I started the Bards of New Brighton poetry club six years ago with the vague notion it would become some sort of northern English version of the colourful and bohemian poetry events I'd so enjoyed in Hackney, East London, in the late 1990s.

In fact, the Bards turned out to be warmer and more life-enhancing than that anything on the London scene.

As each month rolled by I would turn up - whether I felt in the mood for it or not - to run the Bards open floor poetry; at first held in the cosy front room of The Ginny pub, than, as we grew in numbers, at the larger Magazine pub.

These NEW Brighton poetry nights became very important to me, mainly for these reasons ...

Well, my holiday in Spain has done its job of making me relaxed and cheerful of disposition. I know, I know ... it won't last.

I arrived back at what I still call Speke Airport (John Lennon Airport, my arse!) at 1.40am this Saturday just gone. A mate from Wirral came to pick me up and drive me back to New Brighton, which was very good of him.

While in Spain for a week I ran each day on the beach for 30 mins and swam in the sea. Brilliant.

After arriving back, this weekend I had a great lunch at The Courtyard in Oxton Village - the (only) posh bit of Birkenhead - with Ieaun Cilgwri and also afternoon drinks with him and the African Queen at the stylish Oxton Bar Terrace (the former Talbot pub).

After a real slog of a day at work, finishing late, I needed a drink, so I contacted my friend Healthy P (HP) and we went to Hell's Waiting Room.

The barmaid there, Raven Smokey-eyes, served a large red wine for me and a real ale of some sort for my friend. But HP reckoned his pint was 'on the turn' so Raven changed it for a different sort of bitter.

'A different sort of bitter' ... I experience that every day. (Let it be the title of my next poem.)

Then we sat and supped and tried to be reflective and poetic while to Smooth FM was belting out.

After a while Smooth makes me feel rough so at my suggestion we toddled down the road to Peggy Gadfly's. It was surprisingly busy and lively in there.

After a hassle-packed day at work, I drove back to New Brighton on Valentine's night, seeking if not pleasure then at least some relaxation.

I was in quite a good mood, actually, having earlier read a very funny newspaper article about the stupid romance industry - by one of my favourite writers, Julie Burchill.

On arriving home, I bunged some sweet potatoes in the oven then toddled off to my local, Hell's Waiting Room, for red wine. Into the long front bar, and hurrah for the company of some single people there! I chatted to one or two of them and stole a Valentine's kiss ( a chaste one) from the lovely new barmaid, Isabella.

So, using the very crap trains of our region, Mitch and I travelled from New Brighton to Wigan on Saturday to watch Wigan v Everton.

Arriving in the Lancashire town our first call was to see my sister, Princess Stephanie of Wigan, to borrow the season tickets she and her daughter have for the DW Stadium. Steph said she just couldn't be arsed to watch Wigan and who can blame her.

We had one in the Brickmakers Arms before trudging over the icy Wigan wastelands to the stadium. Our seats were good 'uns, very close to the managers' dug-out, but even so we left at half-time when it was nil-nil and freezing in the ground ...

It's been an emotionally-charged time, including two frantic, boozy nights with old friends in Norwich, then a long drive back to New Brighton, arriving at well past midnight, too late to go for a nightcap in my local pub.

The trip to Norwich was a stunner. It was like being transplanted back in the happy carefree days of the mid -1980s. And the friends of that era were / are such diamonds.

The morning after I got back, I took a day off work and went shopping in the morning for my mum's birthday presents (box-ticked!).

Then a funeral Mass for dear Celia Hackett at English Martyrs Church in Wallasey Village, followed by a wake in the afternoon and on till late at the Perch pub, New Brighton, where Celia had such happy times.

Modern telly output - I'm a Celebrity, X Factor, and the preposterously camp and narcissistic 'Strictly' - are so superficial, so infantile. If those confections represent mainstream culture now - then the berks who run TV can shove it up their backsides, frankly.

What does give me a buzz, however, is running performance poetry clubs in Liverpool and Wirral. You get such a mix of oratorical talent and poetic moods at these events, plus some good singers too. Now THAT'S entertainment!

Last night (21 November) I enjoyed MC-ing at the LIVER BARDS - the Liverpool poetry open-mic I run with the award-winning poet Dave Costello in the elegant and spacious concert room of Liverpool's best pub, the Ship & Mitre.

It's been Mood Swing City on Planet Regan in recent days.

Don't know why - possibly a side-effect of some medication I'm taking for watery eyes.

It's not that my life is particularly stressful or anything - and socially things are quite lively.

But I am a Celt, after all, so I do have a Celt's natural disposition towards melancholy - and being so immersed in the local poetry scene isn't exactly a mood-lightener either.

A decadent Tuesday night, it was, as I went off to see The Inbetweeners movie - the first time I'd been to the flicks in years.

First I had to drive to Seacombe to pick up my date for the evening - the lovely Blondie.

I was running late as I rushed to my car only to be stopped in my tracks by a young Scottish guy who'd seen how tatty the long pathway to my front door was looking and wanted me to hire him to "tarmac" it.

"Ta, MacLad", I said, "but this is not a good time! I'm a rushing to pick up the girl and take her to the pictures."

It bitterly disappoints me that the response to the riots by the law enforcement and justice arms of our country has been one of posturing, simplistic overreaction.

The jailing of two young men from Cheshire for four years for inciting disorder through Facebook is excessive and profoundly unjust.

I don't pretend to know anything substantial about the backgrounds of the men concerned, who are aged 21 and 22, but let's be clear they've been jailed for inciting a riot that never actually took place.

Could it be that they were simply silly young men, caught up in the dark excitement of the riots and in thrall to the unthinking, facile nature of digital communications networks? I think that probably is the case. I think that's the case for thousands, probably millions, of young people these days. It doesn't mean that two young men should be sentenced to jail with such unseemly haste.