Thank you once again for all the lovely contributions to the site. It's been a really tough Pick this week! Story of the Week goes to the latest chapter of Jane Hyphen's brilliant 'Parcel for You'. This thoughtful and super-imaginative series (which I hope one day we'll see in book form) just gets better and better. This time, the wonderful characters are planning a trip to a festival. If you haven't read the previous chapters, you really don't...

Would you kill yourself? I would. Like many people I’ve talked to that have cared for people with dementia, the retort usually follows along the lines of ‘just shoot me’. Wendy Mitchell has lived with early-onset dementia since her diagnosis in 2014. Her first book was the bestseller, Someone I Used to Know . Break out the bucket list. Do a bit of wing walking. Get real about what life you have remaining. Our brain shrinks as we get older. Our...

Dalmuir Library, Dalmuir Community Centre, Duntocher Road, Clydebank, G81 4RQ Tilly and me went on our bikes to Dalmuir Library. It’s in the old C.E. Centre. The old Dalmuir School, which features in my book Beastie . A library member had ordered a copy. Evonne, the librarian, asked me which category they should label Beastie under. I wasn’t sure. There wasn’t a category for ‘#arseholes I knew’. I suggested Scottish Noir or Tartan Noir. But that...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sk36/dog-days-dog-days-60minute-version This reminded me of the old BBC Play for Today . Gutsy dramas like Just Another Saturday or Just a Boy’s Game . Here’s the setup. Zoso (Conor McCarron), a Glaswegian beggar in Dundee, mugs another beggar. He steals his guitar, but leaves his donations and also steals the busker’s shoes. He explains, he didn’t want him chasing him. He turns up at his old girlfriend’...

Occasionally, when I've finished my weekly instalment of Josiah and Archibald's adventures, I agonize over the jokes and whether they are funny, or not. Mostly, I tend to leave well alone and not be tempted to go back and change things, except for this week! There was one joke that I just felt didn't work properly and it was bothering me. Fortunately I woke up this morning with a better version in mind. So, this week's 'Dead Reckoning' episode...

Derren Brown is magic. He writes stuff too. Much of which I’ve read. Here he condenses 17 chapters of his international bestseller, Happy . I’ve read that too. I’m unhappy that 99.99% of the stuff I read, I instantly forget. That should worry me. But you know what Derren Brown said? Well, if you don’t, I’ll remind you (and myself). ‘None of this is real.’ Happiness does not exist, but it’s one of those stories we make up and remind ourselves...

PREFACE.. I started writing these quirky poems and tales shortly after 6th July 2015 My partner of 3 years, at that time, had just undergone a successful maxillectomy to remove a tumour from his upper jaw. The after treatment required several doses of radiation followed by an arduous routine of learning to eat and swallow again. We had always lived in our own separate houses, so I would sit in my bed most evenings armed with my iPad, find a...

Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon. One of the 200 brain surgeons in Britain. I should use the past tense because he’s retired. He wrote a book about that too in 2023, And Finally . His fist book was the 2014 bestseller, Do No Harm . As well as being a master surgeon, he’s a competent DIY craftsman and a master wordsmith. This is the in-between book of his trilogy, I hadn’t read. Or at least thought I hadn’t. But when Marsh relates confessing to a...

Posted by airyfairy. As always, many thanks to everyone for the wonderful contributions this week. Story of the Week goes to 'Anyone At All' by Sean McNulty. This surreal, funny, bonkers but totally enchanting tale of a place where ink flows through the landscape and you can get 'a billion copies of your appalling opus, bound in fine leather and translated into 7,247 languages' will bring a rueful smile to any writer's lips: Anyone At All |...