Mar 2026 – Charlierobinsonbooks

I’ll Do It

Those three words have probably been the reason it took me twenty years to finish my first novel, there’s always someone, somewhere, wanting something, have you noticed that? If I’d ever had the misfortune to be caught up in a war, I’d more than likely be a hero or dead on the first day. It’s that moment when someone says “who’s willing to…?” You look round the room and all eyes are gazing downwards, bums shuffling uncomfortably on seats, or feet shuffling back and forth nervously. I’m not sure if I feel sorry for the person asking, or I’m just dumb. But uncontrollably, my hand shoots up. “I’ll give it a shot.”

It got me into trouble at school. You know when you’re in the playground with your peers and someone suggests setting the fire alarm off? After riotous laughter, followed by the aforementioned ground gazing, and uncomfortable shuffling, comes the question. “Who’s going to do it?” Yup, that was the second time I got caned. The first time was for calling the PE teacher a f****** bully, after he’d beaten one of us for not climbing the rope in the gym. C’mon! the kid must have weighed 12 stone, he was rotund, and I’m being kind, there was no way he could have climed that rope. The headmaster didn’t see it that way.

A reason I didn’t excel in sports at that particular school was because the PE teacher wouldn’t allow me to participate again until I apologised 😂That was never going to happen. So when I called from the bench, “I’ll do it, sir.” I got a contempuous sneer. Although he did relent the following winter for cross country running. I guess he thought I’d hate it. Once he had set us off running the 3 miles around Clock House fields, he’d retire to the boiler room for a cigarette, reappearing just as we finished. I can still see his expression when he saw me coming in first. “Take a shortcut, Robinson?” he’d shout in his sarcastic manner. So, I did what any normal person would do. I stopped, turned my back on him, ran back to where my rotund friend was, and trotted in with him. Apparently I was a, “Waste of space.” 😂.

All these years later I’m retired, all I really have to do these days is write and run. Life of Riley, eh? So, I asked myself this morning, how have I ended up in two running clubs. The cross country rep for one club and race director of a race. About to take a run leadership course, followed by a coaching course with another club, I’m in six WhatsApp Groups and on two committees? Yup, “I’ll do it!” I guess I’m lucky I’m not in an organised crime gang.

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 5

Portbou

The ferry docked in St Malo, already Jersey seemed a long way back. Time was different back then. Maybe it’s because you’re only eighteen, and you have lots to spare? Eager to reach Spain, we drove the van through the day and night until we hit the Pyrenees. We camped in the heart of the mountains for a couple of days. I’d never seen mountains before. I have to admit come nightfall it was quite eary with those huge, black shapes towering above you. But over the next few months I was going to experience many things I’d never seen or experienced before. Kinda pinched these from the internet, in 1976 we didn’t have an iPhone, just an old Kodak camera, but they look familiar 😂

The first Spanish coastal town is called Portbou. Parked by the beach, and staring out over the sea I was looking forward to diving the following day. Suddenly a Volkswagon camper pulled up at the side of us and a large bearded man got. He ran round to the rear of his vehicle, lifted the tailgate, spat at the engine, kicked the bumper, and began to shout, inferring that the engine was a fornicating, illegitimate nuisance. Peter, my new mentor and travelling companion suggested I get out and ask if he was Australian. Remember, my first ten years were spent alone, on a farm with imaginary friends. Swiftly followed by seven years on a Bradford council estate where I had become feral and led a life not becoming of a young Englishman. There was no way I was getting out. So, with a sigh Peter went for a chat.

It turned out both the bearded man and his younger brother were in fact Australian and the swearing was fury, aimed at an engine that was burning oil. We introduced ourselves to John Mulhall and his brother Peter. It might have been confusing with two Peters but luckily young Australian Peter was known as Mudguts, due to his strange dietry habits as a toddler. It was several months before I discovered this, because of the Aussie accent I presumed his name was Maggots.

When you’re travelling, apparently, alcohol is the key ingredient for getting to know people. So we set up a table, cracked open one of several bottles of wine, and began to wave complete strangers over to join us. Within an hour we had a company of: 2 Aussies, 6 Germans, 3 Welshman, and a couple, Josephine who was French and Jamie an Englishman. The couple had completed a tour of Australia including the 200 mile cattle train hike through the desert. We went down to the beach, lit a fire and stared at the sky. Jamie was aquainted with all the star constellations, and pointed them out to us. If this was travelling? I was hooked.

Happy Trails, Folks x

Strange Habits

I love people’s strange habits. Admittedly they can be annoying, but generally entertaining. Although, I’m told, my habits can be annoying, and I am a little mad. I will have a conversation in my head and then invite someone to join in half way through or even at the end. For example. I will consider going to the coast at the weekend, and weigh up the options/advantages/possibilities, maybe a long stroll on the beach, an icecream, some Fish & Chips. After due consideration I turn to my nearest and dearest and say. “It’ll depend on the tides. Not much point if high tide is in the middle of the day.”

