Leamington Snow / Lucky Bunny

Leamington Snow
Leamington Garret. This morning I crawled out of bed to see the park beneath my garret bedroom carpeted with snow. It looked wonderful but I felt terrible.

This year, for some reason, I am not coping with January at all well. It cannot be purely because I am on the wagon. I have done that a number of times before and not suffered as badly. These past three weeks I have felt terrible - physically and mentally. I have missed Lewes like mad whilst in Leamington Spa; found the Day-Job stressful; and really struggled to get my head round anything, including poetry.

This week has been typical. On Monday I rolled up at the Reckless Moment comedy club in Leamington to perform my comedic poems, only to find I had come on the wrong date (a week early). I have also been sleeping terribly and feel drained at work during the day.

But I mustn't grumble. I came up from Lewes on Sunday to perform at Sean Kelly's excellent poetry night, PureAndGoodAndRight at the Fox in Leamington. What a fine evening it was!

I performed Probably Not which went down well and Loving You - likewise. Our Neighbours went all right, and my new poem Cook and Drive was well received. I Fought The Law and Women also went well.

The gig was packed with a very pleasant crowd. Jane Holland was very good indeed and I bought her volume The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman from her for a fiver. Emma Purshouse was also very good, taking a thematic approach to comedic poetry. And there was a superb poet from Oxford called Laura King who has kindly contributed a brilliant poem to Oliver's Poetry called From London to Oxford. She was really eloquent in her diction and performance.

There were 17 poets in total, a remarkably varied and talented bunch.
That was the highlight of the week. That and the tremendous warmth in the Leamington Garret living room. Last year I could never have dreamed that this place be so snug in the depths of winter.

It is 11.11pm now. I am dog tired but know I shan't sleep.

The other thing I did this week was have a go at generating a MySpace site. In fact I had started it months ago in a spare half-hour and have not looked at it since. In a sad moment, it occurred to me that having no friends on MySpace was incredibly pathetic, so I should devote some time to it.

Last night I went into a friends frenzy and this morning I had more than 20 so-called 'friends'. I deleted the ones I have never met and am left with 18, mainly comedian acquaintances, as my MySpace gang.

It seems to me that this is not at all shameful for MySpace. For instance, the comedian and musician Earl Okin has hundreds of scantily clad young women as friends, most of whom I would wager he has never met.

And Paul Foot, who I liked very much when I met him regularly (despite his disastrous performances at my former club Joe's Comedy Madhouse) has almost 1,800 so-called connoisseurs on his fab MySpace site. God knows where they all come from. He is a shy man.

If I have a spare couple of hours next week I am going to try to put a version of the Oliver's Poetry home page up on my MySpace site, and make some bally sense of this MySpace malarkey.

Lucky Bunny (Flashback to Thursday, 30 March 2006)

Leamington Garret. Great day at the Day-Job!

We came to the end of a three-day conference for volunteers which went really well. I chaired a couple of sessions, the second of which was for the volunteer webmasters. It went brilliantly. I'd hired a website expert to give them some training. He was followed by the Daily Mirror's webmaster who was most entertaining (especially with his shirt hanging out).

I must say I learnt a great deal which will help me in the design of the Oliver's Poetry website which I currently working on. And the question and answer session was great fun - I felt like a stand-up comedian again with all the banter flying around.

Afterwards I had a can of beer in the marquee with the Mirror chap and colleagues from the day-job. Then I went home in the Last Word in Luxury - my trusty steed. It was dusk.

As I was driving along the fast road to Leamington at around 40mph, a little bunny ran out from a hedgerow and under the nearside front wheel. I was shocked but it happened so quickly I hardly had time to touch the brake pedal and just managed to swerve slightly. I feared I had killed the bunny. I hate that. Roadkill is everywhere round here.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the bunny running away completely unharmed. Thankfully, the wheels had missed him and the car had travelled over without touching a hair on his little body.

Lucky bunny!

Cotesbach Enclosures Riot: 400th Anniversary / April Flurries

Cotesbach Enclosures Riot: 400th Anniversary

My friends in Cotesbach Sophy and Tom Newton and a group of the other villagers are organising a remarkable celebration to mark the 400th Anniversary of the Cotesbach Enclosures Riot on 7 July 2007.

