Category craic

It’s coming to that season of the year when social media posts from me will be rarer than hen’s teeth (a blessing, some might say). My life as a stage manager at music festivals kicks into gear and I spend…

I suppose I should say, right from the get-go, that there’s no salacious gossip here. Nothing for the tabloids. If there are skeletons in closets, I know nothing of them. Although we were at Leeds University at the same time,…

we do not live in a serious country. And no, that’s not a response to Thursday’s election results – which scarcely count as a shock when so much time and money has been spent building up Farage and his various…

Actually, forty-three. That’s how many days it is since Israel blocked all food aid entering into Gaza. For forty-three days, the people of Gaza have – once again – been facing the very real threat of starvation. In addition, Israel…

Much of a poet’s life is a triumph of blind optimism over cold reality. Preparing to head out to a gig, you mull over the hard-gained experience of years of performance, consider the maximum number of books you’re likely to…

At the start of last week, I took the tram into Birmingham (a sleepy village on the southern fringes of the Black Country, for those of you in any doubt) and made my way to Brum Radio, the sleepy village’s independent…

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…