I had a brilliant week at the Poetry School summer camp - managed to do four classes with some amazing poets and meet some very nice southern bods. Lambeth not a part of London that I know at all so extremely nice to discover that too, it's Blakean connections and the pottery history. I particularly loved the Jane Draycott class - she really knows how to run a good workshop, with the right mix of reading, exercises, and time to work on something decentish before reading out. She also got us all to record our piece and has promised to send us a CD of that so that will be excellent. I was nervous and shy but I loved the feeling of being a full time writer for a week, especially away from the usual stresses and strains (you KNOW who you are). Then I had a few days in Suffolk talking myself into swine flu (idiot) but wondrously spotting Jarvis Cocker standing outside The Old Curiosity Shop in Walberswick. He is a bit of an OC actually - the beard has transformed him into another kind of character, something slightly seedier and more psychiatric but just as attractive (to me anyway). The old head is awash with north/south nonsense, an obssession with Middlesbrough, and the need to be near water. But now the rubadub world has claimed me again and I feel paralysed and depressed.