Oliver's Poetry Garret

Back to Writing

2011-06-04T12:01:00.040Z

It is just over five years since I launched the Oliver's Poetry website and this blog site, Oliver’s Poetry Garret, and a little more than five months since the publication of my first poetry book, The Commuter’s Tale.

Looking back over these different periods is a strange feeling. I was in a very different place and state of mind in June 2006, living in a garret flat in Leamington Spa, under often-tough circumstances, and in Lewes at weekends, attending performance poetry events across the Midlands, and looking for a way of expressing my enthusiasms and, I guess, my angst.

In the five and a bit months since the launch of my book, I have devoted the majority of my spare time to promoting it. Poetry sells about as quickly as asbestos burns. Nonetheless, I have persevered, using all my publicity know-how and contacts to get it some kind of profile and into more than 130 bookstores in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

I believe it has been as successful during that time as one could realistically have hoped for, earning some lovely comments from journalists, celebrities and, most important, the public.

I have promoted The Commuter's Tale in every way I, and my friends and supporters, could conceive. However, before I grow to hate promoting it, now is the time to set the book free, to allow the seeds I have sown to germinate, and Lady Luck to do her bit.

Whatever my friends and mates say, I do not particularly like promoting my own writing. I much prefer doing publicity and marketing on behalf of others - far less embarrassing. That said, I have received some great reaction from people; getting a postcard with a rave review of the book from Hugo Williams, an esteemed poet whom I admire, was one highlight; the wonderful reception from booksellers in Waterstone’s branches across Britain another.

I’d like to thank all those who have given me support and shown enthusiasm for the project. It has meant such a lot to me, guys!

Of course one takes the rough with the smooth. Having your first book published is one of those life-changing events, like having your first child, which splits your social circle. Most are delighted for you; some totally ignore it; while a few are jealous and find that hard to conceal.

For instance, I received an email from one poet complaining I had been published under a pen-name - who'd have thought that Oliver Gozzard wasn't my real name! - and also that I had used rhyme, something she professed to find "irritating"!

Later, the same poet emailed me a second time to admit that she had always wanted to have a book published.

Moreover, a member of the Poetry Society, of which I am also part, sent me a missive, complaining that I had posted a sample of The Commuter's Tale on the Poetry Society's FaceBook "wall".

Poetry on the Poetry Society page! Quelle horreur! It seemed she was more interested in which Poetry Society politico was in or out - leaving or staying in post - than actual poetry or poets. Every walk of life attracts politics and its apparatchiks.

At weekends, I have spent a good deal of time telephoning bookshops and have had a great response from many of them.

A lot of booksellers are really enthusiastic about writers and their books and have been thrilled to stock my book. You get the odd bad experience, though.

My worst occurred when I had the temerity to call a bookseller in a place called Tonbridge. He immediately suggested I send him a complimentary copy of the book for him "to sell"! I replied that I would be more than happy to send him a comp to read and inspect, provided he then ordered a copy to sell from the distributor if he liked it.

The unrepentant bookseller insisted he wanted just the complimentary copy. I inquired: "What would the publisher and the author get out of it if you sold it." Evidently pleased with himself, he replied: "Nothing!"

I was baffled and disturbed by his brazen approach. He did not consider it reasonable for me to receive even one penny for my hard work! I could not help but think: "What a Kent!"

Five months is a hell of a long time to be promoting one item. I have never tried anything like it before - and will probably never do so again.

Now this time is over, I am beginning to get the rest of my life back, watching some television, going to public house out and again and catching up on my mountains of paperwork at home and my friends.

I want to get my life back on track, to look to the future and have some kind of plan. I particularly want to get back into writing.

With editing and promoting The Commuter's Tale, I have written hardly any poetry, or prose fiction, for at least 18 months - far too long, in my view. It has even been difficult for me to find time to write this blog.

I have an idea for a style of poetry I want to try writing in, and am keen to work on developing this new style.

It is shocking how promoting and distributing a book can knock the writing right out of you. It is as if it employs a different part of the brain which stops off that kind of creativity.

A lot of things have happened in the last few months, of course. I have to admit I rather enjoyed The Royal Wedding. I watched it on telly - by far the best view - and once Kate and Wills were safely wed, hopped on the train to London to join the wedding-day crowds.

There was a great atmosphere and it was entertaining to see my old sparring partner, Tim Wilcox, now a BBC freelance anchorman, having a wee run-in with The Fuzz (who, admittedly, were being typically officious).

Working near Buckingham Palace, I also witnessed the build-up to the wedding. I have never seen such a media circus or such quirky campers.

I enjoyed taking some pictures of the preparations and of the big day which I have sprinkled randomly around this blog entry.

Since December I have been using FaceBook and Twitter to promote The Commuter's Tale (MySpace is a dead duck, in my opinion), posting updates on reviews, orders and other developments.

And from the anniversary of Lord Byron's death on 19 April till the end of May I put up a stanza or two of the poem every day. In total I "Facebooked" and tweeted 70 stanzas - 560 lines - of poetry, which in among the regular tittle-tattle on the social media site.

On Facebook and Twitter there is, of course, some interesting material, but it is exceptional. Most of what appears is even more inane than the current appalling Doctor Who series.

I am often surprised by what people publish on Facebook and Twitter and I don't just mean the posts or tweets about the superinjunction-celebrities known to the great public only as "COK, DIK, CNT, WNK, RSE, TIT, RYN and GGS".

However, as I have observed in previous postings, FaceBook can be horribly addictive. You garner far too many so-called friends (around 725 of them in my case) and end up clicking "like" to so many of their comments, somewhat diminishing the significance of the few genuine friends whose comments you genuinely appreciate.

Now I have quit Facebook and Twitter, I feel like a rampant sexaholic released from his libido!

In the run-up to the Royal Wedding, I thought of tweeting and Facebooking the blatant lie - my invention - that my dear Icelandic friend Midders is related to Kate Middleton and her sister, 'Her Royal Hotness Princess Pippa'.

I resisted the temptation to publish such nonsense, so imagine my surprise when I was surfing the web and found an Icelandic newspaper article on this very subject.

It would appear that my friend Midders is indeed related to Kate and Sister Hotcheeks, and that his dad attended the wedding.

I am sure I saw Midders Senior go into the Middleton post-nuptials bash at the Goring Hotel, where I had attended my dear friend Lucian Hudson's 50th birthday bash about this time last year.

In Lewes, the Royal Wedding generated minimal interest. The people of Lewes are very independent and generally don't even like the idea of their MP being a Government minister.

The big event in town recently was the re-opening of the Priory ruins. It was a great day, basked in sunshine, albeit a show of two halves.

The top part of the site was run by the Priory Trust and was a bit stuffy in its nature.

The bottom part was organised by Southover Bonfire Society and was totally packed and a huge succcess. Overall, the event was great.

I had been roped in to do the announcing. Imaginative children's poet Simon Welsh performed on the main stage as well as some brilliant young musicians from Starfish. It was touching to see a songstress singing her heart out while three young boys played around her.

More than four thousand people attended the fair, raising a substantial sum for Southover Bonfire Society, of which I am a member.

The fair ended with a tug o' war, surprisingly won by the team put up by Lewes FC fans - the only trophy the club is likely to bag in the foreseeable future!

Lewes FC (the so-called Mighty Rooks) have had a terrible season, managing to get themselves demoted, despite every opportunity of staying up.

I am not alone in being glad to see the back of manager Paddy Tosh "Tim" O'Shea, and was quite taken aback to have read in the Sussex Express that the Board had wanted, and tried, to keep him on for next season.

He could easily have succeeded in keeping up Lewes - but failed miserably. We desperately need a new manager to galvanise what remains of the team and rediscover winning ways.

But hope springs eternal. I was buying a couple of beers down at the corner shop the other night when I was approached by the playwright, comedian and actor Patrick Marber who, to my surprise, apologised profusely for having not read my book yet, explaining that he wanted to do so in one sitting. Somewhat taken aback, I said that my friend behind the counter of the store had been a professional footballer and was ready and willing to help Lewes FC as a player or even manager. Marber, who is on the board of Lewes FC, showed some interest in this remark but hinted good news was on the way on the manager front.

And, tonight, I was walking past the ground and saw that the fixtures board contained the words: "THE KING IS BACK" which, I can only assume, means legendary Lewes FC manager Steve King (who, bizarrely, was sacked three years ago after earning the club promotion) is returning to his rightful place at the helm. Absolutely fantastic and amazing news! Well done, Marber and fellow Directors!

* We have had some excellent weather. Despite the many hours I have spent at my desk, I have found some time to enjoy the amazing run of sunny days. The sunsets in Brighton and at my allotment at Earwig Corner have been sublime.

The flip side, naturally, is that the allotment has been like the Sahara Desert - arid and hard to grow anything in but weeds.

All the same, I have managed to get the weeds down and keep a few onion and garlic plants, at least, moving upwards. It is a sanctuary of tranquility at Earwig Corner. One day I might even write some poetry there.

My poetry club, Lewes Poetry, has been shuffling along in its own inimitable way. The last couple of gigs have had some great performances by poets such as Sian Thomas and Rebecca Hurst.

Both have also contributed poems to the Fifth Birthday Edition of the Oliver's Poetry website, along Oxford poet Laura King, old friend Tony Constantino (brother of my late friend John Constantino), from Portugal, and ace poet (and employment law adviser) David Burridge.

The five years since I launched the site have gone all too quickly. I have published around 90 poems contributed by other poets - from the famous to completely unknown - as well as a selection of my own work.

Writing Oliver's Poetry Garret blog has been enjoyable, although I am not your usual blogger in style, having chosen to blog only very occasionally but then at length on a range of subjects, illustrated by large numbers of my own photographs. Over five years I have produced only 92 blog entries - a mean average of around 18 a year, although it has been even fewer recently!

It is possibly not the most public-friendly way of blogging, but I like it and it suits me.

This whole experience - a creative journey, really - of creating the Oliver's Poetry site, its blog, performing poetry in clubs, and writing and publishing The Commuter's Tale has been an instructive one.

I am learnt a lot about myself and about the people I know: those you are wonderfully enthusiastic and supportive, and those who are flaky, crazy and unreliable. Who if truth were told couldn't give a fig about you.

Life is full of surprises. You get great moments - like this review broadcast on the RRRants collective's radio show - and also great challenges. It is a constant fight.

But that's life.

Check out the Fifth Birthday edition of Oliver's Poetry!

P.S. Here, for the final time, I promise, is the updated list of quotes from people who've read The Commuter's Tale:

What the readers say:

‘An uncompromised work of genius’ Chris Mason-Felsin

‘A brilliant and truly stunning piece of work’ John Eckersley

‘Had me hooked and wanting more’ John McJannet

‘Clever, witty and kept surprising me’ Juliette Mitchell

‘A unique mix: Byron meets ‘Candide’ meets ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ - immense fun to read’ Trefor Stockwell

‘Made me roar with laughter’ Elizabeth Darcy Jones

‘A book like no other’ Tom Quinn

‘Absolutely superb’ Sarah Crouch

‘A racy read in rap style’ David Burridge

‘Good fun – I really enjoyed it’ Chris Fowler

‘Very absorbing, gripping and engaging – a great read!’ Amanda Banks

‘Gozzard is cooking on gas in this vibrant odyssey’ Roderick Spode

‘Really, really good. Respect!’ Doug Taylor

‘I thoroughly enjoyed it – brilliant!’ Catharine Newman

‘Accessible, entertaining and different’ Jamie Crawford

‘So funny I read it twice’ Ian Hunt

‘Cracking – I couldn’t put it down’ Iona Jette

What the famous say about The Commuter’s Tale:

‘I just couldn't do it justice!’ Jeremy Paxman

‘A fine book, The Commuter’s Tale. Very readable’ Hugo Williams

‘Shows initiative and a sense of humour’ Joanne Harris

‘Very entertaining - chunters along like a train’ Channel 5’s Matthew Wright

‘A rollicking odyssey of joy’ Radio 4’s Elvis McGonagall

‘Belloc meets Byron meets Chaucer’ Attila the Stockbroker

'Bold and engaging, told with brave commitment and good humour. Most unusual’ Jeremy Stockwell, star of BBC2’s The Speaker

‘I support The Commuter’s Tale and wish it every success’ Transport Minister Norman Baker MP

What the media say:

‘The ideal read for a train journey’ Splash FM

‘A thriller in verse’ Metro

‘A dramatic yarn’ Tim Cornwell (John Le Carré’s son), The Scotsman

‘A delightful world of romance and adventure’ Michael Prescott, ex-Sunday Times

‘Poetry in motion’ Sussex Express

‘Loads of pace! I read it in one sitting on a train and really enjoyed it!’ Kenny Farquharson, Deputy Editor, Scotland on Sunday

‘Neatly calls to mind the reassuring rhythm of the railway’ Alex Leith, Editor, Viva Lewes

‘A page-turner’ Artists and Makers

‘Highly acclaimed’ Scunthorpe Telegraph

‘Poetic thriller by poet who knew Philip Larkin’ Hull Daily Mail

‘Brave and singular, unlike anything else you are likely to read this year’ The Frogmore Papers

‘Read this book! It will inflame any hidden craving you may have to break away from your norm’ RRRants radio show

‘A swashbuckling, thrilling odyssey – excellent! Waterstone’s

Awaiting The Big Break!

2011-03-27T14:20:00.004Z

It is now about two months since the launch of The Commuter's Tale - and in that time we've come a long way.

I have taken the same approach that my late friend Sam Towers took to his allotment - "Do a little, leave a lot" every day.

Rather than trying to complete everything at once, I have done a little bit, often - trying to do something every evening to push the book.

To be fair to myself, it has gone pretty well.

The Commuter's Tale is now in more than 120 outlets, including around 105 branches of Waterstone's, listed here

It has been selling in Lewes at the excellent bookshop Sky Lark, in the Needlemakers, and at the Runaway Cafe, at Lewes Station, among other outlets.

And Amazon is selling it here with some success.

Moreover, the publicity has been good.

Since my last blog entry, the Metro article has appeared (you need to enter your email address to view).

And my chipping away at the publicity has brought in a wide range of other coverage, such as the Hull Daily Mail and the Scunthorpe Telegraph.

Overall, I have had 11 pieces of tradional media publicity (Metro, Scotsman, Hull Daily Mail, Coventry Evening Telegraph, Scunthorpe Telegraph, Sussex Express (twice), Viva Lewes, BBC Sussex & Surrey and Bright FM), and eight pieces on web blogs) which makes around 20 publicity hits in total.

Not bad at all for a first poetry book, although I have to admit I feel a tad disappointed.

I still feel I am waiting for my book's BIG BREAK!

There was certainly a lot of reaction and interest after the Metro piece appeared, and a sales spike, but it still has not got people really talking about The Commuter's Tale.

I have put a lot of evenings into posting out review copies to the national newspaper, literary magazines, and regional arts editors.

To date, little has come of it. For the nationals, poetry seems to be a total turn-off.

Many of the regionals don't review books - something I really should have known.

I have been having to try to ask favours of old friends to even get it considered for review.

The reader reaction, however, has been excellent.

If only all the book editors and arts editors and booksellers could meet the readers who have enjoyed it.

I am starting to realise just how tough a business book publishing is.

Don't get me wrong, though: I am enjoying the ride.

As I think I have said in a previous blog entry, I promised myself in December last year, when I started doing some promotional work on The Commuter's Tale, that I would not be put off by anything.

But, some nights, when I check my email and get another little knock-back, I can't help feeling a shade blue.

It is particularly irksome when someone promises something and then withdraws it without saying why.

For instance, the guy at the Bow Windows second-hand bookshop in Lewes TWICE promised to put up a poster in the window for The Commuter's Tale.

His shop has a big notice in the window saying he takes orders for new books, so it would be to his advantage.

Two months on, no poster has appeared, even though any tiny event in Lewes seems worthy of his window space.

