JJ Toner - Author

Gone Fishin'

2014-02-09T04:16:00.000-08:00

I admit it - I’ve been bone idle for a whole month. Ever since I launched The Wings of the Eagle on January 8, I’ve been on a really long lunch break, sitting around the house, reading, watching TV, feeding the birds, playing patience on the computer, or fiddling about on Facebook or twitter.

I now have 4 thrillers and a book of short stories on Amazon kindle. The first 2 thrillers are set in 2004 and feature DI Ben Jordan, the other 2 are historical fiction set in Germany during World War 2. The Ben Jordan books could be selling a lot better and I’ve been looking into maybe redesigning the covers. I’ve also been thinking about having all four novels translated into other languages, starting with Spanish. And I've been working with a web designer on a new version of my web site.

I like to think I’m a writer, but writers write, and apart from the odd blog, I’ve written nothing since mid-January. Mentally, I’ve gone fishin’ for a whole month.

My wife’s travelling to Australia for two months April-May and I plan to use that time to do some serious writing. The problem is I don’t know what I should write next.

Here are my options:

1. A third Ben Jordan book. [Could be flogging a dead horse.]

2. Another in The Black Orchestra series of WW2 books. These have been quite well-received. I could expect a reasonable return on a third in the series.

3. I have 30,000 words of a young adult dystopian book that I planned as a trilogy. It needs a complete rewrite, but some of what I have could be retained. Maybe.

4. I have a completely new novel in my head, a stand alone book about hero worship, betrayal and redemption. I envision this as a literary novel, a step up from all that I’ve done so far.

5. I have a completed medieval mystery that needs a minor edit/rewrite.

6. I have hundreds of short stories that I could package and publish. [Probably another dead horse.]

Option 2 would probably generate the best return; option 3 (the trilogy) represents at least 2 years’ work.

So, how would you choose?

Bear in mind my advanced age. Whatever I choose could be my last foray into the field of self-publishing.

WW2 - British Intelligence SOE

2014-02-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

If the German WW2 intelligence machinery was a complicated maze of competing agencies, British Intelligence was every bit as bewildering. We’ve all heard of MI5 and MI6, but Military Intelligence in the war years included the following:

MI1- Code Breaking

MI2 - Geographic information

MI3 - Geographic information

MI4 - Maps and Aerial Photographs

MI7 - Propaganda

MI8 - Signals Intelligence

MI9 - Resistance Aid

MI10 - Technical Analysis

MI11 - Military Security

MI12 - Censorship

MI14 - Germany Desk

MI15 - Aerial Defence

MI16 - Scientific Intelligence

MI17 - Secretariat

MI19 - Prisoner Interrogation

In addition to these agencies WW2 British Military establishment included the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also called MI6), the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Intelligence Corps, Naval Intelligence, and RAF Intelligence.

Just to give you a flavour of the complicated behind-the-scenes machinations involved, the SOE was formed in mid-1940 by merging three pre-existing organisations: Department EH, a propaganda group of the Foreign Office, Section D of the SIS, set up to use sabotage, propaganda and other methods of “irregular warfare”, and a Foreign Office guerrilla warfare unit called MI(R).

At its inception, the SOE consisted of two departments, SO1 Propaganda and SO2 Operations, but in 1941 SO1 was removed and became an independent organisation, the Political Warfare Executive. With all its attention thus directed toward covert operations, the SOE undertook many sabotage missions and activities in support of resistance movements in various European countries. It was the SOE that supported the Czechs in operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942.

The leadership of the SOE devolved to Major General Colin Gubbins (pictured) from August 1943. He rebuilt and refocused the organisation, applying lessons learned from the IRA during the Irish War of Independence.

SOE was dissolved in 1946.

Operation Anthropoid is a pivotal element in The Black Orchestra.

MI14 and MI19 feature in The Wings of the Eagle.

Source: Wikipedia

WW2 - The London Cage

2014-01-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

Alexander Scotland was born in 1882 of Scottish parents. He spent a lot of his early life as a retail trader in southern Africa. As most of his customers were European residents of German South West Africa (Now Namibia), Scotland became a fluent German speaker.

He served with the British army during the First World War, fulfilling various roles in intelligence suited to his language skills.

During the Second World War he was appointed head of MI19, responsible for the interrogation of German prisoners of war. MI19 operated out of a number of houses, called ‘Cages’ located in various locations in the UK. The London Cage was located in the fashionable Kensington Palace Gardens.

There were allegations of torture, never fully substantiated or discounted. Prisoners were said to have been forced to stand at attention for 26 hours without the benefit of toilet breaks, to have been stripped, kicked, beaten, starved, and threatened with execution or unnecessary surgery. Interrogation officers were said to have dressed in KGB uniforms as the Germans were terrified of the Russians.

In 1947, Scotland gave evidence at the trial of 18 Nazis accused of the massacre of 50 British prisoners of war who escaped from Stalag Luft III in a 1944 escapade that was later celebrated in the film “The Great Escape”. The 18 defendants alleged torture while in The London Cage by starvation and electric shock, allegations vigorously denied by Scotland.

After the war The London Cage became the headquarters of the War Crimes Investigation Unit. One of those confined and interrogated there by Scotland and his team, was Fritz Knoechlein, who was tried and convicted of the murder of 100 British prisoners in France in 1940. Knoechlein was hanged for his crime in 1949.

Alexander Scotland wrote a memoir called The London Cage which was published in expurgated form in 1957 after a seven year wrangle with the British Foreign Office. Knoechlein also wrote and published a short (12 page) account of his treatment in The Cage.

The London Cage features in my new WW2 spy story, The Wings of the Eagle

Source: Wikipedia

WW2 - Lidice

2013-12-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

On September 27 1941 Reinhard Heydrich was appointed Deputy Reich Protector (effectively governor) of Bohemia and Moravia. On May 27, 1942, two members of the Czech partisans attacked Reinhard Heydrich as he was driving to work in his car in Prague. Their gun jammed, but they managed to explode a grenade in or near the car. Heydrich was wounded. He and his driver chased the assassins, but they got away.

Heydrich was taken to hospital. For a few days, he seemed to recover, but his wound was infected by horsehair from the seat of his car and he died of septicemia on June 4.

The assassins evaded capture for a time, but were eventually cornered in the crypt of a Christian Orthodox church. They took their own lives rather than surrender to the Gestapo.

Following the orders of Adolf Hitler, a Czech village was chosen more or less at random and leveled in reprisal. The village of Lidice was chosen. All the men aged 16 and over were massacred. The children were separated from their mothers. The women were shipped off to concentration camps. After a few days, most of the children (82) were executed by gassing.

A few days later another, smaller village, called Lezaky, met a similar fate when a radio transmitter was discovered there.

In all, an estimated 1,300 people died in direct retaliation for the assassination. In Lidice, all the animals were killed as well, and even the bodies of long-dead villagers were dug up and destroyed.

The picture shows a moving memorial to the 82 lost children of Lidice. Erected in the 1990s, it is the work of Marie Uchytilová.

The Assassination of Heydrich is central to The Black Orchestra. The massacre at Lidice is mentioned in the sequel, The Wings of the Eagle to be released on January 8, 2014.

I cannot tell you how moved I am by this terrible story. A copy of the picture of the memorial is now a permanent feature on this blog.

Details and photo from Wikipedia

WW2 - German Police and Security

2013-12-06T03:32:00.000-08:00

The administration of law and order in Germany during WW2 must have been confusing — and frightening — for ordinary Germans. Police and security services were provided by a bewildering number of organizations, some that existed before Hitler came to power, others that were established as by-products of the Nazi Party.

Pre-war, the police force consisted of the Ordnungspolizei - Orpo (uniformed police) and the Sickerheitspolizei - Sipo (security police).

The Orpo consisted of the Schutzpolizei - Schupo (municipal police), Gendarmerie (rural police) and Gemeindepolizei (local police).

The Sipo was made up of the Kriminalpolizei - Kripo (criminal police) and the Geheime Staatspolizei - Gestapo (Secret State Police) - see below.

With the rise of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP, came the Sturmabteilung (SA) under Ernst Roehm, a paramilitary force used by the Nazis to bully their way to power. When the SA grew to 3 million men, Hitler saw it as a threat to his own leadership and, on the night of the long knives (1 July, 1934) he dismantled it, executing its leadership.

The SS (Schutzstaffel) was a paramilitary force that emerged from the early SA. Members of the SS provided personal protection for the Nazi leaders. The SS was directly responsible for almost all of the war crimes committed under the Nazi regime, including the Holocaust. By the end of the war, SS numbers had risen, under Heinrich Himmler's leadership, to over a million.

The Gestapo - the Secret State Police - grew out of the Prussian police force, under Hermann Goring. Well funded and resourced, they operated, from 1936, beyond the jurisdiction of the courts. This meant they had the power to arrest, interrogate and detain any citizen without oversight or limit. They routinely used torture to extract confessions, and many died at their hands. From 1935, the Gestapo was put in charge of setting up and operating concentration camps. Only members of the SS were eligible to join the Gestapo.

The Sicherheitsdienst - SD (security service) was the intelligence arm of the SS. Its brief was the identification and elimination of threats to the Nazi leadership at home and abroad, a role which was largely duplicated by the Gestapo.

In 1939 the SD was divided into two organizations SD-Inland and SD-Ausland. At the same time, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SD, persuaded his boss, Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, to create a new police and security umbrella organization, the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - National Security HQ). With Heydrich at the helm, this new organization ran the Sipo and the SD - that is, Kripo, Gestapo and SD. Ostensibly, this should have engendered greater cooperation between the Sipo and the SD, but under Heydrich’s iron rule, the rivalry intensified.

The Wehrmacht (armed forces) had its own military intelligence organization, Admiral Canaris’s Abwehr. Once the war started, much of SD-Ausland’s work overlapped and interfered with Abwehr operations. In 1944, two years after Heydrich’s assassination, parts of the Abwehr were subsumed within the RSHA.

The SD and Gestapo were considered sister organizations, the SD largely an information-gathering organization while the Gestapo was the operational force in the partnership. The SD numbered a few hundred officers; the Gestapo had more men, but functioned largely thanks to a network of thousands of informants. Rivalry between these organs of state security was fierce. Jostling for power, they competed for attention and glory, and each guarded its secrets and its cache of information.

Watch out for The Wings of the Eagle, the sequel to The Black Orchestra, due to be released early in 2014.

Buy The Black Orchestra here

WW2 - The Nazis and the Bomb

2013-11-20T04:25:00.000-08:00

That the scientists of the Third Reich were working on the development of a nuclear reactor for the production of electricity is well known. There is a museum in a cavern under Haigerloch Castle near the Black Forest in southern Germany where you can read all about this research.

What is not so well known is that, from 1939, the Nazis ran a top-secret project to build an atomic bomb. There have been various suggestions as to where this research was located, but what is certain is that Werner Heisenberg, who was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of Quantum Mechanics, was intimately involved.

Heisenberg was appointed director-in-residence of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (KWIP) in Dahlem, Berlin from 1942 to the end of the war, and under his guidance the physicists there worked on the bomb.

Using forced labour, pitchblende, the raw material for uranium, was extracted from various mines, notably the silver mines in the Ore Mountains close to the border with Czechoslovakia. The uranium was enriched in a metal alloy factory, Auergesellschaft in Oranienburg, near Berlin.

Following a review of the project in 1942, the Germany military command abandoned it to concentrate their efforts on other war projects such as the V2 rocket under development in Peenemunde. However, eyewitness reports of a massive explosion in 1944 on the Baltic Island of Rugen led to speculation of a successful atomic test detonation and was followed by a heavy bombing raid by the Allies.

In 1943 and 1944 the KWIP was to relocated to Haigerloch.

After the war Heisenberg and many of his fellow-scientists were flown to England for interrogation and debriefing. When he was released he was appointed director of the KWIP and remained there until 1958

Here's a picture of the KWIP in Berlin taken in 1945. The white circular building on the left housed a particle accelerator.

WW2 Heroes Hans and Sophie Scholl

2013-11-13T03:13:00.001-08:00

There were many heroes who fought for the Allies in World War 2. I’m sure there were lots who fought on the losing side, too. But of course we hear very little about them. While writing The Black Orchestra, I discovered the story of The White Rose, a student organisation that published a series of anti-Nazi leaflets in Germany between June 1942 and February 1943.

Hans and Sophie Scholl were sister and brother, both studying at the University of Munich. They, their friend Christoph Probst, and a small group of their fellow students, recognizing the Nazi regime for the evil that it was, printed a series of 6 mimeographed leaflets in which they implored the German people to oppose the government by whatever means they could. The leaflets were distributed all over Germany by a network of willing helpers.

