John Osborne - Radio Head

Tour blog. Day 1.

2012-02-01T14:20:00.009Z

Tonight I start touring my show John Peel’s Shed. I’m going to write a blog on every day of the tour. I know lots of people say that kind of thing when they start out on something like this and don’t get past Day 3, but I’m going to try and still have this running by the last date in Penzance on March 17th. It won’t be interesting, but it’ll be thorough.

My first date is Hull. I went to see my first ever gig in Hull, at the ice skating arena, Blur supported by Super Furry Animals. I’ve also seen Space in Hull, so it doesn’t hold entirely positive gig memories. I’ve been really nervous about this for the last few days, but as I’ve been back at my mum and dad’s since yesterday I’m much more relaxed. Life is much easier once your mum has made you a casserole and your dad is driving you places.

The last thing I had to do in Norwich before I left for my tour was present my Future radio show.

Normally this is something I do every Tuesday with writer, wit and Guinness drinker Tim Clare, but because of his work commitments I was left alone this week. This meant I didn’t really talk that much, I just played loads of good songs, any radio show that starts with Roxy Music is doing something right. I played The Specials, Blur, The Kinks, Pixies, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads. It was so much fun, and also it really sunk in how important Future Radio has been to me. It was when researching my book Radio Head I first visited the station, and gradually became more and more involved, recording my own show called John Peel’s Shed in 2010. It was after listening to those shows that Tom Searle of Show+Tell suggested trying to turn it into a live show, and since then it’s been at Edinburgh, on Radio 4 and is now about to be toured around the UK.

My phone broke a couple of days ago, so until my replacement arrives I’ve been using my crappy replacement one. It doesn't even have predictive text. The last time I used it was when my phone broke in the first week of last year’s Edinburgh, so I’ve been having a nostalgic scroll of my inbox and sent messages from what was one of the most fun months of my life - all of them planning things Edinburgh related; drinks at the Pleasance, climbing Arthur’s Seat, telling people I’d go and see their show and then the next text an apology for not going.

I was so nervous before my shows in Edinburgh I spent most of my time playing the Formula 1 game on the phone. I’ve been playing that this morning. I’ll probably play it in my dressing room in Hull, 20 minutes before I’m due to start when there are a hundred more useful things I should be doing. My highest score is 97.

Have a look here for full details of the tour.

Chris Morris cancels the Radio 1 news.

2012-01-12T23:47:00.002Z

The New Blur Album

2012-01-01T23:16:00.005Z

Here's a review for my 2011 poetry pamphlet The New Blur Album, published by Nasty Little Press. You can read it in full on the Sphinx website, a comprehensive reviews service for poetry pamphlets with each pamphlet reviewed by three people.

Charlotte Gann:

This short sweet collection from John Osborne is really good fun. It’s an easy read, not a word out of place—a poetic Nick Hornby for the next generation. The formula seems simple: humour, with a pinch of pathos, perfectly scanned, and away you go. But it is really good fun—and I could have happily read three times the number of poems at one sitting, chortling away to myself.

Osborne’s jokes are funny—if, at times, well worn (I found the jilting-girlfriend theme a tad hackneyed, for instance). But his work throughout is immaculately executed. It’s generously packed with contemporary references to popular culture, jokes, and flights of wonderfully imagined fancy—like this, from ‘A go home moment’:

......Maybe hailstones will start smashing through the pub ceiling
......more biblical than Moses.
...... 'Follow me!' someone will say, running outside,
......climbing down a manhole cover
......and they’ll all gather in a nuclear bunker
......and see the Mayor in full regalia,
......local celebrities playing computer games on beanbags.
......'Were you followed?' the Mayoress would ask,
......taking drinks orders.

More than once I thought I’d reached the end of a poem, only to turn the page and find, with real pleasure, there was plenty more where that came from.

Some of the pieces moved me. My favourites included ‘Pages from Ceefax’ (“‘Let’s all quit Facebook!’ I type as my status update”), ‘A go-home moment’, and ‘Ambition is like a bumbling tourist guide’:

......'. . . I’m pretty sure if we take a shortcut through this field . . .'
......The man next to me tells me he was almost an airline pilot
......as we wade through the muddy grass,
......but he failed the final exam

‘The admin of being PM’, on the other hand, left me rather colder: though perfectly well turned, it seemed to exist simply for the sake of its one central joke. That said, ‘Frozen’ made me laugh out loud, an experience I very much enjoyed while sitting reading a poetry pamphlet.

I’d definitely recommend this little book, with its 14 eloquent poems. I loved its look and feel too, and almost-pocket format, although I was a little interrupted by a couple of typos, including one in the very first poem.

Ross Kightly:
This one comes in a curiously-sized format, not quite half of A5, and it has a nice feel in the hand—though its compactness does mean the print is rather small on the attractive yellow paper.

Enough of the carping: this is a fine collection combining many virtues: humour combined with pathos, plus effective characterisation, all demonstrated in the first poem 'Surprise' which also displays another of the collection's virtues: colloquial and conversational rhythmic vigour. A birthday party thrown by a girlfriend to which none of the narrators friends turn up—things do not go well and

......By the time we sang the happy birthday song
......the waiter was so pissed he'll probably be fired
......but anyone who can dance like that
......is wasted in catering.

And the poem also has a satisfyingly rude ending involving an uncomfortable recollection of attempting to show everybody "a massive bruise on my knob".

'Our waitress is Employee of the Month' illustrates the anecdotal and observational qualities of the work: the waitress wonders if she won the award for helping an amputee and this leads to a conclusion in which

...... we know that if any of us start to choke on a bone
...... we will feel her arm around us.

'Most people aren't that happy, anyway' is a bit more wide-ranging though it still focuses on one character who is always getting things wrong possibly because of "his son/on a kidney dialysis machine" and it ends with a very intriguing image that uses popular culture rather well. There is no portal to jump through "into a time before you lost your glasses" and when

...... you remembered to put the oven on

...... before you went for that walk
...... on Christmas afternoon

In fact there is quite a range of popular and contemporary cultural reference in the collection, ranging from the metaphor of a substitute goalkeeper to stand for an inability to take centre stage and visits to Ceefax, Scalextric, Macbook, Facebook, cryogenics and answering machines or automatic call centres. Both computer Firewalls and tourist guides become effective metaphors and the last poem has a fine surreally apocalyptic feel to it. What more can you want?

D A Prince:
Little?—yes: this A6 pamphlet makes most A5 pamphlets look overblown and gangly. Nasty?—definitely not: cream paper, serifs, and poems that are compulsively readable. Still, it’s an eye-catching name for a press.

Read the opening lines of the first poem, ‘Surprise’, and I don’t think you’ll be able to resist reading on:

......It’s you I feel sorry for.
......You hired the room
......and when no-one RSVP’d
......you assumed my friends were too cool to RSVP
......and ordered a finger buffet for fifty.

I’m not going to tell you what happens (you’ll have to buy the pamphlet for yourself, plus some as presents while you’re at it). Osborne’s territory is the poetry of social embarrassment and small failures, bravely borne with a stubborn optimism; he is a performance poet but one whose poems are just as good on the page. Deceptively easy in style—free verse, natural rhythm, casual everyday idiom—these fourteen poems sit happily together. Pulling out quotations for this review has been hugely time-consuming because each attempt led to a delighted re-reading of the whole pamphlet—and I’m not complaining about this. A stanza from ‘The admin of being Prime Minister’ gives the flavour:

......On your first day in Number 10
......you need to read the instruction manual
......for the central heating, work out how to get into the loft.

This is the level the poems work at—domestic, everyday, until even the Prime Minister’s role is reduced to getting books from Amazon, and a Yahoo password. Osborne knows this is his strength, as he brings out in ‘Our waitress is Employee of the Month’:

......because she knows it’s important
......to appreciate the small things.

This couplet is used first of the waitress’s mother, and then—changed to a single line—of the waitress herself. Out of context this appears minor, but it sums up the appeal of this pamphlet and its focus on the life-affirming human contacts that keep us going. Luke Kennard’s description on the back cover has already claimed the adjectives I wanted to use— “imaginative, big-hearted and refreshingly life-affirming” —so I won’t spend time looking for others. Instead I’ll settle back to enjoy these poems again.

Another review of The New Blur Album is on the Sabotage website, an imagined conversation between me and fellow Nasty Little Press author Molly Naylor.

Radio Head on Book of the Week

2011-12-31T01:28:00.001Z

I've uploaded some old bits of radio - an interview with Geoff Lloyd about my second book The Newsagent's Window, and all five episodes of when my book Radio Head was Radio 4's Book of the Week in May 2009.

2012 gigs

2011-12-31T00:12:00.002Z

In 2012 I'm doing my first ever solo tour. It's doing 30 or so different venues across England, with Scotland and Ireland dates to be added in May. Details of those John Peel's Shed dates can be found here.

Here's details of a few poetry gigs I'm doing too:

Saturday January 21st, Poetry night at the John Peel Centre for Creative Arts, Stowmarket. I'm hosting a night raising funds for the building project there, featuring the best of the UK poetry scene (who also live conveniently close to Stowmarket) - Luke Wright, Molly Naylor and Tim Clare. 7.30 pm, tickets £7 on the door or from Stowmarket Tourist Information Centre. 01449 676 800.

Tuesday January 24th, Norwich Poetry Club at the Bicycle Shop. Featuring headline act Hannah Silva, plus Martin Figura and me. £5 on the door, 7.30 pm.

Saturday January 28th, fundraising for Beccles Public Hall. Featuring Luke Wright, Yanny Mac, Patrick Lappin and Scumbag Philosopher. From 8 pm, Beccles Public Hall.

John Peel's Shed - Radio 4

2011-12-22T22:44:00.004Z

Thanks to everyone for listening to John Peel's Shed on Radio 4. The response has been pretty overwhelming. It's still available on the iplayer here and The Guardian reviewed it here. John Peel's Shed was even trending on Twitter for about half an hour. Just above N Dubz.

The stage version of the show, from which this Radio 4 programme was adapted, will be on tour early next year, across the UK. You can still download the original podcasts of the show I did for Future Radio, the community station in Norwich.

Radio Head, up and down the dial of British radio is still available to buy. It has chapters on different radio stations, and profiles of important people in radio, including John Peel, Mark Radcliffe and Tommy Boyd.

Finally, if you have a question about any of the tracks used in the show, the answer is probably Willful suspension of disbelief by Modest Mouse.

or

Atom and his Package - Going to Georgia.

New Future Radio podcast

2011-12-21T18:31:00.003Z

Me and Tim Clare have started a live afternoon show on Future Radio, 12 - 3 pm on Tuesdays. We're both big fans of the station and are really excited about starting this new show. Here's the podcast of this week's. The first has vanished into the ether, but we'll maybe publish it at some stage.

John Peel's Shed 2012 tour

2011-12-05T14:41:00.008Z

John Peel's Shed, the show I performed at this year's Edinburgh festival, is going on tour in the new year. Check here for ticket details. A specially written half hour version of the show will be on Radio 4 on December 21st at 11.30 am.

It's Pick of the Day in the Christmas Radio Times and in the Guardian Guide.

John Peel's Shed is adapted from my first book, Radio Head.

Praise for Radio Head:
Funny, perceptive and charming - The Daily Telegraph.
Captivating - The Guardian.
Very funny, made me go out and buy a new radio, too - Tim Key.

Praise for John Peel's Shed:
“Beautifully-written, funny and poignant… Just as John Peel’s records changed his life this lovely, simple, beautifully executed show has enriched ours” - The Scotsman.

"A complete pleasure. All radio nerds need to see it but non nerds will also love it." Greg James, Radio 1.

“Genius… A comic highlight” – The Guardian.

"A wonderful show and a great way to remember John Peel. I bloody loved it" - Josie Long.

"No faith left in humanity? Then try John Osborne’s funny, absorbing trek through a box of vinyl" - Islington Gazette.

The New Blur Album
There has been a review of new books by me and Molly Naylor published by Nasty Little Press. It's an 'imagined conversation' - lovely, if slightly odd ...
Read it here.

New videos online

2011-11-16T00:17:00.004Z

I've just found a few new videos online. Poems n stuff.

This is from Literary Death Match, one of the most fun gigs you can be asked to do as a poet. It has an X Factor style, in which you perform for eight minutes, and three judges give you (generally positive) feedback.

So here's a poem I performed there, based on a real life story of a man who dropped out of his work's National Lottery syndicate, only for them to win the jackpot a couple of months later. It's called That money would have turned you into a bastard anyway.

And here's the feedback, from three judges, including the ace Laura Dockrill.
1

And here's a brand new poem at Westminster Reference Library. It's the first time I'd performed it, and was a bit drunk after being at a party with free booze all afternoon. So it's pretty coherent, considering I hadn't had my tea.

Adam and Joe - cinema listings

2011-11-13T19:12:00.001Z

Homework - Poet in Residence

2011-11-13T18:26:00.005Z

The last Homework of this season is on Weds 30th November. The five of us have each become poet in residence for a particular location. I've decided to be poet in residence for Beachy Head. I went there a couple of weeks ago; I'm writing a book about seasides and thought it would be an interesting place to visit as part of the research. It has gained a reputation not just as an astonishingly beautiful part of the British coast but also as a suicide hotspot. There is an estimated 20 suicides a year there, and local bar staff and taxi drivers have to be trained in counselling because of the amount of distressed people who visit the area. Being there affected me more than I imagined, and as this Homework project was lurking in the back of my mind I thought this would be the perfect excuse to come back a second time and spend more time there, meet a few people, get some writing done.

(I didn't take these photographs. They're taken from this website. I haven't even got a camera.)

New poem

2011-11-06T21:59:00.004Z

There is something astonishing within you

You whispered sex things in my ear, took my hand
we both switched our phones off
then on again the next morning
my bedroom walls echoed with the beep beep beeps
of people wondering where you were.

That day at work it was like nothing had happened
apart from an occasional glance and smile and then you told me
that next time you would make the bacon
because mine had been too crispy.

For the next month we spoke in this exciting secret language
it was like the two of us had murdered someone.
I had accidentally tripped an electrician down the stairs
and now he was in the boot of your car.
The only thing we knew for certain: we were in this together.

“You do know this can't continue?” you said, “because of all this.”
You gestured at the open plan office
but when I turned to look it seemed all our colleagues
had rearranged their chairs into the shape of a love heart.

But I was worried too. I was so in awe of you
it was like you were Jesus and I was a disciple
not Matthew or John. One of the crap ones who stood at the back
never got a mention in the bible. I was Bjorn.
I'm pretty sure there was one called Bjorn.
You preached your sermons and I'd hang on to every word.
I hated those other disciples. They all thought they knew you so well
but I had seen your iTunes
we had shared those bacon sandwich mornings

where you told me things they will never know:
your love of miniature railways.
Your granddad drove steam trains and since he passed away
you've found yourself reading and rereading the books
he specifically requested were left to you in his will.
You and your now fully recovered brother now go on trips to stations
of significance for railway enthusiasts

and when you told me these stories I wanted to consume you.
It was like going on Amazon to buy an entire seven season HBO box set
on the basis of a promising trailer.
Do you want this product gift wrapped?
More than you can ever possibly believe.

I am so glad we killed that electrician.
I hoped he'd be a martyr for our domestic bliss
but I know it is unlikely that things will go any further.
I can sense the end credits are about to roll
Morse has solved the murder
and is having a celebratory pint with Kevin Whately
and Coronation Street is due to start.
There is no time for more plotline.

But what if for once Corrie was delayed
and the next scene was two characters stealing a steam train
a dead electrician in a rolled up piece of carpet
the whole nation saying “How come this is on?”
but in the minute it takes for them to check their TV Guide
they'd be hooked by me and you on prime time
a confused continuity announcer saying
Coronation Street will be broadcast
after this unexpected live footage.
Me shouting “Fuck you Rita Fairclough! This is our turn!”
people on their settees saying “I don't know who these two are
but look at them together!”

and I can honestly say that in all the time I was with you not once
did I notice the camera crew filming our every move
the baffled director wanting to shout cut but allowing the camera to keep running
and I feel as bad as anyone that because of me and you
ITV had to rearrange its schedule
and I know we'll never get our own series
but I'm glad it's not just me now who has noticed
there is something astonishing within you.

London run

2011-10-30T15:50:00.012Z

I've just finished the London run of my show John Peel's Shed at Jackson's Lane. It's a lovely theatre, great space and near the bus stop too. Have had so much fun performing in front of audiences enthusiastic about radio and music. I've packed my record player away for a few weeks and then it will be going on tour in the new year. Check here for tour details.

There was a lovely review the other day in the Tottenham and Wood Green Journal:

"Listening to an enthusiast banging on about their obsession generally goes one of two ways. You either get caught up and whisked along in their passionate diatribes or, more often than not, bored to tears as they roll out factoid after indescribably dull factoid.

Thanks heavens that John Osborne - despite geeky first impressions - has nailed the art of storytelling.

Revealing himself to be the lucky recipient of a box of improbably obscure vinyl from the legendary DJ’s garden shed, Osborne delivers a fluid and enjoyable meditation on the oft-overlooked joys of radio.

