Lost Commuters

Well, it is May already. . . and I have not written a blog entry for two months.

Whatever I am successful at, it is clearly not blogging.

I have had Bloggers' Block - largely from working hard, writing poetry, travelling and planting my allotment. All activities that suddenly seemed more important than writing for an audience of two or three people!




Although, of course, I am really writing this blog for myself.

It has been a frentically hectic time. My life seems an express train at times.

I returned to Zell am See, in Austria, to visit my elder daughter which I really enjoyed.

Booking accommodation over the web, I ended up sending the first couple of nights in the youth hostel and the next three in the Grand Hotel - a vast contrast.

Both overlook the lake, which was frozen, and the Youth Hostel was friendly and very inexpensive.

But, despite its huge kitchen and team of chefs, the food was terrible, even at the low price they charged.

They desperately needed a visit from Gordon 'Boil-in-the-bag' Ramsay!

After a couple of days, I dragged my broken suitcase round the lake to The Grand Hotel, Zell am See, which really was the last word in luxury.

On the face of it, it was expensive, but when you considered the delicious five-course dinner was included plus the lovely swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi, it started to look pretty reasonably priced.

It took me a little time to get used to the nudity in the sauna, but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there.



It was a most beautiful week in Zell am See.

The frozen lake seemed magical to me, particularly at night, and I love walking around it.

And, unlike on my previous visit at Christmas, it snowed fairly constantly. Zell am See looks great in the snow, terrible in the rain!



Of course I ended up checking Zell am See's nightlife which, if anyone, I found even worse than before.

Visitors to Zell am See in the winter come to ski or snowboard and to drink.

Even though I am no stranger to the bottle, I was a bit shocked by the sheer level of drunkenness in the town.

This was made worse by the fact the season was drawing to an end and was less busy than at Christmas, giving it a "drinking in the last chance saloon" feel about it.

Perhaps the worst place was the Diele Bar where I was told the ski instructors get free drinks for taking their ski groups for apres ski.

The result: young people pissed out of their minds by 6pm. I encountered one who'd fallen asleep and was still snoozing slumped over a table last at night, hours after his so-called mates and instructor had departed.







The other nightspots were not a hell of a lot better.

In the Dutch-run Slam Cafe they were friendly, though their main interest was to get you drinking shots in large quantities.

I was interested to learn that the Slam Cafe is only open in the ski season - for about four months a year.

But it was at least better than the dreadful pool-table bar where, what looked like under-aged boys, were learning to smoke through straws.



Crazy Daisy's was even worse, with its lazy bar staff and abusive English band, playing cover versions and boasting about their short hours and large sex life (yawn!!)





I quite liked the intimate Greens Bar, although the people were on another planet with booze.

The Viva Disco is a club to avoid - like a throw-back to Romeo and Juliet's, in Hull, circa 1980!

Actually, all of the nightlife is much of a muchness.

In one bar I was drinking my expensive halves of lager at the same rate as the threesome next to me (ski instructor and two girls) were doing cocktail and spirit chaser rounds at 70 euros a time.

And the singer himself got so drunk, he couldn't remember the lyrics to the covers any more!




For all that, I enjoyed my second visit to Zell am See. Going to the frozen waterfalls at Krimml was fantastic, and my days in the Grand were just that.

Sadly, my skiing did not improve.

I was in just as much pain as on the previous occasion and really did not enjoy it much, apart from the wonderful scenery.

Since my return I have been really working hard at everything.

In the evenings I've been editing my long, narrative poem, The Commuter's Tale.

It is coming along well, though every time I think I have cracked it I realise there is still a bit more to do.

I went up to the Lake District for a day and a night and stayed in a beautiful place called Arnside, overlooking the Morecambe Bay.



It was hugely tidal and very tranquil - a little-known gem.

Sometimes when you plan trips overseas, one forgets just how beautiful Britain is.






I have put a lot of my spare time into the OxFringe gig I did, which was quite a success.

I was sharing the show with three other poets and we did about 25 minutes each in two sets.

The whole show had been entitled The Lost Commuters, which I found quite flattering as it related closely to my contribution.

It was all brilliantly organised and themed. We all wore commuter clothes - and hats.

And 'train tickets' were handed out to the customers at the door.

Despite a wretched cold, I did a dozen minutes of funny performance poems for my first set and then read 13 minutes of The Commuter's Tale, in three extracts.

Overall, a great experience, and I would love to go back to do more at OxFringe.



It was also a joy working on and performing with the show with my fellow poets - Mac McFadden, Danny Chivers, and Laura King who also a great job in organising and publicising the gig.




The April gig at Lewes Poetry at the Lewes Arms was also a big success.

I was promoting the leading poets of the Frogmore Papers - Jeremy Page, Ros Barber, Joe Sheerin, Rachel Playforth and Ellen de Vries.

The venue was full to capacity with a great atmosphere - and all the poets and the limerick competition went down well.



It gives me particular joy that the club succeeds as well with a bill of page poets as with performance poets - it is almost unique in that respect.

For instance, the following gig - on 21 May 2009 at the Lewes Arms - will feature the rising rap star MC Elemental.



Lewes FC's end to the season also created a lot of interest.

It was the Mighty Rooks' worst season in memory - largely thanks to the Board and their appointed coach, Kevin Keehan.

But it has to be said that once Kevin Keehan finally saw he had to do the honourable thing and quit, life at the Dripping Pan started to pick up.



It was incredible to see Lewes beat Altringham, chalking up their first league victory in five months, having equalled a record for number of consecutive losses in the league that had stood for more than 100 years!

I cannot recall attending a more enjoyable football match.

That glorious 2 - 0 victory will stay in my mind forever, I hope.

Whatever his virtues, Kevin Keehan was a remarkably bad choice of coach. Yet, for most of his tenure, he seemed to blame everyone bar himself.

I was proud to see that when he quit, he told the Sussex Express that the last straw had been the fans, myself included, calling for his resignation.

And I would like to think that my High on Spring Water column in the excellent fanzine Ten Worthing Bombers played a little part in his decision.

Certainly, I think the fanzine became a far harder product to get out after he left. It suddenly dawned on us all that KK was all we had been writing about!

Sadly, Kev had quit before my dig at him in Mark Steel's Lewes documentary on BBC Radio 4, although no doubt he was listening.

