The Hay Festival 2016 Blog
Or a series of random thoughts from the Welsh border
The Hay Festival blog (or a series of random thoughts I had throughout my visit). 1
Hay-on-Wye town – it is a bit bigger than you might think. I may move there. I’m partially Welsh.
2
Saturday May 28 2016 – it was way hotter than you might think.
3 I realised I should have planned better as I took more than half a dozen wrong turnings to get here. I should have got a sat nav, but I hate sat navs. Also I’m in my new car. I had my old one for 15 years and it was like an old friend or even a member of the family but sometimes you’ve just got to let them go - usually when they start to hemorrhage oil. So I bought my sisters car, which has auto-stop and other ‘technology’ installed. What this entails is an inanimate object telling you you’re a crap driver for the whole journey and having you stall more times in that one trip than you ever did in your old car in the full 15 years. Next time my beloved little sister buys a car and there may be a slim chance of her passing it in my direction, for the record, I’d like an automatic, convertible with parking sensors. And a sat nav. 4
I hate sat navs.
5
There is a lot to be said for sat navs.
6
Did I tell you I hate sat navs?
7
Throughout my visit I was frequently travelling in the wrong direction. Frequently!
Festival site:- Very busy but not packed in like sardines. Although if you happen to be walking towards the TaTa Tent at the end of an event, it’s hopeless, like trying to reconstruct the parting of the Red Sea so you can still move forward. Which is oddly quite fun to try.
So basically, grin, be polite, enjoy the craic. My grin is a slight grimace as I’m a bit over tired due to the nightlife around my hotel last night. Friday night is apparently boy racer night in Knighton so it would seem. Well, we were all young once. Except I don’t remember being a prick.
hey all seem to have Seat Ibiza type cars and with one wing in a different colour. This leads me T to believe that they are perhaps not the best of drivers around these parts. Also, they require a new exhaust. All of them did. I wonder if they even have insurance this side of the border. The concierge at the hotel assures me there is no police station in Knighton. ‘Well, no shit Sherlock!’
8 At the festival site I listen to the odd conversation (I’m a world-class eavesdropper) and for some reason I’m expecting some high-brow banter, perhaps about maybe two of the topics of this year - Shakespeare or Dahl - but many people appear to be overly concerned with Johnny Depp and some bird called ‘Heard’ who would never have been ‘heard’ of otherwise. 9 Lots of young women with blue hair rinses, it may be called something a little more fanciful to make it ‘on-trend’, but a blue rinse non-the-less. They look a little grubby too. Though not as grubby as the folk down at the festival over the river – something about turning a light on. They need a bath and to be instructed in the use of a razor. And that is just the women.
10 A granny is threatening to throw the younger end of her gene pool into the recycle bin. I’m sitting here wondering if that is the way to true reincarnation. Becoming a manilla craft bag. 11 It’s early in the day but I have not yet spotted anyone famous, that said I do recognise one or two people but I have a shocking memory for names. Note to self - must try harder. 12 I’m currently sat outside the ‘Artists only’ tent. Which sounds like I’m stalking celebrities but in truth it isn’t actually close to any of the event tents, therefore it’s not very busy here. It is however next to the water tap. I shall sit here tomorrow too I think. 13 I would like the festival to consider more benches on the walk-ways. My middle-aged knees agree. We are discussing this at some length. 14 This is a brilliant place for kids. They are just running around bright, wild and free. I’m not really good with kids. I think they are probably space aliens. Or worse. I’m watching and keeping my eye out for clues. Conversations heard so far: a Early this morning at breakfast: man to wife, “We will be ok because my weather app says it’s bright sunshine right now. And it is not a forecast. It was updated only two minutes ago.” Me in my head “Seriously look out of the window, if it carries on like this we’ll need to build an arc!” b A rather shabby looking bookshop owner in Hay town to an attractive American tourist, “I like reading. I’m really big into reading. Reading’s great. Yeah, like, I like to read a lot. Books mainly.” Me (in my head), “You own a BOOKSHOP!” c Girl of around six years old outside the Artists only entrance, “What’s an Artist only?” 15 I’m amused by how many wander close to the ‘Artists only’ entrance and look like they are going to try and walk in - then chicken out. I wonder to myself if there is a sizable gentleman with an earpiece involved in that change of direction. 16 It’s quite pleasant sat here watching people go by, because it’s a little quieter you can see people as individuals more clearly, the masses have, well, less mass. There are gaps between them and they glide with ease rather than swarm like they do near the event tents. Still nobody has yet tripped over either me or my handbag. Bonus! 17 I’m also sat here using my fancy new on-the-go phone charger which makes me feel technically superior. In truth, useful though it may be it’s so heavy it feels more like there’s a brick in my handbag. Plus I can’t keep the wifi up so I can’t use Instagram, therefore I am constantly reminded that I am in a field in Wales rather than on the Starship Enterprise. 18 Many age ranges are to be found here. Today they seem to be made up of the typically white, middle-class persuasion. Perhaps that changes depending on the event listings. I’ve only ever been here for two days at a time. Next time I visit I should perhaps stay for the whole week and conduct my own super-analytical survey on this matter. Or perhaps I’ll just sit around daydreaming and scribbling in a tiny note pad like today. I shall decide at a later date.
