Wilson Smillie's Musings

Welcome readers, to the dark corners in the mind of an endurance crime fiction writer.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

The report of my death was an exaggeration

So goes the famous quote by Mark Twain, published in the New York Journal in 1897, in response to a journalist’s enquiry as to the state of his health.

By Wilson Smillie, 25th August 2016

At The Edinburgh International Book Festival, on Tuesday 16th August, Ian Rankin, (@beathhigh) author of the John Rebus procedural crime series said, for the third time, that his fictional policeman was running out of time. “There is a real resonance with mortality. These are late Rebus novels. I’m very aware the clock is ticking big time, with him having retired twice. This time he’s gone – he can no longer be a cop.”

Some years ago, Rankin invented a new, slightly less dysfunctional detective, Malcolm Fox, whom I liked but many others didn’t, so responding to calls Rebus was resurrected. By popular demand or contractual commitments? 

Who can say. Maybe a bit of both.

Tartan Noir is a substantial genre in its own right and there are probably more dysfunctional detectives alive and thriving in fictional Central Scotland than there are DI’s in real life, such is the reading public’s demand for stories featuring the characters that play in the field. John Rebus is the granddaddy of them all. But everyone has to die sometime, if for no other reason than to bequeath the fictional pension to the grand-weans.

Rankin also said, at the same session, that Rebus’s techniques were at least a decade out of date and that the Frankenstein merger of the old eight police forces, born screaming in 2012 as a single Police Scotland, had horrified crime writers. It didn’t horrify me because at that time I had a character with no baggage and, as an unpublished crime fiction author, I saw it then, and still see it now, as an opportunity.

Is the time now ripe for a 21st century detective who investigates 21st century crime?

I’m biased, but I think so, yes.

What about a twenty-six-year-old female detective, university educated, born in Hong Kong of a Chinese mother to a Scots father, working in Edinburgh solving hi-tech crimes using hi-tech methods and a hint of intuition?  Single, but looking, feisty and attractive, she speaks English and Cantonese and blows much needed fresh air through the cobweb-laden corridors of Police Scotland.

In her debut novel she’s investigating the murders of businessmen in Edinburgh when she comes up against her Triad half-brother who is out for revenge against their father for abandoning him when the family emigrated to Scotland in nineteen ninety-seven.

Tartan Noir? Mibbes aye, mibbes naw.

Not yet published (I’m seeking representation), my novel Money for Nothing has little in common with John Rebus exploits except the city, the people, the crimes and the re-purposing of a famous song title.

So I’m asking all crime fiction lovers out there, yes or noir, would you read this novel, were it ever to find its way onto the shelves? 

Drop me a tweet, Yes or No to @WilsonSmillie.

Maybe one day soon, standing in freezing rain that gusts in from the east, I’ll attend John Rebus’s burial in a desecrated Fife graveyard, paying my last respects, shedding a tear or two for this departed legend who inspired me to write.  Beside me will be a young vivacious woman, dressed not in mourning black, but in eye-catching blue, complementing the luscious flame-red hair flowing down her back.

Detective Constable Sunshu Ang will pick up the fictional Noir baton and run with it.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Write a novel, watch the 2016 Olympics, and think about deleting My Manuscript

By Wilson Smillie, 18th August 2016

I’ve been writing my first novel now for nigh on five years and my journey has been peppered with highs, lows and mental bumps in the road, some of them real crises of confidence. There have been fleeting glimpses of light, like a lantern in a dark forest swaying in the breeze, but seen for long enough to convince me I may not be going mad. 

Feedback is what keeps unpublished writers like me going, without it many give up to do something more life-affirming.

I’m one of the others, a maverick convinced my tale of crime and retribution is worth publishing. Once a pin-prick of light fades I’m alone again, left only with my characters; those other-world people who counsel me and urge me to keep going. We all have much to lose if I give up.

The light in the darkness that is feedback from publishing professionals is too rare and amounts to nothing more than a photo flash. I am always hopeful it will show the path to the safe harbour of a publishing deal and not an unforgiving rock, upon which my fragile, Jenga-ish ambitions will shatter if I hit it.

So, dear reader, welcome to the dark corners in the mind of an endurance writer.

Will I ever see my novel flying off the shelves or should I abandon all hope and pack it in now, accepting that the likes of me, clutching a Scots Comprehensive education, was never meant to be a writer?  Maybe my ‘70’s English teacher was right.  I still remember the old crone’s words when she admonished me, a schemie, one day in class, as having potential with his feet, but no original ideas in his head.  Should I then, accepting the crone’s insight, simply close my eyes and fall from my precarious position on a fragile spur half-way up publishing’s Tower of Babel using my completed novel of 150,000 words as a parachute?

Bit of a waste, if I’m honest.

Giving up writing is easy, I do it for days, sometimes weeks at a time, but there’s a question that’s posed, offering me a choice of years of wailing anguish or a bi-polar illness if I climb on the wagon for ever.

That question is: do I delete the manuscript and all its copies if I’m not getting published?

If I choose to press Big D, the resulting empty folder on my hard drive will serve as my virtual tombstone, surrounded by the detritus of Microsoft’s words, along with the eulogy FAILURE! embedded in its pixelated surface for anyone who cares to read it and wonder. Taking that choice leads me straight to the bag of bi-polar spanners with its lurking uncertainties.

If I keep the manuscript but don’t develop it, or never start a new one, then I’m flagellating myself; consigned to become an ever decaying wreck, encased in a plastic human. An automaton, betrayed only by the tic, the nervous laugh and predilection to become Mr Edward Hyde when the best-seller lists are published. It would be akin to kicking the dog out of the house, then listening to it howl from the garden for the rest of my life.

However, I know the answer to this conundrum.

I didn’t spend all this time at my keyboard to give up now, and, I’ve admitted to myself that I’d never, ever, willingly, delete my manuscript, even if it’s been re-written eight times and bears no resemblance to the original 2012 draft (although the plot has survived). Wallace Henry Hartley, musician on the RMS Titanic, famously rescued his beloved violin as the unsinkable ship sank in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic and made sure it was sealed in a water-tight shell, to float and survive intact, while he unwillingly accepted his end.

That’s the way it works for people like Hartley and me.

Five years ago I launched into this project with enthusiasm and, since then, it’s been a roller-coaster ride with no brakes and no buffers in sight. I didn’t know, when I bought the ticket and strapped myself in that I wouldn’t be able to get off, even when I threw up over the side a couple of times. While I sit here, knuckles white from gripping the safety rail, mildly depressed at my lack of success, I don’t want to get off, but do want the ride to meander a bit so I can catch my breath and let others properly assess what I’ve achieved.

