Walking Into Darkness

Surreal Girl and I have often walked the water in recent months, but today as the retimed fall of dusk caught us a by surprise, we found ourselves taking a new route and walking into darkness.

I usually love drifting through London, finding the places where the skin of time is taught across the fabric of place and I can feel the pulse of the ghosts of history just below the surface. Tonight it was different.

Once passed the light coming from through the stained-glass of a Magdalen church now hosting the shouts of African revival, the territory began to descend into the type of shadow you rarely find in the sodium lit city. We navigated by the sporadic bursts of moonlight through the clouds and the occasional dim, curtained light from waterside homes reflected in ink-black pools.

As we pushed on, overhead feats of Victorian engineering became troll bridges; daytime certainties of distance evaporated. You lose the will to move forwards when you cannot see what lies ahead and the next destination down the line is a place with the motto that features the Latin word for ‘pray’ (‘orare’) in it. Any spirits of history dwelling here were about as benign as the gangs of semi-drunk children – unseen but heard – beyond the iron railings that tracked the towpath.

The last straw came when even the usually unrelenting Westway seemed so fearful of the darkness ahead it coiled away, leaving us standing beneath the curve of it its mollusc ridges. We turned back. Towards light and warmth, towards a night of my home-cooked pancakes and the much safer and less intense ghosts of Torchwood.

'Buburu… Onidan…'

I have not been at my physical or mental best this weekend, but that has not stopped universe from rolling on, supplying its usual blend of minor comedy moments and high strangeness. From the mild surprise of Spoon Boy – one of my occasional housemates – casually producing a sack of more than a 2,000 After Eight Mints to discovering that thick, eye-stinging smoke pouring from your kitchen is enough to deter unwanted Jehovah's Witnesses, nothing beats the oddness of complete strangers accusing you being a ‘bad wizard’.

I was minding my own business on a train, scratching lines of prose into one of my little black books, when I became aware that two gentlemen dressed in St. George's Cross t-shirts were growing excited, pointing at me and talking loudly to each other in Yoruba. After a couple of minutes where I kept hearing: 'Buburu… onidan…' one of them approached me and told me I was a ‘bad wizard’. It seems that one of the things that gave me away was writing with my left hand. I must remember this in future because it seems ridiculous that my secret identity as a black magician should be exposed through such a schoolboy error.

My accuser asked to see what I was writing in my magic book. After seeing my words and handwriting he changed his mind and decided that I was in fact: ‘A good wizard, clever wizard’ with a ‘clever hand’ he insisted on patting. When he and his partner left the train, they insisted on giving me complex handshakes and bowing. Even in my occasionally odd line of work, this is not an everyday occurrence.

Soaked in Blood Godfather Horse Head Style

Last night was a nightmare, literally and metaphorically.

I had the worst flashback dream for more than six months. I woke from being screamed at whilst having a CVA to find myself in the middle of a nosebleed.

I was covered in blood. The bed was soaked in blood Godfather horse head style. I had a splitting headache.

I could not get back to sleep. The day has brought further things for me to worry about and the headache will not shift.

There are many things I probably should be writing about tonight – the real reason the Queen was unable to visit Arsenal’s new stadium, a wonderful story about the US Navy blog commentator Mirk put me onto and the Bill Hicks project – but right now I feel too weary to think straight.

Celebrity Flounce Story

For those who have been asking for a review of The History Boys, I promise I will write one and post it within the next week or so. I might also tell the celebrity flounce story I witnessed whilst at the cinema (if Surreal Girl has not already sent it into Popbitch or Holy Moly). If I am going to offer my thoughts on Bennet’s latest foray into film, I might as well post reviews for the other films I have enjoyed in recent weeks including The Queen, Little Miss Sunshine and Children Of Men.

Secret Scientology Spy

Today was the official opening of Scientology’s new £24 million London propaganda hub. The news channels have been thick with it, partly because of the official big bash being held tonight with the likes of Tom Cruise in attendance. The coverage has been far too gentle on them with only one tepid academic daring to hint at the ‘Operating Thetan’ situation on BBC Breakfast.

