Blogs

Lots to choose from this week and, naturally many had a Remembrance Sunday connection. However, amongst the prose, I was struck by Noo's nihilistic story about, well, I'll leave you to decide what this well-crafted oddity, Passive Voice, is about. Poem of the week does have a Remembrance Sunday theme, this wonderful poem Mesopotamia by Philip Sidney is about a lesser known campaign and all the more powerful for it. The Inspiration Point is here...

OUTBRANCHING

This started as a 'Project' while waiting for edits of my next Eva installment (Eagles Hunt Wolves). I had an idea from reading Ian Fleming's 'From Russia with Love' where Bond suggests a different kind of spy join the 00 ranks. I had some 'shaving's' from Eagles Hunt Wolves, chapters that never quite worked or wound up in the bin, taking two deleted scenes, like a starter for bread, I took out Eva, created Sebastion Holt and re-worked the...

100 years since the war that was supposed to end all wars was won and lost. This is a poem from that time by a lady called, Vera Brittain. It was dedicated to her fiancé, Roland Aubrey Leighton, who was killed at the age of 20 by a sniper in 1915, four months after she had accepted his marriage proposal. PERHAPS Perhaps some day the sun will shine again, And I shall see that still the skies are blue, And feel once more I do not live in vain,...

The nights are drawing in - a time for contemplation and chills. The picks of this week provide both. Poem of the week is London Calling's beautiful and moving, when you are the ocean: https://www.abctales.com/story/londoncalling79/when-you-are-ocean Story of the week is a bargain read one get two free from Noo, with her unsettling trio of mask stories, Sincere: https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/sincere-part-3 And here is the inspiration point...

My old mate Jim McLaren invited me to the Christmas show for pensioners, even though I’m the same age as him and I’m not doddery, yet, although I can’t remember the last time I was at Panto and I hate Christmas. And I especially detest people who put their Christmas decorations up after Halloween and then wait until near Easter to put wee bunnies and eggs wrapped in red ribbons up on their walls. And you know what I think of people who buy...

Episode One: For King and Country https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0brjshr/wwi-the-last-tommies-series-1-1-for-king-and-country This is the kind of documentary series that the BBC does so well using archive footage and interviewing those that remember The Great War. We are shown a Zeppelin, which could travel at eighty miles per hour and carry two tons of explosive and told about the raid on Hull. An eyewitness remembered how shocking it...

Mrs. Treaclechops is still down in Hampshire spending time with her sister who is unwell, so granddaughter Ellie decided that she was coming for a sleepover and to keep me company. She’s 9 years old (10 next month) … going on 17. She came for one night with a small suitcase containing her jim jams, dressing gown, a change of clothes, a tablet, a cushion and a pillow. Also, one carrier bag full of books and a second carrier bag containing her...

Music and reading and writing is my life. Some weeks I will find a lost song and get close to it again. British pop music of the 70s & 80s is so poetical and full of hidden philosophy. A younger generation can learn so much from this period of art. We are an island of poets and im sure we know it. This week a certain song has been inspiring me into better health. In the comments section of the song I wrote " a ballad for humanity ". Spandua...