Blogs

Scratch’s ‘Daniel’ series of stories on ABCtales is coming to a conclusion. I’ve been having flashbacks, images of long black frocks and oversized crucifixes, the parish priest Canon Mallon and my teacher Mrs Boyle standing next to him, but with a slightly smaller crucifix. Little did I know that I was involved in a cruel experiment and like many others I’m ready to sue and seek therapeutic help by getting it down on paper. There are others like...

The man's life is his own ballad.Woody, named after the President Woodrow Wilson was born in Okemah in Oklahoma, a town that experienced the crazy short-term prosperity and subsequent slow death and ecological devastion of the oil boom. His father sold real-estate, an occupation that led to physical battles and broken hands. Everyone craved work and jumped trains to seek it. This was extremely hazardous, a person could freeze to death in in ice-...

Lots of folk ask me how Unbound Works. (Well, one person, thanks for that Eddie.) The answer is quite simple. I've no idea But then I thought back to my gilded youth when everything was quite simply complicated so that even a kid could understand it. Unbound is like Blue Peter without -down Shep! In those days John, Peter and Val stood in front of a big hollow tower, made out of polystyrene, with banded numbers on it. They'd look quite glum...

Lily Poole by Jack O'Donnell (better known on here as Celticman) is now available for support on Unbound Books. Pledge away to get it properly published. This is the first of three books by ABCtales authors to go for publication in this manner. Crowd funding is the 'new way' and Unbound are at the forefront of the revolution. ABCtales has been chosen as their way of finding great new authors and Jack is the first of those to go 'live. Support...

The Men Who Made Us Spend . BBC 2, 9.10pm. This is a three-part series directed, written and presented by investigative journalist Jacques Peretti. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1 In the first episode he looked at how monopoly capital makes it’s own rules. He gave the example of electric bulb makers in pre-Hitler Germany which sounded like an elder of Zion conspiracy theory only for the paperwork...

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights was published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell in 1847 because women don’t write books, only they do. Heathcliffe is the hero, or should I say anti-hero. He’s got a hint of gypsy in him, a man’s man that marries Isabella Linton to spite his childhood sweetheart Catherine Earnshaw (hints of incest here) hangs Isabella’s dog from a gatepost to show what kind of man she’s marrying and beats his head against the branch...

It’s a catchy title that titillates. You know when you open the pages it won’t be like wading through text book squiggles of grey snails lining up to teach you something meaningful about the author’s life that you don’t want to know. It won’t try and regress you or teach you that God is on your side if you can just [well, fill in your own bit here]. To begin with Hudson’s book disappointed me. It has been described as autobiographical. Here, the...

I was born in 1956; Elizabeth's gently comic tale of a village mainly populated by ladylike but hard-up widows and spinsters is not historically remote. Miss Matty, Miss Pole and the rest practise 'genteel economy' employing 'one little charity school maid' and serving bread and butter thinly cut at their card-playing socials because they can't afford to bake loads of cake. When exciting events arrive, like the magician's performance at the...

A day early I'm afraid as I'm off to WOMAD but two absolute crackers from two of our stalwarts. The story is quirky and funny whilst the poem is heart breaking. Enjoy! http://www.abctales.com/story/terrence-oblong/mattie-johnson http://www.abctales.com/story/veraclark/24th-july It's Tony Cook here - back for six weeks whilst Luke and Anna enjoy their honeymoon. Their wedding was a wonderful affair on the banks of the River Dart and I'm sure you...

It’s not everyday one gets a publicist. It’s a bit like a bald man going to the barbers. People just snigger behind your back (not that I’m bald, I just lack hair on selected parts of my head). I’d a meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. I’m notorious for forgetting people’s names. Last night, for example, I was talking for a couple of minutes with a guy at the bar. Usual sort of football chatter. Then he came out with it. ‘You don’t know who I am? Do...