Gerry Fenge

  • Wouldn’t be Christmas without the occasional disaster.

  • Christmas is coming, The Goose is getting fat, please to put a penny in the old man’s hat, If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do, If you haven’t got a ha’penny then enter the December monthly comp. Ten days to go.

  • Christmas is coming, The goose is getting fat! For the December competition, I would love a Christmas story. The theme is Christmas in any way, shape, or form. Make it sad, make it happy, naughty or nice. Make it ghostly if that tickles your fancy. Make it commercial or spiritual. Feel free.

  • Ah, thank you Terrie. After reading the others I feel very lucky! I’m a bit late arriving – so apologies. I’ll get right to the December comp.

  • Percy.

    Percy was old. I knew that because everybody knew that. I went to see him because I was invited, and young, ambitious journalists don’t refuse invitations from Percy Fullbig’s people. The man who had seen it all, and predicted much of it. Predicted the Second World War, Vietnam, various troubles in the Middle East, the Financial Cra…[Read more]

  • Athelstone posted an update 7 months ago

    I’ve added a few pieces to the Profile settings. The new entries are all entirely optional, but I do encourage you to take a look at what’s there. It’s nice to know a bit about your Denizen friends, and it can be useful sometimes. So, if you have the world’s largest collection of rare Tupperware, or are secretary of the East Kent Hare Coursing…[Read more]

    • Thank you, Ath. A good idea. At the moment updated profiles aren’t necessarily being mentioned on the activity page, but you may well know that already.

      • I didn’t know, Libby. Have you done an update recently? There’s a full change log in the admin menu, but I didn’t see anything. I haven’t looked at how the Activity Page is built; I know it’s complex and occasionally flakey, so I’ve tried to steer clear.

        • Oh, or did you mean that my post about the changes has slipped down because of subsequent posts? That can be a nuisance sometimes. There’s a banner headline facility that I also avoid.

          • Thanks, Ath. Some profile updates are mentioned on the Activity page, e.g. Richard’s and Janette’s, and others aren’t, e.g. Sandra’s and mine. Perhaps it’s just an example of its flakiness.

            • Exactly that. I’m not even certain whether the activity page is a WordPress thing or one of the plugins that makes it a community site.

    • It sounds as though it presents frustrations. Thanks for keeping it all going and working with its idiosyncracies.

  • Athelstone posted an update 7 months ago

    I’m going to update some of the software used on the Den. It should be invisible, and I’ve already done it on our test site, but if you spot anything odd happening please let me know.

  • Well done Terrie. A truly ghastly tale.

  • The Estate Agent’s Appointment

    I arrived at the house in pouring rain. The light was fading on a day that was already dark with cloud. I didn’t want to go in. I wanted to get in my car, drive home, shower, and settle down with a Scotch and whatever delicious microwave meal was next in the fridge. I had no choice. This old house wasn’t going to…[Read more]

  • HURRY, HURRY, HURRY! The September Song short story challenge goes private at 10:00. If you’ve joined you must make your choices by then. If you haven’t joined, today is your last chance.

  • Barter Books in Alnwick is a terrible place for an impoverished reader to be…

  • Incidentally, Sandra’s comment is still there but she replied to the update on the activity page rather than directly to the thread

  • I think you’re right.

    Of course, AI writing is effectively a sampling of other authors’ work, albeit with some sophisticated algorithms that hide the truth away. An author may say that they are using AI to produce something original, but AI simply won’t work with just small samples such as from one author. It needs a “large language model” as…[Read more]

  • OK, I just pushed through a batch of updates on the Den. I had already tested them on the Den’s testing site and they seemed to be fine. If anybody finds something not working please let me know. Thanks.

  • Athelstone replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum Group logo of September SongSeptember Song 7 months, 4 weeks ago

    My sneaky way of finding what people are reading. And yes, an extraordinary range.

  • Welcome to a new member Silver. Some may remember her as Catasshe back in the Wordcloud days

    • As in CAS Short Story Competition? Obviously I’m going to welcome you, Silver.

      • That’s me Richard, nice to meet you! How’s the writing going?

        • Hello my old SE buddy! Lovely to see you here.

        • Actually we have met virtually before. If you haven’t made the connection, my story came second in that competition, and we had a brief exchange of e-mails afterwards. Nice to see you here.
          After two novels were greeted with deafening apathy by the trade, I decided that at my time of life I had better things to do than putting myself through the…[Read more]

          • Hi Richard, oh yes, I wasn’t clear in my message but I did remember you from our email exchange – clicked it was you by reading the posts in the Podium section on here where you were posting about the competition. Still remember your story well – a fantastic one. I’m sorry to hear you’ve given up ‘serious’ writing. I empathize as I had a similar…[Read more]

    • Welcome back, CAS. Great another Cloudie has found their way here.

    • Hi CAS/Silver, good to hear from you again!

  • Athelstone replied to the topic Choices in the forum Group logo of September SongSeptember Song 7 months, 4 weeks ago

    Because I know what the consequences of each choice are, mine have been made for me, very kindly, by Jules.

    Sunshine

    The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

    • Yikes! That book title is ‘kind’?

      • Absolutely. The Sri Lankan civil war, which the west often overlooked as uninteresting, was a terrible but facinating period. I don’t think Jules knew that I was particularly drawn to its history, but if not it’s a lucky accident. The book is a fantasy applying themes from mythology to create a story from the time. It was the Booker prize winner in 2022.

  • Athelstone posted an update 8 months ago

    Sometimes when life is busy, important occasions are overlooked.
    It’s that time again. In fact, it is way past that time, so I’d better get this party started. There’s a new group in town. Head on over to “September Song” for details of the new Short Story Challenge.
    All are welcome.

  • Welcome all.

    September Song, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, is a bittersweet evocation of life and love as one grows older. September, we hear, is when we look back at what seemed like a plentiful supply of time, and recognise how precious is the time to come. A time of contemplation and transition.

    I don’t intend you to w…[Read more]

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