Anyone who has read Secrets & Lies, (for those in the USA - Secrets & Lies), knows how much I fear Scientology and why I am probably not one of their favourite people. Therefore it was a quite fun surprise to be able to have my own secret Scientology spy at their unpublicised, secret Saturday night grand dinner down at their East Grinstead estate. Cruise and the other usual celebrity suspects were in attendance alongside the higher echelons of the organisation.

Amongst conversations with the guests it became clear that the reason some of them are putting forward for my work and for the work of other writers and journalists writing about them, is because we are: ‘In the pay of pharmaceutical companies.’

I wish.

If any pharmaceutical company wishes to pay me any money for my entry concerning Scientology in Secrets & Lies, I will happily take it. Unfortunately, no one in that sector has ever offered me a bribe, inducement or reward for anything I have written. This is probably down to the fact there is a whole section in S&L entitled Medicine detailing drug company dumping practices in the developing world, the hidden ingredients in vaccines and the fallibility of tests for HIV. I have also never been offered a cent from those in psychotherapy or medical research due to my reporting of various elements of malpractice in both professions.

In fact, no one except my publisher has ever offered me a penny for the views I expressed in S&L. For those of a conspiratorial bent who might think my publisher is in the pay of such power interests, you are wrong. I had to fight their lawyers tooth and nail to get any mention of Scientology into the book because post Bare-Faced Messiah, every publisher’s legal team shits themselves when an author is mad enough to mention L. Ron Hubbard.

Hypothetical Daughters

I only got out of the house twice today. My first surfacing was the usual morning stroll to buy the papers. This meant walking passed the foul Mitchell sculpture and strawberry beer pub, through the Sunday silence of millionaire villas to fractured bursts of haqibah and the smell of boiling meat from the Sudanese occupied council flats.

Between the two hemispheres of propertied gentility and cacophonic cultural diversity there is a strange hinterland. A row of garages links the two territories. At one end Mercedes, the other battered white vans; a carpet of leafs in contrast to a covering of broken glass and the assorted debris. As you walk along this patch, you feel as if you are walking between worlds.

Today’s planned visit to the Museum of London was abandoned fairly early on. Reasons included harsh rain, feeling queasy post the S&M meal in Portobello yesterday and the seductive joy of returning to bed when the rhythmic dull thud of weather on the windows is providing a perfect soundtrack to snuggling under the duvet and reading.

Come twilight, the rain had eased to a limp patter, so a walk via mews and waterways in search of milk beckoned. Seeing eight swans gliding in silent formation transformed any grumbles about the damp and cold into just other reasons to smile and enjoy my surroundings. Not even the scrum of rudeness to be found at a Tesco Local was enough to make the trip out seem anything less than wonderful.

As the night closed in and I began to feel rough again, talk turned blackberry picking with my hypothetical daughters and the possibility of putting a post box in a hypothetical garden. It might be due to such discussions I am going to bed not only with a warm glow but also without a fear of nightmares for once.

Negative Inducing Ray

Buying slippers makes you feel old. Even buying not-very-old-man-style Muji slippers is a brush with Methuselah. However, now that I find myself waking up to all-wood floors on cold mornings, I had to add slippers to today’s shopping list.

As retail was on the agenda, I accompanied Surreal Girl to Portobello Market. It was the first time I had been there since at least 1996. This explains why I was so shocked to find it practically unchanged compared to my eroded memory of it. Jazz still blared from rare vinyl stalls to find itself in constant competition with the wheezing vodon rhythms of a busking drummer who had not seemed position in a decade. Side streets were filled with junk poured onto blankets that you expected to see swept up by street cleaners rather than bought and the number of people around aping on the look of Noel Gallagher remained alarmingly high.

Having bought bargain priced vegetables and assorted goodies from the rather fabulous Spanish shop (including white asparagus, smoked paprika and biscuits), we tried to navigate our way out of the area to catch a 3:30 showing of The History Boys in another part of town. This was no easy task. The weight of the crowds with their constant bump and grind began to take a toll on my ribs. Suddenly the recently purchased window squeegee I was carrying became a Dalek gun. Much to the mortification of my companion, I began to mutter ‘Exterminate’ and point my negative inducing ray in the direction of anyone impolite enough to knock into me without apologising. Proof that even if buying slippers makes me old, I can still be positively childlike.

‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’

I was wrong. The hideous concrete sculpture I referred to in the post 'Silver Edges, Tenderly Inscribed' is not ‘proto-Modernist’. It would be better described as a form of poncey urban Brutalist.

When I discovered the sculptor was still alive, I wanted to send him an email telling him what I thought about his brand of concrete pollution. However, Surreal Girl talked me out of doing this. She is getting rather good at persuading me not to speak my mind the moment a thought crosses it.

A case in point tonight happened whilst eating in Sardo. I was in a good mood. Mai Tais at The Loop, a walk that took in window-shopping at the Animation Art Gallery and all the promise of a London night meant I was eating my Sardinian bread and olives and sampling a glass Cannonau with a huge smile on my face. That beam stayed until the New Labour apparatchik couple with the famous American media and political commentator in mother in tow started talking a little too loudly.

Within five minutes I had learnt how the Old Queen Street mob had a mole in Tory Central Office who had leaked them this week’s tax plans, who that mole was and how this all related to the media embargo on revealing the detail of the plans being broken. Then the mother started talking about how pleased she was she had really annoyed certain union leaders in a recent radio broadcast.

Arrogant New Labour staffers and media glitterati always rile me. I wanted to go over to their table and point out they might think they were incredibly clever, but just how smart was it to be bragging before checking you were not sitting next to someone who was not going to ring a contact at Central Office or who was not a journalist who could use their juicy little revelation? Especially as ‘Tory Traitor’ would look great in a headline…

Surreal Girl staid my impulse and made me promise not to say anything to them when we left – even though she also wanted to lean over and whisper: ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ Part of her logic was I did not need to casually make a powerful enemy of the famous American media and political commentator. I did try to explain that like John Lydon, when it comes to enemies, I have always started with the monarchy and worked my way down, but she just distracted me with talk of pudding.

My Ugly Mug

The publisher who is putting out the German edition of Global Gangland has been making demands today. German publishers it appears need pictures of the author to use for publicity purposes, they require in-depth biographies and they expect full co-operation on promoting the book.

I on the other hand do not think pictures of my ugly mug will sell books and nor will anyone be interested in reading 1,000 words of my life history. As for me touring the minor publicity backwaters of Deutschland TV and radio … Given my skill at speaking the Germanic language is on the par with JFK who once went to West Berlin and proclaimed: ‘I am a doughnut,’ the idea is close to pointless.

As far as I am concerned, my contractual obligations regarding promotion of Global Gangland ended the moment my publisher in the UK (who is licensing the rights worldwide) cocked up in such a fashion as to lead the head of the Albanian Mafiya in the UK to express a strong desire to ‘put bullets down my throat’.

It is probably best that I sleep on my email response to the demands. Anything I sent at the moment would be short and make heavy use of expletives.

Charlotte

On my way back from the South Coast, a girl called Charlotte interrupted my train journey. I know she was called Charlotte because I heard her shout it into her mobile phone several times. Instead of relaxing into my seat and watching the sun pass below the horizon in a glorious burst of pink light as the shadows of dusk fell across the Sussex countryside, I had to listen to Charlotte. There was no escape from her ridiculously loud and inane chatter. No escape from her braying into her phone.

I wanted to say something to her, but was asked not to on the grounds it would embarrass my travelling companion and I had a yellow-coloured face. (The logic being that an angry man with an apparently jaundiced look would not be effective against a more-money-than-manners loudmouth).

However, when she shouted her mobile phone number three times whilst making an 8:45 dinner booking at a restaurant called Tarot, an idea did occur to me. It also appeared to occur to another passenger who like me was typing Charlotte’s number into his Blackberry. About an hour after I got off the train I sent Charlotte a text message. It read: 'Hi Charlotte. My what a loudmouth you are! Don’t bother going out. I have cancelled your booking at Tarot.'

Of course, I had not cancelled her dinner reservation, I just wanted to give her a shock to possibly make her rethink the wisdom of loudly giving out personal details on a crowded train and having no sense of personal volume control. I have felt a little guilty about doing this since and it is probably a sign I am a deeply unpleasant curmudgeon, but I could not promise I would not do it again.

