Burning the Heartwood
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On waiting and waiting rooms
I think about medical matters lots, and not just because I am a hypochondriac. My sole scientific qualification is an A level in biology (my degree was in philosophy and literature) but in my twenties I worked for a charity fighting for compensation for those with industrial diseases such as asbestosis. Around that time, one…
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The wizard and the birdcage
It has been a while since I updated this blog. I like to lead a double life, and my commercial work with my favourite art director Keith Hardy has taken up lots of my time and energy. Luckily, I have made time to continue to present and produce the Planet Poetry Podcast with my pal…
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Learning by listening
Recently my conceptual copywriter alter ego has been roughly shaken awake and made to get on with some work for a change. After a year of freelancer’s famine, I have been scrambling to manage a weird glut of work over the last couple of months. Not having to commute allows me the odd stolen hour…
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Jazz Baby
So here is your humble blogger as a young hepcat. My parents were in their teens when I was born in October ’59. My father, last glimpsed by me when I was five, worked for a while as a policeman. My mother had served coffee at Ronnie Scott’s club in its earliest days and was…
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Twice is a charm
Merry Christmas! With 2020 heading for the dustbin of history, I’m beginning to take stock of what has been — at the very least — a year of thwarted plans. However, it has forced me to innovate a little. And one of the best innovations was starting the Planet Poetry podcast with Robin Houghton. The…
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It’s uncanny – Tess Jolly and Krishan Coupland on Planet Poetry
Robin and I have just uploaded the latest episode of Planet Poetry. This one dabbles in the Uncanny, and is an overlap in the Venn diagram of my interests, with my interests in dark fiction and black comedy. Tess Jolly has cropped up severally in this blog. I have always been a fan of Tess’s…
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Zoom launches, Planet Poetry, and a spot of horror
England is in its second day of its second national lockdown. The outcome of the US Presidential Election is on a knife edge, but I know readers of this blog will have lain awake at night wondering what on earth has Peter Kenny been doing? Yesterday Robin Houghton and I — the Smashy and Nicey…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 