As we join him on his eight-year journey to listen to every track on every record in that box (“full of people’s hopes and dreams,” he says, from Walter Ghoul’s Lavender Brigade to Boyzone punk covers band Oizone), Osborne dissects what it is that keeps us locked on the wireless even now.

With a warm, affable and disarming delivery and tales from his own part-time jobs hell, he tells us how radio saves us from the everyday; from the cookie-cutter Radio 1 shows that lift the masses from dead-end drudgery, to the graveyard-shift DJs in Norwich sweating over playlists heard by only three listeners and a dog.

As an argument for a medium that simultaneously unites millions and is as comforting and personal as your favourite winter jumper, it’s devastating.

His enthusiasm is infectious, his observations clear-headed and his quips are smart and funny.

It’s little wonder his run at the Edinburgh Festival sold out. This is a rare show that restores your faith in humanity."

Other quotes:

“Shy and awkward but with a keen eye for a killer line and the significance of the trivia of daily life, Osborne sits somewhere between Tom Wrigglesworth and Daniel Kitson, which a very good place to sit. I could have listened for hours” – ★★★★★ The Independent

"A complete pleasure. All radio nerds need to see it but non nerds will also love it." Greg James, Radio 1.

“Beautifully-written, funny and poignant… Just as John Peel’s records changed his life this lovely, simple, beautifully executed show has enriched ours” –★★★★★ The Scotsman.

"A wonderful show and a great way to remember John Peel. I bloody loved it" - Josie Long.

“One of the Top Ten Theatre Highlights of the Edinburgh Festival… Funny, perceptive and charming” – ★★★★ The Telegraph

“One of the loveliest things you’ll see all year” – ★★★★ The Herald

“Genius… A comic highlight” – The Guardian

"The book is ace, the one man show is special" - Huw Stephens, Radio 1.

“I heartily recommend John Peel’s Shed. It is a gentle tale of one man’s passion for obscure music and the radio which has been compared to the work of Daniel Kitson” – Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard.

“John Osborne captures the intimacy of the medium, the startling human connections and priceless stories. Its an uplifting if occasionally twee story that makes a classic, nostalgic fringe piece” – Total Theatre.

★★★★★ Fringe Biscuit
★★★★ The Latest
★★★★ Sunday Express
★★★★ Edinburgh Evening News
★★★★ Exeunt Magazine
★★★★ What’s On Stage
★★★★ Fest Magazine
★★★★ AllTheFestivals.Com

Tim n John Show

2011-10-16T01:03:00.006+01:00

Here's the podcast for the third episode of the Future Radio show me and Tim Clare present. You can hear it live every Tuesday on Future Radio, online or on 107.8 FM if you're in Norwich. We play really good music, Future Radio has an exciting playlist and they let us choose a few of our own tunes too. If you can't hear the show live though we make a podcast for you.

This week me and Tim talked about sandwiches, meeting Jarvis Cocker, and I tell Tim the reason Shed 7 got their name. Tim raps about buses, and I play my Danny Baker Street mash up. Hope you like ...

TimnJohn show - Things to do n make by timnjohnshow

John Peel's Shed London run

2011-10-13T01:08:00.005+01:00

October 25 to 29, 2011; Jackson’s Lane, London
8.00pm; Tickets £10.95 – £12.95 – Book Tickets Now

In 2002, John Osborne won a competition on John Peel’s Radio One show. His prize was a box of records that took eight years to listen to. This is an ode to radio, those records and anyone who’s ever sought solace in wireless. Script edited by Joe Dunthorne (Writer of the novel Submarine).

Direct from a five-star, complete sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival, comes John Osborne’s debut storytelling hour partly adapted from his acclaimed book Radio Head (Radio 4’s Book Of The Week). The hit of the Edinburgh Festival comes to Jackson’s Lane in London this October.

“Shy and awkward but with a keen eye for a killer line and the significance of the trivia of daily life, Osborne sits somewhere between Tom Wrigglesworth and Daniel Kitson, which a very good place to sit. I could have listened for hours” – ★★★★★ The Independent.

REVIEWS

“Shy and awkward but with a keen eye for a killer line and the significance of the trivia of daily life, Osborne sits somewhere between Tom Wrigglesworth and Daniel Kitson, which a very good place to sit. I could have listened for hours” – ★★★★★ The Independent

“Beautifully-written, funny and poignant… Just as John Peel’s records changed his life this lovely, simple, beautifully executed show has enriched ours” –★★★★★ The Scotsman

“One of the Top Ten Theatre Highlights of the Edinburgh Festival… Funny, perceptive and charming” – ★★★★ The Telegraph

“One of the loveliest things you’ll see all year” – ★★★★ The Herald

“Genius… A comic highlight” – The Guardian

“I heartily recommend John Peel’s Shed. It is a gentle tale of one man’s passion for obscure music and the radio which has been compared to the work of Daniel Kitson” – Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard

“John Osborne captures the intimacy of the medium, the startling human connections and priceless stories. Its an uplifting if occasionally twee story that makes a classic, nostalgic fringe piece” – Total Theatre

★★★★★ The Latest
★★★★★ Fringe Biscuit
★★★★ Sunday Express
★★★★ Edinburgh Evening News
★★★★ What’s On Stage
★★★★ Fest Magazine
★★★★ AllTheFestivals.Com

Gigs 2011

2011-10-01T02:05:00.016+01:00

Here are the gigs I'm doing for the rest of 2011. It's not many. Gigs make me tired.

Friday 9th September. Bestival. Satin Lizard Lounge. 3 pm Friday. Also features Scroobius Pip, Kate Tempest, David J.

Thursday 22nd September. Tongue Fu at Rich Mix, Bethnal Green, with Chris Redmond and Sabrina Mahfouz. "Tongue Fu returns from summer break with three outstanding spoken word artists, flexing their freshest lyrical moves to jaw-dropping improvised soundtracks from the Tongue Fu Band." 7.30 pm. £7.

Wednesday 28th September. Homework, Film Special. Me, Joe Dunthorne, Ross Sutherland and Tim Clare. £5. Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. 7.30 pm. We will all be writing poems / audio commentaries / reworkings of our favourite (or least favourite) films.

Thursday 6th October. Poetry Takeaway at the Southbank Centre for National Poetry Day. As well as the Poetry Takeaway there is Simon Armitage, Michael Rosen, Lemn Sissay. 1- 6 pm.

Tuesday 11th October. Norwich Arts Centre, recording The Verb with Ian McMillian. Details here.

Wednesday 12th October, Hammer and Tongue support slot at The Emperor in Cambridge.

Wednesday 19th October. Gig in London with Forces' Sweetheart Patrick Lappin. The stars of the 2008 Edinburgh hit The Mid 90s la la la reunited at last. Karamel Comedy Club, Coburg Road, Wood Green, 7.30 pm, £3. Paddy's letting me stay at his house.

Thursday 20th October Bang said the gun! 50 Great Dover St, London. 8 pm. Me and the ace Kris Foster as well as the BANG! regulars. My favourite poetry night in London.

Saturday 22nd October. Lincolnshire Poetry gig. Alford. Free gig. 1.15 pm. Poems and readings from The Newsagent's Window and Radio Head.

October 25 - 29. My Edinburgh show John Peel's Shed is doing a five day run at Jackson's Lane, Highgate. Book tickets here.

Wednesday 26th October. Homework storytelling special. Featuring Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne, Ross Sutherland, Luke Wright and special guest Nick Hornby! The theme is Escape.

Weds 2nd November. Literary Death Match as part of Dialogue Festival. 21.30. 242 Acklam Road, North Kensington. £5

Thursday November 3rd. Hammer and Tongue at Brighton. With Rosy Carrick.

Saturday 5th November. Midday - 2 pm. Union Chapel. Sundown gig for the London homeless charity Marginalised. Poems from me, Comedy from the megaace Josie Long. Details here.

Tuesday 8th November. Live recording of my Edinburgh show John Peel's Shed at the BBC Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House. Will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 11 am, Wednesday 21st December. Book tickets here.

Tuesday 22nd November, Norwich Poetry Club. Return of the bi monthly poetry night in Norwich, which I run alongside Luke Wright, Martin Figura and Hannah Walker. £5.

Wednesday 23rd November. Russell J Turner's Birdcage gig, Norwich, 8 pm. Brand new poems. £2 on door.

Wednesday 30th November. Last Homework of the season. The new Aisle16 show Poet in Residence, for which we have all taken a position (official or otherwise) as a poet in residence. 7.30 pm. £5. Bethnal Green Working Men's Club.

Tuesday 6th December. Westminster Reference Library. Exhibition of photographs of poets taken at Latitude festival 2010, by Alex Williamson. Features performances by me, Tamsin Kendrick, Molly Naylor and Josh Idehen.

MEGA SPRING TOUR OF JOHN PEEL'S SHED NOW BEING BOOKED FOR 2012. February onwards. See John Peel's Shed for more details.

The Tim n John show

2011-09-28T10:56:00.005+01:00

Union Chapel gig

2011-09-26T23:10:00.002+01:00

This is a fun gig. It's free, and in aid of London homeless charity Marginalised. Poems from me and comedy from Josie Long. Midday, November 5th. More info here.

The Verb

2011-09-26T11:23:00.008+01:00

I'm doing a project for The Verb on Radio 3. The piece is about railways, I'm writing a 45 minute commentary of a train journey from Norwich to Sheringham. It will be available to download in mid October. I've been working with Abigail Conway a 'creator of live art performance' - and we've been hanging around train stations with recording equipment talking to people about their days. It's been really fun and I feel like I've got a good piece of work. You can listen to me talking to Ian McMillan on The Verb here.

If you are in Norwich on October 11th you can come and watch me on The Verb at Norwich Arts Centre. Tickets are free but you need to book them in advance here.

This is (sort of) the poem I'll be reading on the night.

The train to Sheringham
All over the world there are people on trains
making the same journey day after day
going through the motions
eating Kellogs Deja Vu
with your same favourite spoon
a quick sniff to see if the milk's off.
It never is.
Insipid FM playing the same songs
the post dropping on the mat at the same time
as you simultaneously clean your teeth, tie your tie.
The same staff working at the station ticket office
and you sit on the same seat with the same passengers
you have nicknames for each one of them:
Pong boy
Bicycle clips lady
Should have Gone to Specsavers.
These commuters are like a britpop band refusing to split up
touring tiny venues in the bassist's dad's van
reagailing bar staff and technicians about the time they were on TFI Friday
and the ITV Chart Show.
like a Britpop band refusing to split up
touring tiny venues in the bassist's van
reminiscing with the technician and barstaff
about the time they were on TFI Friday
and the ITV Chart Show
“This one's called Commuting”
they'll say towards the end of their set
the predictable finale after the landscape
of indifferently received new material
the three chord guitar intro as familiar as those pine trees in the distance
as we edge towards West Runton.

All over the world there are people on trains
Kindles and Nintendo DSs,
Private Eyes and just gazing into the abyss.
But there can be few more pleasant commutes than this
it might get a little weary but it beats those traffic jams
and the Underground. Have you been on the Picadilly Line at this kind of time
sweat patches like paddling pools
people sitting in traffic jams, getting passive aggressive with their sat navs.
'You said we'd be home by now'

so stretch out your legs, sip your Metazza coffee
and think how things could be a lot worse than this
as we arrive at the Unstaffed station of the year 2006.
No-one at the ceremony to accept the reward.

Homework film special

2011-09-25T14:06:00.008+01:00

This Wednesday (28th) sees the fourth event in the current season of Homework. Every season at Homework we try to come up with a couple of new ways of running a literary night, and this next event is one of those experiments. It’s our Film Night: an evening of alternative DVD commentary, with a host of writers presenting some new takes on famous films.

Summer Camp

>Homework has been as good as ever this season. So far we've had an acoustic set from the ace band Summer Camp, a reading from Joe Dunthorne's new novel Wild Abandon and the preview of Aisle16 r Kool, which later went up to Edinburgh, receiving 4 and 5 star reviews. But I think this month's film special could be the best so far. I'm going to be talking about my love of 1980 spoof film Airplane.

PLUS:

McSweeney’s contributor Chris Hicks sends us a special video from Japan, talking about the 1987 cop spoof Dragnet.

Joe Submarine Dunthorne talks about how Goodfellas taught him how to steal.

Award winning poet and musician Tim Clare talks about how scared he is of Gene Wilder.

Poet and filmmaker Ross Sutherland will be doing a new DVD Commentary for the 1987 TV series Tutti Frutti

PLUS. Three guest film critics will be taking to the stage to apologise for the reviews they got horribly wrong.

PLUS. An extra special guest director.

The Verb poem

2011-09-02T13:40:00.005+01:00

This is the poem I have written so far for my Radio 3 project. Will post more later.

There’s something about the railway

This is a spaceship and we are heading to the moon.
It’s not. We’re at Norwich train station.
Platform 6.
Across the concourse a businessman runs awkwardly
a golfing umbrella tucked under his arm.
He must get to London!
That’s where the meetings are!

It is two minutes until we are due to depart
if you have your own table now you will be eyeing other passengers
with looks of evil now
back off you stragglers!
The train should leave earlier,
survival of the fittest,
reward the well prepared.
The driver in his little room at the front
Revs the engine like a toddler in a pushalong Thomas
and we’re going!
Canter past Morrisons,
Big Box Storage,
the floodlights of the football ground
Norwich play a nice passing game these days.
There’s something about the railway, I think
as we pass workmen in orange jumpsuits walking
by the side of the track.
We cross the Wensum
and I think about my granddad
who worked on the trains
travelling up and down the country
then always back to Teeside for his tea
and I never met him but have always felt so close.
Sometimes my grandma would show me photographs
and say ‘Did I ever tell you about ...’
she’d talk about the sweetshop at the end of their road
How excited she was when she first used a toaster
and sometimes she’d talk about my granddad
that he wore the same hat every day for thirty years
he only ever asked for socks at Christmas

she never once heard him swear.
Sometimes she’d tell us how much he loved his job.
‘There’s something about the railway,’ she’d say
and as the windows of the train mist
with passengers’ plans for the day
I know what she meant.
The river widens and a town approaches.
awhite pub, Barrett homes with mismatched conservatories
and it’s gone again. Just expanses of fields
the towns of the future
a man from Tescos HQ rubs his hands
at the square miles of fertile land
‘The petrol pumps can go there!’ he thinks
the overexuberance of an LA wedding planner.
but for now it’s just a green tractor
A farmer listens to Radio 4. Or dubstep
We can’t be sure. A techno tractor
In winter he ploughs his fields, in summer
A DJ in Aya Napa.

A level crossing. Ha! East Anglia has stopped for us.
Others wait while we make progress
and although there’s no rush this feels good.
I hope there are no women in labour in those cars
no expectant fathers with their foot
hovering over the accelerator
cursing every precious second
that he’s on umbilical cord duty,
no midwife in sight.
When I was little I’d count the carriages
In the car with my dad
listening to his tapes.
I used to want to be a signalman
a lighthouse keeper without the loneliness
and constant seagulls.
I’d get good at those cryptic crosswords.

Another town approaches
anonymous to all but those who live there
for them it is the whole world.
we zoom past Salhouse station
we don’t stop there for no-one!
A Shell garage and more fields,
cows, brown, 1, 2, 3, 4 .. loads
all sitting down.
Above us telephone wires carry platitudes
good and bad news (but mostly indifferent)
slate roofs and we’re slowing, slowing and stop.
Wroxham Vehicle Hire,
Alight here for Bure Valley Railway, a man says
I don’t know what that means.

Edinburgh Festival

2011-08-30T12:11:00.009+01:00

I got back from Edinburgh a couple of days ago. I have performed at the festival twice before, as part of the Free Fringe, and this was my first time performing a solo show, John Peel's Shed, at The Underbelly. It's all been a slightly surreal few weeks, it only really registered with me when I saw posters for my show pasted around Bristo Square.

I didn't have the chance to write anything bloggy up in Edinburgh, my computer and phone both broke in the first week so I've barely been online, but maybe that didn't turn out to be such a bad thing, Edinburgh is full of people staring at their Blackberries, I've always preferred staring into the distance. Or at the floor.

My show did much better than I dared hope. It's had 5 star reviews from The Independent The Scotsman, lovely 4 star reviews from The Daily Telegraph, Edinburgh Evening News, The Sunday Express, Fest and The Herald. The show sold out most days, and we had to put on two extra midnight shows which were louder and more ramshackle, but that's what Fringe shows should be like. I had a sleepless night before the first performance and felt so anxious the whole day. It went okay, and the show gradually improved every day, and in the last week I really enjoyed performing it, not having to worry too much about cocking it all up and looking a helpless idiot on stage in front of 60 confused people wondering why they had spent a tenner on a ticket for this stuttering idiot. I've grown more and more confident performing it, at the end of one show I thought I had a standing ovation but it was just a man putting his coat on. My favourite performance was probably the last day, when I was so jaded but the adrenaline of knowing this was the last time I'd perform the show almost gave me a swagger. I've never had a swagger before. During that last performance I kept having nostalgic pangs, every line I delivered I would remember where I was when I wrote it, or think of a previous show where I hadn't quite got it right, and the whole of the last few months flashed before my eyes while I was performing, from previews in Cambridge, Bath, Brighton, the last preview in London, rehearsal time where I couldn't string a sentence together, and I felt all emotional that my little show had come so far, despite so much potential for it all to go badly wrong. It's important to appreciate good things while they are happening to you.

