Polyverse, Pedigree, and the British Transport Police

Had a good time at the Polyverse Festival yesterday, meeting Jane Commane and Matt Nunn of Nine Arches Press, and Matt Merritt. I enjoyed readings by Matt N (his new book's out from Nine Arches later in the year) and Pat Jourdain. I read too, to a very small but friendly audience.

Afterwards Matt M was kind enough to give me a lift to Loughborough station. I was early, so I wandered up for a quick pint of Pedigree at a pub (the Greyhound, possibly). It was deserted, so I stood with the landlord in the half-light of the rainy afternoon, discussing the sulphurous delights of Pedigree kept properly and within a decent distance of the brewery (beyond the Midlands it becomes nondescript), and the pub's inexorable decline. An intensely pleasurable quarter of an hour. Then back for the train – which was delayed for an hour in Derby 'waiting for the British Transport Police to attend following a very serious complaint'. It can't have been about the sandwiches, as the buffet car was closed (boom boom!). It gave me time to read Matt M's book Troy Town, a beautiful hardback full of birds, flat and mountainous landscapes, air and light.