Tuesday

Lest these posts descend into smug back-slapping about our lovely gigs and lovely hosts (the gigs and hosts have genuinely been really lovely, by the way - we're having such a time) I want to give a heads up to some of the shit parts of the tour.

Today we spent over an hour hiking through drizzle to find Betjeman's grave. The car now smells completely on-theme: a mix of corpse-rot and crotch odour and someone trying to cremate a wet schnauzer. After searching in vain on the bleak moor yesterday, I now have blood blisters on my feet.

On Monday night, workmen were digging up the road outside the pub with some of the most crazily massive, heavy duty machinery I've ever seen. And they kept bringing new vehicles (topped with flashing orange lights) till around 3 in the morning. I got eff all sleep, and I now feel like I'm staggering through a kind of waking dream full of tombstones and bright lights and the occasional screamed poem.

My new poem about the famous St Bernard from San Diego, a dog called 'Bum', died on its arse. Apparently, saying the word 'bum' two dozen times doesn't count as entertainment! Honestly!

We are less than a quarter of the way through, and tomorrow morning, we have to be up at 6am to attempt our assault on the Isle Of Wight, where AC Swinburne lies buried. If we miss a ferry or take a wrong turn or can't find the graveyard, we're screwed for the whole day. Everything is on a schedule with about five minutes of wriggle room. And we'll have had 5 hours sleep.

If we survive tomorrow, we're ending the day in a haunted castle near Spike Milligan's grave. Along the way, we're taking in Seigfried Sassoon, and I'll be reciting poetry by some of the poets we've visited so far (like Hardy and Day-Lewis) to Mark and Mixy from the backseat of the car, like an annoying, smelly uncle.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Sassoon poems, 'Base Details':

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.