Tag Archives: poet

Professor in the Bathroom – A film diary 

The last few months I’ve been working on a short film with film maker John Tomkins.
Professor in the Bathroom is based on one of the poems from my collection ‘Nice’, published by Burning Eye Books. The idea of a professor trapped in someone’s bathroom gave John the idea of making a film with the restrictions evident in the text, a whole film shot in his bathroom!
The first thing we needed was an actor and John contacted Lee Rawlings. Lee is an amazing character actor, singer and full-time librarian. John and I met up and looked at the poem, working out how we might shoot the film, and I suggested he watch the film ‘Amelie’. We then went to Exeter and met Lee, by which time John had watched Ameile and was filled with inspiration about camera angles, cinematography, and all that kind of stuff.
Lee was amazing and very much interested in the project. A couple of weeks later we all met at his place of work after it had closed, and we spent the evening working on rehearsals, camera angles and the logistical side of things.
As a writer, I didn’t really have much input at this stage, so for me it was fun to sit back, watch them work, and make the occasional wise crack. I took some amusing photographs, too. The process was very valuable to the outcome of the film in that both John and Lee became very familiar with what they wanted from it.
A month or so later we all met at John’s house in Paignton. John had spent the intervening weeks looking at people’s bathrooms, but there were logistics involved. Like, if we borrowed someone’s bathroom, what happens when they need to use the bathroom? John concluded that his own bathroom was aesthetically and practically the place he was looking for.
At home, I recorded the poem and supPlied it by email, and then we all met up for filming. There were so many little bits which needed doing, so many small problems to create the illusion we needed. I found some free standing wooden shelves which stood in for the medicine cabinet, through which John could film as if from inside the medicine cabinet. Lee provided lots of pill bottles, and I had to find the meats and crisps for the professor to eat from underneath the door, a job made slightly harder by the fact that Lee is a vegetarian. The most cunning prop was a long piece of wood which John painted, which stood in for the bottom of he bathroom door.
Filming went very well. My job, as production assistant, was to carry the lighting equipment. Every angle in the bathroom necessitated Lee, John as cameraman, and myself with the lights,,all crammed into that tight space. It’s amazing what just one small poem can end up precipitating!
Once the filming was complete, John spent a couple of months editing, blending in the original soundtrack provided by a very fine musician, and some sound effects of the professor, provided by Lee post-filming, grunting and making strange noises into the microphone in John’s editing suite. My own part in the film may have been small, but it needed rehearsing, (I’m not an actor), and then my lines re-dubbing, which meant I had to go to John’s and match the words with my lip movements. Which is quite difficult!
So Professor in the Bathroom is completed and will soon premier at the Torbay Film Festival in late August. And I can’t wait for you to see it!



The Most Signficant Full Stop (Part Thirteen) and a general description of my current eye problems.

I’ve spent most of the last few months looking at full stops and insignificant moments. In an attempt to prove that nothing is truly insignificant, (especially where it is imbued with more significance than it should otherwise have), I have been focussing on full stops and magnifying them until they take up most of the sight.
A couple of weeks ago I woke up with reduced vision in one eye which meant that the very centre of my vision in my left eye was similar in proportion and design to the very full stops that I’d been magnifying. Needless to say it was a spooky coincidence, and it put me off the Significant Full Stop project for a while, because it seemed too weird to be looking at the fuzzy images of full stops through fuzzy vision, therefore adding further fuzziness to the project.
I have since undergone various tests and appointments during which the doctors and hospital have concluded that the condition is temporary. It’s called Central Serous Retinopathy, and it affects white males between the ages of 30 and 50, of which I am. It’s caused by too many steroids in the system, which the body produces naturally to counter stress. I’ve not been aware of being under any stress, but hey ho, if that’s what they reckon then I’ll go along with it.
The bad news is that it might last half a year.
So now I’m looking at insignificant things through different eyes, literally. I’m imbuing everything with a Significance than they should otherwise have, because for a while I was afraid that I would never see again. There were paint splattered dots on the floor of the eye clinic waiting room. The nurse had given me eye drops which had unfocused my eyes but I could still see the dots, only just. They reminded me of the floor of Manchester Airport. I was conscious that they were there, but my mind was filling in the details. The dots might not even have existed at all. But my brain told me so.
Part of the condition, apparently, or at least with macular degeneration, is that the eye will, every now and then, hallucinate and see things which aren’t really there. The eye will half see something and the brain will fill in the gaps. I will be seeing things that aren’t even there. Of course, I still have one functioning eye, so this will probably not happen, which is a shame. I’m rather looking forward to the hallucinations.
So for now the exact details of the original full stop exist in memory more than anything else, because even looking at it properly will not give a true representation of its real state. For some reason this is far more exciting than any of the experiments in magnification, because it exists far more vibrantly and explicitly in my imagination than it ever did on the page.

