Blogs

In response to The Daily Post's writing prompt: "A House Divided." http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05n2922/life-after-suicide Angela Samarta’s husband Mark committed suicide. Childhood sweethearts, fifth and sixth formers at the same school, she had a child at eighteen and another boy ten years later at twenty-eight. They had a temporary separation which became permanent. She wonders if she ever knew Mark. Here she comes to terms with it...

hi mm well yes i am back, did i leave ? no took a rest mm no , the truth been know my writing soul, just went i was thinking it would never come back but tonight it did, good job it was feeling kind of funny not having this what do i call it another being no me a hand from the spirit world my crazy mind whatever not being there;it been there since i was 12 years old' it went when your use to it being there and its gone and you looking everywhere...

Birdman, the tale of a semi-retired blockbuster fantasy hero who makes a comeback by going 'serious' on Broadway is violently in yer face funny. A bunch of raving egomaniacs are confined within the theatre; the only environment in which they can just about function. Their fights about who has the best reality often switch from verbal to physical battering. A lot of slapstick, a great underpants sequence where Michael Keaton our ex-superhero goes...

In response to The Daily Post's writing prompt: "Roaring Laughter." Patrick and Henry Cockburn (2011 ) Henry’s Demons. Living with Schizophrenia. A Father and Son’s Story. David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas , cousin to Patrick and uncle to Henry writes a blur on the cover: ‘A truly remarkable book, and a brave one’. That’s clichéd. Clichés are quite common in mental illness. If you shot everyone that mouthed a cliché you’d have quite a few...

Subtitled 'Living with Schizophrenia a Father and Son's story' this is a factual account. Henry first goes off the rails when he is a first year student at Brighton Art School. He swims in the freezing cold estuary near Brighton while guided by voices and is rescued by fishermen. Seven years of acting irrationally and believing that there is nothing wrong with him follow. During this time his father tries to understand what precisely his son is...

In response to The Daily Post's writing prompt: "We Can Be Taught!." William Keegan (2014 ) Mr Osborne’s Economic Experiment. Austerity 1945-51 and 2010 – The first question when purchasing a book about economics is it worth the money? Let’s look at the evidence. The book costs £10 or thereabouts. This includes delivery. Not bad. But it is very short—or concise—depending on your definition. Large borders on the page. Empty spaces. Empty pages to...

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan are good-looking and they act well. The dialogue is a bit clunky and in places unintentionally comic and the pace sometimes slow. The bits where he inflicts pain on her; I shut my eyes 'cos I'm squeamish, I sometimes watch Casualty on TV and shut my peepers when the blood spurts. Mr Grey is not only a man who likes sexually dominant role-play he is a control freak. Whenever Anastasia wants to end the relationship...

In response to The Daily Post's writing prompt: "In Loving Memory." My brother phoned me today. He works in Fife, Longannet Power station, been there about twenty years. Longannet is one of the few coal-fired power stations that is still on grid. It was opened in 1972 and has a capacity of 2400 MW. Most of the other coal-fired power stations in Scotland are closed. That’s not a bad thing. With global warming mankind is on life support and we...

It's about the Pendle Witches hanged in 1612. I picked it for the author not the topic, witch stories, whether in Salem, Lancashire or Bideford in Devon where Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards were the last two English witches hanged have a miserable inevitability. Misogyny, superstition, the rabble and the powers that be ganging up on impoverished women who sometimes believe the hocus pocus because it affords them a little power; execution. A...

Running season is here, the parks and public pathways are beginning to fill with the wannabe-fit, time for me to slip on my running blog slippers, park myself in front of the computer with a nice hot cup of Sunday afternoon tea, and get writing. I’ve been running throughout the winter, of course. I always run, I have a ‘have legs – will travel’ mentality, and have been running at least once a week for thirty years now. But there’s not much to...