Love Sunshine

Making Hay while the sun shone

Just back from Hay-one-Wye literary festival, where I was spectacularly inappropriately dressed. I have devised an outfit as part of my 'brand' for my public promotional performances. It is composed entirely of blue and yellow, and includes yellow canvas sneakers. You can imagine what colour they are now, as it has rained every day bar one at Hay, and the local fire brigade had to pump the site to stop it disappearing. Whilst grungy musos and young folk will wallow with glee in the mud at Glasto, but we sensitive literary types have to maintain some standards.

Well this getup certainly raised a few eyebrows, as did the bright yellow flip flops I adopted once the sneakers were cacked in brown. When asked why I was in flip flops while everyone else was in wellies, I quipped: when they said we want you to talk at Hay-on-Wye, I thought they said Hawaii, and dressed accordingly. Yes, it didn't get a laugh then either. Which is unfortunate, as it was on live national radio, albeit at something like 3am. Graveyard shift, or what the BBC called 'up all night at Hay'. This, let me tell you, was rather a surreal expereince. It ran from 1.00 to 5.00 on Radio Five Live, and involved bantering away about books with the nice folk from the BBC and the Festival, and took place in this caravan parked in a muddy field. This caravan combined the cosy kitchy domestic of the usual granny-shunting, country-road-blocking, bungalow on wheels you'd expect of a caravan, with the high-tech gubbins of a BBC recording studios. A bit like those units spies and criminals have in movies, when they are monitoring people, but with a toaster, a jar of Mellow Birds and a pair of Marigold gloves drapped over a tap.

As the night wore on, the cosy domesticity overtook the high-tech, and I began to relax, be myself rather than on my best behavior. Being yourself is not a bad thing on the radio if it means opening up and giving a natural performance. In my case, however, it meant cracking corny jokes and snerking at double entendres that would escape Finbar Saunders. In short, enjoying myself immensely. What this will do in the interests of 'promotion' is any one's guess. Although I'm not sure how many sun-worshippers listeners avidly tuning in at 4.00 am on a weekday I'm likely to alienate with my wittering anyway. In all, not a bad way to round off my first Hay Festival. And the sun shone the day I was there.