Her response is usually. “Eh?” I then have to explain my thoughts. To which she will suggest I start a conversation at the beginning rather than the end. My other little trait is to say. “You know…” After a long pause she’ll ask me what I was going to say. But by then, I’ve either changed my mind or forgotten what it was. But it keeps her on her toes. 😂

Of course, there are good habits. Running for example, c’mon you knew I’d get there eventually😂. Three weeks to my first marathon of the year and I finally got my 20 mile or 32k (depends if you are metric or imperial) long run done yesterday. So, I’m buzzing. We have an old abandoned railway track here which is ideal for long flat runs, and guess what? Yay, the sun is shining, the daffodils are out and it’s Spring again! I wonder if you have any habits that either annoy or titillate you?

Happy Trails, Folks x

AI The Final Word

I once gave a carpentry apprentice a written task. Explain the four types of Construction Foundations. For the uninitiated they are, Strip, Pad, Raft, and Pile.

He gave me this:

Liquid Foundation, versatile and good for all skin types.

Powder Foundation, ideal for oily skin.

Cream Foundation good for dry or mature skin.

Stick Foundation, versatile and portable.

He said there were a lot more but I’d only asked for 4.

Trying so hard not to smile, I asked him where he had got his information, to which he replied CoPilot. Not entirely the robot’s fault, obviously he hadn’t read it, but I found that generally carpentry apprentices don’t edit. The worrying thing is; he hadn’t learned anything. This brings me to my real point.

Did you know the brain constantly improves through consisitent, new mental challenges and learning new skills? Plus exercise, sleep etc, But we’ll concentrate on the first two. If you’re writers you probably don’t sleep much anyway. So if we stop using our brain? All I see is a future of numpty’s. Take a look at Reddit’s Author pages. They’re all at it. “I did this with AI. I did that with AI” The last comment I made was to a geezer who posted that he had written a complete novel with AI. Isn’t that an Oxymoron? (Which as a youngster, on the farm, I believed was a stupid cow) How can a robot write a novel and you then say you wrote it? Anyaways, I replied with. “Did someone steal your imagination?” He came back with. “Why?” I gave up!

If they let AI do everything for them surely their brain will shrink, or do whatever brains do when you don’t use them? Doesn’t that mean in years to come our civilisation will end, because as with my apprentice no one will actually learn anything? In which case they won’t know anything. So, I had a brilliant idea (score two brain cells, ka-ching) I asked AI. “If you let AI do your thinking would it cause brain deterioration?” The answer?

Yes, if you consistently rely on AI to do your thinking, your brain can experience a form of cognitive deterioration often referred to as cognitive atrophy or “use-it-or-lose-it” cognitive decline.

Recently there was a football match here in the UK. Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv. The Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from attending by the Birmingham Safety Council on intelligence recieved from West Midlands police. After an uproar (obviously not from the crowd) it was discovered the police had used AI to conduct the risk assessment, and it was unfounded. Scary?

Happy Trails Folks x

TikTok and AI

For years I’ve heard about TikTok, but to be honest I thought it was young girls prancing about, putting makeup on, or sharing photos of Dua Lipa, Raye and Harry Styles. Having no interest in any of the above I’ve always dismissed it.

A friend informed me recently this isn’t the only option, and it’s great for publicising your book. This led me to the next quandary, what do you post? The same friend recommended ChatGPT. I do not like AI, and I’ve tried to steer clear of it. Some people use it to create a book and then say.

“Look at me, I’ve written a book.”

No you bloody well haven’t! You’ve got a robot to write it for you.

But… I wasn’t writing a book, just looking for advice on marketing. So I tentatively asked the question. “How do I market my book on TikTok?”

I was surprised at the outcome, it sounded like it knew what I needed, and I now have twenty pages of ideas. None of them involve makeup, dancing or mooning over young Mr Styles, so far so good. The only downfall was when I asked it to recommend a look. Probably need to tweak that a bit.

All I have to do now is create some twenty second videos, we’ll see how it goes. Has anyone else used ChatGPT or TikTok I wonder? Personally AI scares me a little, there are already 85 million books on Amazon, and I do wonder how many are written by robots. Although you can usually tell… They lack humanity and passion, but I could be wrong they may have been written by someone who has no humanity or passion, I’ve never read Mein Kampf, so I’m no expert.

On a different matter, as the broken rib is healing I’ve managed to get up to a 24k training run, next week I need 30k and I’ll feel more confident, as I have the Boston UK Marathon in 4 weeks and was hoping for 03:40:00 time which should give me 1st in my age group 🤞

Happy Trails Folks x

Where it All Began 4

Jersey

So there I was, seventeen-years-old, sitting on a plane heading to a far away island. My first view of Jersey didn’t disappoint, but I had just left a Bradford council estate where, after my first happy ten years as a countryboy, it had been cold, raining and totally depressing, so the bar was pretty low. I had become a different person during the years in Bradford, and not a particularly nice one. All it seemed to have taught me was how to fight and drink, but I had escaped.