The show has been made much more bearable by being surrounded by such solid people. John Peel's Shed is a show I've been working on with Tom Searle of Show + Tell, and would have been impossible without him. Also doing a free show at 10 every night, Aisle16 r Kool, with Tim Clare and Luke Wright, which has also received 4 and 5 star reviews, has really helped, such a pleasure to share a stage with people you love being alongside. We had a vote each night on who the coolest was out of the three of us, and Tim won, although bribing the audience with Chocolate Buttons is worse than anything Sepp Blatter's ever done. Tim and Luke won't get that. It's a football reference.

Now it's back to Norwich and normal life. So much performing tin the last few weeks makes me realise how much I enjoy writing. I've got a new non fiction book I've started work on that I can throw myself into now, as well as ambling towards my first full collection of poetry. Apart from a couple of gigs (Homework, Bestival) I don't have to get on a stage and perform for a while. If I had it my way I'd just spend all my time at my desk listening to 6Music and writing. Drinking posh coffee. Staring out the window.

Highlights included:

Seeing Hannah Walker's happy smiley face after finding out she'd won a prestigious Fringe First award for her show The Oh Fuck Moment, with Chris Thorpe.

Me, Luke Wright and Anthony Roberts moshing at the front at the end of 7 Day Drunk by Bryony Kimmings.

Cool people in my audience, including Daniel Kitson, former Controller of Radio 1 Matthew Bannister and Neil Hamburger, and being interviewed about John Peel's Shed for BBC Radio Scotland by Fred MacAuley and on Radio 4 Extra with Arthur Smith.

The relentless pursuit by me and Tim Clare to eat everything deep fried in the chip shops of Edinburgh.

There is an October run of John Peel's Shed at the Jackson's Lane Theatre, Archway Road. 25th - 29th October. Book tickets here.

The New Blur Album

2011-07-05T19:03:00.003+01:00

I've got a new poetry book out, copies are at the printers now but can be pre-ordered here.

THE NEW BLUR ALBUM
JOHN OSBORNE
Enter the ordinary and charming world of John Osborne, where ambition is a bumbling tour guide, leading tourists through industrial estates, and the real magic happens at home flicking through Ceefax or cross-legged with your record player and a glass of wine.

From the author of What If Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas? comes The New Blur Album. In his second pamphlet Osborne brings us more comedy, but there is also drama – time machines, adultery, surprise parties and sick children - all of it played out against a backdrop of chain restaurants, office admin and a quiet longing for your favourite band to make another record.

John Osborne is a member of poetry collective Aisle16. He has published two books of narrative non-fiction with Simon & Schuster, the first of which, Radio Head was Radio 4′s Book of the Week.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“John Osborne’s work is wildly imaginative, big-hearted and refreshingly life-affirming. Even at its darkest and most surreal there’s a joy in language, ideas and, ultimately, people that leaves you feeling like looking outwards again. Work that makes you happy in at least eight different ways.” Luke Kennard

Read a review for 'What if men burst in wearing balaclavas' here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The New Blur Album by John Osborne
2011, Nasty Little Press
28pp | £5
ISBN: 978-0-9563767-7-0

This title is available to PRE-ORDER. Copies will be dispatched by early July.

The Edinburgh Fringe

2011-06-10T17:24:00.004+01:00

This August I am taking my very first solo show up to the Edinburgh festival. It's a show called John Peel's Shed, and it's origins are in a box of records I won in a competition on Peel's Radio 1 show in 2002. It is a show about my love of radio, my affection for those records and the role John Peel played in my life. So far I have done previews in Bath, Brighton, London and Ipswich and it's been going pretty well. I'll be in the Underbelly from 17.30 every day. It's partly based on my first book, Radio Head, published by Simon&Schuster in 2009. It's being produced by Show+Tell, whose other shows at Edinburgh include Simon Munnery, Edward Aczel, Tim Clare and Nathan Penlington. More details here.

About John Peel's Shed:
"Osborne occupies the same corner of stand-up as Daniel Kitson. This is a show about the pleasure of having your own personal project, and leaves you itching to get out into the world, and discover your own” – The Latest 7

About Radio Head:
Funny, perceptive and charming - The Daily Telegraph.
Captivating - The Guardian.
Very funny ... it made me go out and buy a new radio, too - Tim Key.

2011-05-25T13:54:00.002+01:00

Poems From The Book Hive
I'm part of this exciting new collection of poetry, Poems from the Book Hive. Between 6th and 21st May 2011 sixteen poets took it in turns to sit in the large bay window of a Norwich bookshop and write. You can buy the pamphlet here, published by Nasty Little Press. Other poets featured include George Szirtes, Luke Wright, Tim Clare, Tim Turnbull and Sam Riviere.

Aisle16 at Norwich Arts Centre

2011-05-08T16:58:00.002+01:00

This Saturday, as part of the Norwich and Norfolk Festival, me, Ross Sutherland, Tim Clare and Joe Dunthorne will be performing the new Aisle16 show The Last Barman Poet. It's inspired by the poem performed by Tom Cruise in the film Cocktail, which is widely regarded as the worst performance poem of all time. Here are Aisle16 drinking every cocktail mentioned in the poem.

The Last Barman Poet, Norwich Arts Centre, from 7.30 pm Saturday 14th May.

Dates 2011

2011-04-26T16:36:00.011+01:00

March 27th, The Poetry Takeaway with Tim Clare. Upper King Street, 12-6pm.

Weds 30th March, John Peel's Shed, Scratch Night, Cambridge Junction, 8 pm, pay what you like.

Thursday April 14th, Blue Suede Sporran Club in Wareham, Dorset, with Elvis McGonnagal and Martin Newell.

Friday 15th April, The Stand Up Poetry Club in The Corn Hall, Diss, with Luke Wright and Molly Naylor.

Saturday April 23rd, John Peel's Shed at The Rondo Theatre, Bath. £10.

Saturday 30th April, Camden Crawl with Joe Dunthorne.

Sunday 1st May, The Poetry Takeaway, Wenlock Poetry Festival.

Wednesday 4th May, Norwich library, 6.30-8pm, reading from The Newsagent's Window and Radio Head along with fellow Simon&Schuster non fiction author Tom Cox.

Wednesday 4th May, The Birdcage, Norwich. New poems.

Wednesday 11th May, Ministry of Stories at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, featuring Joe Dunthorne and Laura Dockrill.

Friday 13th May, Elvis McGonnagal's Caravan of Poetry, Balham Bowls Club, 8 pm.

Saturday 14th May, Aisle16 present The Last Barman Poet. A night of poetry inspired by the poem Tom Cruise's character performs in Cocktail, largely considered the worst poem ever. Norwich Arts Centre as part of Norwich and Norfolk Festival.

Tuesday 17th May, This is what a poet looks like, from around midday, The Book Hive in Norwich.

Tuesday 17th May, 7.30 pm, I'm reading poems as part of Norwich Poetry Club, the Bicycle Shop.

Wednesday 18th May, the Birdcage, Norwich. New poems.

Thursday May 26th, John Peel's Shed at Wolsely Theatre, Pulse Festival, Ipswich 6 pm.

Saturday 28th May, John Peel's Shed at the Brighton fringe. 5 pm, Upstairs at the 3 and 10.

Sunday 29th May, John Peel's Shed at the Brighton fringe. 5 pm, Upstairs at the 3 and 10.

Sunday 5th June. John Peel's Shed at Stoke Newington Literary Festival. 3pm, The Gallery, Stoke Newington Public Library £4.

Monday June 13th, John Peel's Shed at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. 9 pm. (Nathan Penlington presents Uri and Me and 7.30 pm).

Tuesday June 14th, John Peel's Shed at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. 9 pm. (Tim Clare presents How to be a Leader at 7.30 pm).

June 24-26, Aisle16 at Glastonbury - we open the Cabaret tent at around midday every day and I'm on in the Poetry and Words tent on Friday and Saturday.

Weds June 29th, Homework is back! Bethnal Green Working Men's Club.

Friday July 1st, John Peel's Shed at the John Peel Centre for the Creative Arts, Stowmarket. 8 pm.

Monday July 4th, 7.30 pm, Take 5, me and Tim Clare do previews of our Edinburgh shows, John Peel's Shed and How to be a Leader, both heading to The Underbelly this August. £2 on the door.

Tuesday 12th July, first preview of Aisle16 R Kool! Aisle16 are cool poets. They wear shades, play sweet licks on their guitars and love chillin’ out and watching The Gadget Show. Wanna hear their poems? A cabaret show themed around that ever-shifting mirage: coolness. Luke Wright, John Osborne and Tim Clare, present a pre-Edinburgh showcase of Aisle16 R Kool.

July 14-17th Poetry arena, Latitude Festival, Suffolk.

Wednesday July 20th John Peel's Shed, Leicester Square Theatre, London. The Lounge, 9 pm.

July 22nd - 24th, Port Eliot Festival, performing poems as part of Nasty Little Press, and writing bespoke poetry with The Poetry Takeaway.

Monday July 25th, Holt festival, with Martin Newell and Molly Naylor.

August 5th - 28th (not 15th) John Peel's Shed at the Underbelly, Edinburgh. 17.30.

August 5th - 27th (not 16th) Aisle16 R Kool! with Luke Wright and Tim Clare at the Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh.

Article about writing non fiction

2011-04-16T12:35:00.000+01:00

There's an article on the Creative Choices website about writing non fiction, including an interview with me about Radio Head and The Newsagent's Window. You can read it here

2011-04-04T18:19:00.001+01:00

April 14th, me and Martin Newell arrive in Worth Matravers, Dorset, to do Elvis McGonnagal's gig here.

John and Paddy's Time of the Month podcast. Jan and Feb

2011-03-24T17:35:00.000Z

Chris Moyles marathon

2011-03-17T15:13:00.003Z

I hadn't planned on listening to Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave's 50 hour radio marathon in aid of Comic Relief. I tuned in during their breakfast show in the early hours of their rum, but during the day found myself wondering how they were doing. So I tuned in during Greg James, then watched it on the BBC website during Scott Mills. I've always been against webcams and streaming live footage of what's going on in the studio, but there's something about this that really suits it. Interestingly, Moyles admitted during the early hours of this morning that he has been pitching his radio show to TV companies for the last ten years but producers and executives always told him no-one would watch. This proves them wrong, they might have missed a trick.

The real reason this marathon works is because it is Moyles' farewell to Radio One. All day he has been joined by celebrity guests; Lily Allen, Jimmy Carr, Richard Madeley. There have been personal moments too, on Thursday morning, at around the 24 hour mark Moyles and Dave were joined by John Culshaw, who before his TV career was a regular guest when the self-proclaimed Saviour of Radio One presented the Hometime show. This show was the best Moyles has ever been on Radio One, innovative and sharp, and Culshaw was just a man who could do funny voices, and would make phone calls pretending to be Frank Bruno, Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Eubank. Whether as homage or lack of career progression these are also the voices he does now. Another guest this morning was Sara Cox, who Moyles replaced as host of the Breakfast Show in 2004, although this may be largely due to his failed TV career. To be host of what is one of the most high profile jobs on British radio is impressive, as is this Comic Relief record breaking challenge, attempting to break the world record of 37 hours, raising over half a million pound.

For high profile names such as Davinia McCall and Alesha Dixon, who have also featured on the Radio One's longest show, Moyles has been a constant in their careers. As soon as they have a new TV programme to plug, a new single, fitness video or live appearance, the first programme their publicist will contact is the Moyles show, which, despite its critics and negative press comments still maintains millions of listeners, in their cars to and from work. A good appearance on his show can be the difference between being Number One and stagnating in the Top Twenty. It's easy to be disparaging about Moyles, and I'm certainly not a regular listener to him, as I was in the late 90s when I came home from school and he was on in the afternoon. He's at his best when there's no ego, and no innuendo. This morning at 3 am he was with DJ Benji B, going through his vinyl, putting on records he liked the look of. It was charming and fascinating, and this enduring feat has often showed him at his best. Sometimes it's good to stop criticising, step back and appreciate someone as entitled to the status as one of the Radio One greats as Kenny Everett, Tony Blackburn and Chris Evans.

Radio Head, up and down the dial of British Radio is published by Simon&Schuster and features a chapter on Radio One. You can buy it here.

The Newsagent's Window out in paperback

2011-03-16T16:33:00.009Z

This is the new front cover for my book The Newsagent's Window.

"A humorous and surprising adventure into the heart of small town Britain" - The Times.

"An utterly charming and funny book, powering through loneliness and solitude to the building of communities all through the community newsagent window." - Booktrust.

You can buy it on Amazon here.

This American Life makes the news

2011-02-19T00:42:00.011Z

'These last two weeks I've been carrying around a printout of the recipe everywhere I go', Ira Glass says, rustling the piece of paper by the microphone, 'and telling everyone I meet that I may have found the secret recipe for Coca Cola, and I just watch them freak out!' says Ira Glass in this week's This American Life.

The results have made big news across the world after claiming to have found the secret recipe for Coca Cola. The episode is full of little secrets about how the recipes and formulas have been hidden - that only two people at any time know the original recipe, and they never travel on the same plane. This new discovery, from a 1974 newspaper clipping, fills in the blanks of an existing discovery by a Coca Cola historian who found an old notebook that belonged to its inventor. Ira Glass talks to him, then reads out the new recipe to listeners, and the This American Life team attempt to make their version of Coca Cola to see how close they can get.

You can listen to the show here.
It's made pretty big news, even the Daily Mail have covered it, but their intrepid journalism doesn't actually go as far as listening to the radio programme, or being aware that This American Life is a radio programme, thinking it's just a website.

The other story on the show is about a document expert who gets his hands on letters from JFK to Marilyn Monroe. This American Life isn't always this American, covering JFK and Coca Cola, but it is always this good. There's a free episode to download every Monday.

Future Radio

2011-02-14T18:08:00.001Z

The People's Playlist With Author & Writer John Osborne by Futureradio on Mixcloud

Danny Baker and the bow tie

2011-02-13T13:02:00.001Z

Three new poems

2011-02-11T21:44:00.002Z

I'm working on a new collection of poetry at the moment. Here's three poems I've been working on.

Remix

Wednesdays are like album tracks
you want to skip past
to get to the weekend.

We always went dancing on bank holidays
it started one Easter Monday when I thought
well we've both got the day off work, so I texted you

and put on my best shirt.
On the day of the Royal Wedding we will be at Gatecrasher
our arms in the air.

Days of the week are like a bag of Revels
different flavours, but when you eat so many
they all taste the same

but sometimes life is different
everyone remembers the day there was a dog in the playground
or switching on the TV to find rolling news.

Sometimes you get to work and everything seems normal
until you realise this isn't a Wednesday,
it's a remix.

Plans

I'd started to plan our life together
I didn't realise you weren't that bothered.
You're probably not interested to know
we were going to have the most amazing time.

I was planning on becoming financially dependant for you
get a job at an insurance company or something
I had you and our unborn children to think about
and all those restaurants

you wouldn't have had to pay for a thing.
I'd started to plan new duvet covers and sets of saucepans
and was happy to sacrifice those of my friends
who I knew you didn't like

and those I could tell didn't really like you
I was looking forward to ditching them
not return their calls until they stopped trying.
I was planning on dieting so your brother wouldn't judge me

he's buff and both times I've met him
I've thought about going jogging in the mornings
and I saw the way you looked at me when I had two Wispa Golds
after my dinner.

I planned on learning recipes because I know you don't like cooking
and I'm no chef but with the BBC website and my apron
I'd have muddled through.
I just didn't realise you weren't that bothered

you've always been so nice in your texts
and whenever we've met we've had fun
or that's what I thought
but I know it's all my own fault

I just got carried away
but it's like when I drank that bottle of wine
I didn't realise you were saving for special.
I probably should have checked with you first.

Cicatrice

It's like when you're in your study, reading
and have to take down the big dictionary from the shelf
to look up a difficult word.

You think by now you should know all the big words
and as you write down the meaning of cicatrice in your notebook
you notice next year's diary in its shrinkwrap on the desk

and think how reassuring it is there are still uncertainties in life
but that they are outweighed by the certainties
like the dictionary's definition of 'dictionary.'

Ashamed to be a talkSPORT listener

2011-02-08T17:44:00.018Z

I've always been quite happy to call myself a talkSPORT listener. I think it's a pretty good station, if, like me, you are only really interested in football. It's obviously a station that caters to a very specific audience, but it does it well, and I've never been ashamed of the fact I listen to it probably more than any other station.

But the decision to hire Andy Gray and Richard Keys is not a smart move. They are taking the 10 am - 1 pm slot, previously occupied by Jon Gaunt, and after that Mike Parry. Parry was a broadcasting great, mad but loveable, very clever, engaging with listeners, from the old school style of radio presenter that is becoming increasingly rare. He was always comfortable talking about things other than sport, politically and socially he always had something to say. I almost always disagreed with it, but it made entertaining radio, and as Danny Baker said of himself, 'Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, always certain.' And that's admirable. Parry was an idiot, but a self confessed idiot. The best kind. In the last few years the station seemed to have reinvented itself, suddenly there was no James Whale in the evenings or Jon Gaunt in the mornings, instead there were much more palatable presenters such as Ian Collins at 10 pm. Admittedly the station hasn't had a single female presenter in all the time I've been listening, which is pretty shocking, but at least it seemed to be heading in the right direction, with the most recent RAJAR figures breaking records for the station.