On the Cotesbach 400 website, they tell the story of the event. Four hundred years ago, five thousand people from three English counties descended on Cotesbach, which even today has a population of only 150, in a non-violent protest agin the land enclosures that was threatening their livelihoods. With what tools they could lay hands on, they tore down the enclosures in the village in what became known as the Cotesbach Enclosures Riot. The Cotesbach villagers gave the visitors sustenance from 'carts laden with victual'.

On 7 July, Sophy and the rest of the village of Cotesbach, in Leicestershire, UK, are hoping 5,000 people will again come - the greatest gathering there in four centuries for a day of history, music entertainment and drinking.

To find out how to join them, check out the Cotesbach Quattrocentenary.

It has been a strange week. I drove back to the Leamington Garret on Saturday and went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of Richard III. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it did have a bewildering variety of modern and ancient weaponry and costumes and a Richard III who appeared to be playing most of his lines for laughs in a style a la Rik Mayall! Still, a good night out all the same.


In the morning I went to Cotesbach. It was most amusing to watch a video of Tom, Sophy and daughters' recent appearance on Sky News satellite television, as part of the channel's ecological week. It also seemed surreal to see our gathering place the Sickle and Stick on national television, with hundreds of candles burning inside and our game of choice, Staghorn, in the background. Publicity for the sport like Tom and I used to dream and joke about!

In the evening I went to see Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, round the corner from the Garret in the Apollo in Leamington. I was not prepared for the level of violence in it. I could not help wonder what would induce Mel Gibson to make a film like that, good though it is (apart from the money). He is at least 20 percent mad.

I have also spent a lot of time in the flat. It is pleasant and ordered here now. Somehow it looks completely different from how it used to be. We have a good dining table and have moved round all the furniture. My old music centre has been pressed into action, somehow linked up to my new flatmate's computer to play CDs with tremendous sound quality. Seventies working with Noughties gear.

I have also fixed the turntable, which was playing slowly, using a rubber band, courtesy of the Royal Mail. It was fantastic listening to my pristine condition 1971 LP of Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones on it. What a great album! (Not to mention my 1968 Aretha: Lady Soul, and collection of other LPs I have shipped up here).

This week is the first we have been online. BT has finally installed broadband. This blog is the first to be published live from the Leamington Garret. Having the internet has added a whole new dimension to the flat. It feels the opening of a window to the world.

On the other hand, I am finding it really tough not drinking. I am also on a diet which pains me greatly. The third of horror is applying for jobs - something I always do at this time of year despite an entrenched hatred of job applications. This enmity probably stems from my low hit rate, which I have resolved to improve.

It all tends to make me rather tetchy and overly critical. I guess January is a month where we promise ourselves we going to mend our lives and then get upset at the slow or non-existent rate of change.

So, what's ahead? Well, I want to write a piece (and possibly a poem) about The Girl With A One-Track Mind, having read and mulled over her book. I also intend to pen something about a very different volume, George Orwell's Homage To Catalonia.

More pressingly, I think I am booked to do some poems at the Reckless Moment comedy club in Leamington next Monday. I dropped in this week to get another feel for it. It seemed strange being in a comedy club and not drinking. It was another good night, though, and Pete the Meat came up to me and thanked me for blogging about the club.

On the poetry front, I haven't done a lot although I have tons of ideas. There are just not enough hours in the day.

So, I will hand you over to this week's Flashback, which is the last one of the 50 or so I prepared before launching Oliver's Poetry.

After today, I shall be busking it into the past.

April Flurries (Flashback to Monday, 10 April 2006)

Leamington Garret. Just returned from the swimming pool where, embarrassingly, I split my trunks while in the jacuzzi!

Realising this and getting out, I hoped none of the women around would notice. Fortunately they were too busy chatting, as I shuffled past the fun pool and the back of the water flume on my pathetic way to the gentlemen's changing rooms.

It is - by my calculation - seven weeks and four days (or 53 days, if you must) until the launch of my website, Oliver's Poetry and its blog Oliver's Poetry Garret.

