So May was a great month for me, kind of. I did two German gigs -- proper, real Lesebühnes, not just poetry slams. The first one I did was the Samstagshow, www.samstagsshow.de, and the second was Liebe Statt Drogen, LSD, www.liebestattdrogen.de.

Reading at German events is totally different from reading at English ones -- they're about as different as they could be. At English events, we are constantly pissing in each other's pockets and wanking over each other's work. At German events, the other poets could actually not give less of a shit about anyone else's work -- even deaf people would care more. At English events, everyone speaks to you as if they think you're totally alright, even if they think you're a bit of a dick. At German events, everyone speaks to you as if you're a total dickhead, even if they think you're actually alright. I LOVE IT.

I'd been to LSD once, years before, back when I first arrived in Germany, aged 20. The guy at the door had heard my flat mates speaking to me in English and asked, gruffly, whether I was an Engländerin.

“Engländer shouldn't come in,” he said, in that tone-of-voice-which-is-actually-quite-polite-for-a-Berliner. “They can't understand anything.”

“Ooooh, mein Deutsch ist super!” I said, gushingly and got let in -- and understood NOTHING. Actually, that's not totally true. I understood the songs. I can still remember, to this day, one about Godzilla walking through Mitte and stomping on all the sushi bars. It was really funny. I remember grinning away and laughing whenever the Germans laughed because I wanted to prove the guy on the door wrong.

I never went back to another Lesebühne until this May, when I read at two. The worst thing about the Lesebühnes is that the authors are all up on the stage so everyone can see if you don't understand or aren't listening. I was really excited -- actually, excited isn't the right word: I was really flattered and honoured to be invited, especially for LSD, because I've got a book from Spider, one of the main poets and he's totally famous. I was toying with the idea of getting him to sign it for me but I decided against it. I brought nine texts along with me because in my head, that night, nine years ago, had gone on for literally hoooooooouuuuuuuurrrrrrsssssssss but that was obviously just coz I'd not understood anything. In fact, everyone gets to read just two or three texts.

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