On May 8th 2010, the University of Nottingham will host a celebration of the life of one of its most widely respected alumni, the novelist Stanley Middleton. The Booker Prize winning author died in July 2009, a week short of his 90th birthday. The celebration will include live music, readings from Stanley’s novels, poems and unpublished letters, together with short talks on his life and work. I’ll be introducing the event and talking about Stanley’s life. Like Stanley, but 40 years later, I’m a UoN alumni. The other speakers and readers will be Professors Philip Davis and John Lucas, critic Paul Binding, publisher Ross Bradshaw, poet Sue Dymoke, writers Barry Cole and Tamar Hodes, together with Stanley’s grandson, Matthew Lymn Rose and his granddaughter, Beth…

Every year for the last 21 years, we’ve sent a CD or cassette containing our favourite music of the year (strict rule, it has to be from the last 12 months) to our music loving friends, and if you’re one of them, you might want to look away from this blog until your copy arrives. We start posting them Monday, to catch the last post to Canada, China and (hopefully, Nicola!) Australia. For the last few years, I’ve also posted a few sleeve notes on this blog, writing one a day up to new year. I’ll be posting every day, except when we’re away. So, without any further ado, let’s begin. 1. The Fear – Lily Allen Dislike for her dad, combined with endless copyists,…

I made my second visit to the new Nottingham Contemporary gallery this week and it confirmed my impression from their opening party. It’s a very intelligent use of the available space with good sized, interestingly shaped galleries and some interesting, quirky aspects. In the high winds, the path up the hill it is carved into was closed off. A shame. I still haven’t seen the outside properly in daylight, but that’s November for you. Over 6,000 people visited on their first weekend, with massive queues, so it looks like the place is already a hit with the people of Nottingham. I was there for the first public event at the gallery, which, I’m pleased to say, was a poetry reading, with the poets Gregory Woods,…

Here’s ‘That Other Blue Song’, only the second new song that Leonard has played on his extended comeback tour. This is its third performance, recorded in Durham, US (to hear the first two, go here). The only other new song played is Lullaby. My other entries about LC are here & here.

Nottingham Playhouse’s production of ‘Our Man In Havana’ opens tomorrow and plays Nottingham before touring. Below is an article I wrote about Greene, Nottingham and my novel ‘The Pretender’. The article (along with interesting pieces about Havana and working with Greene) can be found in the programme for the play, which I’m going to see next week. When Graham Greene arrived in Nottingham, he was an Oxford graduate, just turned 21, who wanted to be a journalist. He hoped that a brief spell as a trainee subeditor on the Nottingham Journal would stand him in good stead for a post in London. On November 1st, 1925, he moved into lodgings on Hamilton Road in Forest Fields. ‘When I read Dickens on Victorian London,’ he wrote…