I wondered what kind of reception I would get. I had some ideas. Fantasy Island wasn’t released until a year later but that it was the kind of image I had imagined.

There was a distinct lack of hula hula girls with flowers in their hair. No sophisticated, enigmatic Mr Roarke or a helpfull Tattoo, just a copper looking at me as I trudged past with my battered suitcase and an old guitar on my back. I left the airport, caught a bus into town and did what any sensible person would do. I went to the Tourist Information Office and asked if they had a list of B&Bs. There was one priced at £2.50 per night (remember this was 1976). When I arrived I saw an attractive brunnette leaning on the wall outside, she turned out to be the owner. I was 17, I wasn’t going anywhere else.

Now they say you make your own luck, I guess that could be true. It turned out her husband was a self employed uphosterer and could do with some cheap labour. Even at £1 an hour I jumped at the chance. He was also a sports diver/competition spearfisherman. Now we were talking. I had been watching Jacques Cousteau for many years, so diving was right at the top of my list, even after experiencing Mr Spielberg’s Jaws.

One day a friend of my new employer turned up, Peter. He’d heard I wanted to learn how to spearfish. “Jump in the van.” he said. “Why?” I asked. “You’ll need some gear.” He drove me, one by one, to each of his friend’s houses. He told each friend which piece of equipment they no longer used or had never used, and they were to give it to me, and by lunchtime I was fully kitted out. The next few months I was in the sea at every opportunity. In a spearfishing competition you enter the sea at 10am and have until 4pm to catch as many fish as you can. I was hooked (maybe that’s a pun).

One Saturday after a gruelling six hours in the water we were relaxing in the Yatch Club when my employer told Peter. “You should take young Charlie on your trip.” Apparently he was planning to head to the Canary Islands in September living out of a camper van and fishing to survive. The trip would last seven months, returning the following March. “Wanna come?” he asked. Did I want to come? 😂

So it was arranged, six months after arriving on the island and three months after my 18th Birthday I was going to be travelling 3,000km and spearfishing in the Mediterraen and the Atlantic while living out of a camper van. The plan was to take the car ferry to St Malo, drive through France to Spain and fish our way down the Spanish coast to Cadiz. A ferry would then take us to our final destination. A small village called Mogan on the island of Gran Canaria.

Felices senderos mis amigos 😉x

Where It All Began 3

Bradford

I’d had ten years living on two farms until one day it all changed. We were moving to a place called Bradford. I presume this came from mum as I later found out she hated the countryside. As for dad, he’d spent six years fighting the Germans, mostly in the desert with Montgomery and Rommel. Although I don’t think he had much of a relationship with Rommel. He just wanted a quiet life. So, off we went to a council estate in Bradford, the accommodation wasn’t quite what I had been used to.

It was all very exciting for the first week as I started exploring the council estate, but I soon discovered it was more or less the same wherever you went. During the second week I was beaten up by some other boys. After the third time I was beaten, I took some advice and joined the school boxing club. Drummond Road Boys School was a hell hole and features in the opening of my first book, The Siege of Mr Khan’s Curry Shop.

Mum and dad were working most days and nights in a Working Men’s Club at the other side of town. I became self sufficient by my twelfth birthday and I was feral 😂 I was smoking at fourteen, left school, started work and by my fifteenth birthday I was drinking regularly in Bradford city centre. I had certainly changed.

At seventeen-years-old, I’d had enough. There were several reasons for this. Looking around me I could see my future, and it was grim, but then one day I was chatting to an old bloke at work. I was an apprentice engineer in a factory. He told me I had a job for life, and he had been coming through those gates for fifty years. My first thought was, Ronnie Biggs only got thirty years, and he’d robbed a train. What had I done wrong?! The way it was back then is where I got the original idea for my first novel. The racsim especially from the skinheads was rife, and as ‘rockers’ we were firmly against it. There were often tussles (polite description 😂)

Dad died when I was sixteen-years-old and a year later mum wanted to go and live with one of my elder sisters. I decided to travel the world, and started to save for a Landrover. Sadly I was an impatient seventeen-year-old and so, with the few pounds I’d saved, I bought a cheap Austin 1800. I met a man at the back of some garages, who said I couldn’t test drive it. “It ain’t taxed, mate, and I still own it until the papers go through. You can drive it away though, if you give me the dosh.”

I paid him and drove away only to find it jumped out of third gear, of course, he’d gone when I returned to the lockups 😂. A mechanic friend informed me it was going to cost more than the car was worth to fix it.

Plan ‘B’ it was then! I decided to purchase a one way ticket to an island called Jersey. I was seventeen, had £70 in my pocket and I wasn’t coming back!

I wonder how many of you good people set out to do one thing and then ended up doing something completely different?

Happy Trails, Folks x