I've been awake at five am every day this week. I do what I love and I love what I do. Things like appearances and readings and stuff, they pale into insignificance when it comes to the pure excitement enjoyment and internal celebration that is simply writing. Read more [...]

"I'm not saying she was crazy" said the taxi driver "but she said if you leave me I'll cut off your legs and sew them back on the wrong way so every time you try and leave, you come back". Read more [...]

There is an irony isn’t there? The entire Wold service and its home is called Bush House. It’s what george would’ve wanted. Read more [...]

What is Fact to Fiction? It is this; An artist – me for example – listens to the weeks news at BBC and writes, within that same week, a poetic text which is recorded on Friday of that same week and broadcast on Saturday and Sunday. Pressure is on. The producer of Fact to Fiction at BBC Radio Four which I’m writing throughout next week, has dropped out. I got the call about the producers disappearance from Eoin OCallaghan , the executive producer. He is now going to be producing my show. This is when your mettle is tested - not when everything goes smoothly, but when things like this happen. I am chewing my knuckles and standing on a ledge. I am sending this via text. It may be my last message. Read more [...]

This is a message to the hundreds of people whom from around the world have written to me as a result of the article on the world service. Firstly I must apologise for not having written individually but I couldn’t answer many of the queries. Many of your compassionate and heart felt emails brought me to tears. Those and many others also gave me a sense of triumph and support. Read more [...]

This is an unusual posting and not one that I would normally do. A few blogs ago Elizabeth Kelly Sloane sent me a question. It is there in the blog Antidote To The Winter Blues. It has taken me a while to answer. So here I include both her question and my reply. It's the first time I have done this and may intrude on my developing style of blogging but I think her question merits it. I will begin with her comment and my answer will follow: Read more [...]

I’m in a car – not driving it – but in it. The driver is driving it which is good because otherwise I’d be sat in an empty car going nowhere. It’s 9am. The sun is shining in East London. It is pouring through the beech trees of the park. It’s weight causing leaves to fall – large lush leaves that make me wish leaves where fruit. They are brown and large and are the shavings of Autumn. Winter is ebony deep grained smooth in its darkness. Autumn is the wood cutters floor. Read more [...]

I enter the glass façade of The Channel Four Buildings. Russel Brand the wunderkind of channel four is in reception looking tall and gangly like a younger version of punk poet John Cooper Clark. He’s the presenter equivelant of my publisher Jamie Byng. Jamie is a soul as old as The Chair of Edinburgh and a spirit and visibility with the same presence. They, Brand and cooper clark, were definitely separated at birth. In fact there is a great table Jamie, Russel Brand and Cooper Clark. I’d serve that table. The reception is laid out like a pack of cards spread. I pick a gorgeous queen of spades. And she simply glances to someone who looks the part. Read more [...]

I put it to you, your honour, that to spend a day with a friend is a thing of beauty. Exhibit number one, the friend, is Whitney McVeigh and exhibit number two, the thing of beauty is ofcourse, me. Actually it isn’t me, it’s Rodin whose exhibition we attended at The Royal Academy of Arts. Read more [...]