Why couldn't he just explain that he has no truck with new books and, while he was at it, take down his ORDER NEW BOOKS HERE sign?

Still, it is a very minor matter and I don't let it upset it.

The great thing is that every time there's a tiny set-back with the book, something good happens.

Last week, for example, the Runaway cafe at Lewes Station sold at least one copy of the book every day!

All the same, we could do with something to lift The Commuter's Tale higher in the public consciousness.

I went for a drink with my old friend Matthew Wright, a very decent bloke and now a successful TV presenter for Channel Five, and, while I was with him at his club, the Ivy Club, asked his advice on what to do.

He agreed it was a tough challenge, with little chance of getting the book onto television.

National radio, he reckoned, was a better bet.

He said my best hope was if a famous arts person were to love the book and promote it for me through a well-read blog or other means.

It is so true. The Commuter's Tale needs the hydrogen of celebrity to power it!

But how do you achieve that?

Most celebrities keep themselves busy promoting themselves - and would not spare a thought for an unknown writer.

And, frankly, I don't blame them. Why should they help me? What's it is for them?

Promoting this book is nothing if not character building.

I have learnt not to expect replies to emails sent to booksellers and journalists.

It is a numbers game. And when you do hear back, it is a real delight!

I have persevered with the internet - that great communication democracy.

Now I have built up a Facebook audience of around 600, a Twitter of 420 and still have around 50 on MySpace - making a potential 1,000-strong group for my updates on the book and its progress.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, Facebook is the most addictive online forum, but also the silliest of the social networks, working on the principle that you are not allowed to make new friends online.

Recently I was in the "sin bin" for seven days for the FaceCrime of "being over-friendly".

Ironically, the Geek Cops arrested me while I was befriending someone I actually know.

FaceBook is like an enormous practical joke that precocious American teenagers have played on the world.

MySpace, on the other hand, has been completely shafted by them.

It is like a theatre where the show's still running but the audience has gone home.

It hardly seems worth posting on it. The MySpace auditorium is so empty, when you speak you can hear the echo!

Twitter could still be useful. I have been pruning down the 2,000 people I follow, removing the scribes of the more ludicrous or uninteresting tweets.

I shall then invite some more bookish types who might be interested in The Commuter's Tale.

I have yet to experiment with sending people direct messages - I don't want to be serving two social concurrent gaol sentences!

For all this, publishing a book is a reward in itself.

It is wonderful having it out there, and knowing that at least some people are reading it, and judging from the feedback enjoying it.

A lifelong ambition achieved!

Because of The Commuter's Tale, I have been in touch with old friends and met some great new people.

In Lewes, the bookshop stocking it is Sky Lark where the owner, Matt Birch, has been very supportive.

He suggested I should enter The Commuter's Tale for competitions because even a short-listed poetry book is suddenly taken seriously by the media. A good idea.

But, perhaps, I should not worry. I have a great list of promotion and distribution work I am doing for book and should just keep chipping away at them in my spare time until one of them - or a combination of several - sets the snowball a-rolling.

My latest endeavour has been to go on a one-man, two-day tour of bookshops, signing copies of The Commuter's Tale, and getting the booksellers to turn them face-out, which makes a big difference, particularly with a small book.

The first leg of the London tour was on a very wet day indeed when I was feeling a bit queasy.

I trudged from Trafalgar Square, where I was well received in Waterstone's (thanks for your help, Dawn), to Blackwell's in Charing Cross Road, where Lachlan ordered a copy.

Then several times to Foyles on Charing Cross Road, where, eventually, I met the poetry buyer, who, bizarrely recognised me, and ordered a copy, and Gower Street Waterstone's, where Damian was very friendly and helpful.

I was feeling quite ill by this stage. Soaked to the skin, with a very sensitive stomach and a painful right knee which made me limp.

Exhausted, I sat in a cafe on Tottenham Court Road and drank a coffee and took painkillers.

They had a bookshelf with donated books for the customers to read, so I gave them a signed copy of The Commuter's Tale, hoping a Hollywood producer might drop by and pick it up!

My strength slightly regained, I traipsed down Oxford Street to sign books in Waterstone's Plaza and Oxford Street branches (thanks, Steve and Bridget).

Then to the big one - Piccadilly Waterstone's where I signed the books with the incredibly helpful and pleasant Laura who must be one of Britain's most adorable booksellers.

Always so upbeat and affable. Thanks, Laura, you're a diamond - and with a lucky name!

I sat on a sofa for a long time in Waterstone's Piccadilly reading a John Betjeman book. Then I walked through the driving rain to Covent Garden Waterstone's, where Cat allowed me to sign the book and turn it facing out.

On then to Fleet Street, where I once worked as a journalist, to see Ed and sign and face out my books, and then again, with Charlie, just down the road at Ludgate Circus Waterstone's.

Finally, I walked into the City, checking out Daunt's on Cheapside, where the manager Ben was very friendly but explained the book hadn't come in yet, and then Leadenhall Market Waterstone's, where they couldn't find it, even though it was in stock.

It is surprising how often this happens. Apparently, shoppers often take the books out to read on the sofas and then put them back in the wrong part or store, or, worse, just purloin them.

Still, a dozen shops in one day was not bad going. I returned home absolutely drained.

On the second leg of the tour, it was really hot and sunny. Rather than getting cold and wet, I ended up sweaty and sunburnt.

I started in Notting Hill, signing at the Waterstone's (thanks, Sula) and then searching for a long time for the posh bookshops I had read about in a Sunday Times Magazine article.

After what seemed like a hell of a long walk, I found the famous Lutyens and Rubenstein, where Claire, every bit as wondrous as described in the article, took five signed copies of The Commuter's Tale.

She directed me on to the nearby Travel Bookshop, where the helpful Saara took three copies and I bought a George Orwell book for a fiver.

Delighted by this progress, I had coffee at a pavement cafe where I fell into conversation with a couple of Icelandic lawyers, called Siggi and Helga, who bought another copy.

On to Chiswick Waterstone's by bus where they had plenty of the promotional Commuter's Tale bookmarks but couldn't find the book.

I gave the lovely Lara a copy to review and she ordered more copies for stock, and I had a very pleasant chat with Eleny. Chiswick Waterstone's is a store well worth supporting!

Onto the Tube and the long journey to Wimbledon, where I signed the book at Wimbledon Bridge Waterstone's (thanks, Patrizia!) I already felt like I'd been travelling for days but had hardly made any headway with my schedule.

So, I skipped lunch and took the train to Kingston, where after a long search my book was found by staff at the Waterstone's in the Bentall Shopping Centre - quite a place!

They offered to move some Larkin out of the way to face out The Commuter's Tale! Thanks, Ralph!

It was getting late now and I hurried, as fast as the train would allow, to Richmond, where I signed in Waterstone's, and then Hampstead, where the charming Elle-Louise, took a signed copy at Daunt's.

In the street I bumped into her old friend Jeremy Austin, a former Stage journalist, who had become a dad and a house-husband. Great to see him and his baby!

And, when he heard what I was doing, he offered to buy a book.

There was a real buzz about Hampstead Waterstone's, with real good buskers at the doors. I signed a copy of the book (thanks, Sorelle) and felt quite sad to have to head home.

On the way back, I dropped in at a packed Friday night Camden Town and signed at Waterstone's (thanks, Andrew), rounding off my day.

Rarely have I felt so exhausted. Even two days' later, I am in pain!

Sometimes I think this entire book thing is mad. One has to work insanely hard to sell a few poetry books!

Readings are just as bad. You can travel hundreds of miles to perform in front of an audience of six, go down well and still sell no books!

It's a crazy world - but I still enjoy it!

Anyway, I have still enjoyed the experience, particularly going to parts of London I would not normally visit. And meeting all the good people in bookshops.

Hopefully, next time I blog I will have some excellent news!

If you fancy getting the book, visit Waterstone's or here's the link to The Commuter's Tale page on Amazon.

Or come to Lewes Poetry, at the Lewes Arms, from 8.30pm on 28 April and get a signed copy straight from the horse's mouth!

Some comments about the book are below.

What the readers say about The Commuter’s Tale:

‘An uncompromised work of genius’ Chris Mason-Felsin
‘A brilliant and truly stunning piece of work’ John Eckersley
‘Had me hooked and wanting more’ John McJannet
‘Clever, witty and kept surprising me’ Juliette Mitchell
‘Made me roar with laughter’ Elizabeth Darcy Jones
‘A book like no other’ Tom Quinn
‘Absolutely superb’ Sarah Crouch
‘Good fun – I really enjoyed it’ Chris Fowler
‘Very absorbing, gripping and engaging – a great read!’ Amanda Banks
‘Gozzard is cooking on gas in this vibrant odyssey’ Roderick Spode

What the famous say:

‘Shows initiative and a sense of humour’ Joanne Harris
‘I just couldn't do it justice!’ Jeremy Paxman
‘Very entertaining – chunters along like a train’ Matthew Wright
‘A rollicking odyssey of joy’ Radio 4 poet Elvis McGonagall
‘Belloc meets Byron meets Chaucer’ Veteran poet Attila the Stockbroker
‘I support The Commuter’s Tale and wish it every success’
Transport Minister and Lewes MP Norman Baker

What the media say:

‘A thriller in verse’ Metro
‘A dramatic yarn’ Tim Cornwell (John Le Carré’s son), The Scotsman
‘Poetry in motion’ Sussex Express
‘Loads of pace! I read it in one sitting on a train and really enjoyed it!’ Kenny Farquharson, Deputy Editor, Scotland on Sunday
‘Neatly calls to mind the reassuring rhythm of the railway’ Alex Leith, Editor, Viva Lewes
‘A page-turner’ Artists and Makers
‘Highly acclaimed’ Scunthorpe Telegraph
‘Poetic thriller by poet who knew Philip Larkin’ Hull Daily Mail
‘The ideal read for a train journey’ Splash FM

Oliver's Poetry

The Launch of The Commuter's Tale by Oliver Gozzard

2011-01-29T21:44:00.005Z

The Commuter's Tale by Oliver Gozzard is launched. It is in bookshops, selling online and being written about.

The past month has been one of the busiest of my life. I imagined that getting a book off the ground would be hard work, but had no idea what a mountain of tasks it would create for me to do. Without a doubt, I would say it is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.

I have written hundreds of emails about it to people and organisations, personally visited as many bookshops as time allows, written and distributed a flight of different press releases, phoned dozens of journalists, and done all the interviews that have come my way. And all this in my spare time, as I am working full-time in a demanding job. It has been tough.

The launch event - at the Runaway buffet at Lewes Station - was on Saturday, 22 January, which would have been Lord Byron's 223rd birthday. It went well. The publisher Nick Awde (of Desert Hearts) and I greeted a good crowd, and The Commuter's Tale was selling well even before the event started.

I read a few stanzas and signed books, and the guests enjoyed the wine. It was great that esteemed poets John Agard and Grace Nichols came along, as well as Frogmore publisher and talented poet Jeremy Page, and many of the gifted performers who come to the Lewes Poetry evenings I run at the Lewes Arms.

Vic Elsey, who runs The Runaway was on great form and I presented him with a present of a bottle of malt whisky for his support. My patient publisher Nick Awde got a less alcoholic gift for his unerring efforts.

And it was great to see people I had met on the train also coming to the launch, particularly 'The Tennis Girls' who have asked me to talk about The Commuter's Tale at their reading group.

All the same, promoting a book is pretty daunting, because you have to take on the vast majority of the work yourself.

You have to sell it to the public, the media and the booksellers. If you fail in any category, your book will not succeed!

Despite my strategic approach to the task and all my experience at promotion, I still sometimes lie awake in bed wondering if the publisher and I are going to be left with a huge stack of unsold books!

The press coverage so far has been very good. It has been written about in The Scotsman, Scotland's quality national newspaper, and in the Brighton Argus and the Sussex Express, which has taken a picture of me at Lewes Station for a second piece.

I have been interviewed by Metro, Britain's third largest national newspaper, and on Bright FM and BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey.

The Coventry Evening Telegraph and The Hull Daily Mail have both promised to run pieces about The Commuter's Tale. And a piece is due to appear in The Stage newspaper.

I have spent the evenings of the past week speaking to national newspaper contacts and sending out review copies of the book. A couple of cracking national newspaper reviews would do it a world of good.

The reviews have been coming in on the websites. The Commuter's Tale has had four reviews on Amazon.co.uk - all excellent, three five-star reviews and one four-star one - and a five-star review and a four-star one on the W H Smith online bookshop, and a five-star review on Waterstones.com

Waterstone's says it will stock it in its UK city and large town branches, which is great news! I am now targeting all the relevant media in those areas.

I am overwhelmed by the positive comments and enthusiasm of most people. It boosts my confidence. Of course there are also set-backs and negative people, but I really try to rise above them.

From the outset, I have gone for a 'clicks-and-mortar' approach to promoting The Commuter's Tale, using the new media and traditional media in equal measure.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, this has meant me setting up Twitter and Facebook pages for The Commuter's Tale. A weird experience!

I have to admit I really like Twitter. It is easy to build up a decent-sized, relevant group of people and organisations in your network.

I use it to keep a running journal of how the promotion of The Commuter's Tale is going, and to keep its name out there.

I now have 333 followers, and am following 1,993, which I am pretty happy about. What they say can be useful information!

I confess that Facebook I have always avoided and dislike the sound of. Now my book is on it, my suspicions have been confirmed. Like a bad friend, Facebook constantly encourages you to befriend other people and when you try, it tells you off!

It is like the bully who says: 'Go and talk to her (or him). Go on! GO ON!!! You'll always regret it if you don't.' Then, when you get the cold shoulder, the tune has changed to: 'Why did you hassle her? Are you a weirdo or something! Get a life, saddo!'

Currently, after encouraging me to make countless new friends, Facebook has summarily banned me for FOUR DAYS for following its advice.

I preferred it when the geeks just hung around the university computer centre, steaming up their glasses when a pretty girl (or man) walked past!

All the same, Facebook is deeply addictive and The Commuter's Tale by Oliver Gozzard currently has 292 people in its group of so-called 'friends', a few of whom I know or could vaguely recognise in bright sunlight.

Even though I am in the sin-bin until at least next Thursday, Facebook is still insanely suggesting 'People I may know', with whom I am supposed to share up to a 100 friends when I have never seen or heard of them!

Perhaps all Facebook did when it came on the scene was expose the meaninglessness of modern 'friendship', and now it is deeply embarrassed about it, and wants 'friends' to be 'genuine friends' and is trying to execute an oxymoronic U-turn.

I don't care a fig. I know my real friends and don't need Facebook's help to identify them. Besides, it was the book who joined, not me! And to add to my woes, I also hurt my right foot and I have been limping around like Lord Byron!

Reflection time over! I must get on with my letter-writing and emailing!

Back the book! You won't regret it!

Buy here

Here are quotes from reviews and comments so far:

‘Oliver Gozzard approached this challenge with initiative and a sense of humour’ Chocolat author Joanne Harris

‘I just couldn't do it justice!’ Jeremy Paxman

‘I am delighted to supportThe Commuter’s Tale, and wish it every success’ Transport Minister Norman Baker

‘A rollicking odyssey of joy’ Radio 4 poet Elvis McGonagall

‘Belloc meets Byron meets Chaucer’ Veteran performance poet Attila the Stockbroker

‘A dramatic yarn’ Tim Cornwell, The Scotsman

‘Penned entirely on the train’ Brighton Argus

‘The iambic pentameter of his stanzas neatly calls to mind the reassuring rhythm of the railway’ Viva Lewes

‘Challengingly set in 200 stanzas, all inspired by the life and work of Byron, and all written by Gozzard on his daily commute’ Lewes People

‘In an age of celebrity trash books and misery memoirs, this is a brilliant and truly stunning piece of work that did what the greatest work always does - transported me away totally from the mundane and every day and put me back in touch with joy of language and story telling. Gozzard plays with us and plays with language too - just for the joy of it. And it really is a joy!’ John Eckersley, World of Urko

‘I enjoyed your book very, very much – it’s clever and witty and kept surprising me’ Girl on the 7.42, blogger and Viva Lewes columnist

‘An epic ballad’ The Poet Laura-eate

‘Definitely one not to be missed!’ Tom Quinn, Amazon

‘It had me hooked and wanting more’ Daily Star’s John McJannet

‘A rattling good yarn in poetic verse’ L. King, Amazon

‘A burst of light for commuters during these dark days and troubled times. . . commuters reading it will chortle and may even sigh, inspired as they face another day in the office, and more game for a laugh as they leave it. Thank you, Oliver Gozzard, for bringing Chaucer to life in the 21st century. I much enjoyed this work, and want to to see more’ Lucian Hudson, Amazon

The Commuter's Tale by Oliver Gozzard

2010-12-28T11:21:00.010Z

The New Year will bring an event I have long looked forward to - the launch of my first book, The Commuter's Tale by Oliver Gozzard.