19 I have just seen Shaun Usher of Letter Live fame (the main reason I’m here) and I even think he is wearing pretty much the same clothes as last time I was here. This leads me to think that this book lark doesn’t pay well, or he astutely buys six of every item he likes. Perhaps in the sale. I don’t know. I’m not in a position to call him cheap. I suspect he will have changed his undergarments. I hope. 20 There is a baby crying somewhere and I feel a little like that myself - my arse is going quite numb sat here. But I have a couple of hours to kill and bugger all money. The bookshop would be perfect to use some time up but it was rammed full of people earlier and as the saying goes ‘hotter than a nun’s candle’. 21 Desperately trying not to join that cue for an icescream - much as I’d kill for one. That is not how you spell ice cream is it? Bollocks!! 22 There are lots of well-heeled Americans here swishing about in that languid way that they do. You just have to love globetrotters who have discovered there is somewhere other than London don’t you? ‘Hey, is Wales like west of Kensington Palace?’ Yes, yes it is. By quite some way and several wrong turnings - in my experience. 23 I just saw Mark Strong, Toby Jones and Chris Packham wandering about. Not together like the brat pack I hasten to add. It’s nice the way folk just mill around here no matter who or what they are - or who people in general perceive them to be. 24 Funnily enough, you’d think at a literary festival nobody would stare at someone writing - as if they were a complete freak. Perhaps they think I am a journalist. Or just too poor to afford a laptop... I brought this pad with me to save space and it’s tiny. Way too tiny. Great for shopping lists. But shit for writing a stream of thoughts down. It’s bloody well the wrong shape too so it’s slipping off my lap, my writing is a tapering scrawl. If I can read any of this when I get home it’ll be a miracle. I’m doomed. I really do want an ice cream. 25 I’ve been writing horizontally on the pad but fuck it, I’m going for vertical now. Rebellion is mine. Should I continue to write on only one side? Dare I shout in my head ‘‘FUCK THE TREES’? Hell no - I’m going to to write on both sides. I’m too spineless to fuck anything... and why is my phone smaller than everyone else’s? They don’t even look like they can hold a job down. 26 Two young women just strolled by speaking the same language as Lee-loo from the Fifth Element. (Oh how they walk among us!) 27 I’m driving back to the hotel later so I can’t drink. This is the true torture of the weekend. I came by myself so that I am my own designated driver. Pray tell me what self-inflicted hell is this? I’m bringing an associate driver next time. I really do want an ice cream.
(A driver-less car, mmmmmm...)
