Corduroy Intelligentsia

On the road again ,Johnny and me, off to the Guardian’s Hay festival. Hay on Wye is a beautiful village on the border between Wales and England which twenty years now hosts the famous Guardian’s book festival. A festival which by virtue of its sponsor name explains why it is very popular among the British corduroy intelligentsia and Bill Clinton once called as ‘woodstock of the mind’. So Penelope and Johnny couldn’t possibly miss it. So there they were in this picturesque village with long literary tradition and numerous specialised bookshops.This year the festival’s stars were: Gore Vidal this legendary American wit,novelist and politico giving short answers to questions posed even from another big name as Christopher Hitchens as well as making the cassandrian prediction about Obama’s shooting!. Jimmy Carter who insists on playing the role of peace negotiator (Nobel Laureate) but ignoring everybody else in his party(Democrats). Somehow he reminded Blair’s way of thinking ‘we don’t need the others we have the God and the Angels with us’. Salmon Rushdie talked about his book ‘the Enchantress of Florence’, I am not very enthusiastic about him. Ian McEwan took by surprise the audience by reading a piece of his new unnamed book about climate change and approaching his subject from the comedy side. There were many more big names such as chefs James Oliver, Gardeners and aristocracy(Duchess of Devonshire)with links to Nazism! I could say it was quite controversial but as always a nice atmosphere and with creative events for children such a big cubes with white canvas where somebody could draw write something of his own. So everyone's creativity was in gear. A small hut made by wood and hay was the journalist’s hub (last photo) and the visitors were able to visit the journalists and be informed by them. On the way back Penelope was quite tired and started to have hallucination that she was the guest star author in the festival and she was presenting her book 'johnny and me' to an audience consisted with the above mentioned names!On top of this, they were asking her autograph! After she woke up and she started blogging thinking 'not bad dream at all!' Ha!