Black Alchemist Country

If the ingredients of a great weekend can be summed up as ‘good people, good food and good conversation’, then I have had a blinder of a weekend. On top of a feast of grand company and talk, I also enjoyed walking, sleeping in the biggest bed of my life, Chestnut gathering at Petworth House, seeing three Blakes, several Turners and Hogarth up close and personal, drinking more wine than is good for me and watching Belleville Rendez-vous and Le Chagrin et La Pitié with a live continental commentary.

I was also able to watch a Spaniard who had lived in France for many years cook marvellous Italian food and see how a killer tortilla is made. Watching a master at work does not make you adept, but I do feel empowered to try my hand at duplicating the perfect pizza dough and the quintessential tapas dish. Unfortunately, my only cooking during the weekend was disastrous. Whilst everyone else laboured in the garden, my aching ribs meant I was left in the kitchen to make a mess with mochigome.

After so long in London, it was pure joy to breath salt-flavoured air and drink in the autumnal smells of the country for a few days. The trees were turning, the ground covered in the chestnuts and the every berry-laden plant exploding with colour. Even the mists and early nightfall seemed reassuring, another measure of the pulse of the seasons building to its natural crescendo. Black Alchemist country rediscovered as the location for the perfect escape.

Silver Edges, Tenderly Inscribed

I did not have a birthday this year. At the time I really did not feel up to it. However, you do not need to have a birthday to have presents given to you. Today I have been given a lovely, touching gift. It is simple, beautiful – a black leather notebook with silver edges, tenderly inscribed – and means the world to me. A wonderful sign of celebration and of faith in me by someone.

Writers need little black books. They need Moleskins and Staedlter 0.3 pigment liners. However it is the first time I have owned one that offers me protection against the ‘horrid statue’* I have to pass every time I go and buy the newspapers.

*For security reasons I cannot reveal which statue this is, but trust me, it is a ghastly piece of proto-Modernist filth which would look a lot better if it was smashed up and turned into a rock garden.

A Sucker for Norman Architecture

Today I am travelling out of London, heading down to a little town on the coast that flows out from the magnificent South Downs. This will be the first time in several months I have spent the weekend outside my fair capital. I cannot wait.

My trip promises to be a grown-up affair. There is to be a birthday meal in a posh seafood restaurant (at which I will not be allowed to wear a Green Lantern t-shirt); cooking lessons (I am hoping to be taught how to make a killer tortilla and mean artichoke pizza) and possibly even an excursion to investigate wattle trees.

There is also a fabulous 903-year old church I quite fancy a chance explore. As a Hadleigh boy, I have always been a sucker for Norman architecture. Aside from its amazing arches, I would love to get inside and look at the church’s highly interesting incised marks. These on have some notoriety in Masonic research circles and how could I not want to see something carved circa 1185 that coincidentally duplicates a veve for Carrefour? English Hoodoo carved in pillars of stone.

It is probably too late in the year to enjoy it, but the church also has a Mary Garden and Hospitallers’ herb garden with everything from Alecost to Yarrow. The archetypal England of Hollywood and collective national mythology is more than a dream in places such as this.

'Anti-American Horseshit'

I have been getting quite a few bits of nice fan mail and feedback from readers of Secrets & Lies during the last few weeks. I do not need to have my ego stroked, but it is always good to know that your work is reaching an audience and connecting with them.

However, lest I begin to think Secrets & Lies is only read by people with positive things to say about it, I got a reassuringly abusive reader email today. It read:

'How does it feel to be an ignorant and ungrateful fool?

America is not aggressive. My country saved England from the Nazis and commies. Why don't you shove your pathetic anti-American horseshit up your screaming English faggot hole?

I hate your book and I hope you die.'

It was signed: 'A Defender of Liberty'.

To add to his non-aggressive 'hope you die', bravery and willingness to debate the accusation, Defender of Liberty had used a remailer to protect his anonymity. This is a shame as I would have liked to have asked him for a definition of what exactly makes my 'English faggot hole' so 'screaming'?

Later today I will post the entry that seemed to work Defender of Liberty into such froth and let people decide for themselves whether I write 'anti-American horseshit.'

Personally, I do not think I do.

