asteroids are tremendously valuable strategic resources, i started on the asteroid mining corporation when i was 20 years old and university because i realised there were no space mining companies in the united kingdom. you have to know what you're mining before you can mine it, selecting traditional mining companies, you start by prospecting, then you look to the extraction phase. we begin by launching a satellite in 2020. that'll be a space telescope which will go into a law that and scan asteroids to determine the composition of these objects. with that data, we can then determine which asteroids will be candidates for mining. in ourfield of view, the struggle where about 5000 asteroids at the moment. there

is money out there. —— there is probably about 5000. the technology we will develop in the early 2020s will allow us to go to asteroids and mine them. we are trying to push a uk space mining business, and we have satellite manufacturers, launch providers, everything we need for a space many industry already within the uk. we just space many industry already within the uk. wejust need space many industry already within the uk. we just need to get everything going in the same direction. it is not to happen overnight. this is still a blue sky thinking project. ithink overnight. this is still a blue sky thinking project. i think the optimism grows particularly from the fa ct optimism grows particularly from the fact that space is becoming the trend again, and being seen as one of those unicorn areas of development. this is somewhat still a blue sky thinking project.

there's a lot of optimism, but i think that optimism grows particularly from the fact that space is becoming the trend again and space is being seen as one of those sort of unicorn areas of development where really, really significant breakthroughs can happen and very likely will happen in the mid—to long—term future. the eastern side looked glorious, the western side like this, this was a short while ago in lyme regis and it's that sort of thing that winds out, this is a warm front spreading mild air in from the atlantic, so not a cold night in prospect but it will be a damp one from any. with this shield of cloud will help keep temperatures up so you will not be scraping first thing in the morning save for the northern isles with something bright and fresh. it is coming from the warm front and the cold front to clear away the gunk is in the atlantic so we are stuck for the greater part of the day in something we cold a warm sector coming between those two weather

features and the thickest cloud on the east by the warm front, bits and pieces of rain here. there may be some gaps in the cloud, then the way when you get a wide warm sector and some gaps could be across the irish sea coast and hills, where we could see the temperatures getting up to ii or 12. this is bbc news — our latest headlines: the family of murdered labour mp, jo cox, have pledged to support her widower, brendan, after he admitted behaving inappropriately towards women in 2015. the education secretary says university tuition fees should reflect the economic benefit graduates will have to the country, ahead of a review of higher education funding in england. a plane with 66 people aboard crashes in iran — it's not clear whether there are any sui’vivoi’s. president trump criticises the fbi for missing warning signals about wednesday's school shooting, describing it as unacceptable.

more headlines at the top of the hour. now on bbc news, rebecca jones presents talking books. hello and welcome to talking books, here at the birmingham literature festival. celebrating its 20th birthday, this festival brings together writers, poets, speakers and thinkers across the whole of the city centre. today i am talking to preeti shenoy, who began her career writing a blog that has gone on to become one of india's top—selling writers and an influential celebrity. you are the only woman, preeti shenoy, on the list of india's top—selling writers. why? laughs

people like my writing. but is there something you are doing that perhaps others are not? i think my books do have an emotional connection, and one thing i am not afraid to do is go out there and market my books, i think it is important to, if you have written a book, you have to have the courage to stand up and say, hey, this is my book, this is what i have written about. because unless you talk about your book and unless you believe in the book, why should others? that is one thing which i follow. it's a business, in other words. it is, because if your books don't sell, your publishers don't make any money, and they won't want to publish you. i know you have said in the past, in india, you tend to either be a wife or a mother, and given the size of the population, the number of women in the workforce is proportionately very low. so ijust wonder, do you see yourself as a role model for women in india? no, here's the thing.

i don't see myself as a role model, but others see me as a role model, and i am like, oh, what have i done? i don't really think about it. i am most comfortable when i am sitting in my hiding hole in my home and writing. that is when i am most comfortable. would you be comfortable being called a feminist? i don't know, because the word feminist has many connotations. i would say that i believe in equal rights for men and women, i do believe in equal rights. i think it is important as a woman to speak up for what you believe in, and if that makes me a feminist, and i am a feminist. then i am a feminist. you are one of india's most successful writers. how easy or difficult is it to make a living as a writer in india? if you have gone into the big league, by big—league i mean, if you sell something like 30,000 copies or thereabouts, and you will get good advances.

