Tom Wiggins, Letter Carver & Writer

You would be hard-pressed to find a genuine slice of Californian bluegrass and old time music on any given Wednesday in Gloucester .   On this particular Wednesday, however, The Tree Tops Bar and BWM Promotions was very proud to host that very ticket as we were joined by The Old Tire Swingers during their fifth leg of their 13-date UK tour.   The four-piece band from Fresno , California is made up of Paul Chesterton (banjo, vocals), Nick Kennedy (guitar, vocals), Frick Dau (upright bass) and Nathanael Felon (mandolin, vocals).   Placed between two extensive US tours, the band have travelled the five thousand miles from central California to promote their self-titled debut album.   At around 6 feet 4 inches and sporting a bushy Amish-style beard, Paul Chesterton cuts an imposing figure as the band’s lead singer and physical peak.   Adjusting the ribbon microphone to meet his height, his friendly and engaging manner quickly disperses any preconceptions of anyt...

Step 1: Creating a Distraction Drive your car into a neighbour’s house, Apply a pillow to your sleeping spouse. Super glue your lips together, Fix the aerial in windy weather. Light a Cuban at the pumps, Give a lion the birthday bumps. Smuggle drugs through North Korea, Catch explosive diarrhoea. Drink your weight in anti-freeze, Eat a thousand angry bees. Confuse a landmine with a stepping stone, Go to a gangster for a mortgage loan. Crash a bullfight in a red balaclava, Take the high-dive into molten lava. Accept a lift from a suicide bomber, Kidnap the Queen during the birthday honours. Participate in an avalanche, Swing from an oak tree’s highest branch. Ignore the call from Camelot, Play your part in a shifty plot. Follow these steps to the letter, And you ought to feel so much better. If all goes well, you should be thin, Or otherwise in the loony bin! Disclaimer:  Those who make the slightest blunder,  Have found themselves si...

I’ve listened to the masses, but I’ve respectfully chosen to ignore them. They’ve said that – wait for it – "a list" is no longer valid. The horrible lot are after cold, hard facts! They shirk at the sight of lists for their subjectivity. They "lack the desired corroboration." Hmph to that! Do people need polls to back up their beliefs? If a pie chart has sliced your opinion into the biggest portion, must it be true? In the same way that reality TV has asked "Why settle for popular when you can be famous?", polls – especially the ever-present online ones - have rendered the once-mighty list, well, useless. You may well ask: "Why should I take your opinion when I get the opinion of industry experts?" I’m glad you did ask, because here’s why. In this Internet age when you have the most comprehensive information archive in the history of the world at your fingertips, we have quickly evolved into a people that questions more and settles for less. ...

It looks very much like This dispute will rage on, In the meantime, I say to the poet: Write your singer a poem, And to the singer: Write your poet a song.

Korean 1: Now that Kim Jong-Il is dead, do you want to join me in overthrowing our country’s tyrannous regime? Korean 2: I would, but… Korean 1: But what? Korean 2: I’m not insane. And I’d rather just shoot myself in the face. Korean 1: I think you’re- Korean 2: Or jump on a landmine. Korean 1: Look, this- Korean 2: But not before I watched my entire family jump on a landmine. Korean 1: You’re- Korean 2: Then all of my friends, and then all of their friends. Korean 1: See, it’s- Korean 2: And everyone I’ve ever spoken to. Ever. But only if it was systematic, emotionless and dead quick. Either alphabetically or by height - I haven’t decided yet. Korean 1: All I’m saying is that if the Arab and Middle Eastern uprisings can be so successful, then why can’t a North Korean one? Korean 2: Dude, you must be on crack.

I wanted to do something different with cards this Christmas, partly because I'm a bit like that and partly because standard Christmas cards are rather quite boring.  Don't get me wrong: I love the sentiment, I even love the politics of who gets one and who hasn't done enough during the year to impress, and - perhaps above all - I love the monotony of writing card after card after card.  But I was bored with buying them.  The same designs every year! I didn't want my individuality to be restricted to a dozen or so options in Clinton Cards.  So around mid-November, I set out to design my own.  I thought about drawing them by hand, but concluded that they would be funnier and easier to duplicate if I drew them digitally.  Step forward Microsoft Paint.  Oh, how I've missed you.  Your mighty cans of infinite spray paint, your blotchy masterpiece impossibilities, the way you make us c...

Like a warm shower, Next to an open window, Amid an early Autumn frost: Run an iron through me, Warm my bones

We would count our boys into war After their six week basic training Just so we can tick the box      Just so they can play soldiers           Just so they can tell their grandkids they played soldiers And tasted mud And felt the burn Of old rope And the bone-chilling Damp pushing past Knock-kneed Blind-Thirsty From the salt sweat brass blood on warm days And knowing firsthand The science of acid Lactating screaming joints And weeping having stabbed The dummy Fixed bayonet Up through the throat For fear of the need to practice Then the call-up Heading for enemy shores Pressing sweat into their bibles Trembling away their training The world a swinging mirror But in the distance they see Blue Yellow Red Green        Blue Yellow Red Green               Blue Yellow Red Green Not a beach Of sand or pebbles But of dots laid out ...

