Hello Worldwrights, The Failing Writers are now on a little sabbatical, plotting, (or possibly pantsing) the next season of the podcast and maybe... maybe... even writing some stuff? I'd like to think so anyway.

In absentia, they've decided to bring you all 6 episodes of Anything 4 U, which some of you may remember being occasionally mentioned on the podcast.

Yes... it's the lost classic.... The cult hit that got away... it's Dave's radio sitcom! Here to entertain you while you wait for the new season, with a few familiar voices, so you don't miss us too much.

Happy listening.

EPISODE 4: SWABBED

Despite Rachel now being a firm part of the team, times are tough for Anything 4U, with dog walking their only source of income. So when they lose an expensive thoroughbred, things get really desperate. Conned by one of Crystal's criminal exes and making a surprise appearance on the Timothy Vile show don't help matters, but it all leads to what can only be described as a nut-busting finale.

Starring:

Tom Turner, Dave Baird, Gabriella Ashcroft, Elinor Hamilton, Everall Walsh, Guy Harris, Darren Altman, Blanche Anderson, Marie Ekins and Melissa Sinden

Anything 4U is a full cast audio sitcom following the micro jobbing adventures of Jed and Bobby. From walking the dog or mowing the lawn to faking a DNA test or fulfilling a blood oath to the mafia, anything you know you have to do, but just don't want to..they'll do it for you!

Award winning writer Dave Baird and mega producer Rik Watson create a raft of outrageous characters, brought to life by some of the best voice actors in the business.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Worldwrights, The Failing Writers are now on a little sabbatical, plotting, (or possibly pantsing) the next season of the podcast and maybe... maybe... even writing some stuff? I'd like to think so anyway.

In absentia, they've decided to bring you all 6 episodes of Anything 4 U, which some of you may remember being occasionally mentioned on the podcast.

Yes... it's the lost classic.... The cult hit that got away... it's Dave's radio sitcom! Here to entertain you while you wait for the new season, with a few familiar voices, so you don't miss us too much.

Happy listening.

EPISODE 3: CATERED

Things get political when Jed and Bobby provide the catering for the national convention of the BNP. The moral quandary creates a rift between Jed and Rachel. Will their relationship survive? In fact, with cooking THIS bad...will anyone survive?

Starring:

Tom Turner, Dave Baird, Rachel Kershaw, Gabriella Ashcroft, Elinor Hamilton, Jack Oddie, Kenny Blyth, And Gerard Fletcher

Anything 4U is a full cast audio sitcom following the micro jobbing adventures of Jed and Bobby. From walking the dog or mowing the lawn to faking a DNA test or fulfilling a blood oath to the mafia, anything you know you have to do, but just don't want to..they'll do it for you!

Award winning writer Dave Baird and mega producer Rik Watson create a raft of outrageous characters, brought to life by some of the best voice actors in the business.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Worldwrights, The Failing Writers are now on a little sabbatical, plotting, (or possibly pantsing) the next season of the podcast and maybe... maybe... even writing some stuff? I'd like to think so anyway.

In absentia, they've decided to bring you all 6 episodes of Anything 4 U, which some of you may remember being occasionally mentioned on the podcast.

Yes... it's the lost classic.... The cult hit that got away... it's Dave's radio sitcom! Here to entertain you while you wait for the new season, with a few familiar voices, so you don't miss us too much.

Happy listening.

EPISODE 2: DUMPED

Desperate for money, Jed and Bobby offer a brand new "dumping" service. If you've had enough of your boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, whatever, but can't face dumping them yourself...they'll do it for you. After all, it's hardly a matter of life or death...or is it?

Starring:

Tom Turner, Dave Baird, Katie Rand, Jon Rand, Gabriella Ashcroft, Emma Clarke, Simon White, Elinor Hamilton, David Lane, Jack Oddie And Gerard Fletcher

Anything 4U is a full cast audio sitcom following the micro jobbing adventures of Jed and Bobby. From walking the dog or mowing the lawn to faking a DNA test or fulfilling a blood oath to the mafia, anything you know you have to do, but just don't want to..they'll do it for you!

