GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
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Paul McGrane - Workhouse
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Workhouse
Paul McGrane
I earn a little money but mainly
I’m paid in blisters and a broken back
and there’s nothing I can do about it.
They needed a way to plug every hole
in the wooden ships of the Royal Fleet
without it costing an arm and a leg
and guess who they found to trick out that thread
from old bits of rope as fat as a noose?
To ask for more would be a big mistake
and my rations could be cut for a week.
What I choose to say is nothing at all.
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