So it seems a shame Parry is seemingly being shunted aside for Keys and Gray, just because the have made the headlines, and for such wrong reasons. What they said shouldn't just be ignored, their comments were seriously offensive, there was no humour, there was a sinister edge to what they were saying and it's uncomfortable to listen to, and I think a decent percentage of talkSPORT listeners would say the same. This is clearly all about ratings, and as it's a commercial station you can understand the thought behind it, but at what cost? Surely the dignity of the radio station deserves some consideration, this has turned it into a laughing stock. The things Keys and Gray said about Sian Massey and Karren Brady showed a reluctance to accept the progression football is making, and by employing them it confirms what many already thought about talkSPORT. But that isn't how I always regarded the station, I've listened to it for around three years now and found it, interesting, engaging and entertaining. This is particularly true of Hawksbee and Jacobs, on air weekdays 1-4. Both wrote for Fantasy Football with Baddiel and Skinner, and that humour is prevalent in every item they cover, ignoring the big talking points and controversies and focusing on the smaller, more interesting, minutiae of sport. They are proof that the stereotype of talkSPORT listener and presenter is more than lager drinking idiot and Five Live would be stupid not to offer them a deal to tempt them away from a sinking ship, albeit sinking only morally. I'm sure that their revenue will increase significantly as a result of the 'coup.'

I'm still going to listen to talkSPORT, but from now on rather than listen to Andy Gray and Richard Keys I'll find something else to do between 10 and 1. Maybe I should have done that a long time ago.

(Even if you have no interest in talkSPORT, or football, or radio, or linesmen, this is one of the most bizarre clips you'll ever hear, Alan Brazil talking shortly after the death of Bob Monkhouse.)

My book Radio Head, up and down the dial of British radio is out in paperback now It features a chapter on talkSPORT and is available to buy here.

Shortfire Press

2011-01-31T11:47:00.005Z

Shortfire Press is a new, digital only short story publisher. Three new stories are uploaded every week, costing 99p each, and are aimed at commuters, people on lunch breaks, anyone with twenty minutes, half an hour to sit down and read something on their Kindle or iPad. It features short stories written by both new and established writers, including Laura Dockrill and Salena Godden.

Read what The Independent's article about it here and in The Guardian here.

I have a new story, Redundancy is Beatiful, that you can download here. This is a lovely review, from The Bareback Reader

"Another brief (the time it takes for the number 19 bus to get from Angel to Finsbury Park) flirtation with e-books. Before we begin, look how pretty:

View tells the story of David, his ascent to senior management, and his redundancy. It's narrated by his wife, who also lovingly documents his blossoming relationship with their son through the new-found freedom of unemployment. Looking back on it I'm astonished at Osborne's skill in sketching so much detail while controlling the rhythm of the story perfectly - it's like a tiny 3-act play. At this length you have to be an excellent writer; there's no room for a single wasted word.

But that's all stuff I noticed on mature reflection. At the time I just had a sense of satisfaction, such as you experience when you've no real appetite to sate but someone offers you a morsel of delicious food. Like bone marrow. I shall call this feeling lipsmackery, so I don't have to keep tapping out this long explanation. See what I mean about good writing, as opposed to meandering blogposts, needing few words?

And then there were the details: the rounds of office drinks; David's heavy responsibility (there goes green tea and I've-brought-my-flask); his painful analogy that a life of corporate compromise is like a bottle of bad red one keeps drinking, blunting the senses to other, finer experiences. The meaning of zombie movies, the unhappiness measured in takeaway meals.

At this point we're past Highbury Corner, and I'm hoping Osborne has the decency to cheer me up before we reach the Finsbury Park Interchange.

He does - David finds himself in the small things, and his wife catalogues his brief love letters to life ('So this is what people get up to on a Tuesday morning'; 'Mummy. Gone to Monkey World. Love from your boys x'). He has to get a job eventually, but his return echoes his first hopeful venture into the world of work as a teenager. I smile, and wish him well.

I get the feeling I'll be rummaging through Shortfire Press's stock quite a lot. This is a very different e-book experience from my adventures in Kindle ownership. They're obviously and rightly proud of their writers, and the care taken to make each small epub a thing of beauty is heartening. This is the traditional bookshop experience gone digital, with knowledgeable proprietors guiding one to new and exciting reading.

I've no idea if their pricing structure makes for a viable business. It's a fairly vexed question, the price of books. People expect digital to mean cheaper, and shorter to mean cheaper too, though you don't see people paying extra for breezeblock airport fiction. I've a 1950 Ellery Queen collection that makes a virtue of being only 8/6 for 640 pages, right there in red lettering above the title. Mind you, it also says "for every guest bedroom" - lucky guests. Mine just get a sofa-bed in the fumes of the evening's entertainment, and serially harassed by cats as they try to sleep.

The way we value books is changing, but in all the noise generated by the paper versus digital debate it's nice to see a publisher putting quality writing front and centre."

Radio Head on Radio 4's Book of the Week

2011-01-30T09:56:00.006Z

In 2009 my book Radio Head, up and down the dial of British radio, was broadcast as Radio 4's Book of the Week. You can download / listen here. It's read by Lee Ingleby.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Read reviews of Radio Head here.
The Daily Telegraph
The Guardian

2010

2010-12-23T23:53:00.013Z

This year my second book, The Newsagent's Window came out. It was described by Booktrust as 'an utterly charming and funny book, powering through loneliness and solitude to the building of communities all through the community newsagent window.' The book recently won an East Anglian Book of the Year award for best memoir.

I also had my first book of poetry out, What if men burst in wearing balaclavas, published by Nasty Little Press. It's meant I've been able to go out and do lots of fun gigs, like Salena Godden's Bookclub Boutique, Literary Death Match, Poejazzi and Niall O'Sullivan's The Cellar, to perform and try and sell a few copies of my book.
'Yes, I like these poems, there is a warmth, as you'd expect with balaclavas in the title.' - John Hegley.

Homework, the monthly night I am part of in London with the rest of Aisle16, had its best season yet, peaking with an audience of 176, a fire risk. Highlights included Johann Hari and singer songwriter Fiona Bevan being part of our storytelling night inspired by The Moth, where we all told stories of 'My worst gig.' Scroobius Pip and John Smith being part of the Aisle16 Festival Special in July, and The Last Barman Poet night in October, which was a 2 1/2 hour deconstruction of the three minute poem Tom Cruise recites in the film Cocktail.

As well as this there was an appearance by Kevin Eldon, the debut of Luke Wright's show Cynical Ballads, the incredible Kate Tempest with her band Sound of Rum, and a half an hour live show by Joel Stickley based on his blog How to write badly well. Season 4 will be back in May 2011.

Probably my favourite thing of the last few years is being able to do so many festivals. This year I went to Port Eliot for the first time, I'd always heard how good it was, stories ranging from sneaking into VIP parties to finding a keg of beer in a clearing in the woods. Me and the rest of the Nasty Little Press lot went down to check it out.

This year I finished recording a radio programme called John Peel's Shed. It was a long time coming, I started the project over two years ago, but the programmes (five 1 hour episodes) went on air on Future Radio earlier this year. You can download them here. Also I have started work on a stage show based on the records and on my love of radio, as explored in Radio Head. I've performed the show twice, and hopefully will have the chance to do it a bunch more times in 2011.

My worst gig

2010-12-20T13:59:00.001Z

The last Homework of 2010 was a night inspired by The Moth storytelling podcast. The theme was My Worst Gig, and featured contributions by the Aisle16 regulars and special guests singer songwriter Fiona Bevan and journalist and all time legend Johann Hari.

Chris Hicks

Johann Hari

Luke Wright talks about introducing Art Brut on stage at Lounge on the Farm in 2009.

Fiona Bevan

Homework will be back in 2011. For more information check aisle16.co.uk.

Pages from Ceefax

2010-12-04T00:58:00.010Z

New poem.

Pages from Ceefax

'I'm worried about the future,' I say,
racing a single car around a Scalextric track.
Twitter trends with 'Man worries about the future.'
'What a loser!' some kid replies.
I spend the rest of the evening correcting the typos on his website.

'Maybe there are too many television channels,' I think,
tuning in to a channel devoted to people discussing
whether there are too many television channels.
'I just liked it better in the old days,' I tell the studio audience
when I am invited on the show.
A small section at the back applaud.

These are my people, I think, waving.
People who can't get to sleep at night
so read pages from Ceefax
as hot chocolate warms on the hob.

'There are too many blogs,' I write on my blog
and immediately it disappears
like when a little girl says 'I don't believe in fairies,'
and at the bottom of the garden a family of fairies grieve their mum,
taken so young.

'We are all on life support machines,' I tell the studio audience,
stomping on a Macbook.
'We are being drip fed by these tubes
having God knows what pumped into our veins.’
I theatrically unplug the USB cables I had plugged in
in preparation for the analogy.

'Let's all quit Facebook!' I type as my status update
and we count down together
‘10, 9, 8 ...’
and after ‘3, 2, 1’ it's like when you've been in a traffic jam for so long
you say ‘right!’ and take off your seatbelt,
switch off the engine.

John Peel's Shed

2010-10-24T22:57:00.008+01:00

In the last few weeks I've been working on a show. I've never done a solo show before and it's something I'm really enjoying developing. It's called John Peel's Shed and is about a box of records I won in a competition on John Peel's Radio 1 show in 2002. It's also about British radio, and features some of my experiences in writing my book Radio Head. So far I've performed it once, in Brighton, and it seemed to go pretty well. So hopefully I'll get to do it more often. More info on the show here.

There's a review of the Brighton show here.

Captivating - The Guardian

Funny, personal and charming, The Daily Telegraph

Osborne demonstrates a seemingly unhealthy obsession with British radio. But then, as you read Radio Head, you're reminded that you do too. A nostalgic journey through the airwaves, stopping at seemingly every station and finding it all pleasantly familiar. Radio Head is a warm, up-lifting read. And it made me fork out on a new, better radio, too - Tim Key.

Last Barman Poet

2010-10-01T10:19:00.002+01:00

Last week's Homework was one of the most fun so far. It ended with a room of 130 people wearing Tom Cruise masks reciting the poem together. Other highlights were a swearing nan, Ross doing a rap and Luke Kennard's tutor's notes. The blog is still up and running here.

Here's a video of the five of us drinking every cocktail mentioned in the poem, in order.

And here's Scroobius Pip's Last Binman Poet.

Laura Dockrill Book Launch

2010-09-23T23:01:00.005+01:00

I'm very excited to be part of Laura Dockrill's launch for her new book Echoes at The Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green, London. Laura is one of my favourite writers, poets and performers, I've just read the book and it is magical and beautiful, and if you come to the launch you will also get to see Salena Godden and Sabrina Mahfouz. It'll be ace.

Buy Echoes here.

The last barman poet at Homework

2010-09-18T13:09:00.000+01:00

On Weds 29th September, Homework is hosting a special event entitled THE LAST BARMAN POET: an evening of writing inspired by the rubbish poem that Tom Cruise reads in the 1988 motion picture, Cocktail. The last two Homework events have been complete sell outs so it should be a fun night. This month sees performances by Chris Hicks, Joe Dunthorne, Ross Sutherland, Tim Clare and John Osborne, as well as some special guests.

It also gets a write up in The Guardian.

We are looking for as many writers as possible to contribute homages, covers and remixes of the Cruise poem for this event. These can be recorded for YouTube and played at the event, or performed live at the event by the writer themselves (or by proxy by another performer if the writer wishes- we can sort this out).

We have asked anyone who wanted to contribute a response to Tom Cruise's pisspoor poem in Cocktail, and here's some of the videos so far.

Here's a bit of what I'll be doing on the night.

Can I have a Screaming Orgasm.
can I have a Sex on the Beach
can I have a Two Lesbians, sisters probably, I'm just watching
can I have a One night stand followed by a restraining order
can I have a James Blunt medley
can I have a Fisting Norman Lamont
can I have a Don't tell your Friends
can I have a Cuddle
can I have a Dirty Sanchez
can I have a Nothing compares To you
can I have a And now she's my wife
can I have a Everything's going to be okay
can I have a Bronze Fonz
can I have a It turns out she was a tranny
can I have a Brangelina
can I have a stolen afternoon

can I have a John Leslie
can I have a You're the best thing that's ever happened to me
can I have a Your tea's on the table
can I have a Love will tear us apart
can I have a Light that never goes out
can I have a Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty Oh won't you take me home.
can I have a Sad lapdance
can I have a Sit on my face
can I have a Barbershop Quartet serenade us on our 50th wedding anniversary
can I have a Ding a ling
can I have a Turning the spare bedroom into a nursery
can I have a You make my heart go boom
can I have a Do you remember that tanktop I bought you
can I have a Mr Luvva Luvva
can I have a Do you want me to leave the bathwater in for you.
can I have a Jumping off Oprah's settee.

There will also be some live performances by some of the UK's most exciting poets, as well as the Homework residents. Homework's Last Barman Poet is only going to be performed once, you can buy cocktails at the bar and it will be pretty special. Weds 29th September, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, £5.

See all the poems submitted so far here

Ira Glass on storytelling

2010-09-15T22:25:00.003+01:00

My favourite radio show is called This American Life. Every week there features stories based on a particular theme. There are over 400 episodes, recently I started listening to them in order, from the early 1995 episodes. Here's Ira Glass, the show's presenter, talking about the art of storytelling. He talks about the building blocks of making stories, and explains the basics of pace and dialogue. If you have any interest in writing, in telling stories, this is incredibly useful, he has a unique, engaging way in how to create something.

Videos from Homework

2010-09-13T23:49:00.003+01:00

Here's some footage from Season 3 of Homework.

The continuity announcer stole my wife

Joe Dunthorne and Ross Sutherland

Chris Hicks and me do his poem Love Music, Hate Racism

Season 3 of Homework continues at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club on Weds 29th September and Weds 27th October, 7.30 pm, £5.

2010-09-03T13:54:00.003+01:00

On Weds 29th September, Homework is hosting a special event entitled THE LAST BARMAN POET: an evening of writing inspired by the rubbish poem that Tom Cruise reads in the 1988 motion picture, Cocktail. The last two Homework events have been complete sell outs so it should be a fun night.

We are looking for as many writers as possible to contribute homages, covers and remixes of the Cruise poem for this event. These can be recorded for YouTube and played at the event, or performed live at the event by the writer themselves (or by proxy by another performer if the writer wishes- we can sort this out).

The event was originally inspired by the Aristocrats joke: a (pretty unfunny) joke that US comedians use to show off their stagecraft. The joke itself is a test pattern; it’s down to the comic telling the joke to add their own brand of flair, and hopefully make it funny.

We wondered—is it possible to create an Aristocrats for poets? A poem so bad that the writer would have to use all their ingenuity and talent to make it worthwhile? We don’t know the answer yet, but we’re hoping to find out on the 29th.

Here our a few suggestions for things we’re looking for:

• The original poem, reproduced verbatim, but presented in an interesting way, either through video montage, overdubbing, or the poet reading the poem in an interesting place.

• A poem (even loosely) inspired by the original. We’re not just looking for performance poems. We are looking for examples from right across the spectrum of poetry. We’re also keen to have some formal pieces too: a Last Barman Sonnet would be amazing.

• A poem that contains the same structure as the original, but replaces the subject of the poem with another. Ie. ‘The Last Microbiologist Poet’.

Of course, this is by no means an exhausted list, but we hope it gets you started. We’ll condense all the material into an hour and curate the final event, weaving the whole thing together and discussing our findings.

If you’re interested, drop me an email with your idea and I’ll send back a gushing email about how many drinks I’m going to buy you the next time I see you.

I am the world’s last barman poet.
I see America drinking the fabulous cocktails I make.
Americans getting stinking on something I stir or shake.
The Sex on the Beach, The Schnapps made from peach,
The Velvet Hammer, The Alabama Slammer.
I make things with juice and froth. The Pink Squirrel, The 3-Toed Sloth.
I make drinks so sweat and snazzy. The Iced Tea, The Kamikaze,
The Orgasm, The Death Spasm, The Singapore Sling,
The Ding-a-ling.
America you’re just devoted to every flavor I got.
But if you want to get loaded,
Why don’t you just order a shot?

As the work comes in, it will be uploaded to the Aisle16 website and the Homework Myspace page so you can keep track of the project.

Submissions, more information, etc, email johninbrigg@yahoo.co.uk

Homework in The Guardian

2010-07-31T13:07:00.005+01:00

Homework, the night we run on the last Wednesday of every month, is featured in this Guardian article about literary nights out. This month's Homework, our festival special was our best yet, with an audience of around 150, and sets by folk singer John Smith and special guests Scroobius Pip and Polar Bear.

Homework is on the last Wednesday of every month at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, £5. Past guests have included Jon Ronson, Kate Nash, Kevin Eldon and Tim Key.

