Blogs

Mimic (1997) is one of those late night movies you expect to be completely rubbish, but is pretty good. I didn’t know the director was Gullermo del Torro which perhaps explains it. The story, as such, is a quite simple, giant insects eat people. The way it is done, however, is ingenious. The insects in the darkness of dusk look human. There’s plenty of scope for jokes here by turning the transformation around. But it does work. One of the early...

The latest issue of ABCtales Magazine is now available to buy or download from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ABCtalesMagazine Featuring Nick Garrard, Chris Birrane, N J Quantrill, Alex Rankin, Richard Aronowitz, Camden Reece, John F King, Deirdre Malone, Kate Hall, David Davidson, Peter Gavin-Rowney, Alex Cruden, Harry Bagnall, Florian, Kirsty Harris, Matt Evans, Nick Kirincic, iDrew, Peter Davidson, Alice Evermore, Sue Dinum, Catherine Rose...

Feast of Love (2007) FilmFour is the kind of film that you can watch while reading the paper and patting the dog. If you haven’t got a dog, get a dog. One of the nicer scenes is when Bradley (Greg Kinnear) goes to get back the dog that he bought for his wife Katherine’s birthday. He needs the dog, because his wife has left him for another woman and well, he just needs that dog. Uncle Bradley, however, can’t get the dog because everybody in the...

American Nomads written and directed by Richard Grant. The narrator starts with property. He has a house in Tucson Arizona. Before he had a house he had the ground and the stars. He seeks out with a big butterfly net to capture his fellow contemporary nomads in America. First stop was the young homeless. They are always the most photogenic. And if they are travelling with a dog that just makes the most poignant scenes. Boy-girl-dog. The story is...

The Slap based on Christos Tsiokas’s novel, which I haven’t read, is the ripple effect in action. We are more than half way through the series now and I wasn’t sure at first, but now think it’s the best thing on telly. I wasn’t sure primarily because of the dreaded voice over explaining everything and nothing in an echoy voice. Because it is also big budget fare the voice over has pictures. Harry, the wealthy macho playboy, for example, imagines...

After much deliberation the jury, i.e. me, has reported back and I'm pleased to say that the winners are: Prose: Winner: Alan Green Runner-Up: Old Pesky (and I took into account that he had slightly exceeded the word limit!) Highly commended: Russian Doll and Kropotkin38 Poetry: Winner: Lavadis Runner up: Nicola 6 Highly commended: Sundays Child and Fatboy 74. A special mention should go to Cavalcaderl whose entries went way beyond her normal...

Great news! Jennifer Pickup has reached her funding target on Unbound - thanks to you lot. It means that her book, Unbelievable, will be out early next year and that ABCtales will become the 'new writer' source for Unbound Books. That's good for all of us and congratulations are due all round.

The wonderful wilkybarkid has put together a book of all the entries from our last 'Let's Start Again' competition. It's available, price £5.99, from: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/lets-start-again/11965815 I do hope that many of you will take this opportunity to buy a little bit of history - and see yourself in print! Many many thanks go to wilky for his sterling efforts on all of our behalfs.

John Humphries begins with a very simple story. When he was young, and I’d put him about mid 70s, everyone worked. The Beveridge Report for the reform of the welfare state was based on that premise. Humphrey went back to his old mid-terrace house, working class-respectable- to get an overview of this notion. He pointed out the house of an old neighbour to a woman that lived across the road. She agreed the man hadn’t worked and it was thought a...

There's two great new books for kids illustrated by ABCtaler El Ashfield and written by Corinne Davies. They follow on from the magnificent Ralph is (not) a Superhero and follow much the same format. Written in rhyming couplets they trace the adventures of 8 year old nerd Ralph as he survives the pitfalls of school, ignominy and his elder sister and her friends. In 'Vampire' Ralph is fooled into going to sister's groovy party in fancy dress when...