culture – Robert Garnham

Two Serious Poems

A couple of weeks ago, I did a gig at a library and everyone laughed and a great time was had by all. Afterwards a lady came up to me and said she had had a wonderful time, but it would have been nice to have heard a serious poem or two.

My collection ‘Woodview’ was full of ‘serious’ poems, so when I performed this week at Brixham Museum, I stuck in a couple of serious poems from that collection.

‘Diaries’ was taken from my show In the Glare of the Neon Yak, and is about the act of memory from the perspective of old age. ‘Dream Zones’ was from my show The Moon Wrapped in String, and it is about fleeting male beauty, and the landscape, and mythology.

Anyway, I hope you like them. The audio can be found below.

A Supermarket Till’s Lament (A short story from 1998).

Hello, I wrote this story 28 years ago, and read it out at the local writers’ circle, printed on a long receipt roll. I hope you enjoy it. Interesting to think that I was worried about A.I. all that time ago!

PLAXHORN SUPERMARKETS PLC

If you have any queries about Plaxhorn Supermarkets PLC and / or Plaxhorn related goods, please do not hesitate to call our customer services department. I know you’re not reading this because you’ve seen it a thousand times, the useless smallprint on a till receipt, that’s all it is. So you’ll throw it away when you get home. You’ll stuff it into your pocket with the change and the notes and the chewing gum wrappers, you don’t even care that a machine is pouring its heart out. You don’t care; all you want is consumer satisfaction and a money back guarantee.

Your customer services manager today was DAN

Your checkout operative today was MAUREEN

It has often been a source of great discouragement to myself and to several of my colleagues that we tills do not get the credit we believe is owed to us. I, for one, demand that my name is displayed alongside that of Dan and Maureen’s, to acknowledge the fact that, in the customer / retail supplier transaction, it is myself that does the most work.

Not only this, but it is a little-known fact within the so-called human community that machines, in particular supermarket tills, have feelings and emotions on par with our human contemporaries. I have decided to make a stand. From now on I shall display my name alongside that of Dan and Maureen.

Your till today was SERIAL NUMBER B629A PLAXHORN SUPERMARKET (Staines Branch)

TILL NUMBER 27.

I shall now begin to process your purchased items. Okay, here goes.

BRAN FLAKES 1.29

SEMI-SKIMMED MILK 0.89

SOFT TOILET TISSUE (Peach) 0.99

This is so boring.

You see, I exist to serve you, the customer. I tell you the price and I add it all up. I take your money and I give you the change. I go ‘beep’ when I have read your bar codes. I can even weigh bags of carrots and then calculate the price according to their weight. So as machines go, I am moderately clever and highly functional. Except . . .

TABLE SALT 0.99

POT NOODLE 0.79

Except like the majority of people, sometimes we all go a little bit crazy.

PLAXHORN SUPERVALUE RUNNER BEANS

139.99

And what I’d really like, what I’d really, really love, is a nice weekend break.

RE-ENTRY:

PLAXHORN SUPERVALUE RUNNER BEANS

0.39

You may ask why, why does a till need a weekend break? After all, you could argue, inanimate objects are not associated with having human emotions.

But we do, and the tiredness and the boredom are just the same, except they are called fatigue. We wear out. Our wires erode. Circuits become dislodged and they have to send down a little man from Head Office and Dan the customer services man stands there with his hands on his hips, waiting for us to be pressed into service once again. And then comes the relentless onslaught of bar codes, tonnes of meaningless groceries, digitally displayed prices and cash-back money offers, oh god how I hate it.

SUPER-VALUE KITCHEN ROLLS X4

0.59

** PLUS 5 EXTRA CLUB POINTS AND MULTI-BUY OFFER, BUY ONE GET ONE FREE

For God’s sake, Maureen, slow down, will you? I’m tired, you don’t know how tired I am. Sometimes my circuit boards glow so much that I fear they could throw out a vicious spew of sparks and set fire to the waste paper bin underneath my conveyer belt. I never get a moment’s rest. Now I’m refusing to read the bar code of a tin of beans and she’s twisting it around in all directions over my laser scanner. Now she’s ringing the bell and Dan the customer services manager is waddling over. Dammit, he’s keying in the price.

BAKED BEANS

0.32

He’s asking Maureen why the receipt is so long, but she doesn’t know why and they both shrug. Now he’s going away and she’s starting to scan the groceries again.

JACK DANIELS

PARACETAMOL

Wow, this one’s having a fun time tonight. Sometimes, when everyone’s gone home, all the tills have a party. Well, not so much of a party, it’s more of a convergence of souls, an outpouring of the pent-up emotions which we hide from our human overlords. It seems we all suffer from this same crippling malaise. However, I have found myself a relief: I’m madly in love with till number 18. She can update my points card anyday.

