https://www.channel5.com/show/the-great-stink-of-1858/#main-content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink John Major: “Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.” We all know where deregulation and a lack of cooperation take us. It allows us to put carbon into the air and gives our planet multiple sclerosis. That’s a deadly miasma which will be terminal for most of us. Coming to you soon. Britain 1858 is the...

Nobody tells you how much you’ll come to hate your book. Fight or flight. You freeze. You’re being held down and forced to read it again. Try a different font. Try reading it aloud. Give it time to settle. While I was waiting, I wrote a rough draft of the follow-up novel, Angel . Try primal screaming. It doesn’t work but it does annoy the neighbours. At least they know how you feel. The problem isn’t someone else’s. While you’re lining sentences...

Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry , has as its protagonist Elizabeth Zott, who shoots from the hip, and never fails to tell the reader why. The past is never past and all that. And in physics, as in life, nothing is ever lost. But Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. A first-class chemist. Physics may have created the atomic and hydrogen bombs. But it was chemistry and chemists that created our modern world. Elizabeth Zott is a genius, in the same way...

Channel 4, The Billionaires Who Made Our World. Bill Gates. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-billionaires-who-made-our-world/on-demand/72330-002 ‘The Global Fund is one of the best and kindest thing people have ever done for one another. Our Foundation announces a $500 million grant to The Global Fund.’ Bill Gates. Dear Bill, I’m sure you don’t remember me, but your algorithm does. You ‘friended’ me on Twitter. That was before the other...

Here are the picks of the week. Poem of the Week is Ralph's 'Any Old Jerusalem' a reworking of an old poem. When you can picture the people and the places, it's a sign that a piece is as near perfect as anything has any right to be. You can read it here Story of the Week is TJW's 'The R Word'. A very strong narrative voice tells us a gritty, yet heartbreaking story. You can read it here This weeks IP is here

I might have read Margaret Elphinstone’s book, The Sea Road before. Everybody loves Vikings, especially President Putin. The Rus people, he claims, are directly descended from The Sea Road and not from the Asiatic hordes in the East. Another way of saying, white is right. White is might. Pass the longboat and invade Ukraine where it all began. I know what you’re thinking, Alzheimer’s. That’s what really scares me. Memory loss. Not being Valhalla...

A Eulogy for a Collie To anyone that read my recent piece about Eric aka Skye the collie woofer my grateful thanks. https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/eric-viking This was intended as an homage to my dog and border collies in general, what with him 16 going on 17 years old. Sadly, not long after writing it, Eric succumbed to old age and is no longer with us. I guess the point of writing this is that dogs don’t get funerals. It’s either...

ABC Tales writer Colin Burnett (author of the absorbing and thought-provoking novel 'A Working Class State of Mind') has an article in the upcoming issue of 'The National'. We haven't got a link for you yet, but we will post one as soon as we can. Anyone familiar with Colin's work will know that this is going to be well worth reading. We've had some wonderful stories posted during the last seven days, but after a lot of thought Story of the Week...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001j079/the-shamima-begum-story Elie Wiesel: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Near the end of The Shamima Begum Story, Josh Baker asked her a question we often hear: ‘What would you tell your fifteen-year-old self?’...

Putin vs The West, BBC 2, BBC iPlayer, Narrator Caroline Catz, Editor Toby Marter, Director Tim Stirzaker, and Series Producer Norma Percy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlz7tz/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-1-my-backyard https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlzcrb/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-2-back-with-a-vengeance https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlzdwr/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-3-a-dangerous-path The Doomsday Clock sits 90...