With a modicum of intelligence, you can love America and its people with passion and hate the actions of its governments without any significant dissonance.

Statistics that Reveal Which is the Most Aggressive Nation

Here is the entry in Secrets & Lies. (for those in the USA - Secrets & Lies), that so upset Defender of Liberty. As always, any comments or feedback is most welcome.

Statistics that Reveal Which is the Most Aggressive Nation

Although statistics are often abused and perverted to back up the official position, stripped-down numerical facts also possess a wonderful ability to cut through a miasma of lies, half-truths and conflicting claims to reveal unpleasant truths. When that happens, it becomes very clear why governments prefer to make policy on the basis of opinion rather than evidence. After all, surely it makes sense to adopt a defence strategy based on tackling the most aggressive country in the world?

It is not easy to develop a fair statistical formula for showing which nation holds the record for aggression since 1945, but two undeniable measures of aggression – bombing of another country and military invasion of a sovereign nation – allow for a good objective assessment.

Although Africa remains the bloodiest continent, with the highest number of aggressive acts occurring in it, using the above objective criteria, no single nation emerges as a challenger for the title of the world’s most aggressive country. Even given its record for invasion of satellite states such as Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979, the former Soviet Union only manages to come in a distant second to the eventual winner.

The most aggressive nation is the United States of America. With 17 invasions of other countries and the bombing of 22 states since 1945 including the bombings of Korea, Cuba, Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Iraq and the less well-remembered bombings of Peru, Indonesia and Guatemala. It is also worth nothing that the USA spends more money on its military (currently $441.6 billion per year) than the next 12 nations combined.

There is a terrible irony that a country that has stood as a beacon of justice, democracy and freedom for so many in the world is revealed by statistics as the number one gangster. I do not know how a country so full of generous, open-hearted and principled people has allowed itself to earn the dubious title of the most aggressive nation in the globe today, but I am certain it is a record that most Americans will be appalled by.

The Pentagon’s Role in Anti-shoplifting RFID Technology

Given my post on being tracked by Oyster has raised RFID in this blog, I thought I would share an unedited draft of an entry on the subject that was published in Secrets & Lies. (For those in the USA - Secrets & Lies ). As always, any comments or feedback is most welcome.

The Pentagon’s role in anti-shoplifting RFID technology

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a method of storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. The tag can be the size of a grain of rice and attached or built into to any item. The in-built transmitter allows it to broadcast data such as location information or specifics about the tagged product such as price.

It is being increasingly adopted in the retail sector as it allows stores to track a product from the moment it leaves a depot all the way through to it going on a shelf and eventually being bought by a customer. It allows for much tighter stock control and is easy way of preventing theft from a shop as product will give alarm if someone tries to steal an item.

Like the Internet and the barcode before it, RFID is a spin-off from the needs of the Pentagon. The massive investment they have made in it (more than a $100 million over the last few years) is driven by a logistical desire to track stores and equipment in fine detail. The Pentagon’s role as the largest customer in the USA for many items has allowed them to demand manufacturers use the technology and its own RFID standards leading to its rapid take-up elsewhere. Many civil liberty groups in the USA and elsewhere believe RFID will allow manufacturers and retailers to track their customers through what they buy.

When I was the chief spin-doctor for the organisation representing British retailers (the British Retail Consortium) major efforts were made to get me to publicly back RFID. I was even told by one of the PR company representing an RFID manufacturer there were no civil liberty concerns and that I should help persuade retailers to back the technology beyond the point of sale. When I pointed out this was a lie, the tack changed and ‘generous sponsorship’ was mentioned and even ‘personal financial expression of gratitude’. It was an offer declined, but it gives a good indication of how a lot of expert opinion you read, watch and hear is generated – through a combination of lies and money.

‘A Fundamental Foe of Peaceful Extraterrestrials Living on Earth'

My last couple of books have benefited from lots of little bits of help from people who happily spend a couple of days searching libraries and every corner of the Net for some obscure reference I half remembered. One of these princes amongst men is a friend called Josh.

Even though I have never asked him to, he has taken it upon himself to keep a watching brief of what gets mentioned about me in the sort of digital places I never have the inclination to go. Nobody who writes obscure books should give in to the urge to google* themselves because you will soon realise just how inconsequential you are.

