And so the Festival got off to a cracking start with homemade cakes and tea in the Cinema Gallery, which this year is hosting an exhibition of some of photographs of festival performers taken over the years by Peter Everard Smith.

Then it was on to the first of the Festival's six Close Readings – this is one of the hidden gems of the Aldeburgh Festival: one poet reading and scrutinising one of their favourite poems. This year, the first reading was by Tom Paulin looking at the WB Yeats poem In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz. Of course we're biased when it comes to the Close Readings as they are sponsored by Ink Sweat & Tears! Later that evening, Paulin was the headline act in the first of the festival's three-handed readings (along with Richard Price and Pascale Petit) when he read poems covering such diverse topics as the Rev Ian Paisley and the cleaning fluid Swarfega. For those of us who have previously only seen him on Late Review on TV, Paulin's performance and is poetry were an eye-opener.

And finally it was time for the Poetry Quiz, complete which such favourites as Who is the Groucho Marxist Poet? - the Spin that Poet Rap - and The Mystery Voice. For those of you who missed it, the answer to the tie-break question was Pascale Petit. The quizmasters were MC Dean Parkin and Grandmaster Mikey Michael Laskey. There was probably less blatant cheating than last ear – perhaps a spirit of friendly collaboration between teams would be a better term?

Here some more pictures, starting with the celebration cakes (all homemade)...



Here's the reception – that's Peter Everard Smith way at the back of the shot talking to Katrina Naomi (my camera is not as big as his).



And finally, our two quizmasters for the evening.