Morecambe Poetry Festival 2026

Back, at last after a wonderful weekend and few days more at the Morecambe Poetry Festival 2026.

We left on Thursday at lunch time, arrived in Lancaster and took a taxi to Morecambe; a good way to travel by train as changing trains from Lancaster to Morecambe is a long wait and the place is only a few miles away. We arrived at The Kings Arms at 19:40 for our evening set, due at 22:30, but we already knew would be late... this is something of a theme for this fest, but the scheduled acts tend to run to time. Our pre-fest event was precluded by Janine Booth and Peter Buckley Hill, who had recently written a sonnet-a-day to match Shakespeare's count. We went on at 23:30 to a moderate but committed audience who remained at that late hour. Our set went to plan (and to plane, as our paper planes flew).

A casual open mic throughout the next morning led to the first official act of Robin Ince (and a packed out room), who we'd missed on previous years. Of all performers, Robin's interests and outlook were, are, perhaps closest to my own. He paid tribute to both Kenneth Williams and Elizabeth Sladen; something I'd also happily do. Perhaps Tom Baker's Dr Who runs deep as a cultural figure for those of my (our) generation. Even now he's in my dreams.

Well, I'll try cut a long story short, not let this blog-post become a boring holiday slide show. Let's think of highlights and unique moments...

Huge winds on the seafront causing ear-ache which lasted hours on Saturday, plus torrents of rain for a second year. Umbrellas useless, except for Deb's transparent dome, the only sort that works in a gale. My long leather coat and cagoule did a good job. Met many old friends, tenor and Newcastle giant Clark; Debra and her kin, Alan the metalworking stand-up in progress, Ryan the sound man. The 'word walk' was an organised event (by Anne of publisher Big White Shed, who was lovely; encouraging, an inspiration at our later meeting) that had different start times and placements in the programme to the website, but this error proved serendipitous as two groups met. We did our own word-free walk and met new friends in the process. It was nice to join Chris, who I met there, at a few events afterwards.

Each performer was inspiring in their own way. Henry Normal ever cosy. Kate Fox and Staithe performed poetry with (folky, acoustic) music, the only act close to ours. Although much simpler than us in words and music, both certainly improved the other and made it all much more engaging than it would have been. Nice to meet Rowland Crowland, a performer and poet less famous than John Cooper Clark, yet just as good in every respect. Brian Bilston was excellent, as was Nick Helm; a powerhouse. Katherine Ratzko and Deborah are two of the best poets I know; I could easily have become sexist otherwise as most of the female poets on the main stage were egregious.

This is, in a normal year, the few days where I become enthused by poetry, and for every act I thought 'I can do that!' - and 'I want to do that!' which is the essence of the fairy-candy-floss called inspiration. For me, it was also nice to escape the routine here, and stay with Deborah for few precious days. Our time when not there is so very fragmented, so very comb-toothed. In an average week we seem to share only a few hours together. Whenever we go to Morecambe, we think 'let's move here', 'let's live here', 'let's at last break free'. I love Morecambe and its people, and it's nice to see it slightly off-season. I expect such towns are very different in winter than summer, perhaps too busy for me in summer, perhaps too quiet in winter. I'm not even sure if there's a supermarket other than one Aldi (surely there must be!) and the precious internet and phone connections are apparently rubbish (noooo!).

Matt said that we, and Janine, and Peter Buckley Hill, can have full slots next year. That would be nice.

Now, back to reality. I want to finish my music notation. I want to make a book of Fall in Green lyrics. Ideally I'd make a music video for 'Women and Wives', but as you may discern, I'm already not feeling like it. The PRS seem to have rejected two prior performance payments; this worried me and I want to know why. The emails to Fall in Green, and all of my newly-server'd websites haven't worked in weeks and I've only just discovered this. I have to visit the Crewe Create exhibition, do a computer service for John, deliver 'Punishment of the Sun' to the RBSA gallery on Friday, perform 'China in Your Hand' on Thursday (oh, and learn to play it, I don't even know the music), frame 'Love And Fragility In The Age Of Perfection'... ideally all of this in 7 days.

Onwards.

Social Intelligence

Humans, as a species, are basically the same genetically as they were 100,000 years ago, yet we have changed massively in intelligence. We changed 20,000 years ago when nomads formed the first cities, and have changed, and become ever more intelligent in the last 200 years, and more-so last 100 years. There are far more geniuses alive today than in the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Each of us has far more capability, and at a pace far too quickly to be due to genetic evoloution. Why?

I posit that this is because intelligence is not personal but social, and specifically a factor of language and inter-communication. Our brain cells alone are not intelligent, it is their network which makes us so, and our human social network works in the same way to make society, not us individuals, intelligent. Today's animals and plants too are more intelligent than those of the past for this reason; they are part of our society. We can see that horses, for example, are trained by known and documented methods in a way that was not possible in ancient times.

Can we say that plants are today more 'intelligent' than before. In a way cultivation makes them so, even if they lack volition or much power over their environment, they are manipulated by us, by farmers and gardeners, because they give us something in return. It may be a stretch to describe this symbiosis as intelligence, but it is 'in a way', perhaps more of an intelligence than wild plants, those of 50,000 years ago.