A casual stroll around town invariably involves walking past Gloucester Guildhall .   A cinema poster is always framed on either side of a very welcoming doorway, announcing the Guildhall’s current film offering and its forthcoming release.   For the more pro-active and culturally-attuned movie-goers, these films often mirror ones you were keen to see at the multiplex, but for whatever reason didn’t get around to seeing them. If, like me, you consider handing over £8 for a ticket at a multiplex somewhat disturbing, Gloucester Guildhall’s film screenings is a most excellent remedy.   And you can rest assured in the knowledge that the Guildhall will bring you something you wanted to see the first time around, acting as a sort of big screen last chance saloon. What’s more, unlike Cheltenham ’s film club, which lies on the outskirts of the town, Gloucester Guildhall’s film club is unquestionable in its convenience: just a stone’s throw from the centre.   And from this e...

As you dig your hole, I can believe the Spine- Tingling, Mind- Altering, Mouth- Watering, Earth- Shattering Explosion of dimensions. I do not judge; What Is fine By You Is fine By Me, But this hole - When it comes Right Down To It – Is Just That: Your Finger Nails Are Scratchcard Stumps, Dead ends.

She’s in possession! Shouts her commentators Seventy minutes gone Ten to go Of a big rugby game The opposition   Are edging ahead Suddenly The maul tide turns A great shift of energy inside the pile of men And the ball Is turned over And the opposing team has it And with it They break. (A very male perspective Of the birthday woman Who’s starkers single - Not even the faintest wave Of a man on the horizon. She needs the pain; Wants to know it, Willing to risk Post-natal whatever As a forty candle salute - In the absence of a child’s Tip-toed effusion In which lungs contract To two sun-dried shrivels -   Allows an adult’s Laboured breath To breathe a wish free.)

It was that first scream that came to pierce the water, snapping away the beauty of his crime.  A second later, wading legs jostled fruitlessly in twos, shouts mere muffles from beneath.  The figure, anchored still, had been looking up from his lagoon bed, his body relaxed as the pump and valves worked so delicately to a stop, his breathing set to a bubbling whisper.  He shared a polite word with the bright blue above: a promise, perhaps.                                                                                           ...

Few would disagree that 2011 has been an exceptional year for Laura Marling.   Only three weeks in and a Brit Award nomination for Best Female lands on her doormat, followed in its wake by a similar acknowledgement posted from the offices of NME (two prizes she would later go on to win).   Now at album number three, not only has high praise run in parallel with each of the singer’s record releases, but her previous albums have doubled as prize magnets. Her debut, 2007’s Alas I Cannot Swim and last year’s I Speak Because I Can both garnered nominations from the Mercury Prize panel, arguably the UK ’s highest music accolade.   And if PJ Harvey’s Mercury success is anything to go by, more nominations will invariably follow.         Not one to rest on her laurels, last month heralded the release of A Creature I Don’t Know, the singer-songwriter’s third studio album.   Like its predecessors, it was lavished with wide critical acclaim, cementing h...

If poetry were an office leaving present, It’d be an egg, If you let it.

Veiny, waxy, useless things (That is, without the slow tide Of season).   And what’s more: Fastened to their guardians Like some animal Or clumsy toddler As if it would – could - do something Wrong Given the chance. Dirty, untidy, slippery things In a constant fidget And at the mercy of everything; Reliant ‘til the bitter drop Then trodden on, Walked over And grown: Grown to be discarded (I pity with a pointed finger As many as I can). Shameless, mindless, soulless things, I laugh with spite at every one As October resuscitates A wheezing September sun As if it were a last gasp apology For not arriving When the season called for it. I need answers! (There’s never a judicial enquiry When you damn-well need one) Hateful, blameful, disdainful things, Flip flops kicking Lifeless piles of brittle mistakes (This supposed Autumn Is our supposed Summer) That nature has not the slightest Contingency for. If I could give a rake to Mother Nature, I damn-well would. And when she was finish...

Monday You eat those Cheerios like they’re about to be rationed; We used to chew our food if that’s so old-fashioned. Tuesday There was more gobble in that than on a turkey farm That the Honey Monster himself would stand in alarm. Wednesday Don’t slouch on the seat or slurp on your tea, And don’t hold that spoon like it was wriggling free. Thursday You know you can eat your toast in more than a bite: That strawberry jam isn’t about to ignite. Friday You drink your squash like you want to drown, And you eat your Coco Pops before the milk goes brown.

If BT could cast a line up to heaven, my Nan would be the first one on the blower. ‘Tom, bring me that phone.   I want to speak to Him.’ ‘You mean God?’ ‘No, not Him.   I mean Him: your granddad.’ She’d get me to read out the number as she dialled it.   I can picture her now: glasses perched at the end of her nose, hunched over with age, repeating and verifying each number as if she had just learnt to count, thumping each digit on the keypad with a wrinkled finger, mumbling something angrily incoherent as it connected.   Before He even answered, she’d begin ranting as if ten years without him had never passed. My Nan likes to moan.   If words were air miles, she could live on the plane.   ‘Me hips are digging in and paining [sic] me like daggers, I can’t hardly walk, me eyes don’t work properly, and what’s more, if I want to see anything clearer than a shadow, I’ve got to hold my bloody eyelid up!   Then there’s this damn perm that’s as flat as roa...