Category craic

Some weekends live long in the memory. Last weekend will surely be one. I spent it at the Louder Than Words festival in Manchester, in the sumptuous Palace Hotel, and – as with all the best festivals – I really…

When I put together this website, my hope and intention was to showcase my work and share it with a wider audience. I also wanted to hear back from people, to make room on the website for them to let…

The first time I went to Scunthorpe, I was looking after a cheesy rock band who played the old Scunthorpe Baths to a disinterested audience of three apathetic men who hadn’t even bothered to boost their numbers by bringing a…

I can only guess it’s got something to do with my northern heritage, but I absolutely revel in  the long days of summer. As the hours of daylight increase, so does my activity, and it’s definitely the season of the…

There are times when writing poetry seems a vain irrelevance. What on earth is the point in poetry when the news has become some kind of macabre scorecard of death? Really, in the face of such a brutal assault on…

One of the lasting legacies of punk is the idea that if you want something done you may well be best off rolling up your sleeves, knuckling down, and doing it yourself. If you want to put your record out,…

I’ve been up and down the country over the past few weeks, doing poetry gigs, and – to be honest – I’ve had a blast. I’ve read in cafes, in pubs, and at festivals. I’ve stood up in front of…

The history we’re told is generally the history of the good and the great. The history of kings and queens, of the powerful and the wealthy. Important historical figures rarely struggle to find someone to tell their story, and the…

Why I’m giving up on Caffè Nero. When it comes to an exercise in futility, I’ve learned there’s precious little to choose between dealing with the PR arm of a coffee shop chain and banging your head against a brick…

It has, by any standards, been a hell of a week. if anyone had told me that one of the leading trends on Twitter this week would be a letter penned by a poet to a coffee company, I’d have…

I’m the first to hold my hands up and say I don’t know a great deal about modern art. Occasionally I see something that thrills me, or makes me chuckle, or surprises me. Some of it leaves me cold. Much…

In the last couple of months, two old mates have died. They were people I knew well enough to share a laugh and a joke with, people I spent a lot of time with back in the day when we…