Wot? No Passport

One of my recent routes is not accurately portrayed on the map in one of my prior posts. I had to make the trip from Exeter to Peterborough and back in one extended journey. I realised we were going abroad, and was just checking my passport. It expired on 22 September, so I would not have the requisite 3-6 months grace at the end of the trip. 

Panic Stations. 

I used to always keep two passports running for work, but didn't bother to renew them both the last time. I even had the passport office call me to check. Then, since we were in Iceland, I havn't been anywhere over the last couple of buggy years. I can vaguely recollect that my passport expired in 2022, but that seemed ages away. 

Except now it isn't.

I had to enter the competition on gov.uk to get a Fast Track Passport. It used to be possible to get one from a Post Office in a week, but now they were quoting 10 weeks for the fast track. Instead I tried the Fast Track bidding process.

From Exeter, the nearest place was initially Belfast. Then London, but they all went in seconds. Then a lone early appointment appeared in Peterborough. I clicked it and plunked down my £large_sum to get a interview at the Peterborough office. Only 250 miles each way. I could do the whole journey with only one recharge of electricity.

Still, it would give me a chance to try out the new car.

circularity

I'm part way around a complicated trip at the moment. I worked out that I've got 24 nights in hotels between now and the 15 September, and then a couple more nights away in the latter part of September. I guess it is a fitting end to my time with my current car, although about half-way along the route I should pick up the new one. The route map only shows the middle part of the journey, but it is enough to be indicative of the rest.

Automobile

I've driven Mercs for years, ever since I worked in Stuttgart, I even collected a couple of the cars from the factory and drove them back on German plates, to be re-certified in the UK. It used to be a thing. Personal collection from Germany. Fly out, drive back.

Now I'm swapping to another manufacturer. Some might say a disruptor. And quite a shock to see how the car trade values my previous car. 120,000 miles, admittedly, but still drives fresh. Someone, at auction, will pick up a bargain. 

hooked?

The little app that runs on the iPhone is deceptively simple. I can order an entire car with it, selecting options in much the same way as I'd configure a new iPhone. Input the model type, how many motors? type of wheels? colour and a couple of options for the level of driver assistance. I selected a high level, because I was used to the cleverness of my old Merc. 

Once I'm in the game, it suggests the installer for the wall charger, the finance package available from a reputable UK provider and so it goes on. I can tell I'm running on the rails of the App now.

One thing they don't tell you about is the length of the waiting lists for the different models.

However, my friends at the farm shop seem to have a few clever hacks.

Wall Charger

I decided to take the plunge toward an electric car. The local farm shop has a glass shed with a small sales office and I went along for a look. To be honest, I'd never even noticed the sales office before - and I think they want to call them -ahem- Galleries. 

I took a look and they persuaded me to come back for a test drive. I was sceptical but then hooked. 'All it takes is a small deposit, of say £200 to get into the queue of people waiting for these cars'. 

More to follow.

CoCar : Exeter Electric Community Car test

I said we'd had the CoCar (Exeter Community Car Share) installed around the corner. I enrolled in the scheme and decided to try it, ideally as a non-critical test run. It uses electric cars and an increasing network of access locations. We have two stationed in e-Car reserved bays around the corner. To get started I needed a keycard like for a hotel room. This has to be touched onto a blue area on the front windscreen to unlock the car. 

I booked a car using the iPhone App and then the next day we sauntered the 100 metres to pick it up.

The car was plugged into a charger and so I had to disconnect it, noticing it was at 96% charged. I should have taken a couple of pictures around the car for CoCars, but I forgot.

The bright green hosepipe-like charging cable seemed to dominte the bootspace in this small car. I guess I could have coiled it - but in my excitement I just loaded it in.

Then, into the little Fiat 500e (other option was a golf-like VW ID.3- maybe next time). We were soon away, noting its nifty little gear changer set up like radio buttons on the relatively empty dashboard. I expect there will be a massive decluttering of dashboards following the full eCar revolution. My manufacturer picture below illustrates the gear changer [P-R-N-D] Very simple. The car even has a one-pedal rgenerative braking mode, although I was too chicken to try it for any length of time.

It was silent as it moved away and remarkably easy to drive. We decided to take it to the farm shop as a test run and it handled the narrow roads around here with ease. I thought it was fairly nippy too, courtesy of the e-engine. At 96% it showed a range of about 140 miles. Easily enough for local runs. There was a full handbook in the glovebox as well as a simplified guide to the scheme. We dispensed with some of the functions, but I did find it amusing that Greta Thunberg's number was first on the phone dialler. We discussed the car over a couple of well-deserved delicious strawberry milkshakes in the shop and both decided we liked it,

The farm shop used to have a couple of Supercharger stations, but now has about a busy dozen or more as well as a pop-up store for eCars. A sign of the times and maybe the demographic?

Party on with nil returns

I see another party took place this weekend, in Chequers, the16th-century Buckinghamshire mansion with its 1,000-acre estate in the Chilterns. Officially a grace-and-favour location provided for the Prime Minister to run state occasions. 

Except this 'privately funded' event illustrates again that the clown is determined to max out everything before he leaves. To run a party in a tax-payer funded stately home, when many are worried by the increasing cost of living is arrogantly out of touch. 

And I can't help wonder whether the event was somehow 'sponsored'? It doesn't seem in keeping to use one's own money when there are so many alternative sources of funding. 

Presumably the 'new leadership contenders' were not there, although a list of the guests would make entertaining reading. But wait, I see that, based upon earlier transparency submissions,  'Nil Returns' seem to be a way to avoid this.

