Portsmouth poet, me, narrowly saved himself from dire danger last night as he belatedly investigated a strange smell and found the kitchen on fire. Well, not quite the whole kitchen but I'd left the grill on and that was alight.
It perhaps wasn't quite life-threatening but one doesn't know that at the time. One thinks whether to throw water over it or cover it with a towel. The towel sounded right, although a waste of a towel, and is science correct to say that fire is stopped by cutting off its air supply. What if the towel catches fire. But it didn't. Well done, science.
It took all evening for the smoke to clear with front and back doors open and this morning I painted over the area above the cooker that showed smoke damage, which only now highlights some discoloured ceiling. But I might be more wary of the grill in future.
It could almost be a story from a biography of Philip Larkin, although to be fair to him, not even he was that remiss. But I'm pleased to be able to equal Jonathan Raban's blurb in which he says he read James Booth's new book in three days, very enjoyably. Assuming I finish it tonight. I have more than my usual amount of book review notes on it and so it might be a long one in the next couple of days. I call them 'reviews', thousands wouldn't.
--
Equally remiss was how I posted a listing for the Portsmouth Poetry society's National Poetry Day reading on the Poetry Library website and entered a start time of 7 a.m. Our host would have been less than impressed by a crowd of poetry devotees outside the premises first thing in the morning. But the Library helpfully corrected it very quickly this morning.
Having hoped to corner the market for poetry audience in Portsmouth on Oct 2nd, I find that we do have a rival event on at the same time so, if in doubt, you saw this one here first,
NATIONAL
POETRY DAY
with
Special
Guest - Maggie Sawkins
Winner of
the Ted Hughes Award 2014
to launch Calliope, a new booklet of poems from Portsmouth
Thursday,
October 2nd, gather from 7 pm for 7.30 reading
(across the
road from the Charles Dickens birthplace,
some car
parking at rear, accessed from Sultan
Road
Admission
Free
Calliope £3.50
Refreshments
--
I might stop posting the Times crossword on Saturdays from now on. It used to be quite an achievement but now, having put a completed grid, of sorts, on the website four weeks running, perhaps it is not such a big thing to show off about. It was by way of a challenge, really, but all it really proves is that I've been dogged in pursuit of a goal and, quite honestly, not having to finish it with Word Finders and suchlike might be a bit of a relief as Saturdays soon become again more devoted to jump racing.
Although there is a way to go in 2014, my shortlists of Best Poem and Best Collection of poems for the year are still very short. This year's other subsidiary selections of best event, best novel and even best book of the year are likely to be more competitive. There were several excellent concerts earlier in the year which will be very hard to choose between but with James Booth, Murakami, Niall Williams and others already making great claims to being the best book I've read this year, plus The Goldfinch which was published last year, there are still Stephen Fry and Danny Baker to come as well as the one I'm possibly expecting the most from, Don Paterson's book on Michael Donaghy, 10 years (quite amazingly) after the early demise of the great man.
So, we will see.