‘How does it start the sea has endless beginnings’ Alice Oswald has been, among other things, a priestess of water and its polyphonic, powerful emptiness for many years, so this ‘water-damaged’ version of various Homeric narratives might be her apotheosis. I can see myself returning many times…

🎲 I asked my wife if she was okay with spending Valentine’s Day playing #DnD with some close friends. ❤️ I think it’s accurate to say she insisted on it. 😊 love takes many forms… #tabletoplife #readerimarriedher

‘Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life’ 🥲 I wish that I had first come to the fantasy of Ursula K. Le Guin when I was a much younger man, but at any age these are masterpieces of fable-making: sweeping and also intimate, spare and also lush - all brilliance.

🙏 for anyone interested in human rights, peaceful protest and government overreach, this is enormous. ⚖️ this should be the moment for the government to change course; let this ban drop; and start considering how it can protect people’s rights rather than than criminalising them.

🎥 and now for the latest bucket of suds I’ve gotten myself into - an anthology from @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social 🙏 thanks to @aaronkent.bsky.social and @simonbarraclough.bsky.social for this opportunity! 📚 get your copy of ‘My Ear Is Full Of Milk’ now! www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page...

‘Heroism isn’t honest work… it offends normal people and frightens them…. It’s not the action of a friend to point out that your character is more heroic than mine.’ 🎸 I do find the back half of this play slower going, though I understand why it’s there. Not my favourite Stoppard but still good fun

🥊 knocks taken (and a few dealt) at Mickey’s - must try and do more boxing during the day when working from home! 🙌 out of January and still keeping this #resolution going. Baby steps…

“I didn’t know a nose could be deformed to that extent.” 😳 Just what you want to read before you open the case folder you’ve been sent marked ‘INJURY PHOTOGRAPHS’… #BarLife

💚 my heart genuinely soars seeing Hannah’s campaign take off in Gorton and Denton - Godspeed and good luck! Let’s #GetGreensElected

‘I had not only made him, but I had made him well enough that he created a work of so-called art. I felt like god considering Hitler…’ 😆 I have enjoyed the movie adapted from this novel, but in my view its particular brand of malevolent humour has more room to breathe here.

💚 I am *properly* excited to see where this campaign goes - congratulations to Hannah Spencer as she prepares to take the fight to the far right and get @greenparty.org.uk their fifth Commons seat!

😁 yup - still got the full set of teeth even after a night at Mickey’s! 🥊 Hopefully for all the punches I took tonight I threw out a few good ones of my own! Baby steps, baby steps…

‘To invent one’s self was to resist the inventions of others: to forge was to author.’ I have been drawn through Isabella Hammad’s dense novel slowly, and found not so much a moment of dazzlement as a continuous unfolding of something rich and intriguing. Definitely worth your time.

🕯️ keep the candle lit for human dignity, in a time of where we remember the darknesses of before, those who survived and those who did not. 🙏 On #HolocaustMemorialDay my thoughts go out to all those who live with the legacy of that atrocity, and my resolve is quickened to see it is never repeated.

Raja Shehadeh’s memoir of his trailblazing father, the lawyer and political activist Aziz, is as matter-of-fact in tone, but also wrenching in its melancholy power. Thinking now of Israel and Palestine, th imagined words of Aziz stay with me: ‘The only real victory is when we’ve both won.’

Help us make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now.

🥊 jogged my way into Mickey’s tonight after a late bus - at least my heart-rate was up to kick things off! ❤️‍🩹 definitely getting more experience getting whacked in the face - which I’m told is an important part of getting better! Still blunt as a rubber hammer, but getting sharper by degrees…

‘[T]ruth is no more at issue in an examination than thirst at a wine-tasting or fashion at a striptease.’ Now this play is over two decades old my feelings for it are - complex. It reads more like an awful warning than it used to, and has perhaps aged better for it. Worth it for even a few scenes.

Seems some Poetry Society members might just find this in their inbox today. So on the one hand… 😝 seriously? Carry water for that air-pollution factory… FOR FREE?? What self-respecting poet would ever do it? On the other hand… Someone has an image problem. And knows it. 😉 #CloseCityAirport

🍃 as much as I had the wind in my face today, for @greenparty.org.uk it’s at our backs! ✊really pleased to get out and about with Rob Callender of @newhamgreens.bsky.social today. 🗳️find your next local party action day and let’s #getgreenselected in 2026! join.greenparty.org.uk

✉️ special delivery from @hackneygreenparty.bsky.social 💚 delighted to be back out for some leafletting - 2026 is going to be a big year for @greenparty.org.uk and @zoegarbett.bsky.social 🗳️ want to help? Find your local party and their next action day! #getgreenselected join.greenparty.org.uk

🥋 first #shorinjikempo session of the New Year at the Acton Dojo! 🙏 the goal for this year is to obtain my second dan grade (ie. second-degree black belt) at the European Taikai at the end of July. Got a ways to go yet but I’d call this a good start! ✊ikuzo!

👑’The state of lunacy and the state of monarchy share a frontier.’ 😏 being a republican I do cringe a bit at some of Bennett’s more sentimental portrayals of the theatre of monarchy (for which the stage at least is a good medium), but this remains a compelling mingling of farce and horror.

👏 alright @areeq.bsky.social nice one! Looking forward to working with @newhamgreens.bsky.social to make you our next Mayor in this Borough!

🥵 on the upside - you don’t really feel the cold anymore, even when the hall at Mickey’s Boxing Gym is so chilly you can see your breath while you train! 🥊 still only two lessons in and a *long* way from being a contender, but keeping going! See you all next week…

🌍 renewing my resolve with this sharp anthology of #ecopoetry from Valley Press. 📢 there are times when I wonder if the best poetry can offer is comfort as the world gets hotter - but it remains a vital human tool, for reasons beyond advocacy alone. 💚 with love for the movement everywhere.

