My most successful book ever.

 Though I enjoy writing books, I can in no way claim to be a financially successful author. If I and my family had been dependent on my income from the twenty or so books I have written so far then impoverishment would have been inevitable. In my writing I have dabbled in fiction and non, technology and travel, children’s and adult, fact and fantasy, autobiography and more. However, only two of my books have been truly financially successful, and that mostly indirectly. What is more, it is from those two books that AI, or rather the abuse of AI, is now promising me even more money!

I wrote the very first book to be published on Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) back in 1993 and followed that up with the grippingly entitled Computer Telephony Integration a few years later. Note the ‘Telephony’ in the second title, it was important at the time. Those books had respectable price tags so I did make a bit of money from their publication and yet more from the enhanced profile they gave me as a consultant, conference speaker, etc in the CTI world.

That income died away, of course. But then, quite unexpectedly, I had a call from a New York  law firm (I was in a pub at the time and remember it well). The lawyers were acting for clients making use of CTI and they were being chased by companies claiming they had patents on the technology and demanding royalties for the use of it! My first book predated those patents and thus could be used to nullify the royalty claims. The lawyers paid me quite well for preparing reports on the early days of the technology and suggested that I might appear in court as an expert witness at the proceeding, something that I quite relished. However, I believe the dispute  didn’t ever go to court for whatever reasons. The lawyers paid me twice for my last report and, though I queried this apparent act of generosity, I didn’t hear from them again. I did not have my day in court, but I did appreciate the fees that they paid me.

Now, CTI has come back to kiss me again, and this time it’s all about AI. Artificial intelligence was not suddenly created, it, like us, had to learn. We learn from experience, from our parents, schooling, reading, and more. AI learns by stealing information from books  as well as other sources and, in the case of Anthropic, they did not pay for access to those books. This is wrong. A recent court case (Bartz v Anthropic) has confirmed that and has published a list of books that were utilised in the training of Anthropic’s AI: and my two CTI books are amongst them! Apparently, the settlement provides for $3,000 per work, less costs, so I am now awaiting my check, or, as we would say, my cheque.

Lucky me. I do wish that some of my other books had gained sufficient royalties for me to repeat that financial success, but it’s not all about the money you know. What we little known authors really want is to be read. Read, that is, by people not just AI information leeches.

 

 

Rolling Stones in Spain: Solo Loco

The title has no connection with the famous music group, but I did get a lot of ‘satisfaction’ from  transforming an old stone hut (called a caseta) into a liveable space near our Spanish village. Hence, I wanted to share what was a challenging and fascinating experience for Margaret and myself by creating a short video which compresses five years of hard graft into fifteen-minutes. That took some doing, but it’s now available on YouTube and friends who saw the rough cut really liked it. I truly hope that you will watch and enjoy  and pass it on.

The release coincides with the launch of the second edition of my book of the same name. Yes, Rolling Stones in Spain: Solo Loco is now available in these formats: Paperback, eBook and Audio

I’m really hoping that this video will stimulate interest in the book which, in addition to the building work, encompasses the human side of this crazy venture. Many in our village helped with advice and encouragement whilst  welcoming us into the social traditions of the community. And that’s not to forget the help freely given by a number of expats living thereabouts.

Have a look at the video, it might persuade you to buy the book , and if you enjoy it do a review. I need reviews!! Here's the video link again.

https://youtu.be/6QSEwMoDzs0

 

I’m finally a yesterday’s man

Many years ago at the tender age of sixteen I began work as an apprentice telephone engineer. I started on “poles and ‘oles”, which meant learning about the business of connecting the telephone in people’s houses to the telephone exchange. There calls were steered to their destination at the touch of a dial. It was all very physical in those days, but much has changed. I was part of that change as were thousands of workers throughout the UK and the world.

Just today, as I write this, the final nail (copper I hope) has been nailed into my career coffin.  I have gone over: I have a new router and have plugged our two old fashioned analogue telephones into a little thing moulded onto a conventional electricity plug. Henceforth my calls, the few that I do not make or take on my mobile, will be carried across the Internet in packets.

