philwhiteland's blog

For the next three days (Wednesday, 31st July to Friday, 2nd August) the Kindle version of the very first collection of short stories, featuring the odd pairing of Josiah Oakshott and Archibald Thurble, will be completely FREE . If you've been following the 'Dead Reckoning' series and have been wondering where these characters came from (and what their back story is) then you could do a lot worse than diip into 'A Dubious Undertaking and other...

Occasionally, when I've finished my weekly instalment of Josiah and Archibald's adventures, I agonize over the jokes and whether they are funny, or not. Mostly, I tend to leave well alone and not be tempted to go back and change things, except for this week! There was one joke that I just felt didn't work properly and it was bothering me. Fortunately I woke up this morning with a better version in mind. So, this week's 'Dead Reckoning' episode...

Can you aspire to 'coolness' at nearly 70?

It's been a lousy day, weather-wise, and there's nothing I like doing more than messing about with a spreadsheet (I know, I know, I really should get a life!), so I thought you might be interested in some of the statistics concerning the recent ' Bring Out Your Dead' series of stories: The story, in its current form, appeared as a series of 54 weekly episodes, published on ABCTales commencing in January, 2023. The story had originally commenced...

In which my Undertakers take a two week respite

This Friday (8th March) sees the start of a brand new Undertakers adventure, 'Dead Reckoning' , featuring Josiah and Archibald, fresh from their Spanish triumph in ' Bring Out Your Dead'. This time, Oakshott and Underwood are facing tough times and difficult choices may need to be made. Can Archibald avoid the Job Centre? Hope you'll join us for another mystery tour with plenty of jokes and jeopardy along the way!

I don't know if you've ever tried converting your Kindle books into print editions but I wouldn't recommend it if you're aiming for a peaceful and tranquil existence. Battling with the idiosyncracies of MS Word is enough to send you over the edge and that's before we get to the joys of dealing with Amazon's Cover Creator software! However, I do know that a lot of people prefer print editions to Kindle versions and I can quite see why. Therefore...

For more years than I care to remember, I've been using the same publicity photo for all my written work, wherever it appears. However, there comes a time when you have to accept that you're in a 'reverse Dorian Gray' situation, whereby you are getting increasingly decrepit but your photo remains the same! Don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of my publicity photo. It was taken on or around the time of my 50th birthday. We had some unused credit...

Tomorrow (2nd Feb) sees the 53rd episode of the Bring Out Your Dead series, and this is the one you've all been waiting for! 'Sir Lewisham's' funeral finally comes to pass after a year of build-up to it and it's just as explosive as you expect it to be Don't forget that today (1st Feb) sees the publication of the collection of stories that lead up to the Bring Out Your Dead series - ' A Subsequent Engagement ' - and you can grab yourself a copy...

Some of you (hopefully) may have noticed that this week's instalment in the Bring Out Your Dead series,, which would normally appear, to a less than interested world, on a Friday, has been notable by its absence. This lamentable state of affairs has arisen because I have been otherwise engaged, ironically attending a funeral, amongst other things. However ' nil desperandum ' (as the Romans probably didn't have it) all things come to those who...