The Time Bubble

Friends and family were last night rallying around a distressed Londoner whose dream day out to an upmarket shopping village turned into a nightmare. Hilary Cholmondley-Smythe, 33, an investment banker from Kensington, West London, explained how a mix up over parking led to the horror of finding herself not in the swanky designer outlet, but instead in the centre of the adjoining town. "I had a few grand left over from my quarterly bonus so I decided to treat myself to a trip to Bicester Village. I wanted to see if I could pick myself up a nice dress for a dinner party some friends of mine are throwing in Belgravia next weekend. So I drove up the M40 in my Mercedes-AMG to see what I could find. Everything was fine until I got off the M40, then I started seeing signs saying the car parks were full and directing me to a park-and-ride system. Obviously, a person of my social class could not possibly be seen dead on a bus, so I ignored those and carried on driving. The traffic w...

I've been curious about Louth for some time, and found myself strangely drawn towards it ever since I found it whilst I was idly looking through the road atlas looking for new places to explore. This was some months ago. I started with Wikipedia, where else, then moved on further to find out as much as I possibly could about this town. Here's a few snippets from Wikipedia that caught my eye: "Louth has a total resident population of 15,930. [2] " "The  Greenwich Meridian  passes through the town and is marked on  Eastgate  with a plaque on the north side of the street, just east of the junction with  Northgate ." "Louth is noted for the wide selection of independent retailers, with around 70% of businesses independently owned. [28]  In 2012, it was named 'Britain's Favourite market town' by the  BBC 's  Countryfile . [29] " " Louth is also known for its specialist grocers, [31]  and local butchers, Meridian Meats, h...

This is going to be a two part blog as there's a lot to tell you! We've just come back from a four night holiday in Saltfleet on the Lincolnshire coast. Now it might not sound like the first choice of holiday, four nights in a caravan at the wrong end of October on the windswept east coast, but we had a fantastic time. We packed an amazing amount into the time we had available. I have a theory that you get more out of a short break than a longer one. When you know you've only got three full days, it focuses the mind. There's no time to waste lounging about or taking a day or two to settle in. You've got to be full on from the start. And you've also only got to make your money last four days, so you don't have to eke it out so much as you do on a longer break. There was an ulterior motive to taking this break. As I've mentioned previously, we have for some time been scouring the country looking for somewhere potentially to relocate to. Why? Well t...

Here's a thing. Back in the dim and distant reaches of the last century, when I was still an impressionable young lad, I wrote a few fan mail letters, mainly to pop stars of the time. This was not unusual activity at the time, and probably no different to the tweeters of today who tweet to their superstar icons in the usually forlorn hope of getting a re-tweet or maybe even a reply. It's not that likely because such superstars tend to have several million followers and in many cases don't even see the accounts - they are "managed". Presumably this is either because they are too busy or more likely because their carefully controlled public personae can't be allowed to tweet themselves in case they say the wrong thing and get caught up in a media storm. Such is the way of the modern world. Back in my day...(wow, I sound so old), we wrote our fan mail on good old fashioned pen and paper. Most used to write to ask for a signed photo and such like but I used to...

There's no such thing as bad publicity, they say (whoever they are). I think I'd have to disagree with that after reading about "Maggot-gate" and the resulting "Big Stink" outside Nando's restaurant in Bicester. I can't honestly say that it's going to make me more likely to dine there, that's for sure. Perhaps it's all about brand awareness, who knows? Quite honestly, it seems to me it was more a problem with the bins outside rather than the restaurant itself. Nando's has borne the brunt of the problem, but I have to say, those bins aren't particularly pleasant at the best of times. I had been in the habit of walking past them on a daily basis during the summer, usually travelling from Sainsbury's, grumbling at the prices, towards Poundland in search of better value. I did note some unpleasant smells on occasion, but then unpleasant smells aren't unusual in Bicester, so you sort of get used to it. It's a bit like ...

Gerald is absolutely delighted. In fact he can barely contain his excitement. Last night while we were watching the England match he was jumping up and down on the sofa in joy. Not at Harry Kane's goal, but at another former England goalscorer, Gary Lineker, whose half time appearance brought a look of sheer joy to his face. What is all this about? Well, good old Gary, Gerald's all time favourite football player, came on during the advert break to inform us that Walkers are bringing back lots of old flavours of crisps for a limited period. Now you may or may not be aware of this, but this is something that Gerald and myself have been campaigning for for years. Many years ago, he and I formed the CTBBOFOC, short for the "Campaign To Bring Back Old Flavours Of Crisps". I was never particularly happy with that acronym, I felt it was too long and took up too much space on our headed paper and business cards but Gerald insisted it was catchy. A glorious day for the CT...

I'm nearing the end of writing The Time Bubble trilogy, and a most rewarding experience it has been. All being well, the final volume will be released at the end of September. Thoughts are of course turning to "what do I write next?" This has been on my mind for some time. At one point I had a real fear that perhaps I had put so much into the books I'd already written that I'd run out of ideas. If that had been the case, then I would probably have stopped - there's no way I'd want to churn out unoriginal, sub-standard material just to earn a fast buck. I owe my fans more than that - I hope that's not too egotistical a thing to say. Fortunately, the seeds of an idea have been forming in my mind as I've been writing the latest book. I'd like to share this idea with you now and ask what you think. I feel I've pretty much gone as far as I can with the time travel theme. I've explored it from many angles, including a few quite unique o...