It’s not Christmas yet but ABCtales already has a few present for you — head over to our brand new ABCtales Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEqv-2OQ7QXdMkXjcDREV9A and have a watch of Tony reading ‘Grumpy Old Man’. Now there’s a stunning performance for you. Just as good – and even more festive – is Rich’s rendition of ‘It Was the Night Before Christmas, See?’ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEqv-2OQ7QXdMkXjcDREV9A/videos?view=1...

The librarian looked at me when I checked this book out. I’m used to this, being very handsome, a bit like a young Sean Connery only older and balder and a bit more in the beef stakes. But the librarian was a man. I’ve nothing against that kind of thing. These barriers are breaking down. If a librarian wants to be a man and wants to gawk at me and manhandle my choice of book then that’s his perogative. He looked as if he wanted to say something...

You’ve got to watch Derren Brown. He’s so good as what he does that when he tells Ivan Massow that he will steal a painting worth £100 000 from a pop-up art exhibition he’s organising, tell him the day when he’s going to do it, the time he’s going to do it -3pm- and gives the art dealer a picture of the person that’s going to steal it for him, then you expect him to be able to do it. He bets Massow a nominal £1 that he will and lets him organise...

A big thanks to everyone who came out on Wednesday to ABCtales’ Winter get-together. It was a wonderful evening, filled with fantastic readings and even a few surprises (not least of which was the true identity of Rosa Tabula!) And despite all the carousing and the many pints consumed, we also managed to raise £120 for the Railway Children. Thanks to everyone who came! We’re planning to have our next get together in London in late March, but,...

The first Inspecting Captain of Submarine Boats, as they were called, was advised never to go near them by the Director of Naval Construction, Sir William White, as he had once descended in a submergable boat in a London dock in 1887 and had been stuck on the bottom for an hour or so. Three American type ‘Holland’ submarine boats were built in Barrow in Furness in 1901. They were sixty-three feet long and were shaped—in a way associated with...

Lily Bere is determined to kill herself. Her beloved grandson Bill, a Gulf War veteran is dead and her life seems blighted, but as an eighty-nine-year old woman she can hardly muster the energy to commit herself to that final act. Her life has been full of loss and betrayal. She takes us back to the tranquil times before the Eastern Uprising when her dad had risen to chief superintentant of Division B, one of the top police officers in Dublin...

Let me begin with a confession, whenever Celtic are playing Barcelona, whether home or away, and some ‘neutral’ asks me what the score will be I always say Barcelona will win 3-0. I assume that Barcelona are at least three times better than Celtic. Yet I stuck a couple of quid on Georgios Samaras to score first and Celtic to win 1-0 (200/1). For that to happen the footballing universe must turn slightly the wrong way and our goalie must have the...

This is Munro’s first book, a collection of fifteen short stories, won her Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s award and put her name on the literary map. The literary ghosts of rural Canada and later characterisations are here. Her father is here in shadow form, unable to make a living despite working 365 days a year, seven days a week, farming furs like minx and fox, penned up in small cities with their own walkways. Her mother is here ‘...

One last reminder that the ABCtales Winter get-together in London is happening tomorrow, Wednesday, December the 11th at the Wheatsheaf pub in Bloomsbury. The address is 25 Rathbone Place,W1T 1JB , and we hope to see as many of you as possible. I f you're in the city (or even outside) come on down, have a pint and stick around for some fantastic readings! Tony and I will be at the pub from 6:30PM to discuss the redesign of the site, so come by...

Don’t every wipe tears without gloves is in the first shot, of the first scene, of the first episode (this was the second episode) and is a piece of advice given by a senoir nurse to her more junior partner as they tend to a bedridden youth in a Stockholm hospital in the 1980s. Both nurses wear protective masks and boots and are amoured against this new virus HIV that is contagious in a way that people don’t really understand. The contagiant in...