The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern What circus only opens at night? What circus has the power to manipulate reality? What circus is the prodigal son of the nineteenth and twentieth century? Le Cirque des Rêves , ladies and gentleman, The Circus of Dreams and it is the ultimate aesthetic experience. The plot begins in nineteenth century New York and does not stay there. There is not only an interchange of location but also time periods. The...

I guess I should review these books individually, but it’s my blog, I have god-like powers and can do anything I want. I asked Richard Holloway to sign my book, which is his autobiographical writing, when he visited Dalmuir library. He asked me what I wanted him to write in the flyleaf, I said that book you were talking about earlier, Andre Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just because I wanted to read it. I’m with the Society of Friends on this...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02544td Must see television programmes are like a good marriage, you’ve heard of them, but up close they rarely exist. But this is David Attenborough territory. So you can suspend belief and watch this like a child, with open-mouthed wonder. My bet is you’ve never seen over a million penguins on Zavodoski island, a live volcano rock. That’s a lot of methane and lots of guano. Until we get smell-o-vision we’ll not...

Every year I try and add a little more to my Alternative Nativity, a slightly different telling of the Christmas story. However, I'm all out of inspiration this year (I think 2016 and the events of the world are rather weighing heavily on me) so I'm just going to have to encourage people to read the story so far, and hopefully find a few chuckles in the stable: The AlterNativity May I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a splendid New Year!

Congrats this week go to Ewan and Brighton_Ro. The IP is sort of festive! https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/kiss https://www.abctales.com/story/brightonro/thirteenth-floor https://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip Merry Christmas to you all.

http://www.itv.com/hub/the-coming-war-on-china/2a4249a0001 The title is deliberately provocative. Does John Pilger mean trade war between the number one and two trading blocks in the world? Because we know that is already happening. President-elect Donald J Trump in his campaign –among other accusations – accused China of raping America and stealing job and the American economy was ‘hurt very badly by China with devaluation.’ The United States...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P5A2QFp0cE this moved me.

Story of the Week is something that's stayed with me since I first read it, so that was a no-brainer, however Poem of the Week has been really difficult, and if there were a method of splitting it three ways I definitely would. Big congratulations to Pingles for 'The invisible hand' and to Rosa Cruz for 'And Lie Beneath' - and two very honourable mentions for Bear's 'Thoughts From the Kitchen' and Philip Sidney's 'Boy in a Bedroom' https://www...

OK, I gave in. Yesterday morning I listened to 'the 20 best carols' on one of the freview channels, might have been E4. Much to my surprise they were - not bad!. Destiny's Child's 8 days of Christmas was the closest to a trad carol. It kept the original tune and the key line 'On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me etc'. The video, ah yes, these carols truly brought home to me the power of pop videos, showed a happy Beyonce and...