I once got drunk and made the mistake of comparing Iris Colomb’s work with that of James Joyce. I may well have now paid for my insolence in seeing a copy of ‘Ulysses’ turned into a string of beads… For real, go see Iris’ exhibition at the National Poetry Library before Sunday - well worth a look!

‘You are you, and more… You are you, and less.’ Reading Darwish in translation, especially in a work as elliptical, allusive (and elusive) as this one, is a bit like Jacob wrestling with the Angel - tiring at times, maddening at others, but worth it for moments of sweet revelation.

🥊 well, that’s one resolution off to a good, sweaty start at Mickey’s Boxing Gym in East Ham! 🥵 yours truly here pictured before and after. Got a *very* tall hill to climb, but frankly I consider it a minor miracle to go the whole session without throwing up - and I will be back next week!

🙏 starting as we mean to go on - with love, with poetry, with the public good, and the connections between them. 🧡 very happy to have closed out last year with an entry in this anthology from @renardpress.com - get your copy at the link below. renardpress.com/books/interw...

Turn resolutions into change. join.greenparty.org.uk

🃏 so I have learned that I am rubbish at Gwent - of 4 matches played I have won 1 of them. Geralt would be ashamed. 🧀 still - no ache that cannot be soothed with a platter of cheese and wine, in the finest traditions of Toussaint. 🍷 #HappyNewYear

🥂 it has been a *rough* year for many of us, I know. And yet looking back, I still cherish what I have gleaned from reading and from living, and am looking with eagerness to the year that will come. ✊ love and solidarity everyone - #happynewyear

😮‍💨 some reflections on the end of a year that has been *very* challenging, for me and for many others. 🙏 in spite of it all, I do feel good. And weirdly enough, hopeful about the coming year. #HappyNewYear from me to you. timkielypoetry.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/s...

😏 I mean, you were going to get my attention with a title like that. 🧘‍♂️ While I am not quite persuaded by Home’s thesis that *all* modern postural practice and fascism are essentially one, I commend his directness and lucidity. His account of the hucksterism behind many modern ‘gurus’ is bang on.

‘’And what did you do in the Great War?’. ‘I wrote ‘Ulysses’,’ he said. ‘What did you do?’ Bloody nerve.’ 😁 This remains my favourite Tom Stoppard play, especially after seeing the Patrick Marber production in 2017, and my wife made me VERY happy with this Christmas present!

😤’One seldom was able to do her a good turn without some thoughts of strangulation.’ 😮‍💨 rather him than me. But while the benefits of allowing a raving elderly theo-fascist to take up residence in your garden are hard to quantify, on the strength of this I’d say services to writing at least!

The Guardian accused me of hubris because I dared post at 3pm. The Calais Appeal donations are shooting up. Maybe the King might like to donate too? Or maybe the Government could actually implement a fair & managed migration system? A Christmas miracle!

🙏 thank you @zackpolanski.bsky.social for delivering a #ChristmasMessage that I can be excited for, and believe in. 💚 for all who celebrate and all who do not - we could all use more kindness in 2026, and @calaisappeal.bsky.social welcomes all donations. #MerryChristmas youtu.be/lopMMkz0law?...

😁 always important to dress for the occasion… 💚 #MerryChristmas everyone!

The Christmas story begins with a family forced to flee violence and seek safety elsewhere. That memory calls us to stand with today’s migrants and refugees, and to choose welcome over fear as we work toward a more just and caring world.

🍷 as a good friend said - “may your demons slumber and your wine glass be full.” 🎄 got pierogi, got barszcz, got babka, got booze; everything needed for a good #wigilia ⭐ #wesołychswiąt all!

It would take a peculiar kind of blindness to not see the parallels between the story of Christmas and the stories of human desperation in Calais. You can give to the @calaisappeal.bsky.social Winter Fundraiser below. #merrychristmas all, and #solidarity www.justgiving.com/campaign/tog...

🎵’The music of the spheres is heard distinctly over Milk Wood. It is ‘the Rustle of Spring’’. 😁 I have waited far too long to lose myself in the fizzing music of Dylan Thomas. Now, on day 1 of the holidays proper, I am putting it right. 🙌 all the epic energy of a small town’s life is in its words.

🎶 been a while since I had a bit of carolling to start the holidays proper - and the Force 10 Big Band playing at St. Peter’s in Hartshorne did not disappoint! 👏

⚖️ I wrote a piece for Solicitors Journal. ‘Jury trials are not responsible for our current backlog… Any attempt to recoup sitting days by removing them… would be tackling the problem from the wrong end.’ ✍️ write to let your MP know and #DefendJuryTrials www.solicitorsjournal.com/sjarticle/ju...

😁 ooooh, I’m dreaming of a Green Christmas… 💚 come be part of a genuinely hopeful alternative to the managed decline of the old parties and the spiteful clownery of the far-right. We’re waiting for you! join.greenparty.org.uk

✍️New column! From supporting those with HIV to live well, to prevention and testing, Brighton is at the forefront of the mission to end new HIV transmissions by 2030. With the incredible work of @tht.org.uk in our city, 2030 is feeling very achievable. www.theargus.co.uk/news/2567534...

☀️’Light will soon slice / through the blinds. / Lemons will roll across the floor. / Everything will be unbroken.’ 😌 the wry charms of Mark Fiddes make for a very pleasant, restorative trip through the foibles of our present, much-travestied, meaning-bothered age. Worth picking up!

🇵🇱 back in #gdańsk for a bit and taking in the #jarmarkswiateczny - Stare Miasto is thrilling as usual! #christmas