In the next few weeks the annual York Festival of Writing will begin, and again, I’ll attend. This time, I’m more prepared than ever. Separate, independent book-doctors have commented positively on excerpts of my writing style and story and in the run-up, I’ve developed a good pitch and a workable synopsis and I’ve been reading out loud to hone my presentation skills, thankful for the thick walls I have in my home.

For the past two months I’ve pitched to agents who’ll not be at York. None of them have offered to represent me but all have pleasantly taken the time to turn me down. That’s better than no light at all.

So, is this moment now simply the calm before the storm, the darkest hour before dawn, fingernails cutting deep into my palms as I wait for the starter’s gun to fire and am I only one pitch away from negotiating the holy grail of a publishing deal?

At the moment, I’m reminded by wall-to-wall coverage of the Rio 2016 Olympics just how successful our GB athletes’ are, and how hard they have worked, how dedicated they are with the hours and hours of work they put in and how lucky we GB lesser mortals are, stuck here on Brexit island, to have these heroes fighting our corner against an uncaring world.

Am I working just as hard? Doesn’t feel like it because there is no physical pain so there must be no physical gain. But what goes on in my mind tells another story …

As an ex-professional footballer, who put in a fair few shifts in my twenty-odd years playing the beautiful game, I get the hard work ethic thing.  I really do. The old crone of an English teacher was right about the potential in my feet, but only a few of those years were ‘professional’ in the proper meaning of the term; nevertheless, I understand what the GB athletes and their coaches and support teams have put themselves through to achieve such rampant success.

At the moment I’m also reminded by the recent coverage of the death by Taser of ex-Aston Villa footballer, Dalian Atkinson, a bygone hero of days past. More of this will out in the coming weeks and months, but by all accounts, he was depressed, delusional and suffering mental illness as a result of isolation with little or no support since retiring from football some years ago.

At the moment I’m also reminded by seeing Oh Hello! a play at the Edinburgh Festival which dramatised the final years of the actor Charles Hawtrey, a bygone hero of the silver screen, as he sank into depression and mental illness, resulting from his self-proclaimed prowess as an A-list actor and his alcohol-fuelled desire to isolate himself from those who wanted to help him. He died in 1988 and no family or friends attended his funeral.

What I know, some twenty-five years since my football career vanished and I changed course, and since taking up writing, is that the margin between golden success and abject failure is infinitesimal, but the accounting for it takes a lifetime, not a couple of weeks in Rio. Some of today’s Olympic heroes will follow the well-trodden path that Dalian and Charles took, but we won’t and can’t predict who’ll they’ll be.

Sitting here in front of my computer, musing over the connection between the events I’ve described above, I realise that they represent a thin spectrum of human endeavour and, at the moment, on this particularly narrow rainbow, I’d place myself somewhere between Dalian Atkinson and Charles Hawtrey.

I’m a faded, off-yellow-ish football player has-been and IT guru who’s trying to reinvent himself as a published crime writer. There are major differences, of course, between them and me.

I recognised, from an early age, that life wasn’t a single continuum of happiness that stretched, unbroken, from cradle to grave, so I acquired the skills early to reinvent myself when needed. Atkinson and Hawtrey, separately and together failed to recognise their trajectories and failed to acknowledge their personal accountability to lead their own lives according to their own plans. They both paid a heavy price for that mis-read.

Much as physical exercise benefits our young athletes, creative exercise benefits the mental health of our older, former athletes. It’s not an easy transition to make though, as the old crone made sure, for decades after, that I felt I had no place in creative endeavour and it took a lot of self-reflection before I could finally cast off her shadow. But to counter her words of that long ago day, I developed a voracious appetite for reading.

I know I won’t go down Atkinson and Hawtrey’s road, because I’ve already travelled it, met depression, and turned away to another destination. Even if I never get that longed for publishing deal, writing crime fiction has been a salvation for my mental and physical well-being. It’s given me purpose in the long dark nights of Scottish winters and a reason to organise those sometimes wild ideas that roam the plains of my head, its forced a writing discipline on me that I call draft-sleep-edit and repeats itself daily.

It doesn’t mean I don’t rant; I’m Scottish, it’s what we do, so get used to it.

It doesn’t mean I don’t feel down at times, sometimes depressingly down, because I recognise it and stand myself up again.

It doesn’t mean I don’t, from time-to-time, wish a pox on the whole publishing industry, but I don’t really mean it, it’s a form of self-release, because, unlike my national brothers-in-arms, and Charles Hawtrey, I don’t really like drinking alcohol.

So I keep writing … until next time.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

The Turnip is Rotten inside

Donald J Trump, a.k.a The Turnip, Republican candidate for the 2016 POTUS election you have one big problem and it isn’t Hillary Clinton.

@realdonaldtrump​, You are an imbecile.

Wilson Smillie, 10th August 2016

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Lessons Will Be Learned

Says David Cameron today, without a trace of irony, when responding to publication of the Chilcot Report on the war in Iraq conducted by the last Labour Government.

Sorry Dave, you’re wrong; they won’t be.

By Wilson Smillie, 6th July 2016

Cameron clearly doesn’t feel the need, as outgoing UK Prime Minister, to be accountable for learning the lessons of running a Referendum campaign that forced the country to jump into the Brexit abyss. 

Hope is not a strategy, Dave, its an abdication of wit.

I work in Corporate-land and my industry is famous for its post-fuck-up lessons learned reports. It’s also famous for filing said reports deep in the layers of the corporate bunker, where no one will ever find them, no matter how hard and how long they search. Corporates resort to type at any whiff of scandal so the people force-fed these lessons find themselves on the streets soon after, perhaps even sitting outside their former employer’s tower, holding a paper cup collecting enough change for a coffee ... double shot, skinny soya, extra hot ... please? 

Some of these unfortunates (or fortunates, depending on your view) dust off their CV, spin their association with lessons into ‘an amazing learning opportunity’, and then, ‘having overcome significant personal obstacles’ go on to ‘deliver a successful outcome for new clients.’

In the world of resumes and recruitment its called ‘accentuating the positives’.

Today, in the immediate post-Cameron, resignation aftermath, Theresa May got her team out to brief against her rival for the top gig of next UK PM by highlighting to a Times reporter just how far @andrealeadsom went to accentuate the positives during her ‘stellar career’ in the City.

