John Nandy wrote for many years on ABCTales as well-wisher, and remains a much loved member of our community. His final collection, published posthumously, is available now on Amazon and his family have asked me if I could help publicise it which I do with great pleasure. You can read reviews by two lovely members below. Here's the link if you'd like to buy a copy - as you will see, we can all thoroughly recommend it!: https://www.amazon.co.uk/...

Golden Friendship, Jim McLaren and ‘Grab a Granny’. I know that all sounds a bit of a mouthful, but I’ll try and explain it to you. Golden Friendship is a club run in the 543 Club. What type of club? Jim McLaren explained it to me a long while ago. And I’m not really sure he knew himself. Like most folk, I said, ‘Aye, Jim,’ while waiting for it to fall on its arse. His mum said much the same thing today. That first day of the Golden Friendship...

Tara Westover’s Educated has a tag-line from Barack Obama on the cover, ‘a remarkable memoir’ and in terms of sales I doubt there was a bigger selling book in 2018. I’m a voracious reader but it’s been a long time since a book kept me up to the wee small hours. I’d nibbled at Educated online, reading the first few pages, before getting the paperback and devouring almost 400 pages in one large gulp. It’s the kind of book I like, because it’s...

Rudyard Kipling (1901 [2010]) Kim. What can I tell you about Rudyard Kipling and Kim , you don’t already know? I’ll start at the beginning. No, I’ll start at the end and try and explain my beginnings. Kim is a work of art, a classic text that captured me completely from the first to the last, 306 pages later and roams through India, some of Afghanistan (I think) and takes in Tibet and China. It looks at the world through a lens of mysticism and...

Hi everyone, happy new year and hope it's a good one! Last month's poetry monthly produced some lovely writing and here are two to go back to from Rhiannon and Luigi: https://www.abctales.com/story/luigipagano/dim-and-distant-star https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/gentleman ’s-word January's focus is Action! Take the word where it leads you, enjoy writing and post on ABCtales. I'm looking forward to reading your poems and see you next...

A by--product of this whole Photographs and Memories process has been rekindling 'sparks' of stories I hadn't got round to writing. This is one. SALVATION I have a bit of a 'sweet tooth' and managed to find a local outlet of a purveyor of old-fashioned and handmade sweets; Gobstoppers, Black Jacks and Fruit Salads - the 'four for a penny' sweets we fromused to buy in the way back from school. They also sold excellent chocolate! The shop was...

So it's 2019! We made it out of 2018 and we're living in the future. A couple of spaced-out pieces are our picks of the week. Poem of the Week has Ewan musing on the odd fact that there's a robot trundling along on the dark-side of the moon - we're great on technology but not so much on the fundamentals of life. Outside gives us lots to think about. https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/outside It's no wonder the aliens cleared off in Mark Say's...

It's a new year and a step closer to 'the out door'. I'm not being peeissimistic, that's just chronology and statistics speaking. Long before I had a protracted near death experience ( NDE) from June 2017 to March 2018, I had decided to start to divest myself of 'stuff'. I had pretty much travelled light over my years but, when I ceased to be 'nomadic' I started to acquire 'stuff'. Also, the 'stuff' that I had in storage came back into my home...

Hi all I want to say I hope you had a lovey christmas and I hope you all have a happy, healthier, fun, creative new year. :)))))

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bwzhy6/billy-connolly-made-in-scotland-series-1-episode-1 Billy Connolly is one of our most successful exports. A bit like Sean Connery, but with a beard and a lot more hair. Nobody comes away with the usual shite, oh, I can’t understand what he’s saying, he doesn’t speak proper English. Well, fuck off then. I must admit I wasn’t a fan. Obviously, being that age, I got what he meant by The Crucifixion,...