Why Go To Hay On Wye Book Festival?

The charming Welsh village of Hay on Wye has a castle and a clock tower or war memorial (we drove too fast for me to see). Little clothes and book boutiques and tea shops are up and down narrow streets. Our coach had to negotiate a corner carefully.

The loads of bookshops include both secondhand and new books in the castle and cinema. The conversion of huge numbers of empty building into bookshops, made Hay so famous that book villages and book festivals are now all over the world, including South Africa and India.

I've visited Hay several times because a free excursion goes there from the University of Wales, Caerleon campus, if you are booked into the Writers' Holiday (see their website). If you can buy books new and second hand at Hay anyway, and get books signed at Writers' Holiday, what extras do you find at the Festival?

Those who go every year usually book tickets to hear particular authors. I was too late. A fortnight before the date when I planned to attend the fair, tickets for the authors who appealed were already sold out.

So what do you get by going along without buying tickets? Entry is free and you can spend your entertainment budget on buying books. Immediately after their talk the authors do signing in the big bookshop tent. (The whole place is a set of white marquees on a grassy field, linked by an undercover boardwalk, with a couple ofile:///Users/angelasharot/Pictures/iPhoto%20Library/Modified/2009/Hay%20on%20Wye,%20Wales/Image269.jpgf cafes and a toilet block.) The map on the board is a very interesting design, and like computers can probably be interpreted instantly by most children under seven but takes the over fifties two days to decipher. The first day we parked in the main car park near the castle, paying £2.50 to park and £1 each for the shuttle bus. The weather was raining and windy with some cheerful bright spells. My best decisions were flat shoes and a warm hooded jacket. Most people were dressed for a hike rather than a fashion show. What chance is there of talking to an author if you haven' booked any shows? In the shows apparently the audience can be as many as what looks like several hundred people so your chance of even asking a question from the floor are small. I saw the author of a book about Vermeer's hat doing signings. So I bought his book and managed to follow him to the queue to pay for books where I got to ask a question about where he lived. He was a Canadian from Vancouver. Some authors fly in and out the same day. . Apparently a helicopter in and out visitor was comedian Barry Humphries who plays Edna Everage.

So we were told by the couple who had to share out small round table in the coffee and sandwiches area. the secret to beating queues is to buy your drinks and sandwiches nearer noon than one pm. Between 1 and 2 pm an increasingly lively a form of Welsh rugby is played by people using sandwiches as balls and chairs and tables as goals. (In case any of my Mandarin speaking pupils are reading this slowly with the aid of a dictionary, that was a joke.)

So I bought books, lots of books. Couldn't I have done that in a bookshop or shopping centre nearer home?

Apparently this year's dramatic event was not an authors' fight but the peace between Naipaul and another author, arranged by a kind or canny go-between.

Book shopping and shopping for book bric a brac. Bags with the name of the festival were free if you bought a copy of the sponsoring national newspaper, The Telegraph. The bargain was a tee-shirt for a fiver in the Festival ticket box office. Why so cheap? The printing commemorated a previous festival.

You want to know what we bought? A pair of Penguin espresso cups with a penguin in the centre of the saucer and an orange book cover showing the word Black Mischief. Five pounds each cup and saucer set. If I'd had an unlimited budget I'd also have bought a jigsaw of Wales and a deckchair with a Penguin books design and a set of book ends.

The Oxfam stand was doing a bustling trade in books, music CDs (I bought John Denver, Rod Stewart, and pianist Myra Hess. I also liked the postcards of quotations. A stand promoting red squirrels was offering free nibbles of their organic (fruit - berries? and nut?, and cereal? and yogurt?) bars. A drop of whisky or a drop of juice were also given out in tiny quantities in thimbles of the giant see-through variety.

As we passed through Hay again on the shuttle I was sorry to see that the cartoonist shop had gone. I'm glad I had the chance to take a lesson in drawing caricatures while the elderly artist was still there.

We stayed two nights, visiting for a chunk of the morning and afternoon on a Saturday, then the Sunday morning before driving back to London.

The off-motorway route we chose was not the Severn Bridge route I normally follow using the AA and RAC route guides. This time we used both the Michelin guide and satnav. We managed to see a ring of stones like Stonehenge - large numbers of stones, and we stopped for tea at a Brasserie Gerard in Marlborough, a quaint little town.

Wales is so very green in May that we could not resist constantly muttering the book title How Green Was My Valley on the way down. On the way back I was impressed by the way the grey stone buildings had been edged with yellow bricks. So different from redbrick London. Lots of thatch too.

We had been wondering how easy it would be to get accommodation. We drew a circle around the destination of Hay and looked for hotels with Michelin commendations for either accommodation or restaurants.

On the way down on Friday night we stopped at a modernised extension to an old pub. Excellent duck in a 'rissole?' = more like a pate, with pastry edging and a plum or soy or mixture of the two in a sauce. Wonderful.