According to Mrs Leadsom’s CV her 25 years in financial services included running enormous teams and managing funds worth billions of UK pounds. Not so, say former colleagues who went on to imply that she couldn’t manage a fish supper and wouldn’t be trusted to make a profit at Monopoly if she had all the high value squares and was playing against her dog.

‘Job titles can be misleading’ was one quote. Well, that’s true, but what about ‘senior investment officer & head of corporate governance’? In my experience that describes a heavy-weight career manager-type person with presence and plenty of nous. And a big salary.

However, at Invesco Perpetual “she did not manage any teams, large or small, and she certainly did not manage any funds”.”

Her campaign spokesman clarified the point thus: “It looks as though the issue is that anyone who reads Andrea’s CV and attaches a lot of weight to that particular role may actually be under some slight misapprehension as to what it was she actually did.”

Right. Positives well and truly accentuated.

I know what this woman ‘actually did’ in her ‘stellar career’ and I’ve never met her and don’t wish to. She did nothing. Less than bugger all. She leeched off the funds her employer managed and was kept as far away as possible from anything where there was the slightest possibility she might fuck it up.

Liar, liar, panties on fire.

This barefaced lie from a woman who aspires to be Leader of the Conservative Party and de-facto Prime Minister (un-elected) is outrageous. But nobody in London seems to have batted an eyelid that she is an out-and-out fraud, many of her MP colleagues have voted for her and the men and women of the press are treating her as a serious candidate. She’s oblivious to the scandal and acting as if this is all normal ... which to be fair, for Westminster, it is.

So, to be clear, that’s two inveterate liars running for Leader of the ruling Conservative Party against Theresa May, a woman who would never describe herself as ‘feminine’.

This is exactly why ordinary people don’t trust politics, politicians or anything any of them say or do.

Lessons learned? No chance. The politicians are not for learning, to wrangle a quote from a previous female Prime Minister.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

The Three Musketeers

Famous revolutions have famous revolutionaries and there’s one happening in the UK right now, so for your entertainment and delectation here’s all you need to know about the UK’s most fucked up politicos and what this little person thinks about them. 

This is my first blog piece for a wee while, I’ve been spending my time working on my novel to get it to the point where it’s fit for publishing, but now is the right time, I think, to get off the blog-wagon and back in the saddle.

Wilson Smillie, 4th July 2016

THE MAN WITHOUT A PLAN

Nigel ‘Athos’ Farage (@nigel_farage).  “He seeks solace in wine and desires to be a father figure to D’Artagnan.”

Famous for his beer-swilling portraits, Johnny-foreigner sound-bites, braying-donkey laugh and generally being England’s best representative of the worst kind of Englishman. 

Now ex-leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) after campaigning for 17 long hard years to get the UK out of Europe. Rest easy my son, you’ve done a grand job.

‘Job done,’ said Nigel today, Monday 4th July (Independence Day). ‘My work here is over,’ he might also have said, but he’d have to actually do some work first and that would be misrepresentation. ‘Now I’m off to get totally trollied, so good fuck to you all,’ he probably didn’t say that, but the sentiment is sincere.

So Nigel, the 17m people who voted for the xenophobic pish you spouted and the 16m people who voted for Remain are now all in the same boat while you’re off to get pissed leaving us to fend for ourselves. And talking of boats, while mixing my analogies, it reminds me of a single rat; the Italian Francesco Schettino, once captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner who, after directing his ship onto the rocks, much like you did, felt he was better able to coordinate the passengers rescue from the safety of the shore. 

You Farage, have no intention of coordinating any rescue effort. As far as you are concerned its every Englishman for himself and who gives a fuck about the women and children.

Better off without you Nige, it’s not been a blast.

THE MAN WITHOUT A CLUE

No prizes for this one unfortunately. 

Boris ‘Porthos’ Johnson (@BorisJohnson). Bo-Jo, the original FatFace. 

“A dandy of a man, less cerebral that the others and keen to make a fortune for himself” he’s been more comprehensively rogered than any Englishman in history, and, as a former pupil of the English Public School system that’s saying something. In fact, he’s not a man anymore, he’s venison plastered across the tarmac after the truck rolled over him, stopped, reversed back over him, slammed it into first, floored it and ran over him again. And again, and again, on endless repeats until the fuel runs out.

Initially, I felt sooo sorry for you when the Govemeister done you over, but now I feel sick. Not a peep from your Duracell-powered motor-mouth, the famous random word generator that defies speech-writers and teleprompters alike. You must be wailing into your mothers bosom in a childish rage, but that’s a week now Boris, come on; people will start to think you’ve got an Oedipus Complex and your wife will leave you for an affair with Michael Gove. 

You, and your pals, like Fuckoff Farage, led us all into this mess and now you’ve abandoned us to the mercy of ... Theresa May. Surely you believed all that shit you spouted these last weeks? Where’s your conviction, your desire, your belief in a better not-European world, or has your get up and go flopped down and died? 

Get up man! Help us for fuxsake, ‘cos if you don’t no-one will ever, ever, trust you again. Or maybe you’re proving you’re just an upper-class twat that’s been royally shafted once too often and can’t cope. 

Nanny, when’s the next bus to Sanatorium City? 

THE MAN WITHOUT A PRINCIPLE

Who else. If you didn’t know about Michael ‘Aramis’ Gove (@Michael_Gove) before last week, you’ll know all about him now. 

A devotee of Donald ‘The Turnip’ Trump “with a fondness for women and scheming” he was schooled by Niccolo Machiavelli and graduated with a First in Back-Stabbing from the Universita degli Studi di Brutus in Rome.

Still confused? He’s the truck-driver in the Bo-Jo story above, and, a week after ‘the accident’, he’s still making sure the road-kill stays dead. He initially hitched his trailer to his boss’s tractor but once he found out Bo-Jo didn’t have an HGV licence to drive, they swapped seats. 

Boris now knows why the Govemeister’s superhero name is: THE JUSTICE SECRETARY.

The third of the Musketeers who bounded across the country telling us we’d be better off with you in the driving seat, you’ve been unmasked as a spineless, wheedling, nasty little schoolboy with a face that just won’t burst into plooks however hard you try squeezing your face in the mirror.  You’ve sucked the oxygen out of every person in the country to feed your petty, naked, ambition and you’ll fearlessly kick anyone who falls down faint in your way. 

There are many quotes on the internet that prove, absolutely, that you Gove, are an inveterate liar and cannot be trusted to come home with the milk if sent down the shops with the money. But the one that resonates most with me is when you were asked, a month ago, if you’d consider running for Prime Minister. 

‘I don’t want to do it [Yes I do], there are people out there much better equipped than me [No one’s better than me. It’s mine, MINE I tell you!].’