The book - published by Desert Hearts - has resulted from almost three years of hard effort: writing, editing, planning - conducted on my regular train between Lewes and London Victoria.

In fact, even more perspiration than that has gone into this project.

I have wanted to publish a book for more than a decade and spent a great deal of time in the late 1990s and early 2000s writing a novel, The Phophet's Chamber, which has still to see the light of day! However without that effort, The Commuter's Tale would never have been written.

Of course the build-up to the launch - on Lord Byron's 223rd birthday on 22 January 2011 - is a frantic one.

First I am hoping to build up web presence before I try to hit the conventional media with it.

So far, so good. Steerforth has written about it on his excellent blog, Age of Uncertainty in which he also talks about my poetry club, Lewes Poetry.

In a bit of a first, he interviewed me for his blog at the Lewes Arms and recorded me reading a passage from The Commuter's Tale.

I have also set up a page for it on my own site, Oliver's Poetry with information about the plot and quotes about it from the "famous"!

And the The Poet Laura-eate has also generously written about it on her excellent blog.

In terms of book shops, it is already avaiable for pre-order on Desert Hearts, Amazon and Waterstone's, which I am hoping will also take it in its shops.

Even a Swedish supplier, Bokus has started offering it.

I have been a reluctant blogger this year but with the book coming out this is going to change! I will charting my ups and downs in this tricky but exciting process.

If you would like to write about The Commuter's Tale for your blog, just drop me a line and I will email you a taster or the full text, and other information. Spread the word!

P.S. I have set up a Commuter's Tale Twitter site at:
http://twitter.com/commuterstale

Southover Bonfire Society 2010

2010-11-27T21:43:00.004Z

Another year, another memorable Lewes Bonfire celebration!

My old friend Melanie Knight, who grew up in Lewes in the 1970s and early 1980s, emailed me while I was doing my Rocket FM show to say that the bonfire societies used to blow up controversial figures such as Margaret Thatcher, but she guessed it was not allowed any more!

I am not so sure. Some of this year's effigies seemed more extreme than ever!

There was the disgraceful business of a Lewes bonfire society (not Southover, I stress) blowing up an effigy of the judge who rightly jailed the firework factory owner and his son who were found to be "grossly negligent" in relation to the disaster in which two firefighters died.

I was shocked to read about that. The society involved was even claiming that there had been a miscarriage of justice, and the factory owner and his son should go free (although its chairman later apologised and an investigation has been launched within that society).

I would certainly not have been very happy if I'd been a member of that society.

Fortunately, I am in Southover - and the Southover Bonfire Society's celebration were very enjoyable. It was an excellent night.

I was slightly puzzled as to why the current pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, was chosen as the subject for an effigy.

Although a Roman Catholic, I was not offended.

But it was hard to see how the current Pope could be regarded as an "enemy of bonfire". He is never down the King's Head causing trouble!

It was easier to understand why a journalist, who had suggested that Lewes was an intolerant place, had been chosen, although no doubt he had been only expressing what he felt at that moment, rather like the tableaux makers.

Lewes is a peaceful and pleasant place to live, and the steam that Lewesians let off on the Fifth is undoubtedly part of the reason for that.

So, provided the tableaux are not totally crass and insensitive (such as the one by Firle Bonfire Society a few years back or this year's judge one), it is probably best not to take the tabs too seriously.

I think what is great about Bonfire is the spirit of comaraderie between the people involved and the people watching, and its rememblance of those lost.

Anyway, here are some pictures from Southover's celebrations this year (with some of the Cliffe marching through our manor!)

I feel our little part of Lewes can feel proud of its Bonfire Society and the way it marched on The Fifth 2010.

Advance, Southover!

Oliver's Poetry

Out of the Darkness

2010-10-30T21:14:00.002Z

I have not blogged since June because it has been an exceptionally difficult year. Now life is getting better, I feel as if I have emerged from a long, dark tunnel. More than six months of fighting crises, one after another.

It is hard to blog about matters you cannot really write about. The internet is such an open medium.

But I can say that what I have faced this year took up all my resource and initiative, as well as quite a lot of finance.

I have certainly never spent so much time consulting lawyers, using calming hypnosis CDs, or drawing on friends and friends of friends for their advice and help.

When the chips are down, it is very interesting who offers a helping hand.

I have won my battles and suddenly skies are blue again. I can get on with my life and try to make everything better.

I became quite ill during this time but now, gradually, my health is improving and I am feeling much better about myself, life and what the future holds.

Inferno-fighting kills creativity. I have hardly written a line of poetry in more than six months and getting back into it is not easy.

My ordeal has taught me a lot about myself: my powers of resilience and ability to never give up hope and to win fights against the odds.

Even with the help of friends, you can feel very alone and scared in a tight spot. And one of the trickiest aspects of it is that the rest of your life goes on; you can't stop everything to fight, and so there are hardly enough hours in the day.

Despite all that was going on, I managed to get up to Edinburgh for a few days in the summer, which was great.

It has been two years since I went to the Edinburgh Fringe and my appetite for it had been renewed by my absence. At least for those days I forgot my troubles - and watched some fantastic comedy.

The atmosphere in central Edinburgh in August is unique. Every space a venue. Every pavement a stage.

It was good to see my old friend Micky Flanagan doing so well. His show at the Pleasance was a cracker!

But most of all, I enjoyed just hanging out in the bars, the Spiegel Garden, the Pleasance Courtyard, and Teviot Square. The nights seemed magical!

I also spent a few days in Les Deux Alpes, in the French alps, on a family holiday, which was fun.

The resort offers summer skiiing on the glacier but, after my previous experiences, I decided to simply enjoy the walking and the views, which were spectacular. I do not miss the sport. God did not intend me to ski.

I enjoyed sitting at the bar on the glacier, having a beer in the bright sunshine, and watching others ski.

The ice caves were also enjoyable. Well worth a visit, because of the ice sculptures.

The weather in Les Deux Alpes was mixed; as wet and cold as much as it was warm and dry. A tad disappointing for August (that's how late this blog is!)

Les Deux Alpes is a strange place. The locals are not always as friendly and reasonable as they seem at first, and the architecture leaves something to be desired, although I was tickled by the breeze-block Moulin Rouge.

On a good day, though, the alps are breath-taking. I love the cleanness of the air and the incredible distance you can see.

During this tricky year, I found my mind obsessed 24/7 on my problems and it was very hard to think of anything else. Not healthy at all.

One thing that distracted me was following the so-called Mighty Rooks, Lewes FC, who play their home matches a few hundred yards from my home.

Last season's delegation battle was riveting and came down to the wire, with Lewes staying up with a glorious victory away at Hampton, the last match of the season.

Some images of that amazing, unforgettable day are posted in the blog entry below this one.

Matters have moved on since then, of course.

The club was taken over by the community, and, sadly, the heroic manager Ibbo (Steve Ibbotson) and his brilliant assistant Jason Hopkinson have decided to step down. A pity but you can understand their reasoning.

They have given it their all and now feel it is time for someone else to have a go at the coaching. Although the altruistic Ibbo, thankfully, is staying on as a hands-on chairman of the club.

Attendances are up and the club recently celebrated its 125th birthday; there is no reason why it shouldn't find some kind of regular success again on the field. I truly hope it does.

My poetry club, Lewes Poetry, has also buoyed me on.

At one point I thought I was going to have to give it up for a bit, but somehow it has a momentum all of its own that kept me going with it.

Featured poets this year have included Martin Newell, Peter Wyton, The Anti-Poet and Mark Niel, but the gigs with simply local Lewes poets have been equally enjoyable.

There is such talent in Lewes town! I am always amazed at the variety of poets who come through my door on club nights.

The final gig of the year will be 18 November and is to feature a marvellous range of poets from Lewes and surrounds.

It is hard writing this blog. It's been so long, I have fallen out of the habit.

I've just finished another short stint on Rocket FM, Lewes Bonfire's radio station.

I was more relaxed and happier with my performances this year, and, again, had a good response from listeners.

It is the time of year when everything seems to gather pace: Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night, Christmas, New Year. Loads of work and a quite a bit of socialising. It will all go in a bleary flash!

Oliver's Poetry

The Glory of The Mighty Rooks

2010-10-30T19:58:00.003Z

Michael Wojas' Burning Up

2010-06-26T22:28:00.003Z

Michael Wojas’s funeral service – or “burning up” as he would have called it – was a deeply moving event that mirrored his irreverent, kindly and quirky approach to life.

It seemed for me strange returning to Kensal Green Crematorium, in north-west London. I had not been there since Freddie Mercury’s burning up in 1992. On that grim day, there were only around 20 family, band and friends inside the chapel, and around 150 journalists, me included, outside.

For Michael, there were 300 mourners crowded into the chapel, many sitting on the floor at the front or standing at the back.

Possibly the greatest gathering of Colony Room Club folk ever, you could see them blinking in the bright sunshine before the service or getting tanked up at the pub down the road.

There was definitely a bohemian tenor to the crowd. The chap next to me, for instance, was displaying in his jacket pocket a quick caricature of Michael he had sketched on the way to the crematorium with the word “cu*t” written above it.

Michael had come in a cardboard coffin, in the glass-covered sidecar of a combination motorcycle.

I found the service deeply moving. Michael’s girlfriend, Amanda Harris, read a Dr Seuss book which, remarkably closely, recounted the adventure on which Michael had embarked in his life.

Friend Sally Dunbar summed up his kindliness and quirky humour in her glowing tribute, and poet John Moore caught the free-wheeling nature of the Colony Room in a poem he read.

The tears came, however, when Michael's brother spoke, reading out a letter from his heartbroken mother who had recently also lost her daughter to cancer. She used the Polish version of Michael's name in the letter.

For the first time I thought of Michael’s early life, his family and the conventional lifestyle he had rejected.

It was intriguing to hear Michael Wojas had attained a 2.1 in chemistry at Nottingham University. Having endured two years of a chemistry degree just a few years later at Hull University, I could picture Michael in a stained white lab coat, slaving over a complex synthesis in organic chemistry practicals on old Victorian acid-scarred thick wooden worktops, Bunsen Burners flaring, amidst acrid and noxious odours from dangerous hydrocarbons. It did not seem him at all.

Far easier to imagine the next stage of his life: travelling round Europe, picking fruit in the Mediterranean sun, working in French bars, before drifting to Soho and landing a part-time casual job at the Colony Room Club, then run by Ian Board.

I never met Ian Board or his predecessor Muriel Belcher, but as a member of the Colony Room Club for the last dozen years of its life, I always felt I was drinking with their ghosts.

The club was partly a shrine to their memory, and to their association with each other and Michael Wojas, the chosen successor.

Indeed, the legend of the verbal abuse you could expect at the Colony Room lived on.

However, I can only ever remember politeness and good company from Michael.

If he swore, it was certainly not directed at me or other members. And the only time I can recall him losing his temper was when the Catholic Church was mentioned.

A Humanist led the service at Kensal Green. Humanists, I observed at another friend’s (Mike Knapp's) funeral a few years earlier, are adept at summing up the legacy of those who do not believe in the after-life.

The Alabama 3 conjured up a special atmosphere in the chapel. As well as the tears there were a lot of smiles and laughter, especially when it came to the ‘burning up’ with the cardboard box not fitting through the hatch to the furnace.

It gave mourners the chance to lay their hands on the coffin after the service, before they bustled off onto a green vintage double-decker bus or, in my case, the Tube to wend their way to the wake, on the first floor of the Groucho Club, Dean Street, Soho – next door to the now-defunct Colony Room.

The wake passed in a bit of daze, not that I drank much. One minute the room was empty, then for hours you could hardly breathe.

At around 4pm many of us traipsed downstairs and outside, stopping the traffic on Dean Street to let go of scores of green helium balloons with handwritten tributes to Michael on their tags.

Standing with my old friend Clancy Gebler Davis in the shadow of the Colony Room, I wished I could go back up the rickety stairs to see it again one last time. Much of its ancient apparel is still there, I heard someone say, but it was locked up of course and no one present had a key.

It was great to see those green balloons rise above Soho into the flawless blue sky.

Back inside the old Grouch, the live music kicked off.

I never attended music nights at the Colony Room.

For me the club was about quiet afternoons and early evenings. I would drop by and talk with Michael or join a round of old soaks at the bar.

I guess because of that I did not know many of the other members, something that struck home to me at the funeral and the wake.

The music at the wake was great.

A very tall bloke with a bowler hat and mirror shades compered, introducing a soulful singer who performed an excellent number.

An very upset woman read a poem that I found puzzling and disturbing in equal measure.

Later, a guy played the spoons like there was no tomorrow, and two guitarists strummed their instruments behind their backs. (You can tell that I am out of practice with this music criticism malarky!)

Lisa Stansfield started her short set with the memorable words: “Shuddup or f*ck off!”, referring to the Groucho hubbub that refused to quiet for the musicians.

I loved her rendition of My Funny Valentine – and told her afterwards, though I could not catch what she said in reply. I have always liked Lisa, a typically down-to-earth member of the Colony Room.

Her duet with another singer - who name I don’t know (sorry!) - was also superb.

The most moving turn, though, was a girl who half-sang, half-spoke about what Michael Wojas had done for her with a chorus line something like: “That’s why you f*cking mean so much to me.”

It also struck the nail on the head. People loved Michael because he listened to them and was kind.

There he was in the corner seat smoking and drinking himself to death, soaking up the woes of his clientele, prescribing more booze. A self-help group for alcoholics, as someone said at the funeral.

As the evening wore on, I realised that it was not only his friends' wake for Michael Wojas but for the Colony Room they had lost in late 2008 (or, in reality, some time before that).

As the music played out with a rousing set by the Alabama 3, many were dancing and grinning. One girl amidst them was weeping uncontrollably on another’s shoulder.

I was shocked by some of things written in the press about Michael Wojas.

Social writers seemed to find it impossible to distinguish him from Ian Board or Muriel Belcher, as if they were just three incarnations of a Colony Room Dr Who.

I am fortunate to have nothing but happy memories of Michael Wojas and the unique club that gradually died with him.

This is my tribute:

Michael Wojas’ Burning Up

Michael arrived wearing cardboard
On a motorbicycle made for two,
He took his place at the bar
And smiled at his motley crew.

Sally wore a top hat,
Clancy was a beacon of green,
Amanda spoke of 'strange birds',
Michael watched it all, content, serene.

The sound system went on the blink,
The Alabama 3 struck up a tune,
Michael sang along within his box,
It was quite like The Colony Room.

The Burning Up went awry:
Michael's final earthly joke,
The cardboard did not fit the hatch,
Michael wasn't ready for his last smoke.

Oliver's Poetry

Grimsey Island

2010-06-26T22:16:00.004Z

Around the time of the General Election, I decided I needed to quit this land for a break to try to regain tranquillity of mind.

So, as it was becoming clear that we were in hung parliament territory, I arose after a couple of hours of sleep (having been up most of the night watching the results come in), and hopped on a flight to Iceland.

