Rick Brindle

  Hey, never say never, but I think probably not. Bronze is made by combining copper and tin. It’s an alloy of two other metals and it took centuries to perfect as a process, and while it’s still in use as a specialised metal, it was then superseded by iron as the better all round metal. All of which was a long time ago. The problem post-apocalypse, would likely be joining the sources of copper and tin, because they don’t tend to be found in the same places. So the first thing you’d need is extraction, followed by trade, followed by then re-learning how to make the stuff. I’m not saying that it would be impossible, and of course, we all imagine our own apocalypse, but I’d imagine that the survivors, which of course will include you, will most likely revert to scavenging what’s already available and picking up on the remnants of whatever fragments of ‘civilisation’ have also survived. And if you’ve got someone like Lord Humungus on your arse, you’ve probably got more pressing matter...

  Sister Alex , my novel about post-apocalyptic survival in Berkshire, England, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now! Berkshire, England, and it’s no longer the promised land. Ever since a species-wide illness wiped out nearly every human being, the home counties have become a gender-based battlefield. The women stick together as a single, cohesive community, but only as long as you’re a woman. And it’s the same for the men, although they haven’t quite got the same group thing going, choosing instead to range as lone threats, taking what they want. Sometimes they team up and run in pairs, but only as long as you’re a man. They’re separate tribes, and they hate each other on sight. Pick your gender, pick your side. And then there’s Alex, born as a man, identifies as a woman, and thanks to a stash of scavenged hormones, she’s stuck somewhere between the two, lost in the middle and hated by them all. But she’s survived, and if what’s left of the w...

  Sister Alex , my novel about a trans woman surviving the apocalypse has just had its first review on  Goodreads .  Sister Alex Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   It's Not For Everyone

  It's a definite yes from me! For the first six weeks of my training I used the SLR, and once I moved to Catterick for Basic Gunner training, it was the SA80/LSW all the way. And even though I was left handed and was issued with the A1 version, I still loved it. It had a great balance, the sling was a work of genius, and it was loads shorter than your average rifle config. And bullpups also meant that there wasn’t any appreciable reduction in barrel length, which meant you still had good accuracy and muzzle velocity. Bullpups aren’t hugely new, with the British EM-2 almost making it to universal adoption just after WW2. After passing Basics and being posted to a squadron, I was issued an SLR once again for a couple of months, but despite all of the old school fanbois banging on about how the SLR could shoot an elephant stone dead (because you really do see lots of elephants on the battlefield), I was perfectly happy with my bullpup SA80 that no one else seemed to like. But bullpup...

  Electric, every time,  and that’s even  after  the budget. Last year I drove a Hyundai i10. And it was a good, solid, reliable car, but every time I drove it I was putting carbon into the atmosphere and directly contributing to climate change. And to do it, I was paying about a thousand quid a year in petrol. Then I traded it for a Renault Zoe. It had 14k miles on the clock and cost £11k. The budget means I’ll have to pay 3p per mile in tax. That’s about 150 quid for the miles I tend to do, and my home charger adds about another 150 quid to ‘fill up.’ So compared to petrol, I’m still 700 quid better off for the same mileage, and I’m at least doing less damage to the climate. So for me it’s a no-brainer. Electric cars are cheaper to run, they’re better for the environment, and on a more mundane level, the ‘engine noise’ even sounds more modern. They are absolutely the future. Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Bone...

  It's Not For Everyone , my memoir of life inside the RAF Regiment is free to download for a limited time. Get your free copy now! What do you do when your dream job turns into a nightmare? Rick Brindle was a third generation military child. His father and grandfather served their whole lives in the Army, and all he wanted to do was be a soldier. In 1989 he joined the RAF Regiment. But life in the Regiment was a world away from what he thought it would be, and it quickly became toxic. Facing a culture of bullying, beatings, verbal abuse and sexual harassment, the community he wanted to be a part of became more like a prison. Most people around him went along with the abuse. Some agreed with it, some joined in, while the chain of command routinely looked the other way. Set over thirty years ago, this is a story of surviving abuse that still resonates today. It’s Not For Everyone is essential reading for anyone considering a military career. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, and ...

  Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard , The third novel in the Cold Steel trilogy is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now. Cold Steel are back! Their new album has just been released. Their previously cancelled Spanish tour dates have been rearranged, with the female trio and Spain’s biggest metal band, Damas Infernales, supporting. Cold Steel’s biggest asset though, is Johnny Faslane, their brutally talented manager. But even Johnny can’t fully eliminate Cold Steel’s innate ability to spectacularly destroy their prospects, and even before their second concert ends, the tour is scrapped after an ill-advised trip back to the eighties, and the band are put into creative deep freeze by their record company. Only an unprecedented event and a lot of money can possibly turn their fortunes around. Like a five hundred year old treasure hoard that a long dead pirate once offered in return for his life, treasure that has never been found. Cold Steel fin...