Tonight's videos

A driver's view of Tower Bridge 22:40, 28 May 09

Then I discovered the phone should be held the other way up...

On the way back from the London Irish Centre. The evening was somewhat formal. Mostly. Not so much fun as The Poetry Café. The room was gloomily lit, readers having to stand next to a standard lamp to see their scripts. I had no impulse to take photographs, though I was prepared to. Gale was reading — several we had heard before or were in the Hospital Booklet; The Worm, The Builder, Birthday, The Housekeeper... Most female readers were reading sombre stuff about failed love affairs or marriages and death. Two of these lady poets claimed a student link with Michael Donaghy.

The contrast came with Tristan Hazell who read some very funny pieces, and we in the back row (Pippa, John and myself) were spluttering with laughter. There should have been some less restrained audience response, but apparently their mood was fixed and there was barely a titter.

Then to finish they went totally Irish with an Irish poet called Tim Cunningham who had a lovely accent but his Irish historical references were meaningless to the english, so a lot of his stuff went over my head.

The Poems were framed by a duo of Penny Whistle and Fiddle, in the Irish manner, with a few equally dour songs and one or two jiggy pieces that had me exercising my buttocks on the chair in time to the music. It relieved the tedium of sitting through the sad stuff.