Aisle16 at Glastonbury

2010-07-05T21:55:00.012+01:00

I've just got back from Glastonbury, where I performed in the Cabaret tent every afternoon with the rest of Aisle16. Last year was my first year and I was too terrified to really enjoy it, but this year was really good, some of the most fun gigs I've been involved with. We'd driven through the night from Homework, the night we run at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, so we were pretty gigged out. Next is Latitude, and the week after that I'm at Port Eliot as part of the Nasty Little Press gang, with Luke Wright, Byron Vincent and Martin Figura.

2010-06-29T22:48:00.002+01:00

Ken Garner, author of the excellent book The Peel Sessions is doing some research into the listening practises. This is his message, if you can take a minute to fill in the survey he'd really appreciate it.

Calling all fellow ex-Peel listeners. I urgently need your help completing a small survey for a paper I am doing on the listening/taping practices of Peel listeners then and now. Whether you taped then or not, download archive off-air tapes nowadays or not, if Peel was important to you at any time, I'd really like you to do the survey. It takes 10 minutes. All you have to do is tick boxes. It's completely anonymous. I am not even tracking IP addresses. And please pass it on to any other once-Peel fans you know. Here's the link.

World Cup Poetry

2010-06-18T00:31:00.001+01:00

Here's Day 7 of my World Cup Poems. They can be found in full here.

Nelson Mandela looks pretty frail these days. Day 7's poem is about him.

Weekend at Bernies

I hope Mandela doesn't die before the final
but if he does I hope people will have the decency
to still let him go,
give him a pair of sunglasses
put a vuvuzela in his mouth
and if there's a goal the people either side of him
can raise his arms in the air
and there'll be a close up on TV
and the commentator will say 'Look at Mr Mandela
having the time of his life'
because special people don't come along too often
and why not prolong their life as much as possible
even if it involves an overcoat
and being wheeled around on a little trolley.

You can buy my poetry book What if men burst in wearing balaclavas for £5 here.

Homework

2010-06-16T23:46:00.002+01:00

Homework is back Weds June 23rd at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club.

IME OUT Critics’ Choice awarded literary cabaret club Homework triumphantly returns for a third season.

‘Highlights of the spoken word scene’ – SUNDAY TIMES

Season 3 continues with the debut of Luke Wright’s acerbic poetry show, Cynical Ballads.

‘the best young performance poet around’ – THE OBSERVER

Luke Wright's Cynical Ballads leads us through the rundown shopping precincts and gentlemen's clubs of modern Britain. Starring fat bullies, balding chip shop proprietors and posh twits, these tales range from the darkly comic to just plain dark. Expect suicide, Bollinger and crash diets in a show that will shock and delight.

Joining Luke will be fellow Aisle16 members Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne, John Osborne and Ross Sutherland, adding their own grim, subversive stories to the mix.

HOMEWORK is a mix of poetry, stand-up, literature and music that takes place monthly at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. Each night sees the HOMEWORK residents – poetry collective Aisle16 – showcasing new work, alongside big name guest performers. Previous guests include Kate Nash, Jon Ronson, comedian Kevin Eldon and Fringe award-winner Tim Key.

World Cup Poems

2010-06-13T22:23:00.004+01:00

I'm writing a poem a day about football during the World Cup. The idea is that England are going to win the World Cup and these poems will be of huge cultural significance. In reality we'll probably go out in the Quarter Finals and I'll just get bored by the second week, but at the moment I'm doing one a day. Read them all here.

John Peel's Shed

2010-06-02T20:04:00.003+01:00

You can now download all five episodes of John Peel's Shed.

So that's the five episodes all finished now. I might do a couple more episodes, but for now you can download the podcasts by following these links.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5

And The Guardian article about it is here.

Literary Death Match

2010-06-02T19:49:00.004+01:00

Here's a clip of me doing poems from my poetry pamphlet at Literary Death Match, a really fun night held in London, New York, Dublin, San Fransisco, where four writers comepete in an X Factor style battle. This was the 4th London event, and the three judges were the amazing singer songwriter Molly Carroll, raconteur Tim Wells and TV's Emma Kennedy who were there to judge us on content, style and performance. I lost. Obviously. The winner was Richard Milward, an amazing writer and performer whose book Ten Storey Love Song I'm reading now, which is big of me, considering.

LDM London, Ep. 4: John Osborne from Opium Magazine on Vimeo.

You can buy my book, What if men burst in wearing balaclavas here, published by Nasty Little Press.

New podcast

2010-06-02T08:53:00.002+01:00

Me and Tim Clare have done a podcast. It's a podcast about podcasts and is called the Podcast Podcast. Has that just blown your mind? You can listen to it here.

Gigs, summer 2010

2010-05-31T11:11:00.006+01:00

Sat 22nd May, Norwich fringe festival, as part of the Book Club Boutique, Norwich Arts Centre

Wed 26th May, Homework at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, featuring special guest Kevin Eldon.

Sunday June 6th, 5 pm, The White Hart, Stoke Newington High Street, free entry, I read from The Newsagent's Window and Radio Head as part of the Stoke Newington literary festival. Also performing are Stewart Lee, John Hegley, Laura Dockrill, Phill Jupitus.

Weds June 23rd, Homework at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, Luke Wright previews his new show Cynical Ballads.

June 25-27, Glastonbury Festival, Aisle16 in the cabaret tent, 11.40 every morning.

Sunday 11th July, Norwich Lanes festival, hosted by Yanny and Paddy.

15-18 July, Latitude Festival, poetry tent

23-25 July Port Eliot Festival, as part of Nasty Little Press.

Weds July 28th, Homework at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, Aisle16's festival special.

Here's a clip of me doing a poem at the Ten Bells in Norwich

Homework

2010-05-22T11:32:00.001+01:00

Homework is back! Every last Wednesday of the month, Aisle16 operates a monthly ‘literary cabaret’ in East London called HOMEWORK.

Homework runs for 6 months over the summer. Season 3 of Homework runs May-October 2010. See details below.

Homework gives Aisle16 a chance to try out new material as well as run into longer collaborative pieces. Each month we have a ‘main event’, usually a full length live literature show involving one or more of Aisle16’s members. This main event is supported by the performance new, often especially written material from other members of Aisle16. More often then not we invite a guest along, writers or performers we admire.

In the past Homework has played host to the likes of Tim Key, Jon Ronson and Kate Nash.

It has featured the world premieres of shows such as Who Writes This Crap?, Found in Translation, The Petty Concerns of Luke Wright, The Three Stigmata of Pacman, Local Boys Done Good and Infinite Lives.

Check out videos at www.myspace.com/homeworkldn

Homework happens at The Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44-46 Pollard Row, London, E2 6NB. It only costs £3 to get in.

2010 SEASON ANNOUNCED

1. Newsagent’s Window
26th MAY
John Osborne decides to respond to every single advert in a newsagent’s window. Then he writes a book about the people he meets. Newsagents Window is the follow-up to last year’s critically acclaimed Radio Head (Radio 4 Book Of The Week).

2. Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads
23rd JUNE
Luke Wright presents an early preview of his new one-man show. Expect suicide, balding chip-shop proprietors, and posh twits with the luck of the devil.

3. Homework Festival Special
28th JULY
Every summer, Homework’s residents decamp from their East End garrison to provide late night literary miscellany for music festivals up and down the UK. Here they report back with their brand-new festival set, custom-designed for people who have no idea where they are.

4. How To Write Badly Well
25th AUGUST
Joel Stickley adapts his hugely successful blog for the stage, giving step-by-step advice on how to be an excellent writer of rubbish. writebadlywell.blogspot.com

5. The Last Barman Poet
29th SEPTEMBER
When Tom Cruise stood on the bar in Cocktail, and shouted, “I am the last barman poet!” he created a new, indelible chapter in poetry history. Here, we throw open the doors to a whole host of poets and writers, each challenged with performing their own version/response/remix of The Last Barman Poet, using all of their skill and determination to try and make it good. The Aristocrats for poets.

6. My Worst Gig
27th OCTOBER
Inspired by The Moth’s storytelling events in New York and Los Angeles — an evening of true stories told live onstage without notes. Featuring an extra special guest.

*
All events feature support from Homework residents: Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne, Chris Hicks, John Osborne, Ross Sutherland & Luke Wright.

John Peel's Shed in the Guardian

2010-05-21T18:41:00.002+01:00

There's a nice article about my show John Peel's Shed in today's Guardian here.

Show Three

2010-05-16T20:36:00.001+01:00

1. Royal Trux - Fire Hill
2. Stereo de Luxe - Riddle me this
3. The Haywains - Just the job
4. Rudolf Brauer Sextett - Vorsorge
5. The Folk Implosion - Someone you love
6. Transistor 6 - Queenie King
7. The King Bees - I want my baby back
8. Oizone - Father and Son
9. Stereo Total - Schön von hintern
10. Bushman - Robbery aggravation
11. Ming - Ulysee
12. 54 Nude Honeys -
13. The Casswells - Elvis is dead
14. Hell on Wheels - Having one's luggage labelled
15. Raz Ohara - Far's song.

John Peel's Shed Show Two

2010-05-07T19:54:00.002+01:00

Tracklist, show 2, on air Sunday 9th May 9pm at futureradio.co.uk

You can download episode here.

1. The Dirtshakes - 18th December 1984
2. Junior Delgado - Working the midnight blues
3. Electralane - Blue Straggler
4. Modest Mouse - Born a rat
5. The Iron Gate - Feelin' bad
6. The Young Monkey Men - I believed you
7. Wackcat - All grrrl band
8. Hey O Hansen - d night out
9. Screaming Lord Sutch - Monster rock
10. Sylvester Boy - Sylvester boy
11. Seafood - Cloaking
12. Spot - Chelsea (is a horse)
13. Atom Rhumba - Gimme chaos
14. Joy Zipper - Check out my new Jesus
15. John Does - One kind favour

John Peel's Shed

2010-04-28T13:30:00.006+01:00

On Sunday May 2nd you can hear a radio show I have done, John Peel's Shed.
In 2001 I won a box of records on John Peel's Radio 1 show, where he set a competition where you could win a box of records from his shed. This is the best tracks from those records. More info here.

Download here

Tracklisting - episode 1

1. Dislocation Dance - Bottle of red wine
2. Screaming Lord Sutch - Rockabilly Madman
3. The Maheer Shala Hash Baz - Street corner college
4. Direct Hits - Too shy
5. The Dirtbombs - Your love lives under a rock
6. Shyheim - Furious anger
7. Atom and his Package - Going to Georgia
8. Rock con los Sonambulos - Grandes bolas de fuego
9. Girls at our Best - Politics
10. Walter Ghoul's Lavender Brigade - Hey Mary Jane
11. Oizone - Earth Song
12. Royal Trux - Call out the lions
13. Metabolics - Dawn of the dead
14. Anubian Lights - What a Bagdad had
15. Dusted - Always remember to honour and respect your mother.

The Fidelity Wars

2010-04-28T01:09:00.022+01:00

My favourite album is The Fidelity Wars by Hefner. I first heard Hefner on Steve Lamacq's Evening Session in about 1997, just as I was really getting into music. The Fidelity Wars is dark, intelligent, sad, personal, beautiful. Darren Hayman has had more influence on me as a writer than perhaps anyone else, his description of the every day, of bedsit romances, unrequited love, despair and hope really affected me and it was listening to Hefner albums that made me want to start writing. I can listen to it over and over again, never get bored of it, like A Different Class by Pulp.

Over the last few days I've been writing a poem using the title of each track on The Fidelity Wars. It's a pretty pathetic homage but fun, I think. I might try it with other albums too. Might. I'm not cool enough to be in a band so this is the closest I'll get to ever doing an album. The lyrics to the Hefner songs can be found here.

Track 1.
A Hymn fot the cigarettes

I had my first cigarette
with the Beach Boys on my Walkman
on a family holiday in Brittany

no bikesheds or leaning out of bedroom windows for me
no peer pressure or impressing bigger boys
I just went to the hotel cigarette machine

with my French francs and a baseball cap covering
my young, sunburnt face
and I put the packet in my pocket

strolled to the market
bought postcards and stamps
using my GCSE French

and sat down in a park. Put on my Walkman
lit my first cigarette
and wrote my first postcard.

Dear Grandma.
Having a lovely time in Brittany
Mum and dad are in the pool

And I’m in town seeing the sights.
The weather is incredible
Love from John.

I put the cigarette out, lit my second
turned over my cassette
strolled to the boulangerie and ordered a baguette.

Track 2.
May God protect your home

I have walked past your house
most days of my life
I've seen you gardening,
washing your car,
putting bottles out for the milkman

one day I saw an ambulance
and was so relieved the next day
when you were out in the garden again
a trowel in your hand
your heart attack must have just been chest pains

and I felt happy to picture your face
when you were discharged, got back home
let yourself in and your house had never seemed so familiar.
You used to have a wife but she left
my mum told me once

like filling me in on a TV show
where I'd missed the first few series
but she'd been glued since episode 1.
You had a daughter too
but you don't seem to get visitors any more.

When I got a paper round
I suddenly had an excuse
to walk down the gravel pathway
and I would see you in your armchair watching Countdown
with a notepad to work out the numbers game.

Whenever I go back home to visit my mum and dad
you're still there, with a watering can and bags of compost.
Who'd have thought you'd outlive Richard Whitely.
I don't know if anyone's ever told you this
but your garden is beautiful.

Track 3.
A Hymn for the alcohol
I used to hate the taste of whisky
if I was offered some I'd pause before I drank it
like I was about to break bad news.
As it trickled down I'd grimace

like receiving a letter from the taxman.
I hated the taste of whisky.
I still had my milk teeth. Alcopops and Becks
whisky was for jazz clubs and widowers

but those student days are over
and more and more I feel like a nervous kitten
in the cattery. Flinching at the slightest movement
and then one day I came home from work

opened the whisky I'd been given three Christmases ago
and glugged it down like Appletize.
Things changed that day.
Well actually the day before.

Track 4.
I took her love for granted

I'd started to plan our life together
I didn't realise you weren't that bothered.
You're probably not interested to know
we were going to have the most amazing time.

I was planning on becoming financially dependant for you
get a job at an insurance company or something
I had you and our unborn children to think about
and all those restaurants

you wouldn't have had to pay for a thing.
I'd started to plan new duvet covers and sets of saucepans
and was happy to sacrifice those of my friends
who I knew you didn't like

and those I could tell didn't really like you
I was looking forward to ditching them
not returning their calls until they stopped trying.
I was planning on dieting so your brothers wouldn't judge me

they're both buff and both times I've met them
I've thought about going jogging in the mornings
and I saw the way you looked at me when I had two Wispa Golds
after my dinner.

I had planned on learning recipes
because I know you don't like cooking
and I'm no chef but with the BBC website and my apron
I'd muddle through.
I just didn't realise you weren't that bothered

you've always been so nice in your texts
and whenever we've met we've had fun
or that's what I thought
but I know it's all my own fault

I just got carried away
I guess it's like when I drank that bottle of wine
I didn't realise you were saving for special.
I should have asked first.

Track 5
Every Little Gesture

I used to convince myself that doodling your initials
was time well spent
but our relationship turned out to be a big disappointment
like the second album by The Strokes
or the Transformers films.

I used to convince myself that Googling your name
would be a good thing
I was so desperate to find out more about you
I didn’t realise how quickly a doodle of a love heart
can turn into a cock and balls.

Track 6
The weight of the stars

"There are so few stars in the sky
I could fit them in my pocket"
you said to me
lying on the hammock I made for you
in your garden.
I ignored what you'd said

assuming you had headstroke
or were tipsy, after your third glass
of Martini and lemonade.
The sunshine earlier that day
had brought out a side of you

I had never seen before
all tranquil, untroubled;
that summer not once did you mention your job
or how I never offered to help
with the washing up.
You even picked me flowers

from a meadow we discovered
on one of our walks.
You arranged the bouquet
with such perfection that when I joked
we should leave our jobs and open
a florists in the South of France
you bolted upright and for a moment

I could picture us there.
We spend so much time on the hammock
and then drinking wine and looking at the stars
sometimes I think back to that summer
and wonder if we would still be together
if I hadn't set fire
to those ladybirds.

Track 7
I stole a bride

Both your grandmas died on the same day
and it reminded you of the year
you spent cheating on your girlfriend.

Now there is double grieving
two funerals
two families to console

and you think about the Christmas Day
you had two turkey dinners
and didn't even feel full.

Track 8
We were meant to be

People don't write letters anymore
which is a shame
because I've got a full pad of paper

and I used to like sending letters
stuffing the envelope with a packet of Chocolate Buttons,
a toy from my Kinder Egg, a mix tape

but I don't even know your address
which I guess is just as well because you might feel awkward
to read my late night thoughts

in my untidy handwriting
a splash of red wine on each page
like a watermark

and I would write to tell you that
I really loved those few moments we shared
and I know there weren't many

but it was enough for me.
I would write with pieces of advice for you
that at the time felt indispensable

which I know you would gloss over
or perhaps ignore completely.
I would think I was helping

telling you to travel because you are young
and that you shouldn't waste your life with just one person.
I would tell you life will be cruel sometimes but whatever happens

you know where I am.
By this stage my scrawl would become illegible
writing so quickly and I'd be so focused

I'd have completely neglected your mix tape
and spend an hour the next morning
rewinding to the right place

so maybe it's just as well people don't write letters anymore
there's too much I want to say
and I know you would probably screw up anything I sent you

and throw it in the bin
or worse, keep it in a drawer
find it in ten years time

when looking for something else
and realise for the first time
what I was trying to say.