I have started to write immediately, partly to get into the swing of it and, partly, so the blog can go forward and backward in time simultaneously. I tend to dwell in the past and the future rather than the present time. Which, according to the Royal Leamington Spa Town Hall Clock which I am currently observing through the tiny window of my lofty garret, is 9.30pm.

A blues compilation CD is playing in the living room down the narrow stairs. I put it on shortly after opening a can of Primus Premium Lager, which I got free with three others tonight from the aptly named Costcutter.

If you have been following this as-yet-unwritten Flashback (or Backblog), you probably know a lot about me. So there is no point reiterating what I have already told you in the future!

My main concern here and now is how I am going to make Oliver's Poetry a success (if that is possible). I have already laid the foundations of the site, based on a comedy website that a physics student I once met on a train designed and emailed to me - out of the kindness of his heart.

My web skills are very basic but I am fairly pleased with my handiwork so far. The problem is I would like a free (or inexpensive) statistics package and a decent blog format. I am hopeless at technology. I have not even managed to get on to the internet in this little attic flat.

When I have finished this, I shall put the information onto a floppy disk (yes, I still use floppy disks!), place it in my ancient bag (which closely resembles the UK Chancellor's Budget Case and was about to thrown out years ago by a cellist friend of mine called Ruth Boswell before being given to me) and take it to my other garret in Lewes where it will be transferred onto an old Apple Mac which is on the world wide web. Phew!

When I arose today at 5.22am in Lewes, there was snow on the ground. I might write this week's poem about April Flurries. It was stunningly beautiful and seems a good theme. That white duvet on the Downs was sublime. The virgin rug between the battered steel rails at Lewes Station, too.

The real point of starting Oliver's Poetry Home is to make me write a poem a week. I managed it last year - my first year of writing poetry - but so far in 2006 I have had the block. Worrying!

I must start the April Fluries poem.

Being Santa

Leamington Garret. Life is sweet. It has been amazing recently. I feel like I have emerged from a deep, dark tunnel. I walk around with a permanent grin on my face.

Suddenly everything seems so much easier. I am enjoying life in Leamington again. I feel relatively comfortable and am really looking forward to Christmas.

Funnily enough, I was asked to be Father Christmas the other day. A mum called Mel approached me in Lewes during the interval of a magic show.

'May I ask you a favour?' she asked.
'OK,' I replied awaiting the worst.
'Will you be Father Christmas for a school Christmas Fair?' she asked.
'Why?'
'You have a smiley face.'

Well, that won me over. I agreed and so, late last Friday afternoon, I was dressed in full Santa costume and awaiting my first customer in a grotto like a Bedouin tent.

My first little visitor proved to be the one of more than 150 over the next two hours, by which time I had almost lost my voice with a mouth full of white synthetic hair.

But it was great! All that hope and expectation on those little faces was an inspiration. I had never before fully appreciated how much pleasure and joy the myth of Saint Nicholas brings to the young.

I asked every child if they had been good that year and they all said: 'Yes!' 


Life is getting better. The Day-Job has been good; order has returned to my Leamington existence, and I have been writing much more poetry.

There are also good omens, such as the return of my wristwatch. I was given it on my birthday. My sixth birthday, some 39 years ago. It was a present from my German grandparents (now long dead).

On the back is engraved 'Oma und Opa. 22/12/67'. I recall proudly wearing this full-sized man's watch on that day in 1967 – while The Beatles were still together and before Man walked on the Moon!

I wore it until, I believe, my third year at Hull University when at this time of year in 1982 I lost it at the Silhouette Club, then on Spring Bank. I do not recall what happened that night in that club, although I did return many times in the hope of finding my watch.

My grandfather had died by that time and I swore that I would never wear another wristwatch until it was recovered.

Last month when clearing out the London Garret, I found the watch at the bottom of an old biscuit tin I had used to knick-knacks while at Hull University. I had had no idea it was there and hadn't seen it for almost a quarter of a century. Its face was smashed and, obviously, it was not keeping time.

Now, thanks to an old watchmaker in Lewes, my beloved Kienzle is returned to its pristine state, with new glass and a repaired mechanism. The watch is back on the wrist!

