Category craic

This was going to be a piece about poetry. Honestly, it was. I spent Monday lunchtime in a studio in Birmingham with two other poets, recording a one-hour show that’ll go out on Brum Radio on Sunday, and I headed…

We’re one quarter of the way through the 21st century, and it seems that far too many people have allowed themselves to forget that either we all have rights, or none of us have any rights at all. That when…

Today, I’m back home and putting my feet up after a weekend driving half the length of the country with fellow pandemonialist Emma Purshouse so we could do a couple of gigs. It’s time to reflect on two very different…

Yesterday, I made the mistake of reading the News section of the BBC website. I can’t explain why – I’m old enough to know better, and past experience has shown that the chance of them offering accurate and unflinching reporting…

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days (a sensible choice, given the way the world’s going) then you’ll have missed the inglorious spectacle of Space Karen, at the inauguration of Orange Bloat, making a Nazi…

It’s becoming something of a tradition for me to start the new year by immersing myself in writing and writing workshops, and once again – because it always does – it’s paying dividends. Some years ago, the poet Jo Bell…

On Thursday evening, I did my final poetry gig of 2024, performing a headline set at Caffe Grande Slam, in Dudley. This is a monthly event – and a good one – powered by the dedication and passion of the…

We’re over 400 days into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, and still – even after the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, and Amnesty International has declared that Israel’s actions do amount to genocide – our…

This morning, I got the VW camper van out of the garage – it’s good to keep these old vehicles ticking over, and it needed refuelling, so a trip to the LPG station was in order – and took it for…

You don’t need me to tell you there’s a lot of ugliness in the world right now. More than we could ever possibly want or need. That makes it more important than ever to celebrate good things when they happen,…

Way back in the day, when I was first getting into the idea that my poetry might be something I could share, and inspired by the self-produced music fanzines which people hawked in pubs and clubs – and which were…

Early this week – on Monday, to be precise – I fond myself writing another poem. The starting point for this one was the horrific footage of a young Palestinian man, Sha’aban Al-Dalou, burning alive in his hospital bed after…