28 Just now I have been conquered by a money spider, which is far better than when in Hay-on-Wye earlier in the day, I sat on a wall covered in ants. That caused some yelping and flapping I can tell you. I think I may have made a bit of a tit of myself. I don’t know what gender the ants were, I was sort of hoping for a male with only two legs to take a shine to me. Six and eight are just several limbs too far. Still, I have dated a cockroach before now... 29 It’d be cool to bump into someone I knew all these miles from home. But wait, I must stipulate, that it would be nice to bump into someone I liked this far from home. I mean how awful to bump into someone you think is a complete twat and have to spend valuable time being polite to them. I don’t want fate messing that bit up. Anyway I’m not known for my tact. It could be messy. 30 Gosh there are a lot of ‘man-buns’! I should have brought some scissors. 31 The thing with the Hay Festival is that you frequently spot people who have written a book, that said, as they are not tv personalities or film stars, so you sort of recognise them and assume they have at least been in an advert for car insurance, washing powder or soup. You smile at them, they smile at you. Neither party is any the wiser. 32 Bizarrely I’m not bored yet. You’d think I would be. I’ve sat here for ages by myself. It’s really quite liberating sitting here for this length of time. But now I cannot feel my arse at all. I know it is still there. It would take weeks for this monument of a derrière to disappear. Yet there is little or no sensation. I do think that this party of one works really well for the events in the tents - but for the in-between bits, I should up my numbers. Which reminds me... ... last night, while looking for entertainment in my snug, single hotel room, I decided to man-up and go through the reading matter left for guests. A copy of Border Life - absolutely riveting and the obligatory Gideon’s New Testament. There was a page with a corner turned down. It was the psalm which goes ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of death’. It was referenced in the index as a guide for the lonely. Here in a single room, in a hotel far from home this seemed quite resonant. It made me wonder about the occupant who turned down the page corner. Who they are and were they lonely or suffering from a bereavement of some sort? I will never know. It was severely poignant as I sat listening to the torrential downpour on this tenebrous night in Wales, and so many, many miles from home. 33 But back to the Hay and a chap just sneezed and I feel as if Hereford town may just have crumbled as the butterfly effect took hold. A tendril of snot looks like the water effigy out of the film ‘The Abyss’, like it had the ability to take on a face, perhaps even a personality. 34 Maybe I should have a dicta-phone? People are still staring at me for the pen and ink thing that is going on. But if I had a dicta-phone, I’d be talking out loud, to myself, surely that is much worse. Like wearing mis-matched socks with sandals, an oversized, tatty cardigan, having several cats and leaving the gate open for hedgehogs. 35 I like writing on paper. Although when my old chum proof reads she let’s me know I write with many, many colons and semi-colons. After all these years who knew? I didn’t. And she hasn’t proof read this (you may have noticed) so I shall be colon-less no doubt. And spell check loves to hyphenate for no reason.
This leads me to ask about punctuation. Does rubbish grammar make a bad storyteller? Many would say yes. But the bards of yesteryear, well many of them could not even write their own name. They told stories by word-of-mouth or song. The stories must not of been any less thrilling to the audience surely? And not a colon in sight. Not even a semi. But that’s a conversation for another time. 36 A bloke who looks like a middle-aged Harry Potter just walked past. I bet he never hears that down the pub over a few pints and some pork scratchings. Poor bastard. 37 The weatherman has once again (for my visit to the Hay) got the forecast deliciously wrong. It’s not raining anymore, it is Scorchioooo!! Yes, it’s 5pm now and glorious sunshine. We can put a man in orbit around the world but cannot get the weather forecast correct for the next day. I am so British. There are a lot of wellies here. A lot of sweaty feet sloshing around the walkways. 38 I am getting hungry now. All I can smell is garlic bread. Garlic & bread, someone’s northern, comedic voice washes over me. Get thee behind me Satan, I have an apple in my bag to satisfy my dietry needs (an apple for fuck’s sake - what was I thinking?) The queue for the ice cream cart is quite lengthy. In my head I scream for ice cream. I’d put that on twitter but I still can’t get on the wifi. Technological failure surrounds us. Or at the very least - it surrounds me. I decide to drink more water and stood by the tap there is a small child metering out the amount of water in a ‘helpful’ manner. When my bottle is full she sticks her finger in it and wiggles it about a bit. Crap only knows where her finger has been, but I thank her and move on, thinking to myself ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. 