Liar, liar, psychopathic pants on fire.

All politicians are liars and, quite frankly, ordinary people (Farage’s ‘little people’) couldn’t care less, because 99.99% of the time what politico-elites say doesn’t really matter, it’s what they do that counts. But in times of crisis we expect them to stand up and be counted. 

You, Michael Gove (@Gove2016) will stand behind everyone else so that they take the bullets first.

Plooks are an adolescent misery. May the pus be with you.

THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO

Yes, you guessed correctly, it’s Dave ‘D’Artagnan’ Cameron (@David_CameronMP), “A young, foolhardy, brave and clever man” seeking to  bet his farm on Remain remaining in Europe. 

You lost. Way to go Dave. Thanks for that. What about us, the little people you’ve abandoned?

So you had a wee problem with the Euro sceptics in the Conservative Party and you set up a show-down with them (pity you didn’t plan for the options after the showdown). 

In your approach plan, at noon in Dodge, you draw fast and true and Boris’s gang tastes horseshit (that bit went to plan, just that it wasn’t your plan). That was the beginning and end of your dreams ... sorry plans.

Absolutely Fabulous.

How many people ASKED for the EU Referendum? A few, but they were all members of your Tory right-wing, supplemented with Fuckwit Farage’s bully-boys and you only wanted them to shut up and let you govern the country with a safe majority. The rest of us NORMAL PEOPLE didn’t want to have to make the choice but you forced us into it, and now look what you’ve done.

Of course, your response to losing is to do the Right Honourable public-school politico thing and resign (another rat abandons the UK Costa Concordia to its fate on the rocks) while ripping off the the steering wheel and handing it to the Brexit mob. They’ve all been unmasked as fuckin’ lunatics with no Master’s ticket between them and they never really wanted it to happen in the first place. It was all a practical joke for them, really.

Farage has bailed, Johnson’s found religion and Jack Torrance is freely assassinating the ships crew while simultaneously running for PM.

Ask Michael Gove to Google ‘The Shining’ if you don’t know who Jack Torrance is.  

Dave ... mate ... I liked you (past tense), you’re a decent guy but you can’t pick your friends and now you’ve left us with ... Jeremy Corbyn.

This is a right Royal revolutionary fuck-up. And its all your fault.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Irvine Welsh author of Trainspotting, Porno and Blade Artist, on stage at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall with Robert Carlyle, actor and Frances Begbie incarnate.

Photo copyright 2016, Brian Wilson Photographer

[wilsonsmillieblog]

A New World Order?

By Wilson Smillie, February 2016

Does anyone feel that the Old World has been flipped? 

First, was Scotland’s referendum to divorce itself from the 300 year-old United Kingdom, now a UK referendum to similarly desert the nascent European Union. The UK Conservative Party lurches right, the UK Labour Party trips left over its ecologically-sound shoelaces. A hung Irish election is not a joke. France is besieged by its immigrant citizens. Europe suffers invasion by migrants, and Germany loses 1 million of them in a few months. Greece is bankrupt (OK, no change there), Iran shifts West into the American economic zone with encouragement from McDonald’s.

An illiterate psychopath is favourite to win the US Republican Party nomination for President, the Democrats out themselves as Socialist, previously respected global institutions FIFA and the IOC reveal themselves as corrupt to the core whilst their officials and executives deny any wrongdoing. Russia assassinates its dissident citizens before they blow the whistle on their Government’s illegal activities. North Korea develops a nuclear bomb and petrol is cheaper than it’s been in decades.

What do all these things have in common?

The financial crash of 2008/2009 is good place to start. Bankers ripped off ordinary people for years and were rescued by their Governments when they blew off the lid. Since then, these Governments have propped up economies, enriching their Elites at the expense of the Middle Classes (technical middle class, new affluent workers and traditional working class). So while these everyday people lost their jobs and houses, the high-living elites snapped them up at bargain prices then lobbied their political friends to inflate asset prices through Quantitative Easing (QE).

Yet, when a steel works announces its closure the UK Government stands back and lets it fall. People, voters, taxpayers, wonder just who is shagging who. Now, all these people who lost out are being asked to vote the political establishment back in for more of the same. 

What’s surprising in this scenario is that media commentators are surprised. Don’t they know history?

In America @realdonaldtrump​ is embracing Fascism because he likes an Il Duce quote, particularly as he doesn’t have to spell it himself. They guy has skin thicker than an elephant and is too stupid to care that he’s a moron, but Republican voters are flocking to him in droves simply because he’s not Washington establishment. No one else, without exception, could ever get away with spouting a fraction of the stuff that passes for his soundbites.

Last year I noted in my blog on the Turnip here that the GOP elders should have moved earlier to take him out of the race, but they were indecisive then and now their house of cards is collapsing around them. @GovChristie has shown the morals of an alley cat by siding up with the Turnip hoping he’ll get into the White House via his secret passage.

Meanwhile on the left of American politics ... @SenSanders spoke of his socialist beliefs which, for many homespun red-necks, is Communism by another name, but he was cheered for it. We here in UKland tend to view America generally, and American elections particularly, as the spawn of Hollywood, as, for us, we know exactly what the cost/benefit is of universal healthcare and couldn’t image life without the NHS at the Government’s cost.

This turmoil of the Precariat will create new demographics, dragging in the New Middle Classes who have the motivation and intellect to enable revolution in countries previously considered stable, like North America and the UK, so it’s possible that these extremes of behaviour we’re seeing from our leaders today will lead to new civil wars, if recent conflicts are anything to go by. If Libya and Syria and Iraq can be pulled into the mire, why not stable Old World, westernised regimes?

I envision a new radical American Civil conflict in a decade or so, when the potent mix of caustic politics, belligerent religion, guns, race and Donald J Turnip is given enough time in the Hollywood oven to rise. America is a fading super-power (just like the UK was at the end of the 19th century) but is one with a functioning and dangerously capitalist Military-Industrial complex that has developed war technology to heights never before imagined. If they turn on themselves the Battle of Gettysburg will be a fairground sideshow compared to the bloodshed that could happen.

The Chinese are not even close to the USA in military terms and Russia, the traditional Cold War enemy, is trailing along in 10th place behind Iran, India and a slew of Eastern nations developing modern weapons. Europe, considering the wars set there in the last 200 years, is adopting a pacifist approach, so maybe PM Cameron is right to distance himself from its desire for ‘ever closer union’.

