Hacking is a mindset, lifting is a way of life. A traveller is something you are. And by this, I don’t mean a tourist. Many people travel as tourists – on holidays, school trips, with friends, with family or alone. They go to see the sights, to experience running with bulls to eat a snake’s blood. They go to see other cultures and “strange things that they don’t have at home,”

I’m a traveller. By which I associate with a group of people who I’ve begun to see more and more as I get older. Generally they all call themselves “global citizens” although I find the phrase utterly pretentious and in need of a slap. I find my simpler definition more apt: a traveller seeks experiences to influence their opinion, without allowing their opinion to influence their experiences. It could be snappier; I know. Let’s stick with “traveller.”

Continue reading

Have you ever tried to catch a dream and write it down? Just after waking? And no matter how much you try and grasp it in your mind, it just slips away. You know you have the essence of it, just not the feeling of it, at the time. Well, getting Orlendr down as a first manuscript is something like that.

She (yes, this book is a she to me, like boats, motorbikes and my snowboard) – she is planned out, mapped, my characters are all alive to me, and I roughly know what I want to happen. That doesn’t stop everyone from running around doing different things to what I expected – but that’s the same as the last book, so I suppose it’s ok. The problem is the sense of it.

Continue reading

Ten seconds was how long it took for me to change my life. It also was how long it took for my life to almost end. I was in a choke-hold at the time, roughly about midnight, somewhere on Piccadilly Circus in London. I’d been in the hold for ten seconds and was nearing black-out with blows raining down on me when I realised something important.

Continue reading

Continue reading

Basically I’m a cliche. If a modern cliche is someone who travels the world, setting up businesses, hacking unsuspecting individuals and scribbling a novel. Maybe it’s a modern cliche. I prefer the term modern renaissance man. Although if I ever actually used it without a tone of self-mockery I’d deserve the punch to the kidneys I’d hope you give me immediately for using it.

Orlendr is my current novel. I have form, you see for writing novels. More importantly I have form for writing them and then either a) not finishing the final chapter or b) not publishing them. I’ve decided to buck both trends. I recently sold up all my businesses, moved to Asia and will do two things here;

1. Experience this part of the world (I’ve always wanted to understand what people really mean by “Asian mindset”).
2. Write and publish Orldendr.
3. Launch a new start-up, probably in the Blockchain space (more of that to come).

So, that’s Orlendr. It’s, I suppose, a high-fantasy book – although I hate getting bogged down in jargon of any industry, even writing.  It’s a story that has been working around in my mind for a few years based around it’s major character who has evolved into someone with a story that needs to be told.

So much of the past few years of my life in Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and other assorted travels have influenced the cultures and places in Orlendr, of which one of the hardest things was planning the world itself when building it up. It’s, I think, a truly unique place and I’m excited to see how my characters fare in it.

 

Christmas is always a depressing time of year. It shouldn’t be. I’ve got all the required components that should add up to a glorious week. A small horde of cousins, plus one’s and family? check. A surprising lack of “naughty uncles” that seem to plague all my friends families? check. Tons of food that the self-nominated family chefs take more time over and is therefore better than the rest of the years fare? Check!  I’d also just made a life decision to jet out to Asia to seek new adventures so I was pretty much on a high. Plus there are presents. So it really shouldn’t suck.

But the 2017/8 Christmas for this (godless) seminarian did, indeed, go down about as well as the titanic. And not for the obvious religious reasons. It was a pain in the ass because everyone, everywhere, when confronted with a mountain of food, alcohol, and brandy soaked pudding couldn’t help but be fascinated with the diet. More worryingly, they were fascinated with making me break it.

It’s a rare day when I disagree with the great Albert. But, my dear deceased fellow, you’ve got it wrong. When someone is on a diet, and lives in a general state somewhere between raging hunger, fatigue from overwork in the gym and the general stress of a family gathering (just for added good measure) – don’t question their lifestyle. Just accept them for who they are.

But no. I’ll talk later about the general problem with “food-pushers” when you’re dieting, but basically, it’s a real thing. I had friendly aunties coming up to me looking like 1990s cocaine dealers trying to get me to eat a mince pie. “I’ll tell you what kiddo… the first one’s for free….”

Continue reading