“five days sir” said the teller. It’ll be five days before I get my visa from SMS. "five days" she says again. My flight leaves on 4th January. I pay for my visa to arrive before 10am . It all seems possible, except new years eve and new years day and Saturday and Sunday are not counted as working days. If I don’t get my visa on 2nd or 3rd of January I miss my flight on 4th. It’s all a little tight. A little against the wire.   more »

Christmas is a  concertina of memories of Christmas’s past. Each one a note forming a concerto to be performed on the day. Each note is made of the hundreds of thousands of sounds.  Each individual within the family makes these sounds to form the notes – Family  is the collective name of The Score.  And Christams is when the score is played.

I drink to you. This is your chance to shine, to walk on or through the stage of your own past and perform.   Sing out of tune, sing in tune, elevate the music with your voice, Scream if you like,  prepare for your solo, become part of the climactic chorus, see yourself as the baritone deep and real or the soprano high and flying above it all, walk onto the stage amongst the noise and tear down the set if you like.  Choose any of these things and more.  Sing out! You will.

Whatever you do do not let it be, do not even imagine, a concertina of silence

I meet Gil Lloyd at Artsadmin offices close by to Rivington Place at Toynbee Studios. We talk of America (where I am going for a residency in a couple of weeks). Gil passes me the forests worth of paper documentation that I need for the US Consulate. I bike home weighed down with the forest and with a dud sim card. It’s four PM. It’s been a hellish day. HELLISH. The sim is still not working. At home I root around and find my emergency PAY AS YOU GO PHONE. I have now got two phones charging – my STANDBY PHONE with a sim that won’t work and my PAY AS YOU GO PHONE with a number that noone knows.   more »

There’s no tea and coffee in the hotel. I am now being picked up at 11.30am. I dial for a coffee. It costs me £7.50. Now I realise why there is no coffee nor tea in this four star hotel and spa. There is one way to describe that kind of manipulation – cheap. It is cheaper than a dingy bed and breakfast turning off the bath taps to save water. I make a note not to say anything as I pay my bill, such is my Englishness.   more »

At 12 noon I check in to The Malmaison in Manchester as The lead singer of The Manic Street Preachers is checking out. In a couple of hours I arrive at the Rochdale Stepping Stones project for the homeless. “he’s here” growls Geoff whose voice sounds like he’s just eaten a bowl of sandpaper and finished it off with a fine Cuban cigar. It’s an open room full of homeless folk from Rochdale, some of the workers and myself. We work on poems, mainly the extended metaphor. It is not an easy concept to get over without it sounding either pretentious or distant but the group of about twenty are giving me space to try and communicate the idea.   more »

Sunrise in Liverpool is a beautiful thing. The apartment, a swish habitat city pad looks over the back of the Youth Courts. “Are they cells?” said Pete. The view is of the dark roof tops and grand buildings of Liverpool gradually becoming golden under the rising sun. Liverpool – The Golden City.   more »

Wake London 5am and get the early train to Liverpool The City of Culture 08. Walk from Lime St station to Parr St Studios right in the middle of what feels like the culture quarter. Its got a very similar vibe to Manchester’s Northern Quarter – and to be honest, it’s better. This place is oozing art. Liverpool is changing.   more »