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

On The Wagon / On The Razz

On The Wagon (Thursday, 2 November 2006)



Leamington Garret I am off the booze and have been for a week. The point of the exercise is to recover my health which has been getting steadily worse over the past two months. I want to be better by my birthday - 22 December.

I have a terrible cough and chest infection for which I do not want to take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. My back injury is also showing little sign of improvement.

So I have been stuffing myself with vitamin tablets to try to bolster my immune system, and doing pilates back exercises. I feel a bit stronger and healthier, although this week has been very bad for sleep.

It has been a miserable time overall. Last week my holiday was wiped out by having to move all sorts of stuff between addresses while feeling tired and poorly.

This week, the personal stress has mounted up.

The Landlord, Rigsby, is threatening to send bailiffs into the Leamington Garret (don’t ask) and the lights have gone out on the eight flights of stairs up to the Garret (so it is back to using candles).

The prospective tenants who phoned up about the soon-to-be spare room in the Garret have either been appallingly rude. Why are there so many total scumbags in Royal Leamington Spa? What has gone wrong with this attractive little Midland town?

I am having big problems with the London Garret; and bicycling back from work is like peddling into a black hole - even with lights you are as blind as a bat.

Talking of the blind, the people from the blind shop on Leamington Parade have - with the aid of their enormous metal bin - been blocking access to the yard behind the Garret where I keep my bike, despite a massive notice that reads: 'Keep Clear!')

I wrote them a note which started: ‘Dear Blind People!'

Part of the reasons I have gone on the wagon is that things have been going badly wrong and I want to get a grip. It is only partly working!

The problem with not drinking is that the evenings seem to stretch endlessly ahead of you. It is so tedious.

I have had a crystal clear head through not drinking and enjoyed the mornings far more than usual (there was also an amazingly beautiful sunrise, pictured above and below).

I have been thinking faster, albeit not as creatively, and do not get my words twisted up when I speak. My memory is more retentive and generally I am more together - if less happy.

Tonight in the Leamington Garret I have been trying to write two poems – one about being On The Wagon and the other about Lewes’s Southover Bonfire Society – called Advance Southover Advance.

I am struggling with both (that lack of creativity while sober). Seven lines have been written of the latter (and some research done).

Nothing has been achieved on the former.

I gave up eventually and went down to the Jug and Jester. Without the benefit of copious quantities of lager or cider, I cannot say I felt comfortable at the jam night.

Knocking back cola and orange juice and lemonades, I took a few photographs but quit the joint when the music got a bit modern jazzy. I do not dig modern jazz, man.

Outside, it was brass monkeys, without my beer overcoat!

On The Razz (Flashback to Sunday, 23 April 2006)

4.31pm. The Lansdown Pub, Lewes

My back has been murder. I suffered such a massive spasm a few minutes ago at the house that I feared I would have postpone my return to the Leamington Garret.

I am holed up here in the Lansdown with a large, medicinal whisky until my train is imminent.

Yesterday I went out drinking with my old neighbour who is currently renting a dinky little house in Sun Street, Lewes.

I embarked on a mini-trawl of the licensed premises of Lewes to find him deep in conversation with an ex-militaryman/skinhead-cum-builder at the Brewer’s Arms. The three of us had a good old chat.

My intrinsic fear of military personnel of the shaven-headed variety turns to enthusiasm and admiration when I am in drink.

When time was called, my friend suggested we adjourn to the Lewes Arms for a late drink. My arm around him, we hobbled over there and sunk another three pints of loopy juice each.

It was great night with a great guy.

Images of India / Big Ken

Images of India

Leamington Garret. Something a bit different this week. I am featuring the work of my fast friend Jason Tilley, who is a very gifted and determined photographer.

His story is an interesting one. He was a successful press and advertising photographer until three or four years ago, at which point he decided to sell everything: his house, his car, and most of his other possessions, so he could travel in India for three years taking black-and-white photographs.

He returned about a year ago, his funds exhausted. Jason had taken hundreds of amazing images but the intensity of the experience had changed him.



He seemed very different from the Jason Tilley I had worked with in the 1980s and found it very hard to adapt to life back in Coventry.

