Happy Mondays

I have had the most amazing three consecutive Monday poetry gigs - all fantastic but almost totally different in their nature.

Three Mondays ago, I played the Reckless Moment comedy club, in the vaults bar at the Robbins Well, Leamington Spa. As I have written before, the Reckless is one of my favourite comedy clubs ever.



It is brilliantly run by two post-graduate film students, my dear friends Tom Hughes (pictured above with an act at the Fringe this Summer) and Pete 'The Meat' Falconer, and has a great atmosphere and beautiful audience. Which is just as well as performing poetry in a comedy club can go down like a string quartet at a heavy metal gig.



I was as nervous as hell, even though I had spent weeks writing material and poems for the gig. I was also surprised to find myself headlining the first half the show, going after proper (and brilliant) comedians such as my old mate Gary Delaney.

In the event I reckon my act went fairly well. Some of my comedy material got laughs (and some bombed), I kept going, despite nerves, and the poems were generally well received.

I kicked off my set with Probably Not, followed by some baldy material about Byron's love life, Loving You and a new (and I guess un-reuseable) poem about Byron's alleged sexual perferences!

I also did Cook and Drive and my comic poem Fat Ambulance, to which the audience joined in admirably.



My new slam poem shocked them a bit, I think, but my gentle send-up of Pete the Meat (pictured in the guise of Prince) - complete with consumption of a Class 1 English carrot - went down well. Overall, I felt it had been a good night and I really enjoyed the rest of the show and the remainder of the evening. And the fabulous comany!

The following Monday, I stayed in Lewes and performed an updated version of my bonfire poem, Advance Southover.




It went very well. I launched into the poem at the Southover War Memorial, after the minute's silence and revalie, at, I reckon, just the right moment. I felt confident, vital - bolstered by a stiff brandy or two. Afterwards, the mainstays of the gloriously reformed Southover Bonfire Society, of which I am sort of Poet Laureate, seemed pleased.



Bonfire in Lewes seemed especially good this year. It was the first year that the Southover Bonfire Society had a firesite. We didn't march but helped out marshalling at the site.







The Grand Parade was also very good and, when we eventually went to see the fireworks, they were awesome. (Images of the night are scattered through this blog).

A quintessential sea of hue and cry. A skyscape of colour. It was not a long display, but it was amazingly memorable. The images do not do it justice. Afterwards, people around us were saying it was the best fireworks display they had ever seen. I would not disagree.



The third consecutive Monday, this last Monday, I was in Oxford for a gig at the Gardeners' pub in Jericho, Hear The Word, a Christian-powered, unplugged, spoken word club celebrating its sixth birthday.

It was another extraordinary night. Cold out, but with great warmth in the long, narrow backroom of the pub.

I was highly flattered to find posters, complete with four little Byrons, being circulated to promote my next gig in Oxford, at the superb Back Room Poets, at Far From the Madding Crowd, on another Monday - 26 November.



The Hear The Word gig seemed very 'Oxford', a catholic mixture of story-telling, folk music, and poetry of many forms. I enjoyed all the acts and the featured poet was particularly special.

It seemed a tad strange standing in the little room with people on every side but I tried my best to turn around to see everyone.

For the first time ever, I performed, Last Day, my first poem which got me started in poetry. I also did another Catholic poem Lose Hill and Botley Cemetery Tennis Club, which is not quite right yet, but went all right.

I really liked Hear The Word. It has a surreal quality about it - such as a Mohican (young female) chef walking into on the poetry to deliver a basket of chips which were duly passed round; its Christian community quality with a large dollop of tolerance and a hectoring Marxist thrown in for good measure.



The evening was absolutely wonderful. I felt so happy afterwards, driving back from the Leckford Road to the Leamington Garret, into the broad, red, ribbed sky with the love-jazz on the wireless.

Mondays are meant to be blue, but these three Mondays on the trot have, for me, been a veritable oasis of happiness.

Lewes Bonfire / Night of Agony

Lewes Bonfire










Lewes Bonfire was an extraordinary experience, made even more so this year because of a strange succession of events.

