Blogs

The Trick, BBC 1, BBC iPlayer, Writer Owen Sheers and Director Pip Broughton. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010s10/the-trick A drama based on a true story has to be factual—with lots of room for interpretation—for script writer Owen Sheers and Director Pip Broughton. Man-made climate change brought about by burning fossil fuels is simpler and more complex. We are reliant on experts to interpret the world for us. We are reliant on...

I'm very pleased to announce that John Osborne, who writes on ABCTales as mcmanaman has a new poetry collection out now! You can buy it here: Go Faster Stripe or if you're not in the UK try here: https://johnosborne.bandcamp.com/merch John's been a member of ABCTales forever, and he's recorded some of the poems on Soundcloud especiallly for us - they are brilliant so do listen to them, and if anyone doesn't know John's poems, I can really...

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$3,377.97 ) Week - 35 Things That Go Bump in My Head! ------------- I wear a hard hat on the jobsite to avoid things that go bump on my head! --------------------------------- Dirt. There is value in dirt. Someone once told me real estate is the only commodity no one is making more of! We may assume therefore that most things of value extracted from said real estate are equally...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000xnzx/storyville-raising-a-scho... Since 1970, 1677 school shootings in the US, ranging from pre-school to high schools. 528 deaths and 1626 injuries. Sue Klebold (Colorado). Tom, there’s a shooting going on at Columbine. They think that Dylan may be one of the shooters. I heard through the window them saying that there was 25 dead. And if Dylan was hurting people, in the way I thought he was, I prayed he...

This is more difficult every week, in my experience. Story of the Week among some stiff competiton is Celticman's 'Vermin', a powerful piece leavened by some of Jack's deft comic touches. https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/vermin Poem of the Week goes to Gothicman's 'The Senile Neurologist.' Best read aloud to appreciate its scansion and flowing rhymes, it is both funny and sad at the same time, which is no bad thing. https://www.abctales...

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$3,396.55 ) Week - 34 Things That Annoy Me! ------------- Drivers who stop at the end of the on ramp, People who drink lite beer, Cowboy’s fans! --------------------------------- Trying to think of all that is annoying in life can be a time consuming endeavor. I drive frequently so many of my favorite annoyances are travel related. I drove ride share for a couple of years before the...

Books are like the stock market, sales rise and fall over your title’s shelf life. At the mercy of fickle readership, your publication in many ways is no longer art, but a commodity, a product for sale. The trick is to bring your buyers to the stall and at least look it over. For my novel, A Kind of Drowning , I planned for the year, with one eye on the summer market and the end view of Christmas sales I marked out a calendar into three blocks...

Heather Morris’s debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz , sold around six million copies. I think I even had two copies floating about in my house at one time. I’ve still got one. The stories in the title. Lale Sokolov (he changed his surname, years earlier to make it sound less Jewish) was transported to Auschwitz from Bratislava with his family. His sister Goldie survived. He did too. His job as a tattooist, inking all those consecutive...

https://www.itv.com/hub/savile-portrait-of-a-predator/10a1253a0001 https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/jimmy-savile-and-me Ten years ago, Sir Jimmy Savile died. His funeral was an event that featured on the news. The great and the good appeared, in sombre tones, mourning our loss. People lined the streets to pay their respects. Sir Keith Stammer was Director of Public Prosecutions. Operation Yewtree was set up in London in 2012 to...