I like Derren Brown which makes everything easier. As Billy Connolly said when people approach him they are usually smiling. Derren Brown doesn’t make me happy. You can only do that yourself and he’s not really sure that happiness exists, except as a transitory experience, a bi-product of something else. Derren Brown’s book reminds me of chap-books heroines in nineteenth-century novel, written by Jane Austen, who were, for example, always...

The weather and news may be bleak but ABCtales is full of life and energy! Another week of fabulous writing - thank you to all who have posted. Our picks this week both draw on the hidden depths of the domestic world. Story of the week goes to Noo with her two captivating portraits of loneliness and quiet lives behind closed doors. https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/involuntary Poem of the week goes to a wonderful autumnal concoction from Ed...

Welldescribed grit with bright sploshes of lyricism. Published in 1989 it describes a Brixton that is often unsafe. The storyteller fortifies his council flat with tons of metal, his pal has to butt a racist agressor in the stomach and run for his life and jump onto a bus. The characters are young,likeable, a group of friends, sometimes working at casual jobs at a time sometimes not. They have a lively energy. Some do creative stuff, at least...

It's been another brilliant week on the site, with lots of new members (a big welcome!) and some great work from our regulars. Story of the Week goes to Charlie77's 'Beauty'. Good horror is as much about the journey to the denoument as the end itself, and there's a lot more to it than just chills. This one has sadness, love and bewilderment, as well as a genuine freeze down the spine: https://www.abctales.com/story/charlie77/beauty Poem of the...

I am sitting in the front row of The Allan Park Church Hall in Stirling, Scotland. It is nearly 11am. Its nearly showtime. Beside me sit my fellow pitchers for Perfect Pitch 2019; Suzie, Libby, David, Anne, Dave, Elissa and Cheralyn. Selected from seventy submissions earlier this year, we have made it here on a wet Sunday morning from all over the UK and Ireland. We all sent 100 word pitches only, no details, nothing to indicate who we were...

I once heard that there is no greater failure as a writer of not letting go of a story that you cannot tell if you never experienced it as a mirror from your own life. I'm sure some of you have heard about my story concept from long ago about 'Schism' and that I would dedicate myself completely to finishing it to whatever end. I never realized all that time ago I was dealing with a newborn who had not experienced life enough to put forth a story...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0008ncz/darren-mcgarveys-scotland-series-1-3-west-dunbartonshire-worst-place-to-be-a-woman I live in Clydebank. That’s in West Dunbartonshire. The place where women in Scotland are most likely to be beaten up. Poverty is not gender blind. Women, for example, are 60% more likely to be carers than men. Women (and men) living in poverty are far more likely than their more affluent neighbours, such as those...

This is a tale of three penalties. Two of which were give. One for Rennes, in the first-half, and two for Celtic in the second-half. Celtic started well. That’s always a bit worrying, usually, after a bright start, they usually concede, especially when playing away from home. Rennes had beaten PSG in the French Cup final last year and in the league this year. They sit second to PSG in the French league. In other words, they are no mugs. The...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00084tb/rise-of-the-nazis-series-1-1-politics https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0008c79/rise-of-the-nazis-series-1-2-the-first-six-months-in-power I wasn’t sure about the three-part series Rise of the Nazis . Documentary-dramas rarely rise above mediocrity. I was brought up on the gold standard, World at War series, shown on BBC. Then, of course, we’ve got Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of Hitler, cut and...