Ian McMillan entertains Geoff Hattersley with mushy peas, jazz, Telephone Voices and the vexed question of being ‘Yorkshire enough’.

Ian McMillan entertains Geoff Hattersley with mushy peas, jazz, Telephone Voices and the vexed question of being ‘Yorkshire enough’.
Ian McMillan entertains Geoff Hattersley with a look at the world through Barnsley glasses, featuring rubber jam tarts, a novelty Coronation Street alarm clock and a very strange game of chess.
Donny O'Rourke takes us to Edinburgh in August, for a Lughnasadh harvest festival — but one of culture, not of crops.
Tiffany Murray flees the over-familiar, but still creatively disabling, complaints of a despondent writer, by escaping to the strange new world of Iceland and its music.
Donny O’Rourke finds himself in the book-blessed town of Ullapool in May, celebrating the bonfires and bluebells of the Celtic Beltane festival.
Chris Arthur reflects on the inspirations of his ‘odd-object’ essays, and considers the popularity of this particular form and the most important aspect of oddness within it.