We met up, admittedly with pretty disastrous results. Gradually over the past year, my friend has seemed less down in the dumps. He came over to the Leamington Garret last week and we went out to the Jug & Jester for a couple of beers. As usual, it turned into the full gallon and we talked and talked.



Despite our very different experiences recently, I feel I have much in common with Jason. When I first knew him, he was an 18-year-old Cov Kid with a natural talent for photography who took pictures for my thrice-weekly pop column on the Coventry Evening Telegraph.

We had a grear time visiting and photographing pop stars including James Brown and Prince, but, at that time, he did not suffer from the same restive angst about life that I always have done. Now methinks he does. In spades.



We discussed how lonely life is. Even though there are nearly always people around me, I feel it strongly. I am alone in a crowded world. I was surprised Jason also expressed the loneliness of his existence. He is good at forming relationships. Yet you can be utterly alone whilst in company.

He said relationships do not matter to him any more. He just wants to complete his Indian project. This is his life’s work. I admired him because I could see it was all that really counted. He has put his art first and has to succeed.



His work is stunning. And, yet, it is so hard to get other people to see it. Jason said he has managed to get some well known photographers to endorse the project and a selection of his photographs are also displayed on the the PhotographyBlog. They look superb.

When you see all the suffering his subjects have been through, it is not surprising that taking these images cost Jason a slice of his soul.

Now he wants to go back to India to complete the project. He should and must do this. Jason Tilley is producing something historic.



After the obligatory kebab and chips at the take-away opposite the Jug, Jason and I returned to the Leamington Garret. We sat on the roof outside my bedroom, smoking his roll-ups and talking deeper and darker.

I was alarmed he insisted on sitting on the wall. It is around 100 foot down, a sheer drop. He could not be persuaded otherwise.

We talked of the madness of life in India and it made me think of all the horrible/wonderful things I saw in Ecuador. They are places where there is no safety net.



Well, I commend Jason’s photographs to you. I thank him for the permission to publish them on this site. Obviously, they are his copyright, so if you are interested in promoting them elsewhere, please email him through this site or Photography Blog.

He is a masterful photographer and deserves a huge break.

Apart from this special blog, I cannot resist a little round-up of what else has been happening:




· My flatmate brought home Taxi Driver on DVD. Watching it reminded me of what a great movie it is. Here, in reverse order, are my favourite 10 scenes:

10. Travis (Robert De Niro) driving through the burst fire hydrants in New York City,
9. Another taxi driver in the coffee house bullshitting about his sexual conquests with female fares,
8. Travis teasing the Secret Service man, giving him the wrong address and then the slip,
7. His first sight of Iris (Jodie Foster), the schoolgirl hooker he decides to save from a life on the streets,
6. Travis driving the presidential candidate and telling him the human scum needed to be washed off the streets of New York City,
5. Travis walking into the campaign office and super confidently and successfully asking out the beautiful Betsy (Cybill Shepherd),
4. The very moving reading of the letter from Iris’s grateful parents,
3. Travis inspecting an impressive selective of firearms and buying the lot,
2. Travis taking Betsy on their first proper date to a pornographic movie with a predictable reaction from her,
1.The big finale shoot-out in which Travis blows away the pimps, rescues Iris and emerges an all-American hero. Cool! Taxi Driver is a great film!




· I cycled for five miles through a thrilling lightning storm the other morning. It was incredible. The forks of lightning seemed all around the mountain bike. The water was coming down in rivers. I could not see, it was so heavy. My eyes were full of it. For the first time in my life I was literally soaked to the skin.



Big Ken. (Flashback to Tuesday, 9 May 2006)

Leamington Garret. 6.24pm by ‘The Clock’. I can get a really good reading from it in good weather with my glasses on. Sometimes in the dark, however, I am making a wild stab at it, and, yet, it is so more romantic telling the time this way than by looking at the clock on the computer (which I have taped over).

On the way here, I heard on Radio 4 the Six O’Clock bongs of Big Ben, and, I thought that Our Clock needs a name: Big Bill, Big Wen - or Big Ken, perhaps.

I am going over to Meriden to see my photographer friend Jason.