It took a long time to get there. To avoid the plume of smoke from the erupting volcano, my Iceland Express jet flew up to the Arctic and back down again. After almost five hours (twice the normal flight time), we touched down near Reykjavik. By early evening, I was checked into a room, supping gin and tonics with my dear friend Midders.

I won’t expend time on the adventures we had out of the town in “Rekkers”. Suffice to say, we had a laugh and then drove across Iceland to his adoptive town, Akureyri.

Although it is the second largest town in Iceland, “Akkers” is about the same size as Lewes. If anything it is even quieter than Lewes during the week, and with the mountains overlooking it, it is just as beautiful.

It was just what I needed. I went swimming in the geothermal baths every day, walked in the foothills or driving along the coast in the Midders-mobile, an awesomely fast machine which I could only comfortably drive in his absence for fear of being given driving lessons!

Bliss! Then one day I booked a flight to from Akkers Airport to Grimsey island, a strip of land on the Arctic Circle 25 miles north of Iceland.

It was a quintessential late Spring day as we climbed over the fjord and navigated through a spectacular range of snow-capped mountains in our 15-seater light aircraft before covering the final stretch and espying Grimsey – a dun-coloured oasis in an azure sea.

What I liked about Grimsey was the quiet. I walked most of the way round the island and, for most of the time, did not see a soul.

I loved the clifftops of the coves full of puffins and Arctic terns, which were tame enough to swirl around you and still wild enough not to nick your sandwiches.

From the southern side of Grimsey, you get a spectacular view of the nearest mountains of Iceland.

From the northern coast, Greenland could be seen shimmering in the distance. At the most northerly point there was a little pyramid of stones and a short drain pipe. It would have been good to have cooked over an open fire there as the sun sank in the sky.

I walked on around the perimeter of the island. Although it is only around five-and-a-half kilometres by one-and-a-half, Grimsey takes more walking than you might expect.

When I had clambered out of the plane, the Grimseyan who had opened the door and greeted us went into hoots of laughter when she saw my shorts. “You’re going to get cold,” she said. In reality, I was boiling by the time I’d walked round half the island and found myself racing against the clock in trying to get back to the plane (when we arrived, we’d been told it would be three-and-a-half hours before it took off again.)

Huge tufts of sand-hued grass covered much of the island, like fields of teddy boy quiffs.

Realising I would not have time to completely walk round the island, I make the mistake of leaving the path and yomping across country.

The terrain got rougher, the grass taller and sharper, and then I encountered marshes and fences. I began to wonder if I would ever make it back to the air strip, as I waded on, waist-deep in grass.

I emerged near the church (it used to be said that the Arctic Circle went through the pastor’s bed!). It is a beautiful structure as are the comfortable houses with their big plots.

Chess is popular on Grimsey after a rich American passing on an ocean liner paid for every household to be given a chess set.

I wondered what it would be like living full-time on Grimsey through the warm summers and the bitterly cold winters.

It would be glorious to sail into Grimsey Harbour one day in bright sunshine with that cooling Arctic sun on your face.

My few hours on Grimsey were very happy ones. I was sad to leave, despite the pleasure of flying through the snowy mountain range again in a small plane with an open cockpit.

Back at Akureyri, I hung out with Midders and his local and ex-pat mates at Mongo "Jerry’s" Bar, a welcoming place on the corner of a row of shops in a superb.

I did not really want to return to Reykjavik and when I did I had to wait days for a flight to take me home (the volcano again). At least I didn’t hang out at the airport like a whingeing Pom, returning each time to the centre of town and haunting Oliver’s Bar which I made my own (well, it was named after me).

It was lovely seeing Midders again in his ecological niche. He is a very private bear and has this time requested that I use no photographs of him.

I eventually arrived back in Blighty, which had turned Libertory in my absence - feeling mentally stronger and more resilient.

Here are some pictures of the erupting volcano. One I took from the air as I flew to Reykjavik, the other close up on a day-trip with Midders.

Oliver's Poetry

Earwig Corner

2010-04-04T12:03:00.036Z

It has been a very strange and most stressful time in my life. However, I do manage to derive a little comfort from my allotment at Earwig Corner, Lewes.

We have had the allotment for a couple of years now. It was in a bad way when we took it over, and last year was the first that I managed to get it fully cultivated.

This year - after lousy weather and bad things happening generally - I am just getting stuck into it, putting in new crops, encouraging self-seeding ones that have made an unexpected come-back, and digging it over and removing the weeds.

I have to confess I particularly like being up at Earwig Corner when no one else is there; in the evenings (when light permits) or other unpopular times.

There is a tremendous tranquility about the place as the sun goes down behind the hill.

This is when I get the most (cultivational) work done and have the greatest enjoyment of the view across the meadows and down the valley to the snaking Ouse and the railway line headed for the big bad city (boo!)

Keeping up an allotment, you tend to think progress is slow and not easy to discern.

But looking back at the photographs that I have taken at Earwig Corner over the last couple of years, you can see a lot of activity - and change.

Those images are scattered throughout this blog entry. . . going backwards in time.

The other way I have of keeping my sanity is going down to the seaside.

Fortunately, near Lewes there is plenty of it to choose from.

At Easter, I went down to Hastings and Brighton. It was glorious at both locations.

In Hastings, I came across an alien playing pool. Decent chap, not at all like the rotten eggs on Doctor Who.

I also went on to Ore - God knows why, it is like the housing estate from hell - and had a spicy kebab and drank a pint in a pub which was closing down. I think I caught its last day ever.

Sad, really, it had a bit of everything, and was rather like a living room inside. The sort of street corner "local" public house that will soon be history throughout these isles.

What has happened that I can tell you about?

Well, the show I did in conjunction with another poet and blogger at Oxfringe - Byron, Get One Free - was a surprising success.

I was in a bit of a state during the run-up to it, for other reasons, but it all came together on the night.

The audience reaction was very positive and the Oxford Times's critic Angie Johnson gave it a rave review, calling it as "hugely entertaining".

Thanks, Angie! You're a diamond!

The venue - at the Copa Bar, in the centre of Oxford - was excellent, and the OxFringe technicians extremely helpful.

The show's success gave me a confidence boost.

All the same, it was quickly back to reality, waking up at 5am every morning in a sweat after having nightmares about another aspect of my life.

Moreover, the battle royale over our arsoned Volkswagen Campervan drags on.

The insurance brokers, Footman James, are in my view the most difficult and obdurate companies I have ever dealt with.

Certainly, in a quarter of a century of insuring my vehicles, I have never come across such appalling customer service.

The Footman James staff seem to stone-wall like their lives depend on it.

We are now at the point of having to take them to the Financial Ombudsman.

Indeed, it looks like 2010 could be the year of legal battles for us.

* My friends at the Runaway Cafe, at Lewes Station, are also having a hard time.

Vic and Jackie Elsey, have not had their lease renewed by the railway company, Southern, and are being told to give their famous establishment a McCorporate makeover to slake the desire of the pen-pushers at Southern HQ for uniform catering branding!

Of course, this has gone down terribly badly with Southern passengers who love The Runaway with its good, freshly made food and opera, poetry and wacky jokes from Vic.

Lewes is a traditional place of independent spirit.

People here don't like seeing local businesses driven out to be replaced by ghastly food chains with poor service, over-priced food - and less-than-zero atmosphere.

I have set up a Save The Runaway blog in support of the cause - and there is also a great deal of online activity happening about it on various FaceBook sites.

I have written a campaign poem which is reproduced at the bottom of this blog entry.

[7 April update: I have just heard that Vic and Jackie have won their battle and are having their lease renewed - and, to celebrate, read the poem out on local radio this morning!]

We dedicated the March edition of Lewes Poetry, at the Lewes Arms, to the cause of saving The Runaway and collected signatures of support, many from people at an Amnesty International meeting in the neighbouring room!

The great Martin Newell - one of Britain's leading performance poets - headlined the Lewes Poetry gig and was absolutely superb.

He really is a fantastic poet and performer.

It was just a shame he didn't get the size of audience he deserved.

Nevertheless, the pop star Captain Sensible was among the few onlookers.

He seemed an extraordinarily pleasant man.

Chatting to him I found it quite hard to picture him in The Damned.

Still, none of us is getting any younger.

Here's a picture of Earwig Corner in January or February this year (2010) when there was still ice as thick as concrete.

Lewes FC, the Mighty Rooks, are also fighting desperately to stay up in their current league.

There have been some great matches this season and, also admittedly, some terrible football from Lewes at times.

However, the Mighty Rooks do not deserve to go down.

They are fundamentally too good a team for that.

So, it was gratifying to see Lewes FC beat Welling (The Mighty Del Boys) in a glory day at the Dripping Pan.

The Mighty Del Boys are among the most successful teams in the league - with also one of the most pugacious away-supports.

At one point, when a Welling player was sent off and some unfortunate banter was exchanged between rival sets of fans, I thought there was going to be a riot!

It all seemed quite exciting.

For me it was the proverbial six-pinter (of Harvey's Best Bitter, that is) as the opposition chanted: 'You've got lovely beer.' Indeed, we have.

Talking of Sarf London, I dropped into an excellent "stand-up poetry" club called Bang Said The Gunin Borough.

It is a beautifully thought-through club with moving visuals behind the acts, a tequila slammer open spot section and even shakers and rattles provided for the audience to fully show their appreciation.

I particularly liked the compere, Dan Cockrill, who was entertaining and welcoming and kept things moving at a cracking pace.

I like the space as well - the top room of a loud, trendy and buzzing Borough pub called The Roebuck.

I shall certainly be going back.

The other big event recently was our cat Smiffy's second birthday.

We threw a party for the Smiffster - with cake, balloons and, of course, presents.

Smiffy looked a bit bemused, although I think he enjoyed it. He had a good go at catching his clockwork mouse.

On the social front, I met up with fellow blogger Steerforth at the Lewes Arms for another proverbial six-pinter.

He was just as interesting as his Age of Uncertainty blog, which I can highly recommend.

To my amazement, he has even written about me.

What will the next few months bring?

Anyway, I am sure I am sure I will find some solace at Earwig Corner.

Here are some more images:

August 2009.

May 2009.

March 2009.

2008.

And here's the poem:

The Runaway

Heavenly fresh coffee,
The tastiest bacon in town,
Milk lovingly ladled into good tea
’Twixt opera as Vic’s quips abound.
Goodfellowship and fine fare meet
At The Runaway – the commuter’s treat!

Camaraderie true in ev’ry way
In this sanctuary, clean and cozy,
The living picture of The Runaway
Where even blue Monday turns up rosy,
A service bespoke, time-honoured, compleat,
Where passengers leave smiling, replete.

Ought we trade this rare gem for a plastic shell
With the McCorporate gleam of fast-food chain
And bored staff who feel themselves reborn in hell
In a pen-pusher’s scheme that knows no shame?
- We won’t be druv, in Lewes we say,
Together we’ll save The Runaway!

Oliver Gozzard, April 2010

Oliver's Poetry

The Longest Month

2010-02-01T22:48:00.004Z

I feel like I am emerging from a long, dark tunnel; January was a fairly hellish month!

To be fair, it is always a tough one. January is the one month of the year in which I do not drink booze. Not a drop.

After the excesses (and large expense) of the so-called festive season, this makes sense, although it comes at the coldest and most miserable time of year.

This year it seemed a real struggle just to keep going.

First, there was wintry weather, whose attractions soon palled after I had endured some lengthy, freezing conditions to the day-job and fallen over walking to Lewes Station.

Pavements in Lewes were an ice rink for weeks. Our hefty council tax did not seem to cover any gritting of them.

Then there were the long hours to keep everything in my life going, running on empty, flopping exhausted in front of the telly by night to watch Law and Effing Order, Dancing on Frigging Ice, and other assorted crap (how bad is ITV!)

And just when the month was almost over, there came its sting in the tail. A bastard or bastards torched our beloved camper van.

It had just returned from the garage and I was walking down the road to take it for a spin to Brighton on the last day of the month, when I was stopped in my tracks.

Some mentalist had smashed a window and set the inside ablaze in the early hours of Sunday morning. It had been gutted.

Why would anyone do that? What possible joy could they get out of it?

I am still in shock. We seem to had nothing but bad luck with that vehicle. (And most of its predecessors.)

Lazy lazy Lewes Police, of course, have applied their usual Sherlock Holmesque genius to the case, not bothering to employ forensics or, to my mind, any other form of investigation. The Keystone Cops are much maligned.

No wonder I am feeling depressed.

I suppose you need to look on the bright side.

No one was injured in the arson attack and there is a chance that the camper could be rebuilt and saved, albeit at great expense.

Admittedly, I slept very badly last night and have suddenly picked up a dreadful cold – but at least it is now February and I can drink away my sorrows!

Seriously, I have been dry for almost every January since 1985 (that’s two years on the wagon, if you add up the months), but sobriety doesn’t make your problems go away; it merely brings them sharper in the focus.

I am still grappling to publish my poetry book, still worried about my life in Lewes (especially now there’s a mad arsonist on the loose), and all the rest of it.

My grip on determining my future is lessening by the year and by the day. I often feel I have a cameo part in my own soap opera, and watching the gogglebox or the movies does not help an iota.

From the film Nowhere Boy, I learned that the young John Lennon was a violent, neurotic, thieving Scouser (admittedly I knew the latter ).

From the Mo Mowlam docu-drama on the telly, I marvelled at how someone with so little tact and such a foul mouth could make it big in public life.

I suppose she gave the Northern Irish some of the abuse they are accustomed to slinging at each other, but I am not sure how much of her misbehaviour should be attributed to her illness and how much to egotism, raw ambition, a short temper and plain bad manners.

The idea that she could ever have been Prime Minister made me laugh. But then John Prescott made it to Deputy Prime Minister. Pigs fly past the windows of Westminster every day of the week.

I digress. Apart from a couple of trips, January 2010 was a month I would rather forget.

February, I hope and pray, will be infinitely better.

But I wouldn't bet my life on it.

Oliver's Poetry

Bring It On!

2010-01-07T22:38:00.004Z

What a freeze! The new decade has hit with a vengeance! The snow is thick on the ground in Lewes - we don't really expect this kind of prolonged cold weather on the sunshine coast.

I do not drink alcohol in January, and, as usual, reality has also bitten pretty hard without so much as a drop of beer inside me.

I feel I really want to achieve something in 2010 - particularly getting my book, The Commuter's Tale, on its way. Yet, getting on with it seems such as a struggle!

The Festival Season was survived. For once I took two weeks off to try to cope with the Christmas period better than usual.

It was all right. For my birthday (22 December), we went to Eastbourne on a wonderfully clear and sunny day.

For Christmas we were at home in Lewes. Between Christmas and New Year, we visited relatives.

One of the best occasions was Boxing Day when I - unexpectedly - had the chance to see the Mighty Rooks (Lewes FC) play at home at the legendary Dripping Pan - against the Mighty Tunnellers (Dover).

I don't attend many Rooks matches but, strangely, when I do, they tend to win. I say strange because Lewes win very seldom.

So, I optimistically braved the wind and the horizontal rain with the happy feeling in my heart that Lewes (second from bottom in their division) would beat Dover (second top).

It was great to be back with the guys on the terraces. We found ourselves standing beside the hardcore Dover support - complete with band.

Within a mere 13 minutes, The Mighty Tunnellers had scored twice. Their fans were ecstatic, even a little bit cocky, about it.

I confidently predicted that soon the score would be three - two to Lewes, little knowing that the Mighty Rooks would do much better than that.

To the shock and astonishment of Dover, Lewes FC scored three times in the rest of the first half, and then put in another three in the second half, winning six - two. A miraculous Christmas present! (I even sneaked back the following day, when it was sunny, to photograph the scoreboard.)

The visiting fans were all the more amazed at the behaviour of one of the Lewes supporters - who had apparently arrived at the match after being dumped by his boyfriend and drinking non-stop, without sleep, for more than 48 hours.

He kept shouting the most unpublishable things in a shrill Italian accent.

