The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton

I must say a big THANK YOU to Penny of  the North, who sent me "The Great Train Robbery" by Michael Crichton.

It is unputdownable, though its not a subject I would have thought would interest me. The author must have done such intensive research and has turned it into a fast paced thriller.   I now want to read everythng else he has written.  

He will be on my next book order.

The robbery involved  a safe packed with gold travelling to the Crimean war,  and back then, mid-19th century, there was no way of blowing a safe.  The discovery of dynamite was on it way, but it was not yet available, let alone in its nitro-glycerine form, to these robbers.

And this safe was massive.  To cut through it would require somehow getting some equally massive equipment on board the train and then having the time and the soundproofing to use it.  So the only way in was by key.  And there were four keys, held in secret by 4 different people in different hiding places...

Yet they robbed that safe. Some did pay a terrible price for it.  Others did not.  If you wrote it as fiction, would anyone believe it?  

It has taught me so much about Victorian England too  - a time of such prosperity alongside such desperate poverty.  Which, despite all the welfare state has done, has not in essence changed.   As the Hebrew Scriptures warn us:  "It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step."

My poor old computer has been on the blink (like its poor old person) I am now appearing at meetings on Col's ipadthingummy - which has an even more horrendous camera than my own computer (and that is saying something).  Its very demoralising.  But apparently the congregation is relieved as my computer has been adding an annoying whine to all meetings (rather like its person too, the Captain assures me).  I haven't been conscious of it as I have tinnitus and have a constant ringing in my ears.

Anyway, I feel a bit anxious about getting to my 10 blogs a month total. So I hope to get  this posted while the computer is letting me in.  It may in the end involve a new computer! This is proving a very expensive year so far.  Toothmageddon approaches, which should possibly be called Bankbalancemageddon, as it has to be done privately.  These teeth cannot wait.  Which is to say that they will not wait around in my mouth for much longer.

And, as our letter witness continues, I have to ask Himself if he will order me some more stamps...   I believe the stamp mines are on overtime such is the demand from us and our letters.

This could be the most comprehensive witness to the Kingdom of God ever given.  And it is a privilege to be involved in it.  When you get your letter, as I hope you will, please please read it and think very seriously about it.

Here is a wonderful promise from our Creator:

"With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them.  And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” - Revelation 21:3,4

Have any of Jehovah's promises ever failed?  They never have, and they never will.  Isn't that the very meaning of his name?