Fergal Keane: Living with PTSD, BBC 2, BBC iPlayer, presenter Fergal Keane, Director Mike Connolly. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0017795/fergal-keane-living-with-ptsd There’s a contradiction Fergal Keane suffers from Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD) but he’s in Ukraine. He’s on the frontline. He’s been there before. Cutting his teeth in the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. He’s been in South Africa and Rwanda. The British...

A lot of big hitters in this movie. I wasn’t sure about it, but I gave it five minutes and watched to the end. It jumps between 1973 and 1986. Daniel Raneri (with very long eyelashes) plays J.R. Maguire, a kid returning to his grandad’s house in Long Island. Tye Sheridan plays an older J.R. His mum, Dorothy Maguire (Lily Rabe) has a mattress attached to the roof of their car and all her worldly belongings. She’s going home, but carries with her...

Many people overseas would already be informed but still this may be interesting. We have real trouble you might know of it unfortunately the first part of this blog entry is bad news. Our main challenges are of an internal social nature. Going into winter available electricity is the immediate and pressing problem the network already cannot cope there are regular interruptions then there is a 5th Corona wave, in effect just after lifting the...

The longer days and warmer weather has definitely brought something out in ABC Talers - there's been some cracking stuff on the site this week. That being said, one poem in particular stood out for me. Our Poem of the Week is 'Stories I won't tell you' by london_calling79. It is a visceral piece, digging down into the realities of a particular kind of grief. It pulled me into its narrative, and although I immediately wanted to read it again, it...

Well as you can see I'm still under a black cloud, I moved away as the landlord, bless his little cotton socks wanted to sell his flat in Norwich from far away America. Leaving me struggling to find a suitable alternative, and then my older son, who suddnely felt like his Mother should come and live closer, invited me too... So I set about struggling to find something suitable, near by, not on top of, but close enough. I couldn't find any. I was...

Some of you have been having issues with posting your work using an android phone. Ewan and John our techie have been working really hard to fix this. We think it's an issue with your phone rather than the site, but Ewan has finally found a workaround for which we're very grateful! Details below: Open ABCTales as normal on your phone, via your browser. (works for Firefox and Chrome) Log in Look for the three dots top right of the phone screen (...

My pet theory is that authors write the same book again and again, until they get it right (write). James Robertson writes about Scotland. No headline there. He always writes about Scotland. He can mix it up a bit with Saints, God and the Devil, but you know where you are with him. Here we have an ensemble cast that takes us from Scotland in the 1950s to the kind of Scottish Devolution nobody much wanted, but we settled for. The book kicks off...

Around seventy years ago, Mahmood Mattan was hanged for the murder of Lily Volpert, a shopkeeper, who happened to be Jewish and under five-foot tall. His conviction was found to be unsafe by the three Appeal Court judges in 1998 and he was exonerated. In the Epilogue, Mahmood’s son Omar was found dead on a beach in Caithness, Scotland. He’d said in an interview: ‘Until I was eight, I was told my father had died at sea. Then one day the Salvation...

Always feels a privilege to award Picks of the Week, but it is never easy to pick just one thing. However, Poem of the Week is These Hands by Ewan. There is something very profound about our hands and Ewan’s poem captures it beautifully. So much so that I am using it as our Inspiration Point this week. You can read the poem here: https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/these-hands Story of the Week is Sean McNulty’s A Mortal Drag. I am a huge fan of...

When am I going to get my Ukrainian lodger? I registered my interest on Homes for Ukraine some time ago. I have spent hours sorting out my spare room. In fact I shall be moving into my spare room and my lodger shall be getting my current bedroom. Both rooms have their pros and cons. My back bedroom has been my office since my younger daughter was awarded her degree and moved abroad to work and travel. It has more shelving. The front room, the...