Blogs

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Sat, 16 Dec 2023

Posted by onemorething: Firstly, can I say sorry for missing a Pick of the Day this week and doing yesterday's and the Picks of the Week today rather than on the usual Friday. I have had a bit of a crazy, busy week and somehow managed to forget both! Apologies! However, I have had a very lovely morning catching up on all the wonderful stories and poems shared this week ~ beautiful poems of winter walks, sterner lines of winter's ills, spine-...

Willow's Tail by JoAnne Stefanizzi (Penny4athought) - Available Now!

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 15 Dec 2023

I'm delighted to announce that Willow's Tail by JoAnne Stefanizzi (ABCTales' very own Penny4athought) has just been published! 'Willow is not an ordinary cat; she is a familiar and her human is Martha Kendalite. Martha is no ordinary human, hence the familiar lounging under the delphiniums in her garden. Willow and Martha are content with their days, happy with their routine and the uneventful surroundings of their hometown. That is, until the...

Rick Rien (2023) Viva Nothing

Posted by celticman on Thu, 14 Dec 2023

Rick Rien (a pseudonym) sent me a copy of his book, Viva Nothing . The title comes from a virtual race. He fancied the name, placed a bet, and won. Usually, he loses. It’s in the title. Rick’s addiction is gambling. Most of us know someone that is addicted to something. ‘Some of my best mates are drunk drivers,’ is a line I used in one of my longer stories, Ugly Puggly. Smoking and drinking used to be the big-hitters. Drugs (legal, illegal or...

Rosie (2021) BBC3, BBCiPlayer, Script by Roddie Doyle, Director Paddy Breathnach.

Posted by celticman on Mon, 11 Dec 2023

Rosie (2021) BBC3, BBCiPlayer, Script by Roddie Doyle, Director Paddy Breathnach. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p09lk76z/rosie Roddy Doyle makes you smile. You just need to think of that line from The Commitments , ‘We are the black men of…’ whatever it was. I’m never that grand at remembering. He wrote about the housing crisis in Dublin. But they can’t be that bad that Conor McGregor threatens to lead a posse of Irishmen to deal with...

Cerasus Poetry 2024

Posted by Cerasus Poetry on Sun, 10 Dec 2023

Poets, get those manuscripts ready.

Words on Bathroom Walls (2020), BBC 3, BBC iPlayer, Screenwriter Nick Naveda, based on novel of the same name by Julia Walton, Director Thor Freudenthal.

Posted by celticman on Sat, 09 Dec 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sg02/words-on-bathroom-walls https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sg02#credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_on_Bathroom_Walls Words on Bathroom Walls was a 2020 release and mainstream movie. It had a budget of over $9 million. Yet it only took around a third of that at the Box Office. If it looks like a turkey and sounds like a turkey… But it’d be a mistake to think that. Some movies like Pretty...

Ben-Hur (2016) Film4, Screenplay by Keith Clarke and John Ridley, Based on Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) novel by Lew Wallace, Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Posted by celticman on Fri, 08 Dec 2023

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/ben-hur-2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur_(2016_film) I was flicking through the channels. I couldn’t understand why they were putting Ben-Hur on in a premium time slot. I’d fond memories of Ben-Hur, being generally a sucker for Biblical epics when I was a kid in the La Scala. The type where Jesus’s shadow touches Victor Mature’s face in The Robe . I can’t really remember what happened next. No doubt...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 08 Dec 2023

As we lurch towards Christmas and the music whenever you step into a shop becomes more and more raucous, ABCTales is such an oasis of creativity in which to take a pause. Thank you all so much for being a part of it I have a couple of very honourable mentions for you first this week - Turlough's 100 words a day This Sort of Thing is an absolute pleasure to read, and Rhiannonw's walk Up to the Hoar Frost an icy delight. Do read them: https://www...

Walrussey by Bex Hainsworth (ABCTales Poet Mistaken Magic)

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Wed, 06 Dec 2023

Well this definitely deserves a place on our front page: Bex Hainsworth who wrote on ABCTales as Mistaken Magic has published her first poetry anthology. Not only that, but one of the poems in the collection, ‘An Octopus Picks Litter at the End of the World’ has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize by her publisher, The Black Cat Poetry Press. Very big congratulations to her! I'm sure most of you won't remember me, but this site was such an...

Three Faces, BBC 4, BBC iPlayer, written, directed and produced by Jafar Panahi

Posted by celticman on Tue, 05 Dec 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001swt5/three-faces https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001swt5#credits This is one of those films I watched which I didn’t really enjoy. For some reason I believed it would be cartoonish. I was thinking of something or somebody else. But it was a conventional film. I’m not sure certain why it was called Three Faces? Perhaps three faces of Iran (I’m not sure what they are either). I’ll do what I usually do...

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