My work has always been about memory, history, nostalgia. About family. About places, and how we are connected to them. About conversations, and stories, and little stolen snatches of narrative. About being British, connected to the South Coast, about an ...Read More
This was commissioned by the Worthing Herald for National Poetry Day; I'd marked the previous National Poetry Day by being poet in residence, writing poems about the week's news. This poem was supposed to celebrate the way that the paper ...Read More
Originally written for the Worthing Community website - this comprehensive Tank Girl biog was the site's most popular page, so when that site was lost I moved it to my old blog, I Hate Dan Thompson, where it's had 37,695 ...Read More
I spend a lot of time thinking about regeneration. It's a creative process, turning failing towns into interesting places, and I like creative processes. So like every other one, whether it's drawing or performing poetry or presenting to a film ...Read More
The third stop on the Empty Shops Network tour (the second, Shoreham, was so manic it goes unblogged) is Carlisle. It's a bewildering, beautiful and bewitching city. I'm staying in a moderately grotty guesthouse a few minutes outside the city centre. ...Read More
A couple of years ago I ran a small local arts organisation, the Revolutionary Arts Group, struggling with no resources to stage artist-led festivals and open studio events, and using non-traditional venues for exhibitions- an old bakers, a functioning church, ...Read More
What makes towns tick? I've been visiting a lot of town centres on the quest to fill empty shops. Why is Lewes such a lovely place to spend time, while Worthing feels a bit of a wasteland? It's more than just ...Read More
The arts are going to have to accept that there's less funding in the next few years - Britain's government is, let's face it, effectively bankrupt. At the same time, the government is exploring ideas of getting truly local, supporting communities as ...Read More
I spent 2009 looking long and hard at empty shops, and where the high street was going wrong. The best bit of all that work was finding the bits where the high street gets it right; the Best Shops in ...Read More
As I've had time and space to work on ideas for empty shops this year, and as I've been able to support others in their work, I've become ever more keenly interested in the ideas, inspiration and ideology behind the ...Read More
