With spring fingering the Cotswold hills, Farncombe Manor is a great location for a creative writing course along with eight participants in search of their inner author. Not that we had time for more than a quick caper through the silver birch groves and banks of golden daffodils, we we were all too engrossed, over breakfast, through coffee breaks, and in the bar till nearly pumpkin-time, with writing and talking about writing. I don't know if it was the mix of personalities, the fluent interaction, the quality of writing, or all three, but this course was an absolute delight. So, many thanks Mike, Brian, Carolann, Diana, Amanda, Rosanna, Ian and David, for much mirth, many mmm moments, and a modicum of miscreancy. Missing you already...

"May contain strong language and adult themes" advises the entry ticket for bOX oF fROgs. I'd expect nothing less at these excitedly-anticipated (by me anyway) Word of Mouth poetry performances in Bristol Old Vic basement. Amphibian line-up comprised local favourites Byron Vincent and Nathan Filer with two voices new to me: A F Harrold, who eats squirrels - he isn't my cup of tea but says he isn't his either - and hilarious surrealist Rob Auton who uses props like peppers & plastic toys & sycamore leaves, and has a complicated relationship with God ("mainly because I exist and he doesn't".) Byron's emceeing is always studded with gems, and Nathan was on exuberantly spiffing form with an amazing saga inspired by that octogenarian documentarian David Attenborough and a dramatic scene involving sponges, crills, and Stephen Fry. Brilliant stuff.

Farncombe Estate in Worcestershire covers about 300 acres with stunning views across the Cotswolds, but my previous writers' groups there have been in winter so I've never appreciated this splendid setting to the full. I hadn't seen the lovely silver birch glade in full leaf or followed the nature trail through woods and wild flower fields. August Bank Holiday revealed more of the glorious surroundings to Conference Centre, now a buzzing hive for curious and creative course-goers.
Actually we were unusually un-buzzy this time: our twelve writers were the only participants, giving a curiously Miss Marple-like atmosphere to the big dining hall, a sense of being almost outnumbered by the attentive staff... However, undistracted by murder mystery possibilities, my group energetically engaged with an intensive 3-day programme of writing styles and techniques to adapt to their own themes and projects, producing some wonderful ideas and impressive pieces of writing. Diversity and mutual support are the key strengths for this kind of workshop, and this group was great at providing both.

And now it's September, officially autumn: we can no longer grumble at the ochre tinge on trees and verges or be surprised each day by chilly air. Instead we can enjoy being more pleasantly surprised by occasional mellow days with evenings warm enough to sit in the garden till midges call dusk curfew, as on my visit to my friend Diana in Bath. Diana is a writer & editor, and manages to find journalistic opportunities even in these difficult times when, as she puts it, many of us are 'time-rich' when we'd rather be 'time-poor'. "I don't want to be comfortable," she says "- I want to be resourceful." I agree. The risky edge is the place for writers.

Back in the day, photography was a big part of my life, both images and journalism....everything passes and everything changes, but I still keep a digi-snapper alongside notebook & pen in my bag at all times, and love the new exhibition of prints by Ed Thomas from Frome.tv at Divas - impact narrative in every shot.

Footling footnote of the week: always on the lookout for snappy reviews, was tickled the Radio1 verdict on Madonna’s directorial take on the Wallis Simpson story in her movie W.E: “It’s nice to have a hobby but if you bake cakes and they turn out terrible you should just eat them yourself - don’t press them on unsuspecting strangers”

Possibly I set a local, if not global, record for tissue consumption over the weekend at Farncombe Estate in the frozen Cotswolds. Despite my gleaming Rudolf-nose and struggling energy, my loyal and lively creative writers provided all the pzazz necessary for a terrific course. As a group mutually supportive, as individuals all genuinely interesting wordsmiths, here's the self-styled Glorious Residue - and what's not to love about a group that claims that title? We worked from 9.30 Saturday morning till 9.30 that night, and I left them in the bar still discussing each others' work and sharing readings with the singers...


Always good to see writer friends doing well - Christine Coleman spotted her new novel Paper Lanterns in a Waterstones window display with that 21st Century accolade of success: a 3 for 2 sticker - and in the happy company of literary leviathan Colm Tóibín, hardy-perennial Nick Hornby and queen mum of lit-chicks Maeve Binchy... or you could get 3 copies of Paper Lanterns and give two of your friends a great read.


December's Frome Poetry Cafe traditionally has a panto link, and as this year's christmas show at the Merlin is Peter Pan - my all-time favourite - the theme on Wednesday 8th is Winter Flights of Fancy. 'Tis the season for audience votes but we've bucked the trend and Nikki Bennett is coming from Bath to decide who gets the prize of 4 panto tickets for the most apt poem of the night. No Tory ex-Home Office ministers welcome, whether flying on wires or sailing on ice.

