Morning, Monday, up at 6am bags packed.  10am at Artists in residence zone at Southbank centre,  do an enlivening  and invigorating interview with a guy called Dominc for The poetry library web division.  Good start to the week.  Apparently it shall become a podcast.  At  11am  meet a radio producer to talk ideas.  Then work through a tremendous amount  amount of things to do ticking off the list like they were the lights in a house before the  guest arrives for the surprise party.

3pm I’m at Euston station where I meet camerawoman and director Megan from Babycow productions  who will be filming me in Manchester for a half hour pilt called The Writers Room.  A few hours later we arrive at The Malmaison Hotel in Manchester.  This is my Manchester as much now as it was when I lived here.  

Michael Jackson’s close friend  David Guest is in the lobby pacing back and forward on the cell phone in his trademark black with silver cross neck chain. .  I smile to myself thinking what a together person he looks and how manipulative television can be to the portrayal of personality.

I am proud that Manchester accepted me at eighteen years old when I wandered in from the vilages of Lancashire.  It  provide the environment for me to grow, develp and eventually depart.   It is the sign of a confidant city, that its sons and daughters arrive and depart in equal measure.   Tomorrow we’ll be filming my poems some of which  have become landmarks, tatooed onto the face of this city.