Monday, 18 March 2013
Saturday, 15 December 2012
FREE DOWNLOAD - THE MESSENGER - 500 Page thriller
For those of you who may have missed it last time THE MESSENGER http://goo.gl/Q3INE is available on FREE DOWNLOAD on Kindle today (15th), Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. A 500 page explosive mixture of Enemy of the State and Sixth Sense. You can read the first six chapters and the story behind the story on my blog pages (see right).
REVIEWS:
PACEY THRILLER WITH A POIGNANT POLITICAL MESSAGE
REVIEWS:
By dragonara
The Messenger is a full on thriller with a mysterious twist. And while military novels are not my usual fare, I got on board with Jack Chandler when he entered the Land of Souls. John E. White skilfully weaves the two worlds together in the way Stephen King does, but without the fantasy tag. Amid tense Harrison Ford style action is the deeper `what does happen to war dead?' Tight, thought-provoking and a great read. You won't think the same about war again.
A thrilling read,
By
A great read with a great message skilfully handled. The suggestion of a sixth sense but leaving the reader to interpret that in their own way made it intriguing for me.
|
PACEY THRILLER WITH A POIGNANT POLITICAL MESSAGE
By Daisy Adams
John's novel has all the ingredients one would expect in an adventure story - a well researched and developed plot, believable characters in reader friendly and accessible prose. It's also pacey containing exciting action scenes within a contemporary and highly relevant political and historical setting.
This is not all however, in a layered narrative, The Messenger fuses the genres of thriller, adventure and the supernatural to excellent effect. This novel is a thoughtful critique of politics, economics and war.
This is not all however, in a layered narrative, The Messenger fuses the genres of thriller, adventure and the supernatural to excellent effect. This novel is a thoughtful critique of politics, economics and war.
By jaycole
'The Messenger' works on more than one level. As an exciting story with believable characters it carries you along in the way you expect from writers like Lee Child and Matt Hilton. And the military scenes, while not full-on Andy McNab, are pumping with action and well-researched authenticity. But it's the third dimension that makes this book stand out. Lots of people (probably lots of soldiers) who have had near-death experiences will be intrigued by Jack Chandler's visions and doubts. PTSD, paranoia, brain-washing? Or something else? Read it and make up your own mind.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Victory ... winning small battles leads to winning wars.
So, it looks like the public have spoken and Starbucks are going to start paying the tax they had tried so hard to avoid. Whether these payments will be of the order that will put the company back on a good PR footing with the general public remains to be seen. Interestingly, it was not just Starbucks who were playing the avoidance game. Amazon and Google ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20288077 ) have also been enjoying the fruits of their tax accountants hard work. The point here is that, if the public vote with their feet, they can achieve anything. Now - how long will it be before the hard pressed citizens rise up and tell Government it must deal with the Starbucks, Amazons and Googles of this world before it hits the easiest and softest of all tax targets - the average man and woman - who have no choice but to pay tax and who, because Starbucks, Amazon and Google do not pay their moral fair share are being sunk by debt. Remember folks, if the boys and girls at the top paid their whack then the people at the bottom wouldn't be taxed to the degree they are.
As an illustration of a girl at the top who takes her moral contribution seriously - I give you probably the most famous of writers, after Shakespeare - J K Rowling ( http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012-9 ) and from the article concerned I note the following:
It is with this as a backdrop that it's worth recalling why the richest woman in the UK, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, says she remains a citizen of Great Britain even though she's now a billionaire.
The bottom line?
Rowling loves her country, and she wants her kids to grow up there. And, as someone who once depended on the safety net designed to help those going through hard times, she feels a debt to her society.
As an illustration of a girl at the top who takes her moral contribution seriously - I give you probably the most famous of writers, after Shakespeare - J K Rowling ( http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012-9 ) and from the article concerned I note the following:
It is with this as a backdrop that it's worth recalling why the richest woman in the UK, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, says she remains a citizen of Great Britain even though she's now a billionaire.
The bottom line?
Rowling loves her country, and she wants her kids to grow up there. And, as someone who once depended on the safety net designed to help those going through hard times, she feels a debt to her society.
I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.
A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug
Sunday, 21 October 2012
STARBUCKS - grounds for avoidance?
