Is Anybody Out There?

It's so yonks since I got around to writing this, ain't it just? Last night, I played the Coachmakers in Hanley (what a great little boozer it is and they're gonna knock it down, the tow rags, just like they knock everything and everyone down that's any good) with ACW Fenn, mandolinist to the blissful, and he nagged me about failing to keep blogging. I am self-evidently NOT a natural born bloggist. Is it possible to be a 'natural born' at any such construct???



Writing in a blog about something that I have just done seems fairly irrelevant to me. I mean, why would I care? It done and gone. Even more, why would you care? The only justification would seem to me is if it was used as a creative vehicle in poetry or prose - which certainly could happen with a blog although I doubt that I am committed enough, or bloggist enough, to pull that one off. Come to think of it, I don't think I have read any blog that has pulled that one off. Come to think of it, I don't think I have read any blog.



It was my intention to keep a meticulous account of my days as Cheshire Poet Laureate. Coffee has that effect on me. It makes me think that you and I are different people altogether. I only drink tea now and my plans for myself are far more realistic. I will no longer keep up the pretence of writing a continual coherent narrative. I shall only post what ever falls out of the ends of my fingers on the qwerty. Actually, mine is not a qwerty any more, but a qwfty. It's turned Welshy through wfar and tfar.



What I shall attempt to do very soon is put things right with a few poets who contributed to the 'Homage to Cheshire' I allegedly edited. Anne Sherman of the Arts Service steadfastly refused to allow me to see the page proofs of the CCC publication (and more of this later in connection with my collection 'Somewhere in the Night' which I disown as being unrepresentative of my work). Consequently, there was no proper proof reading or final editing carried out. Naturally, errors got though - which is exactly what showing page proofs to authors and editors is designed to prevent. Some of the errors originated with me, some with the printer or whoever(?). They could have all been put right before publication had A.S. observed the usual courtesies and procedures. I apologise to the offended authors and hope to publish their poems in corrected form on this screen any day soon.



There is a whole big ageist thing going on with MMU Cheshire and me, too. Grey is the new black, don't you know? I will give you the low down on all of that. I have booked an appointment with the Dean on Tuesday morning, to get stuff said to me, face to face, instead of having rumours and facts whispered to me in corridors and encoded in doublespeak and liptrick in emails. I am happy to tell you straight away that my students, unasked by me, have been wonderful in their support of my cause. They really have been fantastic about it. And, so too, have been members of the Writing staff. It is in gratitude and respect for them as well as for myself that I determined to see the thing through and hopefully bring some integrity and commonsense back into play in the thinking of the MMU Cheshire policy-makers.



But, right now, I have remembered I have a few cans in the kitchen. NOT in the frig, you understand? Why the hell would anybody want to drink icecold ale? All right, in Oz you would, but you'd want to drink it inside the frig there, wouldn't you?



This blog, you and I, have officially lost out to three or four speckled hens. Adios.