ABCtaler John Giffard ( http://www.abctales.com/user/john-giffard ) has written one of the poems in this new anthology. Heroes, 100 Poems from the New Generation of War Poets. Edited by John Jeffries. This book is exactly as described in the title. It contained 100 poems covering various aspects of war. A large number of submissions were made in response to a call for poems for inclusion. A selection panel of 4, each individually rated all those...

Dear all, Last night my account clicked over 100,000 reads. My writing mate, D, and I have some passionate discussions about "reads", "hits " and the near-obsession that can develop - checking from the confines of Trap 1 in the toilet at work to keep up with developments. D's got a point I suppose. Maybe I'm comparing with a time when all my scribbles ended up going no further than a pile of old battered note books in a dusty pile under the bed...

As many of you know by now, Laurie Avadis (better known here as lavadis ) is one of three ABC authors currently crowdfunding the publication of a novel on Unbound. Unbound works by having readers put forward the capital for the books they want to read to fund their publication - and Ex is halfway to publication. But Laurie still needs a few more pledges to put the book he wrote here on ABCtales into bookshops and onto your bookcases - so we'd...

Jon Robson has the kind of job I covet, he meets Noel Edmonds -- and other strange folk doing strange things. Deal or No Deal Jon - you come and live in Dalmuir for a week and I’ll try Seattle? Who can forget the pretext of Bill and the Ufo was that angels disguised themselves as aliens and went to live in Faifley because nobody would bother them when living there? Well, me for starters and I wrote it. Aliens are only aliens when you have to...

My friend is off in mid-Italy being led around the cultural highs and lows - monuments, facades, horsemeat and offal. No doubt with a glass or three of the local wine. I'm counting down the weeks to bed-bugs, blessings and blisters on the Camino de Santiago. I hope I'll witness the resurrection of my Spanish - lately rendered dumb. The work-life balance has become a write (and play) - sleep balance. I've taken to falling asleep on the train...

The most likeable film I have seen for ages! Boyhood takes six year old Ellar Coltrane through his fictional Texan life until his first day in college. The project took 12 years to make, the actors reunite every few years to grow older and go through their relationship changes and housemoves. Ethan Hawke as the hippy musician divorced dad who grows more serious and settles down with the daughter of Bible bashing farmers is particularly real-...

So then, friends and assorted great minds, lovers of the Arts, intelligentsia... The thought just crossed my mind while trimming my beard that my favourite piece of music might be a big lovely fractal (or similar). Is this possible? Is there such a book as "What Maths is Really Telling You" (but your teachers couldn't explain)? Was Beethoven describing God (was he Catholic?), or the universe (or protestant?) seen through the eyes of scientists...

This is the second year I've stewarded Beautiful Days. It's my local festival, pretty much everyone in East Devon who likes music and partying rocks up here. I steward as an Oxfam volunteer, I get free entry, three meal vouchers and access to the crew party and Oxfam gets paid my minimum wage earnings for three eight hour shifts so it's win-win. Having a waterproof tent matters, last year I had a £10 one from a bargain shop, this year I paid £30...

The Suicide Run has an adjunct: ‘Five Tales of the Marine Corps’. They are autobiographical short stories. In ‘My Father’s House,’ for example, begins ‘One morning in the year after the end of the war (the Good War, that is, the second War to End all Wars) when I returned to my father’s house in Virginia, and had slept long merciful hours...’ Note the world weariness, the sarcasm (the War to End all Wars, was, of course, The First World War) yet...

It’s worth paraphrasing George Orwell here: A man who gives a good account of himself is possibly lying, since any life viewed from the inside is simply a sense of defeats. Jimmy Savile never admitted defeat. The stories he told others was of his success as Bevan Boy, his tragic accident underground, prayers and miraculous recovery, stamina as cyclist and road racer, his pioneering of using turntables and records rather than bands to fill the...