Kew Literary Festival

Glorious day - real Indian Summer stuff. So great day to be in Kew Gardens. Started with coffee in the sunshine at an outdoor table.

But today wasn't a day for flowers. I had been invited by a colleague to go to a couple of talks at the Kew Literary Festival. Never been to one before. But Mark said they were great, not so much for what you learn about books, but for interesting famous people talking. And I soon came to see what he meant.

We did two talks, one in the morning by Melvyn Bragg and one in the afternoon by Bill Bryson.

Melvyn's talk was in the Nash conservatory. As I mentioned, it was an unseasonally nice day. And in a conservatory. So yes, really uncomfortably warm. Mr Bragg has a new novel about the Peasant's Revolt, so this was as much a history lecture as literary one. I have to say nothing in his talk made me want to buy his book. It was interesting enough, but he did betray a particular trait of English middle-classes to imbue this country with particular virtues which when you think about it, apply to everyone else too. So this blueprint for a history of British radicalism is really not British at all, but a feature of pretty much every other European nation. And the thing which always worries me about historical novels is that blurring between fact and fiction. The facts may be there, but whether one wants to characterise the participants as villains or heroes tends to be the option of the author, since early sources tend to be pretty unreliable as to characters. But they thyen colour public perception. As few will read the history, let alone the sources for it.

Bill Bryson was infinitely more amusing and likeable. You really do get the feeling that this is an incredibly nice guy, which one also feels from his books. Of which I own every single one. Yes I like him. And he did make me covet his new one. Maybe a Xmas present for myself.

He read a little from his new book and from one or two of his old ones, told some little anecdotes and did a Q&A, all marked by his genial good humour. I think my favourite was his answer to someone asking what he hoped people would be saying about him in 100 years time. "Remarkably, he is still sexually active." He pricks pomposity brilliantly.

There were many other authors there in various marquees and venues, including Louis de Bernieres, Richrad E Grant and Michael Morpurgo. The latter was surreally advertised by having one of the War Horse "puppets" wandering around. Indeed it appeared just behind Melvyn Bragg in the conservatory!

 Then afternoon tea - how perfectly English, before heading off to Dara O'Brian at Hammersmith Apollo....