the mood of the nation. the taking the mood of the nation. the queen has calmed a shaken nation. this i'm sure it is common sense that the queen is incredibly well advised. the way that little touches, the statement, drawing the nation together. but also the nice, d eft nation together. but also the nice, deft touch of announcing the award so deft touch of announcing the award so they could an ounce pc keith palmer's medal, richly deserved. in a non— cynical way, it wasjust brilliant. it was just all the good quys brilliant. it was just all the good guys had gone out of the way and done things and really put their lives on the line, as pc keith did. that is so good. i will bring rachel in on this. we have the younger side of the royal family, in on this. we have the younger side of the royalfamily, the prince of compassion. look at that photo.

leigh especially juxtaposed to compassion. look at that photo. leigh especiallyjuxtaposed to the photo next to it which is the harassed —— horrific scene of the building. the queen is now 91. she isn't going to be around forever and people are looking to prince charles and prince william, do they have the same touch to bring the country together in is really difficult moments. the one thing you didn't mention, is kate. that trio of william, harry and kate. they really are, and have got the touch between them. it quite magic. it's different from the older generation. taking it through. we have to leave it there. as always, not enough time to talk about all of this but thank you very much forjoining us on the papers. stay with us. it is time for meet

the author. poetry as performance is more popular than ever and among younger poets who are sharp and sunny and wise, holy mcnish has made a name for herself. dashmac whether on the page or on the stage, hollie mcnish has made quite a name for herself. her collection, plum, is about the memory of writing verses at school and how they seem now, looking back. and so it's about all the fears, embarrassments and growing pains of a young girl. welcome. you write very graphically about all these embarrassments of adolescence. do you still feel them or do you just remember them? i still feel them. i still feel embarrassed about things now, though, so i don't know if it's changed that much. probably the same topics.

well, i'm bound to say in this book that if you're embarrassed by them, you're dealing with it by writing them out of your system. well, i always have, i think. because there's no subject that you don't touch, here. no. i don't mind embarrassing myself. i think the only thing i wouldn't want to do is to write about other people. although, having said that, there is a few about my school friends but i have asked them for permission. one of the things i should tell people about this collection is that you publish lines that you wrote when you were very, very young, at school. and then you write about what it's like to look back on them, in a way. how much were you writing when you were seven, eight, nine? when i was seven, eight, nine, not a huge amount, but i started writing a diary when i was about eight and that was alljust poems. i don't know why, i used to just read a lot of kids' poetry. did you ever think that you would be a professional poet? no, i didn't want to be, really. and you enjoy, judging by this collection, these short, pithy, repetitive, very rhythmic poems that

sort of hit you quickly? i think this book has got those in it. so this book, i specifically chose poems that i maybe hadn't performed before. so i still write quite a lot and a lot of them are long and windy but i kind of chose the shorter ones. in short ones, do you often find yourself performing them before you have even written them down? yes, i think of them and then write them down very quickly. and i edit... this book, i have edited it... i worked with a brilliant editor, don patterson, which i've not really done before with my poems, which is probably why they are a wee bit punchier because he said you don't need to repeat that five times! yes, do it four times but not five! yeah. and what about audiences? as a performance poet, i know that's a phrase that covers a multitude of sins, but if we just use it for the sake of it, somebody who comes on and delivers the poems in a very punchy way as part of a gig, what is it that the audiences like?

well, from what people have said, they like the honesty in them and i guess they like someone saying things they might consider too rude or that they maybe wouldn't want to talk about. in other words, they want poems that don't seem too artificial or contrived, but actually hit you in the solar plexus? yeah. and i guess that they can understand. a lot of poetry, you have to read it five times to understand it whereas i think if you are speaking it, that's hard because you can't just ask the person on stage to read it again and again until you get what they're talking about. in a way, what you're doing with these poems, when you said that the embarrassments and fears and eruptions of childhood and adolescence never really go away, you are trying to touch people where it hurts, aren't you? i don't think i'm trying to do anything, really. but you do it. i think you're stirring old memories among people. yeah, i think i am doing that. i guess because most people

don't write a diary, most people don't record all these things whereas i did so i guess i can remember them all. you say you started writing a diary when you were eight and most of it was in verse. how long did that go on for? it's going on still, now. really? yeah. the last book i had out wasjust my diaries, about becoming a mum. so all your secrets are there? yeah, so a few of them i haven't put in. let me ask you, how will you feel when your children are old enough to read that diary? that is the main thing that crossed my head and i wondered whether i should take certain things out of every book i have published, really. that would be cheating, wouldn't it? yes, so i haven't. and actually, if my daughter doesn't like me because i had some strange sexual experience when i was younger, i hope she's more open—minded than that. it's not that they're strange. it's that they're the usual mixture of embarrassment, failure and occasional success that probably most people go through. yeah, i guess most people don't... most people don't talk about them. they certainly don't publish them.

