Our War With Coronavirus

We live in extraordinary, almost incredible times. In my lifetime, I cannot recall a stranger situation: Britain in lockdown; cafes, pubs, clubs and restaurants closed; no live sport; the Government pulling the plug on the economy and then attaching it to a massive life support system - and tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, set to die in the UK.

Like everyone else, I have found the past week tough. By Friday night, after days of mainlining the news on the dreaded Coronavirus (Cv), I felt deeply depressed.

I have been toiling away all week at home, on Cv-related things for the homelessness charity for which I work. I find the whole situation upsetting and find myself in tears listening to news updates from the UK and overseas.

Today (Saturday, 21 March 2020), I tried to listen to less news and get out for a long motorcycle ride, between Hove and Littlehampton.

Greggs was still open but only for takeaways, which was great.

The few customers kept well away from each other, and I was able purchase a vegan sausage roll and large hot chocolate for next to nothing - and enjoy them sitting on my own on a bench outside in the precinct.

A little way down the street, in an attractive old-style arcade, a lone man looked at Mothers' Day flowers.

Further down still, a lovely bookshop was closed to customers but had left out a good selection of its wares on a couple of trestle tables - for people to take for no charge.

A message from the bookseller included the words: 'Sorry we are closed but please help yourself to the books on this table for free!
If you are anticipating being stuck at home, hopefully a good book will help you through.'

So well done to Fireside Bookshop of Littlehampton. You should be proud of yourself!

It made me think of something the Chancellor of the Exchequer said about the little acts of kindness that people would remember when this time is over.

I am impressed by Rishi Sunak, his substance and presentation. He is a great talent who one day, I suspect, will become the UK's first Prime Minister from a BAME background.

Overall, the Government's response to the crisis has been fairly good, although there is more they could do for the most vulnerable in society, such as people experiencing homelessness, and for the self-employed.

Things are moving very quickly, however, and I hope more will be done to help these groups this coming week.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sees this crisis as a wartime scenario - and he is right.

In terms of demanding that people behave in particular ways contrary to their financial interests and basic freedom, nothing like it has happened since World War Two.

We are all in this together.

Sadly, the hoarding that has occurred through panic buying in the supermarkets is damaging the food chain, hitting key workers and hurting national morale.

It is ridiculous, selfish and pointless - there is plenty to go round.

My partner Laura and I have been strict with ourselves in buying food just as normal and also to spend just as usual in general.

To spend all your money on food, depriving others, and save otherwise is crazy.

This is a time when self-control and consideration for others is vital - to keep food on everyone's plates and, with non-food items, keep consumer money going into the economy, as far as possible.

And we all have a moral duty to keep away from others as much as possible to slow the spread of Cv and save lives.

Stopping in Worthing, I was shocked to see how people were happy to rub against each other, when there was no need.

It seems to me that people are still struggling to grasp the immensity of the risk that our nation faces from Cv. I can understand that.

Putting your life on hold is tough, separation is very tough.

But we need to show a bit of love for each other by washing our hands and keeping our distance.

* I have left and picked up writing this post again. It is Mothers' Day - Sunday, 22 March - and I have been thinking of my Mum who died in April 2018.

On the last visit Mum made to Brighton, in 2017, I took her to Birling Gap, a Sussex beauty spot, and today, on a motorcycle ride, I went there again, on the way to Eastbourne.

The weather was beautiful today but it took me an hour and 15 minutes to ride from Hove to Eastbourne, partly because of a diversion and partly because of my cautiousness in quite strong winds.

Separation in Eastbourne was not a problem - it was almost deserted. Virtually everything was closed.

However, the Emporium store had stayed open, with hardly any customers.

Keeping a sensible distance, I chatted with the owner who said he expected to be ordered to close at any time under a 'non-essential trader' order. 'But I believe music is essential,' he added with a grin. I bought a couple of singles.

Across the road, a bar was interpreting the 'take-away' rule with its own 'Beer Drive-Through', selling pints through a window for a sole punter to drink in the street.

