Lift Off at the West Port Book Festival

Image: GuerrillaGeek.com

West Port Book Festival
I nipped up to Peter Bell’s Books in West Port after the day job to collect my tickets for the West Port Book Festival that begins today. Over the next four days I’ll be covering the following events through this blog and my Edinburgh Book Festivals Blog:

• 13th – Emily Dodd
• 14th – William Letford and Luke Williams
• 15th – Rob Shearman
• 15th – Bugged (I may have to cancel this one)
• 16th – David Gaffney and Hannah McGill

Tonight’s event with Emily Dodd is billed as:

Storyteller, podcast/film maker, scientist, entertainer, singer and poet, there’s no-one quite like puffin-loving banana fan Emily Dodd and her magical blend of song, story and poem. Edward Lear, Dr Seuss and A. A. Milne collide in what promises to be a joyous hour for the young and young at heart alike.

All tickets for the West Port Book Festival are free. Ordering instructions can be found here: westportbookfestival.org/tickets

New Chapbook
I think I need to write maybe three or four new poems for my new Leith-based chapbook in order to give it a more round and panoramic feel to it. There’s some close-up poetry through events and characters, but it needs some wider view poems to give it a more balanced feel.

I wrote a few poem drafts this morning in the coffee shop, and began work on an all encompassing one to try and capture the essence of Leith in one verse—there’s so much to try and pack in, though!

I still don’t have a title for it but I do now have a short list of possible ideas. Favourites so far are Just Another Port, Any Old Port, No Place Like Leith, Leith on Edinburgh, and the standout title so far, Jaguars and Caviar.

That last title is a line from one of the poems looking at the differences in attitude between Edinburgh and Leith. I want to the title to be abstract but also to say something about Leith in a ‘between the lines’ kind of way.

A Lovely Treat
When I got home last night my wife announced she was taking me out for the night. On a whim—just like that! Not one to argue with her over anything, I agreed and we headed out to enjoy the benefits of Orange Wednesday: a combined two-for-one pizza and movie offer.

First stop was Pizza Express at Leith’s Shore, where we shared dough balls and garlic bread. I went for the Giardiniera pizza for my main (artichokes, mushrooms, red peppers, santos tomatoes, courgettes, olives, garlic oil, tomato & pesto base)—it was delicious.

We then nipped around the corner to the Vue Cinema in Ocean Terminal, and after buying copious amounts of chocolate nuts and raisins, settled on going to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a movie based on the John La Carré novel starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, John Hurt and Tom Hardy. It also had an appearance by Kathy Burke, which took a bit of getting used to.

The movie was a slow burner; it took about an hour for me to start to get interested in it, and even then it was a bit of a haul to get through to the end. I guess we were expecting something different, more fast-paced, but then in hindsight it was about the Cold War and MI6 leaks through a mole, but it could have been made less subtle. But hey, you live and learn!

Ciao for now!