I have many tales about my early experiences during those long-forgotten bygone days, but they will be safely lodged in the growing list of word files that I have titled ‘Remember Me’ and I will someday bequeath to my offspring. They will know what to do with them.

So, very briefly, I have enjoyed the journey from clunky old electromechanical switches carrying analogue telephone calls, through to the miniature chip-based switches carrying digital calls. After that came the integration of telephony and computing and, believe it or not, I wrote the first book on that, yes, and the only song! I then ploughed my furrow through the introduction of the new mobile telephone system that could carry goodly quantities of data as well as voice and  finished up by writing a book about the beautiful film star Heddy Lamarr who is sometimes claimed as its inventor.

Tiring of treading down the upward escalator of technology I switched and became an Oxford tour guide and an author of books on many different things, anything but technology. Along the way a marketing-oriented friend once asked me why I didn’t write books that people wanted to read. Dumbfounded, I did not reply just then.

Whoops, sorry, got to finish here, my analogue telephone connected to the lump on an electrical plug is ringing. Maybe this is the call from the Internet that will provide me with the answer.

The warmth of a Spanish village

What do people think when I let slip that we have a place in Spain? Sun, sea, villas, sangria and tapas perhaps. However, an overriding feeling that comes to mind when I am in our village (which is nowhere near the sea) is warmth. Not of the climate, which is quite variable and sometimes vicious, no not that: I mean the warmth of the people.

Well, our village of La Fresneda is small so that could account for the residents open friendliness, something you could hardly expect in a city. However, we often overnight in villages on our travels and reactions to the presence of strangers such as ourselves can range between outright suspicion, wariness, ignorance and just the occasional friendliness. In La Fresneda it is the norm to warmly greet a passing stranger. The locals even tolerate the crowds of Spanish visitors that teem out of coaches below, then struggle up the steep hill on their way to the church and tiny ruined castle. Those visitors usually pass our house along the way and some of them pull the cord that rings the bell in the shrine to Santa Agueda just outside our main windows. I have plans for that cord.

Of course, having visited regularly for 25 years and despite my declining ability to speak or understand Spanish and their inclination to converse in their own local language, we do know quite a few people by sight and association. On this trip “the man who looks like his dad” was surprisingly friendly, even inviting me to steal beer from the tap whilst Vincente, the bar owner, was busy in the kitchen. By the way that man’s dad passed away some time ago so we are thinking of renaming him.

Margaret has a much better memory and much greater interest in the reproductive side of the place than me. She can identify adults who were toddlers when we first came and seems to know their lineage. This time our grandson and his very nice girlfriend came to stay and we dined in the wonderful Mataranya Restaurant: wonderful both in its architecture and décor plus its unusual menu which owes a lot to the fruits of local hunting. I had jabali which is wild boar. The original owners and waiters were still there, and we regard them as friends, and they now employ their sons as servers and probably future inheritors. Many years ago during the village fiesta, one of those sons was the guilty party in inducing our then fourteen-year-old grandson to imbibe some “special water” thus sending him home to us quite drunk.

On this trip we visited many French and Spanish villages on our way to and from our own, but none so warm and welcoming as ours. That aside the main memory of the two thousand plus mile trip was the colours.

October is a great month for autumnal forest glory, and we observed the most outstanding greens, browns, yellows, orange and reds was as we crossed the Pyrenees on our return journey. Stunning, though the photos barely portray what we saw.

“Pubs aren’t only about food, you know.”

 

Did you know that? It is a quote from a visitor’s review of a ‘pub’ that’s not that far from my Cotswold home, though not too near, thank the stars. I am hardly likely to go to a pub started by a rather mouthy media personality who was sacked by the BBC for thumping the producer of Top Gear. However, dogs are welcomed there, I gather. The following picture of a pub sign is not from that pub, but I like it and the Two Fat Blokes kindly gave me their permission to use it here. You can find more of their excellent signs at https://twofb.com/.