Josh has developed a habit of sending me cryptic emails urging me to type in words resulting in semi-googlewhack affairs bringing up only one hit when your name is combined with unusual phrase. They tend to say things like: ‘Google David Southwell prime fucker’. Typing that sort of word combination into a search engine always makes me nervous, but being told today to enter: ‘“David Southwell” “hate rhetoric”’ made feel physically somewhat queasy.

I usually take the fact I have been called everything from a ‘Jewish Freemason wizard’ to a ‘N-loving cocksucker’, ‘a fundamental foe of peaceful extraterrestrials living on Earth,’ ‘a MI5 satrap’ and ‘Serbian running dog’ to mean I am telling enough truth to offend everyone equally. The prospect of my reporting of verifiable fact being labelled ‘hate rhetoric’ and ending up on a fascist anti-free speech blacklist worried me. I already have enough problems dealing with the consequences of having told uncomfortable truths about the CIA, Wo Shing Wo, Soltntsevskaya Brigada and Danish biker gangs.

The queasiness subsided somewhat when the visible bit of the Google hit read: ‘Who is spouting hate rhetoric now?|17Jul04|Socialist Worker’. Offending the Socialist Worker Party would be considered by many in English politics as a badge of honour. For all of their rhetoric of ‘revolutionary vanguard,’ I do not intend to worry about being on a SWP list for going up against the wall until the revolution comes and the emblem of the Fourth International is flying atop the Tower of London. Whatever the SWP had to say about me, I was ready.

Of course, having clicked on and read the link, it turned out to be totally banal and my mention was unrelated to ‘hate rhetoric’.

I am grateful to Josh for his efforts, but if he keeps on at this, one day he is going to cause some sort of rush to casualty – either through inducing hypertension or having me fall off of my chair in shock.

*I am aware that Google has undertaken legal proceeding to prevent the use of its name as noun before now, but I am sure they have bigger fish to fry than me.

Being ‘Bob’

Some Sundays are designed for doing very little in. Today was one of those. After I surfaced from bed in just enough time to make the surreal walk from the land of millionaire villas* to council estates to get the last copy of The Observer from the newsagent, the biggest adventure was constructing a new false identity.

The reason I needed to fabricate a fictitious person I could pretend to be was because I wanted an Oyster card. For those of you who do not live in London I feel I should explain. Oyster is a form of electronic ticketing for tube and bus travel in London. If you do not have an Oyster card, a single Underground journey will cost you a minimum of £3; with an Oyster card it costs you £1.50. Given that Commissar Ken is shortly putting a single journey non-Oyster fare up to £4, economic pressure made using Oyster something I could not keep putting off despite my huge misgivings.

Aside from my issue with it being a disadvantageous form of shadow currency, my main problem with the Oyster system is every travel movement across London you make using it can be tracked. By Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police, security services and by cunning private individuals. Aside from the libertarian in me bridling at this form of surreptitious mass surveillance, when you have had serious death threats made against you from elements of the Russian Mafiya, you really do not want someone to be able to find out which tube station you start and finish every day at.

One I had become fictional ‘Bob’, it was planned the first Oyster card trip would be to the Museum of London. However, unforeseen factors meant I actually ended up at Spitalfields Market for the first time in about 18 years. There is only one word for the experience of this gentrified temple to consumer leisure – poncey. If I were being verdant, I would probably extend the description of the market to 'crowded and poncey'.

That is not to say I did not enjoy being there. The best in smiling company, a great pie, mash, peas and gravy eaten to wafting soundtrack of the Doctor Who theme, stalls selling blocks of type representing crop circles, some very me t-shirts and fantastic pecorino sardo all helped make it worthwhile way of spending an autumnal afternoon.

Before the last of the sun disappeared below the abrupt, baroque of Hawksmoor’s Christ Church, Surreal Girl insisted on buying me a gelato. Not just a basic gelato, a scoop of tiramisu and a scoop crème brûlée gelato. My tongue experienced an orgasm. I was in taste heaven. All consciousness focussed for an instant to the glorious things happening in my mouth. Without a doubt, it was one of the nicest things anyone has bought for me in a decade. I am not entirely sure why, but a hint of a tear almost escaped whilst sitting eating my deliriously good treat and watching a demon-possessed child cavort across every piece of nearby street furniture. It was good few minutes to experience being ‘Bob’.

