Despite the last minute room change; last night proved to be another brilliant night at The Boar!

The poets came from far and wide and the quality and variety of the poetry was, as always, excellent. From Val Cook’s thought-provoking poetry, to Robert Goodyear’s scary stuff, to Gordon Zola’s rap/ country song, to John Togher’s filthy, dirty performance- Middleton had it all last night!

Thanks very much to all the newcomers, (if not to performance poetry entirely, at least to our night!), and to everyone for being so supportive during my first ever stab at WOL compering, (and second ever in my whole life)!

Finally, I must say that Abima’s exposure therapy seems to be working; he is now able to look at a picture of a poet without shaking and sweating profusely.

Well done Gemma you are undoubtedly a compere beyond compare!
Photos of the event are in Galleries - unfortunately none of our professional snappers was available so I took them :(

Congratulations Gemma on your debut as compere. It was my first but hopefully not my last visit to Middleton.
There was a friendly and varied selection box of people and poets. I enjoyed it immensely.

Paul, the pics look great. You even caught me with a smile on my face. It must have been a good night 'cos i was sober.
ha ha.

It was just a pity about the room change, which everyone i spoke to said, the other room is better as there is less outside noise.
Apart from a creaky door that all the other punters in the pub seemed to be using. The microphone wasn't brilliant.
We could barely hear some of the readers.

Hi Gemma!! Middleton Calling!!

Well done last night, thought you came over loud and clear, as you do when performing! Mr B will be taking a back seat now, half and half is good you work well together.

Yes the room didn't help and unless you were ranting like me, it was hard to hear at the back. A good night all the same, and look forward to next one in the other room.

Good to hear your cuddly friend is coming to terns with the situation, hope you've stopped singing Loco in acapulco, and I'll bear in mind what T-shirts I wear! Ha!

See ya soon, Jeffarama! X ps cake was lovely!

'The Boar’s Head' may sound as if it can provide the opportunity for a smutty innuendo but not from me. No Sir-ee. Instead, I just want to mention , albeit briefly, how much I enjoyed last night and all its poetic shenanigans.
Gemma was not only a suitable host and compere, offering cakes and beaming smiles to those who’d weathered a torrential journey through the charming and quintessential streets of Middleton. (Somebody once described Middleton as a ‘one horse town‘). Well, that same person is prone to fits of hyperbole and on this occasion, if I could be so bold as to suggest that one horse is perhaps just one horse too many.
I jest, of course.

The boring of heads is a typical English countryside pub. Except it isn’t in the countryside per se but everything else about its appearance oozes personality and a charm that will rival any ’low beamed’, ’polished horse-brass’ and the mandatory’ dried flowers’ type of establishment. Not only that, but we were pleasured with the availability and free use of its ample beer garden, flushing toilets (with a fantastic assortment of vending machines) and strong, very strong Bavarian lager.
The idea of these nights is of course to take your poetry along and read it aloud. In the unlikely event that any poet should forget their work or they cannot rely on an ever decreasing memory to assist in their performance there is of course the opportunity to ad-lib. Make things up as you go along. Wing it. Blag it. Whichever phrase you choose, depending on your situation or circumstances in which you may find yourself bereft of any poetic notes. In my case - I had to blag it. My notes were attached to a refrigerator door underneath a novelty fridge magnet twenty odd miles away, in the shape of an elephant that said simply - DON’T FORGET.

The event itself was well subscribed with patrons and poets alike determined to pay their £1.00 entrance fee. Many new faces too, in the context that I hadn’t ever been to Middleton before. The usual renegades from Bolton, including Dave Morgan, Julian Jordan and Paul Blackburn were all there, filling their tables with mirth, merriment and empty glasses and although the room was a make-shift venue, for the new comer it still felt very homely. The noise levels away from the readers and their listeners was such that you were aware of it but it was not too distracting in any real sense. No more distracting than a low inanimate beam which took great pleasure in thumping at least two poets across their foreheads as they were walking toward the front of the room. It was homely and authentic. The sort of place you could take a Grandma and her gummy smile and not offend anybody as she slobbers her lunch. The poetry was as diverse as we have come to expect. Many established poets performed with their usual gusto, melancholic and nonsensical styles and filled the air with laughter, sighs and vociferous demands for certain individual to ’f**k off back to their home towns’. All in jest I hasten to add. I don’t want to highlight any one individual, simply because I was watching through a soup of my own drunkenness and wallowing in the fact that I was one of the few people over six feet tall who hadn’t fractured a skull on those hostile low flying beams.
Would I go again? Absolutely. - but maybe next time I’ll go when Middleton is celebrating its festival of temporary traffic lights or to invest in the contents of the pub's adult vending machines. For the same price as my WOL entrance fee I could now be the proud owner of the world's 'most excitable latex ribber' and just like poetry 'guaranteed to bring great pleasure'.Hoorah.

Poetry is so much better value than pleasure ribbed pokery or boared pipggery.

Gemma you were wonderful, your orange mate delightful and your cake delicious. That bloke with the short, white hair is a bit rude isn't he!

It was a great night and although Paul can be comical, Gemma was encouraging and entertaining the two together make a good team but seperatly would also be a sucess. Gemma always makes everyone feel welcome and is a brillant poet too. Where does her talent end. Thanks everyone for a great and hopefully I see you all next month.

A cracking night for beams on heads
As Blackburn beamed a smile and said
F*** off back to Birkenhead.
Quite sure he wished that compere dead,
His prospective riposte gave us dread,
Malpoet read of hair instead,
The pubic kind, not that of head,
And wondered where the night had led
After John and others read
Of guilty secrets; faces red,
Some hoped there was no more ahead,
Agreed enough had then been said,
and so we all f****d off to bed.

Independently, of course.