Well the the trend that started at the beginning of the year continues apace. Every week without fail new and talented writers turn up, open accounts and start to post. We've already seen some stella performances; here's another... airyfairy signed up and posted a story in response to last week's inspiration point. That story was awarded pick of the day yesterday and today I have great pleasure in announcing that it has now won story of the week...

Laugh Out Loud when you feel like crashing down,because you have nothing left to lose.Take a bow, but don't you give up Now!!! Your future is still in tune. The past is behind you. The present belongs to you. So, do what you've got to do to get back up and make it through. Let life humour you, it is funny:)

“It was the late 70s. Everyone seemed focused on a sense that we were always at the end of things, that it was all collapsing. London was filthy, semi-functional. The phones didn’t work properly, the tube was a nightmare, but no one complained. It fed into a rather apocalyptic sense of things.” Ian McEwan, The Guardian, 26 January 2014. “The farm is crucial. Stranded in such an isolated place, where there are only the natural rhythms of life and...

Almost There. In just over twelve hours’ time, we’ll know who’s the world’s best boxer at welterweight and more importantly who’s the best pound for pound boxer alive today. It’s being billed at Good Guy v Bad Guy. Floyd Money Mayweather the multi-million dollar, cocky, arrogant, bully boy American against little Manny Pacquiao the quiet well- mannered Filipino. Not quite the truth. That’s what the promoters want us to believe because it all...

I use to think : There must be a true writer inside because I have this need to write. But I'm not sure how to cultivate the acclaimed writer within or even if I'm supposed to. Maybe it's just letting the thoughts flow and catching a great dialogue or one magnificent paragraph, a moment to savor, like catching a wave - a rush of adrenaline. Maybe I don't have a full length masterpiece inside... but it's all right. I can survive. I will still...

We have a tie for Story of the Week! Both very different styles, both wonderfully authentic depictions of family, love and ageing. Read them one after the other and you'll see what I mean. Congratulations to T_az and Celticman: http://www.abctales.com/story/taz/taking-turns http://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/snap-0 Poem of the Week goes to london_calling79 for his wonderful Current - inspired by a chance encounter - a nothing much turned...

The Trouble With Our Trains, BBC 2, 9pm. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05sz83j/nick-and-margaret-the-trouble-with-our-trains Twenty years after privatisation, in which the number of rail passengers have doubled, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford examine what was once British Rail, but is now a hotchpotch of different companies competing in the rail market. Only they aren’t. Four billion pounds of government money a year still subsidises...

I enjoy writing. I wish my story link was working.

Hi, Is anybody having a problem writing a story? My story link is saying "Assess Denied".

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/on-demand/57108-007 Reporter Harry Wallop goes undercover to investigate Sports Direct, and its owner Mike Ashley, listed as the twenty-third richest man in Britain, with an estimated fortune of £3.5 billion. I must admit a conflict of interests here. I own three-supersized Sports Direct mugs. Indirectly, I’ve contributed to Ashley’s fortune. The first half hour (or excluding adverts, twenty minutes...