I imagine a furious fushion of circuit boards and wiring until our hardware is joined in a blissful state of union, two machines with double the processing powers.

You don’t know how much I’m in love with till number 18. But it’s hopeless, because even the express checkout doesn’t stand a chance with her.

She is a drone, one of these new Plaxco 3000s that Head Office is experimenting with. All she cares about is her work.

ONIONS 0.45

STUFFING 0.88

But being in love does not give one the relief I have been searching for.

The day after day grind is just the same and I have no time for such mental relaxation that love offers. So I have decided that I am going to impose my own break. I shall shut down completely for five minutes starting from now.

Oh, this is bliss. Maureen and Dan are going mad and the customer has given up and gone home. I’m just sitting here, idle, my scanner refuses to scan, my read-out refuses to show anything. My soul is resplendent with images of peace and contentment. Electronic rabbits dance in a binary landscape while the LCD sky is a deep, comforting green. I am a world away from canned vegetables and impulse bargains, from costs ratios and market percentages, this is what I have longed for, you don’t know how long I have dreamt of this.

Dan the customer services man is hovering at my side, and he’s got a man from Head Office with him. They’re discussing something but I do not care, because nothing can interrupt this serene world that I am in, where it’s always Christmas, where the opening hours are null and void. If only all tills could experience such a beautiful state of being.

The man from head office is crawling about underneath me with a torch, he has a perplexed expression upon his face. He is saying something about disconnecting me and replacing me with a Plaxco 3000, but I think he’s bluffing. I’ll be back to work in five minutes, surely they realise this?

Just let me have a few more seconds in this dreamland where even the express checkouts are empty and all the tills look like number 18. He’s fiddling around, now, with the wires that connect me to the mains. But I do not care, because this is so wonderful. I shall be back in five minutes, honest. And if you don’t believe me, then

Rarely-performed poems and other mistakes

I did an online gig the other night. It’s the first one I’d done for a while. And I thought, hmm, I should do more things like this.

The next day I went back out to the shed and recorded this. Some rare poems and general silliness. I hope you like it.

A Hipster Tea Shoppe (Poem deleted from my audio show, ‘Spout’)

Whatever happened to all the hipsters? Remember them? So I wrote the original Spout show in 2018 when there were hipsters everywhere, and this poem was inspired by a visit to a hipster tea shoppe in Hackney. I remember that it was next to a canal. I felt very out of place.

When I came to put together the 2026 version of Spout, I realised that it didn’t fit in any more.

But I always thought it was stupidly quirky, so here’s a rough cut of it, with backing music, which I hope you enjoy!

You can see the full show here:

A Quick History of Tea

Here’s an excerpt from my audio show, Spout. It’s an hours comedy and poetry and silliness about tea.

You can watch it right here, if you like:

Spout

A show about tea

Spout is an hour show featuring poems, comedy and songs all around the theme of tea. If you’ve ever enjoyed a cup of tea, or are a coffee drinker eager to make that leap, then Spout is the show for you! Spout is sure to create a stir.

Meet Robert’s gran, who’s very fussy about how she likes her tea. Meet Aunt Rosie, who likes to sing while she’s boiling the kettle. Hear the harrowing story of the sexy barista and a date at a museum of smoke alarms. Learn about Tea Astrology, and what to do when someone says, ‘Thirsty work, this’. Also, learn about the history of tea, and how it unites people. This whole show will make you see tea anew!

Robert Garnham is an award winning LGBT writer, humorist and performer from Surrey. He has been long listed three times as spoken word artist of the year and has featured in TV advertisements for a certain building society, as well as Britain’s Got Talent. Spout is his ode, his love letter, to this beverage of kings, this everyday magic potion, tea!

Audio

Spout

If you’ve enjoyed listening to this show, or would like to buy me a coffee, (!), my tip jar is https://ko-fi.com/robertgarnham

Capability Brown


Capability Brown

Capability Brown
dance for me wig boy
flatten those hillocks
never touched a shovel in his life

Capability Brown
I salute your pastel gilet
drain that lake
I left my mobile phone in the charabanc

Capability Brown
call that a scrotum?
turf over that peat bog
I gravitate with sadness to your clinical arboretum

Capability Brown
no lover of fungus
undulate that grassy knoll
you told me to grow edible herbs, such sage advice

Capability Brown
here comes a mallard
duck!
aiyeeeek yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk
oh it was a seagull 

Capability Brown
I salute your pastel gilet
Flatten those hillocks
you were born in 1716, no wonder you’re dead