I saw similar thing later in Brighton, with drinkers standing outside a pub, surely being creative with the 'take-away' definition, which I'd have thought would apply only sealed drinks which customers took away to consume in other locations.

I hope people are generally sensible and the Government doesn't have to move to a curfew scenario with the majority of citizens confined to their homes.

How can we all get through this?

We have been taking our minds off it by watching the excellent series Better Call Saul, a prequel to the extraordinary Breaking Bad.

I also appreciate the BBC's effort to get into the wartime spirit, showing old episodes of Dad's Army and classic football matches in the place of the live equivalent. Watching the latter made me think how much more earthy and fun soccer used to be before the Premier League days.

Laura took part in Virtually Funny, an online comedy gig staged by a friend of ours in the place of a live comedy show. A fine idea, although hard to do using teleconferencing technology.

How ever tough it becomes, I know that Britons will get through this with a determined smile on our faces, whether working or at home. And that our national institutions - the NHS, the Government, our representatives at all levels and of all political hues - won't let us down.

Most of all at this time I think of my family and particularly my daughters, Edlyn and Frances who I miss.

I will leave you with an image from Devil's Dyke taken at dusk tonight. Have a good week, everyone!

I am a Mod

Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

The Who  

A hush fell on my fellow secret addicts and you could have heard a pin drop in the room as I made my ritualistic confession: "I am a Mod!"

I'd said it. There was no going back.

For many years I have harboured a desire to ride a Vespa scooter and wear a Parka jacket.

Early this year I finally succumbed and bought a Vespa PX125, a Mod scooter model that Italian manufacturer Piaggio has been making since 1977.

Since then, metaphorically, it has not been an easy ride.

My father, bless him, has always been an anxious chap, even in his prime.

When my brothers and I were growing up, he relentlessly drummed into us the extreme dangers of motorcycling.

It left a mental block, I guess.

And so it was that at the age of 52 that I first took to two wheels, at first having to negotiate myself through a hellish ordeal known as the CBT - not Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, on this occasion, but Compulsory Basic Training.

I can honestly say that my CBT was the most terrifying day of my life. I will not describe the horror of that experience in detail - I will leave that for another occasion.

Suffice to say, it was a miracle - or at least an extreme combination of diplomacy and spin - that the motorcycling instructor in Eastbourne reluctantly awarded me (and the other candidate that day) our certificates so we could ride.

As we left his workshops, he turned to us and said doubtfully: "You are going to be all right, aren't you?"

Unfortunately, I could only get through my CBT on an automatic machine. I just could not master the gears. I must have stalled a hundred times. (The other guy was better but had no road experience whatsoever.)

And, yet, my PX125 has manual gears.

For the first few months I found it so hard that I never left the conclave of my 'hood: a little circuit of Brunswick Street East, Lower Market Street and Waterloo, almost bereft of traffic.

The regulars at the Bottom's Rest public house were amused and then grew tired of me passing every five minutes at speeds between five and 11 miles per hour.

I never got out of first gear!

My Mod career would have been doomed if it were not for the intervention of Mr Cheeky (who else?)

Mr Cheeky had befriended Django, the local black cat, and it was because of this I met Nick, Django's owner, who was also embarking on life as a biker, albeit on a 125cc motorcycle rather than a scooter.

Nic, an urbane, young VATman and musician from Isle of Man, offered to take me out on a motorcyling trips to build up my confidence. He has been brilliant.

A few months on, I am still a little nervous on the bike, but I get around and was confident enough to join the thousands of other bikers at the Brightona rally last weekend.

I hoped to hook up with brother Mods but, on this occasion, they were in fairly short supply. The August Bank Holiday rally is their big day.

However, I take the view that all motorcyclists are my brethren and confidently nod to Hell's Angels and generally talk to anyone on two wheels.

Everyone is very friendly.

Nick and I met some very pleasant Harley Davidson riders including one gentleman who was almost seven foot tall and showed me his massive bike.