most people don't write them down, they're trying to forget them. i think most people want to talk about them. after gigs i find that's the best bit, when i ‘m signing books or talking to people. really? yeah, they just want to tell me their stories. i love it. what do they ask you? they don't ask me, theyjust tell me their stories. that this one struck home because it reminded them of their relationship with somebody? exactly. or the first time they tried on a bra or being shy at school or whatever it is. you're particularly sharp on that transition to adolescence from the point of view of a girl. and i suppose you were writing in the knowledge that in contemporary society, the pressures, particularly on young women, young men as well, are enormous. that's why i wanted to put those poems in this book, really. ifeel for young girls it's more complicated than anyone because you're told basically at once to be sexy all the time and not have sex all the time. we've got this strange dichotomy, especially with young teenage girls, that i don't think is very fair. and it's rather tough. really tough, yeah. if you look a certain way,

you are teased for it. i think it's tough for young boys as well, actually. i don't know what it's like to be a young boy so i didn't write about that! with any good poetry, there's nowhere to hide for the poet. it's all there, isn't it? yeah, it is all there. i really don't know how people are going to take this book but i think i'm probably prepared for people knowing even more about me. well, you're exposing yourself in the sense that you're going back to your feelings, some of which are very funny, some of which are very familiar to people and for others it won't be familiar. but you're laying it all bare. yet, but i think it's kind of important for me. i'm quite bored of taboos. i don't think they're good, especially as young people are growing up, taboos around your body, around sex, around relationships, i think actually people feeling that they need to keep secret about things... get on with life. yeah, just stop being so ashamed of everything we do and everything we feel and all the lust or whatever it is.

i'm just boreed of those things being the things we shouldn't talk about. so you really want to just draw the curtains and let the light in. yeah, ifeel like if i'm alright to embarrass myself then it might be helpful for a few people, then i'lljust keep on embarrassing myself! it does look as if you've enjoyed embarrassing yourself? yeah, it's great. i don't know if the family has! but i've enjoyed it! hollie mcnish, thank you very much. and now to end the programme, hollie mcnish is going to read one of the poems from her collection, plum. "call on me". for all friends. we don't call on each other any more, we all live too far away. and now impromptu visits worry — you might interrupt my day. you do not wake me up on weekends with screams pitched to my bedroom glass. do not ring my doorbell more than once. politer, now. step off the mat. now we must plan to meet in diaries. don't dance in pjs, share the bed.

you do not comb my hair for hours to practice plaits. drink tea instead. i love you still, my friends. i count our meetings down like holidays. the dream each time the doorbell rings — it's you, just called to play. we have had a very hot day where temperatures hit 30 celsius. hotspots around greater london, heathrow and teddington, hotter than tenerife. the hottest day of the year so far with heat widespread across england, wales and parts of scotland. clear blue skies for many of us for much of the day. of course, after such a warm day with those clear skies around, the temperature is not really falling very quickly. the north—west of

scotla nd very quickly. the north—west of scotland will continue to have this lump of cloud bringing damp weather but just looking at the lump of cloud bringing damp weather butjust looking at the latest weather observations, in the centre of town and it is still 22 degrees. a warm night for sleeping. temperatures staying up overnight for many of us is well into the high teens fools of sunday morning begins not the most promising note across scotla nd not the most promising note across scotland and northern will be cloud and damp weather here. the cloud will get nibbled away through the day to allow sunny spells to come through. apart from the north—west where it stays cloudy and down. england and wales, another glorious start to the day. at nine o'clock, 24 start to the day. at nine o'clock, 2a degrees and barely a breath of wind outside. yes it will be another hot day. as i run through the forecast notice how the cloud just sta rts forecast notice how the cloud just starts to erode across parts of northern ireland scotland with sunshine emerging, damp across the north—west. an outside chance of the storm developing late in the day

across east anglia in south—east england the vast majority, another vast hot and sunny day. kabir sneezy day for some of you because there will be high levels of pollen out and about and notjust pollen. we also have high to very high levels of uv so if you are out in the midday sun it may be worth using suncream. looking at the weather over the next few days, hot air will stay with us across the south of the uk but in the north of the high pressure will drag in cool fresh air in the north and east so the temperature will be dropping from the north and east. sheffield 27 down to 20 from monday to tuesday. across southern parts of the uk we will keep the heat for much of the week ahead. temperatures dropping a bit from 31 to 28, down into the mid—20s towards the middle part of the week but still warmer than it should be at this stage of the year. hot weather stays with us for the next few days and we reach the low 30s for the next few days fools. ——

next few days. this is bbc news. our top stories: 58 people are presumed to have died in the fire at london's grenfell tower — police warn that number is expected to rise. the number 58 may change. i really hope it won't that it may increase. relatives and volunteers meet with prime minster theresa may at downing street as she admits the government's response, in the hours after the disaster, has not been good enough. a mistrial — that's the ruling in the sexual assault case against entertainer bill cosby — the prosecution wants a re—trial. we can never underestimate the

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