Oliver's Poetry

The Cotesbach Rioters / Inclement Conditions

The Cotesbach Rioters.

Leamington Garret. 7.34am. A beautiful morning, and, hopefully, a beautiful day.

I am in a fairly good mood, despite not sleeping well last night. I went over to Cotesbach and saw Tom, Sophy, Dave (pictured on the classic motorcycle he has restored), Phil, Jane, and Taciturn Tom.

A good night. Won at Staghorn again (and bought beers for everyone with my winners). Tom was highly amused to hear of the first live broadcast of a Staghorn match last week.

Soon Staghorn will be as big a pub game as pool or darts!

I took a photograph of the village pond (left) which I helped to build (one of my proudest moments!)

There was much talk of celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the Cotesbach Rioters (and their riot) next year. Sophy had been having a meeting with the villagers in the Hall about it.

I think it could be a most enjoyable occasion to revisit the marvellous piece of history of the Cotesbach Rioters.



I got back at just after 11pm and caught the last two songs at the Jug and Jester jam night (although it had closed its bars) and had a beer on my own at Kelseys.

Inclement Conditions (Flashback to Saturday, 20 May 2006)

9.43am. Lewes Garret. Inclement conditions; wet and wind. Despite the weather, today's outlook is fairly bright. The combination of staying sober, and taking cola and ginseng instead of booze, are working wonders for me.

8.16pm. Lewes Garret, Living Room, basking by the open fire. It is cold, wet and windy outside – like the bleak mid-winter – and almost as inclement within.

Had a great time on an outing to Eastbourne, shopping, walking, talking, and beating the slot machines. Played the horse-racing game, putting in 10 pences on the red or the blue (2-1) odds, trying to spot winning runs, and also backing the white (25-1).

As a result of this strategy, I covered my costs much of the time and, occasionally, won £2.50, at which point we would retire from the game. I was quids in by the time we quit the arcade on the pier and headed for the shops to spend my ill-gotten gains.

The weather was wonderful; sunny, hot on the face, and windy. Walking down one side of the pier, I were able to lean 45 degrees into the wind it was so strong. The sea was wonderful hue of green with vertical explosions of spray as the breakers hit the groynes. A sublime sight!

Leamington Love/Hate / Mr Logic

Leamington Love/Hate

8.15am Overcast outside, hungover inside! Drank too much last night. My back is hurting with a vengeance.

This is what I wrote last night: Leamington Garret. 10.20pm by Big Ken, or the even more pleasing 22.22 of the computer clock. Joni Mitchell on the boogie-box, Brazil having beaten Croatia, me in shorts, drunk. All is well.

The sky above Leamers is still fairly light. God, I love/hate this place (love the place, hate its people - sometimes).
Moreover, my back is feeling better – and I am happy. Very happy! I loved the Brazil game which I saw down at TJ's bar, in Leamington. Boy, they will take some beating. Class turn!

I revised, quite successfully, my new poem for Oliver's Poetry which is OK and could be improved on before publication this Friday.

What else? Even though it is dark outside, it is not. I can see the light in the dark, and it is so wondrous. I am almost tripping on that light.

Mr Logic (Flashback to Sunday, 21 May 2006).

9.19am. Lewes Garret. Blustery, wettish and cold, a great deal of loud chirping emanating from the garden below, the roar of the A-road in the distance.

Had a bad night for reasons I cannot reveal. I slept so badly that I awoke at three-thirty, my back in agony, and had to get up to knock myself out with painkillers.

After that, I had a horrible nightmare featuring Mike Parker, my ex-boss at the Daily Star. And when I eventually re-awoke at nine-thirty, there was still trouble.

11.40am. Lewes Garret. It is freezing up here, very unpleasant outside; I can hardly see the South Downs through the rain.

I have received a most helpful email from Demon, reading just like something out of the Mr Logic strip in Viz magazine:

'Having read your email query, it appears indicative that you wish to acquire a free or cheap statistics package that you could use with your home page at Demon.

'Unfortunately, we at Demon are NOT in a position to advise you in this regard. Please accept our sincere apologies.'

Yeah, thanks dude!

