The Staple Question

Jimmy James Manlow is the south coast's leading podcaster. A poet and novelist and also a former child star - JJM was the Milky Bar Kid in the mid-1980s - in the 21st century Jimmy James has reinvented the chat show podcast and made the genre his very own play thing. In this episode we hear him chat to 'controversial' poet and performer Dean Parkin, talking about his new one man show, Dean's Dad's Ducks, prior to his Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in August 2010. The show also features a special guest appearance from versatile American poet and singer songwriter Virgil Renfroe who will be singing a song from his new album, 'On The Virge'. As the man says, "I am Jimmy James and this is The Jimmy James Manlow Show!"

I came across a man sat on a train with a lemon tree on the table in front of him. The tree had one fully grown lemon on its branches and as the train made its way to London, I began to worry about the safety of its lemon and if it would make it home. The stalk was sturdy though. And the man definitely seemed confident that they would get there in one piece...

I've had the most wonderful moment he later tells a friend who shrugs: You saw a bird fly from a tree This poem/sonic tinkering could be a warning against absently glancing out of the window - you just never know what you're going to miss until you see it and then it's gone. But who can resist another glance?

"A country is held together with rusty staples and sticky tape..." A sort of protest song/poem/sonic tinkering involving stationery items. And, yes, that really is me playing the funky lead stapler.

'Tree' was inspired by a poster of a tree I had on my office wall for years before I noticed an eye looking down among the branches. Then I began spotting other things and realised how little we do actually see. Nature always has more imagination than us and this sonic tinkering is about what would happen if it got rather carried away with itself... 'Nobody questioned the tree dwarfing their town...'

"Ugh, cockroaches!" might be your first line of thought. But I reckon Mr C. is a tale of triumph and hope, it just happens to use a very unpopular and much maligned insect as a theme. It all begins when Mr Rowley's wife leaves him, calling him - "Cockroach, you're a cockroach, baby..." But was she wrong?

Working in a bookshop is great for people watching. This poem/story/sonic tinkering is based on a particular customer who used to pull up outside in his cab, order a couple of books and say, just put me down as the 'Taxi Man'. Then, later, there was this other fella with a beard, always a bit tiddly, who looked a bit like him. Didn't the taxi-man have a moustache? People mistake the two...

'But Daddy, where do all the dead balloons go?' Based on an article I came across in a newspaper. We should be knee deep in dead balloons! But there is always a 'but'. A poem or story with a bit of background music - a sonic tinkering is how I usually describe these things...