“I’ll be a well dressed emperor if you say so, via my facebook, and if you say so on your facebook then you too can be a well dressed emperor on my face book”. The fact that none of the Emperors are wearing clothes is no longer the issue. A “name” can so quickly feel established through this exchange that poets feel that they have “arrived” before in fact they have left anywhere. Read more [...]

Tonight was Patience Agbabi’s book launch of Bloodshot Monochrome at The South Bank. The event is part of my artist in residence programme. Dave Haslam was the Dj and the poets were Salena Godden Rommi Smith and Patience Agbabi in the Blue Room. John Berkavitch, Julian Daniel and David J in the Gamalan Room. The venue was The Spirit Level at The South Bank. Read more [...]

On Sunday Riz Ahmed was on stage at The Baftas as a cast member of award winning Britz. On Monday I was giving an award meanwhile Shlomo was less than a mile away, a nominee for the prs music awards. All of these people are Southbank artists in residence. Something is happening. Read more [...]

I got to sleep at 1am and wake at 6am. At 7.30am I am on my bike and I arrive at The South Bank at 9am for a BBC television interview on top of The Royal Festival Hall. There are magnificent blue skies stretching above the houses of parlaiment and the whole of London. Read more [...]

It was only a matter of time that I would get myself a gun and walk out into my front garden firing it with ricocheting self made sound effects “Peeow peeow!!”. Lancashire was my grand canyon, Chief our golden Labrador my long suffering steed. I had the gun, with caps, the white vinyl holster with silver press studs and I was the fastest draw in west ashton in Makerfield.! A gun toting rootin tooting two foot tall John Wayne Read more [...]

he most intense time was midnight outside the iconic Bush House having done the interview for The World Today with the films director Mohammed Al-Daradji, we discussed Iraq, he spoke passionately “To many it is just statistics “oh a man killed here, a suicide bomb there” I have lost five members of my close family”. Mohammed then listed each member of his family: when and how each member was murdered by suicide bombers or American bombs. Read more [...]

On the way out of the Broadcasting House I watched Lesley Sharp politely signing autographs from the gull like autograph hunters hopping outside. She graciously stood for photographs in a picture of patience, as if she was saying to herself, if you can wait in the cold I can stand for a picture. Read more [...]

The audience sold out The Blue Room in The Spirit Level, beneath The Royal Festival Hall. They spoke to a rapt audience and took questions. If you’d have seen how eloquently he spoke at Camden Library on a wet winter evening then you would know. You would know just as I did that the audience deserved to hear this story. This event symbolised The Southbank arts centre for me. Read more [...]

I wake at 7.30am and by 9am I am on my bike speeding through Hackney, gliding into the Regents canal entrance near Borough market up and off the canal into Angel, zooming past Saddlers Wells Theatre then Exmouth Market, swooping to Holborn where I get a freakin’ puncture. Read more [...]

who runs the world, governments or multinationals. Is it a side effect of globalisation, that governments become the servants of commercial companies? Can global companies effectively run governments? Are multinationals the new aristocracy aping its family structure while promoting an inherent aquisition of land and virtual ownership of the people upon it. Read more [...]