Met an interesting guy in Eastbourne yesterday – an old bloke called George Musgrave (pictured who runs a 'museum' devoted to his work. This might sound rather egotistical but it was good.

George Musgrave had toy soldiers which he had designed – I remember buying them from Boswells in Oxford as a small boy – and a 40-minute, 16mm film he had made with a cast of 20 in 1949! Also, a birthday card from the father he had never known (killed at the Sommes) and a Penny Black stamp.

I was amused to see my first camera (a Kodak Instamatic) and a typewriter of the sort I had used on Fleet Street, displayed as exhibits! My life is already history, I thought (correctly). George Musgrave seemed a decent cove.

I took a photograph of him. He looks good for 90, I must say. And who can blame him for celebrating his life?

Nightmare Town / French Letters

Nightmare Town

Leamington Garret.

This is what I wrote last night at 8.37pm by Big Ken: Nightmare Town! Leamington is really doing in my head.

It has been an appalling day. Despite the dry heat and bells ringing out, I feel utterly miserable.

Also, I am dog-tired. I have been for a swim but it has made me no better. Nothing seems certain; all turns to dust.

8.02am Overcast but the sun peeking through. I am feeling infinitely better today, just because yesterday was so bad. Do you ever get that? Where almost anything would seem an improvement.

After watching Italy beat Ghana, at a nearby sports bar, drinking three pints of Stella and drafting out my England poem, I returned to the flat and went to bed.


French Letters (Flashback to Monday, 22 May 2006)

6.59am. Lewes-East Croydon train. Heavy grey clouds above. What I would like is to become a successful poet. Throughout my life I have strived for success but somehow it has always eluded me.

I have watched my mates become national newspaper editors, vice-presidents of major companies, television presenters, star comedians and so on.

I would love to be reading my poems to a packed room of people and to bask in their enjoyment and appreciation. But, then, perhaps I am a dreamer and self-delusionist with little hope of achieving this success.

9.20am. Leafy Lainesford, Home Counties. The bus was waiting at the station. I and a number of grey and/or dreary looking individuals embarked. I sat behind the driver and read my Alan Clark Diaries, occasionally glancing up to take in the passing suburban mansions in their verdant glory.

The training centre, in a corner of whose reception I am currently hiding with a cup of herbal tea and an apple, is a bland building with an officious air about it.

The lady at reception has been on her walkie-talkie demanding a 'little replenishment' (it is spotless and well stocked). On the wall, there is a large sign which reads: 'STATE OF VIGILANCE: BLACK SPECIAL'. What the hell does that mean? There were clearly expecting me!

The man on reception tells me I cannot check into my room until midday and that my course starts in an adjacent building at 10am on the dot – around 34 minutes and 32 seconds away. A guy has walked in who looks totally like the comedian Harry Hill. If only it were Harry – that would jolly along proceedings.

1.37pm. A little plump lady is loudly telephoning her team back at the office. The lunch hour is nearing an end. The course is going OK. The facilitators are the sort of career trainers who speak in strange voices and have a bedside manner – functional but not inspiring.

The other people on the course are a mixture of junior and (just) senior civil servants. Some very pleasant people, particularly a Scottish forestry bloke and a Welsh scientist.

6.20pm. My room, the Lainesford Garret. A friend has called me to ask a favour (immediately granted) and also told me what happened when I blacked out during our last meeting.

God! It was not good. Jauntily, he said he had left his home and his girlfriend and been with 'some woman' over the weekend. He wants to return to India.

Enjoyed the afternoon, although a trial. We had our first group 'task' – just like Big Brother – and, after much group hesitation, I volunteered to lead it. Didn't do too badly. A long and complex task was completed within a very tight deadline, but I was chastised for 'losing' one member of the team, interrupting people, hurrying along, and using my laptop to draft mission, vision and values statements. Mea culpa!

Have been feeling remarkably ill. Partly the early start; partly the stress of leading the session this afternoon; partly what my friend told me. Dinner was jolly. Quite pleasant.

She said she rose at five every morning to get into work at 7.20am and rarely went home before 7.30pm. She usually got back at around nine, in time to prepare for bed. I was amazed by this. Although she said she had a social life, it was clear to me that her life was her work.

