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A couple days ago I had to meet with HR because someone complained about my behavior: a lady (the one I took to the opera) was passing by and said "Hey, Jack" to greet me and I approached her, held her face in my hands, kissed her for one....two ..three seconds, released her and said "Hey ". Now I am on paid leave for a week waiting for what will be the consequences of that impromptu kiss. She has let me know that she wasn't the one who...

Choosing - as always - has proven very hard indeed. So, without further ado, or with “adon’t”, if you prefer, here goes. Story of the Week Special mention for Jane Hyphen’s long form piece ‘Parcel for you’ the latest instalment is here , but start here if you haven’t read any of it. Also of note were marandina’s Enoshima Pt1 & 2 However this week’s Story of the Week goes to ‘ Only Here for the Poets ’ part of Turlough’s account of his visit...

Poetry frightens me a bit. It’s just so complicated. But when you get it right, as Bex Hainsworth had done in Walrussey , it sounds simple. Like many of the writers of poetry on ABCtales—where her pseudonym was Mistaken Magic—she got ‘cherried’. A poem being especially worthy of attention. She followed the usual route of Poem of the week. Nobody really cares about that stuff, but it’s nice at the time. A little fill-up before going back to...

Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning author of Empire of Pain . Before I read his book I hadn’t heard of the billionaire Sackler family and how they created an opioid addiction factory (Purdue Pharmacy) that killed tens of thousands and made them obscenely wealthy. I had, however, heard of the moron’s moron and former President Donald J.Trump. I’m a Trump watcher. It baffles me that 74 million Americans voted for him in 2020. And it...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/petite-maman/on-demand/74620-001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_Maman Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady blindsided me. It was one of those films where you hold your breath because it’s pretty much perfect. I hoped Petite Maman would be a similar experience. It wasn’t. Petite Maman aligns with the film’s theme. It involves a young girl exploring her mother’s past and forming connections across different...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B0885DCCF8/ref=atv_hm_hom_c_OI67r7_20_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_to_Be_Normal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tennant Mad to Be Normal is great fun. David Tennant plays gallus as fuck, Scottish, psychiatrist, R.D.Laing. Familiar territory for Tennant. His first major TV role was Campbell Bain in the BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994). Here he’s got a promotion to a...

Before I read this book, I thought like Erik Larson there was a direct line between the sinking of the Lusitania and the United States joining the war on the side of the Allies, much the same as happened at Pearl Harbour. But the Lusitania was sunk by German U-20 7 th May 1915. But the United States maintained a policy of neutrality despite German U-Boats sinking tens of thousands of tons of shipping and killing American citizens until the...

Seasons change and days speed by; I can not believe it’s 2024. I look at the year on the calendar and I’m flabbergasted and, probably like everyone, wonder when the years had flown by? I can easily remember being about fourteen and sitting on the stoop with friends, sitting on one of our house’s stoops was how we ‘hung out together’, and we were calculating our ages in the year 2000. We laughed hysterically thinking how old we’d be (by teenage...

If not now, when? To borrow Shane Horgan’s comment on the Ireland v NZ All-blacks quarter final match in the Rugby World Cup 23 (and with a nod to Primo Levi), If not now, when? Is the constant thought of an indie author. When? MALIGN INTENT is my tenth novel and the follow up to A Kind of Drowning , a second crime thriller featuring Garda Inspector P. J. Crowe. MALIGN INTENT will be released on Amazon KDP on January 27th 2024. It has taken two...