I’ve just submitted my blog for One Day In History, the mass blog about what people were up to three days ago. You can submit until October 30th and doubtless it’s searchable. But here’s a bit of what I wrote. I went to the first in a season of poetry readings organised by my close friend, poet, publisher and critic, John Lucas. The Flying Goose Café only seats a couple of dozen people and John fills it several times a year. Tonight, there were three poets: my NTU colleague Catherine Byron, John Hartley Williams from Berlin and Peter Porter, from London and Australia. When I was teaching Peter’s poems, twenty years ago, I never imagined that we would become friends, but he was, until last…

I’ve just begun a semester’s research leave from my university teaching job, so have no excuse not to do various things I’ve been putting off, like for instance, sorting out my myspace account, which I set up a year ago but never got round to filling in properly. So if you want to read about my interests, see a recent photo, find out how old I am and all that kind of stuff, head over there now. You can also email me via that site. The linked email on this site will bounce back with an autoreply, but I will be checking it from time to time. I’ve also loaded iTunes 7 onto my mac and iPod. I love the big rotating jukebox display that…

Our first full day back, and we’ve just been over to Stanley and Margaret’s to collect the carful of pots that Margaret has been watering for us and which, despite the heatwave, are in better condition than when we left them. Stanley, who was 87 on Tuesday, gave us a copy of his new book Mother’s Boy, published today. So that’s the next novel I’ll read. Here, as promised, are the books I’ve just devoured during long days in France (along with, as usual, a vast pile of New Yorkers and TLSs) in roughly the order in which I read them. E.L.Doctorow – The March I’ve not previously been very interested in the American Civil War, but Doctorow’s one of the handful of novelists who…

Short notice, but the Nottingham launch for Five Leaves Publications’ ‘In The Frame’, a collection of short stories by East Midlands Young Adult Fiction authors, is this Thursday (July 6th) in the Cecil Roberts room at Nottingham Library on Angel Row from 4.30 for an hour or so, admission free. There’ll be brief readings from Gwen Grant, Lynne Markham, Linda Kempton and yours truly, plus q and a. This’ll be the last post until August, when I’ll do my holiday reading round up. While I’m away, why not check out Jarvis Cocker’s new myspace site? This has a terrific streaming song about Live8 but, be warned, it is not office (or child) friendly:). You can listen to or download T.D.Riesart’s terrific noir country album Alahee…

I did my first (and, for about twelve years, only) radio interview with Trevor Dann on Radio Nottingham back when I was the nineteen year old editor of the Nottingham University students’ union newspaper. Next month, at Lowdham Book Festival, I’ll be belatedly returning the favour, when I introduce his talk on Nick Drake (see below). In the meantime, here’s the promised review of his fine book about Nick Drake. This appears in the first issue of Nottinghamshire Books Quarterly, out today, and appears here by permission, for those outside its circulation area. DARKER THAN THE DEEPEST SEA The Search For Nick Drake by Trevor Dann Portrait 17.99 Nick Drake means a lot to me. In 1974 I risked 50p on an anonymous white label…