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Fort Lauderdale, is where we were to embark on an Eastern Caribbean Cruise. Here I realised that I'd been a bit too critical of Miami, that had begun to grow on me. Perhaps it was fungal? Fort Lauderdale was my new new bête noire.
Despite the apparent green, much of Fort Lauderdale is an urban desert. We didn't have a car and it's not pleasant to walk around.
But very shortly we would be on the boat.
Having, in several trips, followed the Silk Road from Xian and Urumqi in China across Tajikistan and Uzbekistan our next visit had to be to the Caucuses. So in May 2019 we purchased an organised tour to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia from ExPat Explore. If this is all that interests you you might want to skip straight to Azerbaijan. Click here...
The Craft is an e-novel about Witchcraft in a future setting. It's a prequel to my dystopian novella: The Cloud: set in the the last half of the 21st century - after The Great Famine.
As I was writing The Cloud, I imagined that in fifty years the great bulk of the population will rely on their Virtual Personal Assistant (VPA), hosted in The Cloud, evolved from the primitive Siri and Cortana assistants available today. Owners will name their VPA and give him or her a personalised appearance, when viewed on a screen or in virtual-reality.
VPAs have obviated the need for most people to be able to read or write or to be numerate. If a text or sum is within view of a Cloud-connected camera, one can simply ask your VPA who will tell you what it says or means in your own language, explaining any difficult concepts by reference to the Central Encyclopaedia.
The potential to give the assistant multi-dimensional appearance and a virtual, interactive, body suggested the evolution of the: 'Sexy Business Assistant'. Employing all the resources of the Cloud, these would be super-smart and enhance the owner's business careers. Yet they are insidiously malicious, bankrupting their owners and causing their deaths before evaporating in a sea of bits. But who or what could be responsible? Witches?
The extraordinary tragedy in Norway points yet again to the dangers of extremism in any religion.
I find it hard to comprehend that anyone can hold their religious beliefs so strongly that they are driven to carefully plan then systematically kill others. Yet it seems to happen all to often.
The Norwegian murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, reportedly quotes Sydney's Cardinal Pell, John Howard and Peter Costello in his manifesto. Breivik apparently sees himself as a Christian Knight on a renewed Crusade to stem the influx of Muslims to Europe; and to Norway in particular.