Trawling the Archives
I've been looking through some of my early writing on my computer, most of which was written for publication in Chestnut Lodge's club magazine, known affectionately as MilMud (a contraction of Military Muddling). I found several articles from the mid 90s which I have cut and pasted into the blog with dates when they were originally written or the file modified date if that isn't clear. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Libre Office can open WordPerfect files with no problems. 1995 CLWG Games Weekend - Saturday. This was my first ever CLWG event and my first offside report. 1995 CLWG Games Weekend - Sunday. The second part of this report. A Young Officer’s Guide to Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA). I wrote this as a spoof of a training manual extract. At the time I was very much…
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Book Review – Biggles in Spain by W.E. Johns
Biggles in Spain by Johns My rating: 4 of 5 stars I picked this up for a pound in a charity shop in Caterham. I was surprised to find that it stood up well to the passing of time. It was written towards the end of the Spanish Civil War, during which it is set, and first published in 1939. It still reads as a good story. A bit boys own in places, but it is Biggles and that's exactly what Biggles stories are supposed to be. There is a good feel for the history, which is partly through being practically contemporaneous with the events it described. Well worth reading. View all my reviews Related articles Biggles and the Classics The Sunday Yarn ~ Biggles biggles goes to war Book doctor: What first world war books might 10-year-olds like?
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Guest Blog for Government Digital Service
I was asked to do a guest blog for GDS on my experience as a Service Manager on one of their early service assessments. You can see what I have been doing at work of late, including a screenshot from the passport online appointment booking service and the project's agile kanban board, which I stole the idea for from the Government Digital Service. So here it is - Learning from assessments Related articles Learning from assessments Government leads the way on Online Digital Services. Eh? What??
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Book Review – In the Face of the Enemy by Ernest Powdrill
In the Face of the Enemy: A Battery Sergeant Major in Action in the Second World War by Ernest A. Powdrill My rating: 5 of 5 stars I borrowed this from the library and liked it so much that I bought my own copy. I found it very interesting because it is unusual for an other rank to write a memoir. Especially one where the author was a battery sergeant major who also had access to the battery clerk's notes. So, much of the 1944-45 campaign is very well documented with grid references for gun positions, ammo expenditure and times of moves. It is a fantastic reference book for WW2 operations of a Royal Horse Artillery battery in self propelled guns. There is also some of the human element to it as well. I was especially moved by the mystery…
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The Power of Free – Exodus Perfect ebook on Smashwords
So having spent some time thinking on it I have decided two things. That Exodus: Perfects is the best start to the series (it is the start of the main arc of the story). That obscurity is the biggest threat to being an author. So given both 1 & 2 above the solution is a more or less permanently free ebook of Exodus Perfects. Now that the exclusivity of Exodus Perfects to Amazon has expired I can make it available through other sources. Free Ebook on Amazon Kindle When you sign up for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) it offers you a 90 day tie in to their KDP Select programme, which allows you to give your title away for free 5 days out of 90. At first sight it seems to be the only way to make your book free…