Now, I really thought I knew what a pub was, after all I have spent a significant proportion of my adult and teenage life in them. Why, I even came quite close to running one once, and both my wife, Margaret, and I have served behind bars. Ha!

But perhaps I’ve got pubs all wrong, so I looked up the definition in that source of all knowledge: Wikipedia. And this is it:

A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises.

Hmm, so perhaps the reviewer is correct and pubs are not all about food. Following that the Wikipedia article quotes from CAMRA, an arcane organisation that started in the 1970’s and which should know a little about the pubs of today. It states that a pub has four characteristics:

• ·        is open to the public without membership or residency
• ·        serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed
• ·        has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
• ·        allows drinks to be bought at a bar (i.e., not only table service)

I would add this to that last point …and perhaps consumed there whilst chatting to the bar staff, other customers, and anyone else willing to indulge in alcohol-infused conversation.

Often when I am in non alcohol-infused company the conversation turns to pubs and I listen to these interchanges very carefully. The basic format is something along these lines:

“Have you been to the Loyal Oak at Aylesbury?”

“No, what’s it like. Is the food any good?”

“Its really nice, the chairs are comfortable and the service is good.”

“And the food?”

“Excellent, they have a famous chef there now, you know that chap who comes on the telly talking about grilling acorns.”

Then someone (me) intrudes on the conversation by asking:

“What about the beer? Do they have handpumps? Did they have a guest ale or are they tied to a brewery? Are dogs allowed?”

They both look at me shocked and, after a puzzled silence, the person who had been to the Loyal Oak in Aylesbury replies:

“Well, I don’t really know. We don’t drink much – driving you know. Just a glass of red or white with the meal perhaps. Oh, and we don’t have a dog.”

It is odd to recall that most pubs did not serve food in the past - bag of crisps or a pork pie if you were lucky. Eating out for most people was a rarity and took place in a restaurant or a hotel or a café often for birthdays or a wedding anniversary.

When we first moved to the Cotswolds (actually back to the Cotswolds for Margaret) the nearest pub was the Cold Aston Plough, and my wife informed me that in the 1960s this was the first pub in the area to serve food: that much remembered delicacy called chicken in the basket. By the 1990s, when I briefly became a local there, it was very much a food destination until we drinkers arrived later in the evening. The then landlord told me that it was a soulless place before the drinkers arrived, no sound to speak of except the clinking of cutlery and muffled conversations.

So what did that man who wrote in his review, “Pubs are not all about food, you know,” refer to? No, it wasn’t beer or alcohol or dogs. Pubs, he claimed, are “about how they make you feel”.

Now, I thought that this was what the alcohol was for! It makes you feel good, gets you talking rubbish to other drinkers and lets you go home happy. However, I must now concentrate more on my feelings, or get a dog.

Cotswold Way: The end at last

 I’ve done it! I had hoped to complete the 100 plus mile trek in two sessions, but on the second leg I was rained off at Cheltenham and when I resumed the walk I only managed to reach Winchcombe from where I had to return home by taxi after the disastrous ejection of my tent and belongings from a farmer’s field.

On this, hopefully, the last leg, I left Stow on the nine o’clock bus to Cheltenham with my trusty golf cart (GT) and changed there for Wincombe bus, which was packed full of people heading for the Way. Not really, they were mostly travelling to the town to visit its major attraction: Sudeley Castle.

My Way was the next turning after the Gloucestershire Way where my tent had been forcibly ejected on the last visit and this and it had an interesting name, Puck Pit Lane. After a while the lane became a  trail across a field and it was soon after that I lost my Way.  Puck it, I said to myself, but fortunately I spotted some walkers who were following the Way going south and took my lead from them. It rose steeply. At one point I was almost flat on the ground gripping tree roots to heave up the GT behind me.

Gaining height was rewarding though, the view expanded enormously as I headed north towards Stanway. The Way then dipped deeply down into a steep valley which embraces that tiny village and its eponymous  House. By the way, Winchcombe to Stanway by road is a mere 2.5 miles, by the Cotswold Way it is more than six and at times offers very strenuous hiking.