Now, we are in the post-Keehan era. The not-so-mightly Rooks came bottom of their league and have been relegated.

With any luck, the bar will be open during the entire match next season.

I was quite touched by the last game of the season, when Lewes held the impressive York - the Mighty Minstermen - to a 1 - 1 draw.

We played with great spirit and, in the bar afterwards, fans mingered with players and staff and cheered the Rooks to an echo.

Not many clubs would have seen that after the kind of season we'd had. It was wonderful to hear!




On the subject of sport, I have taken up tennis, one of the few sports I have a little skill at.

Though far more of my time has been taken up by the allotment.

After two months of hard graft, I now have 35 lines of crops in.

My plot is fully cultivated - from top to bottom, a real rarity for an allotment.

I have a builder's muscles as a result, and also sun burn!

It is magic up at Earwig Corner in the early evening. Sometimes I sit there, sipping a can of beer and just soak up the atmosphere.

One memorable night, after I'd cycled up, it started to rain heavily as the sun was setting.

As you can see from the image above, it was sublime.

Oliver's Poetry

First Anniversary of Lewes Poetry

The first anniversary of Lewes Poetry - staged upstairs at the Lewes Arms on 24 February - was a massive success!

I had been a tad worried about the turn-out that I might get on a cold Tuesday evening in February, even for a former slam poetry world champion.

But I should not have fretted. We pulled in a fine crowd. And Elvis McGonagall did us proud.
























His is an amazing act: funny, erudite, fast and topical।

Elvis's accents are spot-on, his impressions superb, and his political radar magnificent.

In performance poetry, he truly is the cream of the crop - and a hell of a decent chap as well.

Elvis was ably supported by actress Dani Carbery, who has, coincidentally, followed me down from Leamington and now settled in Lewes, and children's author Kate Tym whose sexy and intimate poems were enjoyed by the audience (although I could see her husband squirming!)

The Limerick Contest went with a bang and was won by my old salsa chum Felix Beacher who then got up to read his own outrageous, saucy poem.























Overall, it was a show with something for everyone, and I was so delighted that we could fill an upstairs room on a Tuesday night.

Indeed, the entire year has been remarkable.

From a very humble start in 15 February 2008, with a handful of people and a dog, watching imaginative Ash Dickinson do his stuff, to the sell-out gig with the brilliant performer Attila the Stockbroker.

The visit by The Birmingham Poets - Richard Grant (Dreadlockalien), Lorna Meehan and Simon Lee - was also a joy, as was wacky cross-dresser, poet and children's illustrator Rachel Pantechnicon.

And that's without mentioning the comic A F Harrold, expressive Justin Rhyme, and talented page poet Catherine Smith.

The year of poetry has also been enriched by some of the oddball characters swinging by the club: crazy cat Jared Louche, Pallette, Dancing Man Paul Duckett, intense Tony Kalume, out-of-left-field Charlie Devus and Felix to name but half a dozen.

What a year!

I couldn't have done it without the hard work of the Lewes Poetry team or the support of Abi at the Lewes Arms (and her predecessor Dave).

The club is back on Thursday, 30 April 2009 with the Frogmore Poets: Ros Barber, Joe Sheerin, Ellen de Vries and Jeremy Page.

And on Thursday 21 May, I am putting on rising rap star MC Elemental.

See you there - upstairs at the Lewes Arms.

Oliver's Poetry

The Bleak Mid-Winter

Blimey O’Reilly! What an absolutely depressing beginning to 2009!

I cannot recall a more miserable start to a year. If I was still working up in Leamington I’d be suicidal.


What with ranting Robert Peston's recession (soon we’ll all be brassic lint and speaking in silly voices), the ceaseless bad weather, obnoxious outpourings of Jeremy Clarkson and Jonathan Woss (why is it the rich and famous who are dishing out the abuse? What have they to moan about?), and general bad-temperedness of commuters on the train, it has been a ball-buster.


Apart from gushing Kate Winslet, is anyone feeling happy about their life?

To compound matters, I have not been particularly well, a cocktail of minor complaints apparently beyond the curative gifts of my £120-grand-a-year GP that makes my life uncomfortable.

I was so knackered by the end of last week that I just lay in my bed in the early with the electric blanket on attempting to keep warm. I wish hibernation was an option.



Let’s look on the bright side.

I succeeded in not drinking a drop of alcohol during January (after the New Year’s Eve binge with Lord Midders), and the Poet Chef kept up his roasting of various joints (pork, lamb, beef, chicken) during the month.

The January gig at Lewes Poetry was great.



Lewes poet Catherine Smith read well and pulled in quite a decent crowd as well as a respectable number of open mic poets.

It was an excellent evening even though, or perhaps because, I was as sober as a judge.





















And there was a hilarious moment when her performance was interrupted by the entrance of two boys asking for their tennis ball back! (They thought it had somehow magically made its made in from outside through a closed window.)

With the help of hypnosis, I have been gradually memorising a selection of my poems to help to improve my live performances.

My first outing without my poetry book, at the Poetry Café in London, went amazingly well.

I recited a couple of poems word perfectly and they actually went down much better than they would have done if I’d read them.



And, yet, there is so much wrong with our dysfunctional country it is hard not to feel down at heart.

Every day I see the misery etched on the faces of the people on the train to London: the abject penpushers toiling pointlessly for this department or that; the no-longer-deluded financial service posse wondering if that day will be their last of paid employment; the ragged-jeaned builders soon to return to their eastern European country of origin which is now no poorer than Third World Britain.



“The end of boom and bust” – what a lie that turned out to be.

How long how Golden Brown keep up the ludicrous claim that the economic mess we are in has absolutely nothing to do with him, despite him running the economy since 1997?

People I see around London every day are getting seriously depressed.

The trains were delayed every day this week because of suicides.

Most of the passengers don't care; they behave like animals in their panic to get a seat.

Britain is becoming a nastier place, from sick people celebrating Jade Goody's apparently imminent death to the horrible toilet humour that passes as comedy with the likes of Clarkson, Woss and the rest of that overpaid BBC shower; from the BMW bastards who sacked thousands of workers an hour's notice to the union bosses who did nothing to the Labour Government that passed the laws allowing it to happen.

Half of Britain is in a day-dream. For instance we have been trying to buy a new radio for our VW van and made the mistake of going to Halfords in Newhaven.