A lot of these guys ride 1,700cc machines - bikes with much larger engines than many motor cars.

Despite my Parka, one biker even let me sit on his new Harley. It was incredibly comfortable and heavy. Like a mobile sofa.

I liked the way that the stages at Brightona alternated between rock music and ska - to please both the rockers and the Mods.

In reality, there is no war between them any more.

They get on like a house on fire when they meet.

There were so many amazing, beautiful machines at Brightona.

Bikers are incredibly creative and hardworking at customising and preening.

You could spend the whole day just admiring other people's motorbikes.

I rode back in the rain, which I hate. It is uncomfortable and you have to keep a constant eye out for manhold covers that can unmount you in an instant.


I loved the day, though. I need to get more experience on the Vespa.

My mentor Nick has driven more than 1,000 miles on his bike in the time I have clocked up 100 on mine.

Scootering is also economical. Much less expensive on fuel that driving a car - very useful at this time of personal austerity.

I also love the sound of the two-stroke engine and the clunk of the gears that the 1970s design still makes - authentic signs of having achieved Mod-dom!

Sleepy Time

It seems hard for me to write at the moment. 


The stress of my life, particularly my redundancy situation, has been getting to me.

When my present troubles began in February, I found it hard to sleep.

Now I find it hard to stay awake!

A combination of the medicinal drugs I am on and sheer, relentless stress means I drop off at the drop of a hat.

Sometimes I go to Starbucks at lunchtimes and just fall asleep for an hour.

If I am sick or on leave, I need only lie down for 10 minutes to find myself waking up several hours later.

It is weird. Like my mind wants to clock out.

   
I am trying to take a philosophical approach to impending unemployment.

But it is not easy.

I went to the National Union of Journalists' biennial conference, in Eastbourne, a few weeks ago.

It is some 30 years that I last attended an NUJ delegates' meeting - and it was a good experience.

I stayed at the Queens Hotel for two nights and met some really dedicated trade unionists. The industrial carnage going on in journalism is shocking.

The meeting itself was much as I remembered it from my last visit in the 1980s, when the Wapping dispute was in full swing.

I made the mistake of volunteering to be a scuntineer, a role that I am happy to admit is not my forte.

On one day, I was just going off for my lunch on the seafront when I was summoned to spend four-and-a-half hours counting - and recounting - ballot papers from the union's numerous and complex elections. Never again!

Still, someone had to do it.
Overall, the Brighton and Mid-Sussex delegates worked very well together.

It was also a good-natured affair with a jolly final night gala dinner.

Walking back to the hotel I was fascinated by the sight of a nocturnal dredger bombarding the beach with pebbles.

The mornings were also amazing.

The quality of the light can be exceptional.

What else?

I am trying to be positive although, God knows it is hard.

An hour listening to the strange people in LaPorte Cafe, Lewes, the other Saturday was almost unbearable.

My children stood me up. Again.

Miserably, I bought some pate and went to my therapist in Brighton who with his hands magically sends electricity through me. Odd but effective.

I returned to Lewes for the Mighty Rooks' final home game of the season. I had a hunch it was going to be a cracker and, for once, I was right.

After 40 minutes, Lewes FC was 4 - nil up against its opponents Leiston - a side, indeed a place, of which I had never previously heard.

By the final whistle, the scoreline was an excellent 5 - 1 to the heroes of the Dripping Pan.


It is good to have a reason to celebrate.

In a moment of elation I even bought a Lewes scarf. A classic red and white one without lettering.

Otherwise, my main entertainment has been my allotment at Earwig Corner.

The other allotment holders have become friends.

It is amazing how things have improved up there on the hill in recent times.

I have painted the shed - twice - and cleared it out. It is starting to look really good.

So far on my little plot, I have put in potatoes and garlic.

This year I am planting in a triangle. I intend to put in flowers around the outside.

Not having a garden at home, I want it to fulfil that function as well as providing vegetables.

