Author: davidjohntooth

This is my first oil painting and depicts part of the Birmingham city centre from the early nineteen hundreds a time when the peaky blinders strutted around thinking they were invincible.

From the age of thirteen my father would have stood on one of these corners selling newspapers in all kinds of weather. He was born in Balsal Heath one of the many slum areas that existed back then before starting work full time aged fourteen as an off hand grinder.

The grinding dust he sucked into his lungs from the castings and grinding wheels would force him to stop work at the age of about forty but only later in life did it take away his sense of humour as he struggled to breath.

And he often told me stories about the peaky blinders (Razor Gangs) and of course many other tales from his childhood.

But what I remember most about him was that he was a very special person.

Well as has been said many times ‘you couldn’t make it up, but you don’t have to.

So you live in a great big house and there are parties night after night with unlimited booze bought by the British taxpayers, there is loud music, fights between some of the officials, and sometimes purely by accident you walk into the rooms where it’s happening and although you protest someone places a pint glass in your hand, you only have three or four pints and then leave immediately.

Then you have no recollection of any parties on the premises, bet the burglars are casing the joint at this very moment.

Look my only gripe is that I wasn’t invited, it’s my eightieth birthday next month I wonder if it’s too late to become a conservative for one day only.

Once again there has been a mass shooting in one of the schools in the USA and once again there are calls for the sale of guns to be restricted.

We all know that will never happen as it’s part of the culture of America and unless you have been brought up in that environment it is difficult to understand why.

But if it’s one of your children that has been murdered then your views may change.

My condolences go to the parents.

As well as being great songwriters the group Abba have a great awareness of how to maintain the image they exuded when in their prime.

Their latest tour contains all the great songs from the early days but without them being there in person; instead, they will be represented by four holograms with the same youthful profiles they once had.

Looks are such a great asset to most humans and unfortunately as they disappear so doe’s the mystec and charisma associated with them but holograms never get old perhaps even the Rolling Stones will use them one day.

It’s funny how we have arrived at what constitutes good looks and why.

Tyson Fury wins his latest fight with ease and talks about retiring from boxing if he does he will find out that the most important thing in his life will have disappeared, retirement sounds great until it happens, then it ain’t.

You may assume that Borris Jonson is not one of my favorite politicians and you would be correct but I am impressed by the way he is sending arms, money, and helping to train the soldiers in Ukraine.

I hope that other countries show the same resolve because the war won’t stop at the borders of Ukraine.

World organizations are starting to investigate whether war crimes have been committed in Ukraine and this will probably take years to prove. Or the officials could walk through the streets of some of the cities vacated by the Russians and count the bodies of dead children and reach a conclusion in minutes.

It seems that the inevitable will happen and Russia will take complete control of Ukraine. Putin will then look at other countries that he can invade and if the West tries to intervene there is always the big red button that he can press.

And quietly waiting in the wings is China because if Putin succeeds in Ukraine they will have the green light to take over other countries they consider to be part of China.

So is there any way to prevent this from happening, well unfortunately at the moment only sanctions but they need to be dramatically increased. Remember what happened in Afghanistan normally the easy part is to take over a country but to retain it is a different matter, especially when what you are doing to the Ukrainians will make them hate you forever.

Remember when the pandemic started and the whole infrastructure of every country came together to find a vaccine well we need to work together to help our friends and we need to become independent of certain countries for our energy supplies, and we should aim for this to happen not in ten years but only two.

And the next thing we should look at before it becomes another crisis is to make our own products again because if we fall out with China (and it will happen) most countries rely on them for nearly everything.

So my attempt at writing an innovative sci-fi book has gone live as a Kindle Ebook under the name David Timmins.

David Montgomery is the head of LIFE the largest and most innovative genetic drug company in the world. He has the most affluent lifestyle but having survived terminal cancer he suddenly realizes that death would take all this away and although LIFE has produced a range of drugs that are capable of extending human life David wanted far more than just a few extra years, he wanted immortality.

At one of the regular brainstorming sessions Peter Simpkins a brilliant scientist suggests developing human clones as a way of fast-tracking their research. Produced in batches of ten the clones have only basic intelligents, no awareness of what life means, and poor mobility with a lifespan of only a few weeks.

All the clones are kept in secure glass fronted rooms and are monitored twenty -four hours a day in a high security section of the complex. On a perfectly normal day and without any warning the whole facility is plunged into darkness for thirty minutes and when the power is restored Joe one of the latest clones has disappeared without security being able to find out how or where too.

In an effort to get results John Smith an enigmatic and distant figure is brought in and he soon realizes that this is no ordinary investigation and that Joe has somehow metamorphosed into something that is far superior to even his creators.

There is a small amount of violence and sexual mater in this book of approximately 66,000 words but no bad language.

Best read while drinking a bottle of red wine in a warm country or the UK on that one hot day in summer.

So here we go again, another leader of a large and ambitious country who is in complete control of its political direction without the restraints that sometimes come from having and listening to a group of sensible advisors.

And who wins in a war, no one. But even if one person and one country eventually rules the world there is something that will take all that away and that is death.