Bookslam, Nonso Anozie and a whiff of nepotism

Walking out of the tube station, I am at a loss whether to turn left or right- the map on the wall of the tube station isn't much help, and so I find myself taking a gamble and heading in a direction that I assume to be the right one. It soon becomes clear that it isn't, and it has begun to rain, a fierce drizzle of the irritating kind that sometimes appears in London, making me want to shout at it, make up your mind and fall like a proper tropical storm, rather than keeping up this piss-pissing all day long. It is a Thursday night and as I am in the edgy trendy area between Notting Hill and Kilburn, I pass revellers a plenty. After several false turns, I find myself walking down a deserted walkway that ends up at the back of a council estate. There is a gathering in front of one of the flats, many young black men and women, all dressed in black. I assume that they are coming from a funeral until I walk a few steps further and run into another crowd, this time all dressed in green. Conscious of the recent headlines about gangland stabbings, I quicken my steps and soon find myself standing under the Westway, the huge fly-over in West London. the air is alive to the sound of skateboarders, twisting, turning and landing with a loud thump. Someone, the council perhaps has converted part of this space to a skateboarder's paradise with a wooden floor that sweeps and swoops back on itself providing a loud echoing thump from the many skateboarders packed into the space. Wandering past them, I come across a nightclub type queue which I initially pass and then realize that it is the queue for Bookslam, the literary nightclubbing event started by author Patrick Neate that I am headed for. The very polite security men soon let me in to the vast dark cavern of a night club where the event takes place, which is filled with some cool rhythmic music at a volume that allows conversation. I buy myself a drink and stumbling to find a place to sit, I bump into the star of the evening, James Frey- he of the Oprah scandal around the "fictionalized memoir" A Million Little Pieces. He politely extricates himself from me and thankfully I haven't spilt any drink on him.

Patrick soon mounts the stage and introduced the first act, a hilarious young poet called Byron Vincent who soon shakes me out of my work induced apathy. Then it is time for Frey who asks the crowd of maybe 200 if they would rather hear about sex or guns. Sex is the near-unanimous choice and so he launches into a reading from his new book, a novel, Bright Shiny Morning set in California. I am caught up in the story and when the next act Bryn Christopher launches into his rousing gospel-infused R and B songs, I head to buy a copy of Frey's new book and queue to have it autographed.

He asks me what he should write and when I tell him my name and shrug, he asks if I mind if he swears. I shrug again and that is how I end up with a book inscribed "To XXXXXX, the coolest motherfucker in London, indeed, indeed" What that means coming from arguably one of the world's best known fabricators is a matter for conjecture, but I have had a good night, having tucked into the affordable Thai food on offer at the night....


Nonso Anozie is a British-Nigerian actor much in the news this week with the debut of the film Cass in which he stars. The film based on the life of the "infamous football hooligan" Cass Pennant has received good reviws. Anozie is perhaps following in the footsteps of Cyril Nri,Chiwetel Ejiofor, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje and David Oyelowo. As is Chuk Iwuji another rising British Nigerian actor...

Recently stumbled across this website which appears to have interesting events listed...

In Abuja and here in London, rumours brew thickly of an imminent cabinet reshuffle. There is much discontentment on both sides with the current leadership, but while a regicide appears imminent in London, there appears to be no such luck in Abuja....or could the still rumbling election petitions provide any surprises?

Meanwhile a little bird whispers to me that the current Nigerian Chief Justice much praised for his uprightness has in the last six months sworn in not one but two of his sons in as judges- one of the Federal High Court and the other as a member of the Abuja High Court judiciary. Perhaps David Milliband need not worry about whether or not to appoint his brother and fellow cabinet member Ed to a high office of state if he succeeds in toppling Brown- he can take notes from our own Chief Justice, although whether the UK press will be quite as obliging as the Nigerian press remains to be seen....

From Farafina Publishers come news of their latest offerings including Nnedi Okorafor Mbachu's Zahra the Windseeker and The Weaverbird Collection, edited by Akin Adesokan, Ike Anya, Sarah Manyika and Ike Oguine

I've recently finished two relatively hefty tomes from British literary stars of years past- Hanif Kureishi's Something to Tell You, i found really difficult to get in two but halfway through, became more engaging, if still somewhat unsatisfying; while Adam Mars Jones' Pilcrow, an interesting account of a disabled boy growing up in Fifties Britain was engaging page by page but seemed to go nowhere, and by the end, left me slightly puzzled with why I had to plough through all those pages...

The Booker longlist is out and the only book on the list that I have read is Linda Grant's The Clothes on Their Backs, which I quite enjoyed soon after it was longlisted for the Orange Prize, but which frankly isn't really all that....