Support the good people at prolifeunity.com. Here's a link to something I added:

http://www.prolifeunity.com/index.php/site/article/south_africa_how_the_fight_against_the_pro_choice_movement_can_quickly_beco/

While cleaning the swimming pool yesterday I half-remembered something I had come across on a tabloid site during the course of last week.

Assuming for a moment that anything written in the tabloids can be trusted, I learned that the soon to be divorced Guy Ritchie has halted plans for the pool at the home he shared with soon to be ex-wife Madonna (I wish she’d chosen another name) to be emptied and filled with ‘Kabbalah water’. I treat my pool with granular chlorine only. I know it’s correctly balanced when my dogs drink from it despite having other water available or I don’t have a faint smell of pool chemicals on my skin when I get out. How does one balance a pool a pool filled with Kabbalah water? Add another ‘blessing’ maybe when you start seeing algae? Would the kiddies be allowed in? We all know after all that any swimming pool with children added soon gets diluted with urine. What sort of possible benefit could be had from filling a pool with something that had been the ... Read More »

The object of today’s rant are “Catholics” who support abortion, particularly those who hold public office. The position is really quite simple: the Church has always taught that it is murder to terminate an unborn child, finished. The magical moment when life begins is conception, finished. Ending a life prematurely and outside one of the few and very narrow exceptions (self defence for instance) is murder, finished.

You’d think that would settle the matter but you’d be very wrong. Some politicians of a certain strain seem to have very little difficulty reconciling their approval of the killing of an unborn with their supposed Catholic beliefs. Sometimes they’ll try and interpret a Church Doctor to justify why they think the way they do or twist the little bit of what they remember from catechism as a raw justification. Either way, their motivation is to appear Catholic to the electorate while being in sync with what their party expects of them and what they anticipate the elec ... Read More »

Happy days!

Bette Midler is to stop touring to ‘help save the planet’ (http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Singer-Bette-Midler-Quits-Touring-To-Help-Save-The-Planet/Article/200809415105776?lpos=Showbiz_News_Second_Home_Page_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15105776_Singer_Bette_Midler_Quits_Touring_To_Help_Save_The_Planet).

Now who says climate change didn’t impact the dinosaurs?

Ever been to a high school reunion? Mine was a couple of months ago.

I was double booked as there was a kickboxing trial scheduled for the same time. I also had a bad cold and could barely get any air into my lungs without my nose fizzing and my throat feeling as if I was swallowing linseed oil.

Going to the trial would involve waking up really early in what was still winter and driving to the far East Rand of Gauteng in the dark. The East Rand is notorious as a place full of people who like to fight. At other times it’s referred to as the world’s biggest rusty Ford garage without a roof. The hall where the event was held is notoriously draughty and the toilets, wall-to-wall filth, always look like they belong in the ninth circle of hell.

At the trial I could expect to have to fight guys who weigh anything up to 25kg more than I do. Some of them are bouncers or fight professionally in the K1 league. Not many of them have my karate ... Read More »

Here are some answers to questions I get asked regularly:

1. Is Frank de Sales your real name?
It’s a pen name of course - a corruption ‘St Francis de Sales’, the patron of writers.

2. Why did you choose that?
Besides that I thought it sounded cool? St Francis is also my patron and someone whose works I admire very much. The Catholic nature of Devil’s Island makes it very clear what some of the things very important to me are and it fitted nicely from a number of perspectives. Besides, my real name is made up of three first names and doesn’t come across very well. Working for a bank for my day job, I also wanted to keep a bit of a distance while I got used to being published. My wife Linda furthermore does a lot of work on the books and they’re as much her output as they are mine. Using ‘Frank de Sales’ is a way of acknowledging her valuable input.

3. Do I have to be so filthy?
Real people use bad language an ... Read More »

My good mate from school (we were a bit like Beavis & Butthead – only thicker), David, is now in the web design business.

When he isn’t creating the modern equivalent of wallpaper, David is on the lam for a killer online business. It got me thinking… We have this thing in South Africa where a traditional African custom (as we’re whities, it didn’t apply to us) demands that the family of a bride be paid in cattle - the longstanding measure of wealth. I thought a really useful service would be if someone could log-on and see a selection of cows. He’d click on the ones he liked the look of and the selection would be delivered to the prospective father-in-law either in cash, physical cows or cows conveniently rearranged as steaks and chops. Links for the hire of tents, chairs, booze, etc, would make handy add-ons. The novelty value would get the creator into the papers at least, even if a single cow was never ordered.

I have no interest in developing websi ... Read More »

Full marks to the good people of the Scottish National Party (SNP) for suspending Glasgow councillor Jahangir Hanif  for firing an AK-47 rifle while in Pakistan.� Read More »

Here we are at the rear-end of August and Devil’s Island is about to be printed and distributed in the US.  I would never have believed that it could be this exhausting to get a book out.  Little things, like being asked questions by readers, make the exercise incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. Read More »

Brian Moore knew what was potting. Read More »