Roddy Lumsden at Swindon Arts Centre Studio
Poems aloud, stolen poems, painted poems, Twitter poems, poems for dancing to and a poetic actress from ‘The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover’, Swindon Festival of Poetry is back for its second year and has had an amazing first day. Things kicked off at the Central Library where Hilda Sheehan encouraged all comers to share their favourite poems on the National Poetry Day theme of ‘Water‘ and beyond. Continue reading
1970’s labour relations came to Glastonbury at the end of my final shift. After 24 hours of straining the discarded delights of drunken revelers and with a jacket potato cooling in a tent ten minutes walk away our supervisor decided it was time for a full on capitalist crackdown. Continue reading
4. White bags
As anyone who has ever tried to slip a paper plate into a cheap condom will tell you, ‘it’s a thankless task’. The white biodegradable bags we have are similarly exempt from gracias. A mere look the wrong way and the bags slash open to spew soggy chips and mushy peas over a hardworking bin man’s wellies. Continue reading
3. Michael Eavis’ bin
Two brilliant things happened in the last five minutes of my shift today. Firstly we got chatting to a security guard and he let us take a sneaky cut through Worthy Farm itself, so I got a wonky photo of Michael Eavis’ bin which probably had a bin bag in it so it counts. Continue reading
2. My bin bag
It’s my bin bag again today, my bin bag I filled in the Stone Circle field at 7am this morning. This bag contains many things, some of them educational, some of them things I have learned about before. What would you expect to be in an eve of festival bin bag? Druids robes? Syringes? Michael Eavis comedy beards? Erotic cream? I can reveal that along with hundreds of beer cans, my bag contains dozens of little gas cylinders and deflated balloons, easily the commonest pick up apart from Stella Cidre and Blackthorn. Continue reading
1. Waitrose Bag – My tent
Let me explain, for a free ticket and free food I am collecting rubbish at Glastonbury. I’ve done it before, it’s everything you imagine and more and less and blimey what’s that? Continue reading
Swindon Festival of Literature reached its climax at the Town Hall with the annual Poems and Pints event. Continue reading
Jo Bell Workshop
Workshops, full of anvils, lathes and maybe a vice or two, unless it’s the last day of the twentieth Swindon Festival of Literature when it’s something else entirely. Continue reading
Fiona Sampson
Internationally acclaimed poet Fiona Sampson showcased her book. ‘Coleshill’ at the Arts Centre Studio. Continue reading
Festival Chronicle 