Track 9
Fat Kelly's Teeth

We called you Fat Kelly
and said your teeth are kind of yellow

and I guess it's our fault
for saying too much

when we'd been drinking.
You're not even that fat

and it's nothing mouthwash won't fix
but you stormed off before we realised you were there

I guess you'll never hear anything nice about yourself
listening at doors.

Track 10
Don't flake out on me

If me and you stick together
we could be pretty special
like Galton and Simpson
Jack and Vera
Sutton and Shearer
and I know I'm going to stick at it
like an ageing bank clerk
eagerly anticipating his carriage clock
that he'd proudly display on his mantelpiece
not even slightly irritated by the tock
tock tock
the gong every hour

but most people don't make it
through forty consecutive Christmas parties
in the same office
forty years of April fools jokes
clingfilm on the toilet seat
whoopee cushions on the chairs
most people bale,
start scanning the local paper for new jobs
and I'm worried you will get headhunted
by a new office that opens up in town
and be taken in by the big open plan office
the pot plants in reception

but if me and you stick at it
don't set our sights on unrealistic goals
then we will both get our carriage clocks
a handshake from the CEO
our names in the company newsletter

Track 11
I love only you

We agreed to make a list
of the three celebrities we would sleep with.
You chose Cesc Fabregas, Johnny Depp,
George Clooney
and we agreed that if you ever met them
you can bend over
and they will do with you what they want
and I won't say a thing.
You asked me who I would choose
and I said no-one
I love only you
and put a flower in your hair.
Then said 'Not really.
I'd choose Sarah from Girls Aloud
Lily Allen
and Lindsay Dawn McKenzie.'

You can buy my book of poetry, What if men burst in wearing balaclavas? for £5 here.

You can buy a repackaged double CD of The Fidelity Wars here.

Sony Awards

2010-04-28T01:02:00.004+01:00

This year's Sony Awards are in a couple of weeks. Here's 5 people I'd really like to win.

1. Richard Herring (best internet programme)

Richard Herring has been involved in radio his whole career, originally as one of the writers for On The Hour, then Fist of Fun on Radio 4, and I remember the Radio 1 music show he did with Stewart Lee as one of the best shows on radio.

For a few years Herring and Andrew Collins have been recording weekly podcasts in Herring's attic. It was never for money, but the reward has been a renaissance in both mens careers - the 6Music schedule always looks stronger with Collins's name featured, and Herring's audiences have built up significantly, dovetailing with the pairs podcasts.

When his Radio 2 show That was then, this is now was cancelled that he decided that didn't stop him from making it anyway. So he booked the Leicester Square theatre, charged his audience a tenner to get in to cover costs, and put the show on the Internet the next day. There was no middleman, no need to worry about increasingly strict BBC rules. He could swear, do whatever material he wanted. The result was As it occurs to me, featuring comedian Dan Tetsell and TV's Emma Kennedy. And it's great, really funny, as good as his podcasts and those early Radio 4 shows. This Sony nomination is reward for a determination to succeed, an impressive work ethic, and proving that the way radio is made is changing.

2. Nihal (best speech programme) versus Woman's hour and the ubiquitous Nick Ferrari

It doesn't take a long time listening to the Asian Network before you realise what an important service this provides. There are two and half million British Asians in the UK, the vast majority of whom are under the age of thirty-five. This is the Asian Network’s core audience, but they also appeal to older British Asians, as well as non Asians. The shows tackle important, vital topics, and the audience respond with their contributions. The station’s objective now that it broadcasts nationally is the same as when it existed locally in Leicester - to maintain the close relationship with its audience that local radio manages to achieve. Nihal is the figurehead of the station, knowledeble, quick, very very funny, he covers a broad range of topics and is a radio natural.

3. Frank Skinner (best entertainment show)

Absolute Radio have been nominated for a pretty impressive 12 awards at this year's Sonys. The station, formerly Virgin Radio, has been around for just over a year and has made some big changes, playing more interesting music and booking big name presenters, such as Frank Skinner, who has been nominated for best entertainment show. The show is often shambolic but that's why it's good. Skinner is supported by stand-up Gareth Richards, recently nominated for Chortle best newcomer, who clearly relishes being able to serve this comedy apprenticeship, and Emily Dean, who plays big sister to Gareth's little brother. Skinner's show is a chance for him to show what a quick comedian he is, and one far removed from his lads mags reputation of the nineties. He has a gifted way with words and images – he described Cheryl Cole's appearance as a Prada bag with a broken bottle inside. The show also proves that Skinner hasn't lost his touch with his quick wit – admittedly he's very hit and miss, but it depends whether you choose to dwell on the hits or the misses. I prefer to laugh at the gags that work. 'I've been asked to appear at the Hay festival. It's a festival dedicated to the Fonz.' Anyone who has Adam and Joe withdrawal symptoms since they left 6music should download Frank Skinner.

4. Lauren Laverne (music radio personality of the year award) versus Moyles, o'connell, mills, mike and chelsea in the morning.

6 Music makes good use of people in the music industry: Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow has presented a Sunday evening radio show for a few years now, Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Best is essential listening. Laverne's band Kenickie were one of the best, most exciting bands of the mid 90s, they made the music scene a much better place and Laverne has the same role on radio.

It's really important that 6Music does well at these Sony Awards, and this is probably the best show on the station. Laverne plays eclectic music, has an encyclopedic knowledge of bands past and present and is funny and intelligent. She recently played a Wings b-side. Her dad likes Captain Beefheart. That should be the only criteria of having a show on 6Music.

5. Huw Stephens (Best specialist music programme)
Huw Stephens has been an unlikely star in the last few weeks. While Chris Moyles has been on holiday Stephens has been presenting the afternoon show, which even a few months ago would have seemed pretty unlikely. The schedule while Moyles has been away could be the way things are on Radio 1 in a few months time, if rumours of Moyles's departure from the Breakfast Show prove to be true. Scott Mills doing Breakfast, then Fearne Cotton, Huw Stephens and then Greg James doing the drivetime show. It's about time indie music was represented properly on Radio 1, not since Colin Murray co-presented the afternoon slot with Edith Bowman has there been someone enthusiastic about guitars and proper bands. His late night shows, for which this nomination is for, have always been worth listening to, whether it's breaking a new band like The Cheek as part of BBC Inroducing or playing exciting new acts, and not afraid to take risks, hence the first Radio 1 airplay of spoken word artist Kate Tempest on his show.

Radio Head, up and down the dial of British radio features chapters on 6music, Radio 1 and the Asian Network and is available to buy here.

Homework

2010-04-27T12:08:00.006+01:00

The Newsagent's Window

2010-03-26T20:21:00.013Z

My new book, The Newsagent's Window, is out now, published by Simon&Schuster. It's a story of a year in my life spent living vicariously through newsagents windows. You can see an article about it in the Daily Mail here.

I've been on a couple of radio shows to talk about it, including Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show. It's also had a really good review from the people at Booktrust.

"This charming tale of finding a community in a world of internet connections and fast-moving city lives and fear and suspicion is a wonderful look at people and the small ripple effects they have on each other’s lives. John Osborne, poet and writer, returns from Vienna to live in Norwich, where he went to university. Finding himself in an unfurnished flat with not even a bed to sleep on, he takes to answering adverts in newsagent windows. Bed – check, cutlery – check, toaster – check... Beaver uniform – check? As with books of this sort, a man’s obsessive nature leads him to an unhealthy place that he needs to break through.

Osborne is wry and sweet, happily embarrassing himself with tales of psychic masseuses offering him life lessons while he sits in his pants, inheriting a huge VHS collection and working through it to feel closer to the previous owner, buying a car he doesn’t need till it becomes his albatross. Each adventure leads him to a person whose items have a tale to tell about them and whose inheritance leads Osborne to discover something about his own humanity. It’s an utterly charming and funny book, powering through loneliness and solitude to the building of communities all through the community newsagent window."

You can pre-order The Newsagent's Window here.

Poetry review

2010-03-24T03:07:00.004Z

This is a review for my poetry book, What If Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas, out earlier this year. You can read it here on the Booktrust website

Also Sophia Blackwell at the very hip Penpusher magazine reviewed my book together with fellow Nasty Little Press author Luke Wright.

Review of High Performance by Luke Wright and What If Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas? by John Osborne

Though Luke Wright and John Osborne are still two young turks in the often late-blooming poetry world, in these pithy and often delightful collections we find them flirting with adulthood. Sometimes they accept it, with all its disappointments, fears and subtle joys, and sometimes they please themselves and their audience by embracing pop culture and playground invective: Wright is clearly fond of talking about things that smell of wee; and Osborne seems possessed by a pathological hatred of Neil Morrissey – it all adds a bit of colour.

Despite both poets creating worlds full of humour and irony, they are also unafraid of facing the big concepts – ‘Death, God and the Universe’ is the title of one of Osborne’s poems. This preoccupation with mortality, quiet celebrations of the commonplace, hymns to suburbia, and occasional snarls of rage and sorrow, give a strong flavour of Larkin.

This is particularly the case for Luke Wright, whose collection features ‘high windows’, a very restrained British funeral, and even a whole poem devoted to the über-anthologised lodger Mr Bleaney, though in Wright’s world he is secretly a jumpsuit-clad swinger who couldn’t give a toss what some bespectacled loser might make of him, spending his secret weekends, ‘up till dawn/ On Friday snorting coke off an arse cheek/ With three of Duran Duran’.

By the time I’d finished the first page of High Performace I’d already laughed out loud twice, but as befits such humour there are moments of pathos too and plenty of self-disgust. The manic comic’s post-show shame creeps in as the poet remembers himself ‘crying and wanking on fringe theatre stages,’ or spewing gags to his tired but tolerant friends, who sometimes wish ‘someone had breastfed Luke as a child.’

While trying to play down his considerable triumphs, occasionally he comes close to what he accuses another character of doing – ‘having his cake then satirising it’– but I wouldn’t lose his hilarious howl of self-loathing, ‘Luke’s Got A Joke.’ When it comes to anticipating his detractors, Charlie Brooker with a hangover would be hard-pushed to out-bile him:

No Luke, don’t stop Luke, we’re keen to hear more
it’s better when you say ‘Don’t mention the war!’
Forget that night out at the Comedy Store
We’d rather hear Luke do some Blackadder 4.

The poet’s struggles – with fame, ambition, himself – come to a poisonous head in ‘Mr Blank’, a poem about a crooked talent scout who offers to make him famous. Their shallow relationship is shot through with mutual self-loathing, ‘a platonic love so vacuous/it made Des’ree look like René Descartes.’ Still, his compassion for ‘Mr Blank’ lifts the poem far above a simple slagging-off, shining the same merciless light on Wright’s longings and delusions. It’s a bold move, and one that pays off.

While both books have references to festivals, the Fringe, and drinking champagne from crystal flutes, or even, in one poem of Osborne’s, pint glasses, the boys both engage with a more settled-down life in which listening to Stuart Maconie isn’t necessarily a crime.

The title poem of Osborne’s pamphlet has the protagonist fearfully imagining men in balaclavas bursting through the ‘patio doors’ into a scene of domestic bliss, setting the tone for a collection in which life is often pleasant, potentially frightening and sometimes magical. In one poem, he imagines leading a deer through the turnstile at Ealing Broadway; in another, he hacks into his company’s intranet and posts Simon Armitage poems. In reality, he frets about money, death and relationships, drinks Southern Comfort and listens to the Super Furry Animals.

What If Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas? covers similar thematic terrain to Wright’s book, but the tone is very different. While there are fewer barnstorming performance pieces and heart-on-sleeve bits of seriousness, Osborne’s poems are funny, quietly self-assured and often more than a little sad. His gentler approach allows the reader to identify with his bemused characters, who bumble along bouncing cheques ‘like a ping-pong ball/falling from a pocket/at a funeral’, failing to fix washing machines and fantasising about a local girl who drives a Toyota Yaris, their stomachs full of butterfly wings:

I want to tell her about the butterflies
But when I try and talk to her
It’s like we’re playing hide and seek
I have got my eyes closed
And I’m counting to one hundred.

Throughout this moving, resonant collection, Osborne’s speakers console themselves by insisting that heartbreaking things can’t happen because ‘it’s Glastonbury in June’ or ‘only two weeks until we go to New York’. To quote one of his titles, ‘We’re All Going to Die’ – but yes, there will still be Glastonbury, and fajitas, The Mighty Boosh, and Hancock’s Half Hour. There’s still honey for tea, or to quote one of my favourite lines from Osborne’s title poem, ‘a case of red wine to get through/and a massive Toblerone’.

John Peel's Shed

2010-03-21T22:39:00.007Z

I have recorded five episode of a new radio show called John Peel's Shed. You can download the episodes here.

John Peel's ShedIn 2002 I won a competition on John Peel's Radio 1 show. My prize was a box of records from his shed. I've always treasured the collection, loved listening to the records, going through the tracks, finding lost gems. But it started to nag at me that there was no outlet for these songs. It felt a bit empty that I was the only person who heard these records, other than the occasional friend at my house.

I first went to Future Radio when I was researching for a book I was writing, Radio Head. I thought it would be interesting to meet people who volunteer at community radio. I went in to Future one day and was fascinated at being surrounded by so many people passionate about radio. I've always loved radio, but done nothing about it. This was people who were acting on their interests, doing something proactive with their love of radio. There were kids on computers editing programmes, people sorting through boxes of CDs. This was my ideal environment.

Future Radio is staffed by three full time employees, Tom Buckham, Terry Lee and Simone Hayes. Future provides school inclusion projects for young people aged 13 to 16 years, music, media and radio training, education films/DVD’s and much more. It has over 1500 volunteers, many who have been on air, had their own shows, got involved in producing, outside broadcasts, learning how shows are put together. But most importantly, it's good. It plays good music, and genuinely original. Anyone can submit ideas for shows. And that's when I started to think of the records in my living room that used to be in John Peel's Shed.

I pitched my idea and arranged time to have training in the studio, work how the equipment worded. After a couple of hours of playing with faders, mixers, idents, I went home and sorted out the playlist for the first episode of my new show. I was going to be a radio presenter. John Peel's records had a home, and it was Future Radio.

But the process wasn't as easy as I thought. The problem was that I was rubbish at being a radio presenter. It was so much more difficult than I ever contemplated. I froze as soon as the microphone went to air. I hesitated and stuttered and often words just didn't come out of my mouth. After a couple of false starts I gave up doing the programme. It was making me frustrated and miserable. But then, months later, I had a party at my house and a couple of my friends started looking at the records. I told them about Future Radio and the show I'd failed to do, and they really encouraged me to have another go. And I realised I'd carried the failure round with me, I genuinely wanted to make this show work. So I got back in touch with the guys at Future and arranged five blocks of studio time for me to have another go. This time I put hours of preparation in to the records I was playing, I found information about every band and record label. I spent hours reading the album sleeves, and the weekly recordings were the highlights of my week. It started to take over my life.

So now all the shows are recorded. They can be downloaded at futureradio.co.uk and tracklistings and information is at johnpeelsshed.blogspot.com.

BBC Trust

2010-03-12T21:22:00.004Z

It's not too late to complain to the BBC about the axing of 6music and the Asian Network. 8,000 people already have done. All you need to do is email the BBC trust at trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk and srconsultation@bbc.co.uk. It's genuinely important to get our voice heard and we have to trust the BBC when they say they will listen to opposition to the changes. This is the letter I wrote. It's the only letter of complaint I have ever written that isn't to a train company. There's lots of things that have upset me, the demise of Teletext, war, when Graham left Blur. But the proposed axing of two of my favourite stations has prompted me to write this:

Hello,
I am writing to add my voice to those upset at the axing of the Asian Network and 6Music. I bought a digital radio because of 6Music. I wanted to hear Phill Jupitus present the Breakfast Show. I listened every morning, and soon started playing with the dial, and listened to Lauren Laverne in the afternoon on XFM. I had always been a big fan of radio, even when I was 13 years old I was a regular listener to shows such as Loose Ends, Front Row and Just a Minute. Having a digital radio expanded my listening. Gradually, I had the idea to take my obsession to the next level, and I started to write a book about radio. After months of research, which included listening extensively to the radio stations of Great Britain, big stations such as Radio 1 and Radio 4, digital stations like 6Music and the Asian Network, commerical radio, community radio, pirate radio, internet only radio, local radio. The result was my book, Radio Head, my love letter to radio, something that has played such a huge part of my life.

After spending so much of my last couple of years digesting the radio stations available to me, it is 6Music that I have since chosen as my constant companion. It is virtually flawless, engaging, informative. All of the things the BBC prides itself on. Marc Riley and Lauren Laverne are particular examples of how strong a radio station can be, intelligent and articulate and so enjoyable to listen to. Weekly shows such as Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service are treats that I and so many others look forward to. And it doesn't matter that we don't tune in in our millions. Because to us, the minority, who tune in to these programmes, we cherish them, we appreciate them, we feel part of something. So many other stations I have listened to while researching my book fall so far short of this incredible achievement that 6Music so effortlessly creates.

