Opinion

It’s been a while since I posted one of my tried and true Vandal recipes. So in response to the overwhelming number of requests I have had (well one, maybe two), let’s get cooking. I love simplicity because it makes things a whole lot easier and as luck would have it, some of the greatest…

I have been astounded by the number of comments regarding yesterday’s post about books and ebooks. It certainly is a topic that has a number of factors at work and isn’t as simple as a preference for one or the other. In particular, I was most interested in the range of opinions, reasons, and practicalities…

I can’t help but notice that the ratio of my book sales in the last twelve months has turned decidedly towards e-books. Looking back at my last year, sales have gone from 90% paperback last April to the exact opposite for April 2011. 90% e-book sales. This is a very sudden change, which as an…

I can recall the first time I tried Lard de Begnins, just a few days after I arrived in Switzerland over ten years ago. My wife and I were staying at a friend’s house just a stone’s throw from a small butchery owned by Phillipe Grange. Although a specialist grump even on his better days,…

Recent events around our wonderful world have shown that although times change, methods do not. As each revolution comes around in turn, normally through a repressed, unemployed, and deprived population saying enough is enough, with a little help from sympathetic intelligence services, the methods of suppression remain the same. Killing the internet is no different…

Oh, okay, ho-hum, yawn. It’s not another new book from Derek Haines, I hear you say. Well, in fact, yes. So, let me get on with the mandatory self-promotion and trumpet-blowing about it. It is titled February The Fifth, and as you might gather, this date has some significance. First of all, it is the…