Award winning writer Dave Baird and mega producer Rik Watson create a raft of outrageous characters, brought to life by some of the best voice actors in the business.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Worldwrights, The Failing Writers are now on a little sabbatical, plotting, (or possibly pantsing) the next season of the podcast and maybe... maybe... even writing some stuff? I'd like to think so anyway.

In absentia, they've decided to bring you all 6 episodes of Anything 4 U, which some of you may remember being occasionally mentioned on the podcast.

Yes... it's the lost classic.... The cult hit that got away... it's Dave's radio sitcom! Here to entertain you while you wait for the new season, with a few familiar voices, so you don't miss us too much.

Happy listening.

EPISODE 1: STRIPPED

Jed's feeling nervous about his first date with Rachel. Fortunately, he and Bobby have a big job on hand to keep him distracted. All they have to do is erect a fence at a naturist club. What could possibly go wrong?

Staring: Tom Turner Dave Baird Kenny Blyth Abi Phillips Elinor Hamilton Gabriella Ashcroft Jon Rand Simon White And Kristian Tiffany.

Anything 4U is a full cast audio sitcom following the micro jobbing adventures of Jed and Bobby. From walking the dog or mowing the lawn to faking a DNA test or fulfilling a blood oath to the mafia, anything you know you have to do, but just don't want to..they'll do it for you!

Award winning writer Dave Baird and mega producer Rik Watson create a raft of outrageous characters, brought to life by some of the best voice actors in the business.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and happy new year, you lovely lot.

Please allow us a moment of self indulgence now, as all three of us bring you a bonus episode looking back on where we were 4 years ago, when we first began this lovely little writing / podcasting project.

Because for some inexplicable reason, we've decided to take our first ever episode and provide a kind of 'director's commentary' over it.

There will be cringing. There will be self-reflection. There might even be the odd moment of pride - as we look back at just how far we've come.

Well... alright... admittedly, from the outside it doesn't look like we've come very far, does it?

But the journey is long my friends, and the road is badly paved, and we're all easily distracted by all the fascinating little distractions along the way, aren't we?

So try not to judge too hard.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we have a look at the rest of our festive flash fiction competition shortlist.

Warning:  They’re upsettingly good.

Any one of them, frankly, could have won.

Which must rankle somewhat.

Thankfully though, this is the moment they can shine.

Here were the winners (Announced last week):

Katie Holloway:

https://loseyourselfbooks.wordpress.com/

James Montgomory

https://www.jamesmontgomerywrites.com

John R Preston.

And here are the incredible Shortlisters:

Camilla Cassidy:

https://camillacassidy.co.uk

Genevieve Marenghi Daly

@genevieve.m.d

Rachael Dunlop:

https://rachaeldunlop.com

Insta: @rachaeldunlop1

Rebecca Latham

Debbie Howard

Please give them a massive round of applause and buy them a drink next time you see them.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Winners winners, turkey dinners!

Thanks to the absolute legends at SCRIVENER - https://www.literatureandlatte.com/

You can get 20% off a copy by using the code 'failing' until the end of 2024.

ORRRR

maybe... just maybe... you've already won a copy, and you don’t know it?

Well there's only one way to find out isn't there?

by listening to this episode....

So come on in and let's find out who's won the Failing Writers Podcast £500 Festive Flash Fiction Final!

Whoop whoop!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't forget you can still get 20% off SCRIVENER using the code 'failing' until the new year - so do that first before you get side-tracked with all the less-important Christmas stuff.

OK. Done that? Great. Now listen to this lovely episode featuring the wonderful Amy Daughters talking about how hand written letters can help bring people together.

https://www.amydaughters.com/books

Next, find out how Jon & Tom got on with a bit of letter writing ...

and then for the sake of balance, lets see what happens when you write letters pretending to be a 104 year old woman, who has a pet hedgehog and lives with a horrible lady called Mrs Hale...

