Guest Blog by Pete 'Cardinal' Cox, Poet

“I was recently able to attend a talk by Sir Jonathan Miller on his life and work, from being a medical student to being part of Beyond the Fringe (at the Edinburg Festival, then London and New York), presenting the BBC arts programme Monitor, directing such TV works as Alice in Wonderland (1966) through to directing opera on stage. Fascinating, though he did claim not to be a polymath. If you get a chance, go listen yourself.

I also appeared on the local radio breakfast show once last month and when wandering through the city centre I was stopped by someone I vaguely recognised from the local pub. Perhaps he heard me, I thought. “You OK?” he asked, “’Cause you were really wasted the last time I saw you.”

Ah, I thought, obviously he didn’t hear me but I guess he remembers me from the pub. “Oh yes?” I said.

“Are you German, ’cause you were swearing away in German?” Now my foreign language skills boil down to two useless phrases in French, and no matter how often you ask them where your aunt’s pen might be, they’ll not tell you it’s on your uncle’s bureau.

“Err, no…”

“What? Haven’t you been in the prison?”

“No, not me…”

“Well there’s a bloke in there who looks the spit of you.”

Poor chap, I thought, in prison and looking like me. That must count as cruel and unusual punishment!

If any poets are looking for a good website to submit to I’d recommend trying The Legendary at www.downdirtyword.com as it publishes top quality work and isn’t limiting when it comes to the space it devotes to the contributors biographies. Look at a few back issues and if there are other poets that you feel an affinity with, check out their bios as to where else they are also being published.

Finally, let me wish all the Book A Poet readers a Merry Christmas and hope you have a productive new year.

© Peter Cox