Next came the village of Stanton which is so lovely for a moment I imagined that I would like to live there. I was soon dissuaded by an elderly local decorator who informed me proudly that the house he was working on was worth £2.1m, and his next job was a place that was for sale at £2.1 m! According to him, all of those characterful Cotswold stone villas that I passed  were worth £2.1m.

Walking became more demanding as I headed towards Broadway and the GT developed a mind of its own, occasional slipping out of its essential quick release linkage then lying stationary on the ground. I think it  was along that I met yet more Americans walking the Way. This couple were about my age or a bit younger, she had been a librarian and he a lawyer  (semi-retired). We had a good old chat about books and writing and of course Trump. The lawyer had not voted for him but had some sympathy for those who did.

I had good reason to avoid Broadway, the quintessential rich persons’ Cotswold village, but I could not. Fortunately, I came across the perfect wild camping spot less than a mile outside the village, fairly quiet, private, and no bother to anyone. Took the usual hour or so to set up camp, have a quick shave and shower (joke!) then walked through a friendly sheep field, past the church and straight into a pub, the Crown and Trumpet. Three handpumps, friendly landlord and discount for CAMRA members (but even then, an expensive pint). Took my perfect pint of Shagweaver outside and made some notes of the day. I then went back in to order some food.

“Kitchen closed at 7.30pm,” said the landlord proudly. “You might get something at the Swan around the corner if you’re quick.”

“OK, I‘ll probably call in for another pint on the way back.”

“Not likely,” he replied proudly, “we close at 9.30pm”. What!!!

The Swan was a swish hotel on the main drag. I wanted something cheap and basic but they did not cater for the likes of me. Well, beggars can’t be choosers so I ate their sophisticated and expensive meal swilled down with a costly pint.

Afterwards I walked along the main street passing priceless art shops, sophisticated book shops and such. I despaired at the lack of cheap and ordinary outlets. Fortunately the Horse and Hounds was not bad, some real people there and a choice of beers at less than a fiver. The barman was a young Frenchman who sounded entirely English but, he told me, when in France he sounded entirely French. We talked about travelling through his country and he told me of a village that had been taken over by the rich!

That night it rained heavily and some water crept into the tent. Also I experienced the worst cramp ever, whole leg cramp. Good job I was isolated, I howled. At six I packed the wet tent and sleeping bag and headed through the town and up the very steep hill towards Broadway Tower. Gosh that was hard going after a night of little sleep and much cramp, but the tower and the scenery was absolutely great. In fact I think that the northern end of the Way is the most visually stunning.

Finally, I crossed the main road at the top of the notorious Fish Hill and followed the Way down towards Chipping Camden. It passes the famous Dover’s Hill (strange sports) and there, right at the end of my trek, I missed the turning down to the town. The only sign I found was marked Cotswold Way Circular Walk so I followed that . Down and down it led into a dense forest with no glimpse of the town. The only person I met was walking her aggressive Pit Bull Terrier. She shouted to me that it was a bit emotional and she was correct, when it saw me with the GT it went berserk. She was literally rolling on the forest floor in an attempt to control the bloody thing. I like dogs, but I confess to being really, really worried by that one. I could hear it barking and snarling for ages afterwards. I finally completed the circular walk by climbing up through the steep forest back to where I had started on Dover’s Hill! It was then an easy descent into the rather lovely, but traffic infested, centre of Chipping Camden.

I had completed the Way at last. This last section had been a hot trek but I did feel happy that I had finally finished. A kind and helpful young lady took a photo of me and the GT outside the lovely Market Hall a few metres from the end point of that long and fascinating Cotswold walk.

A nice thing happened to me in Oxford

 

It’s now 20 years since I qualified as an Oxford guide and there have been many happy experiences, however a recent Bodleian tour will stay with me forever. A teenage girl and her family were on the tour, and towards the end I noticed that she was busily drawing in her notebook. Later I asked her what she had drawn and, smiling, she said, “You”. She tore the sheet out of her notebook and gave me the portrait. I was touched and insisted on giving her one my books on the Rogues of Oxford which she asked me to sign. A creative exchange of sorts.