I have enjoyed a Starbucks coffee in Singapore, in cities in the US and here the UK. I even wrote to the company when Drake Circus (mall) was being built in Plymouth and suggested that the company ought to consider opening a shop there. Their response that Plymouth was not on their agenda disappointed me, but, a couple of years later, when Drake Circus was finished they had changed their mind and, now, Plymouth has two Starbucks cafes. I used to tell friends to drink there - that the mocha was good. I suppose you could say I was a Starbucks man.
So, maybe you can imagine my embarrassment and anger when I read that in its 14 years in the UK, on sales of £3 billion, Starbucks has paid Corporation Tax to the tune of just £8.6 million up until three years ago - and, during that last three years, nothing. Apparently, it is not Tax evasion as that would be illegal. It is Tax avoidance - and whilst that, sadly, is legal, in this day and age of austerity when the average man and woman is being squeezed until the pips squeak to repay the Government's deficit, I believe it's morally repugnant. That average man and woman has no choice about whether or not he or she pays tax - it is a burden that is visited upon them in the same certain way as old age. However, we should remember that the more companies like Starbucks avoid paying tax, the more that average man and woman have to make up their shortfall. I am not naive enough to think that Starbucks is the only company to have tax accountants expert in the field of tax avoidance - which is why I believe that those companies who don't pay their share should be identified - as they are effectively thumbing their noses at us, their customers. Once we know who they are, then we can decide whether we want to give them our business (our cash) or whether we want to give it to a company who is contributing to the British economy (like Costa coffee) - because those companies help to reduce our tax burden.
So, maybe you can imagine my embarrassment and anger when I read that in its 14 years in the UK, on sales of £3 billion, Starbucks has paid Corporation Tax to the tune of just £8.6 million up until three years ago - and, during that last three years, nothing. Apparently, it is not Tax evasion as that would be illegal. It is Tax avoidance - and whilst that, sadly, is legal, in this day and age of austerity when the average man and woman is being squeezed until the pips squeak to repay the Government's deficit, I believe it's morally repugnant. That average man and woman has no choice about whether or not he or she pays tax - it is a burden that is visited upon them in the same certain way as old age. However, we should remember that the more companies like Starbucks avoid paying tax, the more that average man and woman have to make up their shortfall. I am not naive enough to think that Starbucks is the only company to have tax accountants expert in the field of tax avoidance - which is why I believe that those companies who don't pay their share should be identified - as they are effectively thumbing their noses at us, their customers. Once we know who they are, then we can decide whether we want to give them our business (our cash) or whether we want to give it to a company who is contributing to the British economy (like Costa coffee) - because those companies help to reduce our tax burden.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
It's worth persevering folks!
Check this out: http://goo.gl/keJwU
In 2007 I complained to the Advertising Standards Agency and Press Complaints Commission about a company called Churchcastle and its wordsearch competitions in the Daily Mirror (and other newspapers / magazines). I felt these competitions were fleecing the public, by getting them to use premium rate phone lines to claim their (cheap) jewellery prizes and give away their private details (to be sold on to whoever?). As one would expect the PCC didn't want to know and the ASA said I was the only one complaining about it and they didn't want to take up the complaint. I kept at it and finally, last year, the ASA did take on the case. Today I see in the Daily Mirror (Penman & Sommerlad Investigate pages 24/25 - see above link) that Churchcastle has been fined £800,000. So, folks, it's worth persevering when you see injustice. It's a pity the newspapers, who obviously put advertising revenue above the protection of their readers, don't have to apologise to those readers for allowing the competition onto their pages. In additon, those newspapers / magazines who carried the competition, in my view, were complicit in this and should compensate their readers - mostly elderly I gather, who were scammed.
Interestingly I wrote this on my previous blog 'I really should be writing' back on Oct 20th 2008:
In 2007 I complained to the Advertising Standards Agency and Press Complaints Commission about a company called Churchcastle and its wordsearch competitions in the Daily Mirror (and other newspapers / magazines). I felt these competitions were fleecing the public, by getting them to use premium rate phone lines to claim their (cheap) jewellery prizes and give away their private details (to be sold on to whoever?). As one would expect the PCC didn't want to know and the ASA said I was the only one complaining about it and they didn't want to take up the complaint. I kept at it and finally, last year, the ASA did take on the case. Today I see in the Daily Mirror (Penman & Sommerlad Investigate pages 24/25 - see above link) that Churchcastle has been fined £800,000. So, folks, it's worth persevering when you see injustice. It's a pity the newspapers, who obviously put advertising revenue above the protection of their readers, don't have to apologise to those readers for allowing the competition onto their pages. In additon, those newspapers / magazines who carried the competition, in my view, were complicit in this and should compensate their readers - mostly elderly I gather, who were scammed.
