Just watching/trying to ignore King Kong. Amazing graphics, yes; but what they have done by making the graphics... well, graphic, is make it also absurd. KK in full swing snatchies up a guy... not hurting him at all - come on, he weighs like 10-12 tons vs 12 stone, full sweeping snatch - broken bones everywhere, not least the neck. The bugs... a guy blasting away with a machine-gun at 15 feet - aiming at a guy covered in bugs... yeah, right, not hitting him once. It's full of such "No Physics Involved Here" stupidity that I find it just ludicrous.

Maybe it's just me.

Doubt it.

Politicians are like artists.

Honest, and here's how. Before the advent of the camera artists were commissioned to paint whatever the person paying them wanted painting; a horse, landscape, self, wife, whatever. He painted it, got paid, everyone happy. Then the commissions stopped. The artist had to decide what to do... so modern art evolved as artists started painting whatever they wanted - “I'm fascinated by brush strokes so I'll do a canvas showing all the possible brush strokes. It can be black, because it's not the picture that matters.” Like that. An unmade bed. Whatever. Garbage. But here's the thing. If you don't tell artists what to do you can't blame them for doing whatever they want.

Politicians are like artists. If you don't tell them what to do...

Living in close proximity to my two young nephews, who are just 5 and 20 months or so, is proving an interesting experience in many ways. I have delved back into memory to try and recapture not just the events but the attitudes, the way I thought at that age – five, that is, I don't think I have much hope of recapturing much from one (though I do have a memory from that age I suspect that's about as good as it's going to get). Anyway, youth one seems to think it is ok to piss anywhere he likes. Now, I know I didn't do that but can't quite remember when I stopped (potty training memories don't abound but I have a few – it seemed straightforward enough). I remember being three and pissing in a puddle in the car-park, and being shouted at for it by a random occupant of the flats – not that I cared. And that's about it. So, I guess I'm wondering if this is a failure of memory, which I doubt (I mean, 5, I remember pretty much everything from that age), or if this is just one kids poor attitude to the task at hand. I don't doubt I would have gotten a fairly solid clump around the ear for pissing in a draw or wardrobe at his age. Maybe that happened a little earlier and I got the idea (at three and four memories are not complete) but it can't have been a big deal or I would remember.

Maybe I'll ask mum. Soooo, mum, did I ever piss in a wardrobe? If so, when and what did you do to dissuade me from repetition?

Yes. The Last King's Amulet and Prison of Power will soon be available on Amazon. This is as much as I need in the way of outlets; now I need more people to know about them. It's going to take time. Wish me luck.

You know when you have become mature. It's when you stop wanting to live forever.

If writing in the third person you can change POV as often as you like, though it's better to keep to one character most of the time (the character you want the reader to identify with). If you are wondering which character' POV to use in a scene, just ask yourself, 'who has the most at stake, who has the most to lose?' and you will have your answer.

Simple, really.

I just turned 48 – for younger people this may seem old, but it is extraordinary how your perceptions change with age. I still feel 28ish, wouldn't be surprised to check and find I am in fact only 38. Forty-eight sounds old, and in a decade it will be old. But I bet when I am 58 I'll feel little different. Apart from being even more impatient with younger people who think that they know more than I do. Here's a tip; you don't! Experience comes with age, the less you have of one the less you have of the other. Maturity comes with age. Yes, you can fit loads of experiences into a short time, but that doesn't give you context, it just gives you a bunch of data. And there are things that take time to do – like live with someone for a decade, for example.

Looking forward (so far so good on this score) I'm anticipating finding it a bit unfair that physical decrepitude is a necessary part of ageing. It's about the only drawback. That and the tendency to feel like you can't be bothered to re-visit a previous experience. For example, starting another relationship. Having been pretty thoroughly married twice, I really don't feel like I care to go through the same experiences again. How can I pretend it's all new to me? How can I pretend that I care about this one person more than anything else in the world? It would be a lie, and I'm not much into lying.