This week I've chosen two pieces steeped in history, time and place. I'm sure you'll find them a rich, transporting read. Story of the Week goes to Markle for his stunning travel autobiography 'Wild Venice', full of detail and historical insight. Poem of the Week goes to Philip Sidney for 'Not a Shakespearian Sonnet' a delicate, beautifully written tribute to the great man himself. Congratulations to both. http://www.abctales.com/story/markle/...

Another Bookstore closing…Another Library cutting hours… I wonder just what is happening to the literary world. I am of course old school and must hold that book in my hand. I am not an advocate for the iPad or nook or whatever title the digital book can be found on. I am not a lover of digital books. I need the texture of the page and the simple weight of the tome in hand to draw me into that written world. Having thousands of books at your...

Paul Mason is an optimist. I’m a pessimist. He outlines the problems mankind faces in the future and suggests as a utopian solution of free money and us all working together in a non-working world. I tend more towards the four horseman of the apocalypse scenario. Mason suggests there are a number of negative feedback loops that will work together to make the world a much poorer place for 99% of humanity, but if we reverse engineer this process...

I heard on the radio this afternoon that by a majority verdict of seven to two the jury at the inquest of the Hillsborough disaster, where 92 people died, many of them teenage boys, found that they were unlawfully killed. I don’t really know what that means, but hearing those at the inquest singing the Liverpool anthem ‘Walk On’ made me feel tearful. A vindication for those families that campaigned and sought justice and truth. Let us not forget...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07952b1/louis-theroux-drinking-to-oblivion Yesterday started much the same as always. I read the papers, Sunday Mail and The Observe r. It was a bit of a surprise that The Observer had plagiarised two of my blogs. One was the Kevin Mc Kenna article about why Celtic are so shite but we love them anyway; the other about inequality, CEO salaries and executive pay. I don’t blame The Observer, after all I...

We all know how this works. BP is on the slide. Share price dropping like a cascade of dominos. It’s not a good time to be in fossil fuels. China no longer buying; America fracking and the Middle Eastern countries pumping out more oil than you can shake a Sheik at. Even Saudi Arabia is feeling the pinch and trying to sell shares in its monopoly. The best thing a company that BP can do is sack worker [tick] and lower existing workers’ pay [tick]...

......been thinking about coming back since Christmas, though truth to tell in the six months before that I barely thought of ABC, was unwell, mentally. Knew I could recover and then I did and wondered - what happened to writing? Mental illness does things to you - not all totally bad, but let's face it life would be better without it. Anyway, I have been jotting a few words down here and there; started feeling awkward about returning to the...

So much good stuff to choose from this week - particularly prose - but I hope you like the two I finally settled on. Story of the week goes to The Baby In The Well by Jewel Serpent. A beautiful voice with a very necessary message. Our Poem of the Week is Silver Spun Sand's Where The Bee Sucks. It's Earth Day today, and what better way to celebrate than with this stunning hymn to nature. http://www.abctales.com/story/jewel-serpent/baby-well-0...

I knew the secret of this book before I read it. Joss Moody, jazz trumpeter, extraordinaire is really a woman. So what, I thought. I also thought it would be set in some seedy jazz country called New York. But it’s not, it’s set in London, Glasgow and Torr and spans about sixty years from the early fifties. And I’d guess, from reading Red Dust Road , it’s the kind of quiet place and space that Jackie Kay’s parents John and Ellen, who live in...

For everyone who's been following this, please read my update: http://www.abctales.com/story/insertponceyfrenchnamehere/bees-journey