A Film Fuelled Birthday Celebration

 

My birthday is on June the 3^rd and since living in Oxford I have usually celebrated it with my wife by attending a few lectures in the city, a musical gig or two and hearty few pints of real ale. This year there was nothing on: no lectures of interest and no music – the only thing to be relied upon was the beer. Then I clicked on the film section of the local event guide and soon had my day sorted!

First off was a viewing of The Salt Path at our nearest cinema: the Phoenix in Jericho. This was our first outing to an actual cinema to view an actual film for years, and I hated it. Almost an hour of adverts and previews before the film actually started, and the two women next to me were eating, talking and spilling parts of themselves onto my seat, we moved.

Then the film started and I was transported. The big screen, the powerful sound system plus a film based on a true story that I could relate to: a mature couple walking the South West  Coast Path. They were walking to escape from the awful reality of losing their home. I could not of course relate to that, but I had walked part of the path myself some years ago. The film tells a tale of great hardship but has a happy ending. I did smirk at some of the details such as the lightness of their backpacks and choice of camping spots, but that, I suppose, was nit-picking.

After that we had a cup of tea then rushed over to the Beecroft Physics Building on the edge of the University Parks for something called Quantum Apparitions. It began with weird readings by a motley assortment of students/academics accompanied by equally weird sections of film. Then we were given coloured pencils (water soluble) and paper and encouraged to draw the person next to us! That was a great ice-breaker of course. My partner was a hirsute young post-grad from Greece (theoretical study of two-dimensional materials!) with long black locks and matching beard. Our drawings were then doused in water which apparently introduced us all to the concept of uncertainty. Here’s mine!

We rushed uncertainly to the Internet Centre of the University in St Giles to watch a film called Life in Oxford. The title was misleading; in fact we were shown a series of unconnected clips which centred very much on a seemingly shunned or neglected section of the city characterised by colour or poverty. There were interviews with people who originated from other countries who wanted a place of their own where they could celebrate their own culture and more with people who had dropped out of society and were now sadly on the streets.

We left early for a celebratory birthday pint in the Grapes where we met a stranger who was also celebrating his birthday. He wanted to buy us a drink, but we walked on to the Orange and Lemons for another nice pint of the real stuff.

Then up to the James Street Tavern on the Cowley Road, a road which must be one of the most racially diverse in the city. A man at this pub was showing short films, but he spent over an hour getting ready to do so providing an opportunity for more beer and casual conversation. First chat was with a lady from Austria who did not like her home country and had settled in Oxford. She had excellent English but told us that she was studying the language under the man who ran the films. Then a man that I know from the music scene came in. He has an unusual curly moustache and hails from Georgia. He insisted on buying me a birthday pint! Good man.

The short film finally ran. It was a close up, full strength, interview between a fictional female interviewer and someone pretending to be the President of America. Hmmm. The next film was of no interest so we left.

We had a nice tempura meal in Sushi Corner, a Japanese restaurant in the Cowley Road, then wobbled home. That was a really good way to spend my birthday – I was filmed-out by the end of it. I also lost my knapsack containing our umbrellas somewhere along the way. That’s a sign of a good birthday.

Pintless Science

 

I ventured out to the St Aldates Tavern last night for a scientific update! Sounds odd but I have enjoyed Pint of Science sessions over many years now. They are held across the country and apparently in many European countries too.

My first shock was that the session was sponsored by Oxford North, a monstrous ongoing development lining the city’s main trunk road that I have to traverse on my many journeys to the Cotswolds. The second was hardly a shock at all: I was probably the oldest person of the forty or so present.

Anyway, I sat there sipping my pint of Prospect, a rather nice local beer at a rather excessive £6.15, and listened with interest to the hydrogen problem: it leaks. Worse still, because it is such a small atom it works its way between the metallic atoms of pipes and containers and wreaks havoc. They crack up.  The speaker told us of various solutions to the storage and transport of this wonderful fuel of the future, though without a single conclusion.

