I ain’t got a clue why, but I really am hacked off at the moment (hence my recent very negative poems on marketing departments, extending my glist sequence). Somehow, somewhere, someone has thoroughly wound me up. Trying to work out what’s going on is like trying to work out what’s causing an allergy. I think this means what’s actually winding me up is very different, but I’m not ready to face it.

The only thing that I know has annoyed me over the last week or so, which ain’t enough to explain my anger, is the new Medal Of Honour add–pack, Breakthrough. It’s appalling. It’s so bad that if you go to the wrong place in the game, you’re automatically killed. This is the mark of an ill thought out and badly implemented game. Given the original game had a couple of brilliant scenes in it, especially the Normandy landings, I think they’ve replaced the original game designers with a bunch of lazy hacks (in the journalist sense). It’s drivel; avoid it.

Last Friday I heard Bernard O’Donaghue in Kimbolton, yesterday I heard John Tranter (editor of the poetry magazine Jacket) in Cambridge. Both are subtle, effective poets. However, I found I only really enjoyed Bernard O’Donaghue’s storytelling, which confirmed my reaction when reading his latest collection. John Tranter kept on impressing me. I have his collections to read; I shall make some special trips to my local to do so (what? what do you mean, what? Don’t you understand? Don’t you realise you can’t properly investigate poetry without a decent pint to hand?).