At half-time, he staged a one-man invasion of the pitch, and dived about in the goalmouth, saving shots from the subs, before being ejected from the ground by the stewards!

Still, he pulled himself up on the wall, so he could watch the rest of glorious match from outside the ground!

When your side loses most of the time, it is amazing to see it win, let alone thrash a good side.

By the end we dancing under our enormous flag, singing: 'Let's go mental.'

* Inevitably, the close of 2009 made me reflect on the past decade.

It did not seem a long time since we were celebrating the new millennium, flush with hope and hype. It was a very mixed 10 years for me.

Career-wise, life has looked up. At the beginning of the Noughties, I was working overnights at CNN - a Fleet Street hack's equivalent of Skid Row - while writing my first novel, which I completed and edited thrice but, despite years of trying to generate interest in it, failed to get published.

The Noughties were also the decade when I finally gave up performing stand-up comedy (2000), got married (2001), moved to Lewes (2002), unwisely worked for Catholic bishops (2002 - 2004), gave up promoting comedy clubs (2005), lived largely unhappily during the week in Leamington Spa (2006-2008), and took up writing and performing poetry (late 2004 to present).

What will the new decade hold?

I absolutely must publish The Commuter's Tale, this year, and start work on a follow-up.

There is no doubt it will be tough going, but I shall not give up this time.

Even during my two weeks at home, I felt refreshed and started to write a lot more poetry than I had done for months.

And considering I have now been on the wagon for seven days, I am surprisingly upbeat.

Let's hope all our hopes and dreams work out this year and this decade.

If the Mighty Rooks can win six - two, anything is possible. New decade. Bring it on!

Oliver's Poetry

Radio Days

2009-11-21T22:08:00.004Z

In the run-up to Lewes’s amazing Bonfire celebrations, I realised a life-time’s ambition – presenting a live radio show!

I was lucky enough to be offered a brace of two-hour shows on Rocket FM – the Lewes Bonfire movement’s radio station, which transmits for around a month every year on 87.8FM in Lewes and the Ouse Valley and on www.rocketfm.org.uk throughout the world.

It was a brilliant experience!

Perhaps I spent rather more of my spare time preparing for the shows than I should have done.

Almost obsessively I listened to hundreds of tracks from the 1970s and 1980s and burnt the midnight oil scripting the shows in tremendous detail, including many of my favourite songs and my best stories from my time as a national newspaper pop writer.

It paid off to some degree, though I wasn’t great at delivering my lines and also made a few technical errors.

All the same, the audience seemed to enjoy my Timewarp shows – broadcast on two Sundays, 11 September and 18 September.

I received emails or texts from friends listening in Iceland, Hungary, Belgium, as well as Leicestershire, Rugby, Coventry, Oxford and Portsmouth.

But just as important were the listeners in Lewes and area.

My favourite email was from two people I do not know. It reads:

This is sunday night Lel and Moks listening to Olllys show on Rocket FM and its fantastic! In the last half hour you have played 2 of the most exciting pop records ever made - anarchy in the uk by the sex pistols and too much too young by the specials - with a Joni mitchell sandwich and OH MY GOD now the Smiths - !!!!!!!!

WE love you XXXXXXXX

Feedback like that made it all worthwhile.

I listened to a lot of Rocket FM during the month it was on air.

It is how a community radio should be, with every kind of music and presenter imaginable strutting their funky stuff on the airwaves.

The mainstays of the station are also incredibly supportive of new presenters such as myself.

I was as nervous as hell at driving the show but my engineer, Pete, an experienced DJ, was really positive and generous in his approach.

The season kicked off with a launch party, at the St. Mary’s Social Centre, which is adjacent to / mother of the cozy studio (built in a small storeroom).

The party had a band, broadcasting live on Rocket FM.

It was a very entertaining occasion.

Dino, who with Ruth O’Keeffe hosts Rocket FM’s Breakfast Show, hosted the evening as well as belting out quite a few numbers himself - as Ruth knitted away in a quiet corner.

At one point some girls from the dance floor did a number – broadcast live.

It was a most entertaining night and, again, just what community radio should be about.

In my show I played all sorts of numbers I have loved. From The Undertones’ Teenage Kicks (the late John Peel’s favourite record) to The Damned’s New Rose – the first UK punk single – to Elvis Costello’s Imagination (Is A Powerful Deceiver), a stunning track that will very rarely have graced the airwaves.

Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Graham Parker and the Rumour - all the greats.

I was invited onto Dino and Ruth’s Breakfast on a couple of occasions and read the first three pages of my forthcoming poetry book, The Commuter’s Tale, and, on the second occasion, Give Me A Haircut Like Bryon!

I always enjoy Dino and Ruth’s show. It had a really local favour and a lot of guests.

Admittedly it was hard getting up in time to walk up to the studio for the breakfast show.

But the view on the way - of Lewes Castle in the rising sun - was wonderful.

Life has been hectic on all fronts since I last blogged.

Southover Bonfire Society stalwart Matt Street asked me to write a memorial poem about the tragedy of HMS Royal Oak – to be read out at the Southover War Memorial on 5 November.

The Royal Oak was a theme of this year’s celebrations. If you don’t know the story (and I didn’t), a German U-boat sneaked into the deep moorings at Scarpa Flow, in the Oakney islands, on one night in mid-October 1939, and sunk HMS Royal Oak with three torpedoes.

Eight hundred and thirty-three men and boys perished in this daring, yet cowardly, act.

One of them was Walter Dunk, aged 17, who was from Southover in Lewes.

Indeed, he lived on the same street as I now do.

Well, I wrote a poem – I have to admit I found it tough – and called it The Eight Hundred and Thirty-Three.

I read it out on the Fifth at the Southover War Memorial, between a homily by the Rev. Steve Daughtery, and wreath-laying by a war veteran – and the bugling of the Last Post.

It seemed to go down well and, afterwards, a gentleman came up to me and said he was Walter Dunk’s brother, Patrick, who still lives round the corner from where they had grown up on Priory Street, Lewes.

Later, I went round to see Patrick, who is now 69. He said he was 17 years younger than his brother, having been born just a few months after Walter's death.

He said he understood that his brother had died standing to attention beside his bunk, under strict orders from an officer, as the HMS Royal Oak sank in just 13 minutes. Very sad.

For me, the annual Lewes Bonfire event is part remembrance and part party.

The latter was especially good this year in Lewes.

The Southover marched with great discipline and decorum and, at the firesite, partied like it was 2009!

The atmosphere among the Southover Society was superb.

And when the march entered the firesite, with the Cluniac monks at the fore, it was a special moment.

Under the red flare, an awesome feeling.

Once on the firesite, we warmed ourselves beside an inferno of a bonfire and danced to the samba band.

I was struck by the silhouette of one girl's hat.

And when the fireworks came, they were extraordinarily well coordinated and artistic.

Generally, it has been a time of coincidences.

I received a letter from an elderly gentleman called Ken Flint who used to live in my house in Lewes.

A charming man, of the same generation as Walter Dunk. Ken now lives in Deal, in Kent, but says his heart is still in Lewes. I have written back and will send him an image of our little house as it is now.

By another quirk of fate, an old friend, Melanie Knight, wrote an excellent piece about her formative years in Lewes, for the local newspaper, the Sussex Express.

I had worked with Melanie - now Mel Jennings - as a reporter at the Coventry Evening Telegraph from 1986-88.

She stayed up in the Midlands, marrying and continuing to work for the paper. I moved down south to the bright lights of London and, eventually, the tranquility of Lewes.

Strangely, when I started this blog during the week I was working again in the Midlands and living within a handful of miles of Mel. Yet, I never saw her.

She says she has also spent quite a lot of time visiting the part of Lewes in which I live - but we have never bumped into each other here, either.

Not such a small world!

Anyway, I wrote to her about her piece and we have since exchanged letters and emails which is very pleasant after all the years that have passed, so much water under the bridge.

The weather has been pretty strange.

Some remarkably lovely days in London, Lewes and Brighton.

On one, I caught the train to Eastbourne and saw the film of the book Brighton Rock being remade, with 'mods' rioting under Eastbourne Pier. Looking good!

The rest of the time, there have been some atrocious downpours.

Sometimes, I feel like a drowned rat after going to the shops!

It has been frustrating that I have not been able to get over to Earwig Corner to sort out my allotment.

It would be good to dig in manure to try to improve the yield of next year's crops.

Or, even, to put in some winter crops.

But it often seems to be too dark or wet. And the VW van's bust - yet again. It'd be cheaper to run a Bentley!

On a positive note, on one gloriously sunny day, The Mighty Rooks - Lewes FC - chalked up a home win - their first of the season - again Bishops Stortford - The Mighty Bishopric - at the Dripping Pan, triggering disgraceful scenes of jubilation and drunkenness among the Lewes fans, myself included.

I am afraid I am not terribly good at blogging.

I rarely find time to write blogs.

When I do, I try to illustrate them with numerous images I have taken and also overwrite, failing to build up a following or stick to a subject.

For me, blogging is about keeping a record of my life for my own pleasure and future interest.

Though it is thrilling when people read it and leave (positive!) comments.

On a visit to a friend's 50th birthday bonfire bash in rural Leicestershire, I met a family friend called Jody who, it turns out, is writing a proper blog - entitled Lucky Cow. I can highly recommend it.

Finally, apropos of nothing, I am outraged that the Meridian Pub in Lewes has closed and been sold on to property developpers.

In my view it is really bad news for Lewes.

According to the Sussex Express, Kent-based brewery Shepherd Neame has sold the pub to Creative Development Ltd., which invited the regulars to help themselves to the fittings such as the beautiful pub sign. They did.

I recall some great nights at the Meridian - which is genuinely on the meridian line - particularly the karaoke nights in 2002 and 2003 when the joint was packed to the gunwales.

With so much of Lewes's working population living close by, it is hard to believe that the pub is no longer viable - under the right ownership and management.

As the Sussex Express points out, there has been a pub on the site for 266 years.

John Eccles, a fine journalist, writes that it has been known as the Pewter Pot, The Rifleman (recalling the former company of Lewes rifle volunteers which merged with the Royal Sussex Regiment), and the Hole in the Wall, when it served as a canteen for those building Lewes Gaol between 1850 and 1854.

Indeed, before it closed, it was still the local for Lewes prison officers - and also lags just released from a spell of a bird!

I really hope that Lewes people protest vigorously and Lewes District Council turns down planning consent, so this fine old public house can rise again.

Save The Meridian!

Oliver's Poetry

Sagas of Icelanders / Icelandic Odyssey

2009-09-28T21:32:00.046Z

On a wonderful holiday in Iceland, I picked up the Penguin Classic “Deluxe Edition” of The Sagas of Icelanders – a tome of some 750 pages of stories about the settlement and development of Iceland and its people around 1,000 years ago – written down by various authors in remarkably similar styles some 800 years ago.

Having finished reading it recently, I can say it is one of the most remarkable and riveting pieces of prose I have ever come across: full of heroism, honour and courage, and gratuitous violence, cruelty and greed.

I was struck by the beautiful use of language, especially in early Icelandic poetry, remarkable physical endeavours of the Icelanders, and the cheapness of life.

Gaol was not a concept the Icelanders believed in.

If you had killed someone, you might be killed in revenge or outlawed (and then killed).

But, just as likely, you would simply pay compensation to the bereaved – and that would be that.

Young men would move up quickly in Icelandic society by sailing to Norway or Denmark to serve the king, gaining wealth from him, or plundering in Britain or what is now mainland Europe – and returning home to Iceland with riches aplenty.

Generosity and patronage are huge elements in early Icelandic society, with the legal system in such infancy that violence or bribery could readily put an end to any action against a wealthy man.

And the early Icelanders were incredibly hardy folk, farming much of the interior of the country, which I’d say, from my travels there, now goes largely unfarmed.

In many ways, the settlement of Iceland was a remarkable time.

The Norsemen who came there to avoid a troublesome king found abundant fertile land, despite the long winter.

Property prices were not a problem! Iceland was apparently uninhabited. They just took the land they wanted and started farming.

Although I enjoyed all of the sagas and tales, I think my favourite saga is the first, Egil’s Saga, which is believed to have been written by one of Egil’s descendants, Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241). Egil was a psychopath and a poet – and not someone to get drunk!

After he asked for the hospitality of a man called Bard, who initially gave him no booze and then tried to get him horribly drunk, Egil thrust a sword “so deep into Bard’s stomach that the point came out through his back!”

But he did so only after composing the poem:

I’m feeling drunk, and the ale
has left Olvir pale in the gills,
I let the spray of ox-spears
foam over my beard.
Your wits have gone, inviter
of showers on to shields;
now the rain of the high god
starts pouring upon you.

“Ox-spears” refers to the drinking horns that Icelandic men were supposed to down in toasts, and “the rain” of the high god is possibly a reference to vomit!

Egil lived a hugely adventurous and poetic (and violent) life and died peacefully of an illness.

Then, as today, Icelanders take a surname reflecting their father’s (or mother’s) first name. So, Odinn, the son of Midders, would be called Odinn Middersson. But many in the Sagas are known by nicknames, reflecting some aspects of their characters, physiques or lives.

Just a few of the examples in The Sagas of Icelanders are: Thjodolf the Short, Thorarin the Evil, Thorgrim Skin-hood, Thorir the England-trader, Thorkel the Bald, Ref the Sly, Asgeir Audunarson Scatter-brain, Eyvind the Plagiarist (poet son of Finn the Squinter), Hallbjorn Half-troll, Hallbjorn Kotkelsson Slickstone-eye, Hallfred Ottarsson the Troublesome Poet, An Twig-belly, Gunnlaug Illugason Serpent-tongue), Halfdan Eysteinsson the Mild and Meal-stingy, and many more.

One of my favourite stories in the book is The Tale of Sarcastic Halli – a gifted but incredibly rude poet whose foul tongue is always getting him into scrapes.

When a rival poet presented a king with a fat and frisky horse as a present, Sarcastic Halli spoke this verse:

Always a young she-pig
Thjodolf’s horse has
Wholly refouled his prick;
he’s a master fucker.

Asked by the King to say an “ambiguous” poem about the Queen, Sarcastic Halli courageous offers:

You’re the most fitting by far,
by a long mark, Thora,
to roll down from a rising crag
all the foreskin on Harald’s prick.

My favourite sagas were those about individuals, particularly The Saga of Ref the Sly (a kind of human fox with enormous cunning), Gisli Sursson’s Saga – about a super-brave outlaw – and The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi, a moralistic tale in which, methinks, evil ended up triumphing over good.

But the more generic sagas – such as the Saga of the People of Laxardal, The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal, and the Saga of the Confederates – are remarkable in their sophistication and wondrous use of language. The early Icelanders were - indeed, great writers and poets.

I picked up this magnificent book while on a short sojourn in Iceland – visiting my dear friend and erstwhile partner in crime Midders, a former Fleet Street reporter in exile.

My clan and I caught the big bird from the local village of Gatwick to Reykjavik to be met by our “Experience Midders” rep, Midders.

Landing on Icelandic soil, I was immediately struck by how different this land was from the many others I have visited: so less populated, so volcanic, so beautiful.

We stayed in Reykjavik for a couple of nights, in an attractive flat in embassy quarter – the Belgravia – of the capital.

You could not help but be struck by the tremendous difference between Reykjavik and London. . . in size and development.

Much as I loved Reykjavik, I never felt I was in a big city. It was more like a tarted-up fishing town like my beloved Kingston upon Hull!

Our Experience Midders rep - Lord Midders, who you may remember from the Poet Chef blog in January - took to a most swanky restaurant, where all the forbidden fruits were being consumed.

We had the honour of dining with his teenage son, Odinn Middersson, who is a renowned "urban artist". Nuff said.

We then drove across Iceland in the Middersmobile.

It is remarkable how you can drive for eight hours and hundreds of miles - and every inch of it is beautiful.

We saw the place where the continents of America and Europe meet and the original geysir - not to be confused with Jamie Oliver (the original geezer)!

