Showing results by author "Ian McMillan" in All Categories

I’m going to define the essence of this sprawling place as best I can. I’m going to start here, in this village, and radiate out like a ripple in a pond. I don’t want to go to the obvious places, either; I want to be like a bus driver on my first morning on the job, getting gloriously lost, turning up where I shouldn’t. I’m going to confirm or deny the clichés, holding them up to see where the light gets in.

Poet Ian McMillan is our host in this gleeful game of literary tomfoolery, outrageous parody and biting wit. Joining him for some lighthearted competitive wordplay are a quartet of writers and comedians, all ready and eager to run riot through the halls of great literature.

Fine Time Fontayne stars as pitman-turned-private eye Stephen J Blackburn in this whimsical detective series. When he’s made redundant from his job at a South Yorkshire pit, Stephen J Blackburn sets out to forge a new career as a private investigator. With his trainee assistant Tracey, he looks into a series of complicated cases ranging from plagiarism to missing persons. In Series 1, the duo are confronted with Hungarian exiles, a philandering husband, a long-lost brother, a purloined TV script and a time-share cash con.

University dropout and would-be novelist Johnny Street and his worker-of-the-world mate Arthur Lane are the odd-couple partners in a one-horse, two-man family building firm (slogan: ‘Up Your Street, Down Your Lane’). Together, they travel the Yorkshire suburbs in their white van, tackling tricky household repairs with their unique combination of art and craft.

My sand life, my pebble life. My life measured out in tides, coming in and going out. My life measured out in games of trying to spot the sea first. My life measured out in the delicious and indulgent sadness that comes from leaving a holiday cottage for the last time and for the first time in several days it isn’t raining, but at least the kids have had a great time and, let’s face it, so have you.

The Rule Against Podcasting is podcast that takes the boring and arbitrary laws we have to follow and make it funny and interesting for you to learn about! Did you know we have laws about extraterrestrials? Or that it's technically illegal to wear a face covering in Florida? The U.S. and the world has laws on just about everything, and we are here each week to make it just a little bit less confusing for you, one subject at a time.

The Weekly Trend is a conversation on various publicly-traded markets, seen through the eyes of technical analysis.

This collection of fantasy short stories are from the three winners of Remastered Words 2018 audio anthology, including a tale from one of our judges, Ian Whates with "Return to Arden Falls", which was first published in “Legend”, an anthology released in 2013 in honour of David Gemmell. There is a definite theme running through this year’s tales of the soldier’s passage; whether it be returning home to family, revisiting past battlefields, or taking the treacherous path into unknown realms and through bloody battlefields.