Cafe Highlights: Liz Lochhead, Deborah Bull, The Dead Man's Waltz

Even if some don't consider the arts on a par with politics, I learn new things every time I go on air. We started Monday's Book Café with our Makar, Liz Lochhead. Looking elegant and fresh, she breezed in to tell me about the three "balls" she was juggling in the air at the same time; first a new collection of poems called A CHOOSING published by Polygon. It has a wonderful cover, and when I looked at the back to see who had done it, I found it was the poet herself. Liz is no mean artist as you can see from her illustration, of a girl undressing, dated 1967. She then told me about overseeing the revival of one of her most popular plays, MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS GOT HER HEAD CHOPPED OFF. And as if that wasn't enough, she's beavering away at a play for November's Glasgay Festival about her dear friend, the former Makar, Edwin Morgan. Why she isn't cross eyed with exhaustion I'll never know. Oh I didn't mention, she's very much in demand as Makar, so that diary just gets busier and busier.

Liz insists she isn't that organised but with this kind of workload, you have to be. I find it difficult enough remembering my daily list of " to do's" shouting at me from the post it pads festooned around the house. I fear Ms Lochhead makes me look like a rank amateur in the life management department.

Next onto the show on Monday came the genial Frank Cottrell Boyce, screen writer and award-winning children's author. He'd been sitting in our Liverpool studio listening in to Liz Lochhead's chat and her recitation of the poem. He professed himself in awe of her. But Frank's no slouch himself; he's currently helping plan the opening ceremony for the London Olympics 2012 along with Danny Boyle. Add to his list of " to do's", the publicity tour for a new book, commissioned by Ian Fleming's estate. We often forget that Bond's creator also gave us the magical flying car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Now Frank is taking Chitty's engine for another spin, this time, around the globe with a new family at the wheel. The conversation turned rather nostalgic as we thought about the film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from 1968 (written by Roald Dahl ). Who can forget that when the intermission sign came up (yes, we really are THAT OLD!) a literal cliff hanger was being played out on the silver screen. Bring back the break, I say ! And those trolley maidens with their torch lit trays full of rectangular bricks of ice cream, Poppets and Kia Ora juice.

Deborah Bull, former principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, spurns nostalgia and goes for a clear sighted look back at her decades of experience in dance for her new book, THE EVERY DAY DANCER. Very informative and entertaining it is too, even for those who never pulled on a tutu. The book is set out in such a way that we are taken by the hand through the daily routines of a dancer; class, corps de ballet rehearsals, lunch (they DO eat!) soloist and principal calls, culminating in curtain up and curtain down. I was wiped out reading about it let alone doing it. Not a career for the wimp. Deborah Bull hung up her pointes ten years ago but she is still passionate about dance. She's even more passionate about telling it to us straight and scotching the myths given credence in the film BLACK SWAN. No, apparently dancers aren't psychopaths who obsess over rivalries and try to hobble each other. Neither are they masochists who push their bodies beyond the extremes, just because they can! I loved talking to her but what touched me the most was her description of memorable performance in Japan. Against all odds, she found herself dancing the lead role with little prep and feeling physically under par. Yet that night, something amazing happened on stage; Bull performed out of her skin and never put a pointe wrong. It was a faultless performance. How rare, how exquisite. How might that feel, to be "in the zone" and know you're unlikely to give another performance quite like that? Bitter sweet?

On Tuesday's Culture Café we had a WAR and PEACE thread - we started off with a discussion based on the alarmingly realistic images of war you can see in the latest raft of video games.I heard from a sociologist and the digital editor of The Skinny - a keen gamer. The conversation was revealing but it raised more questions than it answered regarding the vexed issue of "cause and effect". Can just watching/ participating in a violent game with graphic images make a person more prone to violence or,( maybe just as bad), de-sensitise them?

PEACE, not war is the concern of a Boston based academic called Gene Sharp. He's the subject of a new documentary film from Scottish director Ruaridh Arrow. ( He was too modest to say on air live from Boston that he'd just bagged the Best Documentary award at the 19th Raindance Film Festival, at a ceremony held in London over the weekend for his film, HOW TO START A REVOLUTION.) I'd never heard of Gene Sharp before but he has a peaceful strategy for deposing dictators and, apparently it works, with certain caveats of course. Many protest leaders around the world have adopted Sharp's tactics which include civil disobedience. Organisation is key for this to work and around the world, we've seen signs of the strategy being applied, not least in the recent Arab spring uprisings.

If the prospect of world peace looks remote for now, we tried to lift the gloom a bit when we introduced you to two FOLK NOIR musicians from Skye, Hector and Leighton from THE DEAD MAN'S WALTZ. Their album of the same name is out and they kindly consented to play a track live on the Café. Just for the record, if this is FOLK NOIR, I'm up for plenty more of it. It's the kind of soothing music you want to stick on at the end of a long day. Which reminds me, what am I supposed to be doing tomorrow. Where's that list? Where's Liz Lochhead and her organisational skills when you need her?