The anthology, including one of my short stories – Full Moon over Tawi-Tawi, is now available both as an eBook and paperback. Look for it in your local bookshop, or order it from any of the global and regional online retailers, e.g. Amazon UK. Whether you already know and love Southeast Asia, or are curious about this, the most alluring and mysterious part of… Read More
An announcement to my readers around the world!
As this is the season of vacations despite the silly virus, I have made a decision to halt the weekly publishing of chapters from The Influence on my website. This will resume in September and continue until further notice. However, the printed novel will be available for purchase beginning of 2022, in hardcover and soon after that in paperback, with the first 100 hardcover… Read More
Social Media Censoring at its Worst
Would you believe that this old photograph of a Malekula warrior with a penis sheath has been censored by facebook? Allegedly for ‘[going] against our Community Standards on nudity or sexual activity’! Where’s the sexual activity? And does nudity nowadays include other than ‘the naughty bits’? Like feet? Or legs? Or even male nipples? Has facebook been taken over by brainless American evangelicals? Or… Read More
Sex? Yes, please – we’re human!
Any allusion to intimate interaction between consenting adults invariably provokes a reaction. Whether it’s positive or negative is really moot, as numerous brands (and not least their marketing agencies) have discovered to their advantage. Hey – you can sell anything from beer to cars to language courses with a bit of sex. And if it results in the ire of militant feminists or religious… Read More
Hello patriotism, goodbye critical thinking and common sense!
Patriotism is a disturbing concept. Seen as a positive quality in citizens and encouraged by every government since the dawn of mankind: your absolute love for the country where you happened to be born or grow up in; your absurd pride in it; your willingness to defend it with your life; your firm belief that it is the best country in the world; your… Read More
What’s in a word?
Kill, murder, maim, torture, decapitate, garrotte, execute, hang, eviscerate, strangle… What do these words have in common? No, it’s not what you’re thinking! They are all perfectly acceptable in any country in the world, in any media, even allowed on BBC before their self-imposed watershed. Yet they all conjure up unpleasant images of ways to kill and inflict pain on another human being. Our… Read More
Send in the clowns
Over millennia, this planet has seen the rise and fall of countless self-proclaimed leaders. Most of them forgotten by now, the rest of them rightly deserving our scorn and jokes. A few visionaries and idealists amongst them failed miserably and faded away with barely a footnote in history. The others – the infamous ones, the usual tyrants, incompetents and outright lunatics have always done… Read More
My god is mightier than yours
Undoubtedly, the best accomplishment that modern democracy has ever achieved was to firmly separate state and religion. Without persecution of religious minorities and most importantly – no preferential treatment for state servants regardless of their beliefs or lack thereof. It sounds splendid in theory, doesn’t it? Pity it doesn’t work in real life. Let me expound on that: To begin with, let’s evaluate that… Read More
Revolution, Evolution or Devolution?
There are multiple banners being waved about now, and everyone has an opinion. People are roused up to stand on the barricades and declare themselves as something or the other, as long as they choose a side. Does this really advance us as a species? Liberals versus conservatives; socialists versus capitalists; communists versus reactionaries; government control freaks versus anarchists; morons versus… other morons. They’ve… Read More
Totally inoffensive and politically correct
We’re living in strange times, aren’t we, when anyone’s innocuous comment or gesture can be turned into a weapon against the speaker. Not me. I’m getting on with the present programme, doing my best to stay inoffensive and continue to spout gibberish, just as most of world media these weeks. I’m even updating my vocabulary to be accepted by everyone, anywhere. And hope to… Read More