These young students were true heroes. They knew the risks they were taking, risks that escalated with each leaflet as the Gestapo tried desperately to identify them.

When they were caught, they faced trial by a kangaroo court. The students spoke bravely against their oppressors, but they were found guilty and several were sentenced to death, along with one of their professors, Kurt Huber.

Hans, Sophie and Christoph Probst were executed by guillotine on February 22, 1943, the day of their trial. Christoph Probst was 23, Hans was 24, Sophie was just 21.

It was an uneven contest. How could the Nazis prevail against the single-minded courage of the youth of Germany?

Ref: Sophie Scholl & The White Rose by Dumbach and Newborn Oneworld, 1986, 2006 978-1-85168-474-8

Photos from Wikipedia

WW2 - The Nazis and the IRA

2013-11-03T09:21:00.001-08:00

Before the outbreak of war, tentative contact was made between the Abwehr and the IRA in Ireland. The Germans were hoping that the IRA might be able to cross the border and disrupt British military operations in the North; the IRA was seeking finance and arms from the Germans. There was something of a contradiction in all this, as the Irish fascist movement (the Blueshirts) was organized by General Eoin O’Duffy, who supported the Nazis but had no time for the IRA. The IRA, for the most part, had no truck with the Nazis’ anti-Semitism. Cooperation with the Nazis was strictly on the basis of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.

The IRA director of chemicals (i.e. the chief bomb maker) at that time was a man called Jim O’Donovan. As a result of an accident while training volunteers, Jim was missing several fingers from his right hand. He taught chemistry in Clongowes Woods College in the 1920s, where he met my father, who was a pupil there. Teacher and pupil maintained a lifelong friendship. In the 1950s, we used to visit the O’Donovans in their home at the weekends. I remember him well.

Oscar Pfaus was chosen by the Abwehr to establish first contact with the IRA, and he travelled to Ireland via England in February, 1939. Surprisingly, he was allowed to pass through England and catch the mailboat to Ireland, although he later claimed he was carrying a .45 Smith and Wesson revolver.

Pfaus’s English was excellent. He had worked in USA for a number of years. But he was something of a Walter Mitty character, dramatising every account of his activities, and claiming at one point that he had been short-listed for a Nobel Prize.

His only contact in Ireland was an embezzler called Liam Walsh who was close to the fascist leader O’Duffy. Walsh set up a meeting with O’Duffy, who (reluctantly) arranged for Pfaus to meet with three senior IRA leaders, O’Donovan included.

Pfaus had some difficulty proving who he was, and (by his own account) came close to being shot as a spy. However, he managed to complete his mission, which was to suggest to the IRA that they should send a representative to Berlin to discuss matters of mutual interest.

Buy The Black Orchestra here

WW2 - German Spies in Ireland #2

2013-10-27T02:07:00.002-07:00

In 1939, having completed three successful espionage missions in England, Walter Simon was found guilty of illegal entry and sentenced to three months imprisonment. He was then deported and warned never to return. Unbelievably, MI5 returned all his notebooks containing coded information that he had amassed.

Delighted with the quality of the material he had collected on British air defenses — material invaluable to Operation Sealion, the planned invasion of Britain — the Abwehr decided to send him to Ireland to collect intelligence on the disposition of British naval ships. He was transported to Ireland by U-boat and dropped in County Kerry in the west of Ireland on 13 June, 1940.

He was 58 years of age, carrying a large amount of cash and a new suitcase radio transmitter. The first thing he did upon landing was to bury his radio, intending to recover it later. He then set out toward Dublin on foot, following a railway track. Coming upon some workmen he inquired when the next train was due, and received the reply that he might have to wait a while; the last train to run on those tracks had been 14 months earlier.

Arriving at Dingle in the early morning, he asked a local publican the time of the next bus to Tralee. As there was a two hour wait, the local man invited him to wait in his pub (it was probably raining). Three glasses of whiskey later, Simon was making derogatory remarks about Winston Churchill, and promising that the long-suffering Irish people would soon be freed of their poverty ‘when Hitler arrives’.

He caught the bus to Tralee, taking a bottle of whiskey with him which he shared with the other passengers. Arriving in Tralee in a drunken state, he immediately attracting the attention of two plain-clothes detectives who befriended him and offered to put him in contact with the IRA.

Upon arrival in Dublin, the police were waiting for him. He spun several different stories to explain how and why he had arrived in Ireland. The story that the Irish police found most convincing was of a Swedish national sickened by German-occupied Europe who traveled from Holland in search of ‘peace and quietness’ on a British trawler. Luckily, the police took his fingerprints and sent them to their colleagues in England, and Walter Simon’s true identity was established. On 8 July, 1940 he was charged and pleaded guilty to illegal entry. He was sentenced to three years.

Simon’s period as an agent in Ireland lasted 26 days, almost all of those in police custody. His belongings included $2,000 and some English money, which diminished day by day as he was passed from police agency to agency and from district to district.

Buy The Black Orchestra here

Source: Irish Secrets by Mark M. Hull, Irish Academic Press, 2003 0-7165-2756-1

and Wikipedia

WW2 - German agents in Ireland #1

2013-10-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Before the Second World War the IRA had some contact with the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence) and acquired a radio transmitter powerful enough to communicate with Germany. However, starting in November 1939, the IRA used the transmitter to broadcast regularly to the Irish people, as ‘The Irish Republican Army broadcasting station.’ The regularity of the broadcast made it easy for the Gardaí (Irish police) to triangulate and seize the transmitter.

The Abwehr chose Ernest Weber-Drohl (WD for short) to travel as an agent to Ireland with a replacement transmitter, a message for the IRA and some cash. U-boat transport was organized. Immediately upon leaving the U-boat off the west coast of Ireland, in 1940, WD’s rubber dinghy capsized and he lost the transmitter. The U-boat crew took him ashore where he met with his IRA contact and delivered the message and the money.

WD was an arthritic 61 year-old Austrian with ‘passable’ English. Before the war he had traveled in Ireland, working as a circus strongman and professional wrestler. He had also fathered 2 illegitimate children in Ireland.

Shortly after his arrival in the country he was arrested and charged with illegal entry. In his defense he spun an elaborate tale of woe. Cruelly separated from his family by the war, and having no legitimate way of entering the country, he had disembarked from a cargo steamer off the coast of Waterford and lost all his possessions, including his money and his passport, in the sea. The court swallowed this story. WD was fined £3 and released. The Irish intelligence service (G2) was not convinced, and they arrested and interned him. WD went on hunger strike and he was soon released again.