But good for her! A Scottish lady with a strong work ethic. She was glad to be rid of David Blunkett who she said had been a shocking swearer. Charles Clarke she had liked. (I like Charles Clarke and feel sorry for the guy). John Prescott she loathed. Who does not dislike John Prescott?

Even when I worked on the Hull Daily Mail in the early 1980s, I built up a healthy hatred of John Prescott for swearing at me – using the F-word – down the telephone.

But as Auberon Waugh used to say, he has no doubt served some historic cocktails in his time as a cruise steward. Listening to these guys makes me realise that Alan Clark was right – civil servants do, on the whole, loathe their politician masters.

I like the two guys from Wales on the course. One of them said over dinner that it was disgraceful that we were in 'student accommodation when the course cost so much'.

The other one claimed he had read a newspaper article revealing that the person who invented the kind of programming we had been taught had been hooked on crack-cocaine and kept making late-night telephone calls threatening to exterminate people. Can this be true? I am prepared to believe anything in this parallel universe.

Most exciting thing that happened today was that one of the gang asked to look at my old brown case. I showed him the inscription inside: 'Camus A, 5 Rue Rampak, Paris'. He told me that Albert Camus was a famous French writer. This might have been his bag.

I must confess I have not read the work of Albert Camus, but, if I have his bag, I must put that right.

In a strange way it augurs well for my writing.

The Beginning / Looking Forward To The Past

The Beginning

Lewes Garret. This is my opening letter to you; the first blog of many. Friday, 2 June 2006 is an important day for me because it marks the launch of the Oliver's Poetry website - a window to my poetry and that of other people.

I plan to publish a new poem every week, illustrated by a photograph. Aspiring - and established - poets may also send in their poetry to reach a wider audience through the site.

So with all this going on, why am I writing a blog? Well, I want the website to be more than a resource for those who love poetry. I would like to put that poetry into context, to paint a word-picture of the world inhabited by this poet and his friends.

This blog is my diary; no more, no less. In its composition I have been particularly influenced and inspired by four people: Samuel Pepys, Auberon Waugh, Alan Clark, and Helen Fielding.

What this quartet have in common is that in their own remarkable ways - truthful, fictional or a blend of the two - they made diarising popular: riveting, enthralling, unputdownable reading. They made it seem real, even when it was not. I do not know if I will be able to match them. Perhaps it is foolhardy to even attempt it. But I will give it my best.

This blog is entitled Oliver's Poetry Garret and is largely written in two garrets - one in Lewes, East Sussex, and the other in Leamington, Warwickshire, UK.

It will differ from most blogs in that it will - simultaneously - go forward and backward in time. I shall explain. Today is ground zero, missive number zero, the alpha of this project, and the entry comprises a blog about the present and the future (which you are currently reading) and a backblog which begins to tell the back-story.

My subsequent posting will be a blog for 3 June 2006 and a backblog for 1 June 2006; the next up will be the blog for 4 June 2006 and backblog for 31 May 2006, and so on. Eventually the blog and backblog, although posted together, will be separated by years and tell very different stories about very different Olivers.

I want it to be honest, thought-provoking and entertaining. That's what Oliver's Poetry Garret is all about.
So let's roll! Enjoy!

Looking Forward To The Past (Friday, 2 June 2006)

Lewes Garret. 1.10pm. Lunchtime - and a break from the Day-Job.

On Fridays I work at home. The Day-Job is most busy - it never stops.

My back is bad today. As you will learn from these backblogs - if you come to follow them day after day - I slipped two discs in my back on Easter Sunday and have been in not inconsiderable pain ever since.

Despite performing many back exercises, visiting a chiropractor for five or six weeks and swallowing a wheelbarrow load of pills, the injury is showing little sign of abating.

I was truly immensely tired last night after my near-400 miles journey and Day-Job and website exertions.

I hope you will enjoy my Blogs and Flashbacks (Backblogs). The concept of Blogs will be something with which you are doubtless familiar. The Flashbacks are trickier because you are effectively reading a story backwards. All the same, I believe this will have its own special reward.