I listened to this as an audio book from librivox http://librivox.org/prester-john-by-john-buchan/

John Buchan is an author that I have so far enjoyed and as readers will see I am in the middle of reading/listening to the thirty nine steps series. This book was not one of those but one that concerned the life of a young lad called David Crawfurd, firstly as he was growing up on the coast of Scotland, where they accidentally witness a visiting African preacher not behaving as he should doing some very un-Christain rites around a camp fire.

Time moves on and our hero finds himself in South Africa working as an assistant shop keeper. Here he comes across the preacher again, but now as a charismatic leader of an uprising. Preaching Africa for the Africans. To justify his right as leader he has the diamond mantle called Prester John, which once belonged to a legendary 15th Century Christain king of Ethiopia.

David somehow has to try and stop the massacre of the local white settlers, along with trying to make off with the diamonds for good measure.

This was an enjoyable story that made traffic queues fly by. Book 22 week 14 fiction 21 (8 on audio) non fiction 1

Sometimes when one picks up a book of a well know author and notice that the only quote given on the cover is a generic one, alarm bells ring, but you ignore them as they are an award winning author who you have enjoyed before, and you are sure you are going to enjoy this book.

Well sadly this one was not quite so good. If I had not read and enjoyed Ken's books before then I would not have bothered to read on to the end, and it would not be getting a review. (Only books that I complete get a review, that is why the majority of my reviews are fairly positive.)

The idea behind the story is that a genetics researcher uncovers several people with seemingly different parents, born in different places, on different days all with the same DNA. It seems that a biotech company has been making illegal clones as super aggressive males just right for the army. If this is uncovered then a multi million dollar deal will go down the pan.

On the face of it a good idea but just lacked execution, too much time spent describing in great detail all the sexual deviations these clones are exhibiting, and not enough time exploring the rest of the characters giving some depth to the story. As I did get to the end it does get a review but sadly in my humble opinion this is a book for the recycling.

Book 21 week 13 fiction 20 (7 on audio) non fiction 1 

This is a book that does as the saying goes exactly “what it says on the tin”. It is a book that explains in non nonsense language the what John's Gospel is all about. For the difficult parts and it is a book of great significance Andrew offers a down to earth understandable explanation of what John is saying and also often an explanation as to why he might have chosen to say what he did say.

 It is also refreshing to read a book that does not set about doubting what is written because it may be difficult but rather offers help in understanding John's eyewitness accounts. He also examines the evidence that John provides concerning Christ's power and authority, showing us that John wanted his evidence to result not merely in an intellectual assent to the truths he was recording, but rather “in Life” in Christ's name.

The book was a great inspiration and help in understanding what John had written in his Gospel. Andrew certainly knows what he is writing about and I would say all in all an excellent book.

 This was book 20 week 12 fiction 19 (7 on audio) non fiction 1 

I live in an area that is surrounded by forests full of trees. Every few miles there is a sign at the side of the road saying that one is passing a different bit of woodland. As the forests are managed there is a continuous process of cutting down and timber removal.

The timber is cut and removed very quickly and is often hard to catch but the other month I was fortunate to catch this timer extraction vehicle in action.


The timber cutter fells the trees then cuts them into standard lengths and leaves them in rough linear piles running up the hill side.e to edit.

Then it is the roll of the log collector to pick up the cut lengths, and take them to the stacking point, where they are stacked into piles.  

The collector slowly climbs to the top of the hill along a track at an almost impossible angle, wading through thick mud anything up to half a metre in depth.

These images of the log collector and piles of logs it was collecting were taken with the 500mm telephoto lens in mild April drizzle.  The collector was around a quarter of a mile away across a valley near to Hell's Hole which is in Hyndlee Forest - part of Forests of the Scottish Borders.   I hope with me that you think they are worth recording.

This is the ongoing saga of our Roman friends Marco and Cato and their adventures. They are on the trail of Ajax the rebel gladiator. He is now going around with his band of rebels killing Romans, leaving one alive and making sure that, that person knows it was Marco and Cato who had attacked them. All of this causes a great deal of upset with the locals.

