From John Richardson’s workbook for ‘Words on Water’

We have two Caught by the River events taking place this month. The first is an evening of words, music & film at the Purcell Rooms on London’s Southbank onSaturday, July 11th as part of this years London Literature Festival.

The confirmed line-up is as follows;

Gavin Pretor–Pinney & Laura Barton reading from ‘Caught By The River: A Collection of Words On Water’.

The Independent newspaper’s environment editor,Michael McCarthy, reading from his recently released book ‘Say Goodbye To The Cuckoo‘

Sound recordist Chris Watson will be adding a unique spin on things by accompanying Gavin, Laura and Michael’s readings with original soundtrack recordings.

Will Hodgkinson, reading from his forthcoming bookThe Ballad Of Britain.

Andrew Brown, reading from his book Fishing in Utopia, which is just out in paperback.

A previously unseen 15 minute film interview with the great Roger Deakin made by arts documentary film-maker, Mike Dibb.

Plus, after all of this, in the foyer of the QEH / Purcell rooms, The Memory Band and friends play the soundtrack to The Wicker Man. We just witnessed the premiere performance of this at Glastonbury and it is sensational.

The evening begins at 7.45pm and tickets are on sale now and available from the Southbank box office (click here).

The second event is as part of the Port Eliot Festival later this month. Full details will be up here tomorrow.

Ben Marshall remembers his friend, STEVEN WELLS (1960 – 2009), who passed away last week:

(note; Ben wrote this for The Quietus, where you will also find a lot more tributes to Swells).

No doubt I won’t be the only one to remember June 25 2009 as a strange and melancholy day. It began with the news that the most famous of Charlie’s Angels, Farrah Fawcett, had slipped away, killed by cancer, still looking strangely as she had done all those years ago when she donned a red bikini and became the best selling pin-up girl of all time. As a child, I had that naff, alluring, iconic poster hanging on my wall. So did everyone of my generation. As the day was ending, we learned of Michael Jackson’s death. A pretty girl from the MOBO awards said that everyone will remember where they were when they heard of Michael Jackson’s death. It was she added, no doubt accurately but nonetheless vapidly, a “Diana moment, a Kennedy moment.”

At some point between these two headline-grabbing events, I heard that my friend Steven Wells – Swells to everyone who knew him – had died. Late last night a hysterical and slightly profane thought about Swells’s impeccable sense of timing crossed my mind, and with it the vivid sense that Swells was never scared to take on the big guns, never afraid of a good fight. The King of Pop and The Blonde Bombshell? No problem. Swells was wonderfully confrontational. His journalism was furious and funny. His stage name, Seething Wells, made a witty, angry pun on his given one. The video production company he ran alongside Nick Small was named Gob TV. His publishing company, called simply Attack, printed books by the communist skinhead Stuart Home. Sample title: Whips & Furs: My Life as a bon-vivant, gambler & love rat by Jesus H. Christ (more…)

from John Richardson’s workbook for ‘A Collection of Words on Water’.

We’ve had a bunch of unique podcasts made to compliment the book and they are now available to download (for free) over at iTunes.

Click here to go to the CBTR page where you can hear Bill Drummond, Chris Watson, Hannah Hamilton, Gavin Pretor-Pinney and Chris Yates read extracts from their contributions. There is also the treat of hearing Robert MacFarlane reading Roger Deakins, ‘Jack Frost’ piece. All of these recordings have been produced by Chris Watson.