39 Sat here writing is like olde-worlde texting. I should write something down and pass it on. See if I get anything back. A bit like a message in a bottle but without a bottle, the sea, The Police song or even Sting. It could also be a Facebook message with no chance of a ‘like’ or reaction emoji. So I decide I should draw my own reaction emoji. I have a go. My expletive infused, one fingered insult looks like a badly drawn vegetable. It’s rubbish. Even my attempt at a smiley face looks like a psychotic balloon on acid. 40 Why do kid’s lift their t-shirts up when composing a sentence? Is it because there is that second brain in the gut and it helps them communicate by exposing it to some light? 41 I’m still people watching. The kid’s are really enjoying themselves. I would’ve hated it when I was young. I was too shy. I still am, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be sat here by myself with my back against a steel girder. Perhaps it’s disability. Or maybe a superhuman ability - to sit, watch, wonder, despise, smile and enjoy the joy of it all in equal measure. All this stuff just happening around me. But not to me. 42 The Mind site has a test survey to show autistic tendencies and I didn’t do terribly well. Though I have yet to find that I am able to draw the Eiffel Tower or the Gherkin from memory. I’m unsure about the spelling of it too. Which is very un-gifted of me. Also I can’t do mathematical equations and I am generally terrible with numbers. I never manage to turn off at junction 18 of the M62 to get here, I dither too much. I missed it again yesterday. The Hay Festival journey blinds me to direct travel. Still in 2014 I saw Chester for the
first time. Shortly followed by two and a half more times before I found the right route out of Chester... this time it was Shrewsbury’s turn. 43 I really do want an ice cream... I scream...(quietly in my own head). More conversations heard so far: a Man to wife, ‘I don’t understand why people can’t see the end of the queue. They must be idiots.’ Wife ,‘Where is the end of the queue?’ b Ist girl, ‘I love Shakespeare me, I do. He’s like totally rad.’ 2nd girl, ‘Yeah, I love that one, erm... A Christmas Carol, that’s it.’ 44 They are washing strawberries now (strawberries and ice cream mmmm!). It’s a bit like Wimbledon with the thankful lack of racket swinging and (un)feminine grunting. 45 It’s coming up to show-time, Letters Live. Essentially I lack timing. Do I powder my nose, get a quick coffee or an ice cream. I’m dithering and it’s like Junction 18 all over again. But with much less speed. 46 I powdered my nose, got more water, joined the queue. Chatted to some women, two in front of me one behind me who recognised each other from last year - a little bit random - then sat directly behind Sophie Hunter which gave away one of the special guests who’d be appearing, (I’ve seen Benedict Cumberbatch doing this before, he was very good I can assure you). Anyway I spent the entire event watching all the performers over the top of Sophie’s head. When she did turn round, well she is naturally, very pretty. I think Benedict did ok with that one. Well, I dragged my sorry arse on a 400 mile round trip, chiefly to watch Tom Hollander do the Letters Live thing. I’ve dragged my arse a few places stalking young Mr Hollander, but only as a ticket holder. It’s the polite way to stalk someone, which enables the object of your desire to make a living because you are parting with good money for the experience. I’m not up for sleeping on his doorstep. I’d have to work out where the doorstep is for a start. I expect it’s already taken to be honest. There are some very odd people in this world. I’ll stick with the official route which keeps him in a job. And me out of a padded cell. The thing with famous people is they are not much how you’d think they were or are led to believe them to be. Ben Cumberbatch is tall, but not as tall as you’d imagine and Tom Hollander is small, but not as small as you’d imagine. It’s just journalists trying to think of something to write. Never trust a journalist. They only want you when you have a useful bit of information that may elevate them. They don’t give a crap about you really. As soon as your story is told, you are surplus to requirements. (I write this last line down speedily, like a small child doing exams, shielding my work with a crooked arm from prying eyes – as they are probably all journalists surrounding me and I don’t want a reproachful poke in the eye.) I’m being a bit harsh really. My cousin-in-law is a journalist and she is very lovely.
