Not What We Were Expecting

A debut collection of poetic snapshots written between 1986 and 2024.

"All the wit you'd expect and yearn for but with a really surprising and delicious sensitivity." Joanna Lumley
"Alistair's sense of fun we know but the tenderness of his poetry adds new depths to our understanding of the man and his work." Henry Normal
"Funny, moving, and with a real depth of feeling." Mary Killen, The Spectator
"You don't get to be a great impressionist without a feel for rhythm and rhyme and pitch. These are terrific, truthful poems." Sir Richard Stilgoe
"Verbally adroit ... skewering the passing moment, holding it up for examination but with an undertow of great feeling. Masterly." Simon Callow
"Sometimes just funny, then melancholic, occasionally beautifully profound, often soulful, now and then amusingly imitative, always insightful and well observed." Franny Moyle