AD Hartley

My two young nephews are just at the age of discovering reading for themselves .   As much as it's a pleasure to have an adult read to you as a child, the joy of discovering stories for yourself is a huge step and it's fascinating to watch the boys pick up a book and slowly lose themselves in the story, wide eyed and full of determined concentration. This is still new to them after all, so every word is important and must be afforded all due consideration. There are many activities we throw ourselves into as children that we naturally lose interest in, forget or that become unacceptable as we reach adulthood. Playing with toys, watching cartoons, climbing trees or running around waving our hands in the air and screaming at full volume are rarely listed as pastimes on the average Curriculum Vitae. (Pity... I'd hire that person). But reading is one activity that stays with us through the years. From 3 years to 103 years. From The Very Hun...

  There is a quote, well, a theory to be more exact, about monkeys and Shakespeare . It goes that if a monkey slaps around a typewriter through infinity, it will eventually write everything up to and including the complete works of Shakespeare.   This metaphorical theory scares me because it seems to paint a picture of both my writing style and speed.   The first chapter of TSOICS was written in 2006, 8 long years ago. Well, no, that's not exactly true. Actually that very first chapter was based on a script  written for an animation I was creating at University in 1997. I didn't use the script in the end and it sat unfinished and unloved among many other unfinished and unloved scribbles until 2006, a few months before I left London for Borneo. Borneo is, by the way, where I discovered the flaw in the theory as few monkeys actually use typewriters... they much prefer laptops.   During the packing and general chaos before I lef...

Welcome! Selamat Datang! Karibu Sana! How's things? You're looking good. Have you lost weight? Some of you reading this might be old friends, in which case, Hi! How ya doing? We should catch up for a drink some time. Others amongst you are new friends. In which case, welcome. Good to know you. So, why the blog? Well, among the many other things I get up to, I've recently finished a book . It's possibly why you're here. In that regard this little piece of the internet is where you can find out more info about the book and any others that follow along, whilst I get the opportunity to tell you more about it, along with, no doubt, an awful lot of stuff you probably don't need to know, because I like talking nonsense... Hopefully you'll pop by every now and then to say hi. It'll be good to see you.