John Virgo – d. February 4th 2026

Our lives depend on how
the pack splits. Some can
plan the future three shots
ahead; others rattle the jaws
of fate’s pocket, never knowing
where the cue ball may be going.

Read about John Virgo here

 

Catherine O’Hara – d. January 30th 2026

Let's get your old folk duo back together
to sing your naive ballads. Let's go out to a
Dog Show, or an alternative Oscars where
they give out statues for vanity and mischief,
where there's no script, but everybody laughs.

Read about Catherine O'Hara here

Nigel Ogden – d. January 27th 2026

The console lights come on; a hiss
of pneumatics before the 64-footer
clears its throat, audible from space.
Hands blur across four banks of keys;
the organist entertains, an orchestra
of ten fingers and a chorus of titans.

Read about Nigel Ogden here

Sly Dunbar – d. January 26th 2026

Three taps on the rim of a snare,
and it can only be you. The skins
pulse to the riddim of your blood;
beat leaves holes in the studio air.
A taut roll as the last track begins;
nothing could ever sound so good.

Read about Sly Dunbar here

Mark Tully - d. January 25th 2026

A voice comes through the heat-haze,
telling a billion stories of a billion lives,
separating truth from myth to camera,
reporting the spirit of a distant people,
unpicking the knotted braids of a nation.

Read about Mark Tully here

Scott Adams – d. January 13th 2026

Let me tell you about my years in Cubeville;
how I learned to fail better and fail faster;
how I escaped before they found me out.
 
Let me tell you about the unspeakable man
in the corner who saw all; who sketched me
and a million lives in caricatures of drudgery.

Read about Scott Adams here

Erich von Däniken – d. January 10th 2026

You said someday a fiery bird would return
to take you home, that its silver-suited pilots
would call you by your cosmic name. I saw
an image of your life viewed from altitude;
a face looking skyward, wanting to believe. 

Read about Erich von Däniken here

Molly Parkin - d. January 5th 2026

You can learn a lot of things about women
from racy novels; most of it untrue. A day
browsing in a boutique is more instructive;
trends wax and wane but the life you think
suits you best is always just out of reach.

Read about Molly Parkin here 

Brigitte Bardot – d. December 28th 2025

I was in love with the idea of a woman,
a creation in medium shot, half insoluble,
half incendiary. Eventually, the camera
caught her in close-up, a picture of
disfigurement I once mistook for beauty.

Read about Brigitte Bardot here

Chris Rea – d. December 22nd 2025

Just when I thought the song was over,
a voice like a bank of smog rolled in,
fogging the road with a grey wisdom,
a melody it would be so easy to ignore,
driving to a place we cannot follow.

Read about Chris Rea here

Rob Reiner - d. December 14th 2025

Met a guy at the Electric Banana
who offered me a part in his movie;
maybe waiting tables, an extra in a
courtroom scene, a lonely novelist.
I asked what he wanted from me;
I want answers, he said. I want truth.

Read about Rob Reiner here

Joanna Trollope – d. December 11th 2025

We are all middlebrow now,
in thrall to he said she said,
the touchable worlds of love,
whether imagined or illicit,
or sometimes even true.
Someone should write this
down; we may be touched by
the significance of small things.

Read about Joanna Trollope here

Stanley Baxter – d. December 11th 2025

Welcome to the extravaganza;
Hollywood in a Glasgow studio,
a man with a thousand voices,
none of them his own, and yet
all of them. Parliamo Tinseltown,
parliamo the lingua franca of joy.

Read about Stanley Baxter here

Sophie Kinsella – d. December 10th 2025

A book is the best way
to travel; a paperback
is a seat in First Class, 
a gold card. Live a life
you could never afford,
where nothing is perfect
but everything balances
at the turn of a final page.

Read about Sophie Kinsella here

Raul Malo – d. December 8th 2025

Wind lifts the tin roof
on a forgotten cantina
down by the border.
A couple dance
by the jukebox.
A voice like añejo
carries over the desert;
please let her know
that I’m well.

Read about Raul Malo here

Frank Gehry – d. December 5th 2025

What if we could make our buildings dance,
screw them up like rejected blueprints, fold
their planes into curves and corrugations?
It might be possible to twist dreams inside out,
and turn these meditations into a metropolis. 

Read about Frank Gehry here

Steve Cropper – d. December 3rd 2025

They put a band together for you -
guitar, bass, drums, keys - tight,
and sharp, all the right moves,
like thunder, lightning, all new
licks made entirely out of light
by the Colonel of the groove.

Read about Steve Cropper here

Billy Bonds – d. November 30th 2025

There is a factory by the Thames
where men are wrought from iron,
a number branded into their back,
a dream of Saturday beaten into
a breastplate with an old hammer.

Read about Billy Bonds here

Tom Stoppard – d. November 29th 2025

There is nothing as dramatic
as an idea; who will speak it?
Who will speak against it?
Who will be changed by it?
The idea sleeps in the pen of
its writer, and only awakens
when it is time to be spoken. 

Read about Tom Stoppard here

Pam Hogg – d. November 26th 2025

This season we’re all in catsuits,
stitched from skins of dead punks
and supermodels, bought from a
boutique on a dead-end street.
We know style moves on; till then
we’ll wear our art on our sleeves.

Read about Pam Hogg here