Friday's arrival at Farncombe was in fog as thick as junket, at the mph of a hesitant hedgehog. Such is the cosseting charm of the Cotswolds Conference Centre and Chris our ebullient host that by the time the 9 members of my writing course assembled together after supper, the drive-from-hell had slipped from our agenda: from that first session till we parted on Sunday this was an outstanding group, mutually supportive as well as creatively diverse.
Some great stories were germinated, and Saturday night was an especial delight, with thought-provoking and entertaining readings varying from Nick's droll morality tales to James's 'rumble in the jungle' honeymoon blog.


Back when Kate Winslet -who played the novelist in her wayward youth- was still reading Janet & John, I was avidly devouring the novels of Iris Murdoch. The film of her life was based on her husband's insensitive memoir and consequently paid scant tribute to her luminous literary talent. To my mind, the scandalising and sentimentalising of her life story was probably the reason there was no major retrospective review of her works, and I wrote as much in The Journal of the Society of Authors. I grieved for the downgrading of her reputation from clever philosopher to barmy bag-lady. "In his book of that name", I wrote, "Milan Kundura imagines two dead writers talking about immortality. Hemingway protests bitterly to Goethe that this is no honour but a cruel sentence: Our books will probably soon stop being read. But people will never stop prying into your life. I used to think that Ernest Hemingway, with his fearful homophobia and flaky sexuality, would forever be the leading example of this ironic truth, but poor belittled ‘Iris’ has left him far behind."
The serious retrospective review hasn't happened yet, but some of her letters have been published in a collection entitled Iris Murdoch, A Writer at War, and I'm interested that editor, Peter J Conradi, writes in The Times: "Dame Iris, in life so august, remote and intensely private, was in death unwittingly reduced to two opposed stereotypes: in vulgar language, bonking (younger Iris) or bonkers (elderly Iris). If you’re American: screwing or screwy. Both sensationalisms reduced her to gross physicality, bypassing and demeaning the one thing about her that was truly remarkable – the freedom of her mind."
If you're interested, I recommend The Bell, The Nice and the Good, and A Fairly Honourable Defeat. It's not too late...
..



February 2002

Back from a weekend at Cotswold Conference Centre, where views were sumptuous peachy autumnal colours despite November dankness. Nine writers, combining an abundance of good humour, generosity, enthusiasm and talent, produced a delightful diversity of work: lively discussions were frank and frequent. With better weather - and less demanding course commitment - it would be pleasant to walk for hours in this exquisitely landscaped estate, but the inventive range of writings shared was simply wonderful. Thanks all, especially for Saturday night's stories and poems - including a rewriting of Shakespeare's 18th sonnet as a lipogram minus the vowel 'e'.
As the bard himself would surely say, how cool is that?

Always enjoyable to visit the Rondo, Bath's smallest theatre, where their own local theatre company this week performed Jim (Little Voice) Cartright's first play, Road. It's Under Milk Wood, but set in an unspecified Northern town in 1987 with scally Scullery to take us into the hearths, hearts, and minds of those who live there. A brave, as well as largely entertaining & occasionally moving, production, which the 15 cast members clearly hugely enjoyed too.
Much of the speech is monologue, a dramatic technique I find fascinating as the audience is no longer voyeur but directly engaged and by inference implicated. Top moments for me were Tim Thornton's Skin Lad, and the strange, sad, savage dance to Otis Reading by Rob Dawson and Marc Delangri (I think, it's hard to decipher from the inscrutible grey programme). Oh, and the interval, with outrageous DJ Bisto (Tim Thorton again) calling the audience up to dance... how could we resist?

Cotswolds Conference Centre almost seems too comfortable for a Creative Writing course: warm rooms, free newspapers and constant coffee - don't real writers need an icy garret? or at least a draft and no choice of puddings. Apparently not; despite the indulgent surroundings of Farncombe Estate, my weekend group was brilliant, gelling easily and producing an inspiring range of styles and stories.
I drove home on a high, at least until the road disappeared in a sleet-storm that drowned out the radio and obliterated the landscape. It was as if all the local rivers, partially frozen, had reared up like pythons before shaking themselves back down to earth. Poor naked wretches that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and raggedness, defend you? a mentalist monarch with realm-rage might well have wondered.


Rehearsals for my plays in the On the Edge programme at the Alma Tavern Theatre begin this week and director Pameli Benham invited me to come along for the thrill & privilege of witnessing my words brought alive by professionals. The actors, Meg Whelan and Kirsty Cox, are both fabulous, morphing into their roles before my eyes and turning Pameli's diningroom into a Greek island terrace even with no sunshine spot or potted geraniums. My response to this empathetic interpretation was an intense desire to rewrite the entire play - or rather, to edit ruthlessly. I started extracting lines like they were prickly pear splinters. Exposition - Out! Repetition - Out! Gratuitous - obvious - cliché - out, out, out !!! Best fun I've had with my boots on all winter.
..