Prose-poetry went off like a box of premium fireworks this month. Some gorgeous work from all. Here’s three crackers LondonCalling’s hike explored the fickle circularities of love: http://www.abctales.com/story/londoncalling79/horizons-just-circle-poetry-monthly Bear’s inspirational dialect combined wit with birds, knickers and ‘oles: http://www.abctales.com/story/bear/truckles-owls-poetry-monthly-%E2%80%93-sort BJD did extraordinary things with...

April's Story and Poem of the Month have been chosen for us by the lovely Philip Sidney aka Helen Richardson. Here are her picks: Thank you so much for the privilege of selecting the poem and the story of the month for April! Such a difficult thing to do, so I went for gut feelings. There were so many fantastic poems. Silver Spun’s warm as honey, ‘Where the Bee Sucks’, works on so many levels: http://www.abctales.com/story/silver-spun-sand/where...

I can only sympathise with Lily Allen. We too had somebody invade our house on Friday night. Bit of a kerfuffle and the front door banging open and shut. I thought it was Alan, (not Lily Allen) Mary’s son, playing funny buggers. He does that sometimes and thinks he’s funny. He’s got a beard now, so it’s perhaps not the best time to tell him it isnae. And he’s off work, probably suffering from low self-esteem, which makes a wee change from...

If it makes you happy, do it. What makes you happy now will make you sad later. You may as well squeeze the juice of happiness as you may. So the darling buds of May. If it makes you happy, do it. Although it makes everyone else sad. While you live, live for today. While nature withers away. If it makes you happy, get a sex change? What's sex but a change of clothes. Like Caitlyn Jenner, get the sex change and then turn the sky to gray. Then...

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]...