And then we stayed in Midders' home - Akureyi - which was even more homely than Reykjavik.

We bathed in naturally hot pools every day, rode Icelandic horses, with their unique gait, and caught fish.

And the bar never seemed to close: at the back of the boat, top of the volcano, in the Middersmobile, the Elephant beers kept appearing.

A great holiday. I would recommend Iceland to anyone, though I doubt you will be as fortunate as us in securing an Experience Midders rep.

It is also great for photography. I took plenty of pictures on slides, colour negative film, and digital. (Though my scanner is a disgrace!)

Since I have been back, it has been all work and other frantic activity.

What's happened?

* I promoted and compered a great gig starring John Agard who put in a superb performance to an audience of 70 crammed into the little top room at the Lewes Arms! There were so many people, some had to stand out in the corridor (although you can't see that from this image).

* Sadly, Keith Floyd has died. I liked the guy and have fond memories of him ringing me up for a chat when he was in drink.

* On a happier note, a former colleague, Bernard Longley, who was a wonderful priest, is to be Archbishop of Birmingham - a great decision by the Pope. I texted Bernard to congratulate him and he texted straight back: 'Thank you for kind message'.

* SalsaMagic has returned to the White Hart Hotel in Lewes - after a long break due to the promoter Miguel Angel's illness. It is great to see Miguel well again, but I have retired from the salsa world. During five years of trying to learn salsa, I never got the hang of it, due to a lack of logistical memory and two left feet. Salsa is no fun if you can't pick it up. All the same, I wish Miguel and the gang well with their comeback which I am sure will be a resounding success.

* I have gone for a Best Of approach for my blog, putting up the best of the last few years of entries, since I currently have little time for blogging. Many thanks to the lady who made the very kind comment about it all.

* Finally, I am to present a radio show, after having my proposal by Rocket FM accepted.

Timewarp - a mixture of generally seventies and eighties music - will go out from 7pm to 9pm on Sunday, 11 October and Sunday, 18 October.

You can listen on Rocket FM or www.rocketfm.org.uk or, if you are in Lewes, 87.8 FM.

Wish me luck!

Oliver's Poetry

Happy Days

2009-08-13T20:58:00.003Z

It has been a happy time in my life, despite the wider chaos in Britain. For months I suffered from blogger's block, feeling too down at heart over the moral state of the nation to publish anything.

In fact, I wrote several blogs but, unusually, could not bring myself to finish or post them in cyberspace. It seemed to me as if I would be saying nothing that had not been already said better by others.

Now, however, my mood is a lot sunnier. I had a great time on holiday in the Lake District, enjoyed a wonderful reunion of old friends in Hull in East Yorkshire - and the Mighty Rooks (Lewes Football Club) have returned, fitter and stronger, to the Dripping Pan for a new season.

Firstly, I drove up to Cumbria in my Volkswagen camper van and spent five nights on a National Trust campsite near the edge of Lake Windermere.

The weather of course was mixed. It lasted and ended gloriously with a monsoon in the middle of the week.

But such is the flipside of global warming.

The locals told me they’d come to expect wet August, with June and September the months now considered most likely to be dry.

Despite the odd deluge, it was great taking out a rowing boat on Lake Windermere with my elder daughter, and cruising Lake Coniston on a rebuilt Victoria steamer.

Ambleside quay was also really good, especially early in the morning.

I did not do a lot of fell walking, although I hitch-hiked around one day when the VW was playing up, which entailed blistering long walks between lifts.

Much of my time was spent at the campsite - just living.

My neighbours, the Dutch family Brom, had a Landrover and a South African Bushwakka trailer, with the capacity of Dr Who's Tardis.

I have never known a family camp with so much clobber – everything including the kitchen sink! Serge and Micky were a very pleasant couple and several jolly evenings were spent drinking wine and beers beside their campfire.

The only real downside of the holiday was the journey home. I set off at 2pm on the Thursday night to drive the 350 miles to Lewes, but did not arrive until 3.30pm on Friday – having broken down three miles down the M6 and subsequently been moved on four separate AA transporters over a period of 25 hours.

Parts of it were fun but - by the end of my unexpected odyssey - I have rarely felt so jaded!

Not to mention the enormous cost of replacing the VW engine which, for reasons that fail me, was destroyed beyond repair. It was a good holiday, although - taking into account the van (what's two grand!) - it would have been cheaper for me to have flown to New York, stayed in a luxury hotel, and quaffed vintage Champagne and scoffed caviar for the week!

C’est la vie!

Talking of partying, I had a great time at the Hull Daily Mail Class of ’84 in Hull in early July.

The reunion came out of a chance remark by Tim Cornwell, who started as a trainee reporter on the Hull Daily Mail in July 1984 as I did. I bumped into Tim in the artistes’ bar in the Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Fringe two years ago.

He pointed out that summer 2009 would mark 25 years since we had started work together at Hull. I contacted the other former trainee reporter of that time, Ian Cross, and we put the reunion together.

It was a great weekend of revelry, in Hull and at Beverley Races.

I doubt I would go to a school reunion or one from my university physics course. I would have little in common with the others present. But the dozen or so who gathered in Hull are all still working in the media, and got on like a house on fire.

Many I had not seen for 23 years! It reminded me of what an untroubled, carefree time my years on the Hull Daily Mail (1984-86) were. The reporters were young, single and living out of each other’s pockets on a continual pub crawl that only took a breather for brief but frenetic periods of work.

It was the epoch of smoky newsrooms, frosted glass windows, ancient typewriters, epic drink sessions and blithely lost youth.

I remember getting drunk with a legendary photographer, Reg Lucey, on the lunchtime of my first day at work, and staggering across the newsroom to reach my desk.

No one said a dickie bird about it and, in that vein, life continued for the next two and a bit years.

On the weekend of July 3-5 2009, we remembered those times. Deb, Crossy, Ian, Tim, Pete, Dave, Brian, Phil, Steve, Belinda, Jan, Ian and Paul descended on Hull for the weekend of our lives.

Revisiting haunts like the Adelphi Club, the White Hart, the George, the Black Boy and Nelly's in Beverley was remarkable, especially for the small degree to which they had changed over the 25 years.

Those places, that time and our crowd then (and now) will always have a place in my heart. Reunion pictures.

It has been an interesting time in many ways.

As in the Lakes, the weather in the south of England has been all over the place.

One night I was returning from the last Royal Show at Stoneleigh and emerged from the Tube at Victoria Station to find rain coming down, making a racket like machine gun fire.

It was so heavy, the roof at Victoria Station started to collapse. The station had to be closed. I was lucky to get the last train out of there.

Yet, the following night, it was balmy and hot, and I was watching a Shakespearean production outside in Grange Gardens, Lewes.

And the rain brought on the first use of the roof at Wimbledon and the first really late match, when I was lucky to be there to see the great Andy Murray battle through to the quarter finals.

* The end of the second season at Lewes Poetry went well.

The May gig starred the rapper MC Elemental who put in a sterling performance as himself and the Mad Professor (see the excellent Cold Cup of Tea video on YouTube).

In June Simon Welsh, a most imaginative poet and storyteller from Brighton, performed, and in July we staged the annual Lewes Poetry Summer Party with eight poets giving it their all.

It is very good that the club has found its feet and is offering such a tremendous variety of poetic entertainment as well as the Prize Limerick Competition which is very much played for laughs.

One week's holiday - and it feels like the summer has gone and autumn has started early!

Even the Mighty Rooks are back in action at the Dripping Pan. I went to see Lewes FC’s first proper match of the season, against Weymouth, commonly known as the Mighty Sandcastles.

It was an encouraging performance. Lewes played well, although they went a goal down in the second half after a rare flash of inspiration from the Mighty Sandies.

Remarkably, rather than capitulating, as they would have done under their disastrous former boss Kevin Keehan, the Mighty Rooks immediately equalized, ending the match heroes for the vocal home crowd.

The crucial difference was the re-opening of the bar during the match. It was closed for all of last season, cutting off the lifeline of beer that enabled the Lewes fans to egg their side on to a glorious draw.

And credit also to the new manager, Ibbo (Steve Ibbotson), a kind of Bobby Robson of the South Downs. His target this season must be to finish in the top half of our league, while staying well out of the “danger zone” that leads to promotion and renewed financial disaster for the club. So, starting with a draw was just the ticket!

Mind you, the Mighty Rooks could do with some new kit.

I'm told the sponsor has withdrawn but his company's name is still on the shirts, because they cannot afford new ones.

Moreover, the Number Eight has gone missing. So the Number Eight player has to wear a Number 18 shirt, with '1' none too skilfully removed (and still highly visible).

I shall be writing a full report for the Mighty Rooks' unofficial fanzine, Ten Worthing Bombers, in my regular column, High on Spring Water, which is being renamed High on Cooking Lager, in honour of re-opening of the Dripping Pan bar.

Well, that's it. I hope this long blog makes up for my lack of work over the past few months.

Lewes Poetry is back on September 17, with a line-up including Jeremy Stockwell, Vic Elsey, Felix Beacher, and, if he confirms, John Agard.
If you’re in the area, I may well see you then.

Oliver's Poetry

Lost Commuters

2009-05-06T23:18:00.000Z

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

2009-03-07T23:15:00.028Z

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

First Birthday of Oliver's Poetry / The Pi House

2009-02-22T22:03:00.003Z

Tomorrow is the first birthday of the Oliver's Poetry website - and what a strange 12 months it's been!

Looking back, it is hard for me to get my head around some of the things that have happened. Also, at times, I have to confess it's not easy for me to see why I created a poetry website, with this bolted-on Blog, Oliver's Poetry Garret, and a MySpace Edition of Oliver's Poetry.

In truth my poetry project started back in December 2004 when, under not entirely happy circumstances, I was leaving a job in London. I won't go into the details of what happened then, apart from to say that for the first time in my life I turned to poetry. During my last week in that job, my Beloved took me to a poetry night in a bar in Brighton. The following day I wrote a poem about my situation at work and my feeling about the previous two-and-half-years working there. From that point I have not stopped writing poetry.

In the meantime, I had moved to a new day-job out in the countryside, and was initially living during the week in a converted woodshed in Cotesbach, Leicestershire (see flashback below). Eventually, I moved to Warwick and then Leamington and struck on the idea of launching a poetry website.

The site took three to four months to build. I wanted every poem to be illustrated with a photograph. So, all the images had to be taken. To brighten it up, I also decided to start to blog, also with images. This created yet more work!

The blog I instantly found addictive. I have a highly compulsive personality. Long before the site was even launched, I was 'blogging' every day on a computer I had installed in my bedroom in Leamington. The idea dawned on me of the blog moving forward and backward in time simultaneously. With regular blogs and flashbacks to my past (called backblogs). It all coincided with horrendous things happening in my personal life in Leamington, making the blogging all the more compulsive.

And, of course, there was the poetry. I had to write enough poems to put on the site and also to encourage other poets to submit their best work.

It was all most exciting for me. The problem was I soon found myself spending more time blogging, taking images for the site and doing technical stuff, like HTML, than actually writing poetry! This is an issue I have never truly resolved.

However, an anniversary is always a good opportunity to reflect. And for this first one, I decided to return the focus to the poetry - and have re-read and revised all of my poems.

I was amazed to find that I had written 110 poems, although in a way this alarmed me. A poet needs only write a few great poems in a lifetime, and this high production of mediocrity in the first 30 months - while working full-time and doing numerous other tasks - struck me as excessive.

Forty-nine of my poems I have published on the Oliver's Poetry site, as well around around 35 contributed poems, largely from new poets, although with exceptions such as established poets George Szirtes and Jane Holland, and also superb performance poets such as Birmingham's current poet laureate Giovanni Esposito (Spoz) and his predecessor Richard Grant (Dreadlockalien).

I have also written 48 blogs and, therefore, 48 flashbacks or backblogs and taken many of the images on the Oliver's Poetry site and Oliver's Poetry Garret. (I have picked out some of my favourite photographs from the first year to illustrate this anniversary blog).

The blogs and flashbacks started out on the same day of course - 2 June 2006 - but are now some 20 months apart. Writing the backblogs or flashbacks has become more difficult because now I am relying on memory or what few notes I have of my mis-spent history.

The past year has been an interesting ride for Oliver's Poetry which to a large degree reflects my personal journey.

The three parts of the site - Oliver's Poetry, the blog and the MySpace edition - are inseparable.

There is a clear link between the poetry and the blogs through what has happened to me during those 12 months.

High points such as my reading of a poem at the War Memorial for Southover Bonfire Society on Bonfire Night in Lewes are featured in both poetic and blog form.

The same is true of the low points, such as the severe domestic problems I had in Leamington late last year, and the wanton destruction of my motor car. (I have been through the mill!)

What happens to me in life is my main inspiration for all the poetic writing I have done for this site and elsewhere.

And just embarking on this project has changed my life. If it were not for Oliver's Poetry, I would probably not have started performing live poetry, through a chance meeting with the Leamington performance poet Sean Kelly (see below). If it were not for the site, I would also not have begun to build up a network of contacts in the poetry world, making me feel less cut off from the marvellous field of endeavour in which I am now grazing!

And it has been through promoting the site with a MySpace edition that I have come to realise the link between the live comedy world, in which I was active for more than a decade performing and running a comedy club, and the burgeoning performance poetry scene.

Indeed I even ended up reading some of my poems at Leamington's uniquely brilliant comedy club, The Reckless Moment, in one of the gigs I have enjoyed most this year.

While on the subject of MySpace, when I first looked at this extraordinarily successful networking site, I was impressed by its potential for a performer but also startled by the way in which many users accumulated so-called 'friends' from the scantily dressed and overly forward!

Therefore, I have limited the Oliver's Poetry MySpace to 100 friends - my own personal One Hundred Club - most of whom I already know or have met or at least can say we clearly have poetry in common.

So, now, if you become a new friend of Oliver's Poetry MySpace edition, it means someone exits my domain. Harsh maybe, but at least this will keep it real and meaningful.

Sitting here in the Leamington Garret, overlooking the Pump Room Gardens, as the sun sets, I can see what a strange year it has been. In Leamington and Lewes, so many memorable things have happened.

The remarkable boycott of one of my favourite pubs, the Lewes Arms, in Lewes, by its customers - because the brewery removed their favourite ale - was subject of one of my blogs. After running the famous public house virtually without a clientele for several months, Greene King realised they were never going to win and caved in.

Also in Lewes, being approached at random by a woman who asked me to be Father Christmas at a school fair was another strange occurrence.

Up in the Midlands, the death of my old friend Sam Towers, in Cotesbach, Leicestershire, was profoundly sad. After the funeral I wrote a poem and blog and thought nothing more of it.

I was surprised to find Sam's relatives from around the world visiting the site to read them, and, touchingly, emailing to thank me. I even received a missive from a youngster also called Sam Towers who said he was unrelated to the Sam Towers I had written about but 'was proud to share this gentleman's name'.

Also in Cotesbach, the estate dog Bruno died. He had been a great friend during the years I lived there (from 1999-2002 and 2005). Whenever I visit, it seems sadly strange not to have his great hairy, loving bulk jumping up at me, trying to lick my face!

All in all, the last 12 months have been rich in events and experience. I have greatly enjoyed my poetry slots at the tremendous PureandGoodandRight club in Leamington, and my other performances at Six of the Best in Birmingham, Word in Leicester and on the Warwick Words pub tour.

Yet what I am struggling to get my head around is what I really want to do with poetry. Reviewing comedy shows up at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer, I gave it a lot of thought. I saw the buzz around the Pleasance Courtyard of an evening and thought that I wanted to be part of it, but as a poet.

When I see my friends and mates branching out creatively - as comedians, musicians, poets, artists or whatever - I wonder what I am doing artistically.

Even when I get hooked into an art form, I feel myself hopelessly waylayed into a geeky backwater such as web design, digital photography or blogging!

I often wonder why it is I have written 110 poems in 30 poems but only committed three or four of them to memory.

