The thing about being self employed is you keep your own time.  It’s a labour of love so there’s no end time to a working day. The lines between life and work  are braided like a dreadlock. To unpick one from the other is virtually impossible. Even when a writer is lying on a beach in the sunshine it would be a lie to say that he would ignore an idea if it
floated on a heat wave into  mind.

Today though I kick back. There’s something great about calling friends on the phone
to work things out. I have some good friends but Whitney is a life saver.  She’s an artist.  Artists, poets and painters all are a kind of people and our lives are about us realising ourselves and realising the world around us. It’s constant and of itself an original life. It is no better or worse than any other life but it is a life of a kind. I tried for much of my
time to prove that we artists are the same as everyone else – we are not.  

Tonight I’m introducing people on stage.  The readers in the first half are Matt Harvey followed by Liz Lochead and in the second half  John Hegley followed by John Agard.  The event flowed  until I got John Agard mixed up with John Hegley. The audience found my mix up hilarious and John Hegley said the debacle gave the reading an uplift. 

I haven’t had a drink in three weeks. Maybe it is having a partial effect. Mix up and all
this reading was for me, perfect.  The poets were on top form and the audience went away from the event happy.  There is a Yurt on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the writers to eat food after the event but I decide on going home.