Lewes Poetry trundles on.

My old chum Mac McFadden headlined in April and was good.


A Liverpudlian comedy and performance poet, he certainly has the gift of the gab.

I am also enjoying the compering, made much better by my moderate drinking regime.


That's about it.

I will leave you with a funny dog I met on the beach.

The owner said he swims in the sea every day and is unstoppable.








And there has been the occasional really lovely evening.

Summer is on its way and, like it or not, I will have a lot of time on my hands.

Jury Service / Ticket to Rye

Jury Service



Hove must be the best place on earth to do jury service. I have spent the last two weeks at the seaside, courtesy of Her Majesty.

Of course I have been sitting in court, as judge of the facts of two serious sexual cases. But Crown Court hours being generous, it has not been an onerous task. Obviously it would be utterly inappropriate - and possibly illegal - for me to write about my deliberations as a juror. However, I will say what an interesting and inspiring experience it has been.

You are called to jury service. It is your public duty, and, even if you wanted to, it would not easy to excuse yourself. I rolled up at 9am at the court, having enjoyed a hearty breakfast at the cafe round the corner and dropped down to the promenade to take the sea air.

It was an idyllic March day, with bright sunshine and mountainous waves on the sea. Beautiful! After passing through security, being taken up to the jurors' room (which is like a school staffroom) and shown a video about court procedure, we were kindly released till midday.

Down by the sea again, it was fantastic. I enjoyed a strawberry ice cream at the Meeting Place Cafe - rarely has an ice tasted so delicious - and chatted to a mother and her grown-up daughter who runs a Brighton nightclub. All very pleasant. Back at base, I was selected to serve in a jury for a trial estimated to last three days. An hour's evidence was heard - and then it was time for a good, hearty lunch.

There was a little bit of evidence in the afternoon, and we went home at 4pm. All these breaks gave me time to keep in touch with work, monitor my email and write various Day-Job documents as well as edit images, write my blog, read poetry and work on a couple of poems of my own.












It was stormy overnight and Day Two of the trial brought inclement weather. But as I was walking down the seafront on the way to the court, admiring a yacht that had blown over, the sky started to clear and the sun peeped out. On the second day, some of the jurors started to chat a bit about the case - in between discussing the weather and the like. We began in a small way to work together.

I asked a question of the judge, pertaining to a piece of evidence in a diary, and the defence counsel continued to make lame jokes that no one laughed at and used, in my view, inappropriate terms such as 'ga-ga' and 'away with the fairies' about the mentally ill, causing some disquiet among the jurors. Rumpole of the Bailey he was not!

The judge generously gave us two hours for lunch, so I gorged myself on Brighton's finest fish and chips in seafront fish restaurant. Naturally, our court finished again at four.

My mind was drawn to the one and only time I had previously visited that particular crown court building - in 1998 covering the 'Hairgate' case of my mate Jason's then girlfriend, for the Mail on Sunday. I was working for that respectable Sunday newspaper at the time and had brought the story of a girl allegedly maimed at a Brighton hairdresser's to their attention.

Jason, who seems to pop up surprisingly often in my blog and is now drifting around India sending me the occasional vulgar email, approached me with a view to selling his then girlfriend's hair nightmare story. She ended up winning about 20 grand in compensation in court and getting paid still more money by the Mail on Sunday, which was fair considering what she had been through.

My recollections of that affair nine years are rather sketchy. I remember staying in a 15-quid-a-night bed and breakfast with Jason and Lisa, making copious shorthand notes in court (as is my practice), and then getting rather drunk with the delighted couple and their legal team down the road at the Brunswick Arms when she won and was awarded record damages for a hairdressing accident. Then I doorstepped the hair salon staff who were far less happy to see me (and eventually gave me a statement penned by their solicitor).

Three Day of the trial was interesting with the tapes of the defendant's police interviews being played. The jury started to gell a little and I gently floated the idea of me being their foreman.

