philwhiteland's blog

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noted that this week's Bring Out Your Dead episode - 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You ' , has appeared a day earlier than normal. This is because, due to circumstances beyond my control (as they always say) there will now be a slight hiatus in the regular weekly provision of insights into Josiah and Archibald's travails, getting the body of Sir Lewisham Carnock back to the U.K. However, nil desperandum and all that...

Great news about Josiah and Archibald! The very first story in their adventures - 'A Dubious Undertaking ' - which appeared first here on ABCTales, has been selected for broadcast on Yorick Radio's podcast on Friday, 17th November, 2023. I'm very excited about this and very much looking forward to hearing how these two make the transition to audio. My thanks to everyone here who have been kind enough to read the continuing Undertakers stories...

Firstly, many thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to follow the stories about Josiah and Archibald (and now Samantha) my Undertakers. Those of you who have been following the stories will know that the plot has been thickening more than somewhat, particularly over the festive season, with Josiah now engaged to Samantha and Archibald under threat of training and development! The latest story 'It is better to have loved, and lost...and...

There's definitely something about Christmas that encourages me to write stories a little more often than I would normally. I suppose it helps that the subject matter more or less suggests itself! That, and the fact that, by and large, people are generally in a good mood and looking to be entertained. With this in mind, I usually aim to publish at least a couple of Christmas-themed stories in the run-up to the main event. This year, I challenged...

I'm delighted to be able to tell you that the stories I've featured here on ABCtales about Rohan and India, the two dogs at TURN Education, have now been collected together into a book in time for Christmas. The collection also includes two brand new stories, not previously published, which round off their first year together. Here's the blurb: A year in the life of the dogs (and other animals) at TURN Education. Beginning with the first...

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...

I've tried multiple times over the past few days to upload a story but I keep getting the incomprehensible error message below. I've sent pleading messages via the Contact Us section of the web page but to no avail! I would really like to upload this story but may have to abandon the effort if this goes on :-( Any ideas? PDOException : SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1366 Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A</...' for column 'body_value...

I completely forgot to mention here (and this is why I'll never become a literary colossus!) that 'The Chronicles of a Young Lady (and her Maid)' which started out as a serial here on ABCtales, is FREE as a Kindle e-book this Bank Holiday weekend (29th & 30th May). An entertaining and undemanding read for an unusually pleasant Bank Holiday Here's the blurb: "When a young noble lady's betrothed rides off to battle, she has high hopes of his...

A while ago, I had a bit of dialogue running through my head and I've learned, through bitter experience, that sooner or later I would have to commit it to writing before it drove me completely crackers! So, I did, and it became a short story called 'She Who Would Valiant Be!' here on ABCtales. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever written before but I was rather taken with the characters and wanted to see what might happen to them next, so I...