Most people alive today were born in the post-WWII period and have never experienced conflict on that scale, so they don’t recognise the parallel universe of growing clouds of dissent that characterised mainland Europe in the 1930′s, even considering WWII was the most filmed and photographed conflict ever. Britain and France sleepwalked into the 1940′s, always believing that Hitler would stop at Poland but when a Presidential candidate in 2016 invokes memories of Fascist leaders like Mussolini and Hitler, people today just shrug it off as the Turnip giving them a laugh, but this nutter could lead the USA to total annihilation and create a hell of a lot of collateral damage elsewhere.

But underpinning Trump’s success is a frightening discontent with the Old World status quo, one that politicians nor commentators across the globe yet believe creates a real and present threat to life as we know it.

The seeds of this turmoil were sown when President Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Banking act in 1999 and the spores of that decision spread through banks in the West over the next five years faster than a virus, culminating in the financial rape and pillage of millions of people who did nothing other than take the money offered. Oh, and only a handful of lower-order banker's went to jail and most of the guilty institutions are still there, functioning and thriving.

We should be concerned.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

I typed the name Begbie in an email. The spell checker said 'Ignore'. How do you ignore Francis Begbie?

Wilson Smillie with a nod to Irvine Welsh. 

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Jesus with a Stratocaster.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Which one of these characters is most likely to appeal to Republicans?

By Wilson Smillie, December 2015.

I’ve written much about my views on @realdonaldtrump perspectives of the world he lives in but the latest suggestions from some people that he’s an agent for the Democratic Party suggests that the GOP elders hold the same warped views of the world as he does.

“If you’re not for us, you’re against us,” the saying usually goes, but Republicans now feel The Turnip’s for them and against them at the same time! There’s no convoluted conspiracy theory here. @Hillaryclinton isn’t the Democratic spy-master who’s planted Donald J Turnip as a sleeper back in the 1970′s. There’s a simpler explanation.

Trump’s an idiot. A billionaire idiot. If it wasn’t for his fortune he would have no platform to air these views because they’re alien, which simply implicates his supporters as lacking in American values. He has no ideology, other than making money for himself, and this absence of creed as a foundation results in the random outbursts we’re all too familiar with. If that was all he was, he could knock himself out: nobody would care.

But an idiot as a @2016POTUS candidate is a danger to everyone he doesn’t know ... which means quite a lot of people who won’t (and can’t) vote for him have a right to be concerned. The Republican Party elite are caught like rabbits in the headlights by his lead in the polls, to their discredit, because they should have disqualified him from running long before now.

He’s been compared to Adolf Hitler, one madman amongst many the 20th century produced, for his radical and sudden turns of thought. Hitler’s views were amplified by his cohorts, Himmler, Goering, et al, and his wishes carried out by the SS, but in his early days Hitler has just another radical amongst radicals on both the left and right. 

So who’s to say a future US Executive wouldn’t imprison undesirables in the name of a President who was too ignorant to know and too stupid to care? 

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Cannot continue this operation on a Rooted Device

By Wilson Smillie, 13th December 2015

Eh?

It’s a growing problem in the Android phone handset world particularly as banks and financial services companies (and Apple and Google) push for more retail payments by mobile phone.

The fug of angst rising from the GeekSphere chokes me so much I can’t stop laughing, but only because I’ve experienced it myself and fixed it the permanent and proper way; by unrooting my Nexus 6.

For the unworldly out there its banking speak for ‘Your phone is rooted so you’re attempt at payment is fucked and I’m not letting you (potentially) infect my systems with your viruses’.

If you’re reading this wondering what to do to get Barclay’s Pingit, Google Pay or another mobile payments app working on your rooted device, then you’re probably not a Geek and are wishing you’d never let your mate (now ex-mate) talk you into rooting Android in the first place. You might even be considering buying an iPhone!

In Dungeons & Dragons speak ... ‘You face two options ...’

1. Wrangle the damn thing to fudge it so that the fact it’s rooted isn’t exposed to Apps like Pingit. This option is also known as ‘keep digging until you hit bedrock, then start drilling’. It’s also the option of choice for the introverted Geek who relishes the days and weeks spent chained to his computer coding a work-around.

2. Unroot your device permanently.

Easy choice, eh?

Not really, but its time to bite the bullet. Unrooting will scrub all your personal data. Everything. All of it. Even if the tool you choose to use to unroot says ‘Preserve personal data?’ Nope. Gone.

Take a backup first, but don’t use tools like Titanium Backup (only restores on rooted devices), so find a proper way. Also, think just how vital is that personal data to you? Many Apps, like email, store your stuff on servers, so once you reconnect your account to the newly unrooted device, it all comes back. Push the vital files up onto DropBox, or Google Drive and get it off your phone. Married with some sexy texts from the girlfriend you like to wa ... sorry, pour over in the bathroom? Rooting your phone will wipe them forever. Have to keep them? Don’t.

Re-boot your life buddy. Stop trying to kid on you’re a geek and admit it to yourself; you’re not. Don’t tell anyone else though.

The Geekerati will saw their way through this until Barclays work out what they’ve done and block them, then the cycle will repeat ... endlessly. The custom ROM folks like ClockworkMod will survive but if you’d wanted their ROM you’d have bought that ROM in the first place. Why buy an Android phone if you don’t want Android ... to put a custom ROM on because you can? Fine. Fill your boots, knock yourself out, use cash.

To get yourself completely out of the hole you’re in, look up #WugFresh and see if he’s developed his Root Toolkit for your device. If he hasn’t, well ... iPhones are OK I suppose.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Sync Outlook and Android (for Outlook users)

By Wilson Smillie, 13th December 2015

Some things in modern life are easy, others are harder than they need to be. Top of my ‘Too Hard’ list this weekend was synchronizing my Microsoft Outlook Contacts and Calendars with Google’s Contacts and Calendar apps on my Nexus 6.

Some background: I’d committed the schoolboy error of rooting my shiny, new Nexus 6 a year ago and found myself in a world of pain populated by immature Geeklets with no understanding of the phrase ‘inter-personal skill’. I even paid money for ‘Pro’ versions of some of these rooted Apps on the basis I’d get support. More often than not, the support consisted of radio static, and when someone did reply, it was to berate me for being an idiot who deserved everything I got, or to slag me for not reading every single post ever written on the subject I couldn’t understand.

As an ex-Unix admin of prior decades, I took some of this abuse on the chin and did attempt the recommended research but got fed up when most posts seemed to consist of Geeklet #1 slagging Geeklet #2, #3 ... #102 for incompetence. I hear enough of that at work. I attempted to unroot my phone by following some Geeky advice. Needless to say, I ended up with a partly-rooted phone, no data, and no will to live. Twice.

