Well our central heating broke down early Thursday morning after two days of temperatures about -5 degrees C. The temperature in the house was about 13 degrees... reminded me of the olden days when we had no central heating. The condensate pipe had frozen. It's a pipe from the boiler which is routed outside the house. It takes the excess water from the boiler in a slow trickle. It's easy to thaw out with a couple of kettles of boiling water...

Story and Poem for the month of February very kindly chosen by Holly (accidentallyexisting): I enjoy reading so many of the pieces on ABC tales and I always find it so hard to choose. I was particularly piqued by this poem by well wisher. It is a poignant statement on the attitudes of gun sympathisers. That's why this is my Poem of the Month. https://www.abctales.com/ story/well-wisher/more-guns I also enjoyed Ewan’s poem. It has the quiet air...

This is quite a simple book to read. There is no unreliable narrator to worry about. Time behaves predictably in a linear fashion and begins in 1945 with Mrs Goggins and ends with Mrs Goggins in a ‘New Ireland’ in 2015 getting married for the first time. In between the reader follows Cyril Avery’s life in seven year chunks for 588 pages that takes him into exile in Amsterdam and later New York. Ah, you might think, how can Mrs Goggins be Mrs...

Another embarrassment of riches to choose from this week! Story of the Week is Noo's funny, observant and thought provoking 'Every Picture': https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/every-picture Poem of the Week is jackory's lyrical and moving 'Gently Into The Dream': https://www.abctales.com/story/jackory/gently-dream I fell in love with both of these pieces when I read them - hope you will too, if you haven't done so already. This week's...

I’m sure I’ve got a Scottish identity. You might have one too. I wasn’t looking for mine, but here it is. We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns. It doesn’t lie in that ear squeal we hear on every channel when counting down to New Year. Or the cheuctering twirling plaid and stripping the willow. Or the Scottish and Rye of The Still Game. These to me are fanny water. Listen instead to Anton Chekhov in A Dreary Story which sounds to me very Scottish, and...

Brilliant even in translation, Bolano's tale of wandering delinquent Mexican and Chilean poets is life-based writing The two lead actors in the drama are Arturo a 'more extrovert version of Roberto'and his mate Ulisses. It's nonstop, wide canvas, multiple narrative. Women sometimes take the stage, suffer worse consequences from their rambling life and some emerge alive. The road ahead, the hasty vivid glance behind... Jack Kerouac the famous-man...

Carl MacDougall’s grandfather was a head waiter in a hotel before the Second World War. What’s that got to dae with anything? you might be asking. Well, it changes the nature of time and the ordinary working day. When other workers are knocking off service staffs are going to work. They have a different sense of time. Andy Paterson was a waiter before he was fitted up on a drugs charge and sent to prison. Prison also changes a man’s sense of...

Leggings – the next day. I was so tired I slept again, that makes three nights in a row, which means the Maggots are losing their effectiveness no matter who they pull in with stories of what they will hand out as prizes. I began to wonder if my old radio set was still up in the loft, years before, when I lived here during the war years or just after I had one in the safety cubbyhole I called my bedroom in the loft. Paul (who was famously Greek...

A drunken man is stumbling along a river bank, when he comes upon a fiery preacher baptising people in the water. The preacher points to the drunk and shouts, “Are you ready to find Jesus?” The man raises his arms high and exclaims, “Yes, I am!” So the preacher grabs hold of him, dunks him in the water, pulls him straight out and asks, “Brother, have you found Jesus?” The drunk splutters and replies, “No, I haven't found Jesus.” The preacher...

Leggings - Weird talk in M & S Before work yesterday I went into M & S clad simply in a skirt and T-shirt, plus a heavy blue (dustbin) Sainsbury's coat which molds itself into a back brace which keeps the rain off in the playground. It looks as if I have absolutely no fashion sense when it comes to the coat I admit. It is very comfortable though! In case you're wondering I paid for it... in the sales... Anyway a tall (perhaps 6 foot...