Tangerine dreams

Our creative writing degree teeters on the brink of cliche often, but last night's lesson really took the pith. In two-and-a-half hours, my notebook consists of a page, all about my reaction to a satsuma. All the students were given a satsuma (I'd like to see the expense claim for that), asked to describe it, touch it, sniff it, peel it and eat it. My contribution, a knowing treatise on how ridiculous the whole exercise was, was described as "typical Laurie" by the teacher. Other contributions, after I'd picked myself off the floor looking at a load of middle-ageds sniffing small discoloured fruits, were eliptic, involved and traumatic, with one woman magaing to weave the satsuma into her troubled home-life and Christmas in a scullery. Another called it a dank sphere (the orange, not Christine's home life). I'm hoping my creative instincts are right, otherwise there's gonna be a whole lot of fruit sniffing round our new place.

Listening: New Radiohead downloads (£1.74 paid); Alison Moyet new stuff; Steve Earle

Watching: The Wire Season Three (genius)

Reading (still): Wait Until Spring Bandini; Patrick Hamilton's Slaves Of Solitude

Hull Fair, from my car

Always love this view. Like a neon city of perils, neer-do-wells, fortunes and folly, with added chip spice. I didn't stop the car.

A sign o' the times

The moment when Loz met Wyatt. The eagle-eyed amongst you woill notice that he signs the name Wyatt in the form of a girl's body, the W doing most of the work. This signature obviously necessitates the need for a giant chequebook, and reminds me of Jackie Treehorn in the Big Lebowski. As I've said before, it's nice when your hero is 61, wears a bodywarmer and tugs on one of those fag replacement jobbies. Wyatt, I salute you...

Pipe down

On the way back from meeting my idol, I was brought down to earth by this 20-something pipe smoker, sat with his equally awful pipe-smoking parents on the town square. I got his picture by pretending to "work for pipe smokers weekly". He obliged, rather than questioning the sustainability of a weekly pipe magazine.

Wyatt Last

I see my hero smoking, cackling, chatting about olives and tugging at old women's polyester slacks most days in Louth. But mostly smoking. When you see your hero most days up close, you become distanced from his star appeal. But today was my chance to finally meet Robert Wyatt, at a record signing in Louth for his new album Comicopera, released today, pop pickers. And I'm pleased to say I was nervy as hell, as he signed my new vinyl, wearing a body warmer and puffing on one of those fag replacement jobbies in the back of Off The Beaten Tracks in Louth, watched by an ancient woman clutching a Soft Machine CD. Pleasantaries exchanged, I returned to work, past a man in his 20s, wearing plaid and smoking a pipe. Heroes and strange-ones do turn up in the weirdest of locations.

Director's note: Due to being at the University of Hull library, I am unable to download pics at the moment. But a Wyatt shot, with my back and his front, thankfully, will appear when my boss's back is turned tomorrow.

I'm well back

Yes, I've been away, but as if some bloke making squelching noises through the powers of only his hands was gonna be my last contribution to the blogosphere. Pah!! No, me and Dee are "installed" in our new Lincolnshire abode, with no communication method yet established apart from shouting, so we've been stood on foreshore at set hours of the day, hoping our communication will carry on the wind and bridge to our old Hull haunts. Its not been a total removal-heavy, gashed fingers, to-me to-you type odyssey tho. I've been applying for jobs, developing a love of Pedro Almadovar (again, I know I should abide the restraining order), Thai "style" crisps, Talking Heads vids, and the weird ways of the brute and beastly shire of Lincs.

Listening: The Go!Team, MIA, Joy Division Live at Manchester Factory, various Studio One stuff.

manualist plays bohemian rhapsody on his hands!

I will be back soon ... in the meantime, enjoy the Manualist