I asked to see the bedrooms which were modern. Along the bedroom corridor was a series of caricatures of famous people with a caption showing pun on their names which were then illustrated.

Our hotel The Lake was a delight. the lake itself had swans. It was really two or more lakes. The house, a former hunting lodge and spa (all those town called Wells had wells of medicinal water). I swam in the pool and then sat in the outdoor Jacuzzi overlooking the ground. Although the spa bath was outdoors it was just a step out of the gym and was covered by a roof although open-sided and the water was warm. The ladies changing room was convenient with keys in the locks, no messing about looking for a pound coin you don't have.

The Penguin stand had a good though pricey selection of souvenirs.

Hospital and help

Today's Daily Mail has a story about a dying woman screaming in pain and nobody came to help. A patient on the same ward tried to comfort her and was in court.

My father was dying in Watford General. When I realised his tongue had swollen due to dehydration so he could not speak or eat or drink, I wanted a doctor to put him on a drip.

The nurse on duty phoned the on duty doctor twice. The doctor refused to come to the ward because she could not over-ride the consultant. It was a Friday night and the consultant probably would not be back until Monday.

Shortly afterwards my father died. So the doctor turned up to sign the death certificate, for which she gets paid.

Nobody in hospital with the authority to give drugs or make a decision is around all weekend and most days until your consultant calls.

The consultant is a specialist in one part of the body. So if you are under a consultant for a lung problem you could have another problem and nobody will deal with it.

Divan Express Turkish Take Away, Hatch End

A new metamorphosis of a small cafe which was once called Em's Place, suddenly an excellent addition to Hatch End, the gourmet Mecca of north west London. We tried the humus (chick pea and sesame seed dip), plus some filling falafel (yes more chickpeas fried in a ball - diet starts tomorrow). Our main course was lamb kebab with salad.

We ended indulging in good baklava. Baklava always looks small but like chocolates, a small square of solid sugar or syrup masquerading as something else is all anybody needs. Everything was delicious and seemed fresh and healthy as well as tasty.

The place is linked with two others in Borehamwood. I recommend it for a takeaway or a quick meal with a chatty, obliging owner.

Indoors there's only room for three tables although the six more outside will be in demand in good weather. The decor is brand new mock English beams and much smarter than before.

I should admit that I know the owner (our children were at school together), but I am good at being politely honest. Any drawbacks? Yes, I would love to have some Turkish coffee and coffee will be provided later in the year we hope.

I went in when the place had just opened. Go there fast whilst it's still easy to find a free table. They will soon be doing deliveries in the local area.

Divan Express, 4 Pickwick Walk, Hatch End, Middlesex HA5 4HS, tel:0208 428 4766.

Other branches: Divan Restaurant, 2 Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Herts WD6 IDL, tel 020 8381 5294. The Masa Grill, 49 Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Herts WD6 1AE, tel:020 8905 2881.

Royal Wedding Kate & William

Such a lovely wedding with red carpets to keep clean clothes off the dusted abbey floor contrasting with green trees imported into the abbey interior yesterday. Just like an orthodox Jewish wedding. (Except that the one I attended had trees separating the man and women.) Kate wore a beautiful dress which was form-fitting, but high-necked and elegant.

Her brother read very well, with suitable pauses so you could grasp what he had said and ponder. He is in cake-making.

We printed off the programme from the BBC website - first time. It was just like being in the audience except I prefer watching TV as you see close-ups, though people in Hyde Park saw everything in detail on big screens.

Now she's royal we're told she must be addressed no longer as Kate but Catherine - such a pity. I think Kate is sounds friendlier and unique. One day maybe Queen Kate, or Queen Catherine? We got to know her as Kate.

I watched the lovely clothes, the colourful hats of the guests. the queen in yellow. Were the other guests told not to wear yellow - nor white. The train-bearer wore white, a simple right long dress, also very elegant.

The members of the public in the crowd were good-humoured. I loved the hat made by a man who did not even speak good English but had gone to enormous trouble to create a hat with photos downloaded from the web, even a motor cycle because William likes bikes. Many people - at least those followed by the camera, had painted their faces with union Jacks or red white and blue. The lookalike couple were entertaining, so was the man wearing the William mask.

We were watching the BBC website in our kitchen-diner on both a laptop and a monitor. When the BBC website went down we had to transfer to the living room and watch the old-fashioned way on armchairs in front of a TV. I'd just been thinking, time to get rid of the TV because we never watch it, when it came in handy, more than handy, essential.

After lunch the websites were running again so we were able to watch intermittently whilst clearing away lunch and having coffee.

The patriotic theme of the crowds in London inspired me so after 3 pm I started planning dressing up in red, white and blue for Hatch End's High street event. I needed a red dress and a co-ordinating hat with a Union Jack. I looked in my dressing up box which contains only half the props I use for my speeches at Toastmasters (wigs, angel wings, witches' hats for hallowe'en). The Union Jack hat was not there but I found an England hat from the last football event. Red and white. So off with the blue dress, on with a red dress. By now it is gone 4 pm but overcast and will anybody bother to go? I was just about to hunt for an umbrella - when the sun came out.