We selected a suitable CD radio but last week the assistant refused to let me buy it, insisting I return to talk to the guy who fits the radios.

This I did, a week later, only to be told by the radio-fitter that it would cost 120 quid to fit the radio and the speakers we wanted and he did not have time anyway.

He told us not to buy from Halfords but to go to their rivals, Road Radio of Brighton.

What a waste of time.

No doubt the man was trying to save us money or himself a task, but if Halfords go bust and he is out of a job, he only has himself to blame.

Doesn't Halfords bother to train or motivate its staff?

Doesn't anyone have any pride in their work any longer?

If the Newhaven branch is typical, I very much doubt Halfords will survive the recession.



I find myself living increasingly in the past.

As always at this time of year, I start to wonder what happened to the numerous friends and mates I have lost touch with over the years.

The list is a long and chequered one.



I always yearn to get in touch with people but am held back by:

1. Lack of time to track them down (my contacts book was stolen at Finsbury Park Station in 2002),
2. Lack of time to meet them, and
3. Concern they won’t want to meet me (or, horror of horrors, even remember me).

When I quickly manage to trace someone through the web, such as my old Poole Grammar School classmate Paul Eggleton, now gainfully employed as a termite boffin at the Natural History Museum, I am gripped by doubts about whether I really want to see them again.



The whole business of retracing the past plays large in my daydreams and nightmares.

Poetry-wise it has not been a bad time, I suppose.

Surprisingly, I have completed the first draft of my long, narrative poem, having written 200 stanzas.

Now for the challenging business of revising it.



And planning for the first birthday of Lewes Poetry – on Tuesday, February 24 – is going well.

The great Elvis McGonagall – recently slam poetry’s World Champion and a star of BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live – is headlining, performing a double set.

It should be a tremendous night (and only a Lady Godiva (fiver) in door-tax).

Another welcome development is that the legendary Frogmore Press approached me and asked if I would put on their published poets at a special night of Lewes Poetry on April 30.

It will be another good evening.

Its founder Jeremy Page pushed a copy of an old edition of Frogmore Papers through letter box. I have read it cover to cover - some excellent poetry.



I went to see Lewes FC play Wrexham at the Dripping Pan last Saturday.

On the terraces I bumped into Attila the Stockbroker and his charming wife who had come to see the Mighty Rooks battle the Mighty Red Dragons who, sadly, triumphed by 2-0.

I have written up this latest humiliation for the Rooks for my column High on Spring Water in The Mighty Rooks’ fanzine, Ten Worthing Bombers.



Anyway, Attila introduced me to stand-up comedian Mark Steel who was there to make a programme about Lewes for BBC Radio 4, and I ended up being interviewed about the glory days at the Pan, when the bar was open and we won our matches.

I felt a bit of a fraudster as I have never been an avid attender of matches, though those I have been present at feature large in my memory.



There I go again, living in the past.

At any point I can slip into a sepia existence.

My old schoolfriend Russell Tandy has written to me of his current odyssey in south-east Asia.

It is good someone I know is doing well.

The snow here was fun was a day but, after that, just made life harder and more miserable.

Here, the River Ouse has burst its banks in Lewes and as I left London the other night it was snowing again. Horrible wet snow. I wished I could escape.



But there is always something to put a smile back on your face.

I took my younger daughter to an activity day at Newhaven Fort this lunchtime and ended up joining a rap class schooled by an amazing guy called MC Elemental who has a at:

Finally, I went to see the amazing American Jared Louche's Lewes Art Lab, Experiments in Darkness, Distortion & Delight at the Foundry in Lewes.

It was weird with a capital W, and also bloody cold. I could not honestly say I understood it.

It seemed rather random to me. Nonetheless I enjoyed it and take my hat off to the amiable Jared for promoting such a totally way-out event.

In tribute I have randomly littered this blog entry with images from it.

I look forward to seeing those of you who can make it at Lewes Poetry.

Oliver's Poetry

The Poet Chef: Roast Chicken with Lord Midders

The Poet Chef (1): New Year's Eve French Roast Chicken with Lord Midders of Iceland

It was New Year's Eve in the Drink Tank.

An ideal chance, I thought, to launch my new part-time career as The Poet Chef. I might not have the (turkey) breasts of Nigella, or have claimed to have shagged Delia, but I share a name with Jamie (Oliver), and, with no previous experience to my credit, feel sure am set to revolutionise chefing!

To be frank, in the past I have never troubled the kitchen staff with my presence.

But having been ribbed mercilessly for years over my lack of culinary skills, my new year's resolution is to learn myself to cook with a little teach from the televisual masters or, at least, their extensive philosophical writings on the subject.

While I am at it, I might as well pass on my new-found knowledge to other gentleman and ladies who have also previously relied on Downstairs (or the Mr Microwave) to do the kitchen chemistry honours.

So, it was New Year's Eve. My dear, dear friends Midder was due to jet in from Iceland for the night. And a couple of guests were expected later. Until he and they arrived I was on my Jack Jones - with a festive feast to plan.

Firstly - and, in the absence of guidance from the Poet Chef via this journal, this is a crucial tip - I consulted a recipe book.

In case, like me, you have not come across this strange animal before, it is usually a great tome packed with wordy accounts of how to cook, illustrated by large colour images of Nigella's cleavage, Jamie's impish smile and moped, Ramsay's furrowed brow and so on.

On this vital occasion, I played safe and selected one called Good Housekeeping, wiped off the thick layer of dust wtih my sleeve, and skipped the section on vacuum cleaning.

Inside, I found what seemed like a dream template for a New Year's Eve roast fiesta for Lord Midders and company. . . French roast turkey with all the trimmings.

So, off to Wilberforce Waitrose I trundled with my tartan shopping trolley complete with customised wheels and OAP gangsta rap booming out from the transister.

At the supe, it was packerooed. Clearly, I was not the only Poet Chef in Lewes preparing to entertain an Icelandic peer of the realm.

Lady Luck was in. The most expensive bird in the joint - a large free range organic chicken - was still unspoken for, so I snapped it up, along with a slab of butter, 5lb of King Edwards spuds, a sprig of tarragon, a large lemon, four large corgettes, six large carrots, two large onions and fair sized piece of broccoli, which I always like because it seems to be talking to me: 'Broc-Ollie!')