I left well alone for 6 months and the half-shut-root seemed to be OK. I got OTA Android upgrades (Yay!) without resorting to sideloading and all seemed well ... until a batch of new App upgrades requiring credit card details refused to work properly on the basis the device was rooted.

So for the 4th time, I attempted to close off the slightly ajar rootedness of my phone.

My previous attempts involved Android SDK’s, masonic-like finger gestures and a whole load of grief so I was keen not to go there again, hoping that someone out there in the geek-sty had risen above the petty squabbling and produced something vaguely usable.

Cue stage left: The Nexus Root Toolkit from Douglas Cohen, aka WugFresh. It’s not for the faint-hearted, the easily frightened, or old grannies, but small children will take to it just fine. It works and it worked on my Nexus 6 (although afterwards, I reckoned I could have gone to the final step and just locked it using the OEM Unlock button, but c’est la vie, as the geeks don’t understand).

It suggests it’ll preserve your data, but it didn’t preserve mine, hence my requirement stated at the top of the article to re-sync my life. So back to the plot and cut to the chase.

A glance at most articles proposed by the internet search phrase ‘Synchronise Outlook contacts and calendar with Nexus/Android/Google Mail/Calendar/Contacts’ or any such phrases broadly similar will throw up many alternate suggestions, including buying, downloading and using 3rd party utilities that do the job for you. I can’t comment on how good they are because I didn’t use any of them. If you use an autoscript to configure Outlook (an Exchange.1and1 approach) and you don’t know your SMTP Server from your TLS Authentication, you might struggle with the method documented here as the basis of it is to set up the email configuration manually.

In that scenario, if your email service can’t (or won’t) set it up for you, you could try installing one of the 3rd party utilities, but if you’re prepared to get down and dirty (without step-by-step instructions) this method might save you some grief.

I can’t speak for non-Nexus 6 devices because I’ve never used HTC or Samsung’s offerings, but I believe any of the Nexus range using Android 4.0 and above support this method. I’m using Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow but the steps should be similar in any lesser version. Can’t say for newer ones, obviously.

The essence of this method is duplicate your Outlook email account setup in Google Mail (Gmail), but only select to sync Contacts & Calendar in Gmail thereby providing the illusion that Outlook & Gmail are synchronized (they are, but the Exchange/IMAP/POP account on your ISP’s server is providing the synchronisation service). 

Assumptions/Prerequisites:

1. A working Android phone, connected via wi-fi or carrier to the internet.

2. You’ve got a version of Google’s Gmail in Android and you’re signed into your Google account (which you need to use an Android phone).

3. You’ve installed Outlook (any version for Android) and you’ve got email, contact and calendar items up and running inside Outlook and you can send & receive email.

4. If you have a Microsoft account, sign-in, but this is optional and not required unless you use Outlook.com (if you do use Outlook.com you shouldn’t have a sync issue, but if you do, this’ll still work).

Solution:

1. Tap Settings/Accounts or go into Accounts any other way that suits you.

2. Add an Account. The phone will list all the types of Accounts it recognises, but it will show three Google Mail icons with options for ‘Exchange’, ‘IMAP’ or ‘POP. (if you still use POP consider changing to IMAP as it supports auto-sync along with everything POP offers).

3. Choose the Google Mail icon type that matches your Outlook setup, then enter your configuration options (email address, password, etc., as per your Outlook setup.) This will set up an email account in Google Mail. 

4. Still in the Accounts section, tap the Google Mail icon for the account you just created.

5. Don’t be tempted to ‘Sync now’ if that option is offered (and if it’s your first visit to this screen). Instead tap ‘Account Settings’.

6. You are now in Google Mail/Contacts/Calendar application settings and it should show at least one account ... the one you’ve just created in step 3, but there may be others. Find your Account Name, usually the email address, and tap on it.

7. Swipe up until you see the options for ‘Sync email/contacts/calendar’ and set Contacts and Calendar to sync. If Outlook is your primary email client, deselect ‘Sync email’ and also ensure ‘Email notifications’ is deselected otherwise you’ll be notified twice (once by Outlook and again by Gmail).

8. You’re done. You can set other Gmail preferences as you see fit, but remember this is EXCLUSIVELY the Gmail App ... they’ll have no effect on Outlook settings.

9. Flick into the Google Calendar App and you should see your events and appointments from Outlook, but remember, you’re in Gmail and there might even be events showing in a different colour coming from Gmail. Unlike Contacts, there’s no way to filter only for the Outlook events, but if you’re used to only adding events in Outlook, you’ll be fine.

10a. Two final steps for Contacts. Flick into the Contacts App and ensure you tap the ‘All’ tab, then tap the three-dots on top right and choose ‘Contacts to Display’. Select your Google Mail email address (not your Outlook one of the same name), then go back to Contacts and they should now show up. 

10b. In the Contacts App choose ‘Settings’ and set the ‘Default account for new contacts’ to your newly added Gmail account. Doing this will enable two-way sync with Outlook for Contacts.

I’m not a technical support service, but you can drop me a note if you’re having trouble with these steps and I’ll try to help.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

FIFA: Friends ... who needs them?

FIFA’s house of cards continues to lose its structural integrity as Sepp Blatter speaks more about what passed as ‘business-as-usual’ for FIFA in the golden days before the 2015 symposium in Switzerland saw many of his cronies indicted on charges of fraud.

Since he himself was suspended for 90 days by FIFA’s Ethics Committee (a committee lifted unashamedly straight from George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth) chaired by a one-time friend and now-forevermore enemy, he’s recently spoken about the FIFA-authorised process to decide which bidding countries would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals,

In parallel with that revelation we also have the public X-Factor show of the likely contenders for Fraudmeister-in-Chief of FIFA which seems to have knocked Blatter’s feud with his long-standing nemesis, Michele Platini off the top spot, due to the PR-spun denials of Sheik How-dare-You-question-MY-Version-of-the-Truth that he was ever involved in any committee set up by him in to investigate, identify, torture and imprison athletes and footballers who might have been seen protesting against the King of Bahrain’s rule in 2011 (source The Guardian).

It’s laughable to note that archive materials published in 2011 on the Bahrain FA’s own website extol at length how gracious it was that Sheik Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa agreed to chair said committee of inquiry, yet now the PR-agency employed to get his candidacy for FIFA legitimised states the committee was never formed, never met and didn’t do anything. 

So it’s now black and white: either he lied then, or he’s lying now.

