ancientrichard

The story seems to describe a police force with far little to do, and so in urgent need of 'defunding'

Thank you for another exciting chapter. Incidentally I think that "two and throw" ought to be "to and fro"

Definitely read all the stories, preferably in the order they were written. I've read most of them twice. I love Charlie and his friends!

Excellent. It's a splendid story so I'm eager for more.

I was very interested in the references to Forster. When I was an undergraduate at King's in the later 1950s Forster was in residence as a fellow. I even exchanged a few words with him once when we were both late for dinner. As you said within the College he was always referred to as 'Morgan Forster' and other fellows called him 'Morgan'. He was an honorary fellow and didn't teach but took up residence in the College to escape the air raids on London - I think his London house may have been bombed. He sometimes joined in after dinner discussion groups with junior members of the college, and he was President of the Cambridge Humanist Society. After he died he bequeathed the copyright of his writings to the College, so it was actually King's that published Maurice, and the book of short stories the title of which I have forgotten. Incidentally he wrote a novel entitled Room with a View, not Window with a View.

That beautifully sums up my perception of sainthood

Zeke should find Tyler a job with whatever organisation he works for. I predict that will happen soon. As The story was already complete when I started to read it I expect that has already happened, but I don't cheat by jumping ahead 🙂

Thank you for the links to the videos.

Many thanks for the link to Google Earth. The lads were very brave to stand on that rock !!

I was expecting PHP and scripts, but not quite to soon. Those lads are having fun

I can identify with those characters. I had great fun teaching myself HTML a few years ago. It's wonderful when the layout works just as you hoped. Cascading Style sheets are fun too of course, and the lads have PHP to look forward to 🙂

I apologise for the multiple postings of my previous comment. It showed up on my screen as a blank comment and I couldn't find any way to delete it.

I think I shall enjoy this story. There's a mystery and a young man who appears powerless but seems likely to astonish by turning out to be very powerful in an unusual way. I look forward to learning more with each installment.

I think I shall enjoy this story. There's a mystery and a young man who appears powerless but seems likely to astonish by turning out to be very powerful in an unusual way. I look forward to learning more with each installment.

Thank you for that story. I enjoyed it very much. As a matter of interest, when did Regis and Royal change their names to Andy and Matt ?

This has become very exciting. I love exciting stories I'm looking forward to finding how how the odious Fergus perishes - I'm sure he will !

I'm finding this very hard to follow, and hope the hypnosis will end very soon.

Indeed; I wonder about all those questions, and especially what prevented Trevor from attending the award ceremony.

I read the last chapter and the epilogue today. I've enjoyed it very much. It includes one of my favourite characters, Miss Jenkins, and as a bonus mentions a number of towns I know. The story is supposed to be the first of a trilogy, so there should be a lot more to come. Johnny is supposed to receive a medal so royalty may be involved eventually.

I've been thinking about this for several days, butt still can't prove it though I do believe it. This is as far as I've got: Notation: In expressions of the form: abcd... a, b, etc are integers in the range 0 to 9 and abcd represents the number with digits a, b, c, d All numbers are assumed to be in base ten unless otherwise stated. The transformation T is defined to that T(abcd) = abcd + dcba The Sum S of any number N is defined as S(N) = sum of the digits of N, so S(abcd) = a+b+c+d The 'Hypothesis' is that any positive integer can be converted into a palindrome by a sufficient number of applications of transformation T I have so far been unable to proved the hypothesis but have several observations that may help in constructing a proof. (1) The hypothesis has some plausibility, since, if all the digits of some number N are sufficiently small T(N) will be a palindrome. Suppose N = abcd, then T(N) = abcd + dcba We evaluate that by performing the additions (d+a), (c+b), (b+c), and (a+d) If all those sums are less than or equal to 9 they all produce single digits, so T(abcd) = (a+d)(b+c)(b+c)(a+d) which is a palindrome For example T(2417) = 2417 + 7142 = 9559 On the other hand, we do not get a palindrome when the addition of two digits gives an answer greater than or equal to 10, because the resulting carrying figure destroys the pattern and more applications of T are then needed to get a palindrome. (2) It may help to consider the sum of the digits of a number. If none of the additions involved in calculating T(N) is greater than or equal to 10, then T(N) is a palindrome and S[T(N)] = 2*S(N) If v of the additions of digits give an answer greater than or equal to 10, then T(N) is not a palindrome and S[T(N)] = 2*S(N) - 9v so there may be a tendency for the digits to get smaller when T(N) is not a palindrome. (3) The property of palindrome is not an intrinsic property of a number considered in isolation, but only of a number expressed in a particular base. Every number is a palindrome when expressed in base 1. In base N, N = 10 and is not a palindrome.

Now we have to prove it, preferably for numbers in any base.

I quite like the unary system. Unix systems used to have an option to choose the number base, and I liked to set that to one.

Like @Parker Owens I used to teach Mathematics and find numbers intriguing. I recently read somethings about undefinable numbers and non-computable numbers. However much we find out, there'll always be lots we don't know.

Thank you for very exciting story. I'm glad there is to be a sequel if only to confirm that Vincent won that fight.

I liked that story. It gripped me in a way that few short stories manage. There was a wonderful balance between the grim past and the sweet happy child of today. Thank you for posting it.