News from the BBC today that my Radio play Endgame didn’t make it past the first 10-page read through.

I’m not too disappointed – the real annoyance is not getting any feedback on the piece. The real irritation will be in the coming weeks listening to (in my opinion) unexciting radio plays in which middle class people have arguments in drawing rooms.

Corinium Radio have asked me to read a piece during their next broadcast on 30th June. Instead of writing something specifically for them, I will be reading an excerpt from a work in progress, a historical novel entitled Crooked Usage. The story is set in north London during the harsh winter of 1947, and is centered around Johnny Wilmot, a boy who realises that the rambling house his family live in, shelters a secret being sought by many others.

As the novel is centered on books and knowledge, I wrote some sequences supposedly from Johnny’s library book, in the style of Ray Bradbury who sadly died this month, and it’s one of these sections that I plan to read. Ray in the Library introduces Ray Potts who – in escaping from some bullies – escapes through his local library, which is not everything it seems…

First, enter an Apple Store or any other retailer selling iPads, iPhones etc. Pick up an iPad and open the iBooks app. Select Store and search for the particular book – in my case, Remember My Name and Other Stories. Select the book and press Get Sample, and the sample eBook will be downloaded to the device, where it will be available with all the classic (and free) books already there. You can either leave the sample book on screen for the device’s next user or go back to library view.

Now repeat for every iPad/iPhone in the store, or until the staff get wise to what you’re doing and eject you as a sad weirdo.

Sadly, this method will only work on iPads; it won’t work on Kindles as you have to log in with a valid account, not something I’d recommend on a publicly available device.

A very nice article on myself in the Summer edition of Cotswold Essence (page 89) covering my collection Remember My Name and Other Stories as well as my reaching the shortlist of the Marza Story Circus competition.

I have submitted the latest version of my Wooden Horse of Troy story, entitled Endgame to the BBC Writers Room. This was originally a completely different radio play, then a stage play (long-listed by Bristol’s Tobacco Theatre during their Script Space IV event) and now come full circle back into a Radio play again.

In the story, the spirit of Agamemnon’s dead daughter Iphigineia visits Odysseus in a dream and tempts him with a dark plan to defeat the city of Troy involving wooden Horses.