Of course I also picked up a couple of bottles of Champagne (one good to start, one more average to follow), some Becks beer (from my mother's home town Bremen), a pack of sausages wrapped in bacon overcoats, because they looked funny, and some blueberries.

Back to Chez Olivier to dump the stuff - and straight out again to Lewes Station to greet Lord Midders (alongside the Mayor of Lewes and other local VIPs).

We quickly cast off the local dignitaries and returned to the house for a couple of cheeky glasses of wine and a chat.

Midders - himself a wonderful chef - was suitably appalled at my plans to use butter on the chicken.

'Goose fat, Ols,' he stressed, 'Goose fat!'

So back to Willie Waitrose we traipsed where Lord Midders soon had the entire staff running around like blue-arsed flies - in the elusive search for goosey fat.

Eventually, the manager found the last packet, and, to make the journey more worthwhile, Midders also stocked up on beverages, including what he described as a 'bottle of senior red'.

As our reward for our cooking efforts thusfar, Midders and I dropped by the Harvey's Brewery flagship pub, The John Harvey Tavern, for a pint of Harvey's Best Bitter which went down a treat.

Back at base, it was Four O'Clock already. After passing on a few tips on goose fat basting, Midders knocked back his medicinal whisky and retired for his siesta, leaving me to get down to the parlous business of cooking.

1-2-3, 1-2,3, I pre-heated Mr O, the oven, at full power, cut the lemon in two and shoved one half up Madame La Chicken's tradesman's (is that how Nigella describes it?) - and added my big sprig of tarragon for good measure.


I then greased her (the chicken, not Nigella) like a topless mud wrestler using Midders' goosy-goosy-gander fat applied with my bare hands. God, it felt good!

Poet Chef Health Tip 1: Always wash your hands after handling meat and ensure that nothing that's been in contact with the uncooked bird touches the other foods you are preparing. Otherwise, you might get the salmonrushdie strain of food poisoning, and have to spend years hiding out in safe houses at huge public expense.

Mathematics has never been my best suit (the Gieves and Hawkes pinstripe is), so I was glad Mr Waitrose had already calculated the cooking time - at one hour and 45 minutes (or 105 minutes).

It is worth remembering that Mr W is an optimist and assumes your oven is fully effective, rather than a bit crap, as I am always been told ours is.

As a result I decided that two hours at near full blast would do my bird no harm. I understand it is actually rather hard to overcook chicken unless you really incincerate it.

So, my bird in a roasting dish went into the oven at Force Eight on the Gas Scale, and then I did something very important: I worked out all the timings for the meal and wrote them down on a scrap of recycled paper (a Tax Credits envelope or similar Government waste of trees).




Without a note, it is easy to get distracted during the long roasting process, and forgetting where you've got to. An American management guru once told me: 'If it's not written down, it's not a plan', and I am sure he had cooking in mind.

Poet Chef Health Tip 2: Do not lean your cooking note against the stove as the Poet Chef has done. It is very likely to catch fire at some point and burn down your house.
Once my gorgeous, sexy bird was well and truly in Mr O, I got together all my veg for their own New Year's Eve shindig.

Joining Mr Spud, Mr Carrot, Madame Corgette, Herr Broccoli and Miss Onion was Monsieur Garlic, lovingly nurtured by The Poet Chef at his Earwig Corner Allotment in Lewes.

Garlic tends to be roasted in his overcoat but I decided to give him a go naked to add a Frenchie taste to the flavour.

Anyway, I got the whole veggie team together for a festive photo op.



Luv Jub, as they say.

Then came the tricky matter of the roast potatoes. As a total novice at cooking, I was a bit concerned by this, but, after studying the cook book, I took the peeled spuds and dropped them into a pan of boiling water for a minute. Yeah, no kidding, just 60 secs!



After that, I got the pan off the heat and let the spuds stand in the very hot water for another nine minutes. Out they came, I dried them and dropped them into Mr Oven next to the bird which had been roasting for about 20 minutes at that juncture.

The point of this little pantomime is to seal in all the goodness in the potatoes before you roast them like Tom Brown on a bad day on Flashman's fire.

At the same time, I added the Mr Onion and Monsieur Garlic to the roasting pan, bunging on a bit more goosy fat all round.

Thereafter it was plain sailing (well, cooking).

Lord Midders re-emerged refreshed and fragrant, having slept and bathed.

He insisted on personally checking the goosey basting, adding even more goose fat, and ladling the juices over the spuds with a silver spoon.



That done, we settled down to have a good gossip and started on the bottle of senior red. Very tasty.

I read the first 20 of so stanzas of my long narrative poem.

All the time the oven was exuding aromas sweeter than a brace of Premiership footballers roasting a Wag. Which reminds me, you should turn the bird after 20 minutes to make sure top and bottom get a fair share of the action. But she should end up on her back, breasts up.

That's enough chef filth, back to the poetry!



Midders was going to read some poetry but his glasses were kaputt after he'd sat on them, lending him a suitably eccentric look. All the same, he made an appreciative audience.

When the senior red was finished, it was time to cook the vegetables.

This should be a piece of cake, but how many times have you visited expensive restaurants and found the veg a bit soft or a bit hard.

Just popping them into a pan of boiling water and going off to watch Chelsea on the telly or wax your pantyline is not good enough. They require rigorous checking to guarantee that the texture of the carrot, broccoli or whatever is absolutely spot-on.



The secret of cooking is, urr, timing! I reckon that carrots should take about 20 minutes, thinly sliced corgette and the clumps of broccoli (like slices of a lung) a bit less.

Your bird should stand for quarter of an hour after her roasting, so the veg should be going on the stove not long after she comes out.

After one and three quarter hours of roasting, I took out the bird, and Midders tested her with a blade - like a sharp knife through hot butter. Perfecto! The potatoes had also roasted well as had those lovely big onions, always my favourite part of the roastie mix.



The garlic had certainly added to the favouring of the juices, which I filtered off to add to boiling water and an Oxo chicken stock cube to make a delicious gravy, but removing its overcoat had meant it had deteriorated in the pan.

I fried the little sausages in their bacon pyjamas as a side dish rather than a starter.

Another quarter of an hour on, the table was laid, the Champagne opened, the French chicken carved, the veg drained and served – to make the perfect New Year's Eve. If I say so myself, it was pretty damn good fare.

