Kate Bingham

Slipstream B Special

Perceptive, persuasive and intricately made, the poems of Kate Bingham's third collection, Infragreen, take the reader on a startling and unfamiliar journey through everyday experiences and phenomena. Her keen eye, reflectiveness and quiet wit endow her subjects with a shimmering freshness. Set within the four walls of home, on the streets of north London and in the Yorkshire countryside, the poems build out from mundane activities such as taking the pill, traveling a daily bus route and scything thistles. In Bingham's hands, the familiar sights and hypnotic routines that normally lull the brain into unthinking acquiescence are the starting points for finding new richness in the world around us and our participation in it. The book contains three sections, each infused by a different season and place, but a spirit of serious play presides throughout. Contemporary versions of Hardy and Frost, a collage cut from old favourite Christmas carols, and a refleshing of some of English poetry's oldest clichés are part of it, but so too is Bingham's fascination with pattern: the patterning required by some of poetry's stricter traditional forms, and pattern as content, a subject in itself. Those who know Bingham's earlier work will recognize in this collection her playful, often darkly comic, appreciation of the surreal, which features hearts and hands, feet, and even a pair of shoes with minds and agenda of their own. Elsewhere, a milk-bottle breathes, a pocket of air turns into a winged creature, flies serenade the poet whose mortal scent has drawn them into her room. A ballad at the start of the final section tells the story of an artisan paper-maker whose origami creation is so perfect it comes to life, only to be destroyed again by its maker. But beneath the gently cynical, almost self-deprecating tone lie Infragreen's darker themes: a base note of environmental and existential anxiety in which teasing self-deprecation can mutate into a desire for disembodiment, and a ruthless wishing away of consciousness and self.

Infragreen

Tim Hames

On 3 April 2020, Kate Bingham was told that the likelihood of any Covid-19 vaccine working was 15% at best. But on 8 December 2020, the first NHS patient received a vaccine. Now nearly every adult in Britain has had a jab, lockdowns have ended and we can finally live with Covid. What lies behind this staggering success story? From a cottage miles away from Westminster, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus – and her daughter’s exams. Political manoeuvring, miscommunications and administrative meddling nearly jeopardised the project. But perseverance paid off. Catapulted into a national crisis, Bingham’s eclectic team secured the first vaccine doses administered in the West and saved thousands of lives in the UK as new variants struck. This is an unmissable insider view into how the Vaccine Taskforce beat the odds and delivered the scientific miracle we all waited for.

The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain

The Long Shot

Three girls, a boat, and a long vacation. Trouble? Sort of, but also a time for memories, fun and the realities of friendship. Nina, Lou and Beth have just finished A levels and a life at school together, so they set off, singularly lacking in nautical skills on Nina's family narrowboat, only reasonably shipshape itself. Aboard, memories of their time together are relived - from late night picnics in the woods, fire practice ad nauseum, the smell of fresh polish on the boarding house stairs, friends, enemies and, not least, the teachers. Both Lou and Beth have been violinists, and though there is friendly competition, it is clearly Lou who is the scholarship girl. And the teacher, Philip, has been extremely attentive to her. But Lou was only fourteen when she first met him, surely only a mutual interest in music pulled them together? Or was there more...

Slipstream

Adventurous, daring, curious, caring: there is something of every girl in this delightful alphabet character, who jumps for joy and learns to keep her feet on the ground. The affection visible in Luke Martineau's fluid illustrations is matched by Kate Bingham's tender, witty poem, written to appeal to adults as much as to the puzzling younger mind.

Kate Bingham

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