Sometime between 2002 and 2004, I ran a night called ‘Howling At The Moon’, at the Full Moon pub in Boyces Street, Brighton. It was one of many Open Mic nights I’ve run over the years: an eclectic mix of spoken word, music and comedy, and random members of the audience getting up to play the spoons, perform the haka, demonstrate levitation, or anything else that took their fancy. A lot of fine performers tried out new work there: Simon Indelicate (before the Indelicates), Jo Neary (before the Perrier Award), Jonny Fluffypunk (before the moustache), Justin Coe (before the kids), Romany Diva of Magic (before the Magic Circle Stage Magician of The Year Award), the late lamented punk magician Great Shiraz (before an untimely death from methadone), MC Hines (before the beard), Ros Barber (before The Marlowe Papers), and Mark Chadwick (after The Levellers). Pre-dating social media, it hasn’t any kind of web presence, barring the occasional nostalgic mention, so I thought I’d mention it here, as the training ground of some very fine talent. It was also, incidentally, the birthplace of the now legendary annual MCs vs Poets Slam.