Blogs

Halloween is here with ghosts and goblins and squeals of freight. Every child’s imagination soars as they put on a costume and become their imagined fantasy. It is fun and freeing and for the very young, the best holiday of the year. Scary movies or humorous, spine tingling, TV shows light up the screens of many homes. Cauldron bowls are filled to brimming with candy treats and homes are decorated to fright or delight depending on the decorator'...

This week's Inspiration Point of 'Night' has produced some marvellous work, and both our Picks this week are responses to the IP. Story of the Week is rosaliekempthorne's sensuous, chilling 'Night Hag'. The real meets the Other in a delicate blend of sensations. It's perfect reading for this particular time of year: Night Hag | ABCtales Poem of the Week goes to onemorething's 'Wintered Thin', the last of her four stunning 'dark poems' for...

Kate Summerscale is the author of the bestselling book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher , which was turned into a telly series. I haven’t read the book or seen the series. But after reading The Haunting of Alma Fielding , I’ll certainly need to add her work to my (growing) reading list. The beginning, middle and end—part 1, the ghost hunter, part 2, the ghost and part 3, the ghost—brings the reader from the pre-second-world-war offices of the...

Printed on a postcard, My Wife and Mother-in-Law, and distributed as a novelty by an unknown French artist (1888). They are both in the picture; find them? (p254-5). An old woman with a hooked nose, and her chin tucked into her fur coat is in one picture. The elegant young woman in the other. Initially, I couldn’t see the old woman, just the young. I tried rotating it. Blocking out parts of the picture and concentrating on where her long chin...

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$3,394.00 ) Week - 36 Just a Quick Post! ------------- I’m back from vacation, got stuff to do home wise.. --------------------------------- Didn't want to skip the week as there were things actually happening. Natural Shrimp (SHMP) made a big run up during the week after revealing a very positive contract for distribution. On Friday one of the financial blogs pushed what amounted...

It’s been lovely to read a few Halloween / Samhain creeping onto the site. Keep them coming. Meanwhile, as usual, it’s very hard to choose just one Poem and Story of the Week so have a good of what’s been posted this week - there are lots of gems. Our Story of the Week has to be celticman’s Creeping F-ing Jesus. I suppose it’s very unusual to have Story of the Week twice in a row, but it’s so moving and well-written and you must read them if you...

One year ago this month we lost this chap, leaving a huge Chocolate Labrador-shaped hole in the hearts of everyone who knew and loved him. Ironically, we were just about to publish the first collection of stories about Packham, and his companion India, as a paperback to raise funds for TURN Education. Caroline, TURN's founder, decided we should go ahead, in Packham's memory. The original idea was to sell these at Open Days etc. but the pandemic...

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...