Next, he arranged a tour of his strongman act to Belfast, Limerick and Cork, accompanied by a young married woman called Parker, whose husband was serving in the army in North Africa. Mrs. Parker soon became pregnant.

In August 1942, he was re-arrested by G2 and interned until the end of the war.

Buy The Black Orchestra here

Source: Irish Secrets by Mark M. Hull Irish Academic Press, 2003 0-7165-2756-1

WW2 - Admiral Canaris of the German Resistance

2013-10-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service from 1935 and all through the Second World War until his arrest in 1944. He was a decorated naval intelligence officer from World War I, a close confidant of Adolf Hitler’s and, from 1938, a leading member of the secret resistance with the aim of bringing about Hitler’s downfall and the destruction of the Third Reich. He was also one of the leading conspirators in several of the attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Retaining his tenure involved constant political maneuvering to fend off attempts by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, who ran the RSHA (The Reichs Security Headquarters) to take over the Abwehr. Canaris was a supreme and seasoned backroom dealer; his special relationship with Hitler saved him more than once.

Canaris never joined the Nazi party, surrounding himself in like-minded men whom he appointed to high positions in the Abwehr, notably his deputy, Hans Oster, and the heads of the three Abwehr operations divisions, Oberst (Colonel) Hans Pieckenbrock, Oberst Edwin von Lahousen, and Oberst Egbert Bentivegni.

The game he played was a precarious one, maintaining the impression of a committed Nazi sympathizer while at the same time doing everything he could secretly to undermine the regime.

Other members of Abwehr known to be active in the resistance movement in Germany included Helmuth von Moltke, Hans Gisevius, Josef Muller, Hans Dohnanyi and Peter von Wartenburg.

On April 9, 1945, just a few weeks before the end of the war, the Gestapo used a noose made from piano wire to execute Admiral Canaris and Generalmajor Hans Oster in Flossenburg concentration camp.

Source: Wikipedia

Buy The Black Orchestra here

WW2 - The Sinking of the Battleship Royal Oak

2013-10-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

The Battle of the Atlantic forms a backdrop to my WW2 spy story, The Black Orchestra. This battle was critical to the outcome of the war. As an island nation, Britain needed constant supplies of imported materials to sustain and support her war effort. Convoys of supply ships from North America had to run the gauntlet of German U-boats in a deadly game of cat and mouse. For the early years of the war the U-boats were winning this game hands down, but by mid-1943 the Allies had begun to prevail and the U-boat menace was largely neutralized.

KorvettenKapitan Gunther Prien commanded U47, one of the most successful of these U-boats. On 13/14 October, 1939, his crew maneuvered their way past the defenses of the British Navy’s most secure naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. Once inside the naval base they attacked and sank the British battleship, HMS Royal Oak (29,000 tons). Over 800 British sailors lost their lives.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the raid was that the U47 managed to escape undetected from the British naval base and return safely to her base in Wilhelmshaven. The commander and crew were instant celebrities, and Gunther Prien became a hero of the Third Reich.

U47 continued its attacks on Allied shipping, sinking a total of 30 merchant ships. It vanished on March 7, 1941 and is still officially missing.

Over the 6 years of the war, 3,500 Allied merchant ships and 175 naval vessels were torpedoed and sunk by the “wolfpacks” of German U-boats.

There's lots of information and photos available on the web. Try any of these sites:

http://www.uboataces.com/battle-scapa-flow6.shtml

http://www.u47.org/english/

http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?14018

The picture above is from Wikipedia.

Buy The Black Orchestra here

Short Story Competition

2013-09-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

Write4Autism is a new short story competition, launching today. The prize fund will be determined by the number of entries received, up to a maximum of €4,500 (about $6,000)

The prizes on offer are as follows:

First prize 50% of the prize fund up to a maximum of €2,250 (about $3,000)

Second prize 25% of the prize fund up to a maximum of €1,125 (about $1,500)

Third prize 10% of the prize fund up to a maximum of €450 (about $600)

18 addition prizes from the remaining 15% of the prize fund up to a maximum of €37.50 (about $50)

The entry fee is €7.50 (about $10) per story, the word limit 1,500 words.

We have a judging panel of four great writers: Colin Bateman, Declan Burke, Nathan Bransford and Lucille Redmond.

The proceeds from the competition will be used to fund Enhanced Services for Autism Spectrum Disorder Initiatives (ASDI), a registered charity working with adults with Autism in Ireland.

Depending on the quality of the winning stories, they may be published in an eBook for Kindle, with the proceeds of this eBook going to the charity.

So, get writing. The link for the competition is here

Update (11 December 2013): Closing date for the competition has been extended to 31 January, 2014

Update (15 December 2013): The competition is now open to paper entries for writers without PayPal accounts.

How the Other Half Lives

2013-08-31T14:16:00.000-07:00

I’m reading a fashion feature article in the weekend colour magazine of The Irish Times. There are pictures of models wearing designer clothing. We have a cashmere polo $1090, leather ankle boots $875, a chiffon blouse $1350, and a leather skirt $1590. We have a split wool crepe skirt for $1125, a leather belt for $395, and a leather satchel for $1135. Or maybe you’d prefer a leather duffle bag for $1810 and a sheepskin coat for a mere $1980. The most exclusive item on display is a cashmere and wool coat at $3200, the least expensive a pair of socks for $15. (note: I'm using $ to represent the Euro, here)

Who is this article aimed at? I thought the country was deep in a recession, with 98,000 mortgage-holders 90 days or more in arrears. Are there really people in Ireland with money like that to spend on clothing?

Last night I watched a documentary on TV about this project, set up in 1988 by Sr Ethel Normoyle to bring essential humanitarian services to the people of a shanty town near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. This is a community of people living way below the poverty line, in houses made of woodchip, galvanised iron and cardboard, with no schools, no running water, suffering from malnutrition, high HIV incidence, and 75% unemployment. Sr Ethel told us how she first set up a school and healthcare and nutrition centre under a tree in the shanty town, and how she has developed these services over 25 years. The documentary spent a few moments showing us the mansions of the super-wealthy in nearby Port Elizabeth with their fountains and swimming pools.

This was mind boggling stuff. The effect was like a bucket of cold water in the face. It’s 2013, and the gap between rich and poor is greater than ever.

