MAN’S best friend is fire, not dogs.
My local has just got a wood burner in the garden. Called a chiminea, with its tapering flue it looks like the rusting rocket engine from a V1.
And it has magnetic properties. Guys are drawn to it, forming a semi-circle, snapping wood over their knees to feed it, staring through its triangular door into the flames.
Everyone has advice to offer, how to light it, how to keep it going. Some bring wood from home or work to feed it. Strangers speak.
Sticking a plank down the flue generates a pleasing jet engine effect, a rush of flame and sparks.
The flames ignite a timeless camaraderie, a brotherhood of fire.
Just take away the clothes, add a roastable mammoth leg…

FIRELIGHTING would be an essential skill if a meteorite bigger than the Russian one hit.
With the loss of power, communications and internet, it would be just a few days before folk were fighting with sticks and bricks in Tesco’s car park for rotting food in runny freezers. Horse would be a luxury.
But if you grabbed a bit, at least you’d be able to cook it.

I HAVEN’T blogged for a while as I’ve been busy writing Danny3. And there’s no point my wasting your time if I have nothing to say.

I’VE read a couple of good books lately. Paul Sussman’s The Labyrinth Of Osiris is a cracking crime thriller with Israeli and Egyptian cop duo Arieh Ben-Roi and Yusuf Khalifa unravelling mysteries ancient and modern.
It’s packed with action and a mass of riveting detail, probably the best of Paul’s crime-and-archaeology novels. The book is a masterclass in blending scholarship and taut thriller writing. Not one of its 743 paperback pages is wasted.
Sadly, after completing his fourth novel Paul died suddenly, age 45, leaving a wife and two sons. A great loss.
Now I’m reading David Mark’s debut crime thriller Dark Winter which sees detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy hunting an avenging serial killer through the grim streets of Hull.
It’s a tight, graphic read with the plot cracking along at a panting pace. Definitely a writer to watch.

MY Brighton-based crime thrillers The Wreck Of The Margherita and Death Squad are still attracting a very postive response from readers. As well as being available on Amazon Kindle and Kobo, Danny1 is available as an Amazon paperback and on sale at City Books in Hove – www.city-books.co.uk. Death Squad will be out in paperback soon.
And Danny3 is still on track for spring publication. The title will be announced soon. Be sure to visit www.billtodd.co.uk.

AND FINALLY… It’s not even Silly Season but already we have bizarre animal stories in the news. A large crocodile spotted in the Thames at Reading is thought to be a prop from a James Bond film. And an aardvark, a real one, was found dead on a roadside in Berkshire.