I've spent a lot of time in airless rooms with alpha males this week. First was author Adam Thorpe, the very fine author of novels including Ulverton, Still, Flight, Hodd and On Silbury Hill. He's also a very impressive poet.
He gave a great reading and talk about how and what he writes, to an appreciative crowd which sadly didn't include a single creative writing student, and only one undergraduate. Oh well: I got to go for dinner with Adam and his wife on my own and had a lovely night. Coming soon: Francis O'Gorman, author of Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History, Tracey Hill on the invention of Dick Whittington and Owen Martel.
Then I went to a Labour Party fundraiser starring Jeremy Corbyn, who was lovely: a sharp speaker, quite a wit, a man who cares about (amongst other things) arts policy and mental health care. Intriguingly, loads of people couldn't keep their hands off him. Rest of the photos are here or you can click on these to enlarge.
