Snooker, but rubbish
Plus refreshing Medway with wonky quotes, lunch at Sun Pier House, our weekly events guide, and more
What leads to a Walderslade man making murals with litter on a snooker table and then somehow turning it into a live show? Somehow, it’s exactly what Kieran Poole has done, and we’ve been finding out more. Further down, news on the Refresh Medway signs you may have seen popping up, a lunch review of Sun Pier House, our weekly events guide, and more.
Snooker, but rubbish
by Steven Keevil
Kieran Poole moved to Walderslade two years ago, working from home at the time. He wanted his own place, and he wanted it to have a garden. “This wasn’t thinking I’d ever have a snooker table in it” because, let’s be honest, that is not a usual thought somebody has when buying a house, especially in this economy. Does it have good transport routes? Can I afford the mortgage? Can I put a snooker table in the back garden?
Putting a snooker table in the back garden is exactly what Kieran has done, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The son of a teaching assistant and a civil servant, Kieran enjoyed school, was sporty and stayed on for sixth form before going to the University of Brighton to study Sport Journalism. Growing up watching sports shows and listening to BBC radio, he enjoyed hearing commentators and the storytelling. He became a producer at BBC Radio 2, working on the Jeremy Vine Show and Popmaster, and now delivers workshops on podcasting and public speaking.
Small snooker started during covid, with a three-foot table-top table and a 90 centimetre cue. Kieran got really good, recognising that it was a completely useless skill because he couldn’t transfer it to a full-sized table. He started doing trick shots with household objects, like a wooden spoon and a vacuum cleaner. This naturally led to him playing against professional snooker player Shaun Murphy, with Shaun using a banana. “He nearly beat me”, Kieran recalls.
So what is rubbish snooker? “It basically is littered lids and ring pulls making mosaics on the top of an outdoor snooker table.” The natural question is how someone decides to start something like this. “I keep being asked this, and I like to give a different answer every time because I'm not quite sure if I'm honest.”
Kieran always wanted a snooker table, but one wouldn’t fit in his one-bedroom house. “You need a room 12 foot by 15 foot, that’s completely rectangular, which very few people have. There is normally bookcases or something in the way.” Kieran discovered you could get an outdoor version, and thankfully, his house came with a garden.
“I used to play snooker on the table, would you believe? The sole function of a table.”
Kieran joined a local litter-picking group, the Walderslade and Lordswood Wombles, and was picking litter when a friend suggested, clearly not aware of the sole function, that he try covering the table with litter. Kieran understandably was not immediately enamoured with this idea until “I thought all about the lids, the colours, and they're universally sized.”
Kieran expected it to take about six months to get enough lids to cover the table, and it took three months. First placing the lids so that no two colours were the same next to each other. It required over a thousand lids and then packed it all away, “I was like, okay, I'm done, let's recycle those. And then I was like, actually, how about I make some other art?”
After making a few little things, his friend, as a joke, suggested the Mona Lisa. “That was like, oh, crumbs!” Kieran actually says crumbs. He refers to himself as a bit of a Ned Flanders and that crumbs is his favourite exclamation. Successfully completing the Mona Lisa, he also recreated Munch’s The Scream.
He is uncomfortable calling himself an artist, but Kieran has always been creative. Whilst he didn’t do art at school, he did stand-up for ten years on the London comedy circuit. “I can’t draw, and then I had a piece in the Nucleus Art gallery last summer, and it's like, oh goodness me”. How did he get a piece in the gallery? Not administratively, but practically. The table weighs about half a tonne and isn’t being moved around, so Kieran, once a piece is complete, climbs a ladder and takes a photograph, which is then printed on a canvas, which is itself made out of recycled plastic bottles. “it's kind of a strange material”.
Kieran’s favourite piece is ‘Spitfire Sunset’. “It's basically a Spitfire plane going into the sunset above the sea. It's quite pretty.” Ever the sports fan, he has started doing football kits and recently did Brands Hatch, the Monaco Grand Prix circuit, and Michael Jordan slam dunking. “I want to get into the position where I'm doing more people, which is really hard out of lids.”
The lids are organized by colour in boxes in his shed. Kieran still collects them when he walks around and has received them in the post from other litter picking groups across the country. Making the different pictures has highlighted that there are particular colours which are difficult to find. “I’ve got about six brown lids.” Blue and clear is really common from bottled water, then black from cola bottles, but brown, pink, and yellow are in short supply. Kieran is not currently accepting submissions from the public of bottle lids, unless you’ve got brown.
Kieran is now delivering live workshops. He wants to go to schools and community hubs, putting together rubbish and snooker and making art. “Take an environmental issue, take a popular culture thing, like a sport or a film, say Lord of the Rings, put them together and see what you can make.” People will have a green cloth, which Kieran will provide with the lids, and they can make their own images.
“I've got a free live show at Invicta Social Club in Luton, which will entail me doing a presentation about the art, telling anecdotes and then there will be a full-size 12-foot snooker table at the social club that's full of lids. The audience members can take part in a challenge to try and pot three balls while the table is covered with lids.”
Kieran rarely gets to play snooker himself now, as the table is too often covered in lids.
Kieran will perform his live show tomorrow night (Sat 6 Apr) at the Invicta Social Club in Chatham. You can book free tickets for the event here, and you can learn more about the Rubbish Snooker project on his website.
In brief
🏭 Local historian Chris Sams has written about two Luftwaffe raids on an aircraft factory at Rochester Airport during World War 2.
🏥 Stroke services are to return to Medway Hospital in August after suddenly closing last June. Due to staff shortages, services have only been provided in Maidstone or Dartford instead.
💪 JD Gyms at Hempstead Valley have applied to open 24/7. The gym, which took over part of the space formerly used by Sainsbury’s, says the plan would not impact local residents.
