Category craic

This year, I’ve spent more time than ever in fields, earning my crust as a stage manager at music festivals large and small. I’ve watched people of all colours and creeds come together in a shared love of music in…

Yesterday, on Facebook, someone I know posted the usual nonsense about asylum seekers getting free holidays in hotels. The facts don’t back them up, of course, but facts don’t matter in this world where “right or wrong, it’s my opinion”.…

After Glastonbury, I promised myself that once I’d caught up on sleep I’d try and write some kind of analysis of the BBC’s piece about Kneecap’s set at that festival. Sleep’s been a little hard to come by, this being…

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…