GinG:CCinC: Literary Interlude

Veni, vidi, vici. I went to The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival and all I got was this lousy rather cool T shirt. I also got one from The Times booth as well. Well, OK, I nicked it, but don't tell anyone. The Times were basically being cheap arrogant bastards and making me and a volunteer stand outside in the freezing cold in the middle of the week with iPads, so that we could sell online subscriptions to white-haired gents with canes and blue-haired ladies with white-haired husbands who had come to see Debo or somesuch monument of times past, only to be told that a) oh, but we read the Guardian or b) oh, we already get the paper version and we are a bit old-fashioned, aren't we dear. The Times lady ended up being really annoyed when we didn't sell millions of subscriptions. We did have a lot of fun solving The Times Crossword, now available as an iPad application, though.

Playing with iPad for 4 hours didn't make me want to get one. Frankly, I don't quite see what the ballyhoo is about. It's fun to play with, sure, but holding it for extended periods makes your arms tired. In addition, the touch screen doesn't seem to work properly if your hands are cold (take heed my Finnish readers) and like iTunes, the thing does what it pleases with your files and information without really consulting you first.

I survived the Festival, but with some mixed feelings. What I realised was that event managing is not something I want to do professionally. I get no satisfaction from the stress that putting an event together requires. There is no immediate reward, something is always bound to go wrong and you are dealing with artistic personalities which are, more often than not, destined to let you down on a personal and professional level. I can't quite grasp the satisfaction my colleagues were getting out of it, either. Looking at the testiness of the team and the numerous fits ending with tears of frustration, dare I say meltdowns, I was left quite perplexed as to what the members of the team were getting out of the experience.

Also the idea of a literature festival is still a bit foreign to me. In a nutshell, it is 140 000 people paying somewhere round £15 to hear a semi-famous/famous person talk for an hour, and nothing more. Somehow the more familiar idea of a book fair strikes a much more voluminous chord with me: at least you have the freedom of browsing countless exhibitors, looking at books you didn't necessarily know existed and seeing a talk if it happens to tickle your fancy. There's always an element of discovery and surprise at a Finnish book fair, which I found lacking at the densely-programmed English variant.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy some of the talks I saw. I was pleasantly surprised by Derren Brown's performance, he came across as very approachable and down-to-earth. He also really took the time to greet each and every person in his book signing queue and stood there shaking hands and dedicating books for nearly two hours. My copy was the last one he signed that evening.


Joyous were also some of the talks that didn't necessarily promise much but delivered much more than you could ever have hoped for. One such talk was by the architect Edward Hollis, whose book I had to buy merely because of his captivating presentation on the changes in how we perceive buildings and their meanings. In the book "Hollis follows thirteen buildings through time and space to reveal the hidden histories of the Parthenon and the Alhambra, Gloucester Cathedral and Ayasofya, Sans Souci and Notre Dame de Paris, and Malatesta's Tempio and Loreto, exploring too more recent landmarks, from Hulme's legendary crescents to the Berlin Wall and the fibreglass theme parks of Las Vegas." I can't wait to read this one. I'd also love to translate it.


I've let myself understand that English literature festivals are not as high-brow as, for instance, their German counterparts. Whereas German festivals are very erudite, even esoteric events with highly learnèd people practising self-indulgent academic wanking, the English festivals, and this is certainly true with Cheltenham, are more all-encompassing, diverse occasions with lots of room for children's events, oral traditions, cookery, plays et cetera. During the Festival, I witnessed Jan Blake and Tuup telling Jamaican folk tales in a dimly lit festival tent, I heard Matt Harvey perform some of his poetry with his disarming mixture of humour and depth. I also saw Ben Moor perform his one-man play "More Trees to Climb", met the author at the book signing and said I would like to translate his book. Mr Moor was a very good sport about it and told me to get in contact if I had any questions. Having translated 30 pages of his book, I find the process exhilarating and challenging at the same time: the text needs to flow as if it were spoken - it is a monologue after all - but still has to retain a certain literary cleverness inherent in the original text. After I finish the first story, I will see if anyone is interested in publishing the book.

And then there was Mr Fry. Quite deservedly sold-out, quite expertly filling the stage with his presence without any meddling from an interviewer, and delivering an hour-long soliloquy on his book The Fry Chronicles and his life as an actor/comedian just starting his career. He might well be the national treasure that the Guardian has dubbed him to be. The audience was mesmerised, the laughs were heartfelt. My only regret was that he was doing a very limited and short signing and there was no hope I was ever going to be able to get my copy signed, as I managed to inform S right after the event.

Imagine my surprise and sheer joy, then, when I found a copy of the The Fry Chronicles on my desk later that day, signed and dedicated to me. The team, having been aware how eagerly I had anticipated seeing Stephen Fry on stage and how long I had waited to get my hands on the book, had pulled a few strings and got the author to sign a copy for me in the Writer's Room area while he was waiting for his cue to go on stage. I didn't get to talk to Mr Fry in person, but I did see him in the Writer's room dabbling with his iPhone and having a coffee. I will have to make do and reminisce about that while I read the book.


There was Gok Wan with his 1000 screaming teen fans and body guard (the only one in the course of the entire Festival); there was the lush Nigella Lawson and her mile-long signing queue; there was Simon Pegg being photographed next to me as I was chomping away at my cheese platter on the last day; there was Ann Cleeves and Andrea Maria Schenkel; Arabella Weir being a bit weird; Peter Mandelson being a fairly charming Prince of Darkness; Jenny Éclair not quite living up to the expectations set by her visits to Just a Minute; there were interesting lectures on Canaletto, Caravaggio and Picasso; talks on Mahler by Norman Lebrecht and Chopin by Adam Zamoyski. There were also the visits to the Waterstone's tent from which I had trouble leaving without first buying something and which resulted in these notes on my mobile phone: read Chine Miéville, Guy Deutscher (Through the Language Glass), Lioner Shriver, House of Leaves. I am still feeling bad about the £10 special edition Necronomicon that got away.

Now it's off to new adventures. I will still work for the Festivals for three more weeks, then have a few days off and then return to Berlin. My visit to this country has been all too short but luckily I can always come back. I'm actually planning on volunteering for the Jazz Festival next spring, if they will have me. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Before 17th November I will have visited Oxford (my plan for tomorrow), Liverpool (my plan for next weekend), London (my plan for when my parents come over in two weeks) and who knows where else. Bring it on!