Our guests arrived and we had a right raucous feast, with blueberries and ice cream and a selection of exotic cheeses for dessert. We drank the two bottles of champers and rounding it all off another bottle of wine and a session on the port, taking us well into the New Year.

Not bad for a first effort at cooking. If you do what I did, you can't go far wrong, me old cocks.

Next time: The Poet Chef makes Shepherds Pie or something.

***

Lord Midders stayed a couple more days and I was sad to see him return to Iceland. We hope to catch up over there in the summer.

I never drink alcohol in January, and this year the month has seemed more torturously hard than usual.



It has been ghastly cold and is dismally dark when I arise at 6.25am. My only comfort is that I no longer have to go up to the miserable Midlands on a Sunday or Monday or hang out in Lonely Leamington on weekday nights. That glorious thought alone keeps me going at bad times.

There's been the odd joyful moment but I am suffering this month and not being able to drink has made it worse. Today, the fog was so thick crossing The Thames, you could not see the water!

Last week the Serpentine was frozen, which I found quite exciting on my lunchtime constitutional, and beautiful photographically.

And I have done a lot of poetry editing, revising all 140 stanzas so far of my long narrative poem, and all of my other 2008 poetry.

In 2009 I want to break out of my poetry web-cage and publish poems more widely.

It is a wretched time, though.

Every night robotic Robert Peston brings more bad news, delivered with his trademark, extraordinary intonation; the Palestinians are taking another pasting (and there was I thinking that Tony Blair has sorted that one out, just like he did with Iraq), and the train is unbearably crowded, despite all the redundancies Peston keeps telling me about. The appalling people who gravitate towards where I'm sitting, well, I won't start. . .

Did I tell you my big toenails are falling off (after skiing). Sorry, overshare!

It would be fair to say I am not coping with January at all well.

My mind has turned once again to the idea of retracing old friends. This is a difficult one because not everyone would want to see me.

Conversely, I am occasionally contacted by blasts from the past whom - for very good reasons - I do not want to meet again.

On my lunchtime walks I have been thinking a lot about this. It reaches to the core of the nature of friendship. Friends often come about through circumstance and, only when there is a genuine commonality, do they survive a change of that circumstance.

Personal time is limited, and people are constantly reprioritising their friendships to segue with their current situation.



Most of us will know people who have vanished off the radar after forming a relationship or moving to a different town; all contact, emails, phone calls, Christmas card drying up without explanation.

In a little town like Leamington the lives of the indigenous population were dominated by their extended families and old schoolfriends. Incomers did not even register socially. Only when small town people move to a new town or city, do they suddenly start trying to socialise with those they previously would have shunned.

In terms of the old friends I want to contact, I am worried about being cold-shouldered or finding I have nothing left in common with them.

The people I would most like to see again go way back – and may not even remember me. I am always amazed when I meet old mates of all the shared times that they have forgotten, and, indeed, old mates sometimes say the same of me.



I am still trying to discern if to contact someone and when to let sleeping dogs lie.

Wish me luck!

Oliver's Poetry

Christmas Skiing in Zell am See

We spent Christmas in Austria, skiing at Zell am See, an attractive town tucked between an enormous lake and a great mountain.

It was the first time I have been abroad at Christmas and that was an odd experience; the Austrians treat Christmas Eve as their "Christmas Day" and even that seemed low-key compared to Christmas in Britain.

Of course we did all the usual Christmas things – as well as enjoying Zell am See skiing to its full. I had fun skiing, despite being atrocious at it.

To be fair, I was no worse than when I took it up two years ago at Obergurgl but that did not stop me from bruising my big toes so badly they went black - and cutting up my ankles and shins.



My instructor Gavin – a country lad from Shropshire – was completely unfazed that I was virtually a complete beginning and fairly hopeless.

He optimistically took me up the mountain to watch me fall down blue and red slopes, struggling to turn those skis, awkward mothers that they are, especially on any kind of incline!

It had clearly snowed heavily in Zell am See before we arrived but, after that, the snow in the town had melted, turning to horrible slush in the rain and then dry streets, and, on the pistes, the snow-making machines toiled all day and all night to retain their white overcoat.



My ski group were great. Some of them were almost as prone to disaster as me, but braver, throwing themselves down steep inclines with substantial jumps at the bottom, knowing it could only end one way - in a crumpled crash.

I fell over so many times I lost count, and with such comical effect that even snowboarders would stop to have a good laugh and help me back into my skis.

Nightlife in Zell am See was varied.

The best places to hang were Greens, the Dutch-dominated Slam Cafe, and the Diele bar, which had the best dance floor and tunes.

I did not like B52's, not the friendliest of bars, nor Crazy Daisy's, which was remarkably uncrazy and dull on the two nights I dropped in.

For afternoon tea, the Imperial Bar at the Grand Hotel was very fine, and unusally reasonably priced.



And at the top of the mountain, the madcap oldie DJ who decapitates champagne bottles with a sabre was worth a look.

Zell am See is an expensive place to visit, especially with the euro and the pound virtually at level pegging (once commission had been paid).



At the town's Irish bar Flannagan's - conveniently situated beside our apartment - a pint of Guinness was almost a fiver. Likewise, coffee and a snack in a cafe.

And a lunch and a beer on the slopes would set you back 10 to 15 quid. And don't expect much or any change from 100 quid for a day's skiing all in, once lessons, ski hire and ski pass are all paid for.



Skiing is a great break, though. Faced with the terror the slopes and ski lifts, your usual concerns are soon forgotten!



I have been back three days now, trying to tie up the loose ends of 2008.

It has been a pretty good year overall; I managed to escape Leamington Spa after two solid years of tunnelling, and am loving it back in London.

Not surprisingly, I have not spent as much time writing poetry this year as in each of the previous three years.

All the same, my long narrative poem is coming along - and I am resolving to try to get my work published in 2009.



I feel like I have always wanted to write but have found myself at the fringes of the writing world.

Although I was successful as a journalist and had hundreds of thousands of words in print in national newspapers and magazines, my attempt to get a novel published was not a success and I am yet to publish any poetry or other work on anything but the worldwideweb.

Maybe that does not matter and I should be to content to write for myself.
2008 has been a difficult year in some ways. As you get older, woes pile up. When you are young, you simply don't notice the down side to the same degree.




