BYT: 5-4-3-2-1

SEPTEMBER 2010
5-4-3-2-1

THE BYTs HAVE LIFT OFF!

‘Hello September 2010. How are you doing? I do hope you are going to be good to us Bright Young Things. What with our books being launched this month and all.’

‘You are? How marvellous!’

Yes that’s right folks, all four titles in the Parthian Bright Young Things range launch this month, starting on Friday 17^th at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea. So dust off your glad rags, and get yourselves some new dancing shoes. The BYT party season is upon us, and I for one, can’t wait. Clink, clink.

What other news do I have for you? Let me see.

GREEN MAN FESTIVAL

Photo by Rosie Reed Gold (2010)

Mother Nature tried damn hard, but I did not drown at Green Man 2010. Also, considering my general dislike of being cold and wet, I didn’t moan that much either. In fact I fear I may have had rather a fun time.  Get me. With my performer pass. And my guest tickets. And my seeing Wayne Flaming Lips under a tree backstage and all. Yes I saw the Flaming Lips. Yes they played that song that I appear to love for unknown reasons:

‘I know a girl who reminds me of Cher,
She’s always changing the colour of her hair,
She don’t use nothing
That ya buy at the store [...]
She uses tangerines...’

No I didn’t fall down in the mud. Yes I probably shouldn’t have had that last drink. Yes, that probably was the biggest audience I’ve had at one of my poetry readings SO FAR (Thanks Sunday Afternoon Literature Tent Crowd). Yes some of my friends really did say ‘We came at 3.30pm but you weren’t on stage so we left…’ Erm, guys, there were five poets on the bill, and we were in alphabetical order. D’oh. Yes we were listed as four of Patrick Jones’ favourite Welsh poets. Yes I know I’m notactually… Yes we were all women. Yes I think that was on purpose. Thanks to all who came along. Thanks also to my fellow performers Mab Jones, Rhian Edwardsand Sophie McKeand. No I’m still really not at all bored of wearing The Tiger Hat. Yes Laura Dockrill and John Cooper Clarke really were that f’ing fantastic. So was In Chapters. Murder. M-U-R-D-E-R. Yes, you had to be there.  Yes the Comedy Tent can be a saviour in lifting spirits in damp festival times (Thanks going to Andrew Watts as one off-the-top-of-my-head example). Yes placing Comedy and Literature in the same tent may confuse Guardian Journalists like Nancy Groves. Yes, sometimes it is better when the bands are really noisy at a folk festival and wake you the hell up (Islet, you were brilliant). Rain or no rain, this is still a favourite festival of mine. They paid me this year. But not to say that.

BUGGED

I like eavesdropping and people watching. So I entered a poem about an overheard chat about a giant pencil into national eavesdropping project Bugged.org 10 minutes or so before the deadline. Guess what? Jo Bell (ace poet behind Bugged and National Poetry Day) only went and picked me to be in the book. Yay. I’ll be at the Birmingham Launch on the evening of 21^st October 2010. More details soon.

OTHER DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

I’ll be performing a fair whack in the next couple of months. As well as the BYT launches (Swansea, Bangor, Aberystwyth, and London), here are some more dates for your diary:

I will (rather appropriately) be reading extracts from The Art of Contraception at Sex Wales and Anarchy 3 on September 4th 2010 at The Coal Exchange, Cardiff Bay (I’m on sometime between 1 and 5pm).

I will be performing poems at Fair Play Festival in Cardiff on Sunday 26 Sept

I will be reading extracts from my book The Art of Contraception as the main feature at The Crunch, Mozart’s, Swansea on Thursday 14 October (8.30pm open mic sign up, 9pm start. Arrive early if you want a seat).

The Bright Young Things will be appearing at BayLit Festival: The Shock of the New 2010 (30 October, Cardiff).

PS

Isn’t it nice to have all the boys back on blog duty? I’m sure glad to see their words here, at any rate. Welcome back from summertime Tyler and James.

Roarmiaow for now,

Soooooooooooooz