"We often talk about the indignity of being reduced to a number. But we rarely speak of the comfort of being counted up."

Lots to look forward to at Winchester Poetry this October! Rimbaud, Benson, Arshi, Rich, Edward Thomas, the prophet Jonah and many, many other exciting poets will all be there, in various guises...👇 I will also be wandering around trying to be helpful.

Adverbs here objectively bad, split infinitives I've never understood the fuss.

As someone once said, autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful (great reporting).

These are all very good, but the only author to read on holiday is Eric Ambler.

ChatGPT would have hammed it up. So much better with this sort of story just to stack up the facts.

This Q feels so much more instructive than standard polling given how far out we are from an election... suggests every party has a similar ceiling... odd we don't see it more often... almost as if...

Practically maybe, financially definitely...

'fish' is a darkly funny novel that explores the disintegration of an East London flatshare when a tadpole moves into one of the rooms. The fish at first is friendly, but tenants begin to fear he harbours of a secret. Tensions rise against the backdrop of the UK housing crisis.

Great use of rhyme in this poem by Joyce Carol Oates

I really love suburban van Gogh.

"A poem’s politics can’t be neatly deduced from its formal surface, or a poet’s politics from her chosen verse style." Thankfully the myth Allen skewers here hasn't completely taken hold in the UK. Yet.

Niche travel advice request. Do you have a favourite German Hanseatic town? We are going from Sassnitz to Hamburg and want to stop on the way. Bonus points for things to do with toddlers.