Bilston has perfected his comic voice, which brings to mind a bitter man-child with spades of misanthropic charm and a dash of Alan Partridge-esque pedantry. Bilston is a magician with words, but he’s no storyteller; the plot is on the level of a sitcom, as are its characters.

The plot is familiar - washed-up middle-aged guy is out of step with family, work and the wider world, but finds companionship and finally redemption through poetry and books. Interspersed with the hilarious, parodic poems that have made his name on Twitter, Diary of a Somebody follows the misadventures of the poet, sometime Casanova and expert procrastinator as he variously pursues love, fame and an unfortunately missing rival.He has also published a collection of football poetry, 50 Ways to Score a Goa l (Macmillan, 2021), and his acclaimed poem Refugees (Palazzo, 2019) has been made into an illustrated book for children. So here comes Brian Bilston, using his gift of turning the mundane, the everyday into a diary entry and/or a poem, using the power of wit and the ability to mine the language for puns and other delights. His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, a motivational speaker and indefatigable charity fundraiser to boot; he seems to constantly disappoint his long-suffering son; and at work he is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and management jargon. A beautifully written story, peppered with poems that enhance and advance the story, rather than distract. uk will use the information you provide on this form to be in touch with you and to provide updates and marketing.

The brilliant thing about this whole structure is the way the banalities of life are turned into rhyming ditties and entries in the diary which are so wonderful to read. Diary of a Somebody keeps up a stream of witticisms that is admirable and relentless and, in the end, a little bit tiresome. Imagine a mash-up of John Cooper Clarke, Ed Reardon’s Week and James Joyce, and you’re about halfway there . Funny and ingenious * The Times * He has a knack for playing with language but his poems are accessible, witty and touching .

Only in poetry does he find refuge and relief, interlarding diary entries with his mischievous verses, some parodies of pop songs (REM, Bee Gees, Blur), some of actual poems, nearly all of them quotable. Diary of a Somebody (2019) is Brian's first novel and is a lot of fun: great poems, an engaging story, the absurdity of the modern workplace, poetic rivalry, dazzling wordplay, a love story, lots of laughs, and plenty of imagination. This was an interesting, semi-autobiographical novel by one of my favourite poets, Brian Bilston, based on the author's purported diary for a year.

I would have given up by September if it wasn't for the mystery of Toby Salt's disappearance, which did inject variety, and it was only the need to discover Toby's fate that kept me going. Most people's diaries would be quite boring I suspect, but Brian's life is just so fraught with calamity and misunderstanding that the banal becomes interesting, even though it's not dramatic.

I can see why Brian Bilston is such a popular poet and he seems like the kind of person with whom you'd share a few pints. So maybe you should also read this novel in short bursts, pausing to savour its individual brilliancies, such as this tweet on Star Wars Day: “Her name was Yoda / A show girl she was. The witticisms came thick and fast, sometimes so many punchlines in a row that at times I felt rather, um, punched.