Life

Radio review: The Banksy of poetry is worth a listen

Nuala McCann
Nuala McCann Nuala McCann

Front Row Radio 4

Desert Island Discs Radio 4

The fella known as the Banksy of Poetry and Twitter’s unofficial poet laureate. Brian Bilston – not his real name - confesses that he accidentally became a poet through Twitter.

It started with a tweet… he never thought it would come to this, as Errol from Hot Chocolate crooned.

Brian has just launched his new collection, Alexa, What is there to know about love?

The title poem is not quite a homage to Alexa.

Of course Alexa is a bit literal. She tends to err along the way.

For a start she mis-hears love as glove, then she gets lost in the various chambers of the heart.

Oh Alexa STOP… who hasn’t said that?

Bilston gets top billing from Richard Osman who said: “If you like (a) laughing or (b) words which rhyme with each other, you will love Brian Bilston.”

Bilston has a fresh take on love for Valentine’s Day, he’s worth a listen on Front Row.

On Desert Island Discs, astronaut Tim Peake cast off.

His is a life of big adventure. He was chosen out of 8,000 hopefuls to become an astronaut and go to the space station.

You need to be somebody who is calm under pressure and gets on well with others, he said.

He was interviewed by a French astronaut for the post. The astronaut later said that the question he asked himself is:

Would I like to spend six months in space with this person? Tim got the job.

Imagine the joy of brushing your teeth every morning with a view of planet earth passing by. Imagine seeing the Aurora Borealis from deep space or falling in love with the ice fields of Patagonia.

Peake was allowed to listen to three tracks of music in the five minutes before the launch into space. One of them was Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now!

He was also able to make a couple of calls to people he really wanted to speak to… one of those was Queen’s Brian May.

They had a chat and he played the astronauts a song.

Endurance training for space included a week living in a cave and 12 days under water.

The importance of having a routine to deal with the circumstances of space and the lack of human contact resonates with our current Covid lifestyles.

We heard songs from Queen, Madness, the Kinks, ELO.

What was that moment of landing back on earth like after six months in space?

There is vertigo, dizziness, the hatch opens to the smell of scorched burning grass where the capsule has landed and then this big hairy Russian comes in to drag you out.

Gravity too feels incredibly heavy, your iPad feels like a brick, sleeping at night is truly uncomfortable.

This was fascinating and uplifting – a message from Peake to follow your dreams, never give up but enjoy the journey too.