🚄 No trains will operate in Medway on Monday, with both Southeastern and Thameslink facing strike action. A ‘very limited’ service will operate via Ebbsfleet.
🎓 Staff at the University of Kent are set to strike over courses being cut. Six courses are due to be axed between the Medway and Canterbury campuses.
Refreshing Medway with wonky quotes
Last year, Steven wrote about the saga of a set of ‘temporary’ blue boards in Gillingham that were put up in 2009 and were still in place 14 years later. The boards on Pier Road were built around a structurally unsafe retaining wall while the council tried to figure out who was responsible for fixing it.
Entirely coincidentally, work finally started on the site a short period after that article, and we’re happy to report that now, a mere 15 years after the boards were erected, work has been completed. It all looks a bit of a mess, with a wall that is very much two different colours, but at least it’s done, and the full footpath is accessible once again. Hooray!
Naturally, a giant, slightly run-down wall in a prime location was crying out for some kind of decoration to make it more visually interesting. Maybe a giant mural from a local artist or some well-placed art pieces along it.
Instead, Medway Council had other ideas and decided to erect some big signs with inspirational quotes.
The quotes are part of a project called Refresh Medway, organised by the Lincoln-based Zest Theatre (who have run the same scheme in other towns), who work with local young people to understand their views and put them up in prime locations across Gillingham, Chatham, and Strood.
All of this is very noble, though it’s hard not to be amused by a quote that tells people to ‘have pride’ in their local area on a sign that is noticeably not straight. But who are we to judge?
Out to lunch: Sun Pier House
Steven Keevil assesses the lunch options available in our towns. This week, he’s been down to Sun Pier House in Chatham…
A noteworthy day this week, as Sun Pier House’s café was open! Albeit for one day only. More one day only openings are possible but not currently confirmed while the building undergoes work.
Sun Pier House was formed over a decade ago to support local artists. It currently houses the Mess Room on the ground floor. This year, its events calendar has been reduced while it focused on L!ft Off, its campaign to install a lift to make all three building floors accessible. The top floor is where its gallery and café can be found.
There was a chaotic energy in the room, with a workshop in the gallery area and a queue of people for the café. The team, maybe surprised that people had come and slightly out of experience due to the café not being open much recently, remained friendly and positive, turning orders around promptly.
There was a slight issue when they didn’t have enough of the drink I requested, but we can forgive that this time. Their sausage roll was very nice, with a good chutney, and their sandwich was perfectly acceptable. The accompanying salad would have benefitted from a slight dressing, but that’s a minor quibble.
You should watch for future one day café openings at Sun Pier House, where you can go along, have a nice lunch with great views of the River Medway, and support an excellent venture in our towns.
Events this week
🎸 The Rainham Platform 3 Club is back tonight (Fri 5 Apr) at the Oast Community Centre. Local band The Pastel Waves present an evening of music across two rooms, featuring Disco Drug Store, The Jolly Caulkers, Paul Linton, and a set of rarities from themselves. Tickets £8.
🚌 Speed, one of the truly great action films, is rolled out for a 30th anniversary screening at Cineworld in Strood tomorrow (Sat 6 Apr). Tickets £5.
⚽ Chatham Town Football Club are hosting a celebrity charity football match on Sunday (7 Apr). I can’t say I’m familiar with any of the celebrities taking part, but it’s all for a good cause, raising money for the Red Eagle Foundation. Tickets £12.
🤝 Medway Council are holding a Medway Business and Skills Showcase on Wednesday (10 Apr). The event promises the opportunity to learn new skills and make new contacts to boost your business. Tickets free, but booking required.
More Authority
Our paid supporters receive extra editions of Local Authority every week. This week, we looked at exactly what leads to a councillor suddenly quitting their party, using the recent case of Cllr Elizabeth Turpin, former deputy leader of Medway’s Conservatives.
Paid supporters also receive our in-depth interviews with local figures. This Sunday, we are publishing the second and final part of our conversation with local artist, writer, musician, poet, and local legend Billy Childish.
An excerpt from the interview is below, and if you’d like to receive the full thing on Sunday, please consider upgrading your subscription.
When you're doing music, are there specific places in Medway you like to perform?
Well, not really. We don’t like performing in Medway much. I never considered myself someone interested in the local scene. I don't do anything about being local. People don't believe I've lived here my whole life. I've got nothing against it, but I don't like community art because it's not for the community. It's for some people, for some councillors, to have some canapés.
You have written songs about Medway.
That's another matter. That's because I'm from here.
You've never seriously considered moving away?
Yeah, we're always kind of working out where the hell you escape to. We've thought about California before, but now, with all the politics in America as well, I can't work out where in the world you would go.
Brighton?
No, horrible place. I don't like cool people. I'm really just a pain in the arse. I'm not a fan of the working class at all, they are cunts, but the middle class are bigger cunts because they're the working class, but they think they're better. I don't know where you go then. What it is, humans are really difficult. They're difficult to deal with.
Footnotes
Earlier in the week, I mentioned that I’d been on the What’s Happening Now podcast to discuss new ways of doing local news. The main episode released last week included a small part of the conversation, but they’ve now released the full conversation as a bonus episode. The episode features people doing other local news projects in Birmingham and Edinburgh and, for some reason, me talking about the opportunities and challenges within new local news models. You can listen to the full thing below:
Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: We Wilt, We Bloom by Onsind, Slanted & Enchanted by Pavement, Good Luck Everybody by AJJ, and Mirror II by The Goon Sax.
The snooker table rubbish art made me smile, as did the 'Crumbs' expletive. At some time I'll write you a coeliac's guide to a lunch in Medway.
not sure i want to read the 'c word' in emails...thanks