i have been fortunate, for my first and second book i could not make a living out of my writing. but now i am nine book old, so now i can completely make a living out of writing, which i am gratefulfor. but a new author would probably sell 2000 copies, or 2500 copies. then it would be very difficult. so my advice to anyone who wants to make a living out of writing is, just wait until you reach the big league. don't quit your dayjob. that is how it is in india. does it help if you write in english? in each state in india they have their language, in the regions, the book sales are smaller than the national book sales. and also when it comes to me, i have never lived in one place for more than more than three years. for more than three years. my father had a transferable job. we have these things called

central schools in india, you have english, you have hindi. you simply don't have an option to write but in english. it has been quite a journey for you from being a blogger to one of india's most popular writers. why did you start writing a blog? to be honest i have always written, ever since i was a child. my first book was at the age of probably seven or eight. no! it was. laughs it was a six—page book. i read a lot of enid blyton, it was inspired from there. it was four pages of text and two pages of illustrations. and i used to wonder, how can anyone write 200 pages or 250 pages? but i had never gone public with my writing. i used to take part in short story competitions in college and all of that, but the first time i went public was with my blog,

and that was in 2006, october. and what happened, why did you do it? in 2006, september, i lost my father all of a sudden and it was a shock, i was depressed, i did not know what hit me. one moment he was fine, talking to a mother, and the next moment he was gone. and he did not have any age—related ailments or anything of that sort, and that was the first time i realised that death can be that sudden. it felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under my feet. to overcome the grief i started a blog, i did not know what i was doing, and in fact i started it anonymously. i never put my name on it. you use your initials, ps, why was that? i did not know who would be reading it. this was in 2006, and when you write something you are very vulnerable, you don't know who is going to be reading it, you don't know what will happen. so i was afraid. this is why i started anonymously.

and what were you writing about in those early blogs? it was very simple stuff, i realised that even though we don't have control over what happens to us, we do have some amount of control over what we choose to focus on. so i decided i would focus only on the positives. anything, whatever has happened during the entire course of the day, there would be one positive thing that happened. it would be very simple stuff like if i saw a rainbow i would be so happy, i would write about the rainbow. a small thing which is positive. and in the beginning you were essentially writing for yourself. but gradually, people started to respond to your blog. why do you think it struck such a chord? probably because there is so much negativity around us. people like to feel positive, and i think they like to read that you can take joy from small things.

which is what i did, because i was in a very dark place in 2006, it was all very dark for me. the only ray of hope for me was clinging on to that little thing that happened, it gave me joy. and i think a lot of people connected with that. and then everything changed, in 2007, when one of your blogs was picked up by an american radio show host, and it was named the perfect post, which must have been wonderful. i wondered if you might read us an extract from that. it's called my special friend. it is about someone you refer to as k. i will read the last paragraph of it. then out of the blue, i got a phone call saying k was dead. he had had a massive cardiac arrest, it was like a very bad nightmare coming true.

i couldn't believe it. this was what happened in the movies. how could this even be? it left me frozen, numb, speechless. i did not know it then, but it would take me a lifetime to recover. it would forever tinge all my happy moments with sadness. it would alter the way i looked at life. you see, k was not only my friend, he was also my dad. how did people respond to that? what sort of things did they say to you. i got a whole lot of comments for the post, they were all messages of condolence, and some of them did not know whether it was fiction, or whether it was real, so i told them every word written on that was real. i don't write fiction on my blog. all of it was real. it was very touching to get so many messages, but it did not help in any way, it did not console me in any way. i still feel the pain.

i can see how emotional you are. 3a of your most popular posts were brought together in a book called 3a bubblegums and candies. which is a wonderful and rather unusual title. tell me why it's called that. actually that book is being relaunched, at that time i thought it was great, i was excited. but now i have grown as a writer, but when i look at the book, i kind of hide it, even though that was... laughs really, why? it is going to be called love a little stronger, because that is more relevant. 3a bubblegums and candies was interesting, it was like a little bubblegum, whatever happens to us, where you keep chewing and you extract something out of it and then you discard it, or it can be a candy, a little sweet nothing which you swallow

and you feel good about. life is like that, anything that happens to us, every incident can either be a bubblegum or a candy. that was the thought behind naming the book. you are very honest in the book, was there any reason to think, oh, i better not put this in the public domain? no, but here is the thing, i did not expect everybody to be reading it, i did not expect to be this well—known. so now that is the reason i am relaunching the book, i haven't altered anything, i have edited the old stories. but i think it is fine to share because i have learnt that when you share you become closer to people, because people open up, it is when you open up, people open up, and they are glad that someone has written about it. someone has shared the pain, someone has shared the joy. is there anything you wouldn't write about? politics. laughs i would never write about politics. why's that?

