Blogs

Think only of yourself. Think of your family. Martin O’Neil famously said he was leaving Celtic because his wife was ill. Fair enough. Personally, I think he knew, we all knew, Henrik had departed, Celtic needed a major revamp, the money for players was no longer available and a bloated squad –anyway- a mess he didn’t want to deal with. Maurice Johnston, the Partick Thistle striker, famously signed for Celtic, but then signed for Rangers...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000309g/la-la-land Only in LaLa land at the Oscars could LaLa Land best picture announced, could it turn out to be LaLa Land winner and LaLa Land loser, all within five minutes. It wasn’t Best Picture. But was it a good picture? Not bad. I’m not really into music. Put it this way, the director of Singin’ in the Rain Stanley Donen died and tributes poured in. Singin’ in the Rain in 1952 was a classic of the...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0002k62/storyville-under-the-wire Unhappy is the land that needs heroes Bertolt Brecht. A Private War directed by Matthew Heinemann and staring Rosamund Pike as the heroic shambles that was Marie Colvin is in cinemas now. I see no need to see it. It’s all here in Under the Wire . Based on a book by Paul Conroy and his experience in the massacres at Homs. Here we are at the last stand. 13 th February 2012,...

I read the review of Bloody February in The Observer and it’s like deja-fuck-you, somebody had wrote the song that you wrote and sings it better. Set in Glasgow, in the 1970s. My turf and my time and my subject matter. This book fucking scared me big time. I was scared this book would be everything I was not. Leading writers of Scottish noir praise Bloody January on the cover. Ian Rankin, Alex Gray, Peter May and Louise Welsh, ‘Bloody and...

I had a walk out today, after a week nearly of anti-biotics and rest, my legs are weak, and ache. Yet Spring is on the way, and the weather struck me as more temperate than usual and I ventured out in a linen jacket, a long (on me) gor-ray skirt, and a blue satin blouse. I finished the outfit with a blue leather bag, and a pair of blue, very feminine, court style, extra width shoes from Lotus. The Norwich store was busy, in each department, and...

Ever heard the song Held by Natalie Grant? My mind had it on replay as I went through We Told Six Lies by Victoria Scott. By the way, if you call the twist before the end then you're a better CSI agent than I was, and I was pleasantly surprised. The story is told from two point of views, Molly, the missing protagonist, and Cobain, the boyfriend suspected of kidnapping her. They're both compelling character's, Cobain more so than Molly (in my...

Difficult as ever to choose, but in the end Story of the Week is mikesize1's 'Elephant Nest: Chapter One'. It made me laugh, it made me flinch, it made me wonder what was coming next: https://www.abctales.com/story/mikesize1/elephant-nest-chapter-one Poem of the Week was even harder. Eventually I went for Di_Hard's 'driverless', but with a more than honourable mention for the poem that inspired it, Jane Hyphen's 'Drivers'. Please do read both:...

I have taken the very difficult step of sending my work out to publishers – a big change for me…and now I am playing the waiting game…and I realized...although I am usually very optimistic in much of my life I'm not very optimistic in this part of me. I do love to write…and I will always love to write but to think it could be published??? Not sure about that…and now I wonder…should I have sent my story in at all? Was it ready? Maybe I should...