Shore Poets

Following Noel Fielding back from Edinburgh late last night, not following in any kind of weird or obsessive way however. Here he is headed for Bo'ness.

Earlier in the evening we attended the monthly reading at the Shore Poets get together in St John's Cellar Cafe, Henderson's in Edinburgh's west end. It was a low-key, quirky and atmospheric affair, the venue being cold and dark and in other circumstances it would have been a perfect Gothic evening. Some of the material recited was very strong but some was trite and sounded like it had been lifted from the Sunday Post or the People's Friend, you get what you get I guess.  I'd expected more of an intellectual powerhouse with debate or political stuff being thrown around and less kitchen sink drama; wrong again - it's civilised. The main themes were dead grandparents, dead parents and family events, so nostalgia for the war years and our lost industrial past was hanging heavily in the air. With the poets and their band of followers the average age profile is also pretty high, I was of course within the overall metric so at least I felt at home, grey hair and wrinkles abound. A nice couple from Dunbar sang a few songs, sweet tunes and lovely harmonies and there's always a bizarre lemon cake (never chocolate cake) raffle going on - I hope to maybe win it one day.