Met with Jude Kelly  Artistic Director of The South Bank. My  residency will begin for twelve months from the launch of The Royal Festival Hall on June 8th. I’ll be based at The South Bank Read more [...]

Mica Paris at Ronnie Scotts.What a gig! Puts my live gigs to shame. So damn professional. Sang her heart out. I was chaperone to the GF who invited sixteen of her close friends to the event. What a blast. Read more [...]

East London, at The top of Brick Lane is The Rich Mix. The  MC’s for the evening were Melanie Abrahams and myself.  It was also  a party for the organisers of Shot From The Lip.  Read more [...]

In  Ladbroke Grove, London The Neighborhood,  the venue just beneath Westway is too cool for school.  It’s packed and it’s The Bookslam run by Patrick Neate.    There's Read more [...]

Irish people must get sick of visitors leaving  their country  delivering the platitude  “ the Irish are lovely people”, but I must say the Irish are lovely people.  I read at Cork Read more [...]

Watching TV the previous week I saw    Lucinda Roy   now Professor of English at the same university at Virginia Tech.   Professor  Roy taught and was disturbed by the Read more [...]

Travelled to Manchester yesterday - about 250 miles . Stayed over at Garden hotel then today travelled to Rochdale home of The Co-operative movement. I swear manchester changes every time I visit. Rochdale Read more [...]

I bike down the regents canal from East London to Macmillan books where before meeting an editor I had to negotiate the RECEPTION AREA! I spent five minutes pressing the buzzer - five minutes- until the receptionist says through a tanoid “the door is open”. ! So I tried to pull it unsuccessfully. The tanoid again “push!”. I push enter the building. The poet has entered the publishers! The door swings back into the face of an oncoming delivery man. Everything’s okay I tell myself. Read more [...]

If you've read the Tackling Reception Blog I omitted  that my lace was undone I tripped over it and  when I stood back up this is what the receptioist must have seen. It's from apocalypse Read more [...]

News in today. The residency at The Royal Festival Hall at the south bank centre will begin May 1st about two weeks away. The South Bank Centre is probably the most exciting place to be in the arts in Britian at this present time. The overall Job as writer in residence is to inspire and be inspired. Nice start to the day. Read more [...]