*I want to make it clear I do not live in a millionaire villa. I currently could not afford even a few square feet of millionaire villa or Victorian mansion block.

Angel of Death

One of my Australian readers (Shaun A. Saunders who wrote the book Mallcity 14) dropped me an email today to give me an update on his fellow countryman Mike O’Dwyer who I had previously written about in Secrets & Lies. It seems that O’Dwyer is claiming that he has been offered $100 million by the China to develop his technology for them. Of course, he nobly claims to have rejected the offer.

My sensitively tuned spin detector is twitching in the cynical zone at this news. I wonder if the announcement of the Chinese interest is related to the way the share price of his company has dropped from AU$2.65 in 2000 to a price at one point today of $0.135. It does strike me that O’Dwyer’s latest announcement is another good bit of media bravado by a man who has never been short of the ability to push himself and his company forward effectively in the press.

Of course, I could be misjudging Mr. O’Dwyer, though I do note that he has not challenged my previous judgement – published on three continents including Australasia – of him as an ‘angel of death’.

The Gun that Fires a Million Bullets a Minute

The below is an unedited draft of an entry on Mike 'Angel of Death' O'Dwyer that was published in Secrets & Lies. As always, any comments or feedback is most welcome.

The Gun that Fires a Million Bullets a Minute

When we see the coverage of Gulf War III in a few years time, expect to see terrible new US military weapons ranging from the mysterious flying back triangles being tested in our skies today and Metal Storm – an electronic firing system allows for the building of a gun that can fire a million bullets a minute.

Developed by Australian Mike O’Dwyers, the technology behind the Metal Storm guns is the most radical and scary development in ballistic weapons for a century. Instead of using mechanical firing pins to shoot bullets, O’Dwyer’s guns’ hold multiple bullets in the barrel which are set off electronically fractions of a second apart. This allows the bullets to be fired in such rapid succession that the bullets behind each other actually push those in front and increase bullet velocity. In one test, a multi-barrell gun was able to deliver a firing rate of one millions bullets a minute. For anything in the line of fire it was like walking into a wall of molten lead.

Most of the prototype Metal Storm guns that O’Dwyer is developing for the US and Australian military are highly classified. However, one project under development by O’Dwyer and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is ‘Metal Storm Weapons for Urban Environments.’ This features a combination of a Metal Storm prototype 40mm grenade launcher system attached to a robotic unmanned ground vehicle. It will eventually allow US generals to send in robots firing the fastest guns ever developed into urban areas without risking American lives. Imagine how much scarier the still secret projects are.

In his PR, Mike O’Dwyer likes to portray himself as an inventor who has done something worthwhile by creating Metal Storm. He has the chutzpah to say: “Part of my motivation came from the fact that my family understands loss in times of war.” When Alfred Nobel created his famous prizes, it was because the inventor of dynamite had seen an accidentally published orbituary that labelled him ‘The angel of death’. Mr. Dwyer, whatever you say, you are an angel of death.

The Author in Bookshop Thing

Please forgive this post. Global Gangland came out today which means it is overly reflective and full of writer whining.

Inevitably given it was the official publication date, I did the author in bookshop thing. I went into my local bookshop just to look at it on the shelves. From Stephen King to Martin Amis, Will Self to Don Delillo, I am sure every author does it.

The moment when you first see your creation in its natural environment is like the completion of a powerful magical spell. Your words have shaped information, created a reality that can be shared – brought this physical object in front of you into existence. For a few seconds it all seems worth it.

My feelings on seeing Global Gangland at Waterstones are far more complex than I experienced when Secrets & Lies or Conspiracy Theories hit the shelves. At one level I have incredible pride. I wrote this book when my life was falling apart. Through serious illness and suicidal pull, I wrote this. Against seemingly impossible deadlines at the lowest point in my life, I still managed to create a 100,000 book others can now read. Through tears, blood and pain, word by word, I called it into existence from the blackness. Global Gangland is my artefact pulled from the abyss.

