SimonJM

Two things happening now, and in the near future. First thing is that my author friend Julian Miles and I will be at Wyntercon again this year - in fact next weekend, 10th and 11th September, in Eastbourne: https://www.wyntercon.org/ If you can make it please do stop by and say hello. If you give your deviantART account name you'll get a free book! Second thing is about another friend, this one a bit more remote to me, seeing as how he lives in the US. Johnny Ortega (of The Plot Hole fame on YouTube) is in the film-making business and is now at the point where he really needs to upgrade his equipment and more importantly have somethignsecure he can store, and carry, it around in! He has a fund raiser active with various levels of perks (including some great t-shirt designs and the option of being in one of his productions!_ No pressure to conribute, but if you can pass the word around, that'd be great - thanks:

By popular request - ok, so just Shalen asked - how Cake Wars came to be!  I debated long and hard about calling it Cake Wars IV: A New Gateau but didn't think I could keep the theme going, so it's plain old cake wars! The setting is a (wait for it ...) coffee shop. Yes, I know, such a shock, me being in a coffee shop!  My habits had changed a little in the past few months; I used to walk back along the pedestrian precinct in town to swing by a coffee shop, but that shop had closed down. I still walked past it on the way in and it sat empty for quite a while.  Then, one day, it looked like it was re-emerging from it's somnulent state.  A few

There I was, sitting in a coffee shop (yes, I know, a rare thing, but I do from time to time ...) when the opening of the door caught my peripheral vision so I turned my head a bit and saw a gentleman in a blue uniform enter (and no, NOT the police finally catching up with me ..!) and it became very obvious he was Royal Navy, much like his colleague who I then saw hard on his heels.  My first thought was "they must have badly mis-parked their ship", even if we were within a long stone's throw from the sea).  A thought that was quickly dashed as they walked past to the counter and their shoulder patches saying, "bomb disposal" became visible.