It was warm and sunny outside and the judge kindly gave us all the afternoon off, allowing me to have a good lunch at the Meeting Place (where they really must find a better system for telling diners their food is ready) and to catch up with my day-job work. Coincidentally I was phoned with an offer of another interview, although the job was nowhere near as good as the first.

The weather was even better on Day Four of the trial: out on the beach I saw a girl in a bikini; skateboarders had their tops off. The judge had asked us to arrive at the unconscionably early hour of 10am. I could hardly open my eyes with exhaustion!

I missed my train and almost walked into Her Majesty The Queen at Brighton Station (she was visiting with her husband HRH Prince Philip). I then had to jog along the seafront in my suit, arriving in the jury room bathed in sweat on the stroke of ten. We did not get called till 10.25am, so I should not have worried.

I found that morning's evidence so appalling, it seemed almost unbearable at times, although I was pleased that my question from Day One resurfaced on the lips of one of the barristers. I actually began to feel sorry for the defence brief as I listened to his client's extraordinary testimony.

The highlight came when the defendant accused the perfectly reasonable prosecuting barrister of being a 'pervert' - simply because he had used to word 'sex'! This outrageous slur got the defendant a sharp rebuke from the judge. His Honour, who seems a thoroughly good egg, even had the court cleared. I chanced upon him later in the corridor and he wished me a pleasant lunch.



And so I did, down at the seafront at the other Hove cafe, in brilliant sunshine. All was right with the world as I ate my tuna-filled baked potato and took some photographs with my Nikon FM and 135mm lens. The afternoon session seemed, if anything, more disturbing than the morning's.

The defence barrister's speech was again laced with phrases such as 'ga-ga', 'away with the fairies', 'lost her marbles', and and the title of the popular song, 'I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No'. (The woman involved was in her seventies!) What good he thought this was going to do his client is hard to adjudge. In my view there was an air of desperation about it.

After complaining about the lack of a kettle in the jurors' room, the jury called it a day - happy in the knowledge that our deliberation was nigh. Walking back down the prom, I bought a secondhand copy of Selected Poems of William Blake.

Day Five dawned overcast but soon brightened up. I missed the train again and arrived on the stroke of 10am. The judge's summing up was superbly done. I checked everything he said against my verbatim shorthand note. It was entirely balanced and accurate. There was no doubt in my mind the defendant was getting an utterly fair trial.

The judge had also had typed out a summation of the law relating to the case which was very helpful. At around 11.30am, the court bailiffs were sworn, to guard over our jury room, and we the jury were asked to retire.

We spent the first 10 minutes making teas and coffees, visiting the en suite toilet, and generally readying ourselves. Then I was honoured to be elected Foreman of the jury and we studied our notes for 10 minutes. I read out the indictments and the judge's legal crib sheet, and our deliberations began.

It would be wrong to disclose them, suffice to say I was incredibly impressed by the maturity of the discussion and the mutual respect shown by the jurors. The meeting was a joy to chair. In less than an hour, initial differences of view had been resolved, and I was writing a note to the judge saying we had reached verdicts unanimously on both counts. He was hearing an appeal so we were broke out lunch.

I was impressed by the amount of food and refreshments we had all brought with us. The jury room table was groaning under the weight of the sandwiches, fresh fruit, avocado, puddings and soft drinks.

It was a veritable picnic. We talked about all sorts of subjects unconnected with the case after I had sent our note to the judge. There was a lot of joking and laughter. Raucous laughter. One woman juror even confessed to fancying the judge! I quipped: 'Would you like me to send him another note to arrange a date?'

When we went back in, I was surprised (although I should not have been) by the level of tension and drama in the courtroom. The prosecuting counsel looked at me, trying to read my face, as I walked to the end of the front row to stand nearest to the judge (as the foreman is supposed to).

The court bailiff asked me to stand and answer 'yes' or 'no' to the question of whether we had reached our verdict. I answered, 'yes'. Then, just he asked me to answer 'Guity' or 'Not guilty' to the question of how we had found the defendent on the first charge.

