It’s dark outside. Winter is coming. But there is so much light in this room. Slowly and surely audience arrive and the room fills with conversation like warm air. Sensing the temperature to be correct “Right shall we get on” Caroline says quietly clasping her hands.   more »

http://blip.tv/file/get/Archerjd-CarolineBirdBookLaunch423.flv

“if you are an adopted child and you search for your birth parents it is a reflection of the quality and care from your adoptive parents but if you choose not to search then...” I paused for a millisecond. The audience is filled with adoptive parents    more »

An exciting week’s coming up. Most notably it is the opening of the exhibition GSK Contemporary Earth at Royal Academy of Arts where my piece What if is exhibited.   more »

Consider. You can drive up a drive you can walk up a walk but you can’t street up a street. Discuss. Driving in London can drive me nuts. But then driving me nuts (my nuts?) is enough to drive me nuts.   more »

Seven fifteen pm the audience arrives to the theatre. It’s a good atmosphere. We are all back stage. The artists are pacing. The stage curtains open and I walk onto stage. I am the host for the evening. Stage lights are up and I'm on "ladies and gentlemen welcome."   more »

Home at last. On the kitchen table the journalist has put an envelope. In bold black printed letters upon one envelope are the words ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE. Strictly Personal.   more »

The Pirates of the caribean actor Bill Nighy is outside signing autographs. He is spending a generous amount of time with waiting fans.   more »

Strange thing happened to me tonight in the bar of Malmaison were I sat to read the paper after writing the introduction in my room. A guy started hitting on me but I didn’t realise until the penny dropped. Lobstergate!   more »

I miss this city. it's good to see it changing. But some things never do. I drop into Boots the chemist to buy an electric toothbrush and the woman behind the counter says “how are you love?”. I don’t know her but she asks me how I am in a way that can only be done here in the north. I want to hug her.   more »

I'm still in Wakefield: been here this whole week. Last night I ate at this hotel with three women from the conference whom were stayng over night. From the moment we sat to the moment we parted the conversation didn’t stop.   more »

Alone that following morning I had my breakfast, got picked up and whisked away in The Chancellors car to The Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield where I spent the day and evening writing an article for a future book on performance poetry. It's all rock and roll eh. Twenty four hours alone in an hotel writing an article called Lost In Action can have an effect.   more »

But besides this, besides experiences however volatile and destructive there is light.    more »

After Professor Adele Jones finished her speech or after I had finished mine, I’m not sure when but someone clapped and then someone else until the ceremony filled with applause then one person stood up and one another until the entire graduation ceremony was standing and applauding.   more »

I first met Lemn when he was 17 years old – a young care leaver, living in a tiny flat in Wigan, so bereft of any sense of home, the emptiness was palpable.   more »

At 9.30pm I am in Swiss Cottage with The Journalist at the Odeon attending the UK Jewish Film Festival to see the sold out second showing of “That’s For Me” a film about a wannabe actress Zara Zimmerman and her hilarious family.   more »

I bought myself a suit this afternoon. The research began and ended with friend Graham Parry who advised on Start The journalist and I went. Start is a beautiful place and a reminder of how customer and shop should dance.   more »

I watch The Big Questions on BBC television. They are discussing trans racial adoption. Earlier on in the week they asked me to take part to which I declined. From what I can see I made the right choice. They are still debating but agreeing on the merits of colour blindness in terms of race. But colour blindness is a deficiency of the ability to see colour. Can't anyone see that.   more »

I am based at The Southbank Centre the greatest arts centre in Europe. But it doesn’t matter whether the arts centre is a converted stable in Wigan or The Southbank Centre in London the principle of success remain exactly the same.   more »

If you have CALL OF DUTY - the newest release as of a few days ago - you’ll know the screen is blood splattered once you’ve taken a hit. All landscape is blurred by the blots of your demise. This is what it’s like driving through the rain to Oxford.   more »

Tracey Emin a contributor and supporter sits on the floor and looks like a person who says "the art gallery is another room of my home". Will Self begins reading out loud. Hearing his unselfconscious tones wrap themselves round other peoples connecting syllables is a total treat.   more »

But first thing’s first I parked on the seafront. A bird landed on the bonnet and looked through the window as if to say “you’re on my turf naaaah.”    more »

Aha! This was my bargaining chip for a knockdown price. Never being one to miss an opportunity to get the price down I summarily missed the opportunity to get the price down and bought the thing for the advertised price. I am the homer simpson of commercial transaction.   more »

I see three shivvering dots on the landscape and a distant screaming from the clouds, fills the entire sky. The dots shoot closer, the screaming gets louder and engulfs the valley bouncing from mountain to mountain from transonic to supersonic splitting the sky crashing through the sound barrier, near bursting my eardrums and solidifying my insides   more »

“aye the last battle on british soil, was here” says the taxi driver rolling is R’s as if it were only weeks ago. We pass a sign to Culloden as his veined cheeks bunch up beneath squinted eyes “1740”. It’s as if it were yesterday. His syllables rise and fall like the knees of a highland dancer.   more »