i think you have to write about things that interest you, that you are passionate about. and politics, ifeel it divides people, art, literature, culture, it brings people together. so that is one thing i don't write about. nonetheless, it's a big leap from going from writing a blog to writing fiction. how difficult did you find it to make that transition? it was very difficult. they are two completely different things. but what happened is that after my first book it met with moderate success, it wasn't hugely successful, so after that first book, we moved to the uk. so i lived in norwich for a while. that was where i wrote my second book. i think being in norwich helped, because i had access to a library. the first time i went to the library in the uk, they said "you can take 15 books." i was like, wow, 15 books? i had never heard that before. between me, my husband and two children, that is 60 books, we would carry them back and i would sit there and browse,

and that kind of helped because i was reading a lot, i was exposed to a different culture, a different country, and that is where my second novel was born. you didn't make life easy for yourself, because you chose to write about a young woman with bipolar disorder. the book is called life is what you make it. when i was living in norwich i went to an art exhibition, near my home, and it was beautiful, it kind of blew me away, and all the images were painted by people with bipolar disorder. it was a bipolar artists organisation. i thought this was interesting and i wanted to investigate further, and i happened to know a psychiatric nurse in the uk so i spoke to her and it got me interested. when i travelled back to india, i went to bangalore, and that is where one of the finest

mental health hospitals in india is, so i went there, i spoke to people, and gradually the research for the book grew. i was quite interested in it, and then i wanted to use a young girl, because, you know, people could relate, because i wanted to reach out to young people. i wanted to place her in setting that was familiar to indians, so ijust chose the places where i had gone to college, and that is how the book came about. how openly are mental health issues discussed in india? at the time when the book came out, which was in 2008, it wasn't discussed very openly. the book was a huge kind of, it made an impact. but recently, of late, things have changed a lot, people are talking about it. the book has gone on to be a tremendous success, it is one of india's highest selling titles, but the path to publication was not smooth. it was rejected, i think, by nearly a0 publishers, was that because of the topic,

the subject, do you think? i think it was because of the subject, i'd would not know, i sent it out to every agent, in india and the uk. i was very hopeful. every agent, the british are very polite, so they would read and say "i will get back to you", and i was very hopeful, oh, they are getting back! i was very excited. and they would say it was not suitable, they would wish me good luck. i got used to it. it must have been dispiriting, wasn't it? i never thought the book was in the light of day. would see the light of day. you know, ithought, "0h, my god" and then i said, "ok, i have had one book out, at least let me go ask my publisher, will you publish this? " he said, "ok but he said trim it down to 70,000 words,"

because he was conscious of the cost! laughter is that what it was? laughter sadly that was the truth. 0k. i know it sounds strange. so i said, "whatever it takes." you know, if i have to cut down 30,000 words, i will cut them down. yes. so i cut it down and that was how that book was published. and ever since then you pretty well published a book a year and one of the overriding themes that seems to me to sum up all your books is the message that life is short and you need to seize it by the scruff of the neck. nonetheless, you do put your characters in some pretty challenging situations. i am thinking about your second novel, your third book, tea for two and a piece of cake, in which it opens with a woman being left by her husband. so why do you challenge your characters in that way? because i think life is like that, you know. there are events in life which you can't control and, also, if you write a novel where everything goes smoothly, it would be very boring. nobody would want to read such a novel and i think it is important to show that you can have the strength, no matter

what happens to you, you can have the strength to overcome whatever has happened to you, so i think that is one message which i want to convey, which is why i put my characters in difficult situations because that is real life, life is not going to be easy. something else you return to time and again in your books is the subject of arranged marriage. sometimes obliquely, on the margins, but sometimes head—on, i'm thinking about your fourth novel, the one you cannot have. why is that a subject that interests you so much? probably it's because it is common in india and arranged marriages are very common, which would probably not be...you know, not be understood by a western world but, in india, even to this day, people marry the person whom their parents choose and, of course, there are people who have love marriages too but arranged marriage is a reality in india, and that's why i write about it. still in this world of increasing globalisation, young people still

want to obey their parents' wishes? at least they want their pa rents' approval. see, they may not obey their parents' wishes, because, in india, you see family is very important, and it's always family comes first so it is very important for a person who is getting married to have his mother's and father's approval. so it is a very close—knit bond. you know, the bonds are very strong in india so that is the reason why arranged marriages still exist. which brings us onto your latest novel, it's all in the planets, which is about a young man and a young woman who meet on a train but they are already committed to other partners. so what was the starting point for that novel? so the idea came to me when i was on a train journey myself. i was travelling from delhi to chandigarh, for a book launch, which was for the launch of my previous book, and i opened the newspaper and i saw the zodiac sign and i read it — all of us read itjust for fun, we may not believe it,