Phantom Village

2013-06-24T00:05:00.001-07:00

There’s a village near us called Carrickmines. At least I think there is, because I have visited a new shopping centre nearby called “The Park”. Just once, a couple of years ago. I know it’s close to the new M50 ring road. The first time we went I got hopelessly lost and stumbled on the place by sheer accident after a couple of hours driving up and down the motorway.

At 2 pm yesterday we set out to find it again. As I drove toward the motorway, my trusty navigator switched on our newly-acquired satnav.

“What do I do?” she said.

I was less than helpful at this point, I admit, mumbling something about how “intuitive” the thing was. Let’s face it, we hadn’t used it for months and neither of us could remember how it worked. I pulled over and went through the various menus searching for Carrickmines. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried to key it in, but the stupid thing insisted that any address we might want to go to must start with a house number.

“Never mind, I’m sure we’ll find it easily enough,” I said, foolishly.

Heading north on the motorway, we passed exits 16, 15, 14 and 13, checking all the signposts along the way. There were lots of them, but not one mentioned Carrickmines. I began to think that the place didn’t exist, that it was a ghostly figment of someone’s imagination, a phantom village that no one had ever found. Or perhaps it was a cursed place that devoured anyone who did manage to find it.

At exit 12, I left the M50, stopped at a petrol station, and asked the man behind the counter for directions. “I’m not sure, but I think you need exit 15,” he said in a strange accent.

I asked a small customer wearing a green suit. He scratched his head. “I know where it is, I have a picture of the village in my mind. But I can’t remember how to get there, sorry.”

Back on the motorway, I headed south. Exit 15 was signposted Leopardstown. I took that exit and we found ourselves on an empty road leading to a deserted racecourse. I did a u-turn.

That was when my navigator spotted a small directional sign that read “Carrickmines”. We both cheered and I followed the sign. We went through a couple of sets of traffic lights and several roundabouts. One of these had 5 exits, but no signposts. I chose one at random.

The roads became narrower and narrower.

“This doesn’t look right,” said my navigator, taking the words out of my mouth.

I stopped and asked a couple of corporation workmen packing up for the day, and they gave us precise directions that took us to the opposite side of the motorway where we found the shopping centre.

It was 4 pm.

We took a moment to register the location in our satnav. Hopefully, we’ll find it the next time.

When we got back to base, my navigator said she wondered where the village of Carrickmines might be. I told her to put it from her mind. It doesn’t do to dwell on such matters.

Guest Post: Laurence O'Bryan

2013-04-15T03:07:00.000-07:00

Today’s blog is from the author of the excellent new thrillers, The Istanbul Puzzle and The Jerusalem Puzzle. Laurence's latest book in the series, The Manhattan Puzzle, is on the drawing board. I’ve asked him to tell us something about his motivation for writing these books and here is his reply:

The Themes of The Manhattan Puzzle

By Laurence O’Bryan

What has been hidden in Manhattan by the most powerful people on earth?

What would you do to a Manhattan banker who treated ordinary people like slaves?

What magic is buried under Manhattan that allows it to rise again from anything the world throws at it?

These are the themes of The Manhattan Puzzle. The story sees Sean and Isabel (my characters from The Istanbul Puzzle and The Jerusalem Puzzle) reunited in Manhattan at the headquarters of one of the world’s largest banks. There’s been some grisly murders, and now the plot takes a new twist. The contents of the book they found in Istanbul are revealed.

My personal journey with this story grew out of my disgust at the financial crisis that has brought many so low. I am interested in the myths and the beliefs of those who value money above everything.

Right now I am on my second set of structural edits for The Manhattan Puzzle. I plan to submit these changes, some tightening of the plot here and there, by April the 29th. We are on track for a global release, in English, on October 10th.

But don’t get me wrong. I love Manhattan. It’s a city in a snow globe of dollar bills. So look in your bookstore and on your E-readers and pre-order if you want or just sit tight. You’ll be hearing more about this book.

To preorder click here.

BXH building, vehicle entrance visible under the arch

A Washerman's Tale

2013-03-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

My wife’s in Australia. She went over for the grandtwins’ fourth birthday and will stay for 2 months. That’s 2 months that I can devote to writing, and I’ve started on the sequel to The Black Orchestra.

Today, I decided I needed to wash some clothes as I’m running out of underwear. I put a load into the washing machine, added 2 soap tablets and fabric softener and a colour-catcher. Pressed the start/pause button and nothing happened. I opened the door and banged it closed again a few times. Still nothing.

Then I noticed a big dial marked with lots of options: quick cottons , quick, cottons, wool, synthetics, delicates, drain, rinse, spin, reverse thrusters, docking, main wash only, self-clean, intensive + U, intensive, colour, hygiene. This dial was parked at the top, marked “0”. Okay, so I had to make a choice here.

Over to the left, I found a series of buttons. I had to choose a temperature, a spin speed, and a load size. There were a few other buttons marked with strange hieroglyphs. I think one of those had something to do with the plasma flow rates for the warp engines. The other one was definitely for the inter-dimensional stabilizers. Either that or the inertia dampers. Anyway, I decided to ignore all those buttons. I’m sure the engineering department (aka my wife) would have pre-programmed these at their optimal settings. When did washing become so complicated? That machine is like a nuclear power station. And what smart Alec decided to do away with those nice, simple top-loaders?

Anyway, I pressed start/pause and off it went. An LED on the front showed me what it was doing, wash, rinse, spin, and the estimated time to completion.

When it was finished I extracted my washing and wouldn’t you know it, I finished up with 2 odd socks, one grey, the other navy blue. I hunted high and low for the missing items, but without success. The tumble drier took most of the moisture from my clothes, but I had to drape them over the radiators to get them completely dry.

Six hours later, as I was folding the duvet cover I detected something lurking inside. Ah-ha, I thought, I bet this is where those pesky socks have been hiding. I poked my hand in and pulled out just one sock - a black one!

WW2 Heroes

2013-03-19T05:46:00.001-07:00

There were many heroes who fought for the allies in World War 2. I’m sure there were lots who fought on the losing side, too. But, of course we hear nothing about them. While writing The Black Orchestra, I discovered the story of The White Rose, a series of anti-nazi leaflets published between June 1942 and February 1943.