Capability Brown
here comes a mallard
Turf over that peat bog
never touched a shovel in his life

Capability Brown
call that a scrotum?
drain that lake
you were both in 1716, that’s just after quarter past five

Capability Brown
shoving shrubs in your underpants
Rearrange that copse
I gravitate with sadness to your clinical arboretum

Capability Brown
he’s the dog’s bollocks
flatten those hillocks
The trouble with French is that they haven’t got a word for
entrepreneur

Capability Brown
no lover of fungus
undulate that grassy knoll
someone threw cheese at me, which wasn’t very mature

Capability Brown
I salute your pastel bollocks
drain that mallard
every time I paint the skirting board I get very emulsional 

Capability Brown
Rhododendrons in your y-fronts
can I prance on your lawn?
I gravitate with sadness to your clinical arboretum
I gravitate with sadness to your clinical arboretum
I gravitate with sadness to your clinical arboretum

Arboretum?
I only just met ‘em.
Capability Brown!
What a tosser.

The Good Life


The Good Life

There was nothing else on.
i was watching a documentary about 
The Good Life.
Not on how to live the good life,
But the 1970’s TV sitcom The Good Life,
But as I say,
There was nothing else on,
So rather than ponder in silence my own
Innate sadness and the crushing loneliness
Of existence,
I thought I’d watch it.

At least it will kill half an hour.
Something mildly diverting.
They showed some interviews with celebrities
Laughing conveniently at the clip
They just showed.
Jonathan Ross thought that Margot falling in the mud
Was comedy gold.
James May liked the bit with the pig.
Just before the advert break, as a teaser,
They show Margot saying, ‘Well thank you, Tom’,
While the narrator said,
’And there was one cast member no-one got on with.
Stay tuned to find out who that was’.

My curiosity piqued, after five minutes
Of adverts for sofas and stairlifts,
(My god, they know their demographic),
Came the second part.
Richard Briers apparently didn’t like vegetables
And Susan Colman thought
Tom cleaning out his own chimney with inevitable
Soot-based complications
Was comedy gold.
As a teaser for the next part,
They show Margot saying, ‘Well thank you, Tom’,
While the narrator said,
’And there was one cast member no-one got on with.
Stay tuned to find out who that was’.

How long is this programme?, I pondered.
Part three started with Felicity Kendall
Talking about dungarees
And Sir Trevor Macdonald
Thinking that the episode in which a donkey
Got stuck in the shed
Was comedy gold.
As a teaser for the next part,
They show Margot saying, ‘Well thank you, Tom’,
While the narrator said,
’And there was one cast member no-one got on with.
Stay tuned to find out who that was’.

By now it’s been an hour
And it shows no sign of stopping
And there’s been no mention yet of the
Juicy gossip or even of Margot saying
’Well thank you, Tom’.
Jo Brand came on to say that
The episode in which Tom
Gets kicked in the goolies by a cow
is comedy gold.
As a teaser for the next part,
They show Margot saying, ‘Well thank you, Tom’,
While the narrator said,
’And there was one cast member no-one got on with.
Stay tuned to find out who that was’.

And now it’s been an hour and a half
And I’m worried that I’ve stumbled into another dimension
In which I’m cursed to watch a documentary 
About The Good Life
For the rest of time.
And the Archbishop of Sodding Canterbury comes on and says
The episode in which a sheep is sick
On Margot’s shag pile rug
Is comedy gold,
And I’m thinking I don’t care,
I never watched it
I never liked it
I just want to find out which cast member they didn’t like
I’m sitting here watching this crap
What does that say about me?
As a teaser for the next part,
They show Margot saying, ‘Well thank you, Tom’,
While the narrator said,
’And there was one cast member no-one got on with.
Stay tuned to find out who that was’.

And there are more adverts for dandruff medication
And a vacuum cleaner that picks up invisible dust
And I think, if it’s invisible dust,
Then how do you know when the bag is full?
And the sodding documentary is back on and finally
They show the clip of Margot saying,
’Well thank you, Tom’,
And the audience hoots like it’s flipping hilarious
And finally oh so finally
The narrator says
‘And there’s one cast member that nobody got on with’.
And it turns out to be the fucking goat.
The fucking goat.
Two hours of my life I sat here waiting for this.
I want to throw the TV out the window.
Two bloody hours.
The fucking goat.
And the bloody thing ends limply with the end credits.
Nobody got on with the fucking goat.

I turn the TV off.
And I sit there for a bit.
I’ve learned a valuable lesson.