I also have a small degree of pride about the contents of the book. It is the most comprehensive illustrated history of global organized crime you can buy. There is no other book that tackles crime in so many countries. Nothing else runs the gamut from the Mongrel Mob in New Zealand to the Commands in Brazil, from Jacky le Mat (the Death Cheater) to Dawood Ibrahim. I know I have put some material into the English language no one has done before. There is no other place to read 1,000 words on the Mala del Brenta or the links between the Bonanno family and Tonton Macoutes. If anyone uses the line about the L.A. Mafia ‘All they ever did was kill Superman’, it will be a lift from Global Gangland.

I am pleased to have written an objective book that finds space to talk about the victims of organized crime. It remembers those usually forgotten. It captures the shadows of the innocent as well as the guilty. At least now there is one volume trying to honour the bravery of journalists such as Raúl Gibb Guerrero and Alfredo Jiménez who were murdered for reporting the truth about Mexican drug cartels

Despite the ghastly editing process, my fingerprints, my DNA is everywhere in the text. True crime books are not usually political, but this is a David Southwell project. Therefore no one who has read my previous work should be surprised Gloval Gangland has recurring subtexts on poverty, social exclusion, libertarian economics and Thatcherism. No shock either that the Black Panthers, JFK, the CIA, obscure secret societies and other leif motifs from my previous work are amongst the bloodstains. No one should be taken aback it is probably the only organized crime tome to mention The Avengers as an influence on the Serbian underworld.

In some places it is an incredibly personal book in even more direct ways than displaying my personal Weltanschauung. You can catch glimpses of me as a young reporter covering the Rettendon murders, walking with Anne-Marie along the Lisburn Road in Belfast, growing up with my mother’s tales of the Richardsons or hearing my brothers stories of Roppongi and his dealings with the Yakuza. I can even spot traces of the Ford Cortina culture of my childhood I had not realised had rubbed off on me before.

The publishers wanted me to: ‘Do to crime what you did to conspiracies’ and at worst I think I have achieved that. I also hope I have produced a good read for those interested in the criminal underworld and a reasonable reference and primer on global criminality. It has its cultish elements, is above hackwork, with both senior detectives and major criminal players deemed the draft version as ‘accurate’ and ‘interesting’. Despite being written during the shittiest period of my life, it is definitely not the worst published thing with my name on it

However, for my entire ridiculous conceit about Global Gangland, when I look at it on the shelves I cannot push aside certain ambivalence. I cannot forget that due to the publisher’s ‘mistake’, it is a work placing me in real in danger. Secrets & Lies earned me threats from the CIA, but at least I felt I had really achieved something worthwhile in getting it published. I do not have the same sense of accomplishment for Global Gangland, partly I suspect because looking at it reminds me so much of the 100 miles of hell I have been through since this time last year. I just know that I would not want to die for Global Gangland nor for it to be remembered as the last thing I wrote.

Seeing it on the shelves today made me connect with the feeling I want to have the author in bookshop thing at least once more in my life. Next time for a book I can be entirely proud for having written.

Assorted Yuppie Irritants

I am well aware that having a busted rib is a pretty minor complaint on the scale of things, but it is bloody painful. It makes even the most standard activities difficult. I love Borough Market – how can you not adore buying fantastic food at a marketplace with origins at far back as Roman times – but it is not a place to be when you have to genuinely fear the prospect of being jostled.

It was the fracture that made yesterday’s trip to the souk in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral more of a muted affair than usual. Borough Market is always teeming, but for once, the density of public schoolboys, yummy mums and assorted yuppie irritants was too much off an obstacle to successfully negotiate. Crowd paranoia soon won out over smells of tabbouleh, blackberry pie, fried chorizo and pots of fresh herbs all clamoring for attention. It was the first time I’ve been there and not bought something to eat whilst sitting in the grounds of St Saviour.

Despite the fact I was planning to go to Allison’s birthday bash in Brixton, when I got home, fatigue, pain and a growling headache forced me to give up on the idea and crawl into bed at a ridiculously early hour. On days like this it is the small things and shared smiles that cut through the throbbing. No day is fully lost to hurt when it also features cooking a decent risotto, tempranillo and falling into oblivion wrapped up in clean, lavender-scented sheets.