writer's moll

It’s weird how they always come together
Bank holiday weekends and shitty weather
Making festival fields in Hay-on-Wye
Tailor-made for hippopotami

It’s weird when you try to be effective
Reduce your carbon, be more selective
When the size of that footprint can’t compare
With your dirty great muddy ones everywhere

BUT, once you’ve rally-driven your car through the quagmire, parked and squelched your way to the marquees you will have a good time.

I love the Hay Festival, although as it gets bigger every year it loses some of its cosiness - this year the artists had their own entrance and chilling-out area – and now we can’t mingle with thingy, you know, the one in that TV programme, what’s it called? Of course, they’re all there to flog their books and a few are clearly not cut out as speakers, but most are enthusiastic and passionate about their subject. Up in the town itself are the dozens of bookshops, where, among the dusty shelves, I bought a couple of those little blue Teach Yourself books. Quite when I’ll get round to teaching myself Welsh I’m not sure, but the possibility of being able to break what seems like a secret code was irresistible and I couldn't do without the Teach Yourself to Think book! And a snippet from another purchase by Sebastian Faulkes under a section on spoof adverts – this one from Jane Eyre: Married woman, 32, recently certified, seeks loft conversion specialist.

So, there we are, queuing for one of the sessions, when a small group of people go straight to the entrance of the venue. A woman rushes up and says in her best Cheltenham accent “excuse me, I wonder if you can tell me why you think it’s all right to sail past all these people to the front of the queue.” They all look slightly bemused and one says, pointing to another “because … he’s the speaker and we’re taking him to the stage”.

It’s hard to convey just how funny stand-up comedy is – as the saying goes you had to have been there – when so much depends on timing and facial expressions, but if you get the chance to see Sarah Kendall, take it. A young Australian girl did the Saturday evening slot - more of a typhoon than breath of fresh air - starting her routine saying she’d just met the famous speaker Eric Hobsbawm in the bar and gushed to him that she’d studied him at uni. “Oh, really” he responded, “and what did you learn”? “Errm”. And, describing her first visit to Scotland, when the friend she was staying with said that as it was 6 o’clock they ought to go inside because the midges would soon be out, thought he’d said midgets and imagining a troupe of dwarfs tumbling around doing tricks asked “why, what do they do”? “Oh, they just bite you – I had a couple in bed with me this morning”…..and on and on – trust me, it was funny.

And salesperson of the year award goes to our B & B landlady who, when asked about providing dinner as advertised on her website, wrinkled her nose and said “well, yes, but there are so many good places you can eat round here …”