we may believe it, and i said, what if this forms the start of every chapter in a novel? how would that be? so there would be a prediction and, you know, in the novel you would come to know by the end of the chapter has the prediction come true or hasn't it come true. so i thought it would be very interesting. i live in bangalore and i meet a lot of techies, people who work in the technology field, a lot of them are overweight because they've let themselves go after they got a job, because they simply don't have time so that is how that book came about. the idea came to me and i based it on several people i know. and is that how books tend to come to you? are they inspired by things that have happened to you, people you know? usually, usually, yes, most of the time. does anyone ever mind? here's the thing, i change it so much so if it is a male, i would probably make him a female

character, because the core is what i am concerned with, so they don't recognise themselves. i think all writers do that. all writers borrow from real life, borrow from things that have happened to them and i'm no different. i know your latest novel, which is about to be published, i know that you have said it is your most personal to date and that you very much have drawn on your own experiences. so tell me a little bit more about that. it is a story about a young man who travels back to his native village in kerala. so this boy is born and raised in bahrain, outside india, and he comes to pune to work, and he's got a very domineering father and he's got this huge ancestral property, in kerala, where his grandfather lives. his grandfather is a grumpy, old, angry man, in his 80s. and the boy is sent to live with his grandfather, and it's a tiny village in kerala, which doesn't even have internet connectivity.

so the boy goes there and then, he talks to his grandfather and then the story proceeds from there. the real hero is actually the 80—year—old grandfather. and that is revealed as the novel goes along. why is it so personal to you? is he your dad? no. the old man is actually based on my grandfather. because my mother lives in tiny village in kerala, and there is no internet connectivity, and every summer vacation i used to go back to kerala and there was a huge ancestral home where i spent at least two months and what is described in the book is exactly like my ancestral home, in kerala. it brought back so many memories. it was lovely to reminisce because those things exist only in the memories. when i was writing i was honouring those memories, i was honouring the time... i was struck by a comment in it's all in the planets, when one of the characters says the only books that count...some

people think that the only books that count are literary fiction. and i wondered who you had in mind? i get asked all the time — do you write commercial fiction? do you write literary fiction? ifind in india, there is a sharp divide. i would presume it is the same in the uk and the world over. commercialfiction are the guys who sell. literary fiction are the guys who win a prize. but i think it is important for your story to have the connect with the audience, whether it is literary fiction or whether it is commercial fiction, it doesn't matter. you have to tell a good story. that was the reason why one of my characters said that comment. ijust wondered, you write heartwarming stories about love and friendship and relationships and romance and ijust wonder if you think you might be taken more seriously as a writer if you wrote — as we talked about earlier — about politics, for example? i do not think you have to write about politics to be taken seriously as a writer.

because my next book is completely different. i always tell people, 0k, wait for my next book because i always feel i better myself with each book and, as regards to serious writing, i have been published in the world, and my short stories tend to be very dark. i always tell people, if you want that kind of writing, then go read my short stories. because it is very dark — there is no redemption, there is no happy, there is no warm, nothing of that sort which is there in my novels. when my short stories came out, i had to actually tell my readers, look, it's a dark story, because they don't expect it of me. that is the image they have, oh, preeti is a happy, warm person who writes happy stuff, but that is not true. preeti shenoy thank you so much for talking to us. thanks a lot. it's been a wonderful. thank you for having me over. thanks forjoining me, time to

update you on the buddle prospects for the whole of the british isles. —— the weather prospects forced a pretty leaden skies, rain in the forecast as well. this is how we shape of things through the evening and through the night, thickening cloud in western areas, already rain in northern ireland pushing into western scotland, the western half of the british isles until later in the night where it starts to get across to eastern scotland, eastern side of the pennines but with that cloud around and breeze from the south—west, not a cold night, nor indeed a cold start to the new day

on monday. here is how we shape up, we have the warm weather front pushing across the british isles, the cold weather front that will clear away the low cloud, wait out in the elan ticks so we are pretty much stuck with what we start with, perhaps the rain popping up across eastern parts as we get into the afternoon, any good news? yes, some brightness around the irish sea coast, and ii or 12 is possible. this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at 3.00 — the family of murdered labourmp,jo cox, have pledged to support her widower brendan after he admitted behaving inappropriately towards women in 2015. he has resigned from two organisations. i'm not defending his actions, i am trying to think about this person who i know and my friend who isn't here, and make sure that there is a change in the future. the education secretary says university tuition fees should reflect the economic benefit graduates will have to the country, ahead of a wide—ranging review of higher education funding in england. ministers reject pleas to issue

a medical cannabis license to a six—year—old boy whose rare form of epilepsy improves after taking the drug. a plane with 66 people aboard crashes in iran. it's not clear whether there are any survivors. israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu brands iran