What I'm Doing Right Now
Inspired by Derek Sivers' NowNowNow project, this is a page where I list what I'm doing. Consider this my version of small talk.
About me
Nationality: British
Living: Würzburg, Germany
Profession: Author of 50+ books, and publisher
What Makes Me Happy: My wife, my dog, all other dogs, nice people, books, writing and publishing my own books, politically incorrect jokes, making money, and drinking vast quantities of tea every day.
What Makes Me Unhappy: Paying taxes, talking on the phone, injustice, meeting people who are rude, liars, cruel, and intolerant. Most TV adverts.
Current Focus / Projects - July 2026
I'm building the publishing company, Glass Dagger Press, along with a colleague, Romy, and two authors who may or may not actually produce an actual book sometime this century. We're producing and publishing around two books per month right now. Well, Romy and I are. The other two are just...let's just call it 'procrastinating'.
Next, I'm overhauling this website so every reader is redirected to the site for things like buying books, signing up for the newsletter, or to tell me how much I suck at writing books. (I don't, but that doesn't stop a lot of people saying otherwise.)
The website is coming off WordPress after about 15 years, and I'm moving to static HTML and CSS pages. This makes the site extremely fast, much more simple in terms of code, and the site feels "cleaner" as a result. But updating pages is now a bit of a pain in the ass, without a CMS to do all that tedious stuff for me.
I'm also discovering the genius of Codex, making lots of really cool apps and webpages. I also tried getting Codex to monitor my Protonmail email and draft replies, but it was very brittle, constantly breaking, and I had to close it down.
Simplifying my social media is the next one. I think it will just be Instagram, and occasionally LinkedIn. I've tried to care about Threads, but I really can't be bothered with it. I have a severe case of fuck-it-titis with most social media.
Got a trip planned for the end of the month, another in September, and I am also considering a quick dash to England to visit a school friend who I haven't seen in almost 40 years. We keep in touch via Instagram and WhatsApp, but I would love to see him again in person at least once before we both croak.
I'm also hard at work trying to get better at chess. My ELO is currently 800, which is OK, but not totally great. I keep getting beaten by chess apps on my phone. So I'm studying tactics and seeing if I can get my ELO up to around 900. I'm also trying to solve a Rubik's Cube, and failing badly!
Simplifying my life seems to be the overall project of my life this year. Reading, meditating, sleeping, working less (that part isn't working yet), separating myself from the negativity and poison in my life, and spending more quality time with my wife and dog. Not to mention paring down my possessions to the stuff I really want and need. Simplicity is the watch-word of my life now. As Derek said on his site once, I'm preparing my "no".
Want to hear my no? "Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather swallow a lava lamp." Yeah, I'm not known for my diplomacy.
Books I'm Reading
I'm going through my phase of reading mostly fiction at the moment. My overloaded brain can't seem to handle too much non-fiction right now.
I've just finished Frederick Forsyth's Revenge of the Odessa, which is the sequel to The Odessa File which he wrote back in the 1970s. It was quite good, but it was quite jarring with the Washington DC subplot, which took you out of the main story and gave you characters you really couldn't care less about.
Then there was Exit Strategy by Lee Child, which was meh. I think I'm rapidly going off his books. I also read Evil in High Places by Rory Clements, which was VERY good. It was about the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany, and a murder which has to be covered up because of the intensive Olympics news coverage.
One non-fiction book which I am slowly getting through is The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984, by Dorian Lynskey. I have enormous respect for George Orwell, his books, and his journalism. In fact, I am also going through his Collected Essays, a thumping 1,400 page door-stopper. I've been working at this book for something like four years. I'll finish it eventually. I owe it to George.