Quintin Jardine's blog

That’s a nice story; I’m glad you have those memories. I spent the first year of my life in Wishaw, and my dad was born there.

Maybe you’re making life difficult for yourself. I can shop from the UK on Amazon.com, so why shouldn’t you be able to do the reverse? However, you should take another look at the Amazon US site; the books are all there, in the Kindle store. Download the free software and you can access them through your computer, lap-top, iPad, iPhone or just about anything else.

Good old democratic Scotland is currently considering messing about with the police forces. Bob will not be best pleased if his force is merged into a single constabulary, and neither will I. I envisaged a situation a few books ago in which a fictional First Minister tried to do just that. He came to a sticky end, and so might the real Mr Salmond if he chances his arm. Politicians and police should be kept well apart.

God bless you Marjory. I hope you make it to Sevilla and Madrid. You might consider taking the high speed train. It’s a great way to travel.

I make that over 2000 novels. Yes, I reckon you can claim expert status. But expert what? That’s the question.

Sorry I’ve been off line for a couple of weeks, but I’ve been experiencing IT problems. Last April I decided to change to Apple hardware, for a whole raft of reasons, but mainly because their machines look nice and are blazing fast. I must have copped a Monday morning one, for after a full system reinstall in November, my hard disk gave up the ghost just as 2010 was drawing to a close. At that time of year, nothing happens quickly, but the repairer in Ponteland did a fine job as soon as the machine reached him. Thanks Michael. Less than warm thanks to Steve Jobs, though. The boss of Apple takes no responsibility for recovering data lost by the catastrophic collapse of one of his machines; that cost is down to the customer, even if the failed computer is one day out of the factory. Does that seem fair to you? No, I didn’t think it would.