To Brum and back

Happy Halloween to you. It's been a busy week in the life of 'a pint for the ghost'. On Tuesday, Neil, Patrick and I dug out the pint glasses and fake whisky again and headed up the motorway to Birmingham to perform at a book festival in the central library. Birmingham is full of spectres. According to the local paranormal investigations team, there's a ghost in the Three Tuns pub that likes to stroke people's hair. So it was with trepidation that we set up our stuff in a darkened theatre and got ready to take to the stage again.

There was definitely some sly spirit at work: the stairs seemed intent to leg Patrick up, and I kept breaking glasses. Despite my clumsiness, we survived and made an executive decision to use real beer on stage instead of the evil concoction Super Malt (which has been giving me nightmares since June). It was very interesting to perform in a less intimate venue than the setting of the Hotbed festival, and we discovered theatres are possibly not the natural habitat for the landlord and his ghosts. Nonetheless, it was a great experience. And none of us got our hair stroked.

On Friday, the pamphlet was launched in style with readings from some fine poets (including a pub crawl with Michael McKimm and Tim Wells' encounter with a goth on the bus) and music courtsey of Gareth's ipod. Ta, Gareth! And if that weren't enough excitement for one week, you can now listen to the landlord's stories from 'A Pint...' online at Short Story Radio. The tales are read by Keith Drinkel, who played Liz McDonald's boyfriend in Coronation Street years ago, as well as appearing in the comedy series 'I Didn't Know You Cared'. Find a dark room, light some candles, pour yourself a dram, and click this link.