Or why I am currently terrified of standing in front of an audience without a piece of paper in my hand.

This is not to say that creating the Oliver's Poetry website has not been a worthy pursuit in itself.

I am genuinely pleased to have published some really interesting work by new - and not so new - poets. Spoz and Dreadlockalien - two Birmingham poet laureates - have brightened up the site with their fine pieces. I have also really enjoyed the contributions by people I have met out while out at the Reckless Moment or in the park such as Kat Montgomery or Sarah Brown. Or those who like Zainab Bakari simply emailed me out of the blue.

I particularly rate my cousin Laura Taylor's poems for their directness and honesty. Overall, even if the contributed poetry section has not been inundated, it has been well worth while.

Is running a poetry website really my cup of tea? Well, yes and no. It has been great and will continue. However, I do not want to spend anywhere the amount of time on it that I have this year.

Launching the Oliver's Poetry site was phase two of my poetry project. Now I need to let it go and allow it to grown organically.

Of course I will still be putting up excellent new poems when they come in and writing for it myself, but I can no longer live and breath this site.

Sure, it has been visited by tens of thousands of people from scores of countries around the world - including Iraq, China and Iran - but it is turning me into a poetry techno-nerd! My poems are never finished because I am constantly revising them online.

And I never get to learn them, perform them as I'd like or have them published in printed poetry magazines because my entire focus has been on Oliver's Poetry.

This coming 12 months I shall trade keyboard, computer and web server for notepad, microphone and printed page!

The Pi House (Flashback to Saturday, 15 October 2005)

This is my last night in the Pi House - so-called because one of its windows is hewn in the shape of a Greek letter Pi - after almost 10 months. I am sad to be leaving but, with winter round the corner, it is definitely the right time to go.

I have loved living in this converted woodshed from Spring onwards (despite its lack of bathing or showering amenities). It is a remarkable, ingenious building, with the shelter afforded by the indoors but the feel of the Great Outdoors.

In the winter, however, it is too tough for me. I have never known such cold as I experienced in this sweet little abode in January, February and March this year! I recall awaking one morning thinking I had been frost-bitten, the ice forming on the inside of the windows.

My Beloved is up here to help me move and tonight we are going to the Sickle & Stick for a valedictory drink (or eight) and traditional game of Staghorn. I know I shall miss my friends here as I prepare to move to Warwick and who knows what.

I am rather proud to have lived in the Pi House.

Oliver's Poetry

The Bleak Mid-Winter

2009-02-20T22:22:00.010Z

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

2009-01-14T22:45:00.002Z

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

2008-12-31T08:00:00.005Z

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

Save Our Woolies!

2008-11-29T21:31:00.000Z

Today this blog launches a campaign to save a national treasure - Woolworths.

The Save Our Woolies campaign (SOW) is calling on the British public to dig deep to safeguard one of the greatest stores ever.

My clan has already started.

We have visited the Lewes branch of Woolworths - on Cliffe High Street - three times in the few days since the news of its imminent demise broke like at thunderclap over small town land.

More than 50 quid has been spent by us on items we had always fancied but could never really justify buying before.

Today - Saturday - Woolworths in Lewes was mobbed by customers.

The queues were as long as the staff's faces. The store was running out of stock.

It occurred to me that the public really could save Woolworths simply by buying a great chunk of their Christmas presents there.

One thing's for sure - our pathetic government could not give a fig.

For the price of a few newly nationalised banks' chief executives' salaries, the government could have helped Woolies through this crisis.

Yet they would rather see it go to the wall, throwing the already hard-up staff on to the dole queue and causing more boarded up empty properties or crappy pound shops on the high street.

This of a brand that has served the poorest members of the British public - and the rest of us - well since it was imported from the USA in 1909 when everything was priced at sixpence. (Frank Woolworth opened the first Woolworths in Pennsylvania in 1879).

And all the while, Mandy is draw up a list of companies he is willing to save.

So, join SOW! Spend, spend, spend - until Woolworths finds a saviour.

Don't let Woolies die...

Oliver's Poetry

The Strictly Come Dancing Judging Crisis

2008-11-17T21:54:00.000Z

The judges of BBC light entertainment show Strictly Come Dancing have placed themselves in a parlous position.

Week after blooming week, the public has had to endure Cockney wise guy Len Goodman, gushing former Top of the Pops dancer Arlene Phillips, Lord Snooty Craig Revel Horwood and rambling Italian Bruno Tonioli insult and humiliate the genial senior citizen and former political broadcaster John Sergeant.

Why, oh, why?

Well, apparently the reason is that John Sergeant is more interesting, entertaining, witty, erudite and popular than the other so-called celebrities in the competition.

As a BBC licence payer, I am getting increasingly pissed off with the judges' arrogant and in my view ignorant approach.

The rules of Strictly Come Dancing are clear: the judges have half the marks, the public has the other half.

To my knowledge, there are no stated criteria on how the public - or indeed the judges - should reach their verdicts.

However, there is not a shadow of doubt that Strictly Come Dancing is a light entertainment show.

Light entertainment host Bruce Forsyth plays it for laughs, in his feeble gags and his entertaining comic dance routine this week and even the judges try to win laughs, attempting to make jokes where they can. It is also in a prime-time Saturday night light entertainment slot on BBC1 - a little clue in itself.

It is in short not a serious dance competition.

If it was, why bother with the C-list celebs? None of them ever dance as well as top-flight professional dancers.

So, of course the public is going to judge the contestants on their entertainment value as well as their dancing prowess.

Yet, incredibly, the querulous quartet do not seem to understand a little thing called democracy.

And furious that their views have not prevailed over those of the public, they slag John Sergeant off in a manner that would have reduced any one of the female contestants to tears.

Disgracefully, Len Goodman said the show was "not Help The Aged" in an extraordinarily inappropriate attack on senior citizen Sergeant - particularly in the light of suspended BBC toilet-mouth Jonathan Ross's recent pensioner baiting on Radio Two.

John Sergeant has also been tagged a 'dancing pig in Cuban heels' and generally been made to feel he does not deserve to breath the same air as the other contestants who are leniently marked by the judges.

The judges still insist it is all down to the dancing.

But, hang on a minute, I danced for six years - with great, good, bad and terrible partners.

And I can tell you that John Sergeant is not a bad dancer.

It is always harder to lead than to follow in dancing - and on this week's show neither Lisa Snowdon, who looked pretty wooden, nor Cherie Lunghi - lagging slightly and awkward in her movement at times - danced any better than John Sergeant.

Judged on dancing alone, Cherie and Lisa deserved to be in the dance-off.

Neither was particularly good, and either was ripe for the drop.

However, even once the public had corrected the judges' mistakes, the unfab four would not button their lips.

I find Len Goodman is a pathetic head judge.

He seemed to be blaming the public for him having to axe one or other of the failing female dancers.

Well, me ol' Cock-er-ney sparro', that is what you are getting paid a fat fee for.
Incidentally, one that comes from the recession-stricken public whose views you apparently hold in contempt.

Frankly, I believe the Strictly Come Dancing judges have become the real joke of the show - not John Sergeant and his lovely partner Kristina Rihanoff, who is superb.

Arlene Phillips even had the cheek to complain to the media that John Sergeant read newspapers.

That comment reminded of the great late American comic Bill Hicks' riff about a redneck woman in a cafe rounding on him for reading: 'Are you readin'? Hey, we got ourselves a reader here.'

The judges are also increasing coming across as a uncontrolled rabble.

Head judge Goodman instils no discipline into them, indeed even joining the squabbling and bickering.

And if they don't like the public correcting their errors, then they can always quit their lucrative contracts - and go back to raining in the soddin' rain (it's wet out there).

As it is, they are far too generous on many of the female celebs and often cannot even agree on basic points of dance technique.

If I were Strictly Come Dancing's producer, I would clear out all the judges before the next series - and get in some fresh blood. Some talent.

In the meantime, they should either shut up in their attacks on viewers - or get out.

As for John and Kristina, like millions of others I would hope and expect see them in Strictly Come Dancing's final.

Vote for John, it can't be wrong!

STOP PRESS: The shock news that genial John Sergeant has quit - rather than continue to be publicly abused - is yet another indictment of the BBC's broadcasting standards.

As for the judges, they are hypocritically pretending to be upset that John is leaving when - if true to their words - they would be applaud his decision to stand down to give the others a chance.

If those judges should an ounce of integrity, I believe they should also now tender their resignations, having effectively made John's position on the show untenable through their contempt for public opinion and week on week unpleasantness to him and his dance partner.

Certainly, after John leaves, I and many other viewers will not be watching Strictly Come Dancing again until the current line-up of judges has been shown the door.

Oliver's Poetry

Photo Reflections

2008-10-17T23:39:00.002Z

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

2008-09-12T20:41:00.004Z

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

Sun Sets on The Astra Martin

2008-07-31T22:02:00.000Z

The Astra Martin is dead – long live the Astra Martin!

My beloved motor went to Vauxhall Estate Heaven this afternoon, having clocked up more than 183,600 miles.

Readers of this blog may know my dream was to get her up to 200,000 miles - but it was not to be.

Her heart – or “head-gasket” – gave out again and, sadly this time, there was no way back.

I had no strong feelings about the car when I first drove her some five years ago.

But during my two-year weekday incarceration in Leamington, I captained her constantly up and down the M23, M25 and M40.

Soon I gave up the five-hour Monday morning crawl to the desolate field in Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, where I worked.

Instead, I would preen the Astra Martin on a Sunday afternoon and then let the pedal hit the metal.

Often I did the 150-plus mile journey – from the centre of lovely Lewes to the centre of (whisper it) Leamington – in two hours and 17 minutes.

However hard I tried to better that time, I could not.

Granted, I am no Lewis Hamilton and the Astra Martin is no super-Max FI S&M spunky spank-mobile, but I would sometimes achieve remarkable speeds on the superslab, only for the town centre or M25 to let me down.

Still, I’d often make the journey in the 2hrs. 17mins. and go straight on to performing at a Sunday night poetry gig, before collaping with exhaustion and joyance in the Garret at midnight.

The Astra Martin’s finest drives were reserved, however, for the journey home.

Like in the Great Escape, I would tunnel my way out of the field hut on Thursday afternoons and drive from Stoneleigh to Lewes like there were no tomorrow.

Of course, the M25 gridlock often clipped the Astra Martin’s wings.

But cometh the M23, cometh the woman!

With South Downs air in her lungs, she would be tonning it - Thin Lizzy or Van Morrison playing at full-volume on the boogie-box - with me struggling with all my thew to keep the old girl on the winding road as her 1.7 litre diesel engine burnt off Porsches, mother-effed Mercs, roaring like a tigress. . .

The Astra Martin R.I.P.

Oliver's Poetry

First Season at Lewes Pint of Poetry

2008-07-19T22:48:00.023Z

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

2008-07-09T21:48:00.003Z

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

Deaf in the Afternoon

2008-06-06T21:33:00.001Z

Last week I went deaf.

That is I suddenly and unexpectedly lost hearing in both ears. It came as a shock, so after a couple of days of coping at work including trying to lip-read my way through an I.T. course, I went to see my local 100-grand-a-year NHS-minted quack.

Well, to be honest, £100,000-a-year is just a guess at my GP’s income. It could be up to £250,000-a-year. Anyway, after a cursory peer down my lugholes, she said my ears were “occluded” – an expensive word for blocked – and I should pour in olive oil four times a day and return in 10 days’ time to have them syringed. ('Thankyou, doc. Good merc."

At this juncture, you have my permission to eschew this throg for a less revolting posting! I share your feelings of horror. The very thought disgusts me, and I wholeheartedly apologise.

It gets worse, though. I was determined to buy some olive oil but the only stuff I could find in a small bottle was laced with truffle. I have spent the last week reeking of posh mushrooms, and leaking oil like a ruptured supertanker - the taste of olives never leaves my mouth.

My hearing failed further until I was almost entirely deaf. I thought of my dear friend, the brilliant comedian Steve Day (pictured above). Steve, from whom I borrowed the title of this posting, is permanently 90 percent deaf. For the first time I realised how profoundly unfunny that is.

Back at the surgery, nurse performed an emergency unblocking of my ears (the details would make you chunder). Now I am half-cured. My right ear is brilliant, my left still deaf. I hear in mono; yet any sound is music to my ear!

Oliver's Poetry

I'm Back

2008-05-31T12:00:00.009Z

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

Seven Things I Love (and Seven Things I Hate) About Leamington Spa - The Final Leamington Blog

2008-03-19T16:00:00.004Z

This is my final missive to you from Leamington Spa...

After more than two years writing this journal from my garret in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, I am going home - to Lewes and London.

It is a strange feeling. I have often daydreamed of this moment, but now it has finally arrived I have very mixed feelings about it.

Not that I want to stay. No way, Jose!

It is just that somehow I have made this schizoid life work, and now I have to dismantle it and that is easier said than done.

I have moved home many times in my life but have never had such a complicated departure, with enormous issues with handing over my day-job and with getting my chattels out of the Leamington Garret and into the Lewes Garret.

In truth I am leaving most of my possessions. Just abandoning them. That includes Ruthie Boswell's old music system, the computer, two sofas, an armchair, a triple bed, duvet, all the kitchen utensils, pots and pans, iron and ironing board, broadband router, telephone et cetera.

Even getting my CDs, clothes and books into the Lewes Garret has proved difficult. So I have no choice but to ditch the rest of the stuff.

An added complication is that I am planning to go on holiday to France the day after my leaving do, so I absolutely must not leave the Leamington Garret that day with more than a suitcase of stuff!

The Garret is weird now.

After Attila Szalo’s departure, I have been living on my own in an increasingly desolate pad, oftentimes high winds howling outside.

The curtains went back to Lewes last week, so now I am staring at the flats across the Pump Room Gardens, feeling exposed and naked.

So, what was it about Leamington Spa? Why have I rued it with a vengeance?

And what - in anything - have I loved about it?

Let's start with the good things:

Seven Things I Love About Leamington Spa

1. The Reckless Moment comedy club

This Monday night comedy club - run by post-graduate University of Warwick film students Tom Hughes and Pete Falconer - is beautiful.

It is one of the most joyous comedy clubs I have ever been to, and has, on occasions, made me incredibly happy.

Tom Hughes is a great, upbeat compere and Pete 'The Meat' Falconer makes a perfect comedic partner.

Tom and Pete book great acts and only charge two quid on the door. A remarkable treat!

2. PureAndGoodAndRight performance poetry club.

Promoter and performance poet Sean Kelly has done an extraordinary job in invigorating the Leamington poetry scene with this monthly club.

I have performed on great nights there on the same bills as some fabulous headliners.

PureAndGoodAndRight is two years' old now - and back at the Fox pub, in Clarendon Avenue - on the third Wednesday of every month.

Check it out!

3. The Architecture, the Gardens and the River Leam

I love the Regency buildings of Leamington.

It is, in so many ways, a lovely looking town.

Jephson Gardens are beautiful and, despite its many faults the council strives to renew the flower beds throughout the Spring and Summer.

Combined with the turbulent beauty of the Leam, it is a great place to live.

It is a shame that the people of Leamington so often do not seem comfortable with what they have.

4. The Millennium Balti Indian Restaurant, Bath Street, Leamington

An incredibly inexpensive (particularly for booze) curryhouse. My favourite place to go when feeling lonely and low in Leamington.

My visits there have often preceded visits to the Apollo cinema, just round the corner from the Garret, where I have kept up to speed with the worst Hollywood can offer!

5. The Jam at Kelley's bar.

This took over from the Jam at the Jug, which was scrapped when the Jug & Jester was taken over and went to the dogs.

It is nowhere as good as that fine event, but, when it happens, it is nice to see the likes of Shanade in full flow.

6. Rhubarb.

My favourite restaurant in Leamington Spa. I had some great times there, and, when my boss generously offered to take me out for a valedictory lunch, I chose it again.

I love the elegance of it, the photos on the walls, the laid-back music and the sexiness of the waitresses!

