Congrats go to well wisher and Rosa Cruz this week and the IP looks across the water. Do with it what you will! https://www.abctales.com/story/well-wisher/martians https://www.abctales.com/story/rosa-cruz/surfacing https://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip A darn fine effort all round this week - keep it up!

Lionel Messi was meant to be a sick note, not a seen it, done it message– he only scored two goals in just over ninety minutes here, one a penalty, which doesn’t really count. His first came from another tax dodger currently under investigation by the Spanish authorities (why can’t we do that here?) Up until that point Andy Rat and me had been celebrating each ten minute spell that passed without Barca scoring, me with a pint. Andy with a coke...

A message from Ewan: 'Just received Author's complimentary copies of Gibbous House, which began life on here many years ago. Thanks to all who encouraged me in those early days' You can pre-order your copy here (and ABCTales gets a cut from every copy!): http://tinyurl.com/zsyct3c

Outside the sultry mini-Store, sundry sparrows jump to the beat of energetic jet roar and a thousand cultures mingle and clash... in the antic theater and the manic concert hall: humans and Americans all waiting... waiting... for the next true vision... to Fall

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/b083bjdv I’m a big fan of BBC 4 and Nordic noir. This feels like cheating, get into dialect and ask yourself how the fuck can we have Aussie noir, when everything is bright and breezy and the action takes place within spitting distance of Bondi beach? But here we have the usual motifs, an outsider in the police department, looking to prove herself Tori Lustigman (Yael Stone) a pint-sized cop, an Aussie Sarah...

There are an awful lot of people in my home town who have been traumatised by the recent Croydon tram disaster. Not just the families and friends of the 7 killed (5 out of the 7 from New Addington); not just the families and friends of the 50 plus whose injuries were treated in hospital, some of whom had limbs amputated and whose lives will be changed forever; not just the other passengers on that early morning tram, nor the Croydon residents...

If we exclude the launch party for my debut novel Lily Poole , where I didn’t have to do anything much, but go to the bar and buy drinks and get a couple of selfie-styled photos, then yesterday’s outing in Dalmuir Library was my first outing as an author. There were only two things made me more nervous than losing something on a flip of the coin. A heads up (i) There would be an audience. (ii) No audience. The tale of the latter was far more...

We have been inundated with wonderful pieces on ABCTales this week - poetry especially. Do please keep it up, it's such a pleasure to read it all. Big congratulations to seashore for 'Blue' (if you aren't one of the 327 people who've already read it, please do so), and the same to celticman for 'the war to end all wars' who incidentally is giving a reading in Dalmuir tomorrow from his brilliant first novel. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/...

Hi all, some of you have been emailing me with Poetry Monthly ideas and had difficulties with my email address. A big apology. That's because I've given you the wrong one. In fact, I invented another one that was an amalgamate of two others. 'Just keeping you on your toes', says the massive bumbling idiot. Anyway, the correct address is ray@abctales.com and I look forward to receiving all your ideas. Thanks Ray

Could be an age thing...When I was young the drama, the story, the scene of fiction - this to me was the real reality, cutting through the pedestrian precincts of organised logical thought and reaching to 'the significant heart of everything.' These days I'm jaded with fictional passion and prefer the metallic jolt of hard fact. Fact can explode preconceptions it can brighten my mind with the unexpected, the harsh, the funny, the telling...