The Most Signficant Full Stop (Part Twelve)

For the last couple of months I’ve had a bit of a thing with full stops. You might have noticed. I’ve been obsessed with small events and how they have incredibly significance for only a very short period of time. A full stop on a piece of prose can be likened to walking through a town and scratching one’s arm, brushing a strand of hair from ones face. At that exact moment in time, which only lasts for less than a second, they are the most pressing concerns imaginable, only to be forgotten less than a second later.
For the purposes of this project, therefore, I have been giving full stops far more significance than they ever had, and expanding them to cover the entire screen.
It is therefore somewhat ironic that yesterday I woke from a normal nights sleep to find that I’d lost some vision in my left eye, and that everything I look at has a perfect round circle, very much like a full stop, right in the centre of my vision. The fact that this perfect circle resembles some of the art work that I have been creating is somewhat ironic.
Indeed, ever the optimist, I see the large circle in my vision as a piece of permanent conceptual art which is now with me all the time, (unless the hospital can sort it out for me). Which then led to other thoughts: what if it were possible to beam artwork directly into the vision of the viewer, that they might have it automatically plastered over their vision? A Jackson Pollock migraine, a Rothko headache.
I have attempted to recreate some of the variations of the circle theme that I have been seeing below. And if you look back at some of my previous posts about the Most Significant Full Stop, they do seem freakily similar.




The Most Significant Full Stop. (Part Eleven).

Yesterday I extrapolated a full stop from a text of writing, and then using screenshots, managed to magnify it to such an extent that it took up nearly the whole screen.

In doing so I was imbuing the full stop with far more significance than it might otherwise have. The next step was to print off the full stop on to some A4 paper, and affix it to an ordinary wall on the back of a shop, down an alleyway, in Paignton, Devon.

The full stop was certainly striking and again this imbued it with far more significance than it should have had. After all, this was just an ordinary full stop taken from some text, typed with no idea that it would be such a statement of intent, typed merely to aid the comprehension of the text.
Kafka’s father said that he was ‘morbidly preoccupied with the insignificant’ and I believe I understand what Otto Kafka was alluding to in the sudden elevation of this full stop.
The next part of the project was to reassign the full stop with its original intent, that of aiding in the comprehension of text. By taking photographs of the full stop as it hung on the back of a shop in an alleyway in Paignton, I was able to stand further away and keep on taking photographs, until the full stop was just a dot again.


Using poster making software, I coloured in the photograph with the exception of the full stop.

 I then added the full stop back into some random text, where it once again functions as a full stop, and not as a statement of insignificance. Can you spot it?

The most significant full stop (part eight).

I asked my assistant Lars to write a full stop on a pebble and place it somewhere on the beach underneath the pier. (See fig A). The pen used for this was the same Parker pen that I’ve used every day since my Grandfather died in 1995. Because of this I thought I might be able to spot the pebble with the full stop on it immediately.

I was very keen to find the pebble with the full stop on it, but alas the search would be in vain. I like the idea of something so insignificant being there, unknown to almost everyone, yet very physical and real. A destination, in fact. Since I was a kid I’ve loved airports, so I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of destinations. I’m now away from the beach but the pebble will still be there and there are a few miles between me and it.

This reminds me of everything that has been lost over the years, and that makes me feel quite sad. 

Yesterday.

A man walked into a bar. It was actually a night club. We don’t know why but he killed a lot of people. The people who were there, were there to have a good time. Maybe he didn’t like people having a good time, but what’s known for sure is that he had a gun. It was a powerful gun and he was able to purchase it quite legally. The people who were having a good time were also doing so quite legally.
The man who did it had reasons which a lot of people would find different and quite at odds with their own way of living. The people who died most probably had a lifestyle which these same people would find at odds with their own way of living. But this isn’t about religion or sexuality, even though these are the labels which will be used for the next few days and weeks. It’s about a man who was angry or quite possibly deluded, and some people who were having a good time.
There will be those who disagree with the way other people live their lives, their own philosophies and methods of being. But life carries on and on the whole, people embrace the difference which makes being human so wonderfully diverse and interesting. We can learn from other cultures, belief systems, view points, and while we might not agree, we never enforce this with violence.
Having said that.
Fifty people died. And it was an attack on a very specific community of which I am a part. It happened in a place of symbolism, such as a church or a place of worship. It happened because of one persons ignorance. It happened possibly because of superstition. There’s no other way to look at it other than as a wilful expression of hatred. And naturally there will be underlying questions about weapons and religion (if indeed it was a religious act at all), and the response to it by those who commentate on such matters will be proportional to their own preconceived notions. But fifty people died, and right now, there is pain and suffering and disbelief.
There is no easy moral to this episode other than a man with a gun and a grudge, and how easily it happened.
 The doors.
For those who are the exquisite hidden in cupboards.