As a man with an ego so far up his own arse that, until now, he insisted his title and name always be quoted in full, he’s shitting himself because he can’t now suggest it was some other Sheik Salman who did the deed on the footballing community in his home country. Welcome to the Western World of freedom of news, sir.

Back to Blatter: the man and faux leader of global football, who earlier this year stated that he was unequivocally unaware of any fraud, corruption or dirty-dealing on his 17-year watch, nows says (unequivocally) that the decision to award the 2018 WC to Russia was ‘agreed beforehand’ and that had FIFA’s stated plan to award the 2022 WC to USA been allowed to flower none of the current unpleasantness would ever have happened.

Enter stage left: the viperous Platini, a man who’d been planning this coup on the naive, gregarious and football-focused Blatter since before either of them were born. Aye, right! Platini’s crime was that he went against the agreed plan and shifted his four UEFA votes away from the USA, meaning Qatar got the gig. I’m not quite sure how it transpired that Qatar benefited from this unplanned move, except that as everyone in football has objected to the feasibility of playing in 50c heat (and watching and travelling, to and from stadia), it gives Blatter yet another chance at fingering Platini in the reasons why Qatar won the bid.

Blatter has a humongous hard-on for the President of UEFA, so much so that Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that makes Viagra, wants to tap his blood and use it as the base for the next generation of erectile dysfunction pills.

What was clear early on in the FIFA scandal was that if Blatter went down, he wasn’t going down alone and, by-God if no one else, Michele Platini was going down too. I think it likely that every decision FIFA took during Blatter’s tenure, from WC hosts to the brand of coffee used in the canteen, was fraudulent in some way, so why then pick the one where Mr Blatter made a payment to Mr Platini that ‘disadvantaged FIFA’.

Because it impaled Platini on the stake of corruption along with the others, that’s why.

The news that FIFA decided in advance of bidders submissions who received the WC hosting package certainly legitimises Jack Warner’s claim that South Africa knew where their $10m payment was going: to ensure the 2010 competition went their way by buying his vote. But actually, the SA FA must feel right fools now ... it was coming their way by default.

England’s Football Association, THE FA, rolled out their empty-headed chairman, the vacuous Greg Dyke to complain publicly that England’s Government were robbed of £2.5m in bidding costs for a competition they were never going to get. While he has a point, its not one he himself likely thought up. Dyke is part of an establishment that rules most of Britain’s institutions; whose sole achievements are to be considered ‘a safe pair of hands’ ... otherwise known as ‘the see-nothing, say-nothing, do-nothing brigade’. His organisational abilities have failed, LWT, the BBC, Brentford FC, Manchester United and now The FA, but the good news is that while he remains at the FA he won’t stagnate another deserving institution.

Maybe he should consider standing for FIFA president ... oh, but Blatter has the goods on him, I’m sure.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Ian Ruddock: A Miscarriage Of Justice?

By Wilson Smillie, October 2015

Yesterday, a man called Ian Ruddock was jailed for 12 years by a court in Glasgow for killing his five-weeks old daughter Olivia in 2011 and the attempted murder of an unrelated baby boy in 2013.

I confess to some unease at the decision, on the basis of the report published by the BBC here. I have to say straight away, I know nothing of the detail of the case other than what’s published and I’m not one for jumping to conclusions based on stereotyping, but even in such a short article there are enough pointers to raise doubts in me as to the soundness of the verdict.

His daughter died in 2011 and initially, doctors concluded the baby had died of bronchial pneumonia. Another incident in 2013 involving a baby boy (no other details given) prompted an investigation that resulted in his trial and a guilty verdict of culpable homicide.

Here’s the definition, in Scots Law:  ‘Culpable homicide is committed where the accused has caused loss of life through wrongful conduct, but where there was no intention to kill or 'wicked recklessness'.

In most court cases, culpable homicide follows as a result of a failure of the Crown to prove murder. Murder being the deliberate act of killing with malice aforethought. In essence, culpable homicide is causing death through deliberate negligence; but contrast this verdict with another case, much more in the public eye: the case of Harry Clarke, the driver of the Glasgow bin lorry that killed six people in December 2014.

Scotland’s prosecutor, the Crown Office, decided early, before the Fatal Accident Inquiry, that no one was to be prosecuted and it was a tragic accident; yet the facts revealed in the FAI should point to Mr Clarke being charged with culpable homicide ‘through wrongful conduct’ in repeatedly lying to his employers and continuing to drive PSV’s even though he himself was aware of his disability. 

The Bin Lorry ‘case’ rumbles on, but I find it difficult to accept that Ian Ruddock and Harry Clarke share the same degree of ‘wicked recklessness’.

I have a five-week old granddaughter and she’s the most precious and fragile thing in my life. I would kill anyone who caused her harm and would bring down hell upon anyone who targeted my family, willfully or otherwise, so why should I have even the slightest gram of compassion for Ian Ruddock?

Because I don’t believe, based on what’s presented, that he would ‘recklessly’ set out to injure his daughter or another baby. 

His wife and sister believe he’s innocent. Some family members who don’t live day-to-day with their adult siblings can be blind-sided by a sense of loyalty based on their shared childhood, but not a wife-partner. A woman who gives birth to a child has a bond with her child that is infinitely stronger than a marriage certificate and if her husband seeks to harm the child she’d go for his throat.

I can only imagine what Ian and his wife went through in 2011 and since, but four years later she is still by his side. For me, that speaks volumes.

The judge’s comments, on sentencing, are guarded and indicate a decision to sit firmly on the fence. If I was to analyse, I’d conclude Lord Bannatyne doesn’t agree with the majority decision, but by the very nature of trial by jury, he cannot overturn it.

Add into that, the split in the medical profession around the primary cause of the children’s injuries and the underlying cause of Olivia’s death then you have, in my opinion established ‘reasonable doubt’.

In the meantime, Ian Ruddock is about to experience another type of hell; that of a Scottish prison (most likely, the infamous Bar-L) where child killers are considered lower scum than most. On one hand he’ll have to be segregated for his own safety and on another he’ll be exposed to real child molesters and that, I suspect, will change his outlook forever. Mrs Ruddock will continue to support him, but the man she married will be forever different when he sees again, the light of day.

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Official: Living will kill you

HEALTH WARNING: IF YOU ARE ALIVE TODAY YOU HAVE A 100% CHANCE OF DYING.

By Wilson Smillie, October 2015

Yes, its a shock but it’s an important, if inconvenient, fact that you should know, because we in the rich sector of the world act as if living forever is a right.