Not that I am complaining. Life is still sweet.

And I had some good poetry gigs in 2008, in Oxford, Leicester and the Poetry Cafe in London - and some excellent ones at Lewes Poetry, especially with Attila the Stockbroker, Dreadlockalien, Justin Rhyme, Catherine Smith and Lorna Meehan, at the Lewes Arms, Lewes, East Sussex.

Though I was very sad to hear of the poet Adrian Mitchell's death.

Mitchell, the original alternative poet laureate, was a great ambassador for live poetry.

I recall him performing in a room in the Royal Oak pub in Lewes - as part of Lewes Lit Live festival two years ago. He was awesome; a mesmerising performer even on his 75th birthday.



Afterwards I approached him to thank him and mentioned that I did a little poetry.

He was hugely encouraging and it was partly because of that and his performance that I was inspired to launch a live poetry club in Lewes, Lewes Poetry at the Lewes Arms.

The baton was passed.



I was also saddened to read of my favourite playwright Harold Pinter's death.

My immediate reaction was not, as usual, to read the obituaries, but instead to re-read three Pinter players, The Homecoming, No Man's Land, and Landscape.

I love their use of language, sportiveness and sense of dramatic surprise.



No Man's Land brings back happy memories because I saw Harold Pinter perform in it (in the role of Hirst) at the Almeida Theatre, Islington in London, in 1992, I think, and Landscape, because I lit it as an post-graduate at University College, Cardiff, in 1984. (I had never done a play with so many rapid lighting changes.)

Pinter and Mitchell. Two great men.



I look forward to seeing you at Lewes Poetry in the new year - and wish you all a successful and poetic 2009!

Oliver's Poetry

Photo Reflections

September and early October proved hard going – and not just for the banks (why does Robert Peston speak in that odd way?)

The Summer, by contrast, was idyllic for me - with wonderful stays in Edinburgh, Greece and Italy.

Once back in Blighty, everything seemed to start going pear-shaped!

Sometimes I feel my life is like 100 plates spinning on tall poles.

When I – most unusually – take three weeks off in a month, they first lose rotational speed, then wobble, and start to crash to the ground.

I shan’t bore you with the details, but in September and early October, problem followed problem.


I struggled to keep my life on an even keel.

Then, just when I thought I was getting on top of it, a scrote plundered my bank account, making me thousands of pounds overdrawn (and I couldn't even blame Peston).

My best guess is that while paying for meals in Greece or Italy my debit card was cloned, and then – a month on – a villain started spending my cash on the Continent like there was no tomorrow.

Now the account is frozen and the bank – which, typically, did not notice a thing – is investigating.

I have been in reflective mood following this. . . but also, strangely, because of photography.

Let me explain.

In 1970, aged 10, I started taking photographs – and have never stopped.


I have tens of thousands of them from the past 37 years, but until recently I have never attempted to catalogue them.

So early this year, I decided to see what I had in terms of images!

I thoroughly enjoyed cataloguing the black-and-white photographs I had taken in the 1970s and those I had inherited from the 1950s and 1960s.

However, with new images coming in all the time, I was never likely to finish the task unless I put a lid on new arrivals.

Rashly, I decided to catalogue the photographs in the collection taken this year.

I should not have bothered.

Rarely have I endured such a tedious exercise.

What I always considered to be a hobby is really an addiction.

So far this year there are 73 sets of images in my collection – most 36s, some 24s, and about two-thirds film and one third digital.



Going through them was one of the most boring things I have ever done.

I could not believe how repetitive my photography has become.

Even though I am taking pictures largely on film, I suffer from photographic diarrhoea, producing 20 images of an object or person where one or two would suffice.

When the penny dropped, I stopped taking photos for the first time in more than 35 years.

It has been a revelation.

For the first time in a long time I have been looking at sights of beauty and truly appreciating them.

For instance, the other day I arrived early on a Saturday morning at my allotment at Earwig Corner and found it shrouded in mist.



As the sun rose behind me, the dew on my shed evaporated like steam in a sauna, and before me the blanket of mist over the landscape gradually lifted during a period of at least half an hour until the distant chalk cliff came into view like a giant sticking its head through a cloud.

It was a really beautiful sight and one I would not have appreciated through the viewfinder of a camera.

It makes me think that photographers are often so obsessed with capturing images that they do not truly look and appreciate.

On holiday in Greece and Italy, I noticed it all over the place.

People were so mad about filming that they snapped away and videoed constantly, hardly glancing at what they were recording, probably never to be viewed.

Now I have started to look for myself again, I realise that photographs cannot compare with the sheer depth and stunning beauty of the original.



The best lens is the eye, the best camera is the brain, the best images are held in the mind’s eye.

By comparison, many of the images in my enormous collection pale into insignificance.

Sure, there are some interesting pictures of subjects I would probably have otherwise forgotten.

However, there are also some atrocious shots, and the overall impression is of a maniac behind the shutter release.

This and my woes set me thinking more deeply about a whole range of areas.

Why do I attend my local church in Lewes?

I was appalled by the pronouncements of the vicar – or 'Rector' as he likes to be called – at the recent Harvest Festival service.



He preached that it was “un-Christian” to buys eggs or chickens that were not free range.

As it happens, I buy free range produce.

However, if I were struggling to feed a family on the breadline, I would not appreciate being called 'un-Christian' for buying a bargain battery bird from Tesco.

Readers of this blog may recall my previously mentioning this Anglican priest as the man who produced his stinking socks for his homily at a Christmas morning service.

(What do you make of that, Mad Priest Blogger?)

Moreover, you can attend his church for weeks on end and hardly hear a mention of Christ, such is the obsession with the Old Testament.

The Rector a nice chap, but the problem with the C of E, as with the Roman Catholic Church, is that parish priests have an enormous amount of freedom and are hardly controlled by their bishops.

The best of the clergy are marvellous, but the others either embark on their own kooky journey of faith – or do something really bad.





The other day I was thinking of the Rector’s pleas for his congregation to tithe – give one tenth of their income – to the church.

Then I walked past the great big comfortable rectory and looked at the two newish vehicles parked outside, and thought: ‘No, I will make my own choices, thank you very much indeed.’

I think I shall find another church in Lewes to attend – and keep my donations indexed-linked to the cost of a pint of Harvey’s Best Bitter.

