You might be wondering why my logo is a No U Turn Sign. Well, it’s like this. In 1993 I was living in Vermont, a state that, back then, had two unusual rules. Rule one was that you could never, ever, make a U turn in that state. Under any circumstances. Why they had such an abhorrence of turning your car around on the street, I did not know. But it made me wonder. The second rule that I came across and wondered about was the one that stated you could not legally get a tattoo in Vermont. You had to go out of the state. So, when I went to California for a visit, the place where I had come from, I got a tattoo that was a No U Turn sign. It seemed a good way to remember the strange rules of Vermont. It is my one and only tattoo. When I was visiting China in 1996, I got a signature chop made of my tattoo and I now use it as my logo and stamp my books with it. The second book in my Odyssey series is called A Chinese Odyssey. I didn’t know there was a second book at the time I was writing the first book, A Cornish Odyssey, but as I stamped those books and wrote my name in them for people who asked me to, it must have made an impression on my writing mind.

Another thing I’ve done for a long time is collect images of things that make me wonder. I have a sign collection. I’ve been posting some of this collection on my Instagram Feed and people seem to like them. If you want to see the collection, here is a link:

https://goo.gl/photos/8Cs1T2WkvxtZfgxt7

and if you’d like to see the map/art I made about my 2004 trip to Cornwall, it is here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/seDux8eQtiKBhYjm9

There will be other links on my blog to Chinese Propaganda Posters I’m collecting too, connected to my second book, A Chinese Odyssey.