Rick Brindle

Military: If we’re talking best made, as in most likely to get you back home, then this bad boy must be up there. The Vickers Wellington. This aircraft was designed in the 1930s and was built using what was called a geodetic airframe. This made it very durable, and crucially, able to take a lot of damage while remining flying. At the end of World War 2, there were jet aircraft being used, but the Wellington was both built and used for the whole war, and that tells you a lot about its versatility. And the best civilian one was another Vickers aircraft, the VC10 It was designed to operate from short runways and fly long distance. It held the transatlantic speed record for 41 years, and served as both a civilian airliner, and in air forces as a cargo plane, air to air refuelling, passenger flights and aero medical evacuation. Both aircraft were really good examples of excellent British aircraft innovation. It's Not For Everyone   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel  ...

  We Are Cold Steel , the second novel in the Cold Steel trilogy is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now! A day after their historic concert on the Caribbean island of St Clements, heavy metal band Cold Steel are heroes. Now, all they have to do is stay out of trouble and enjoy a well-earned holiday until they start work on their next album. Except that the owner of the recording studio hates all things Cold Steel. Except that Cold Steel’s record company has blackmailed the studio into accepting them. Except that not all reporters are as friendly as band manager Johnny Faslane’s girlfriend, Rachel Shaw. With a tight deadline, Cold Steel have to get the next album out before their tour starts. They can’t afford any delays, and Johnny has his work cut out keeping the band in line. Feral former soldiers, reporters with an agenda, cake-obsessed studio execs and international criminals all work their way into the mix as the band hurtle from one improba...

  Get the model right, and they're good for all level of player . Epiphones are an excellent first choice for any aspiring axe monsters out there. They are well made, playable and pretty affordable. And while I play a Squier (with Seymour Duncan Hot Rail pick ups), and am perfectly happy with it, I’m sure I would be equally happy with an Epiphone SG. So that’s the beginners sorted out, and as for the pros, JayJay French of Twisted Sister tours with an Epiphone. He can absolutely afford a Gibson, but has said many times that the Epiphone is way good enough for live work, and his more expensive instruments won’t get messed up, or worse, stolen if he takes them on the road. And whether you like his music or not, he’s absolutely a professional musician, and he knows what he’s doing. Unlike Cold Steel. Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   It's Not For Everyone   Sister Alex

  Cold Steel on the Rocks , the first instalment in the hilarious Cold Steel trilogy, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now!   When the pirate, Blackbeard, buried his treasure, he could never have imagined that it would fall to the heavy metal band, Cold Steel, to come looking for it. Cold Steel, high-octane British rockers who came close to legendary status, until the release of their fourth album, when their excesses send them spiralling into terminal decline. Struggling small-time band manager Johnny Faslane, in the right place at the right time, lands the dream job of managing Cold Steel, and then has the seemingly impossible mission of turning the band around. Cold Steel’s singer, Maxwell Diabolo, claims to have a treasure map that he thinks will lead him to Blackbeard’s lost riches. With the band bent on a terrifying path of self-destruction, Johnny wonders if they will even complete the tour, much less get to the Caribbean to embark ...

  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