Hans and Sophie Scholl were sister and brother, both studying at the University of Munich. They and a small group of their fellow-students, recognizing the nazi regime for the evil that it was, printed a series of 6 mimeographed leaflets in which they implored the German people to oppose the government by whatever means they could. The leaflets were distributed all over Germany by a network of willing helpers.

They knew the risks they were taking, risks that escalated with each leaflet and as the Gestapo tried desperately to identify them.

When they were caught, they faced trial by a kangaroo court. The students spoke bravely against their oppressors, but they were found guilty and several were sentenced to death along with one of their professors, Kurt Huber.

Hans, Sophie and their fellow student, Christoph Probst, were executed by guillotine on February 22, 1943, the day of their trial. Christoph Probst was 23, Hans was 24, Sophie was just 21.

It was an uneven contest. How could the nazis prevail against the single-minded courage of the youth of Germany?

Ref: Sophie Scholl & The White Rose by Dumbach and Newborn Oneworld, 1986, 2006.

Books Missing from Amazon

2013-03-06T04:42:00.000-08:00

If you access the Amazon web site, select Kindle Books and search for my name JJ Toner you should see 9 books on the list, including my three novels:

St Patrick’s Day Special
Find Emily
The Black Orchestra.

My author page should show all of these books as well.

If you live in Ireland you will see only 8 of the 9 books. The latest one, The Black Orchestra apparently is not available for purchase in Ireland. I can think of no valid reason for this. It must be a programming bug on the Amazon site.

I know of at least three other authors afflicted by this creeping disease. One guy has lost 4 of his 11 titles, but only in the Irish market.

One of these authors lives in the UK, as far as I can tell, so this is not something limited to Irish authors. If you are an author of eBooks for the kindle, it may be blighting your sales efforts in the Emerald Isle.

Use the comments below if you’d like me to check your author page as it appears for potential customers over here.

WW2 Germany - What the German People Knew

2013-02-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

While writing my WW2 spy story, The Black Orchestra, I had to research many details about the early years of the war. I had to find a map of Berlin for the period, and I found one here.

I had to find answers to 1001 questions, like these:

What food and drink did Berliners have access to?
Was coffee available?
When was food rationing brought in?
What about clothing rationing?
How widespread were telephones in Berlin?
Were the phones tapped by the Gestapo?
What about public phone boxes?
What levels of salaries/wages were people earning?
Details of public transport - buses and surface and underground railways
Details about railway stations
Were bicycles common?
Were domestic flights allowed?
What about international flights to neutral countries?
What did people wear?
Where were there open-air markets?
What was bought and sold on the black market?
What sort of cigarettes did people smoke?
Details about Wehrmacht and SS ranks.

Some of the questions I had to answer were more fundamental to the storyline:

What did ordinary Germans believe/feel about the Communist party “threat”?
What did ordinary Germans believe/feel about the so-called "Zionist threat" to the Reich?
What was people’s perception of Hitler? Of Reinhard Heydrich and the other nazi leaders?
Was membership of the nazi party mandatory for people in the public service?
What about members of the armed services?
What was the role of each of the various branches of the police, ORPO, KRIPO and Gestapo?

And the biggest question of them all:

What did the man in the street know about the nazi purges of the Jews in the early war years?

I decided, after much research, that the German people knew that the nazis were oppressing Jewish Germans - removing their basic rights (including their rights to earn a living), burning their businesses, and deporting them. But I don't believe the German people knew of the nazis holocaust, not during the early years of the war, anyhow. The "final solution" was not proposed until the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, and it was only after that that the killings became systematic.

Short Story - The Prince and the Dragon

2013-02-20T15:39:00.001-08:00

The old king lay on his death bed. All the apothecaries’ potions and embrocations proved powerless against the evil that had struck him down, sapping his life force. The physics bled him for days but his condition weakened with every leech they applied.

The king had three sons. The two eldest, the stone princes, stood in an anteroom disputing his inheritance in hushed tones. The eldest, Shale, had the strongest following among the palace guard, but the next in line, Marl, had the backing of the small-people of the forest -- fierce battle-hardened warriors, every one.

The king asked to speak with his youngest son. It was common knowledge that he was the king’s favorite, ever since the day when the prince, aged no more than four, had fallen into a crocodile pit and the king had leapt in to save him. The scars from that day lingered still among the tattoos on the old man’s arms.

Entirely ignorant of the king’s failing health, the young prince and his two close friends, Scotty and Bill, were in the west wing of the palace blissfully pounding on their instruments. Scotty played lead lute, Bill played upright bass, and the prince did the vocals. The combo lacked a drummer.

By the time the young prince had made his way to his father’s death bed, the old king was barely conscious. He lifted his eyelids. “Come close,” he whispered, his breath no stronger than the beating of a butterfly’s wings.

The prince held his father’s hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier. No one told me—”

“Listen to me,” said the old man. “My time is near spent. I have named you my successor.”

A shadow passed over the prince’s face. “You want me to be king? But Shale is the eldest. The crown is his birthright.”

The king rocked his head from side to side on the pillow. “Shale would be a brutal ruler. He would bring unhappiness and revolution to the kingdom.”

“Marl, then. He is gentle and compassionate. Marl would make a fine king.”

“Marl is weak. If Marl took the throne, the kingdom would be thrown into war, for Shale would never accept him as king. No, you are the only one of my sons fit to rule.”

The prince shook his head. “Shale and Marl both have armies, Father. I have none. How may I challenge my brothers for the throne?”

“Take this ring,” The king removed his ring and placed it in the prince’s hand. “Go show it to the dragon that lives in the Angry Mountain. He will help you.”

“But Father, I have no wish to be king,” said the young prince. “You know that all I ever wanted was to make music with my friends. Music is where my true destiny lies.”

As these words were spoken, the king’s strength left him. He gave a last shuddering sigh and his soul left his body. The prince bowed his head and cried.

#

The day after the king’s funeral, Prince Shale began to prepare for his coronation ceremony. Prince Marl commissioned the most famous sculptor in the kingdom to fashion a likeness of the old king. The young prince set out for the Great Forest with his friends and a group of trusted outriders.

No sooner had the prince and his outriders reached the deepest, darkest region of the forest, than they were set upon by a group of mercenaries, heavily armed and intent on murder. The battle was short and fierce. Fighting for his life, the prince found untapped resources and he and his outriders bravely beat off the attack.

One attacker lived long enough to reveal to Scotty, that the ambush had been organized and paid for by Prince Shale, as he had learnt from his spies the words spoken by the king on his death bed.