Excel frolics

Fun with Excel... The current graph shows a divided group of Cons. I'm guessing Truss won't want to step down from her tank, so we'll see her urge her friend to pool votes.

That would give this:

Then Rishi and Penny both need deals.

Penny goes for Tom's military vote. Rishi politely asks Suella to assist him. Maybe a few votes float around.

Kind of like this, which would make it Penny vs Rishi in the shake-down, unless Liz puts her tanks on Penny's lawn.

copycat campaigning

I've seen those pictures of Liz trussed up in combat gear at the helm of a tank and standing in front of rows of fighter planes. Photo opportunities to combat the agendas being put forward by the military backgrounded leadership contenders. 

That's a problem in itself. Opponent in the race Tugendhat knows the military so speaks vigorously about the need to fund it properly. I can hear the hawing sounds emerging from the Club of proper conservatives on this point.

But advisors are using photo images as a quick counter to arguments. Look at her, she's been in a tank and knows how to wear a G-suit. I bet that whip aerial has a Union Jack attached etc.

And Mordaunt also has form to bring in her military background- she's named after a ship for example. Now we can see some copycat agendas around certain topics as well as the 'Cut Tax' and 'Remove the NI Increase' sorcery. 

They skirt around the cost of living crisis and the thrall that Europe and America have to the Asian bloc. Remember BRIC and BRICS? It's coming for you right now. No-one is allowed to blame Brexit, because that is one of the hallowed successes of the still current Prime Minister.

Maybe it is déclassé to talk about the middling class now, but with the food banks, power and fuel hikes and lack of access to property purchase, then the millennials had better hope that millennial socialism works better than whatever they are advertising on TikTok.

There's a paucity of good new ideas in the current campaigning. Everyone is stuck running around for the same few ideas , cosplaying for the media and squandering advantage in a continuation of the clown's circus.

The clown broke the circus and now it becomes clear that no-one (of any political persuasion) is leading a fix.

Sheep Dreams - a novel by Ed Adams

Now my next novel is almost ready, although the choice of cover design becomes a challenge. I've found that if I offer two or three designs, they all have their supporters, although most people download the eBooks. 

I'm using a cover which is attempting to reboot the Edge book series, by writing what is effectively the first book in the Edge Series. They will run as 

• Sheep Dreams: The Elysium Mission to start mining on Ganymede
• Edge: World end climate collapse and sham discovered 
• Edge Blue: Endgame, for Earth – unless?
• Edge Red: Museum Earth an artificially intelligent outcome – unless?

It allows me to project forward a few hundred years, and it also means that Sheep Dreams becomes a natural conclusion to the RightMind and Big Science series.

• Coin : Get rich quick with Cybercash – just don't tell GCHQ
• An Unstable System: Creating the right kind of mind
• The Watcher: From the Big Bang to the almighty whimper
• Jump: Some kind of future.
• Pulse: Sci-Fi dystopian blood management with nano-bots. Just stay away from the Edge
• Rage: A madman's war
• (Sheep Dreams: The Elysium Mission to start mining on Ganymede)

It fits into the chronology of Matt Nicholson, who first features in Coin (London), then goes to Geneva (An Unstable System) and then on to Bodo, Norway(Jump) The twists of these novels mean there are also encounters in Pulse, The Watcher and Rage, like a DNA double helix. I'll have to draw a flowchart through my books at this rate.

Clown goes but leaves a Three Ring Circus

Fascinating to see the Conservatives all jostling for the top spot. 

They are making better arguments than the opposition parties about some current topics and cutting across previous policy and each other. 

With so many contenders, there will be some who don't make it to the next round although anyone favouring them will still be confused about who to prefer next. 

 The previous clown left the economy in tatters and I'm guessing there must be a central briefing to 'lower taxes' because all the MPs doing the media circuit are trotting it out. 

Increase money for the state and lower taxes? I suppose they will use the gargantuan savings from Brexit. 

 Then there is the question of latent sleaze which infects much of the Tory party. I'm aware of stories affecting several of the candidates, both of the financial and the personal variety. 

And we should be aware of who takes a more extreme view of politics too. Those with anti-green and fracking policies, ex members of hard-line political groups, tax dodgers and those for whom inapproriate actions become open to debate. 

We also notice some reprobates not in the running, but tactics to influence the levers of power.

Dodgy days ahead?

Novel writing

I was along the South Bank a few days ago at the fascinating Self Publishing Show. It was a lively and interesting place to pick up some ideas about my various books and ways to publish them.

I guess I've been focused on the creative side (ie writing) but less on the business side (ie sales). 

In fairness, it all started as something of a hobby, but I can see that others who started around the same time as me but have taken a more business-like approach have had some interesting successes.

My 10,000 downloaded eBooks dwindles to nothing when I see that others have focused on altogether more targeted approaches.

In one case, an author's shift from political novels to police procedurals was able to resonate with the Line of Duty watchers and the result was 750,000 novels shipped. 

In another case, with some slightly salacious writing, but along a theme akin to  "Voldemort runs Hogwarts", two sisters were able to ship around 5,000,000 books. 

Astonishing. 

It got me thinking. I've got the 'inventory' now in the form of a stack of novels in various series. Maybe I need to put some more attention onto the Advertising and Marketing and of course targeting? I could even write to a genre, although I'd rather recategorise my existing novels into more commercial categories

I think I've shipped something over 10,000 novels now, spread across around 20 different stories. For every one that gets downloaded as an eBook, there's about 2-3 further views.

The newly refashioned 'Indie' market seems to be where an increasing number of novels are being sold (50% of the market for eBooks), and I'm told the market is expanding at more than 10% per annum.