Then I started to think about the internet and my presence on it.

Why have a spent some much time creating three websites – Oliver’s Poetry, Oliver’s Poetry Garret and Oliver’s Poetry MySpace – and what part do they play in my life?



All three have been in need of some tender loving care, and when I see the time that others expend on their sites, I feel incapable of competing.

Firstly, I guess I write for the same reasons I photograph.

It is a compulsion and an obsession.

When I was a child, I was always making notes, just as I was always thinking of taking photographs, pocket money allowing.

So I write for someone.

When I was national newspaper columnist, my words would have been read by hundreds of thousands or even millions of readers.

Now they might be read by just a handful, but I don’t mind.

I derive pleasure simply from the process of writing.

MySpace is really the home of self-publicists (though aren’t all websites?) and the people who use it most enthusiastically are plugging their music or comedy gigs.


It is interesting to follow what of my former Joe’s Comedy Madhouse acts are up to.

But, despite its initial phenomenal success, MySpace strikes me as a poorly designed and ultimately flawed platform.

It is ugly to look at and few users I know run successful blogs off it or reply to email on it.

Anyway, I have given all my sites a fresh lick of paint.


But what’s good in my life?

The Poetry Café has been kind to me and my experiences out have inspired me to start a long narrative poem based very loosely based on the life of Byron.

Thusfar I have written 85 verses (of eight lines each).

It is a bit of fun and I am quietly pleased with progress.

Also on a positive note, I was lucky enough to witness The Mighty Rooks (Lewes Football Club) chalk up their first win of the season (after a mere 12 matches) - against The Mighty Yellows (Oxford) - on the hallowed turf of The Dripping Match (down my street).

Chris and Chris have signed me up to write a column for the Rooks' unofficial fanzine, of which they are editors.

I am calling it High On Spring Water (Lewes have closed their ground's bar during matches), and I am told the first edition will appear in the next issue of this marvellous organ, which is entitled Ten Worthing Bombers (and a bargain at less than two guineas).

Returning to my reflections on photography, I have taken one photographs from each of the recent films I have had processed and used them to illustrate this blog entry.

Now I am up to speed with my 2008 cataloguing, I have taken a vow to stop taking photos like a lunatic.




On a recent visitation to York, I stayed in a hotel which had marvellous Victorian photographs adorning its walls. Each a beautiful one-off.

From now on I shall be a Victorian photographer, taking a frame here, a frame there. Thinking and planning my images, not wasting film.

At least it will give me a chance to get on and catalogue my photographic output for the 1980s, 1990s and the rest of the 2000s.

By the way, don't miss A F Harrold's performance at Lewes Pint of Poetry, Lewes Arms, on 24 October 2008.



And I have used some of my archive pictures to liven up some of my old blog entries (see below).

Enjoy!

Oliver's Poetry

Lewes Football Club

A black cloud hangs over Lewes FC.


After my local club's promotion to the Blue Square Premier League, its board responded in an extraordinary manner.

It sacked the successful manager Steve King, lost almost all its players, and hired a new manager with virtually no track record at football management!

Football is by no means my forte. However, I think I can spot an accident waiting to happen.

The final fixture of the last season - when Lewes topped its league and were about to be promoted in supposed triumph - was more like a wake than a party.

In the stands, we supporters sang: "Sack the board! Sack the board! SACK THE BOARD!"

The dumped manager - King of the Pan - was in tears.

The talk among supporters was of boycotting the following season's fixtures.

A week or two later, at a send-off for Steve King organised not by the club but by its supporters and held in the function room of a Lewes pub nowhere near the Dripping Pan ground - Steve King showed how hurt he had been to be summarily dismissed by Lewes FC.










Steve told me he simply could not believe the way he had been treated and was still in shock, but, even then, he said he would return as Lewes FC manager if asked.

In a ponderous interview in the Sussex Express, the board members articulated their thinking.

To cut a very long one short, their argument appeared to be that they had been bankrolling the club for yonks and could not afford to continue to do so.

You got the distinct impression that promotion to a higher league had been the last thing they had wanted for Lewes FC, with spurious educational goals ranking higher.

It turned out that the danger area for Steve King at Lewes had not been the Relegation Zone but the Promotion Zone.

Perversely, it seemed that if Steve King had not been such an honourable, decent and hard-working man, he could have kept his job by fielding weakened sides for away matches to notch up sufficient losses to prevent Lewes FC from going up.

Predicatably perhaps, many Lewes supporters decided at the start of the new season to stand by their club despite grave misgivings over the behaviour of its board and the choice of new manager.

Indeed, it was only fair to give the man in question, Kevin Keehan, a chance to show what he could deliver.

Nonetheless, it should be said that Mr Keehan could do with a spot of PR advice.

His regular utterances to the Sussex Express suggested from before a ball had kicked that Lewes FC would be damned lucky to stay up this season - hardly inspiring a feeling of confidence in its players or fans.

Mind you, Keehan is a man true to his word.

Under his stewardship thusfar, Lewes has indeed played like a team destined to go down.

Moreover, the joy of watching Lewes play has vanished.

We used to quaff pint after pint of beer in the stand and sing ourselves hoarse. The home fans and visiting fans would happily mix and trouble was rare.

Watching Lewes play was great fun - regardless of the result.

This season that has changed. The fans are segregated and the away fans are not allowed to use the Lewes fans' facilities.

You are searched for knives, knuckledusters, semi-automatic firearms and SAMs (surface to air missiles) before entering the Dripping Pan, and, horror of horrors, the bar is closed and booze is banned from the ground.

To rub salt into the sober wound, the quality of the football is far worse than it has ever been.

I endured the match against Crawley, albe torturous to watch.

Even to the untrained eye, it was crystal clear that Lewes played - and lost - dreadfully agin a side which was no great shakes.

At time of writing, according to my man on the inside (the BBC Sports website), Lewes FC has played nine matches and accumulated a measly three points (a mean average of just one third of a point per match!), after losing six times, drawing thrice and not winning at all!

They are well into the Relegation Zone (third from bottom in the table), and have a extraordinary goal difference of minus 18!!

It is a good thing we could find some other boys to take on Croatia!

My friends on the local rag say the last Lewes FC match was televised - by the hated Setanta - and Kevin Keehan endured the shame of being interviewed on live TV while fans behind him chanted: 'Keehan out!' and 'Sack the board!'