Yesterday, the World Health Organisation “WHO” (there should be a ? after that acronym) issued a long trailed report that told everyone who’d listen that “processed meat products and red meat are a ‘probable cause of cancers,’” and that people who eat more than 70g per day have an 18% greater chance of contracting a cancer and dying from it, than people who don’t.

To be specific (because it wasn’t clear unless you read the small print), processed meat has been categorised, globally, as a “Class 1 carcinogen”. This food group includes: sausage meat, bacon, ham, haggis, pork pies, smoked meats, smoked fish (smoking food is ‘processing’), ready meals and just about anything that isn’t still mooing, baa’ing or horking.

Red meat (including pork, but excluding chicken, duck or other poultry) is officially categorised as a ”Class 2A carcinogen” meaning you’ve live slightly longer before dying. BTW, the same organisation categorises uncooked poultry as “Class 1″ along with sunlight, air, alcohol and other everyday carcinogens like mercury and lead.

A few champagne ecologist socialist vegan bi-sexual atheists of my acquaintance have annouced they’re immediately giving up eating in order to stay alive and they beseech all like-minded, wealthy, city-dwelling, Westernised, higher-order-socialised humans to follow them. The same people suggested that the under-nourished, low-income, schemie-living, benefit-claiming, not-working class can carry on eating what they like because we’ll be better off without them. Social engineering by stealth.

So the jury’s in, sausages are the new cancer-sticks, taking over from cigarettes.

The food industry immediately went on the offensive (there’s a clue in the sentence; ‘industry’) deploring the catch-all nature of this announcement and like it or not, they have a point. What about well-husbanded organic meat that’s been smoked for instance? There’s plenty of rich, red, pink and white meat out there and we humans have been eating it for millennia because it gives us more energy than calorie-poor vegetables, and yes, our ancestors 250,000 years ago might have got cancer as a result, but the odds then of dying from starvation or being flattened by a rhino were much higher.

So this announcement is mainly aimed at those who can choose what they want to eat; three or more times every day: who don’t have to hunt it, farm it, kill it or process it.

The WHO, by its nature, looks at the macro-level of foodstuffs consumed by all humans on the planet, or more specifically, by rich humans in the developed world who have the financial means to choose - they also have the financial resources to pay for research. This news is a correlation of a number of research projects that have been undertaken over the last, maybe 50 years, by a wide range of scientists with an even wider range of agendas to service, and the WHO’s pronouncement that there is “statistical proof” is meant to be the call-to-arms to do something about it.

Like what? Stop eating, stop living and sit down inside your protective cocoon and exist for ever? One of the really dangerous stealth killers of the human animal is alcohol in its various, human-engineered (’processed’) forms. Even the high-order humans drink like fish ... and, if it was as bad as it's painted, they wouldn’t drink it.

But the biggest killer of humans across the planet today isn’t food, tobacco, heroin, alcohol or botulinus toxin ... 

Its sleep.

More people die in their sleep than any other way. Should the WHO issue a worldwide call to inform people of the dangers of sleeping? 

“There’s a 95% chance that if you’re over eighty and lived a fulfilling life eating pies, you’ll go to bed tonight and not wake up.”

[wilsonsmillieblog]

Good Scottish Words, #8: Scunnered

Definition: Pissed off, fed-up, miffed, frustrated, had enough, annoyed.

Usage: (adjective) ‘I’m scunnered wi’ aw this shite.’ It’s a simple past-tense usage, and while ‘I’m going to be scunnered, if this shite isn’t sorted out,’ is technically correct, I’ve never heard it used to preface a stooshie, rammy or stramash. The usual ‘next step’ from being scunnered is to walk away or accept that there’s not much you can do about the situation you find yourself in.

Today, scunnered was brought life by Scottish steelworkers at news of TATA’s decision to lay off 1,200 workers across the UK. There are only two steel plants left in Scotland and not many more left in the rest of the UK.

Shop-floor workers always bear the brunt of poor strategic planning by the so-called bosses. In my day, unions had a shop-floor rule: first in, first out, so before they get on their soap-box to moan about this sorry development, they should remember that.

Steel production is one of those 19th century industries that we in Britain get all teary about; heritage and all that, but the UK has never had a global monopoly on steel and these islands are not a significant source of ore, so we have no divine right to make the stuff. That said, it’s a strategic resource (like oil and gas) and importing it all costs us a lot and it’s a timely reminder that the one thing Government is not good at is managing strategic resource availability.

Health Warning: Scunnered is a mild form of annoyed that shares the rich category of Scottish adjectives for fighting. Scunnered = DEFCON 1. 

[wilsonsmillieblog]

“THE JEFFERSON FILES” - Revaluation Fraud

By Wilson Smillie, October 2015

My novel, THE JEFFERSON FILES - ACQUISITION, is a crime thriller about a deep-seated conspiracy to defraud run from inside a fictional, Edinburgh-based bank. Taking over the banks computer systems, organised criminals use the bank’s innovative social media technology to target RICH business owners who can be leveraged out of their assets by any means, including murder.

I won’t give away any spoilers, but one of the villains goes under the pseudonym of Thomas Jefferson and the small extract below explains how the fraud works ...

“However, it was the SME’s that Jefferson loved most as they provided all his substantial and carefully concealed wealth. The six-figure salary and annual bonuses from The Corporation kept his garden tidy and fed the cat, that was all. 

Little companies, Small and Medium Enterprises supporting up to a couple of hundred employees, run by entrepreneurs like Harry Arnott who invested their own time and money, bringing to life a vision Jefferson couldn’t see. 

To them, The Corporation was an incarnate God cursed with a savage monocular omniscience, more skittish than Nero, less forgiving than Stalin, equally implacable as Attila in the huff. Jefferson had lost count of the husks of businesses and bankruptcies disposed of over the years, but knew the asset values to the nearest villa, diamond-studded watch and bond certificate. Every day, he calculated the compound interest and slavered over his portfolio like a chained-up mutt protecting a bone.  

Jefferson was of a farmer of sorts, in the scheme of things, preparing the ground, growing the seeds and, when the time was right, selecting the harvest by means of pushing the Harry Arnott’s and their little businesses into ‘restructuring’. Usually as a result of some minor discretion like a late or failed payment on a mortgage. 

Hancock and The Company did the actual restructuring: as a pride of red-toothed lions restructure a water-buffalo. The business would be riven, disembowelled by sharp-clawed bankers carrying off the juiciest pieces, leaving the helpless owner with a carcass of debt and gristle. The end game was insolvency, bankruptcy, or whatever. Jefferson and Hancock cared not a jot. 

Each year, for the last twenty-five or so, Hancock distributed the takings amongst the brigands.”