I resisted the Tourettesque temptation to shout out: 'Sex!', but, for dramatic effect, I left a couple of beats between his question and my loud and clear answer of 'Guilty'. He asked again on the second (and lesser) charge and again I answered immediately: 'Guilty'.



I looked at the defendant. He looked shrunken. His barrister also appeared to be demoralised, no longer the jovial jester, although I suspect the verdict had come as no surprise to him. Anything else would have been an extraordinary triumph of optimism over reality. The judge thanked us for our work on a 'difficult' case. And so we were released back into the outside world.

In my opinion we had been a top jury. We had taken our public duty seriously and not shirked our responsibilities or plumped for the easy option. One guy, a tiler by trade, said he had been waking at 4am every day, thinking and worrying about the case. We had all in different ways done what we could to discern the truth of the matter.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. I walked down the prom and took a picture of the spectacular, turquoise sea. I wandered down further and had a lager at the Man of War seafront pub (built like an inverted ship), went into town and bought a Clash CD for a fiver, and then visited the pier where I am currently writing this part of this blog, in Horatio's pub, while enjoying a lager.



The first week of jury service has been a fabulous break, but I still had masses of day-job work, interview preparation and poetry composition to do. On the way back, I dropped into the Amnesty secondhand bookshop and picked up a copy of As A Blackwoman - Maud Sulter, Poems 1982 - 1985. It is rather different from the Byron, Keats and Larkin that I usually read. I like it though.

Back at the Lewes Garret, a great deal of effort was being put into milking a silver birch tree of its sap with a view to making birch sap wine. My Beloved had made various incisions into the bark of the tree, to distract sap using tubes, pegs, syringes or sticks.

A friend across the road is desperate to fill a demi-john with silver birch sap so she get started on the production of the birch sap wine as soon as possible. I decided not to comment, interfere or get involved in this particular endeavour.

At the weekend I prepared for my interviews (sparing a few minutes to update Oliver's Poetry with Meat Elegy and the lady I met in the park in Leamington's Personality Disorder.

On Saturday evening I went to see the harrowing movie Babel, which I would not recommend. In my sleep I had a nightmare featuring Dominic Lawson who has regularly haunted my dreams ever since I worked with him at the Sunday Telegraph 10 years ago.

I hardly slept on Sunday night. When I did, I suffered terrible nightmares, awaking depressed and exhausted (although with an idea for a poem).

Day Six of jury service was bright. I felt shite. What a day! I arrived late but it did not matter; we sat around all morning in the jurors' waiting room. I tried to work but my concentration was shot. I ended up talking to the idle tiler about his aspirations to become a traffic warden (he felt he would relish the aggro but not the hours).

I started to think that being a juror is the equivalent of putting me on a super-powerful dose of a truth drug. I ended up telling the other jurors all kinds of outrageous and entirely inappropriate things about my former career in journalism. The urge to entertain is dangerously strong in me.



At lunchtime, a whole gang of us ended up having lunch at a seafront cafe. They were a jolly crew, including several from the previous week's jury and a South African woman who said she had quaffed almost two bottles of red wine on an empty stomach the night before.

Nonetheless I felt really down at heart, although I desperately tried not to let it show. I consoled myself with the thought that on that morning's train to Brighton I had made progress with my Girl With One-Track Girl poem, stranglely informed partly by observing events at the previous evening at a salsa club in Lewes.

At the courts, I failed to be selected (by a one in seven chance) for an assault trial. But, horror of horrors, I was selected as Juror Number One for a sex trial which was even grimmer than the previous weeks. I spent the afternoon - in a jury of nine women and three men - feeling queasy listening to the stomach-churning evidence.

On Day Seven I had a job interview at the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall on London. Because of the trial, I had persuaded my interviewers to do it at 6pm.

The day was overcast with the sea as calm as a mill pond. Like a mirror, as if you could have walked on it. I began to find jury service trying (excuse the pun).