Then came the break. I was one of the first at the bar for a refill, after all this was a Pint of Science and all of its adverts, plus a little badge they give you on entry, feature a brimming beer mug. I need not have rushed, there was no queue before or after me. By far the majority of the audience were still in the lecture sipping at their first, and presumably only, drink of the two-hour session. They were waiting for the quiz, a science jamboree conducted through mobile phones.

The next session was an interesting one based on the use of ultra-sound. It included the use of sound to transform an injected liquid into a failed vertebra to transform it into a soft cushioning membrane. Also its use in removing plaque from teeth and monitoring the development of a foetus.

Both lectures were lively and used images which were themselves enlivened by embedded videos and animations, a far cry from the slides of my day as a presenter.

Plenty of questions and applause at the end so I rushed to the exit to avoid the inevitable rush to the bar. In fact there was no rush at all, so I took myself off to the Blenheim where the beer is more varied and much cheaper. There I met Richard who told me of his work in a company which supplied very simple diagnostic aids for diabetics. We were of a similar age and naturally our conversation led to the drinking habits of the youth of today and, of course, I told of my Pint of Science experience where the audience were so extremely moderate in their consumption. Of course neither of us  could censure the young for their abstemious ways, but we did think that the title of the event needed modification. Half Pint of Science perhaps?

I love pubs, or at least I did

My last blog focussed on pubs and live music, and thinking about that I feel I have neglected quite a few of my favourite drinking holes, including the Harcourt Arms in Jericho, Oxford, an energetic stones-throw from my flat. We were there just recently on Sunday night when Nigel Brown runs what must be the longest running open-mike night in the city. I reckon that I have been an irregular customer there for at least ten years and have experienced some wonderful musical interludes. Also on other nights of the week where individual bands play to an often-packed audience, so packed that the place sometimes runs out of glasses.

Anyway on that particular Sunday night two acts stood out. One was a young man playing a square bodied instrument somewhere between a guitar and a banjo which he claimed to have made whilst living in the Mississippi Delta. He played, and sang, a wonderfully evocative blues song. The evening ended with a young couple: he playing violin and guitar (not at the same time) and she playing that majestic, and so difficult to transport, instrument: the harp!  

On the way home we happened to meet the landlord of the Harcourt, Ian, who was on his way to another Jericho pub, the Victoria, for a nightcap and invited us along. There he told us the interesting story of how he came by his own pub and he bought us a pint!

There is another pub, the Rose and Crown, even nearer to my flat which also has live music, but the music is not to my taste – jazz. However, the beer is great: four handpumps of real ale one of which is an ever-changing guest: a beer drinker’s perfect combination. And the company is good, hosted by Andrew Hall who is a great raconteur and who’s main job seems to be to entertain his guests and facilitate their mingling. And he too buys me the occasional pint!

I have made videos of both these establishments for my YouTube channel, Robs Oxford and they have vied for viewing numbers. They are mostly neck and neck, but as I write both have passed the one thousand mark.

On top of these, and the many other musical pubs in Oxford, we now have good musical scene at our other base in Stow-on-the-Wold. Here the Talbot has live music at weekends and serves a decent pint of Wadworths. The musicians there do a paid evening session and are mostly excellent – and the atmosphere is near riotous with fervent dancing in a rather limited space, spilled and broken glasses having to be mopped up, and the antics of the drunken jockey who dances as if he is nearing the finishing post in a close race.

But, there is a but. Part of my love of pubs has been to wander into them on my own, buy a pint of real ale and maybe, just maybe, just arbitrarily, get chatting to another drinker hanging around the bar. I have experienced some really interesting and even revelatory conversations that way. Sadly it does not seem to happen much anymore and I am less and less likely to do it. Perhaps it’s my age, or maybe society has changed, or could it be that drinking in a pub has become too expensive (Wetherspoons excepted of course). Whatever, I am venturing out on my own less and less, but still thoroughly enjoying a few pints of the real stuff backed by some live music.