For those who fortune denies because they refuse to shout.

For those who would otherwise shine so bright were it not so dark and needlessly so.

For those who more conscious than the jaded so called moral imperative.

For those who multicolor the beige.

For those who feel that burning pounding quick-tempo heartbeat tick tick ticking absolute proof down deep within.

For those who don’t want to upset anyone.

For those who are being true to themselves.

For those who love.

For those who would dearly like to love but never will so long as they’re fumbling in the pitch dark.

For those who would spread compassion if given the chance.

For those who stand tall and proud in the face of ignorance.

For those who challenge the invented with the blinding torch of truth.

For those who caress and whisper sweet nothings and then open their eyes to find an empty bed.

For those who don’t want to shock and close the door voluntarily.

For those who care too much.

For those who feel they have no brothers or sisters.

For those who feel they are the only person ever ever ever ever to feel this way.

For those who make a thousand tiny differences a year.

For those whose revolution will knowingly take longer than their own lifetimes.

For those who would otherwise be flogged or hanged or stoned or cast from the safety of decent thought by those who profess to know the truth of words written fluently yet deliberately twisted ambiguous in order to hide the cultural anger seething beneath.

For those who delete their browsing history.

For those who try to prize open a door knowing that it will be slammed shut but keep on trying nonetheless.

For those who paid the ultimate price.

For those who resort to secret languages and those who give in and try to decipher filled with the eager promise of just knowing.

For those who are afraid.

For those who never will.

For those who see the world quivering ecstatic and reach out with trembling fingertips ever so eager to be a part yet knowing deep down they never will because they are really not as brave or as fortunate as those who color the world with love. 

For those who hide behind masks of dubious preferences just to make it look like they are one of the crowd.

For those who are furious.

For those who are curious.

For those who log on with an alias.

For those who dance ecstatic the most writhing sexual beautiful hypnotic dance but only to themselves alone alone alone in the mirror.

For those who feel that everything is hopeless faced with ninety six percent against, newspaper editorials, fuming spitting evangelists, political bullies, idiots with guns and clubs and religious texts, charismatic spirituality, cultural commentators and peddlers of hated.

For those who burst out so fast that the world never could catch them.

For those who burned up too soon.

For those who took a chance and flowered briefly then disappeared leaving behind them the hint that if done differently it might actually work.

For those who are vehement in their love.

For those who are just plain unlucky.

For those who are scared.

For those who are scarred.

For those who would otherwise be sacred.
You are the real

And your time will come

When superstition loses and common sense takes over.

Pile up your love right now

So that when the doors finally open

It will all come tumbling through.
Performance Poet, Writer, Spoken Word Artist. 

The most significant full stop (Part four)

This evening I searched through my notebooks to find the most insignificant full stop that I had ever written. The results were somewhat disappointing because all of the full stops that I’ve written have been insignificant, except for the occasions in which I’ve purposefully written a significant full stop. I wrote one at the end of my dissertation at the end of my postgraduate degree, and I did another one in my last A Level exam.

Every full stop has been insignificant, and as such significant only in their insignificance. Which made me free to choose any at random.

The one I chose came from my scribblings where I have been trying out lines and ideas for poems.

I have photographed this full stop with my iPad and I have magnified it several times, each time taking a screen shot. The results do not look as exciting as the electronically generated full stop, perhaps the lighting was all wrong. The full stop was written in ink by my Parker pen, the same one that I have used for writing every day since 1995.

The thing with full stops is that you never realise you’re writing them. They come easily and they are dotted on to the page with abandon and little thought. They pass like moments forgotten. 

I would like you to take part in an experiment, but I must warn you that it is very dangerous. I have come up with three words which will alter, or perhaps even ruin the rest of your day. If you are willing, able and un afraid of the consequences, then feel free to click on this link and see these three words for yourself.

The most annoying three words imaginable. – Robert Garnham https://robertdgarnham.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/the-most-annoying-three-words-imaginable/
I will then monitor the page where these words appear and see how many of you have been brave enough.

The most significant full stop.

The aim is to make this the most famous full stop in the history of mankind.

It was originally typed at 0845 on a Wednesday morning, at a Costa coffee shop in Paignton, Devon, UK.
There will never be a full stop as momentous as this one.
Why, you ask. Why should it get all of the acclaim? To which we reply, why not?

The font is irrelevant.

This full stop could have gone anywhere but it gave up on all that potential because it sees the bigger picture.

Feel free to share this full stop. It needs you help.