When I dropped into the King’s Head last week to pay my subs, I half-jokingly said to the Chairman of the Southover Bonfire Society that we needed a Southover Bonfire Society Poem.


He was enthusiastic about this idea. So during last week at the Lewes Garret, I tried to write one. It did not come easily. Cycling to and from work I worked out a sort of chorus but the verses would not come.

Travelling between the Leamington Garret and Lewes Garret on Thursday night, I made a great effort to finish it.

I showed the Chairman the revised poem on Badge Night (the evening members of Lewes bonfire societies get accredited to march) on the Friday and he and his co-conspirators were very keen.

He said he would read it the following night after the vicar had spoken outside the War Memorial in front of Southover Church (St John's, Southover).

This came as quite a surprise to me. I’d half-expected my poetic efforts to be discarded.

Lewes Bonfire Night was 4 November - as the town will rightly not celebrate on 5 November when it falls on the Sabbath which it did this year.

It was a perishingly cold night. I put on six layers of shirts and pullovers before traipsing with my Beloved and daughters to the gathering point, the Swan Inn, in Lewes.

I guess Southover Bonfire Society was 300 in strength this year – twice as many as last year when the Society – motto: Advance Southover! - had reformed after an absence of decades.

The reception from Southover folk not marching was excellent. Most house doors were open; people were waving and cheering. Soon we were back at the King’s Head for some sustenance. I recognised Macer Hall from the Daily Express who out his with wife and family.














The next march took us round another part to Southover and back to the Church. I became aware of marchers – children and adults - throwing bangers all over the shop. There is certainly a division of opinion on the banger question within the Society. (Later in the night it got even worse and some people in the procession were getting really cheesed off).

Standing in front of the War Memorial, the Rev. Steve Daughtery – Rector of St. John's, Southover, and a fine and plucky chap – preached passionately against political correctness, lambasting public organisations that play down, re-name or ban Christian festivals. He said later he had found it a 'bizarre' experience. He did extremely well.

A bugler then played the Last Post and the society chairman introduced me to read the new Southover Bonfire Society poem Advance Southover! Advance!


I shouted it out as loudly as I could, standing on the wall, looking from flank to flank of marchers with their flaming crosses.

The moment I finished someone lit the Lest We Forget memorial display behind me and a rocket shot out of it and hit me in the neck.

I was felled from the wall with an ‘Oh, F***’ My neck felt like it was on fire!

It is still sore. The burn will take weeks to heal. It is only a flesh wound, though, and, hey, how 21st Century poets can say they’ve been wounded in action!

Night of Agony (Flashback to Easter Bank Holiday Monday, 17 April 2006

Weythel holiday cottage, Wales. The night was torture. Every now and again I would turn in my sleep, stir and wake in absolute agony, screaming out because the pain was so great. The cocktail of pills and booze had clearly worn off.

I feel now in the morning as if I have gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime. My eyes are black with tiredness. My entire frame aches. How the journeyman must suffer!

What kind of holiday can we have when I have an injury as debilitating as this? Reaching the acme of mountains or yomping across rough terrain is unconscionable for me at the moment. Even moving around this wee dwelling requires gritted teeth. To make matters worse, the weather is fickle, starting bright, now inclement.

Midday. Have walked into the village, over the stream and up and down the bracken hill. The pain was exquisite. If I could have bottled it, it would have fetched top dollar from masochists on eBay! I cannot recollect discomfort like it.

All the same, I enjoyed the walk. After the rain it was wonderfully fresh. The darling buds were out. The air clean, moss flourishing on the north side of tree trunks. We did not meet a soul. The people of Britain are increasingly concentrated in the cities which relentlessly mushroom out annexing the green fields. In 100 years’ time, what remains of the countryside will be empty except for holiday homes and traffic wardens.

I have read Ten Songs from the Collected Poems of W H Auden. It is good, in a camp vein. I have now moved on to Twelve Songs - the ninth of which is Stop All The Clocks of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame.