Blogs

The anthology of the Poetry Pentathalon entries is now out at a price of £6.99. Go and order your copy now! http://www.lulu.com/shop/2012-poetry-pentathlon/fox-shade-other-poems/pa... Congrats go to Bear, sonora and ItsSteveDave for taking the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals respectively. Many, many thanks go to the Wilky Bar Kid for organising this competition and sorting out the book. There will be Prose Pentathalon early in the New Year -so...

Let’s try and sell this idea. You get a guy that's like an American gangster. I’m thinking Robert de Niro here, but someone a lot cheaper. So we get Steven Van Zandt. We put him in the witness protection programme, but we don’t send him to Detroit or New Jersey, we send him to Lilyhammer. Get it. That’s in Norway. It’s not a gangster in New York. It’s a gangster in Lilyhammer. Not surprising the locals don’t understand him. They speak Norwegian...

Jennifer Pickup's 'Unbelievable' is out! This is the first result of the link-up between crowd funding publishers, Unbound, and ABCtales. Please do go into your local bookshop and order a copy or go here for the cheapest available internet deal: http://www.best-book-price.co.uk/Product-266239/1908717068-Unbelievable.... Full details are here: http://www.abctales.com/forum/2012/08/18/unbelievable-go

I like Jimmy McGovern. I like The Accused. His production company creates a drama and sells it to BBC. They give it a prime spot. Prime billing. I watched the last series. It’s formulaic. Someone’s ‘The Accused’ and the first question that needs to be answered is who? The flip side of this is who is the non-Accussed? Because the dead don’t make good witnesses it’s usually the guy or girl that has been seen in the opening scenes, but is no longer...

The Bank Job (2008) Film 4 is a Jason Statham film, which means it’s going to be bad. As bad as as a Steve Seagal? As bad as a Schwzenegger or any of those other kung-fu kind of action heroes –I’m thinking Van Damme, Vin Diesel and all the other white Van lads- that are so bad they are actually quite good? Well it wasn’t too bad, which says nothing at all. I’m not going to spoil the film by telling you the story. Most Stathan films are just one...

When’s a secret not a secret? When you’ve got a film crew following you around. David and Miriam Lapp risk excommunication from the Old Order Amish faith in Pennsylvania. There’s a stricture in forbidding photography. There’s a stricture against having a phone in the house, but having one in a shack outside, or in the garage, is acceptable. The garage isn’t a place where the car is kept. That’s where the horses are kept that pull those wheeled...

Line of Duty is the best drama on telly. The climax of this five part drama, five hours of google-eyed viewing is on BBC 2 tonight. Written by Jed Mercurio of Cardiac Arrest fame, it’s as taut and tight as you’d expect from such a veteran. If you really want to know what Mercurio is about then a good start would be his novel Bodies, and as a former doctor he knows where they are buried. Bodies follows an intern through his brutal initiation into...

Wallander BBC 1 9pm. Yeh, I know. This isn’t the real Wallander. The BBC 4 Wallander that looked like an ex-football player, all jowly and gone to seed, with a bit of a drink problem, a bit of a women problem, a bit of a life problem. But on the bright side he did have a dog Jussy and some nice Scandinavian scenery. Kenneth Brannagh has a dog named Jussy and he has the nice Scandinavian scenery. There’s also lots of international production...

Long time ABCtaler Derek Rogers, better known as jingle on here, has had his children's book 'Blackmore's Treasure' selected by Helen Hollick, the Editor of the Historical Novel Society. She writes: “I am a fan of Barbara Erskine’s time slip novels—and this is a superb equivalent for younger readers, boys especially, but adventure-loving girls (and adults!) will also enjoy this engrossing read. It is June 1995. Thirteen-year-old Tobias Allinson...

James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) Channel 4. It’s a bit like Titanic. First the big screen film, in this case with the added bonus of 3D, and then the video (will that word become obsolete?) the download and now it’s scrapping around the bottom of the channel on 4. The good thing is I haven’t seen it. I have seen parts of it. There was a bit of Dances with Wolves, a bit of Hiawatha, a bit of Apocalypse Now and a bit of Disney fairy tale icing with...