This news spurred the young prince onward. He and his small band hurried through the deep forest to the foot of the Angry Mountain.

Night had fallen. It was too dark to climb the mountain, so the prince and his brave companions made camp. Scotty broke out his acoustic lute and they had a sing-song around a friendly fire.

The morning greeted them with bright sunshine, although the summit of the mountain was cloaked in dark clouds, and distant thunder could be heard. The Angry Mountain was living up to its name. Leaving the others behind, the prince and his most reliable companion, Bill, began their ascent of the mountain.

As they climbed, the thunder grew louder and more ominous.

Resting on a ledge 500 cubits above the canopy of the forest, Bill remarked on how regular the thunder rolls sounded. The young prince agreed. They continued their climb.

At 2000 cubits they came upon the entrance to a massive cave and stepped inside. It was immediately clear that the thunder claps, which were much louder now, were coming, not from the clouds above the mountain, but from somewhere deep inside the cave.

A dark tunnel led them to a broad cavern lit by a blue light. On the floor of the cavern they saw the dragon, its scales glistening in the blue light, sitting behind a gigantic drum kit, giving it the business.

Bill looked at the prince and the prince looked at Bill.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Bill.

“I think so,” said the prince.

#

The dragon wasn’t too happy about having his drum practice interrupted. He belched some fire at the two companions until the prince produced his father’s ring. After that, the dragon and the prince became the best of friends.

The dragon’s name was Jeremiah. They called him DJ for short. He soon barbecued Shale and his pathetic army, and when Prince Elvis and his band issued their debut album, everyone declared him The King.

For Chuck Wendig's Challenge http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/02/15/flash-fiction-challenge-write-what-you-know/

On Plot Outlines

2013-02-19T06:52:00.001-08:00

(Originally posted April 24, 2011 )

Plot outlines come in all shapes and sizes. At one extreme we have “pantsers” - people who just sit down with an idea in mind, and start writing. At the other extreme we have people like me who wouldn’t dream of putting two words together without a detailed outline of the book.

The thought of working like a pantser brings me out in goose bumps. I have to have an outline before I start writing. I like to work with 60 chapters, so I start with 60 lines on a spreadsheet, and type in at least one line for each chapter. For me, writing a novel is like climbing a cliff. The 60 notes are the footholds that will get me to the top. I spend weeks rearranging these notes, adding to them, shuffling them, testing each one for strength. I may even use index cards to help get them in the right order.

Under time pressure I might start to write with some of the footholds missing, hoping that they will come to me as I go along. But each of these is like a chasm, and as I approach one I have to stop until I’ve filled it in. Faced with a chasm of two or three chapters I become cranky and absent-minded; anything bigger than that - say 5 or 6 chapters - and I wake up screaming. It really is just like balancing on a tiny ledge with nowhere to go, trying not to look down.

Sometimes I come to one of my footholds and find it’s not strong enough to support my (i.e. the story’s) weight. I know it seemed okay when I wrote it, but now it’s turned to dust; there’s nothing there! I need to replace it before I can continue. Sometimes when this happens, I can simply eliminate the chapter - jump up to the next foothold - and carry on.

Pantsers bemoan the necessity of outlining. They say a detailed outline stifles creativity and removes the fun and excitement of writing. I couldn’t disagree more. As I write, my outline changes (a lot). New ideas come to me and are incorporated into the story. Often, whole new characters are added while others disappear or merge. There’s plenty of room to be creative.

I can see how creativity could be stifled if your outline is too detailed, when you might feel you were writing in a straitjacket. I suppose, the trick is to start with an outline that is strong enough to get you through to the end of the story, but not so elaborate that you can’t breathe. To use yet another metaphor, I think it’s useful to think of the outline as a skeleton, the narrative the flesh that gives it form and life.

What about you? Do you outline or are you a wild pantser?

Short Story - All Creatures

2013-02-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

Pastor Melitus shivers. Not from the cold. The harvest festival is almost upon him, although there is nothing seasonal about the weather. With its thin atmosphere and its proximity to the sun, the planet’s surface is a searing 70 degrees — hot enough to boil reptilian blood, and far too hot to harvest anything but minerals. Here there are no seasons, the occasional red sandstorm all that passes for weather.

This God-forsaken prison colony is his third mission. His most recent one was on a lunar outpost in the Second System, and before that he spent 10 Standard Galactic Years on Luciflex where the occupants all slaved in the molten mines. This mission has been his most difficult. The prison inmates — the most hardened criminals in the Galaxy — are beyond salvation, and the guards are a godless lot.

As for the indigenous life forms, the Quiffos, Pastor Melitus has long since given up trying to communicate with them. The previous incumbent, Pastor Jakob, claimed some successes, but, for Pastor Melitus, carrying the Word of God to the aliens has proved a thankless task. He has had to accept failure. The highest form of life native to the planet, the grotesque, nine-limbed Quiffos are considered intelligent, although their grunting, wheezing, burbling efforts at English more resemble the sounds of an old man dying of emphysema than any human language.

He slips on his cassock and leaves the sacristy. It’s a poor excuse for a chapel with pew spaces for a congregation of no more than 50. Not that that’s likely to be a problem. Pierrepoint, the prison warden, will attend the service with his wife, and he has promised to rustle up a few of his juniors — maybe three of them. The rest are less certain: some military personnel, perhaps, and there are three transports in the dock. He might get one or two from each ship, if he’s lucky.

The pastor is finding it difficult not to surrender to despair. He has to continually remind himself that the Almighty won’t object to the size of the church nor the number of those present.

He checks his watch. With a slight tremor in his hands, he throws open the doors and steps outside. The sun is high in the sky, bathing everything in an even, soft light, filtered by the envelope of the massive dome. The ambient temperature is a steady 25 degrees, the humidity, as always, a comfortable 15%.

He casts his gaze about. Towering above the chapel on his left stands the administration block, a kaleidoscope of glass, to his right the military barracks and beyond that, the massive, brooding bulk of the prison. There are no worshippers. He checks his watch again. Five Standard Galactic Minutes to go.

What if no one turns up? Another riot in the prison would stop the warden and his staff from attending. Could this be the first harvest festival ever to score a duck anywhere in the Seven Systems of the Galaxy? And if that happened, surely his whole mission would be deemed a failure. He might be sent back to Luciflex to minister to the enslaved miners for the rest of his days. A ring of icy sweat breaks out under his collar.