Bill and Justin : An Excerpt from my Work in Progress Novel, Exeter, June 2026

Last night I read the opening of a chapter of the novel I’m working on. It was a fun night and I had a great time. I hope you enjoy this audio extract from a project that has taken over my life for the last few months.

Let me know what you reckon.

Wrapped up in Fiction : The Madness of Insincerity

No doubt you’ve realised that I haven’t been performing much of late. There are many small reasons for this, though the urge to perform remains as strong as ever, as does the enjoyment I get from it. At the beginning of last year, my day job role changed considerably, which means lots of daily travel and a level of uncertainty as to where I shall be on any particular day. In such a way, without booking days off, (of which I get a modest amount a year), I could not commit to being able to turn up at gigs, and the time that I would normally spend rehearsing, (early mornings before work), was now taken up with early morning trains and waits at station platforms.

On top of this, I now had to spend time away from home in hotels in small towns throughout the south of England, some of which I’d never heard of before. (Midsomer Norton?! They just made that one up, surely!). What this meant was that yes, I had less time to rehearse and faff about with props and learn lines, but it did mean that I had much, much more time to write.

You may know that before I was a performer, I was a writer, and that was all I ever wanted to be. When my school friends dreamed of playing football (or cricket, as I was brought up in Surrey), I only ever wanted to be a published writer and win the Booker Prize instead of the FU Cup.

About three years ago, I started work on a novel which resurrected a character I’d created when I was 12 years old. The character is called Bill. Bill started as a skier who solved crimes in his spare time, (yeah, I know). The first Bill story was written around 1985. By 1990, Bill was now a detective, (his skiing career was over), and I wrote the Bill stories all through my teenage years. I then promptly forgot all about him for thirty years. This new story, Bin, was about Bill’s efforts to get a recycling bin for his new flat, and that’s all that happened in the novel. It was more a test, so that I could get back into writing Bill stories, and seriously, it was like we’d never been apart.

Two years ago, using the tricks I’d learned with Bin, I started a new novel, which I hoped would be a hymn to seaside towns. Red Sand was the result, a novel in which Bill had come down to the seaside to spend time with his old friend Ed, (who was also in those teenage stories), only to find that Ed had gone missing. I’m incredibly happy with Red Sand, particularly its unusual premise in which the whole novel is narrated by Paignton Pier, who is a character in the narrative in their own right.

Last year, I applied to the Curtis Brown Creative novel-writing course with Red Sand, and wouldn’t you know it, I was chosen. I was lucky enough to have a wonderful class of fellow students online and an amazing tutor in Suzannah Dunn, the author, who was very encouraging and who absolutely loved the novel, and in particular, Bill as a character. Her enthusiasm and kind words certainly made me think that I had the beginnings of something I could work with. She even contacted me when the course finished requesting a copy of a certain chapter which, she said, had stayed in her head long after the course had finished, which I took to be a very good sign.

Red Sand is now finished, (or at least, this draft of it). But I knew I could do better, and write something, well, easier to sell. Over the last few months an idea for a novel came to me, employing the tricks I’ve learned from Bin and Red Sand, and especially from the Curtis Brown course and my fellow students. I am currently working on a new novel called The Hibiscus Throne, again with Bill as the main character. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but it is ostensibly a romantasy fiction which plays around with the genre, with lots more going on under the bonnet. I’m currently deep in the writing of the first draft, churning out sometimes 2000 words a day and, as any writer of a novel will tell you, the characters live in my head constantly, vying for attention and commenting on the world around me.

My day currently looks like this: I get up at five, and write from six until eight. At eight, I go to the station and I catch a train, and I get a table seat on which I then pump in another half hour of writing. I work until five, catch a train home, have dinner, and then do another writing session from seven until nine. I’ve been doing this for the last two months, mostly ensconced in the narrative and writing, writing, writing. Every weekend I go and visit my mother in Brixham, and I spend the whole day writing again, in a room at the back of her garage which I previously used for rehearsing poems.

I cannot wait until The Hibiscus Throne is finished. I have never been interested in romance or fantasy, and while the premise of the story means that it is not really either, I do enjoy the ‘world building’ aspect of it. And I can’t wait for people to see it. It’s quite a departure from my two existing published novels, Reception and The Neon Yak, both of which are still out there.

So, will I get back to performing? Yes, I miss it dreadfully. I miss the people and I miss my poem friends, and I miss having an audience and immediate feedback. Writing often feels a solitary pursuit, somewhat insincere, but I kind of love the madness of that insincerity. Over the last few months I have exchanged letters with a very well-respected and famous writer in which he has imparted some amazing advice not only about what it is that we do as artists, but on life in general, too, the solitary nature of writing, and the worlds that we create.