And the food's good, too.

It's a cool place.

7. The Pure.

My health club for one month recently. Not cheap - it was £52.50 for the month - but worth it! I went there 19 times in total (therefore, only £2.76 a visit!), and loved the pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room.

Often at 6.30am, I would have it all to myself and fantasise it was the Garret's own private swimming pool (only one minute's walk from my front door).

I was not as keen on the gym facilities, but, hey, you can't have everything.

While on the subject of health centres, I should also mention the much cheaper council gym and swimming pool at Newbold Comyn where I have spent many happy hours, especially in the enormous pools.

Well, those are the good things.

Now take a deep breath, Leamington - here are the bad ones:

Seven Things I Hate About Leamington Spa:

1. The Unfriendliness of its People.

During my adult life, I have lived in Poole, Hull, Cardiff, Gloucester, Coventry, London, Cotesbach in Leicestershire, and Lewes.

Yet none of these places are a fraction as unfriendly as Leamington.

If you end up washed up here, your chances of making friends with the locals are minimal.

They are an insular bunch who like to hang out with each other, talking rollocks and occasionally fighting like wolves.

On the other hand, maybe it is just me (as Tom Hughes suggested).

2. The Loneliness.

Much of my life in Leamington has been a lonely existence.

I have lost count of the nights I have aimlessly wandered its streets or drunk on my own in dreary bars.

But, again, maybe this was my fault.

3. The Pubs.

Most of the pubs of Leamington are rubbish!

I can’t think of a city where the public houses are quite as uninteresting.

The Jug & Jester was for a time an exception but it blew it with an appalling revamp – and the demise of the brilliant Jam at the Jug.

Now it is as bad as most of the rest.

The Sausage is OK, but the last time I went there, a couple was having noisy sex in the only cubicle in the gents lavatory! (at about 9pm on a Tuesday night).

I like the White Horse and love the Robbins Well, home of the Reckless Moment and for a while PureAndGoodAndRight, but the other pubs are hugely soulless.

4. The Local Authorities.

Warwick District Council and Warwickshire County Council get away with daylight robbery.

At the Leamington Garret, for instance, the Council Tax is extortionate for a property of its diminutive size.

The bins are not even collected and you cannot even buy a parking permit to park on the street outside (because it is classed as a non-residential street despite all the residents).

When you complain, Warwick District Council shamelessly blames Warwickshire County Council which then ignores your complaint, not even bothering to reply.

The latest outrage is that when I tried to cash in the rest of my parking permit (for a 6pm to 9am pass for a car park nowhere near my home), I was told by Warwick District Council that there would be a fiver surcharge, meaning I would receive a quid back.

The council lackey told me that this fee was excellent value!

I told him that Warwick District Council could stuff their car park pass up their fundament!

5. The Nutters.

Of course all British towns have mad people on their streets. It is Government policy.

The so-called 'mentalists' of Leamington, however, are pretty thick on the ground at my end of town.

Sometimes I am dodging them to the way to the shops, crossing the road where two of them are shouting obscenities at each other, only to hassled by another on the other side.

The younger Asboes hang around the band stand in Pump Room Gardens, beneath the Garret.

When they come of age, they graduate to basking around the railway bridge, cider in hand.

6. The (Fighting) Women.

Quite a few of the females of Leamington are particularly adept at punching each other.

I was genuinely shocked when a huge brawl erupted outside Pizza Hut in the early evening, or a woman was bleeding from the face outside Voodoo, police sirens wailing in the background.

Even in Coventry in the 1980s, the women generally left it up to their lunatic fellas to fight for them, rather than get their hands dirty.

7. The Drugs.

Like some other little British towns, Leamington has a serious drugs problem.

The E generation stumble around in a daze, their grey matter blown.

I found heroin addicts living in the bushes of the Pump Room Gardens in the summer, their mingy rottweiler chasing me when I used to jog in the mornings.

Coke abounds. Stoners are everywhere. None of this is helping to make Leamington a better place.

Indeed a certain section of the under-25s are like a lost generation, with narrow horizons and even slighter prospects, drugs dealer on speed dial.

But maybe this is true of every small town in Mr Bean's Britain, and it has just come to my attention in Leamington.

Well, those are my loves and hates about Leamington Spa.

It is now 10.20pm on my penultimate day in the Leamington Garret. Joni Mitchell's Blue is on the mono; my remaining three candles are lit in the living room window, and I am sipping a can of Stella, my first drink of the evening.

The last week or so has been a whirlwind of activity.

Last Tuesday I went out for a drink with Tom Hughes and Pete Falconer.

Pete came up to the garret afterwards to help me cane Attila's bottle of Hungarian spirit.

It had a most bad effect on us. We were soon dancing like crazy men to Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True, with the garret windows open wide, the volume pumped up to the maximum.

Pete then suffered an inclement turn of health, and I awoke the next day with the worst hangover I have ever had (worse even than my last attempt at drinking Hungarian spirits).

I threw out the remaining bottle of Budapest firewater. Hungarians must have stomachs of steel (or die young)!

The following night I went to see my dear, dear friends at the Cotesbach estate.

It was a great evening in the Sickle & Stick, of real ale (I quaffed about a gallon) and Staghorn, at which, amazingly, I won.

It was so lovely to see all my friends there.

I was also very interested to hear that my old pad, the Pi House, now has a new dweller.

I was home for the weekend and had a tremendous second night of my poetry club, A Pint of Poetry, at the Lewes Arms, Lewes, East Sussex.

The headliner Attila the Stockbroker was superb and the venue was packed.

A good friend from London also performed and we had a visitation from my dear cousin.

I will blog more about this gig later - when I get the pictures back.

This week so far has been wonderful but utterly exhausting. I swear I dropped off for a few minutes in a meeting at work this morning and I was so jaded in the early evening that I slept for an hour.

The end of my time at the day-job has been blighted by trying to save my images before I have to hand back my laptop.

I have had a terrible time with faulty memory sticks.

It has reinforced my dislike of digital photography.

Most digital images will die with their computers. Unlike 35mm film which is immortal.

I have a sense of the clock ticking and not being able to keep up with it.

This evening I have read the electric meter with Mr Rigby the Landlord, given a thank you card from myself and Attila, packed my case, walked to the supermarket to buy 16 quid of cakes to give to my colleagues at the day-job tomorrow (a tradition there for leavers), and tried to clean the flat.

It is, I realise, a hopeless task.

I have vacuumed throughout and spent an hour spraying and scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen, but realise it would take a day to free these spaces from a generation of grime.

I can only hope to make it vaguely respectable!

Returning to the theme of Leamington loves and hates, I suppose the biggest in both categories is this place.

At times I have been scared witless here; it has been like my prison.

Yet at other times – especially in the past few months – I have been tremendously happy in the Garret.

It so many ways it is an awesome place with a wondrous view.

Other people make all the difference to it.

When there is pleasant company, it is great in this flat. When there isn't, it is scary or simply lonely.

It is ten to eleven now and I Dylan's Blood On The Tracks is on the mono.

I was told today that my ex-boss Graham Jones (ex-Daily Star and CNN) had died, in his late fifties, I believe. I was saddened by this news.

He was certainly not a popular character but I always got on with him quite well, while occasionally suffering his other side.

Surprisingly, for a hard-nosed Fleet Street news editor, he took to coming to my comedy club, Joe's Comedy Madhouse, and thoroughly enjoyed its sheer awfulness.

R.I.P. Jonesy.

It is late and I have not done my ironing, washed the kitchen floor, taken out the washing – or, most important of all, written my leaving speech.

God knows what I am going to say.

It is the day of my leaving - 19 March 2008 - and I have just had my leaving presentation, which was extremely nice.

My speech went down well and people laughed in the right places.

And my colleagues gave me a bottle of Taittinger champagne, two lovely Sheaffer pens and, best of all, a new edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse.

It opened at Byron's She Walks In Beauty, which I read out to my colleagues...

Well, I have 10 minutes to go now.

I will soon be leaving my day-job building, going to my leaving do in Leamington, then the Leamington Garret and the end.

Leamington Spa, I have loved and hated you these past two years, but I will sure as hell miss you.

Oliver's Poetry

Farewell Attila!

2008-02-25T10:55:00.021Z

I am back in the Leamington Garret. It is very empty.

My flatmate Attila has gone, leaving the garret in immaculate condition.

Hungarian spirits, chocolates and a greeting card are on the table. I feel very moved by Attila’s efforts.

In this flat I have truly had the best and worst of flatmates. When he was evicted my first flatmate - the one before Attila - completely trashed the pad. There was broken glass, rubbish, flour and other trash everywhere.

By stark contrast, Attila has been left it perfectly clean; probably cleaner than it has ever been.

I shall certainly miss Attila Szalo. A nicer guy and finer flatmate one could not hope for: reasonable, tolerant, decent, good-natured and kindly, in every respect.

Attila also had a fantastic - and surprisingly English - sense of humour. We used to laugh like idiots at our respective misadventures and misfortunes.

I guess that to some degree we were united by a desire to leave Leamington Spa – a drear Midlands town so utterly alien and unfriendly to both of us. Such a poor joke!

Coincidentally it is two years today that I moved into this flat.

I shall forget that mad-mad day and night in which my first flatmate James and I hauled sofas, washing machines, beds, matresses and every other heavy or light item up seven flights of stairs. It did my back in. I am still in pain!

The events that followed sometimes seem like a bad dream. I have never lived anywhere that I have been through such totally varied sensations – from the agony of terror and violence to the heights of happiness.

The one thing that I thought would never happen, in this scary flat up in the sky, is that I would end up living here on my own.

It is pretty well the last thing I would have wanted.

But the thought of trying to find another flatmate – risking a nutter - for just three-and-a-half weeks was too horrific to contemplate.

It is almost midnight. I remember two years ago we were flat-out with exhaustion by this time, and had gone down to James’ dad’s local.

Tonight I have been to the Reckless Moment comedy club, a quiet night with some good new talent (I suspect that were Warwick University drama students).

Friendly faces. Yet I wonder how I shall survive the next three-and-a-half weeks here.

Attila Szalo has returned to Hungary and then plans to travel the world for bit.

There was no doubt his major motivation was to leave Leamington Spa.

If his break in England had come in London, I would wager he would still be in the UK.

You can’t blame him, though. I am sure that if were not English, I would have quit the country after living in Leamington for a year.

Once you have seens girls punching it out on the street on a Sunday night, or a 10-person brawl outside the cheap pub at 7pm on a Tuesday night, it is not hard to find the grass greener elsewhere.

I reckon that, not including tonight, I have another 15 nights left in this one-horse, cowboy town.

Suddenly the flat seems huge. Again it looks different. It seemed to change totally after James left. Now it looks and feels different again now Attila has departed.

It changes its complexion with the cast, taking on the personality of its denizens.

I got here tonight, after driving at highish speed up the usual motorways, remarkably, in rush-hour traffic, sometimes fighting to keep the Astra Martin on the road, and found that, despite all our efforts, the James Blunts at British Telecom had cut off the Internet connection.

Has there ever been a more incompetent company? In the post was a letter from BT thanking us for our continued custom!

In a sense, though, it seems apt to be left here, cut off, off-line, truncated, tapping away on a computer bought for 15 quid from the day-job, playing Elvis Costello CDs through dear Ruth Boswell’s 1970s music centre. Only 15 nights to go. . .

What is surprising is the enormous amount of stuff in the Leamington Garret. Two years ago, when James and I moved in, it was virtually unfurnished.

Now I am on my ownsome – surrounded by masses of furniture and ornaments. My first flatmate really did leave most of his chattels here.

I am going to make an effort to chuck stuff out, but I know I shall be leaving, in three weeks' time, a flat full of possessions.

Funny thing is a lot of it is good stuff.

Hey, I had better turn in because Attila’s marvellous, amazing Hungarian pear-based liquor is doing amazing stuff to my head – and I have a 6.30am appointment with the pool at Pure!

Here’s a picture I took out of the Lewes Garret window this morn.

* It is a day on, almost witching hour again.

Today I have had to nurse the mother of all hangovers. That Hungarian spirit was stronger than rocket fuel. No amount of medication could alleviate my symptoms today.

Only after drinking three large glasses of it did I notice it says on the bottle that it is a mere 52 percent proof!

I probably would have been saver drinking diesel from the Astra Martin!

All the same I have been working feverishly to get ahead of the curve.

I am determined to leave my departments at the day-job in good shape. Out of a sense of pride in a job well done, I suppose.

I am probably a bit autistic.

I like everything to be just so, and obsess about it if it is not. Until I drink. Then it can all fly into the air like a deck of cards!

It occurred to me today how bad I have become at networking. I have literally hundreds of scraps of paper or backs of business cards with numbers of contacts scrawled on them; yet I never bother to put them in a contacts book or even use most of them.

I must change, and start networking, using my contacts.

I guess the reason I don’t is more about shyness and embarrassment (and laziness) than anything else.

I tried to talk to British Telecom today. I got cut off twice and eventually, after another 30-minute wait, talked to a gentleman in India who could not help me.

When I worked as a business journalist at CNN Television, we often used to get the then Chairman or Chief Executive of British Telecom on our show as a guest.

The anchor, Becky Anderson, always seemed finish by asking him when he was going to resign.

Nothing seems to have improved in the intervening years.

British Telecom appears every bit as wantonly incompetent as it has ever been.

It gleefully turns away business and revels in making its customers’ lives more difficult.

I don’t think I shall bother pursuing them; I can write this journal offline and upload in my lunch hour at work or at the Lewes Garret.

At least the music on the computer is working. I think I would go mad without it.

Actually, being without the internet will probably help me.

I might even revise my 2007 poems and write a few new ones. I want to write something about leaving Leamington.

Tonight I stayed late at the day-job, then went to the Pure health club, chatted to the people in the pool and sauna, and came back here to the Garret and started to pack.

By my last day, I want to have all bar one suitcase of stuff out of here.

The morning after my leaving do, I will close the case and jump on the train. Never to return.

Prince’s Count The Days is playing. Seems apposite.

* Would you believe that the Sussex fuzz managed to overturn a cop car in the street outside the Lewes Garret, without any other moving vehicles being involved.

The fools seem to have been speeding along at around 4am, hit a parked car and turned over their police car, writing it off.

It were not for alacrity of our neighbour who was awoken by the noise and photographed the car from her window, I strongly suspect the whole affair would have been covered up.

The fuzz were damn quick in removing their wreckage. It was gone by the time we were up, with only some orange sand and broken glass to show they had been there.

I sincerely hope a prosecution is going to result from this appalling incident.

The speed limit is 20mph and, although the fuzz tend to believe speed limits do not apply to them, these maniacs must, I estimate, have been doing three times that.

I may even drop Norman Baker, our industrious and parochial MP, a line about it.

* Eight Pints of Poetry, our poetry club in Lewes, is getting some excellent coverage.

The local glossy what's on magazine, Viva Lewes, has published an excellent interview with our next headliner, Attila the Stockbroker, plugging the gig.

Incidentally, Attila the Stockbroker (not to be confused with Attila the Flatmate!) has sent me a poem which is now up on Oliver's Poetry.
Do come to see him in action at the Lewes Arms, Lewes, on Friday, March 14! (My cousin Laura (Hi!) says she is coming to the gig, and, having read my last blog, says Weymouth and Portland Bill are her favourite places in the world - so I have scattered some more images of them around this blog).

The renowned poet and Warwick Poet Laureate Jane Holland has published an account of the last Eight Pints gig, with a couple of images, at Poets on Fire.

Finally, the earth really did move for me at the Leamington Garret. I was awoken by the earthquake, with the walls quivering like jelly and my bed and clothes rail rocking violently from side to side.

Confused, I got up and assumed someone had been trying to break in. Then I fell asleep again and woke up at 4am and 6.30am, believing I had dreamt it!

It is a shame Attila missed possibly the most exciting event to ever hit Leamington Spa!

Oliver's Poetry