As always, really tough to make choices. Not surprisingly, the political situation here in the UK has moved several ABCtalers to put finger to keyboard. And opinions have differed. It's what writers do. Our Story of the Week is one such piece, Terrence Oblong's 'I Stayed Up For Portillo'. For non-UK readers, the announcement that MP Michael Portillo had lost his seat was the moment the nation realised the government had lost the 1997 general...

I’m a reader. When I open a book magic happens. Or in Heather Morris’s case magic doesn’t happen. When God said to Moses, you cannot look—directly—at me, but when I pass you might see my glory. When I read a book if I don’t see God’s face, I’m not too disappointed. After all, even international and bestselling authors are only human. I’ll wait for the glory to pass. And I don’t go very many places. The best writers transport you. Where are we?...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0011pn4/ophelia Ophelia , based on a book by Lisa Klein, who is also a screenwriter here (my guess that gave her leverage to adapt her novel for cinema/television) tells the story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from a woman’s perspective, in much the same way Tom Stoppard put centre stage other peripheral figures in the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead . I’m not read Lisa Klein’s novel. And I’m not a...

Lemn Sissay writes his memoir from a position of power. On the back cover, he lists some of his awards: BAFTA nominated, honorary doctorates, an MBE for services to literature, Chancellor of the University of Manchester. The last line is the killer. ‘He is British and Ethiopian.’ In other words, he’s a black man. He was the illegitimate son of twenty-one-year-old Yemarshet Sissy, a student at a Baptist Bible College in England, and he was born...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0011p18/vice Described as comedy-drama, a biographical film about former US vice-president Dick Cheney. Christian Bale won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of the most powerful vice-president in modern history. There is a contemporary joke that nobody is ever called Dick, but that’s about it. There is nothing funny about Vice . At a push, I could probably name most of...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0011f0c/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire French with English subtitles. Writer and Director Celine Sciamma creates a beautiful vision. I struggle to speak English, and growl at anybody that suggests I’m not working class. Yet the channels I watch most are BBC 4 and BBC 2. Academics in the late 1960s tried to cobble together a theory that showed an erosion of working-class values with a more affluent class of car...

I'm delighted to be able to tell you that the stories I've featured here on ABCtales about Rohan and India, the two dogs at TURN Education, have now been collected together into a book in time for Christmas. The collection also includes two brand new stories, not previously published, which round off their first year together. Here's the blurb: A year in the life of the dogs (and other animals) at TURN Education. Beginning with the first...

https://www.itv.com/hub/the-trial-of-louise-woodward/10a1090a0001 Matthew Eappen would be around twenty-five now, had he lived. Nineteen-year-old nanny, Louise Woodward was accused and found guilty of shaking the eight-month-old baby in her care so hard it caused subdural hematoma and killed him. Her trial, soon after the death of Princess Diana in 1987, was a media event—I don’t remember it, but watching footage Woodward’s pasty face was...

5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$3,419.92 ) Week - 39 The Dying Breed! ------------- What is Compassion..? --------------------------------- My wife suffers the effects of arthritis. She receives a drug infusion at a nearby clinic every few weeks. In her most recent treatment this past week, she had an unusual encounter which she then related to me. A somewhat elderly woman had also been there for a similar reason...

‘My name is Aidan and I am an addict.’ So what, you might say. You probably know the trajectory that follows. You’ve got Damian Barr, who grew up near Ravenscraig steelworks, a solid working-class town. Him being gay wasn’t his fault—or even a fault—but being a fucking Tory, Maggie & Me , was just a step too far. Deborah Orr, Motherwell: A Girlhood , which just about sums it up. You’ve got Kerry Hudson’s whimsical, Tony Hogan Bought Me an...