6Music and the Asian Network are vital, not just as radio stations but as components of the BBC. We relish making appointments with certain programmes, whether it is Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone and Nihal, Shaun Keaveney and Nikki Bedi. In the words of Phill Jupitus, whose 6Music show epitomised the station's ethic, to be rid of it would be 'cultural vandalism.'

Best wishes,

John Osborne

Sign the petition here

Norwich Poetry Club

2010-03-11T21:37:00.003Z

I'm doing a gig in Norwich on Tuesday as part of Norwich Poetry Club. It's at the Bicycle Shop on St Benedicts Street, 7.30 pm, £5. To hear a podcast of the last event, starring Luke Wright and Martin Newell, click here.

Tuesday 16th March
The Norwich Poetry Club presents two distinctly entertaining poets:

Elvis McGonagall – Dundee
Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary and recumbent rocker, Elvis McGonagall is the sole resident of The Graceland Caravan Park somewhere near Dundee where he scribbles verse whilst drinking malt whisky and listening to Johnny Cash. Elvis is the 2006 World Slam Champion, the compere of the notorious Blue Suede Sporran Club and is one of the poets occasionally in residence on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live.

&

John Osborne - Norwich
The poet that makes you go “aaahh…” – in a good way. John Osborne has been melting the hearts of festival-goers and barflies across the country for four years now, with poems that steer a skilful course between the mundane, the sentimental and the extraordinary. Having successfully fictionalised his addiction to the wireless in Radio Head (Radio 4’s Book of the Week) his second book, The Newsagent’s Window, is forthcoming in May from Simon & Schuster. His debut poetry pamphlet is published by Nasty Little Press in February.

Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio

2010-03-06T13:20:00.003Z

This week my book, Radio Head, is out in paperback. It's got a new front cover, press quotes and the typos have gone.

2010 gigs

2010-02-23T16:24:00.007Z

Sat 30th Jan. Launch of What if Men Burst In Wearing Balaclavas. Blacks Bar, Soho, featuring Salena Godden, Luke Wright, Laura Dockrill, Hannah Walker.

Monday 1st Feb. Me and Tim Clare go back to our old uni to do a gig at the Creative Writing Society. UEA Grad Bar, 8pm.

Weds 3rd Feb. Norwich launch of my poetry pamphlet at the Book Hive.

Monday 8th Feb. Aisle16 present Local Boys Done Good. Norwich Arts Centre, 8pm.

Tuesday 16th Feb, compering first event as part of Norwich Poetry Club. Featuring Luke Wright and Martin Newell.

Weds 24th Feb. Literary Death Match, 100 Commercial Street, London. Featuring Salena Godden and Richard Millwood. Judged by Tim Wells and TV's Emma Kennedy.

Weds 3rd March. Birdcage. Yanny and Paddy's early Christmas cabaret.

8th March. RADIO HEAD OUT IN PAPERBACK.

Sat 13th March. Gig at the Cellar with Niall O'Sullivan.

Tues 16th March. Norwich Poetry Club #2. Me and Elvis McGonnagol. The Bicycle Shop, St Benedicts Street, £5. 7.30 pm.

Weds 17th March. Birdcage cabaret with Andy Bennett.

Sat 20th March. Platform Unplugged. Playhouse. 8pm.

Thurs 1st April. THE NEWSAGENT'S WINDOW OUT.

Monday 12 April. Cafe Writers, featuring me and Molly Naylor. Jurnets Bar, Wensum Lodge, Norwich.

Weds 14th April. Book launch of The Newsagent's Window at Waterstones, Norwich.

Tues 4th May. With Poeticat at Wordplay at the Good Ship, Kilburn.

Weds May 26th, Homework is back with a new season. The first event is a reading of The Newsagent's Window, as well as support from the Homework regulars and a special guest.

Weds June 23rd, Homework, headlined by Luke Wright's new show Cynical Ballads.

Weds July 28th, Homework's Festival Special.

Weds 25th August, Homework present How to Write Badly Well, a live version of Joel Stickley's successful blog.

BBC Digital

2010-02-20T17:45:00.011Z

Digital Radio
It would be a disaster if 6Music and the Asian Network were taken off air. It makes no sense. Saying the listening figures are too low is missing the point, it's not how many people tune in to shows like Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone on 6Music or Nihal on the Asian Network, it's how important these shows are to those who do. Radio 1 is never going to play anything outside the mainstream, and as long as Fearne Cotton and Scott Mills take up Radio 1 airtime, 6Music is vital. Radio is the BBC's finest achievement, and if you are prepared to look beyond the mainstream you will definitely find something that interests you.

Here are the top five things about digital radio.

5. Five Live Sports Extra. Growing up I would tune into Radio 5 every Saturday afternoon, and occasionally would be the dreaded words 'Live from Twickenham.' I'd try and work out which football team played at Twickenham when the realisation would hit me. There was rugby going on. It was a much worse feeling than Saturday afternoons outside of the football season when there was no football on Radio 5, I could accept that because I knew it was the close season, and so for a few months football didn't exist. This was much worse, the awareness that football was going on that you were denied access to because of Jeremy Guscott and Rory Underwood. Now with Sports Extra football and rugby can exist at the same time. And with the increasing sports schedules, seasons getting longer, there are often clashes.

The best thing about 5 Live Sports Extra is Test Match Special. Crystal clear reception, it's so much better quality than the crackly Radio 4 Longwave dial. It's changed the way sports fans listen to radio. Particularly ones that don't like rugby.

4. Repeats of Hancock's Half Hour. BBC 7 contains a few hidden gems. Perhaps it doesn't create as much new comedy as you'd like, but playing repeats of Dad's Army and the News Quiz is still a pretty important role. BBC 7 is a vital station for those like me who are desperate to cling on to the past, the passing of time makes you feel sad, you can't cope with new technology and things like Corden and Horne and archives of old episodes of Just a Minute and Steptoe and Son and the League of Gentlemen are the way to stop the cruely of the modern age.

3. BBC Asian Network. It doesn't take a long time listening to the Asian Network before you realise how important a service this provides. There are two and half million British Asians in the UK, the vast majority of whom are under the age of thirty-five. This is the Asian Network’s core audience, but they also appeal to older British Asians, as well as non Asians. The shows tackle important, vital topics, and the audience respond with their contributions. The station’s objective now that it broadcasts nationally is the same as when it existed locally in Leicester - to maintain the close relationship with its audience that local radio manages to achieve.

2. Lauren Laverne. A recent report said that 6 Music needs more knowledgeable presenters. I don't really know what this means. Broadcasters on 6 include Stuart Maconie, Jarvis Cocker, Steve Lamacq, Gideon Coe. That's a pretty mean pub quiz team. Although many of the presenters aren't classically moulded from radio school, it doesn't really matter. 6 Music makes good use of people in the music industry: Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow has presented a Sunday evening radio show for a couple of years now, Cerys Matthews filled in in for Nemone when she was on maternity leave, and surely no-one can question the newest recruit, Jarvis Cocker. Stand ups have also thrived on the station, Russell Brand broadcast for a few months and then was promoted to Radio 2, before mysteriously disappearing without trace. Russell Howard had an award winning Sunday afternoon show before handing over to his sidekick Jon Richardson, who will be missed when he follows the lead of Adam and Joe in leaving the station after three years of excellent shows. I still harbour feint hopes that Adam and Joe will replace Jonathan Ross on Radio 2, they made vague claims of a hiatus and that they may return. Well hopefully their talents will have been noticed, and just like with Russell Brand, be rewarded by a mainstream slot. But it is Lauren Laverne who has the best show on 6 Music. She plays eclectic music, has an encyclopedic knowledge of bands past and present and is funny and intelligent. She recently played a Wings b-side. Her dad likes Captain Beefheart. That should be the only criteria of having a show on 6Music. In fact it's hard to find a weak link on 6 Music. The claim that the station needs more knowledgeable presenters is ludicrous. Maybe the BBC Trust have just been listening to George Lamb.

1. WESTWOOD! I had no idea until very recently what an absolute radio genius Westwood is. And it's digital radio that has given him the time and opportunity to showcase this. To my shame I judged him on the most minimal premis: I thought he was a dick. He's actually the most misunderstood person on radio. He is clever, witty, quick, self depricating, passionate. He has all the right qualities of the perfect radio presenter. It's just that the image he has created is so bizarre, so difficult to get your head around it is almost impossible not to have preconceptions. But once you're in his world it's such a fun place to be. He is constantly funny, and sets himself up as the idiot to make good radio. He wouldn't be out of place on any station in the country, I'd like to see him filling in for Jeremy Vine on Radio 2, or the new presenter of Woman's Hour. He could handle anything. I never thought I would say this but I love Westwood. Try him. His show is on 1Xtra 4-7pm, and you can download daily podcasts.

If telly are allowed BBC3, radio is definitely allowed Westwood and Lauren Laverne.

Radio Head: Up and Down the dial of British Radio is published by Simon&Schuster and available to buy here.

Norwich Poetry Club

2010-02-17T21:58:00.003Z

I'm part of a new poetry night in Norwich. It's called the Norwich Poetry Club. Here's how Yanny Mac blogs about first event that happened this week.

In years to
come, people will say “I was there. I was at the inaugural launch of Norwich
Poetry Club”. (Even if they weren’t).

Sorry if you
couldn’t get in. We thought about bigger venues, but downstairs at The Bicycle
Shop in St.Benedict’s is more suited to our plans, and 50 people max. is a
perfect sized audience for a spoken-word gig.

Compered
admirably by the ever-loveable John Osborne, NPC gave us Luke Wright’s ‘ballad
set’ as the local poet’s offering.

Bouncing
between belly-laughs, satire & pathos, Wright set the tone for the evening,
opening with “Fat Josh” and then holding our hands tightly, as we embarked on
an emotional rollercoaster ride of rhyme & reasoned verse.

The second
half belonged to Martin Newell. Standing-in at the last minute for Caroline
Bird, the UK’s “most published poet” seemed relaxed and loquacious, as he
furnished us with anecdotes, jokes & what seemed like a poetic travelogue
around the Eastern Counties.

The audience
responded marvellously to our two poets. People of all ages, and from all backgrounds
hung on every word spoken, whilst delighting in the excellent ale selection,
and helping themselves to jaffa cakes & jammie dodgers.

Norwich
Poetry club will return to The Bicycle Shop on March 16th, with Elvis
McGonagall and the ubiquitous (and ever-loveable) John Osborne.

Platform

2010-02-06T18:03:00.009Z

I occasionally write poems for a show called Platform on Future Radio, Norwich's community radio station. I'm doing some more over the next few weeks, they're all themed around Norwich / East Anglia. You can hear the latest show here.

There's something about the railway

It's getting dark at Peterborough station
and a cargo train shuffles past
like an old lady in slippers.

Sometimes when I'm waiting on platforms
I think about my granddad, who worked on the trains
travelling up and down the country then always back to Teeside
and I never met him but he's always felt close.

When I was younger sometimes my grandma would say
'Did I ever tell you about ...'
and talk about the sweetshop at the end of her road
or how excited she was the first time she used a toaster

and sometimes she'd tell me something about my granddad
that he wore the same hat every day for thirty years
that he always bought her socks for her birthday
that she never once heard him swear.

She'd talk about how much he loved his job
'There's something about the railway' she'd say
and I always knew what she meant.
It's getting dark and cold at Peterborough station

and as the cargo train passes me
I start to count the carriages
like I've done ever since I was little
in the car at level crossings.

I've always been fascinated by the heaps of coal by the sides of the tracks
men in high viz jackets shovelling
and I like it when I see trainspotters on the bridge,
notebooks and bobble hats, the perfect vantage point.

There's something reassuring as the cargo train
disappears over the Peterborough horizon
and I think about the locomotive rhythm of my grandma's stories
and wish I'd talked to her more

because there is something about the railway
the crackle of old radio
the smell of a dusty book
the discoloration of the pages.

Upcoming gigs

2010-01-24T18:50:00.005Z

I've got some fun poetry gigs coming up:

Saturday 30th Jan, 9 pm Blacks bar, Dean Street, Soho, launch of my poetry book What if men burst in wearing balaclavas? Featuring Luke Wright, Laura Dockrill, Hannah Walker and Salena Godden.

Monday 1st Feb, me and Tim Clare do a gig at the UEA Creative Writing Society's open mic.

Weds 3rd Feb, 7 pm, Norwich launch of Balaclavas at The Book Hive, London Street.

Monday 8th Feb, Aisle16 present Local Boys Done Good. Mixing stand-up, live poetry and film, Local Boys Done Good stars Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne, Chris Hicks, John Osborne and Ross Sutherland, who met at the University of East Anglia.

Early last year, one of them posed the question: ‘Where’s the worst place you can imagine doing a gig?’ They all gave the same answer – the towns they grew up in. It was too tempting a challenge to say no. Thus they set out on a tour of the grim hometowns they once fled.

Tues Feb 16th, Norwich Poetry Club presents Luke Wright and Martin Newell. The Norwich Poetry club is a new boutique poetry event for 2010. Our mission statement is to showcase local talent alongside high calibre visiting artists. Events will be held monthly at the Bicycle Shop on St Benedicts Street.

You can order a copy of What If Men Burst in wearing balaclavas, published by Nasty Little Press, here.
You can pre-order my new book The Newsagent's Window here.

Lily Allen impressions

2010-01-18T21:52:00.002Z

This is my new favourite thing. Lily Allen doing impressions on Radio 1. For the record my friend Molly can do a better Nadine Coyle than her.

2010-01-11T02:02:00.002Z

I have my first poetry book out soon, What if men burst in wearing balaclavas, published by Nasty Little Press.

"Yes, I like these poems. There is a warmth, as you'd expect with a balaclava in the title." John Hegley.

You can order the book online here for £5

Podcast of gig in Norwich

2010-01-03T01:02:00.004Z

I do poetry gigs sometimes. In May, as part of the Norwich Fringe Festival I did a gig with Hannah Walker and Laura Dockrill, compered by Paddy. I remember being ill and it going badly but it sounds like it might have been fun. You can find it here.

The poem I read out is called a Day in the Life.

Midnight
With Kelly in Take Five.
The barman calls "time"
he looks at us and winks.

1 am
The landlord has his coat on
we sip our whiskies and leave.

2 am
Kelly knows a bar that’s still serving
we sit in the corner, no-one knows our names.

3 am
I walk Kelly to her front door. This is romantic.
I ask to borrow money for a taxi home. This is realism.

4 am
Trying to sleep knowing your alarm is set for seven
is like being on a delayed train
worrying about your connection.

5 am
I dream I am drumming with The Beatles
John Lennon high fives me.
Outside we are ushered into limousines.

6 am
All my life I have been waking before the alarm
waiting for the beeps.

7 am
I wee and brush my teeth simultaneously.
This is saving valuable seconds.

8 am
Walking to work I think about phoning in sick

9 am
The country is full of people logging on
adjusting swivel chairs
deleting bulk email

10 am
There is a lady here whose job is to make us coffee
photocopy
leave bottles out for the milkman.

11 am
Kelly texts
‘still in bed
x’

12 pm
I walk to Burger King
tomorrow I will start a fitness regime
couscous and swimming.

1 pm
In Spain this would be siesta time
back to our homes for Sangria and sleep.
Stewart from Sales has got a nosebleed.

2 pm
An email challenges me to name bald footballers.
I get seven before resorting to google.

3 pm
A team meeting
an oval table
at its epicentre a plate of biscuits
that no-one can reach.

4 pm
I am asked to sign a birthday card
for someone I have never met.

5 pm
Waiting for the clock to turn.
I do a poo so I don’t have to go
in my own time.

6 pm
I am out the door like a Japanese bullet train

7 pm
On the kitchen notice board
takeaway menus are displayed
like treasured family photographs.

8 pm
Power showers make everything better.
I Imperial Leather my balls and armpits.

9 pm
Kelly comes round.
When the doorbell rings
I realise I have no socks on.

10 pm
In the pub a couple have a stand up row.
We watch it like they’re on Trisha

11 pm
I do my impression of Del Boy falling down the bar.

Midnight
Me and Kelly in Take Five
the barman calls "time"
he looks at us and winks.

Amanda Palmer

2009-12-31T01:42:00.012Z

This is a poem about Amanda Palmer, a pretty special singer I really like. Her solo album came out in 2008 and is incredible, you should buy it. I've only seen her live once, when she performed with the Dresden Dolls at Leeds festival a few years ago and it was the only time my spine has gone tingly watching a band. Anyway, here's the poem.

I don't want to share Amanda Palmer

I was making you a birthday CD.
I asked if you'd heard Amanda Palmer
you said no
and I knew you'd like her
but I couldn't quite bring myself
to add one of her songs to the playlist.

Instead I put on a Blur slowy
something safe.
The first time I heard Amanda Palmer
I thought of you straight away
and I guess I always thought we'd listen to her together
and now I don't want to share her.

I still think maybe we'll wake up together
one morning months from now
and I'll say 'Hey you still haven't heard Amanda Palmer'
and I'll press play and we'll listen to Ampersand
and Blake Says and The Point of it All,

and you'll look at me and it'll be like
when you made me that CD ages ago
that had Joanna Newsome and Yeah Yeah Yeahs
and Nina Nastasia
and I listened to it by myself on the train
and wished you were there

that it was something we could share.
So maybe one day we'll listen to Amanda Palmer together
and I'll say
'Yeah I thought you'd like it'
and we'd google for gigs
wait for her to perform at a town near us
and until she announced a tour
we'd just listen to the album

over and over again. But for now
I don't want to share Amanda Palmer
you still haven't heard her
but maybe one day, you will.

