'Balikwas' is a Tagalog word, virtually untranslatable into English.It signifies a startling change, such as an awakening. It can also mean 'going over to the other side'. Chris Payne writes about making a change, a change of moving his life to the other side of the world when he and wife Loydz emigrated to The Philippines. The book is an account of what needed to be done at each end of the 'project', as they came to call it, but it also includes amusing asides about life and its quirks. It can be read as a simple 'how to do it' guide for anyone contemplating emigration, either to The...

The professors at the American University of the Southern Balkans, AUSB, have become complacent and resistant to change, so when a new reforming departmental chair is appointed with a brief to shake them up, they mount a witch hunt to have him fired. Meanwhile, the US president is trying to push forward a plan to replace all NATO airbases with stations of unmanned 'drones' capable of carrying nuclear weapons. He is aware that there will be a lot of resistance to his plan, so he decides to sell it secretly, one country at a time. The first to be approached is the small country in Southeast...

'Balikwas' is a Tagalog word which is untranslatable into English. It signifies a startling change - a move to 'the other side'. Chris Payne writes about moving his life to the other side of the world when he and wife Loydz left England to emigrate to The Philippines. Balikwas - How to Emigrate to The Philippines is an account of how they did it. He describes how they packed up in the UK and built a house in their new country. The book recounts how they adapted to a different way of life in the tropics. Their story is an encouraging and life-affirming story of how, even late in life, one can...

Chris Payne writes a hilarious surreal account of life as a university professor at a dysfunctional university in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. On the beautiful island of Cyprus nothing works as you expect it to, from the primitive plumbing to the maniacal university bus service. The American Institute of Cyprus is a seat of higher learning like no other. The place is chaotically organised for students who attend class only if they feel like it. They cheat on their exams, photocopy their textbooks illegally and deliberately fail their courses to avoid military service. The...

Ken and Sonia are lecturers in a further education college whose principal, Morton Scregg, is a lecherous tyrant. One day, after a a drunken lunch, Principal Scregg falls down the college stairs to his death. As the last to speak to him, Ken is accused of his murder. The death of Scregg and the injustice of being blamed for it, is a turning point in Ken's life. He and Sonia come to realise that there is a market for an assassination business dedicated to erasing all the evil Scregg's of this world as a public service. At first the business goes well, and they get a steady supply of clients...