Where Was I?

I just got back from a few days in Brighton, which always seems to be in the grip of a heatwave whenever I'm there. Unless it’s Winter, in which case of course it’s in the grip of the opposite of a heatwave. So anyway, I went to see my kids, and to sit on the beach with them drinking beer and topping up my poet's tan, and otherwise not doing much. This was achieved with more or less one hundred per cent success. My youngest son, Andy, has just got back from six months in Costa Rica, so it was especially good to catch up with what’s been happening to him. And Tim and Charlotte have the most remarkably wonderful rabbits…

It was also delightful to spend a few hours with Lee Harwood. I met Lee for the first time when he read in Nottingham earlier this year. He lives around five minutes walk from Tim, so it was a kind of longstanding arrangement to try and hook up whenever I was in town. Last time I was there, he wasn’t. This time he was. And it was really nice… coffee, a walk along the promenade at Hove, and beer and a sandwich in the sun.

I took a couple of hefty books to Brighton with me… although I intended to do not much at all, I thought I might perhaps just possibly (at a stretch) read something. I’m supposed to be writing about Coleridge for "Poetry Nottingham", and about Jeremy Prynne for Stride. So I hauled along two big (and not at all light) books with me, and thought I might read something those times when I wasn’t with someone else. I had this idea of sitting quietly in the sun, with a cup of tea and a book… Did it happen? Did it fuck.





Oh, and there was an Elvis. And yes, he was crap.