They chase him to Egypt and end up in prison...

At the same time the Nubians to the south also start a rebellion. Eventually Ajax joins with the Nubians and the governor of Egypt orders Cato and Marco to join the twenty-second legion and help defeat the Nubians and Ajax. The only issue is can they cope with an enemy that is considerably more numerous than they are and a legion that is more used to sitting by the pool under the shade of a palm tree..and of course after many skirmishes – do they manage to catch Ajax..

 An enjoyable contrast to the Olympics as book 19 week 12 fiction 19 (7 on audio) non fiction 0 

Now a days it is fairly rare to make a phone call to a business without being told that the call may be recorded for all sorts of reasons. Businesses react slightly differently when you tell them that you are recording them just to make sure that there is an accurate record of what has been said.

Prior to this the main way of proving what was said (or happened) was when it was said in front of witnesses or having pictures taken on the event. An image snapped with ones phone is common place, but before cameras were readily available it was an artist who sketched or painted what they saw. An example of this is documented here 

Going back in time even more somebodies ring/seal was often the sign that they had the authority of that person. They used the ring to make decisions. This then led to people having their ring fingers cut off (with the ring still on the finger) as a witness to prove that they had been usurped. In more extreme cases the head was cut off and paraded around.


Going back in time even more in Deuteronomy 17:6 Jewish law requires two or more witnesses to an event before it can result in Judgement (in this case the capital crime). So when Elijah was travelling around and had 50 prophets following him they made pretty good witnesses.

 In 2 King 2 v7 it describes how they watched Elijah and Elisha (his apprentice/understudy) go up to the River Jordan and Elijah touches it with his cloak and the waters divided so he and Elisha could cross the river on dry ground.

It does not record how large the river was at that time but I think it is fair to say that it was not a stream, but a river. Elijah and Elisha go on and Elisha witnesses Elijah being taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, during which he drops his cloak.

Elisha picks up Elijah's cloak and walks back to the river Jordan where the prophets are still waiting on the far side. I am sure they are wondering how is he going to get back across the river. But Elisha
picked up Elijah's cloak that had fallen from him, returned to the shore of the Jordan, and stood there. He took Elijah's cloak—all that was left of Elijah!—and hit the river with it, saying, "Now where is the God of Elijah? Where is he?"

When he struck the water, the river divided and Elisha walked through. - from verse 15  The guild of prophets from Jericho saw the whole thing from where they were standing. They said, "The spirit of Elijah lives in Elisha!" They welcomed and honored him. From the message version.

The prophets were the witness to the fact that Elisha now had been granted similar powers by God to that of Elijah.

You can read more about this period of Elijah's time on earth in our studies on him and the relevant sections of the Bible this time being main 2 King 2 here 

Over the last few months we have been walking across the moors and have come across some amazing mountain goats. I suppose in the past there were large wild herds roaming around, and these ones we found are few and far between.  

One herd was found on the southern tip of the Isle of Islay, where the land was probably just used for hunting and shooting. It had been a couple of hours walking past old abandoned villages and hamlets to get to the point on the sea cliff. Then we came across the herd. The other herd was in the Galloway forest park.  

The lovely thing with the goats is that they seemed totally fearless, in fact we were probably more worried about their horns than they were about us. Especially the ones with the baby kids.  

The good thing was that we were able to take these shots when the weather was not too bad. A circumstance that has been few and far between so far this year. As you can see we left baby goat on patrol  

This book though a mystery thriller, was a complete contrast to my previous book the Parsifal Mosaic. The story line was straight forward going from A to B. The White House was taken over by terrorists, and the president trapped in his secret bunker.

The hero of the story Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counter-terrorism agent and he has to get into the White House without being detected and find out what is going on. The president is not as safe as everyone thinks, and time is running out. It was easy to pick up between boring parts of the Olympics

Though the book was easy reading and I zipped through it, if I see another Vince Flynn book I will read it.

This was book 18 week 11 fiction 18 (7 on audio) non fiction 0 on weebly