Because Robert Popper's been busy again...

Get The Elsie Drake Letters for your loved ones in time for Christmas here "or you will regret it":

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/robert-popper/the-elsie-drake-letters-aged-104/9781399817899/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Time to finish our letter to Bridget Phillipson, and once again thank the incredible teachers we spoke to, and the pupils for their fabulous creative writing.

And hey, thank yourself too! Whether you like it or not, you're now part of our powerful army of activists, who are going to help bring about a U-turn in reading and writing!

Let's start today - let's put away the smartphones - let's read more - let's volunteer as a paired-reader at a school. Let's big-up teachers - let's write something and share it with the world - let's write letters to the government until they change the way English is taught, and the way the arts are viewed in schools.

Thanks for listening, and if you want to know more about the stuff we've been discussing, or have any other suggestions about how we might give English in schools a boost - drop us a line!

[email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Thank goodness for the Failing Writers."

A phrase you've no doubt overheard people say quite a lot over the years. At bus stops. Maybe in libraries? At the off licence?

No? Not even the off license?

Oh.

Anyway - not to worry - this week you're ALMOST CERTAIN to hear it, as Jon and Tom slip their pants on over their tights and become SAVIOURS OF THE SUBJECT OF ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS.

Yes, we're making it our mission to breathe new life into our favourite school subject and bring back the joy of reading and writing for the young folk of Britain!

How?

By writing a sternly worded letter of course! To Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education.

But first, we need to talk to some people who actually know what they're talking about. You know, to find out what the heck's going on with young people and reading and writing!

First up: Inspirational English Guru: (Yes. We're calling her a guru!) Leah Crawford.

Ooh... and don't you dare forget to enter our Festive Flash Fiction Competition in Association with Scrivener:

Get more details here:

https://www.failingwriterspodcast.com/episodes/episode/ad99e466/s4-ep-20-the-failing-writers-festive-flash-fiction-competition

Here's Leah's website:

https://leahcrawford.com

Bob Cox’s site - The home of Opening Doors:

https://searchingforexcellence.co.uk

The Opening Doors series:

https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/opening-doors

Let's Think in English:

https://www.letsthinkinenglish.org

Links to The English Association’s campaign to save English:

https://englishassociation.ac.uk/english-creates-a-campaign-for-english/

https://englishassociation.ac.uk/choose-english/

The Common English Forum Manifesto for English in schools:

https://commonenglishforum.org/a-manifesto-for-english/

The Just Imagine Centre championing excellent books in schools:

https://justimagine.co.uk/the-book-channel/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If Tom & Jon wrote poems

‘spose it will be assumed

They won’t be as good as Henry’s

Normal service will be resumed.

In this episode, we meet up with Henry Normal: poet, writer of famous sit-coms, TV producer and poetry festival founder, and have a blummin’ lovely natter.

(After we did that - we watched him perform all his lovely poems, so effortlessly. So fluidly. So naturally.

And thus, inspired by his performance, we wondered how hard it would be to knock off a quick poem and perform it aloud.

“Bloobee blah blah bleeblee

 Bloobloo bloobloo la!…”

Sort of like that.

Dead easy.

So we did.

The results were... profoundly... um...

...well... decide for yourself.)

Henry Normal’s insta:

https://www.instagram.com/henrynormalpoet/

Buy Henry’s books:

https://flapjackpress.co.uk/products/henry-normal

Henry’s tour dates:

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/henry-normal

BIG UPS…

The bloke who wrote the short story that Jon loved:

https://www.aaroncourts.com/

A.B. Finlayson and his excellent book:

https://abfinlayson.com/rockzombie/

Genevieve Marenghi-Daly’s lovely website.

https://sharpewords.uk/

Cover photo: J. Preston. Available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and saucy stuff.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.