±«Óãtv

Nulla dies sine linea is the title of our next project and I'll explain it in a moment.

First let's take some stock of what we've done together this year.

We have written a short story together called E kabo dara ju e kule lo, I am finalising our Nightly Express project - over the Christmas period I will be making a copy of the newspaper containing your dreams and it will be available online in January.

You've been with me when I launched a series of radio programmes "Read my country" and I'm still running a project Pendle Chronicles about ordinary people from the English Midlands, coping in different ways with the hardship of government spending cuts.

I had a wonderful trip to Africa, I have written about the great literary figures of Bush House and the tragic events in Kyrgyzstan.

I have also started series of talks in Bush House on topics such as Poetry in Putin's Russia and Global minds in one family with leading international writers.

These are just headlines of our common tenure: ±«Óãtv World Service Writer in residence.

New Project: No day without a line

Try to guess who I'm talking about...

A boy was born to a happy family.

His mum was fantastically beautiful, his dad was clever and noble (what else do you need from a father?)

But then mum and dad's relationship went sour and they divorced.

The boy was in his teens when his mum died.

His father married another woman.

The boy grew up with his sibling in his wonderful granny's family.

Then at university he met a girl, whom he decided to marry.

They've announced their engagement. The date of the wedding was chosen as the 29 April.

Until the last sentence I thought that I was writing about myself.

All of the above is true about me, including having had a fantastically beautiful mum and a wonderful granny.

But you are right, this story also applies to Prince William and his planned marriage to Kate Middleton on 29 April, 2011.

You can see why I feel a certain affinity to that young man.

Though many circumstances of our lives are similar, as Uzbeks say: "I have worn out a couple of shirts more".

As a person living happily with my wife for 31 years I wish the same to him.

For our next project I propose that we write together an Ode devoted to everyone getting married around the world on 29 April, 2011.

I know a couple from Pendle, Lancashire, whom I'm going to be writing about in a forthcoming blog entry called Pendle's prince and princess.

So I call on you to send me a line of poetry every day between Christmas day - 24 December, 2010 - and 28 April, 2011.

I'll be choosing the best one and put it both on the Facebook and Twitter.

As Pliny the Elder said: "Nulla dies sine linea" Or "No day without a line".

Line by line our ode will be created and on 29 April we'll publish the poem here in its full glory.