I like to stand on the platform next to a stationary train. I stand very still adjacent to said train until it fills with expectant customers who may notice me. At some point I walk backwards slowly at first then quicker. This gives the people on the train the impression that they are moving. I stop abruptly and watch them jolt. Well you’ve got to do something to fill the hours. Read more [...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series11/week7_poem_flying.shtml Check it out. I do a loop the loop in a plane for a BBC programme Internal Flight which wsa broadcast today. It will only be available this week. Read more [...]

Her is the poem Perfect which I read on Satruday Live on BBC Radio FOur. I will be appearing next on 31st March 9am Read more [...]

A Punjabi gentleman by the name of Daljit was driving us the three and a half hours back to Delhi where we'd booked a hotel before getting the early morning flight home. I have a fear of driving at night. I think that the darkness is an open mouth that will at some point swallow the car. Snap. It’s what death in a car crash would feel like. Read more [...]

Our final two days are spent here picture below at The Neemrana Fort Palace three hours drive from Delhi on the edge of Rajasthan. The palace was built in 1464. There are forty five rooms in total. At the end of two weeks working away from home it was the perfect wind down. Except at night - there really were winding candle lit stone steps up to our rooms and the wind really did howl and batter the room in the turret like a bitter banshee. Mist descended upon the hillside and enveloped the fort as the storm came. The windows really did rattle as packs of wild boars squeeled. The lights really did flicker. Read more [...]

Hyderabad. Though the reading was organised by the British COuncil none of it would have been possible without the wherewithall of dynamic poet and Academic Mamta Sagar. I met mamta at a poetry festival in South Africa an we have been good friends ever since. In Hyderabad I met Mamta, her husband academic and artist, Sham and there wonderful son. There were two readings in all in Hyderabad. The first was at the Sheraton Hotel and with various schools and the second was in the open air at an Ampitheatre. Read more [...]

5th February Tonight I read on stage at the habitat centre in an amphitheatre beneath the stars. The audience was electric and JeetThayli was an astounding poet on stage and with music. The gig went down a storm. The whole evening had an electricity, a power. The reception afterwards reflected the energy of the whole damn thing and it sort of made me want to live there to watch the development and growth of poetry and poets on stage. It was hip angry tearful and with laughter. Damn near perfect. When I see a poet I want to be moved in some way. Wether it is moved to laughter or moved to tears – I want to be moved. Otherwise it’s all too safe, too predictable and too slick. Poery was never one of the aforementioned. Read more [...]

I decide travel in the three wheeler known to tourists as a “tuk tuk. As It banked at roundabouts I was reminded of Whacky Races . It was freezing cold with no windows. The sikh driver touched his bindi (for good luck and more) one too many times for my liking. There's no suspension in a tuk tuk except the suspension of disbelief so I grip the chocolate cake for dear life as it and I bounce in alternate rhythms towards what may or may not have been the destination. This lack of suspension made my attempts at giving directions sound like a distrespectful attempt at Himalayan throat singing. Read more [...]

“your flight will be two hours late due to delays in Delhi”. Said the woman at the check in desk at Bangalore airport. I narrowed my eyes in disgust then she narrowed hers. I narrowed mine more and she narrowed hers more. I shut my eyes completely, which was completely stupid. Read more [...]