Month: August 2025

In a word: Prior

Of course, prior means gone before, as in past history, or perhaps only a few moments ago; it happened prior to my arrival on the scene.

But it can also mean, quite confusingly, to something in the future, when trying to get out of a meeting by saying I’ve got a prior appointment.

If you are an aficionado of American police dramas then you will be well acquainted with the prior, meaning a previous criminal conviction.

 

And for something quite different, a prior is a priest of sorts, who to me were named as such in the middle ages.  A prior is below an Abbot and is head of a house of friars.  By the way, the most notable friar I know is Friar Tuck

A prior could also be a magistrate in the medieval republic of Florence.

 

It is not to be doubly confused with Pryer or Prier

Someone who pries into another’s business, the most notable prier, the woman across the road from Samantha, in Bewitched.

 

‘The Devil You Don’t’ – A beta reader’s view

It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.

John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.

So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?

That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.

What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.

The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.

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Available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

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Plots ripped from newspaper headlines – 3

Truth is stranger than fiction

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I’ve been reading the latest headlines and picked out a few:

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The seems to be a currency war,

Oil prices are set to rise in line with a cut in production,

Some tankers will not be plying the Hormuz Strait,

There was a massive power outage in the UK,

Gold prices are rising,

North Korea is shooting missiles into the sea

The USA needs more missiles,

There are Chinese survey vessels in the South China Sea,

In Russia there is an explosion on a secret base with nuclear implications, and,

There might be a global recession coming

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What do all these events mean?  Nothing really when taken individually, but when you start combining them, then the thriller writer in me starts to see all sorts of conspiracies and plotlines for stories.

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What if….

Take that explosion in Russia, and the fact the word nuclear is attached to it, and then look at the massive power outage in the UK.  What if that site was a laboratory, working on small,  powerful bombs that can easily be carried, installed, in or around vital infrastructure, and in that quest for smaller and more powerful something goes wrong.

After all, isn’t that what testing is for?

And the fact there’s been one major event involving vital infrastructure, should we be looking for more?  Then there are a few problems with bombs being attached to tankers in the Hormuz Strait.  Does anyone see the potential for an apocalyptic event coming on?

Then the North Koreans are firing test missiles, and the US calling for more missiles to add to their arsenal.  Are they using North Korea as an excuse?  Or is there something more sinister going on with Chinese survey vessels in the South China Sea?  What if they’re not survey vessels?

Then there’s a small matter of rising oil prices.  Whilst the same report might say that the rise is due to OPEC cutting output, there could be other reasons, such as the currency war that’s about to erupt, and will this pre-emp a global recession.  A good indicator of impending disaster, wars, and other maladies is the rising price of gold.

The gold market goes into overdrive when currency starts to lose value, recessions are coming or have arrived, or there is about to be a war, or there is one.  The US and China are facing off, the US and half the middle east are a disaster waiting to happen, and, hang on, North Korea is being provocative, and in late development, India and Pakistan are facing off over Kashmir.

Are we surprised people are turning to gold?

Maybe I should go back to doing the crossword and ignoring the news.