I was thinking of my interview and struggling to think of what further research I could usefully do. I had awoken at 3.30am riddled with angst. We were late starting and adjourned soon to allow a 'vulnerable' witness to leave the court without being seen by the defendant.

Strangely this supposely short break turned into the entire morning when the judge unexpectedly decided to do the sentencing of a previously heard case.

Waiting around is part and parcel of jury service. The hours are easy and the legal profession seems adept at spinning out three-day trials to fill a week. The idea of working through lunch or extending the end of the working day, as happens so frequently in business, is anaethma to them.


Down at Lawns cafe at the seafront, I reflected on the seedy side of Hove; the grotty basement bedsits, rusting outside fire escapes, flaking paint and dog shit-besmirched pavements. All so unappealing, set against the undeniable beauty of the glassy sea.



The avuncular judge had finished the day's business half an hour early (at 3.30pm) to allow me a good start to my interview, which I thought was jolly decent of him. So I was on time.

The meeting was in a room in the Institute of Directors, on Pall Mall. The last time I had been in that room was after I had been let go by a shitty City PR agency, shortly after 9/11.

As part of my acrimonious severage package, I was expected to knock up a marketing report on a multi-national client of that particular firm. I spent a couple of days researching it and a day writing it. I had met the PR firm's vice-chairman - a grease-bubble of a man - at the Institute of Directors to hand over what I had hastily written!

(I believe the PR company charged the client 25 grand for my work!!!) To my astonishment he said how good he thought it was. It only made me despise him all the more. When we parted, I said: 'I shall never see you again.' And I never have.

The interview was more pleasant than that occasion, although I was distressed to hear the process would involve me coming in another three times (if invited). Taking four days' holiday to attend interviews or psychometric tests for a middle-management job is a huge ask!

I am sure my expression betrayed my true feelings about this. Prospective employers often demand too much time of candidates and, consequently, miss out on many of the better candidates. Besides, I was appalled my interviewer could not announce the name 'Sharon'!

Day Eight of jury service was blisteringly hot. You could come on holiday to Hove and Brighton in August and not get weather as good as I have had thusfar in March.

I awoke with the horrible feeling that I had asked too many incisive questions last night and found out more than I needed to about the job for which I was applying (correctly as it turned out - I didn't get a second interview).

It is that old quandary: power vs. money. Do you take a cut in your power and influence for a hike in salary? I never know the answer to that one. A poet should not have to worry about such earthly matters.

I also had a hangover after glugging two cans of ciders on the train back from my interview and then having two cans of Guinness ('bicycle fuel' as last week's defendant had called it) at home. It was a good evening but now I am paying the price.

That day's evidence was particularly gruelling. With the red-red-wine juror at lunchtime, I sat a seafront cafe pondering life. In the afternoon I was elected foreman again. No one else had an appetite for it in this case.







To be frank, I didn't either but thought I probably had the strength to see it through. All the same the atmosphere in the jury room was jovial. The 'supermodel' juror had been reading the horoscope in the Daily Mail.

After I asked everyone their names, someone suggested we do the same for star signs. It was interesting to see that the people with the same star signs were seated next to each other. Two Libras side by side, two Leos, two jurors on the cusp of Sagitarius and Capricorn (me included).

We needed that brief spell of levity. Hearing the evidence revisited in the judge's excellent and equitable summing up was grim indeed.

After we adjourned at four, I walked down the seafront in brilliant sunshine. The beach was full of sun-lovers. I sat down at a bar and had a couple of beers whilst chatting to an Irish law graduate (not about the case of course) - but about Ireland and especially Veronica Guerin. The sun set on an extraordinary March day. I took some pictures.

Day Nine: Judgment Day. Once again we had to step up to the plate and do our duty. I had packed a lot of sandwiches and avocado (in case it went pear-shaped). I was expecting a long haul in the jury room.

The day started foggy but soon started to clear up, the sun edging its way through. I had awoken in pain from my back (usual), my mind full of anxiety about the case, my next job interview, how I had handled the last one (too frankly), and my current job. Life is such a minefield.