47 Letters Live - laughter and tears in equal measure. I held it together (just) by counting the birds on the back-drop of the stage to stop the tears flowing. Plus there was a standing ovation at the end. Quite right too. Everyone realises that this is not a music gig and you can’t shout ‘more, more’. Which is a shame because I’m certain we all wanted more. 48 Back to the hotel, via what seemed like the whole eastern border area of Wales. Plus some western parts of England. My internal carbon-based sat-nav was not charged up again. Massive fail! 49 Another night of the loudest local revelling in the history of the human race. Around here, the youths are either very unimaginative or there really is fuck-all to do on an evening other that get off your tits on booze. I think the football is on too. So that is possibly not helping! Oh and it’s apparently someone’s birthday... it’s 3.30am... well, happy fucking birthday buddy! 50 Sunday morning and back down to the Hay Festival for another bash at Letters Live. The family version, so a bit less sweary. I cried this time. There was no holding it together. I was not alone. Sophie Hunter read a letter from a mother to a dying child. Not a dry eye in the house. I’m not really sure it’s a good event for the younger end. Teenagers maybe, but younger? The kid’s in front of me were bored shitless it would seem. Some of the humour is a little sarcastic for them. But Bruce Robinson accidentally drops the F-bomb and now all the kids are laughing, screeching loudly like drunken fish wives. Good old Bruce! I think children these days are more than familiar with far worse language than you or I have ever heard. And they can abbrieviate insults really well because they’ve grown up with texting. I’ve no idea what my niece is going on about on facebook. Which is probably for the best really. Today young Mr Hollander didn’t get enough stage time for my liking (400 miles, I say, 400!). All was not lost because Louise Bearley was ever so good (as she was the last time I came) and Olivia Colman was as lovable as ever (I stalked her to Harrogate Crime Writing Festival once, but I went with friends so it’s not like I’m weird or anything) and Jacqueline Wilson reading was a lovely suprise too (fyi: I haven’t stalked her at all). 51 Out of one event in the TaTa Tent and straight into the next - again in the TaTa Tent. Sheer panic set in. There was the kind of walk that resembles trying to break out into a run and only sporadically succeeding. The ministry of silly walks without any comedians of perceivable talent. This is the bit where I thank the Lord for remembering to become a Friend of The Hay so I could get in the slightly shorter row of waiting festival goers. There was even time for a pee. 52 Russell T. Davies. Now there is a chap who is really, really tall. I walked past him and could only look him in the nipples and I had high heels on. During the talk his temperament is like a small child racked up on sugar and I fell a little more in love with him. He was the man who made me love Dr Who again (insert heavy sigh). Every single thing he writes has the ability to make me cry at some point in the proceedings. I wish I could write as well as that. Or even half as well as that. A quarter of his talent would see me through... an eighth, twelfth, or some other smaller divisions down to perhaps even a mere slither. I’d be happy. 53 H e and Maxine Peake are very entertaining considering it’s all about Shakespeare. I have to admit I find the Bard a bit heavy. In this I expect I am not alone. I expect some people think I’m an underachiever
because of it. I expect I could convince them I don’t give a damn. Because honestly, I don’t. The guy sitting next to me clearly doesn’t get any of Russell’s humour. Perhaps gleeful wit is not his strong point. He is shuffling in his seat, which is very annoying and I feel inclined to slap him but this festival is a friendly affair so I refrain from doing so. I think it would have helped him settle down though. Sometimes a slap allows some sense to come back into play inside somebody’s head. Sometimes. Now and then. It’s a tactic I’ve tried a few times. With some success too might I add. Max and Russ (I’m on abbrieviated, first name terms now I’ve seen them live) are very easy going to listen to, not too high brow or wrapped up in their fame. They both seem to feel blessed by their lives rather than entitled as some folk do when they are interviewed. And you can’t not feel a little besotted by a big Welsh bloke and a little northern lass. Oh dear lord I got a double negative in - ‘can’t not’. I wonder if I can slip a treble negative in and have it still make sense. How many negatives can you use before it becomes a hyper-positive? I shall look into this when I return home. If I remember. Which I probably won’t. I think I need an ice cream now. 54 I go back to the car utterly depleted. I want to stay longer but can’t. I have no more money, no more tickets, no hotel to stay in and my dog will be having withdrawal symptoms (and I suspect a little too much roast chicken than is good for her during her stay with Uncle Peter). So I jump onto a shuttle bus back to Baskerville Hall and into the car. I drive home aiming upwards toward Chester and then the M62, so obviously I end up going via Stoke-on-Trent, (narrowly missing heading into Birmingham first - I’m such an arsehole!!). This was about the point I realise I needed the loo, but I refuse to stop as I’m so sick of being lost, I’m on the right road now and I just want to get home - so I carry on the whole way to Leeds clenching frantically. People probably think I’m smiling. I’m gritting my teeth. 55 I realise that I hate the roadwork infested M6 almost as much as I hate the roadwork infested M62. But not quite. However, when on the M62 and driving over Saddleworth Moor in good weather, well it is an awe-inspiring wonder. 56 I nearly miss the turn off for Leeds. 57 Did I mention I hate sat navs?
Well for next year’s trip - I’m getting a sat nav!
© Alison T. Bond 2016 Twitter/Instagram: @AlisonTBond