for it.

On sunday morning my wife asked me to make love to her in the kitchen. I asked her why, and she replied that the egg timer was broken and she wanted a soft boiled egg......

Recently I had to assure some Spanish friends that the London Underground is not a terrorist organisation.

And finally, always remember that with regards to public toilets, incoming traffic ALWAYs has right of way !

Raining, and the forecast is more rain for the next few days. We mustn't moan, the countryside & reservoirs need it, and let's face it, we get more than our fair share of sunny warm days here on the CDS.

Took my lady to see 'Skyfall' last night, along with Sis in Law and her better half. Great film, thoroughly enjoyed it. Special effects now are absolutely stunning, and to think that Dan Craig did many of his own stunts - wow! Cinema was full too, which was great. Apart from the usually zombies who arrive late. I've said it before but I do wish the powers that be in the cinema would close the doors as soon as the main feature starts, and refuse entry to latecomers. Is it too much to ask that people show decent manners, and arrive in good time so that they don't spoil other people's enjoyment?

Whilst we're on the subject, why do people not visit the loo before the movie starts? I had to let 2 people pass by me. If they have a weak bladder, fair enough, but they should sit on the front row nearest the blasted entrance door! Maybe film lengths should be determined by the endurance state of the weakest bladder? No! That wouldn't work....young girls go out in two's and three's every fifteen minutes. Why is that? Do they need someone to stand outside the cubicle door like the Queen's Lady in Waiting to ensure no telltale 'tinkle' can be heard? Or is it to debrief on which boy looks hot in Row number 6?

The villain of Skyfall was someone I've never seen before. He was excellent. The film industry is a bit like Anne Robinson, always looking for a new face. I think they have struck gold with this new guy, he was really good.

Nearly finished 'The Saturday Pledge'. Last few chapters to go. Every time I say that a new plot idea hits me that I just can't leave out. I'm already on over 100,000 words. There's more twists and turns in it than the Coalitions policies.

A Tory Home Secretary once asked me what they should do about the Pornography Bill. I told him to pay it.

I can't stand innuendo. If I  see one written mistakenly in any of my books, I immediately whip it out.

Whilst in London recently I saw Jeremy Clarkson crossing the busy road. I prayed and wished and prayed and wished, but alas, he made it safely to the other side. Bugger!!!

My daughter doesn't think her sixteen year old daughter is ready for the pill, so she keeps giving her a placebo.

My dad told me about sex just just before I got married, He said, "The Woman goes underneath and the man on top". For a year my wife and I slept in bunk beds.....

Soon be Christmas, I think it's always really lucky that December the 25th always falls on Christmas Day.