Diary

‘It’s the essence of Bollockshire / you’re after: its secrets, blessings and bounties.’ So Christopher Reid reads from his hilarious poem at the King’s Lynn Poetry Festival.

park and pay ...
assuming this isn’t the week
of the Billycock Fair, or Boiled Egg Day,
when they elect the Town Fool.
From here, it’s a short step
to the Bailiwick Hall Museum and Arts Centre.
As you enter, ignore the display
of tankards and manacles, the pickled head
of England’s Wisest Woman;
ask, instead, for the Bloke Stone.
Surprisingly small, round and featureless,
pumice-gray,
there it sits, dimly lit,
behind toughened glass, in a room of its own.