I’m appearing on the free Saturday at this year’s Lowdham Book Festival, the twelfth and second since they lost Arts Council funding. Despite the reduced funds they have a terrific line up. My only complaint is that all my mates are on at the same time. For, while I’m in a marquee with Karen Campbell and Danuta Reah, talking crime you could also be watching John Lucas talk about his brilliant 50’s memoir, John Clark discussing his wonderful graphic novel Depresso (which I wrote about last year), or poet Greg Woods launching his new collection.  I won’t be in the least offended if you don’t come and see me.   Before that, on Monday, in St Mary’s Church, there’s the first ever East Midlands Book…

The third Arctic Monkeys album, ‘Humbug’, was a disappointment, and the gigs accompanying them were too. Unless, perhaps, you were stood at the very front. The band seemed unable to adapt to playing in arenas. The set was badly structured, with too many plodding rockers. Sheffield’s finest seemed determined to eliminate a large part of the audience they’d built up. After seeing this brilliant gig in 2007, I’d dragged my partner along to see them at Nottingham Arena. She was severely underwhelmed, as was I. So why am I going to see them again, in my hometown, in a huge tent, a week tonight? Because it’s a big Sheffield event, sure, but also because their new album Suck It And See, out on Monday, is…

My friend Paul Violi died the Sunday before last. I knew that he was deathly ill, with cancer of the pancreas and liver, but only heard last night. Paul’s illness was diagnosed just three months ago and he kept it quiet until near the end, but at least there was time to write and say goodbye. I first met Paul eighteen years ago, when he was on tour here with Kenneth Koch. Martin Stannard was organising the tour and set up a Radio Nottingham reading for Paul, which is where we met. As I recall, they came to dinner afterwards. Later, Paul and his wife, Ann, stayed with us in our new home in Sherwood. Paul visited the UK solo once or twice as well.…

Contemporary’s café-bar is rammed for a historic reunion. There are plenty of half remembered faces in the crowd. Wasn’t that guy in Some Chicken? Aren’t they Fatal Charm? Most of the crowd are, like the band, into their fifties. The rest are here to see what they missed first time round. This is the band’s first gig since 1980. When Gaffa take the stage at nine, the years roll back. Lyricist Wayne Evans is on bass and vocals. John Maslen, who wrote the music, plays guitar and keyboards. Youngest original member and co-writer, Clive ‘Myph’ Smith, on guitar, is about to become a grandad (sorry, from where I was standing, I couldn’t fit Myph into shot, but you get half of him in the distorted…

Weekends don’t get much better than this. First, a terrific launch for my new novel, Bone and Cane, at Antenna on Friday night. Many thanks to everyone who came, and special thanks to the Antenna staff and everyone at Tindal Street Press, who organised it so superbly. Thanks to Mike TD for the photo above. I got to choose all the music, coming off from the Q and A to a great song about Nottingham, City Sickness by Tindersticks. On Saturday, the new album by my favourite band, REM, arrived early, and it sounds really good. Then, in the evening, we went to a packed Nottingham Contemporary, where Nottingham’s best band of the 70’s, Gaffa, reunited for the first time since 1980. It was a…