He scurries back inside and drops to his knees on a pew. “Dear Lord, I know I have tried your patience in the past, praying for an easier posting, and I know my faith has wavered from time to time, but I have devoted my life to the ministry. You know the sacrifices that I’ve made in your name. Dear Lord, please grant me a congregation this day. Don’t make me bear the shame of an empty chapel on the day of your harvest festival.”

He hears a noise behind him and turns. Filling the doorway stands a figure in silhouette, its nine boneless limbs writhing about its body.

The alien lurches forward, and the pastor backs into the sanctuary of his pulpit. Moving with disconcerting speed and agility, the Quiffo approaches the altar. It is carrying a loose brown bundle with something squirming inside. It places the bundle before the altar and takes a place in the front pew, supporting its hideous head on two of its appendages. It is followed by another Quiffo, and another. A total of six Quiffos enter. Each drops a squirming bundle before the altar and perches beside its companions on the front pew.

Pastor Melitus raises his eyes to Heaven and prays a silent ‘thank you’ to the Lord. “Welcome, friends,” he says. “If you’ll all stand we will start with a hymn.”

The Quiffos shuffle about, rearranging their limbs. The pastor starts the tape recorder and the chapel fills with organ music. He begins to sing and the Quiffos are inspired to join in, filling the chapel with a cacophony of sounds the like of which has never before been heard in any Christian chapel anywhere in the Seven Systems.

“All things bright and beautiful..."

© JJ Toner

More Telephone Adventures

2013-02-11T03:33:00.002-08:00

I opened a bank account in Newry, Northern Ireland and deposited a small amount of cash. I thought it might be useful to have ready access to sterling.

Ulster Bank sent me a letter confirming the account details. I have the letter here. It is dated November 9, 2012.

Following that letter, I received a cheque book and then a debit card. The letter accompanying the debit card said that a PIN number for the card would be sent out under separate cover.

By mid-January I began to wonder why I had never received a PIN number. After a half-hour of research I uncovered a telephone number for the branch, rang it, and was immediately diverted to their head office in Belfast.

I explained the problem and the young lady at the other end took me through their security procedures: Name and address, account number, my date of birth, account overdraft limit. I was stumped by that last question. I said, “I have no idea what the overdraft limit on the account is.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you have to give me an answer to the question.”

“I have no intention of ever having an overdraft,” I said. “I never asked for one, and none of the documentation I have received from the bank specifies any overdraft limit.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I cannot help you further until you answer the question.”

I said, “As far as I know I don’t have an overdraft limit,” and that seemed to satisfy her. She asked for the last 4 digits on the card, and agreed to send me a PIN number by post.

Today, still PIN-less, I rang the bank again. This time I rang a number on the back of the opening bank statement.

“Hello and welcome to Ulster Bank. Please enter 1 for automated services or 2 to speak to an advisor.” I keyed in 2. “Thank you. Please key in your customer number.”

Stumped again, I disconnected and went in search of a customer number. Couldn’t find one. Never one to give up without a fight, I rang back and, by keying in a sequence of stars, got through to another (maybe the same) young lady.

We went through the same security procedure as before and ran into the same problem again. “I have never been informed what my overdraft limit is. I don’t think I have one.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you must give me an answer to the question. Otherwise I will not be able to help you.”

"But I don't have an answer to the question," I said. "Is there no way forward?"

"You could visit any branch in Northern Ireland, bring along some identification, and they will be able to tell you what your overdraft limit is," says she.

That suggestion seemed impractical to me. Surely I wouldn't have to drive all that way just to be told that I had no overdraft limit.

I gave it some thought and, taking a wild guess, I said, “My overdraft limit is zero.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I will send out a new PIN number in the post.”

Perhaps it's just me, but I seem to get into some terrible pickles with people on the telephone.

On Cleaning Your Keyboard

2013-02-05T04:51:00.000-08:00

For all you new followers, here's one of my most popular posts, originally posted 20 September 2011.

On August 23 I rang Eircom and agreed to switch my phone line and broadband back from Vodafone to Eircom. The salesman was delighted. They would take care of everything. It would take 30 days; the transition would be seamless.

At 10 am this morning, September 19, I lost my phone line. No dial tone. I rang Eircom and reported a line fault to a robot. That took about 15 minutes, by which time the phone fault had mysteriously repaired itself. My broadband line, however, was dead. I rang the robot again, and it said, "I see a fault has been logged for your line. This fault is being attended to by our technical team. The repair should be completed in 2 working days. There will be no further information available on this matter at this time. Is there something else we can help you with?"

"Yes," I said.

"Oh, right. Hold the line please and I'll put you through to someone who can deal with your enquiry." Music -- jaxx -- interrupted by fragments of recorded messages. "...the first four digits of your customer account..." before I got through to someone, and told them that my line was back, but my broadband connection was now on the blink.

"What's your account number?"

"I don't have one, yet," I said. "I'm in the process of switching back from Vodafone to Eircom."

He checked my phone number on his system, and came back with, "You're not a customer."

"Maybe not yet, but I have applied—"

"There's nothing I can do. You are not a customer."

I rang Vodafone, and had a similar conversation with them that ended with, "You are not a customer."

Never one to give up without a fight, I rang Eircom back and spoke to an engineer...

By 2:30 pm, I had run out of ideas. It seems Vodafone cut off my broadband 2 or 3 days ahead of the scheduled transition day, and I just had to wait for the Eircom machinery to swing into action and reconnect me.

I jumped in the car and headed toward Dundrum. I thought I'd catch "Tinker Tailor Soldier, Spy" the Le Carre classic story, which opened the day before. Half-way up the hill out of town, the guy on the radio told us all that he'd seen the film. "It's dreadful," he said. "Save your money." I did a U-turn and went home.

"The devil finds work for idle hands." With my mother's wise words bouncing around in my head, I decided to use the available time to clean my keyboard. It was pretty manky. I unplugged it and took it into the living room.

I won't take you through the sordid details of what followed. Suffice to say that it took an hour to remove and clean the keys and the best part of another 3 hours to put the whole thing back together again. So,

1. If you lose your broadband connection, go read a book.
2. Never take advice about movies from people on the radio.
3. If you pop the keys from your keyboard, don't get them mized up. Lay them out in rows so that you know ezactly where each one goes.
4. This rule applies equally to the 4 arrow keys. Their layout may look simple, but believe me, it's a puxxle to get them back where they belong.