philwhiteland's blog

Way back in the music history of the 1980s, a lady called Audrey Hall had a one-hit-wonder with a song called 'One Dance Won't Do'. You may remember it? If not, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pbWf5tb_CA I've come to the conclusion that I can sympathise with her! Not in terms of dancing, one dance with me would be more than enough for anyone! No, I'm thinking, instead, about readers and, in particular, a couple who have...

Thanks to ABCtales, I've been able to try out my short stories about my two undertakers, Josiah Oakshott and Archibald Thurble, over the past few months. My thanks to all of you who have very kindly commented on the stories and have encouraged me to continue with them. As the stories I've published so far this year link together quite nicely, and make a nice 'narrative arc', I've decided to group them together in a book (see above). This will be...

When I published the first of my 'nostalgedy' books way back in 2005, I had no idea that 'Steady Past Your Granny's' would prove as popular as it has. Over the past 15 years, over 6,000 copies (print and Kindle editions) have been sold (never given away) worldwide! Not bad for a little book of stories about growing up in Burton upon Trent in the 1950s and 1960s. Now my granny's making a leap into audio entertainment with this double CD version...

For some time now I've been posting stories about my two hapless undertakers, Josiah and Archibald, to ABCtales and I'm delighted to say that they seem to have proven quite popular. Therefore, filled with a (doubtless misplaced) confidence, I've collected all of these stories together and published them in a Kindle book that rejoices under the title ' A Dubious Undertaking and other stories '. In addition, I've included another series of stories...

"A selection of darkly humorous tales about two hapless undertakers, Josiah Oakshott and Archibald Thurble, and the troubles that befall them and their clients. Also, some stories about two precocious children you really wouldn't want to tangle with - Peregrine and Prudence. If you want to know who blew up the crematorium, why Mrs Anderby had an unfortunate encounter with some potting compost and how an Anti-Santa found himself in captivity, you...

Part 6 of The Moscow ChroniclesI Follow the links for Part 1 - Moscow Calling , Part 2 - Taksi! , Part 3 - Night in the City , Part 4 - The Road to Red Square and Part 5 – A Bridge Too Far? I left the man swimming in the park to it and made my way back to the hotel. It was galling that I was going to have to walk past it, on the opposite bank, in order to get to the next bridge but, after my travails with the traffic and finding Red Square shut...

Being the fifth part of The Moscow ChroniclesI Follow the link s for Part 1 - Moscow Calling , Part 2 - Taksi! , Part 3 - Night in the City and Part 4 - The Road to Red Square Having singularly failed to get into Red Square and see the Kremlin, and having been frightened out of my skin by a young couple who just wanted me to take their picture, I decided it was time to head back to the relative safety of my hotel. To add a little variety to the...

Being the fourth part of The Moscow ChroniclesI Follow the link s for Part 1 - Moscow Calling , Part 2 - Taksi! and Part 3 - Night in the City I awoke bright and early the next morning. Well, it was relatively early for me and I’m never all that bright in the morning, but I did my best. I staggered down to the dining room which was somewhat gloomy, which rather matched my mood. The gloom was a consequence of the fact that it was below street...

(image courtesy of Andrew Shiva/Wikipedia) Being the third part of The Moscow ChroniclesI Follow the link s for Part 1 - Moscow Calling and Part 2 - Taksi! Stepping out from the Arrivals Hall of Moscows Domodedovo Airport into the Russian night was more of a surprise than I expected. It was, of course, cold, this being November. However, at an average of -5C it was, apparently, relatively spring-like by Muscovite standards. The real shock to the...

Being the second part of The Moscow ChroniclesI Follow the link for Part 1 - Moscow Calling I'm not a big fan of flying. If I could manage it on my own, I might probably be just about alright, just as long as I didn't go too high. Terry Wogan used to have a correspondent (Willie Gofar, I think) who aimed to circumnavigate the world by hot-air balloon, the only problem was that he didn't like heights, so he had to keep one foot on the floor at...