Interestingly I wrote this on my previous blog 'I really should be writing' back on Oct 20th 2008:
Churchcastle Ltd (trading as Spencer and Mayfair 2007) have a full page advert in today's copy of the Daily Mirror (page 47) suggesting that people can solve a word puzzle and 'claim' a 'stunning emerald pendant' - however, what it places in print (around font size 6, I guess) at the bottom of the page is that the call to claim one's stunning emerald pendent lasts 3 minutes and 30 seconds (at £1.50 per minute on BT landline - god knows what it would be from a mobile) at the end of that call you will be asked if you wish to transfer to another phone line to receive a 'matching bracelet' - if one does that then the call will last 3minutes (again at £1.50 per minute). So, 6mins 30 secs at £1.50 per min = £9.75! Well at least Churchcastle have dropped the heading of 'Do you qualify for a genuine emerald pendant', which they used in two previous adverts for the same thing last year. Some interesting links - I'm assuming here that the Churchcastle Ltd mentioned is the Churchcastle Ltd of the above - fair assumption?ASA Non-broadcast Adjudication: Churchcastle Ltd t/a UK Cash Rewards The Office of Fair Trading: Prize promoter gives undertakings to High Court This is a really interesting link - it was actually published in the Daily Mirror in 2002 They cash in on trash - Investigations Maybe the Daily Mirror doesn't look at its back copies.
Friday, 21 September 2012
CIRCLE OF DECEIT - FREE DOWNLOAD - 22nd to 26th SEPTEMBER
Three months ago Harry Miller decided to leave a lucrative directorship in business to write children’s stories. His wife, Veronica, isn't pleased - she misses the high life and nags him to go back. But Harry can't go back – and he can't tell her why. Veronica's efforts to get him to return to business open a Pandora's box of lies and recriminations which have Harry questioning his friends, his marriage, and his future.
“The truth will out ...”
55 page novelette
Saturday, 15 September 2012
FREE DOWNLOAD - THE MESSENGER - SATURDAY 15th, SUNDAY AND MONDAY
For those of you who may have missed it last time THE MESSENGER http://goo.gl/Q3INE is available on FREE DOWNLOAD on Kindle today (15th), Sunday and Monday. A 500 page explosive mixture of Enemy of the State and Sixth Sense. You can read the first six chapters and the story behind the story on my blog pages (see right).
REVIEWS:
PACEY THRILLER WITH A POIGNANT POLITICAL MESSAGE
REVIEWS:
By dragonara
The Messenger is a full on thriller with a mysterious twist. And while military novels are not my usual fare, I got on board with Jack Chandler when he entered the Land of Souls. John E. White skilfully weaves the two worlds together in the way Stephen King does, but without the fantasy tag. Amid tense Harrison Ford style action is the deeper `what does happen to war dead?' Tight, thought-provoking and a great read. You won't think the same about war again.
A thrilling read,
By
A great read with a great message skilfully handled. The suggestion of a sixth sense but leaving the reader to interpret that in their own way made it intriguing for me.
|
PACEY THRILLER WITH A POIGNANT POLITICAL MESSAGE
By Daisy Adams
John's novel has all the ingredients one would expect in an adventure story - a well researched and developed plot, believable characters in reader friendly and accessible prose. It's also pacey containing exciting action scenes within a contemporary and highly relevant political and historical setting.
This is not all however, in a layered narrative, The Messenger fuses the genres of thriller, adventure and the supernatural to excellent effect. This novel is a thoughtful critique of politics, economics and war.
This is not all however, in a layered narrative, The Messenger fuses the genres of thriller, adventure and the supernatural to excellent effect. This novel is a thoughtful critique of politics, economics and war.
By jaycole
John White's intriguing anti-war thriller 'The Messenger' works on more than one level. As an exciting story with believable characters it carries you along in the way you expect from writers like Lee Child and Matt Hilton. And the military scenes, while not full-on Andy McNab, are pumping with action and well-researched authenticity. But it's the third dimension that makes this book stand out. Lots of people (probably lots of soldiers) who have had near-death experiences will be intrigued by Jack Chandler's visions and doubts. PTSD, paranoia, brain-washing? Or something else? Read it and make up your own mind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)