The most likeable film I have seen for ages! Boyhood takes six year old Ellar Coltrane through his fictional Texan life until his first day in college. The project took 12 years to make, the actors reunite every few years to grow older and go through their relationship changes and housemoves. Ethan Hawke as the hippy musician divorced dad who grows more serious and settles down with the daughter of Bible bashing farmers is particularly real-...

So then, friends and assorted great minds, lovers of the Arts, intelligentsia... The thought just crossed my mind while trimming my beard that my favourite piece of music might be a big lovely fractal (or similar). Is this possible? Is there such a book as "What Maths is Really Telling You" (but your teachers couldn't explain)? Was Beethoven describing God (was he Catholic?), or the universe (or protestant?) seen through the eyes of scientists...

This is the second year I've stewarded Beautiful Days. It's my local festival, pretty much everyone in East Devon who likes music and partying rocks up here. I steward as an Oxfam volunteer, I get free entry, three meal vouchers and access to the crew party and Oxfam gets paid my minimum wage earnings for three eight hour shifts so it's win-win. Having a waterproof tent matters, last year I had a £10 one from a bargain shop, this year I paid £30...

The Suicide Run has an adjunct: ‘Five Tales of the Marine Corps’. They are autobiographical short stories. In ‘My Father’s House,’ for example, begins ‘One morning in the year after the end of the war (the Good War, that is, the second War to End all Wars) when I returned to my father’s house in Virginia, and had slept long merciful hours...’ Note the world weariness, the sarcasm (the War to End all Wars, was, of course, The First World War) yet...

It’s worth paraphrasing George Orwell here: A man who gives a good account of himself is possibly lying, since any life viewed from the inside is simply a sense of defeats. Jimmy Savile never admitted defeat. The stories he told others was of his success as Bevan Boy, his tragic accident underground, prayers and miraculous recovery, stamina as cyclist and road racer, his pioneering of using turntables and records rather than bands to fill the...

A massive thankyou to all of you who have supported our three Unbound authors - they're doing really well but all need more support! There's also Jennifer Pickup's (Jennifer on ABCtales.com) Unforgivable, the follow up to her sensationally good Unbelieveable. Do support her here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/unforgivable Support Celticman's Lily Poole here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole Support lavadis's Ex here: http://unbound.co.uk/books...

A new writing competition to find the “next big thing” in children’s literature has being launched by the National Literacy Trust in partnership with Bloomsbury. The New Children’s Author Prize is set to unearth brilliant new talent in writing for children. Unpublished authors who enter the competition will be in with the chance of winning a publishing contract with Bloomsbury, publisher behind the Harry Potter series. The first prize will also...

Brendan phoned me last night. I’ve known him longer than Laughing Boy had hair. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Brendan.’ Neither of us use our mobile phones much. I don’t know where mine is (it’s just beeped somewhere behind me, because it’s out of charge, and that gives me a clue). So we’ve got to explain who we are when we phone. We did the usual how’s it gaun? flung back and forth between us, until he got down to why he was phoning. ‘I’ve got £20 for...

The third and final of our authors has now gone up on Unbound as we strive to gain funding for their books. Laurie Avadis has been a great supporter of ABCtales and his novel, 'Ex', was written on the site. It's a splendid tale of a 32 stone policeman who is determined to murder his son! See the video, read and extract and support him if you wish here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/ex Do take a look at our other two authors and support them too if...