Multi-millionaire Cornwell bemoans inability to do anything for herself any more

This headline might be a tad cruel, but I think it just about sums up my knee-jerk reaction to the recent story of Patricia Cornwell winning $50.9 million in damages from her finance management company, New York firm Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. Cornwell, for those who don't know, is an award-winning extremely popular author who has written dozens of books based around law-enforcement and forensic investigation, with a winning central character in Kay Scarpetta, originally a pathologist who has moved up and evolved through her own practice and onwards. I, personally, really like her books, but this story just smacks a little given the apparent out-of-touch attitude she has been portrayed as having towards what should be done for her.

The gist of it is that she missed a book deadline, blamed them for the losses of her advances from the publishers incurred by missing the deadline, and accused them of mis-managing her money and even dipping into it for their own personal use resulting in her only having less than $13 million left to her world-renowned name. Their argument is that none of the mis-management took place, and definitely none of the alleged personal use, but that rather it is Cornwell's extravagant spending and luxury life-style which has reduced her finances so. And certainly, having followed her on Twitter (@1pcornwell.) for a while and seen the frequency with which she pilots her own aircraft around,it would seem that her outgoings are a lot more than, say mine or yours.

There's a whole world out there

Most of it is ripe for the ripping. Better get started, I suppose, now the bug has bitten me again. And so, prompted back by popular demand (all right, by a quick off-hand comment from a ginger lanky Mancunian) and by recent professional recognition (all right, a LinkedIn endorsement for blogging from my old man), BPaIS returns. Resurrection's a funny business. Leaving the blog to gather dust (albeit with a brief unsuccessful dabble in video blogging over Christmas) I thought I was done with it, criticising myself that it was too much of an angry ranting idiot behind a keyboard using his teen-hood bedroom at his parents' house as base of operations. Don't get me wrong- I'm still using a bedroom as a base of operations, but it's in a veritable bachelor pad of independence so that's all fine. And rather than being shamed by the fact that I'm just one of a myriad of voices of young angry snide people who want to set the world to rights with a few thousand key strokes, maybe I should be proud of it. So with a redesign and a bit more intention to keep at it, without further ado we're back on course to be part of the keyboard generation. First grumble coming up shortly.