Even the usually kindly and magnanimous Sussex Express describe it as 'a night of national humiliation for the Rooks'.

Strangely, the Lewes FC website appears to have been suspended. . .

I recall watching just a few years back a Lewes match where the then manager (not Steve King or Kevin Keehan) was banned from the touchline, the then physio was barred from the ground, and Lewes's goalie was sent off.

Lewes still scored eight times and won by a margin of six goals.

I must have downed a gallon of ale from the club bar during their glorious afternoon - the sort of historic, crazy football you had to see to Adam 'n' Eve.

Sadly I cannot see it being repeated unless Lewes can trade Kevin Keehan for Kevin Keegan.

Surely, Newcastle could find a role for Keehan - and Tyneside's now-heel-kicking King Kev could come down south to create a Lewes Wonderland.

Far more likely, though, Lewes FC will go down at the end of the season - and, to universal relief, dump its manager and re-open the Dripping Pan bar in joyous celebration!

Oliver's Poetry

First Season at Lewes Pint of Poetry

The first season at Lewes Pint of Poetry climaxed with an extraordinary, eclectic show featuring some of the most unbelievable poets.

It was gratifying to see how quickly the club - upstairs at the Lewes Arms, East Sussex, UK - has formed a character all of its own.

For when I first told friends in Lewes of my idea of setting up a poetry club in the town, at least one of them said it would never work and I should forget it.

At times, over the past six months, it has indeed been tough-going. . . with many top performance poets not exactly jumping at the chance to drive hundreds of miles to a little-known town in the deep south.

However - through hard work and perseverence - there have been some remarkable nights.















The visit by the 'Birmingham Poets' - Dreadlockalien (former Brum Poet Laureate Richard Grant), the superb Melinda Deathgoth (pictured bottom), and Simon Lee - was a particular hightlight, with local poetry stars John Agard and Grace Nicholls in the audience.

Legendary punk poet Attila the Stockbroker's incredible 100-minute performance to a packed house in mid-March was also very memorable.

Italian poet and broadcaster Emilia Telese (pictured above) brought an unusual and classy flavour to the club in June.

Before launching Lewes Pint of Poetry, I had been used to playing (fine) gigs in Leamington and Leicester where the audience almost entirely comprised poets.

So, it has been thrilling to find myself running a club where the majority of the crowd are genuine spectators who have paid to be entertained rather than to perform for around three minutes.

I wanted to genuinely bring together the published poets and the performance poets, and this has happened with the likes of gifted published poet Catherine Smith sharing a stage with great performers such as Lorna Meehan or Rachel Pantechnicon (pictured top).
















Of course, my free-wheeling hybrid of a poetry love-in is not everyone's cup of Assam.

A couple of grumpy open spot poets have deigned to give me the benefit of their inexperience with advice that I should run the club entirely differently, with more poets, with less stage time each, and a conventional approach to MC-ing a poetry gig.

Yet, despite my flawed approach in their estimation, my some miracle Lewes Pint of Poetry continues to flourish! Come September - with the help of the team - we will be back with the best of page and performance.

I can hardly wait! See you on September 26.

Next gig at Lewes Pint of Poetry

Who's performed at Lewes Pint of Poetry

Oliver's Poetry

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford has fascinated me ever since I read his classic First World War tetralogy Parade’s End – one of the most thrilling works of fiction ever written.

So I was interested when the modern novelist Julian Barnes wrote in the Guardian Review about his take on another Ford Madox Ford novel, The Good Soldier.

The story's narrator – a bland, American millionaire named Dowell – is not to be trusted, argues Barnes.

Julian Barnes believes the reader must treat every “sentence with care and suspicion and must prowl soft-footed through the text”. To illustrate this, Barnes cites the first line of The Good Soldier - “This is the saddest story I have ever heard” – and says the narrator is telling the story not hearing it.

It is a moot point. Dowell repeatedly says he is trying to tell the story as if “at one side of the fireplace of a country cottage with a sympathetic soul opposite me”.

Therefore, Dowell is both telling and hearing the story.

In other respects Julian Barnes is spot-on: Dowell’s account is not to be trusted.

Although the story is supposedly told in one sitting, his views of the other major characters – his love-aholic, unfaithful friend Edward Ashburnham, long-suffering cuckquean Mrs Ashburnham, and Dowell’s cheating wife Florence, change as he goes on.

Far from being a “bumbler obliged to convey an intrigue of operatic passion which he only partially understands” as Barnes suggests, Dowell is pulling the wool over our eyes.

Through his indolence, dullness and baffling belief that beautiful women should marry him and be happy, Dowell mixes the brew for the tragedy, culminating in the untimely deaths of Edward and Florence. Dowell is the true villain.

But through his sly, propagandist telling of the story, the narrator shrouds his abject culpability.

Oliver's Poetry

I'm Back

Hey, I'm back!

It has been two-and-a-half months since I last posted a blog and I must confess I have missed doing it.



I stopped because I had quit the Leamington Garret and my old job in the Midlands to move full-time back to Lewes - and a great new job in central London.

My return to the Big Bad City has been superb. I love the buzz of being in London again after more than three years working in a field in the back of beyond.

And the Oliver's Poetry website is two years' old.

I am pleased to have been able to keep it going – to promote the work of some truly fascinating and talented poets.



The Second Birthday issue features five new poems and - also on the home page - the poems most visited on the site over the past 24 months.

Today I also launch my new blog format “The Throg” – defined as a blog of around 300 words usually illustrated by three images.

I promise my throgs will be more focused and specific than my previous blogs.

So, what of the last couple of months?

Well, I enjoyed my post-job break in France; had a fun poetry gig at Borders in Oxford as part of the Oxford Fringe, and hosted two wonderful nights at my own club, Lewes Pint of Poetry, starring Attila the Stockbroker (pictured performing there) and former Birmingham Poet Laureate Dreadlockalien.

I also performed at the Poetry Society’s Poetry Café for the first time and adopted a manic kitten called Smiffy (pictured above).

On a sad note, another of my journalistic peer group has passed, Dina Akass (Malik).

Dina was one of the most affable souls I have met; always thinking the best of people and lighting up their lives like a beacon of hope.

A rare gift.

Oliver's Poetry