I discovered the poet John Clare in 1979, when the singer Kevin Coyne adapted his best-known poem ‘I Am’ on the wonderful ‘Dynamite Daze’ album. I bought his collected poems and read up on him. Easy to see why former mental nurse Coyne should be fascinated by a poet who spent the last 23 years of his life in Northampton’s lunatic asylum. Hard to understand why the Literature degree I was doing didn’t once mention Clare. But, for all the acclaim that he received in his day, as a labouring class or peasant poet, Clare’s modern popularity is relatively recent. The John Clare Society was only formed in 1981. Nottingham Trent University, where I teach part time, has two John Clare Lecture Theatres, but they…

Here’s the cover for the German translation of ‘The Pretender’, which will be published in hard cover next year by Kindler Verlag. Isn’t it cool? Evidently the German title means ‘The Swindler’, which is fine by me…

As we were driving back from our holiday in Scotland, a text arrived to tell us that our dear friend Stanley Middleton had died. He would have been 90 on Saturday. He was suffering from cancer and had been ready to go for several months. I visited him for the last time just before we left. He was in a nursing home, dying with the same dignity that he lived his life. There’s a fine obituary from his literary executor and former pupil Philip Davis here. Our mutual friend and publisher Ross Bradshaw has written a short memoir here. The photo on the left was taken at what I think was his last public appearance, at the launch for the new edition of his favourite…

12.05AM. Rich and I lose each other coming out of the Queen’s Head. He goes one way, I go the other, but five minutes, two texts and one call later, we’re reunited. Fran and Chris are off buying presents for my niece and nephew but rejoin us at half twelve. Amidst the steadily growing crowd of young folk gyrating round their handbags, we dance to Motown, then decide to return to the camper van. No security queue to get out this time and no urge on our part to head over to Trash City and the like. Which is a good thing, because at one, just as we’re all sat down inside the Hymer awning with wine, hipflask etc, the heavens open and a huge…

In the camper van, nobody is stirring. I head over to the next field and buy myself a bacon and egg bap with a mug of tea. The tea tastes disgusting, made with heavily fluoridated water, but the bap is brilliant. I ring my mate Rob over in the family field but fail to get through. So I head into the site and catch the end of the midday headliner on the main stage, Status Quo. In 1973 I had a ticket to see Status Quo and somebody nicked it from me (I know who, but there are libel laws). Thirty six years later, here they are playing ‘You’re In The Army Now’, which is a miserably bad song. Still, I get to hear them…