Latest Articles from The Vandal AKA Derek Haines

Your First Book

Tips for writing your first book One important decision to make before writing your first book, or second or third for that matter, is to decide if it will be written in the first person or third person. I was typical of most when I wrote my first book. It was about me, so naturally, it was written in the first person which naturally meant I, me and myself came grammatically first. I did this, I did that, he told me, I was there, for example. It was only after reading a number of debut books that I realised how common it is to write about your own experiences in

20 Things I Would Tell A 20 Year Old

A young friend, who was about to celebrate her twentieth birthday, asked me this question. “What twenty things would you tell a twenty-year-old about life?” After recovering from the shock of the being asked this question, and knowing that there surely isn’t a twenty-year-old living on this planet who would bother listening to me, I thought, well, why not? After making my decision, my only problem was stopping at twenty. So here we go with my abbreviated list of hard earned life lessons that no twenty-year-old in their right mind will ever pay any attention to. 1. Never listen to anything said by anyone over the age of twenty-one. It

A Monologue – Of Memories

My memory of Barry Humphries Barry Humphries has always inspired me. Better known to many all around the world as Dame Edna Everidge, it is the other talents of Humphries that I have most admired. Writer, actor and teller of tales. I wrote the following piece based on the style and my memory of a monologue I once heard him deliver in a one-man show many, many moons ago. A Monologue – Of Memories As electric toasters go, it was a classic. All Australian mined metal and made by Aussies in blue overalls somewhere near Glebe probably. Weren’t they were the days? When Aussies made stuff for Aussies and played for

Software Updates – Ignore And Have A Nice Day

Software update available. Do not touch!! How often do you have a notification for a software update? Often I guess. It’s almost a daily occurrence. But my advice, after my last week of pain, is to ignore these dastardly red flashing alerts, once and for all. Well, until there is no choice. Why? Because unlike the good old days, updates are so often rushed out and are now usually full of bugs, not tested and should be labelled, ‘only for the damned brave’. It doesn’t matter if the update is for your iPhone, your Android phone, your computer’s operating system, or like for me this week, for WordPress. All I can say,