Blogs

Marita Conlon-McKenna (1990 [2017]) Under the Hawthorn Tree.

Posted by celticman on Tue, 13 Apr 2021

I’ve been reading about the Irish Famine 1845-51. I’m in the privileged position of never knowing life-threatening hunger. Under the Hawthorn Tree is a children’s book and international bestseller set in 1845—200 000 copies sold in Ireland alone. A book of 150 pages, its simple sentences and style meant I could digest the book in one sitting. I’m looking for markers that make it a success where other fail, something I could make use of. The...

The Investing Game

Posted by OtterMan on Sat, 10 Apr 2021

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$1,640.35 ) Week - 8 Coming Into London From Over the Pole! F lying in a big airliner Chickens flyin' everywhere around the plane Could we ever feel much finer? Well represented and diverse in form, dripping with potential is the pot stock sector. You know for a plant that is still illegal, there sure is a bunch of above board economic activity going on. Probably be more if the...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 09 Apr 2021

Chosen this week by Ewan: As always, so many good things to read and such varied styles and forms. I’ve made the usual hard choices and narrowed all the tremendous stuff down to these two. Poem of the Week is Di_Hard’s to pick up time. I loved its sinusoidal curve on the screen, conjuring the shape of waves bringing the quartz to the seashore. https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/pick-time Story of the Week is Mark Burrow’s Dayroom Conversation...

False Confessions, Amazon Prime, 2020, director Katrine Philip.

Posted by celticman on Thu, 08 Apr 2021

Watch False Confessions | Prime Video (amazon.co.uk) What makes this interesting is we see footage of people who have been accused of heinous crimes—they were later proved to be innocent. We see, for example, police officers interviewing Lorenzo Montoya. He was fourteen-years-old when he walked into the police station 10 th January 2000. He was convicted of the murder of Emily Johnson, a 29-year-old teacher at Skinner Middle School, and...

ABCtales Virtual Reading Night – Video Now Live!

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Mon, 05 Apr 2021

This just in from Mark Burrow! ABCtales Virtual Reading Night – Video Now Live! We had a great evening of poetry and prose in February and I’m delighted to say the video is now live on our YouTube Channel. Our following members appear on the video: Luigi Pagano Sean McNulty Rhiannonw Lem Ross_Lowe LittleRedHat Fran Thompson hudsonmoon celticman Simon Barget airyfairy Mark Burrow Ewan Please note, some of the readings contain strong language. To...

Story and Poem of the Month

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Sun, 04 Apr 2021

Our Story and Poem of the Month for March have very kindly been chosen by Drew Gummerson: Picks of the Month March I joined AbcTales back in 2003. I posted my first story thinking it would disappear into the black hole of the internet but then, to my amazement, I started to get email notifications, praise, comments. It encouraged me to write more. Get better. Entertain. And I made friends. Read lots of wonderful writing. So, 18 years later, it...

The Investing Game

Posted by OtterMan on Sat, 03 Apr 2021

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$1,416.26 ) Week - 7 Short Week - Short Post! Overall drop again this week but slight. The market in general was substantially calmer and made a noticeable upturn from the carnage of the past month. With the US markets being closed to observe the religious holiday, all the major action was on Thursday. CYIOS Corp. (CYIO) took an 8 position tumble and gave back a little over $54 on...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 02 Apr 2021

Pages and pages of wonderful, vibrant and imaginative writing this week - thank you so much, all of you, for keeping us entertained and for the wonderful supportive and encouraging comments you've left for each other My picks for this week: Poem of the Week goes to Daisy, Sitting on a Grave by mark-yelland-brown and Story of the Week to Mark Burrow for Christopher L Johnson's Heroic Act. Put them both on your 'must read' list and you will have a...

The Men Who Stare at Goats, BBC 2, BBC iPlayer, screenplay by Peter Straughan, adapted from a book by Jon Ronson, and directed by Grant Heslov.

Posted by celticman on Tue, 30 Mar 2021

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xhf50/the-men-who-stare-at-goats In many ways this is George Clooney’s creation. He’s listed as one of the producers. Producers are the guys (and it is usually men) who get the money together to make a movie. Because he’s George Clooney he can do that kind of thing. Other people will fling money at him, because it’s a no-lose situation, a film starring George Clooney is bound to make money, and if it’s...

SITE MAINTENANCE - UPDATE

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Sun, 28 Mar 2021

Posted by airyfairy on Sun, 28 Mar 2021 We've been advised by the server that this is now likely to take place later on in the day/early evening, but there's a chance it will go on until Tuesday. Again, many apologies for the inconvenience. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and we'll be back soon! airyfairy's blog 4 reads

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