Our electronic social media makes all of society yet more intelligent, for intelligence can also be measured by speed. Anyone can build a spacecraft with enough time, designed with pencils and paper, but speed grants us special abilities. Our speed of change and reaction is an essential part of the definition of intelligence, even in common parlance; 'quick witted' for example.

That intelligence is a factor of society, not of the individual is the ultimate retort to Nazism and intellectual elites. A small group of elites would, in isolation, literally be less intelligent than a larger mass.

Linen Lolly

Started today by adding a redirect for the old Fall in Green URL, as Google has yet to update it to the proper address, then design of some German 1920s hyperinflation-era bank notes with a Fall in Green spin for our performance of 'Velvet Gelt'. This alone took an hour and for a lazy fragment of time I considered using AI, but no! I want to avoid any use of it for digital art or in any connection with music. It was fun to do anyway, even if I accidentally deleted the source file just before printing and had to painstakingly re-create the layers.

Folded 30 planes in the afternoon and packed most of what's needed for the trip. It's always a time where I want two sets of shaving things, toothbrushing things, night lights! Looked at what we did and who we met last year and made notes. I expect I'll not have time for more work until after the festival.

Sixth Rehearsal, Burn Of God Scores

Final, 6th, rehearsal for the Morecambe Poetry Festival. It seems we're on at 22:45, the headline slot.

All went fine. Most of the day spent with a little admin on the single release, which is now all set for 9th October 2026, and tedious sheet music work, which always annoys me by its pointlessness and the time it takes, yet it does have some point.

The score for Kyrie is rough, all lack things like string strokes and many polishing touches. It has 6 choral parts alone (3 male, 3 female), 6 string sections, a pipe organ and more. It feels as epic as the Missa Solemnis or Brian's Gothic Symphony, and that was the aim, but of course it's very short and musically simple compared to those. It's taken hours of work on this basic score that will almost certainly never be performed or gazed at by anyone, which is one reason I resent working on it, but history is full of scores unperformed for decades or centuries. A first step is to write it out. I do it also because nobody else could or would. Of course, I'd now love to re-record the album, as I could do far better today, but Burn Of God can wait a good few years yet.

I'd hoped to complete the sheet music for the album before we go to Morecambe but this seems unlikely. I'm stressed, overworked by it all, and not sleeping, but it will feel good to complete it.

I've completed 632 scores since I began this mammoth project of documenting my music in 2022. I'm past half way, and extrapolate a finishing date of 2029.

WAW Music Admin

Mostly admin work on Women And Wives today, including completing the Spotify Canvas animations. Still more to do on this. No work on the Burn Of God sheet music. Watching a documentary about Buddy Holly, an eternal inspiration.

BOG Scoring Day 2

Another tedious day of scoring. Got down the complex 'The Ethereal River' and 'Epilogue'. Will anyone, can anyone ever play them? They are useful references anyway. I hope one day to publish in print all of my scores, so this is a necessary start.

Also rehearsed our Morecambe show, our 5th rehearsal, the second with full props and intros.

Burn Of God Scores

Gosh what a hard day. On my to-do list for the year is to score Burn Of God. I want to score all of my albums, and do this now for new ones. I've done over half of the older ones, but not this. I last updated the music in 2022, but of course I can now do much better, primarily in the mixing, balancing, mastering area, and vocals of course, as my singing has continued to improve. I digress.

I thought I'd scored all of the most difficult albums, those with live piano or orchestral parts. This includes Music Of Poetic Objects, The Anatomy Of Emotions, Cycles, Tree Of Keys; but many of the Burn Of God tracks fit this. Some of the tracks use 'expressive' piano with little sense of timing, tracks like 'The Eternal Dogma' and 'The Dark Nightwatchman'. Today I'd record and sequence these differently... using the 'lined up' timing as mentioned in a recent blog post. This makes transcribing much easier. 'Smile to Fall' could simply be MIDI exported, despite its expressive timing, but not these, and the chords were often embedded into single instruments. This too makes transcribing very slow. I need to hand calculate each note being played.

Sigh, well, after an 8-hour day 'The Eternal Dogma' is done, and most of 'The Dark Nightwatchman'. These are some of the most difficult tracks.

I've spent days, weeks of my life making this sheet music. There's zero 'demand' for it. I offer basic sheet music for all of my music for free on itch, with a small fee for the 'complete' versions, but even most of the basic versions have has zero downloads; and yet I spent weeks, months of my life transcribing it. Sometimes these have been very useful, when needing to play something live, and of course, there's little demand for anything I do. Nobody pays me for anything, so if no master calls the tune, I'm free to do what I like. Life is about order and record keeping, so I'm ordering and keeping records. It will be a joy to get this one complete and out of the way.

Women And Wives Cover and Admin

A full day of work on the endless admin of releasing a piece of music. First photography for the cover, and an hour or two of cover artwork. I spent ages working on a complex draft that aimed to match the futuristic, electronic sound of the music; and added pink!

And yet, I kept a much simpler, early draft, and after hours of working on the above looked again at the early version and preferred it. My recent purchase of The Polydor Years by Peter Godwin, and its artwork, perhaps inspired the lighter look. Many of his covers were photos with text, little else.

Other work today includes finalising the 'Smile to Fall' sheet music, registering the track as a composition, finalising the text notes and storing the image as an artwork, and starting the Spotify Canvas animation work. Ideally I'll make a video... this may have to wait.