And here's my favourite Amanda Palmer song.

and from her previous band Dresden Dolls
This is probably the best song ever written.

All Bar Luke

2009-12-30T23:48:00.004Z

One of the best things on radio I've heard for a long time, the Christmas special of All Bar Luke, Tim Key's radio 4 show. You can hear it again here. Really nice review in the Guardian too.

The Newsagent's Window

2009-12-30T20:48:00.000Z

So this is my new book, The Newsagent's Window, published by Simon&Schuster on April 1st. Every chapter focuses on a different advert I've seen advertised in a newsagent's window, and includes a massage, yoga classes and buying a man's entire video collection.

Danny Baker

2009-12-20T21:54:00.005Z

One of my favourite people on radio is Danny Baker, his Saturday morning show on Five Live is one of my favourite shows and he's one of the most important people in the history of radio, one of my genuine heroes. This is a clip from when goalkeeper Fraser Digby turned up unannounced after Danny Baker had been running a feature called Fraser Digby's Washbag, after a listener emailed in to say they'd had a look through Fraser Digby's washbag during a stadium tour at Swindon Town.

There's some great clips online, including the world's greatest anagram, Brian Ferry Dog Killer, and the saddest thing ever heard.

Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio is available to buy here.

Adam and Joe

2009-12-17T22:07:00.013Z

Adam and Joe announced this week they are taking a hiatus from their 6music Saturday morning show. Which is a massive shame, it's been one of the best radio shows for a couple of years now.

You can get an idea of the quality of a show by the contributions of the listeners. Texts from Fearne Cotton's listeners generally consist of one word, normally 'tune' or 'legend'. George Lamb's phone up to say Shabba. Adam and Joe are funny, sharp and culturally in tune, which means their listeners are similar, and so provide good quality content. The show is at its best during items such as Text the Nation when listeners text in response to the theme of the day. A&J's 6 music listeners are broadly the same as those who watched their Channel 4 show in the 90s, when all of us were much younger. Now we are all ageing together, and its reassuring to hear them go through the same things - the noises we subconsciously make when bending down, or sitting on a comfy chair. Like the best radio presenters - Wogan, Peel, Tommy Boyd, they really capture the minutiae of every day life, and are at their best when slightly disgruntled with small annoyances - overzealous community support officers and people who talk during gigs. We are no longer young and cool like we used to be, but it doesn't matter because Adam and Joe aren't either. Well still a bit cool.

You can download old podcasts at the fanpage. They do promise to return, and after the shows they've done over the last couple of years any station would jump at the chance for them to return. They had a decent break when they left XFM, maybe they'll come back again in a few months, couple of years maybe, better than ever. Hope so.

PS Kill Boggins.

Also check out Adam Buxton on youtube.

Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio is out now and available to buy here and features a chapter on Six Music.

Local Boys Done Good

2009-10-24T11:00:00.003+01:00

In November 2008, five members of poetry collective Aisle16 - Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne, Chris Hicks, John Osborne and Ross Sutherland set off on a tour of the towns we grew up in. We each did a poetry gig in our home towns. This is the documentary showing what happened. The live show was recorded at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club.

The Local Boys:
Ross Sutherland was included in The Times’s list of Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008. His debut poetry collection, Things To Do Before You Leave Town, was published in January this year. His one-man poetry/comedy show, The Three Stigmata of Pacman, debuts at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington in January 2010.

Tim Clare is a writer, stand-up poet and musician. His autobiographical book about having one last shot at your dreams, We Can’t All Be Astronauts, won Best Biography/Memoir at the East Anglian Book Awards 2009. It is out now from Ebury Press. He has written for the Guardian, the Times and the Independent, and has appeared on BBC2, Radio 1, 2, 4 and 6.

Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea. His debut novel, Submarine, won the Curtis Brown prize and was shortlisted for the Bollinger Wodehouse prize for comic fiction. It's been translated in to six languages.

Chris Hicks is the finest legal mind in poetry, and is far heavier than he looks. Imagine somebody his size, carrying somebody much smaller, and you get the idea. It’s probably his neck, if you can even call it a neck.
‘…white’ The TLS

‘…white’ The Scotsman

‘…white’ Camden New Journal

‘…white’ ThreeWeeks

‘…white’ The List

‘…white’ The Metro

‘…black’ TimeOut

‘…gold’ Scotsgay

John Osborne is the author of Radio Head, Radio 4's Book of the Week. He has had poetry published in the Guardian, the Big Issue and the Spectator. His second book, The Newsagent's Window is released in April 2010.

Compare my Radio

2009-10-22T22:06:00.003+01:00

This is a clever new site called Compare my Radio. Type in the name of a band and it tells you which radio statons plays it the most often. Also shows most played songs of every radio station.

ABCtales.com

2009-10-10T00:19:00.010+01:00

This week the Big Issue is guest edited by Tony Cook, founder of ABCtales, which is one of my favourite websites. I first joined in 2004, I had just starting taking writing seriously, and the site was perfect for me. Over the years it has been a place to upload pieces of writing, to get feedback, and read the work of other ABCtalers. It's a real community, and I'd recommend it to any new writer. This week's Big Issue features poems by ABCtales regulars, as well as articles by Joe Dunthorne and Tim Clare, who introduced me to the site in the first place.

Tony Cook reads every piece that is submitted, and without him the site wouldn't exist. I'd be gutted if I logged in one day and it wasn't there any more. It's been a really useful way to learn how to edit, rewrite, produce new work.

There is a bi monthly ABCtales online magazine, and I'm the guest editor of the September / October issue, which you can download here.

Radio Quotes

2009-10-09T16:33:00.008+01:00

TV is prose. Radio is poetry. Simon Armitage

I like doing radio because it's so intimate. The moment people hear your voice, you're inside their heads, not only that, you're in there laying eggs. Douglas Coupland

Listening to cricket commentary online is like making coffee in the microwave. Glenn, The Thick of It

In case you're wondering who this funny old bloke is, I'm the one who comes on Radio 1 late at night and plays records made by sulky Belgian art students in basements dying of TB John Peel presenting Top of the Pops for the first time.

We've had a flood of e-mails... actually, no - more like an incontinent trickle John Peel

Richard Herring

2009-09-26T12:50:00.024+01:00

When Radio 2 didn't commission a new series of his comedy show That was then, this is now, Richard Herring had a pretty interesting resposne. He realised that if he booked a Leicester Square theatre, charged £10 admission and filled the venue he would have a bigger budget to work with than Radio 2 would ever have offered. It's an innovative approach, and makes sense, Herring has a big following through the daily blog he's kept for the last 6 or 7 years, podcasts that ride high in the itunes chart and continuous touring over the last 20 years. The podcast of As it Occurs to Me will be available for free the next day via itunes and on his blog.

Herring's a regular of the Edinburgh festival, and by his own admission spent a few years never quite hitting the heights, and then in 2008 he found his show was regularly selling out and receiving five star reviews. His popularity over the last couple of years has run parallel with the podcasts he's been doing with Andrew Collins since 2008. Some material for that show, and for 2009's Hitler Moustache was developed during the podcast, which is consistently good quality, and the nature of it means Collings and Herrin don't have to control their language and are able to discuss themes without censorship, creating a pretty unique radio experience.

Richard Herring has done shows on most of the big stations, most memorably for me the Lee and Herring show on Radio 1 in the mid 90s was one of the shows that made me really excited about radio. All of their shows, as well as Fist of Fun, Lionel Nimrod and thousands of hours of Lee and Herring related audio can be downloaded here. It's still great to listen to, and makes you aware of the decline of Radio 1 since the days of Lee and Herring, Armando Iannucci and Mark and Lard.

Details of As it Occurs to me can be found here

Radio Head, up and down the dial of British Radio can be bought here

Weds 26th September, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club

2009-09-12T16:10:00.009+01:00

Last week was the penultimate Homework. This month's headliner was Tim Clare, reading from his new book We Can't All be Astronauts. And after special guest appearances over the last year from Kate Nash and Tim Key, this month we had support from the amazing Jon Ronson, and we're all big fans of him, especially the stuff he does on radio. His film The men who stare at goats is out next month, so was really good of him to come down.

and here's a clip from a pretty special interview he did with David Shayler

Next month's is the last of the current season, and is a full show, the 9 1/2 Commandments of Aisle 16, with support from Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne and me.

Community Radio

2009-09-11T12:23:00.008+01:00

There is currently a petition on the Prime Minister's No. 10 web-site calling for adequate funding in support of Community Radio. Community Radio provides plurality of voice in local media and wide-ranging opportunities for volunteering and community involvement. If you think Community Radio is a good idea,
please sign this petition.

Community radio is really important, the more homogenised commercial radio gets, the more import it is that community radio exists. Check out the London arts station Resonance FM if you've never heard what community radio can be, it's incredible. Those involved in Resonance FM include Stewart Lee, Kevin Eldon and Simon Munnery. You can listen online. Another pretty special community station is the ever expanding Future Radio in Norwich. Community radio is not for profit, and offers training and experience to people who wouldn't otherwise get the chance, as well as those interested in gaining radio experience.

Radio Head, Up and down the Dial of British Radio features a chapter on community radio, and is available to buy here.

Terry Wogan

2009-09-07T15:57:00.006+01:00

So Terry Wogan's leaving Radio 2. As radio news goes it's the one of the biggest stories of recent years, and hearing him announce it on his show was actually pretty moving, as was the couple of hours that followed, when listeners emailed in with their reaction and tributes.

He said he wanted to go while he was good rather than 'good for his age' and he's certainly left while his show has been as good as ever. I'm sure it will lead to a massive turnaround at Radio 2, he's confirmed his replacement will be Chris Evans, who in turn will be replaced on the drivetime show, possibly by Simon Mayo. Which would mean the afternoon Five Live show will have a new presenter, hopefully Colin Murray. So radio is going to change a lot over the next few months.

I think Chris Evans is a pretty wise choice to replace Wogan. He's a much different broadcaster to the one who became notorious throughout the nineties, with considerably less ego. The Breakfast show will suit him, his time at Radio 1 proved that he's one of the most talented, unique DJs in the BBC's history, and is worthy of holding down the biggest job in British radio. In an era when presenters are starting to sound more and more similar, it's important that people like Chris Evans are still around. It will be completely different to hear Evans in the morning rather than waking up to Wogan, but that's because Wogan's show was so unique. His show is on air until December, make the most while you can.

Radio Head, up and down the dial of British Radio is out to buy now, and features a chapter on Radio Two

Press cuttings

2009-09-01T15:43:00.016+01:00

This is my book. It's called 'Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio' and was Book of the Week on Radio 4. It's being repackaged with a different cover for April 2010, when my second book The Newsagent's Window is also out. Here's some nice things people have said:

Warm, charming and funny - the Daily Telegraph

Gently entertains - Observer Music Monthly

Captivating - the Guardian

Radio Head is a warm, up-lifting read. And it made me fork out on a new, better radio, too - Tim Key

Very funny - Colin Murray, Radio 1

Personal and passionate and funny - Joe Dunthorne

Homework, 26th August

2009-08-26T00:13:00.001+01:00

On the last Wednesday of every month I am part of a night called Homework, a night of literary cabaret at Bethnal Green Working Men's club. It's on the last Wednesday of every month, the next event is Weds 26th August, and is a brand new Aisle16 show - Local Boys Done Good, a tongue-in-cheek picaresque rockumentary following five members of Aisle16 as they set off on a poetry tour of the hometowns they once fled.

Early last year, five members of performance poetry collective Aisle16 were sitting in a pub when someone posed the question: where’s the worst place you can imagine doing a gig? After bandying around various options, they realized they all had the same answer – the towns they grew up in. Shocked at the fear and loathing they had developed for their hometowns after a decade of blissful separation, they decided to confront their prejudices and head back to the stomping grounds of their childhoods, performing poetry for the first time in the places they grew up. People say you’re only ever five bad gigs in a row away from quitting – the Local Boys were about to find out.

‘Highlights of the spoken word scene’ – The Sunday Times on Aisle16

Local Boys Done Good will feature live performances alongside clips from the tour itself. The ‘Local Boys’ are Joe Dunthorne, John Osborne, Ross Sutherland, Chris Hicks and Tim Clare.

Joe Dunthorne’s debut novel, Submarine, is published by Hamish Hamilton. His poetry has been published in Poetry Review, Magma, New Welsh Review and The Manhattan Review. His short stories have been read on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and published in Vice magazine.

John Osborne’s first book, Radio Head, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week and is published by Simon & Schuster. He has performed at festivals such as the Edinburgh Fringe, Latitude and Glastonbury.

Ross Sutherland was one of The Times’ Top Ten Rising Literary Stars of 2008. His debut solo collection, Things To Do Before You Leave Town, is published by Penned in the Margins.

Chris Hicks is a member of Aisle16, whose show Poetry Boyband was Time Out’s Critics’ Choice of the Year in 2005. He performs regularly at the UK’s biggest festivals including Glastonbury, Leeds, Reading and Latitude, and has had work published in McSweeneys.

Tim Clare’s first book, We Can’t All Be Astronauts, is published by Ebury Press. He has presented his own series on Channel 4, has written for the Guardian, the Times and the Independent, and has appeared on BBC2, Radio 1, 2 and 6.

Support on the night comes from Tom Sutton, reading from the latest of his series of tongue-in-cheek correspondences with big businesses.

September's event will feature a book reading from Tim Clare, plus a very exciting special guest...

Steve Lamacq

2009-08-24T16:46:00.012+01:00

So Steve Lamacq has done his last show on Radio 1. He's continuing his Radio 2 and 6 Music shows, but it was Radio 1 where he became one of radio's legendary voices. His Evening Session show, first with Jo Whiley and then presenting solo, championed the best in alternative music, particularly britpop. He was one of the most influential figures at the station, what he played on his evening show quickly gained airplay during the daytime. The Radio 1 he joined in 1993 is drastically different to the one he leaves today. Back then there was Peel, Mark and Lard, Lee and Herring. To so many, like myself, Lamacq has largely responsible to the soundtrack to our lives, not just well known bands like Elastica, Super Furry Animals and Oasis, but smaller bands like Belle and Sebastian, Helen Love and Hefner.

This is one of the most famous clips in Radio 1 history

He's even name checked by Half Man Half Biscuit in their song 4 Skinny Indie Kids.

Good luck Steve, Radio 1 will be much worse without you.

Radio Head by John Osborne features chapters on Radio 1 and John Peel, and is available to buy here.

Test Match Special

2009-08-22T16:07:00.004+01:00

It was really disappointing to read recent criticism of Test Match Special. This summer it has been a complete privelidge to listen to the Test Match Special box: the cynicism of Geoff Boycott, the exuberance of Phil Tufnell, the dry wit of Vic Marks as well as Jonathan Agnew, surely one of the most recognised and talented voices on British radio. With the eccentricities of Henry Blofeld, with his descriptions of buses and cakes and passing pigeons and the wisdom of Christopher Martin Jenkins, who recently collapsed in giggles live on air, Test Match Special is as good as it's ever been. You can watch a short documentary about its history here.

Admittedly it would be good to have the opportunity to watch the cricket on terrestial TV, but the fact that those days look like they may be gone forever is no more than a minor inconvenience; radio has something that Sky Sports could never offer, something special you only find on radio. Test Match Special is one of the great joys in life, and has had many memorable moments, none more so than this.

Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio features a chapter on Test Match Special, and is available to buy here

Follow Jonathan Agnew on Twitter here.

The Moth

2009-08-11T14:57:00.008+01:00

One of the best podcasts you can download is the Moth. The Moth is a live storytelling podcast, where you can download real life stories told to a live audience. My favourite story is this, by Ed Gavagan's - recounting the time he was stabbed by a Mafia gang on an intitation to kill someone. It's pretty much the most life affirming story I've ever heard on radio. The Moth manages to create these ten minute moving vignettes, and is compulsive listening. The latest podcasts can be downloaded here.

Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio is available to buy here

Absolute Radio

2009-08-05T12:46:00.007+01:00

Last week David Cameron was on Absolute Radio, which turned out to be pretty mixed publicity for him, but amazing for the station that was until recently known as Virgin Radio. The news coverage probably did more for brand recognition than all the TV ads Absolute have been running, and cost nothing. It's good for the station, who are one of the few commercial stations actually worth listening to. Christian O'Connell, whose Breakfast Show it was that featured David Cameron, is a much more likeable presenter than he used to be when he was on XFM. And because David Cameron said 'twat' live on air, it's now gained more listeners, presumably fans of swearing. And hopefully people who do tune in out of ideal curiosity will stick around, not just for O'Connell, but for Geoff Lloyd, who presents the drivetime show from 5-8pm, who is one of my favourite presenters on British radio. Another person worth listening to is Frank Skinner, on Saturday mornings. He is someone who seems really natural on radio, and like Adam and Joe and Russell Brand seems much more suited to radio than TV, that this is the best way to showcase their talent. Podcasts of shows by Frank Skinner and Geoff can be found here

Radio Head, Up and down the dial of British Radio, features a chapter on Virgin Radio, and is out to buy now.