The back stage is full to bursting with people, except the poets. Paddy O'Connell the MC arrives. The audience goes quiet. The Saturday Live Theme tune plays. And the poets begin. There is a lot of hilarity in the reading and the poets are skilled and slick. They are rehearsed and refined, they are witty and full of wonder. The lighting is perfect. Paddy is wonderful and the joint is jumping. It’s a reading that I want to watch but under the circumstances I have to take part. I have an absolute feeling of not wanting to go on stage. It is less and less enticing as the evening unravels. The poets are everything that I knew they would be, which is a shame.   more »

I have never been jealous of anyone. Irritated, most definitely, but hardly envious. That the exploration of ambition is fuelled by envy is strange to me. Ambition is a wonderful thing: I don’t see why it should ever be coupled with bullying or autocratic behaviour. What I do see are ambitious people who lack the emotional resources to further their ambition and this leads them to employ there frustration as a weapon to metre out on others as they bludgeon their way forward with a trained smile.    more »