I was expecting a tough time in deliberation, and began to regret offering to take up the cudgels as foreman. Questions such as whether The Bill used to screen on Saturday morning (and whether we should be overly worried about it) troubled me.



I seemed to recall from my days as the Daily Star's TV Editor that there had been a Saturday omnibus of this great cop soap, but surely the police, Crown Prosecution Service or legal teams should have bottomed out such an eminently checkable fact as this? I was rather hoping this would be my last day of jury service.

The jury sat down to consider its verdict at around 11am, after a very brief address by the judge. Again, it would be wrong for me to say what transpired after that. Suffice to say, it was the most difficult meeting I have ever chaired. A monumental battle between opposing points of view.

After what seemed an eternity, we were called back into court as a result of the juror with a figure like a supermodel sending a note to the judge (as she was absolutely entitled to do). His Honour quickly answered that query. Then, to my shock, I was asked as jury foreman to deliver the verdicts so far.



I basically refused, saying: 'Do I have to respond at this juncture? I don't think it would be helpful.' (I really did not think it would be a good idea).

The judge - a hell of decent chap - consulted briefly with the defence barrister and let me off the hook, after saying we could now deliver 10-2 majority verdicts on all counts.

And so we were soon back in the hothouse battling it out. There seemed to be food and drinks everywhere on the jury room table. Most of us had long given up paying the 30p requested by the court for using one of their tea bags and hot water (it was a darn cheek of them to charge deliberating jurors at all, in my view).



The deliberations seemed to be going on forever. At times I was convinced we were heading for a retrial. It felt as if we were replaying the trial, with, at my request, jurors putting the cases for prosecution and defence, as they saw it, and reading out pieces of evidence from their notes, which I checked against my shorthand note of the trial.

We eventually reached 10-2 majority verdicts on eight of the 10 charges, clearing the defendant on the other two, where there was more far more doubt in the minds of the jurors. The relief was enormous. I believe we all felt we had done our job well.

When we traipsed back into court, you could have cut the atmosphere with a toothpick. When I was asked to stand to deliver the verdicts and said 'Not Guilty' to the first charge, there was some reaction from the defendant's new lover. But, sadly for her, eight of the remaining nine charges were 'Guilty'. The convicted man closed his eyes. He looked to me like a man who had taken a big gamble - and lost.

I had not a shadow of doubt of his guilt on eight of the 10 counts, and at the end of the deliberations, nine of the other 11 jurors had felt the same way. That said, I admired the other two for sticking to their guns.

They truly believed they could not convict on the evidence they had heard. We all parted on the best of terms, shaking hands, slapping backs, with huge respect for each other. I bought a band of jurors a drink at the Brunswick as we wound down from what had proved an ordeal. I felt proud of my jury and the professional way in which they had conducted themselves.




Indeed the whole experience had been an amazing one. I spent four years around Crown Courts in the eighties when I was a local newspaper reporter in Hull and Coventry. At that time I was left a little dubious about the ability of juries to reach the right verdict, particularly when it came to convicting guilty men who had hired talented defence barristers.

My fortnight in Hove has restored my faith in the jury system. As the avuncular judge had said after thanking us: 'You have been the judges of fact.'

Ticket To Rye (Flashback to Thursday, 22 December 2005)

My birthday! I am 44 - a number I instinctively like.

I have celebrated by going for a very pleasant luncheon in a smart hotel in Rye. I don't mind being 44. I am gradually getting used to the idea of middle age.

Last year I went to Eastbourne for my birthday and I wrote the poem Birthday. I guess I don't feel any different now. Only more resigned!

From one of the secondhand for which Rye is renowned, I bought a lovely thin volume of John Betjeman's poems. One is about death in Leamington Spa.

For tea I ate the various seafood we had bought a fisherman's seasfront stall. Delicious! I am a tad drunk - and happy. Yes, happy.