I’ve just returned from one of those holidays you need a holiday to recover from (long story, but it involved a huge amount of driving, breakdowns, a blow-out and never knowing where you would be the next day), so my holiday reading was less wide ranging than usual. I usually get through a balanced set of books, from crime to literary fiction and poetry, but this time the closest I got to literary fiction was a handful of stories in the New Yorker, of which I had many issues saved up. The best ones were by Jennifer Egan in the pictured issue and Tessa Hadley. I was impressed by Alison Moore’s long story The Pre-War House on my Kindle (I’d taken her Booker long-listed The Lighthouse…

I missed this year’s Bruce Springsteen tour, partly because I’m not very keen on massive stadium gigs, though I did get down the front for Bruce at Glastonbury. Wasn’t too bothered, as I’ve seen him ten times before, but I wish I’d been to the show his band played at Helsinki on the last day of last month. The legend always had it that Bruce played four hour sets, but they usually came in nearer three. At Helsinki, however, he played for four hours and five minutes. AND he played an unannounced 25 minute acoustic set for early arrivals. Recordings, needless to say, circulate. This seems the most appropriate track to feature, from the encores that night, a cover of Southside Johnny & The Asbury…

A slightly extended version of my review for the Nottingham Post. Nottingham has waited 35 years for Scritti Politti. None of the band’s previous incarnations, from do-it-yourself post-punk to neo-soul success, have toured heavily. Singer/songwriter Green Gartside suffers from crippling stage-fright. An approximation of the current line-up produced the excellent White Bread, Black Beer album in 2006.   Green’s already played Nottingham once this year, in the Sandy Denny tribute, where he seemed confident and sang wonderfully. Perhaps, at a youthful 57, he’s ready for us. Or perhaps not.   ‘Are you alright? Because I’m terrified. Thank you for coming,’ he begins. ‘Good night.’   The band kick off with classic ‘Sweetest Girl’. Five years ago, when I saw the new incarnation at Sheffield’s Leadmill,…

It’s fifteen years since I last attended a Crime festival. Why? I was spoiled, in that, for several years we had Shots On The Page here in Nottingham – in 1995, we had Bouchercon, too, a rare honour. In 1997, I MCed a huge launch for the anthology I’d edited, City Of Crime, in a Council House ballroom packed with crime writers. Hard to follow that. I stopped writing YA crime novels soon afterwards. The market had changed, thanks to Harry Potter, and I was ready for a change, too. But last year I published my first crime novel for adults, Bone and Cane, and this year Mark Billingham was kind enough to invite me to host a table at the Theakston’s Old Peculier crime writing festival. In…

This is a much extended version of my review for the Nottingham Post. After two hours forty fun-filled minutes with Elvis Costello’s Spectacular Singing Songbook at the Royal Concert Hall on Saturday night (highlight, the revived, relevant again, ‘Tramp The Dirt Down’), I was back for a show the same length. In the balcony this time, rather than my favourite spot – the middle of the fifth row – and with a twenty minute interval. The show started so promptly (7.30!), we missed the opening remarks. Each of the acts was introduced by Andrew Batt who put the tour together and also worked on all the recent sandy re-issues including compiling and mixing the 19cd boxset. All credit to him, but I’m not sure this…