A New Poem...

... up on the Caught By The River site.

Beatnik x Macbeth...

... equals an event on Sunday night where I will be reading some poems from 7.50. There's going to be fine music as well, and a whole bunch of other stuff happening. Here is the website of the good people putting it on. I believe there is some kind of Facebook event thing as well. See you there.

Here are a couple of photographs of the bar from Tuesday, courtesy of Danny Mitchell.
Cheers, Danny...

Sideshow Review

Great review of the Sideshow exhibition here from Amelia's Magazine.

Last Night

Great evening. Had an absolute blast, thanks to everyone for coming down.
Anyone who might ever read this and wasn't there, I'll be posting some photos and a couple of the poems as well, once I eaten my hangover off.

Also, check out the Yarn website, and go to The Social and see the exhibition, the drawings are really great.

The End

I had been working there for a couple of years when it started. One day I was writing something. I can't remember what it was. Maybe an email or maybe a letter. Anyway, my head had been feeling very heavy on my neck in the mornings for a few days. My neck felt like it was made of plasticine, and thin, so that the huge weight of my head was making the neck loll around, out of my control. It would break soon, I thought, and the head roll to the floor. Peace at last. Then the next day it was worse. I felt faint, and I couldn't focus on the screen in front of me, and then, in the corner of my vision, I saw a movement on the desk. I looked straight ahead, and again - a shifting, oozing mass of black snakes was manifesting itself right at the edge of my desk. I could not turn my head towards them to look, but I could see the mass, moving over and under and on top of one another, more like one constantly slithering puddle of SNAKE than multiple, individual reptiles. The mass was oil black, like the feathers of a starling, iridescent with green and purple flashes when the light fell on it a certain way. It shone against the dull black paint of my desk, which was no black at all. This was black, I realized - yielding into the air all colours at once, and yet yielding none. The mass began to grow in size, swallowed the phone, the pot of pens, the rubber bands. I moved slightly to my left, dragging my keyboard away from the reach of the thing. Still I could not look. A girl who worked across from me was watching. She had a look of disgust on her face. Of fear. I had not spoken to anyone at work for a good few weeks. Not since I had been late one day and then later on forgotten to fasten or zip up my trousers after going to the toilet. I came back to my desk with everyone looking at me. I had leaked down my front, and I was hanging out as well. I could have sworn I'd put it back in the pants, at least. I had been drunk the night before, and had insulted another member of THE TEAM. The daggers were out for me. And now these fucking snakes. I'm finished here.

Cuts and crackdowns...

Reading about the Immigration Minister's plans to "crackdown" on bogus students from non-EU countries coming to stay in the UK and insisting that research has revealed "unpleasant" abuse of the system. How are we supposed to decode the use of that word?
It's a worrying use of a very, very loaded word in the context given. I can't honestly say my experience of life in general, or at college needed any kind of crackdown. I find myself wondering exactly what people like Damian Green actually see when they walk down the road? Presumably the streets around Whitehall and Westminster are even more full of white, British people than the ones I walk on, which seem pretty full of white, British people to me.

I found this word curious as well... "That's clearly an area where the current system is too generous."

Generosity seems to be the one thing this coalition is intent on showing absolutely no sign of. Unless you are a banker, of course.