Back Now

And off to work soon. I've spent the weekend driving back and resting and not really doing much bar watching some catch up TV such as the brilliant Elementary, Blacklist and Arrow and the truly atrocious Hostages (good idea for a film not a TV series but although it's not been recommissioned it'll be a staple of daytime TV in future ). I am watching Hostages just to see how bad it can get, apparently based on an Israeli TV series, like the excellent Homeland, which went off the rails after the first series but still kept your interested to due to excellent scripting and compelling characters.

Also noticed in the proliferation of betting shops a "Set Your Limits" campaign. Don't they realise that anyone addicted to slot machines, daily lotteries , or the proliferation of betting options will not do that , the only people who will are those in complete control. Then you add the facts that William Hill are looking to open shops 24/7 because slots and electronic casinos are open 24/7 , then combine this with one staff member per shop, and Paddy Power  taking bets and joking about the Oscar Pistorius , see this Guardian article, and it shows that they are only interested in one thing.

Tonight I have a meeting at my local practice' patient forum (details here) so am going to away from the house for 13 hours again today , but it's good to be involved with these things and you can't complain about things if you don't get yourself involved.

Anyway I know that this is not my normal sort of blog post, and I apologise, but when I get home tonight hopefully I can post something more positive and uplifting. Still enjoy your day, I know I will.

Eastern Promise

After watching the excellent Homeland and having seen numerous films about the threat from the Middle East from Ian , Iraq , Al-Quaeda and the like , and obviously these are trying to keep us as scared as possible of the bogeyman , usually in the form of a variant of Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.




Yes Team America took the proverbial very successfully , but I was wondering why Daniel Easterman (one of the pen names of Denis MacEoin) novels have never been filmed. Easterman is a superb author , and and expert in Middle East Affairs and his novels never fail to enthrall me . They have all the requisites for your average summer blockbuster , bombs , kidnaps , mysticism , conspiracies , religion , exotic settings , but I'm still waiting for the first celluloid outing.

Other than that he also writes as Jonathan Aycliffe , some excellent ghost stories such as the classic Naomi's Room , The Vanishment and The Matrix , one of the scariest books I have ever read.

If you have never read him track him down , I would have loved one of his books to appear on the World Book Night list.