Suddenly I could hear people hurrying past the house. Parents calling to their children who were racing ahead, excited laughter. I was missing the party!

The banners had been along the railing all week saying there would be entertainment and free food from 4 pm until 6 pm. Amazingly, on previous occasions street events had attracted few numbers, mostly inside restaurants and just around the doorways. But this time everybody had had the day off as it was a bank holiday and by 4.30 the pavements were full like Oxford Street at sale time.

I stopped one girl to ask where she'd bought her souvenir flag. She was from a local school and had had the day off. She and her family got up at 6 am to go to London and watch the wedding which started at 11 am - which meant crowds outside as well as those with invitations to Westminster driving or walking up and assembling at least half and hour or an hour earlier.

An amazing number of VIP's were associated with Westminster Abbey, some honoured with burials there. Characters you hear about in history books. Edward I buried there. People from Shakespeare plays. Henry IV. Churchill. Many more. You'd think after all these centuries the management would have run out of space on the walls and underground. Maybe we could make room for you, me and our aunty Flo, if we shoved up Edward, who by now is only bones, the way they do in the New Orleans cemetery. (There I took a guided tour during which guides gleefully tell you how their ancestors coped with huge numbers of bodies during plaques and wars).

Free Food

Even doing nothing but watch TV makes you hungry and thirsty because thinking uses up calories. (Yes, some researcher somewhere recently tested and proved this theory.) So I aimed for the entrances of restaurants, but the crowd was densest there and lines for the free food stretched up and down the street. The plates of free food arrived and a melee of the first 20 people cleared the plate in half a minute.

How To Beat Queues

Families queued patiently. The British are so well-behaved. Although I will wait patiently for most things, such as tickets, when it comes to food, which has already run out on most tables, as I don't drink red wine or Coca Cola anyway, it seemed silly to queue for an hour and then find food had run out or the offering was spicy food I can't eat and colas or wines I can't drink. So I raced to the front to see if it was worthwhile queuing. I had kept hold of my plastic drinking glass and discovered a new trick. While everybody is waiting for a fresh supply of plastic glasses and plates, I could ask the second person on the table for a teeny refill in my glass.

At Sea Pebbles, famous, in Hatch End, for fish and chips, I was able to grab a single chip, or two, or three, and put it in my plastic glass. The fish was in batter and small strips so that was too much batter and it could have been shellfish which I'm allergic to.

Because I had not had the fish, I reasoned, of course both the fish and chip shop and the God who watches dieters would have allowed me another chip.

I succumbed to the temptation to ask for a sausage. (When the queue had come to a standstill.) I should not eat sausages. We (my family) are on an avoid cancer and lose weight diet. But the sausage was so good I had another. (Dear family, if you are reading this, of course I didn't. Only joking. I swear I only had one. Well, maybe two, but they were small, very thick but half size. If you are not on a diet, I recommend the sausages.)

Another Way To Beat The Queue

Trevor, an impatient person who is never willing to queue, under any circumstances, unlike me, came up with an even better ruse. He went to the table where things were going to slowly while the server held a conversation with each person, got another spoon from the table or inside the restaurant, and appointed himself as volunteer server.

He speeded up the operation by serving twenty people until he had got tired and the queue was at least much shorter. Seeing the food about to run out, he served himself the last portion. He went on his merry way, having got himself free food. He also probably ingratiated himself with friends and acquaintances in the crowd as well as the restaurant management. Call it chutzpah, call it initiative, call it one-upmanship.

I found the mayor and said hello. Where is a photographer when you need one? I also had a cordial conversation with Councillor Lammerman on the topic of potlholes in our roads.

I spoke to Mo, one of the brothers running Hatch End Tandoori. The chief smiler at Casa Mia gave me a smile, a nod and a wink. I saw two neighbours. I watched a street entertainer with packs of cards entertaining children who clamoured to take a card. He had a wooden duck and said it was worth it's weight in wood. I didn't laugh out loud but I thought he was most amusing. And he'd collected a crowd large enough to block most of the pavement and the slip road.

The sweet sensations karaoke tent was inviting children to sing. It was like a version of Hatch End's Got Talent. (The competition previously organized by Wetherspoon's pub Moon & Sixpence. ) The children who volunteered were given flags. I was standing watching when the organizer sang her closing song. She beckoned me forward.

The litter bins were overflowing with plastic plates. Showing that a good time had been had by all. The restaurants hoped that some people would stay in the area for a meal after 6 pm. I think every visitor must have had learned about at least one new business, or been reminded of a restaurant. We had made a promise to one or two restaurants that we would be back soon.

Topless Kids In Parks Or Streets

Nobody should point at others. I remember as a child walking down Oxford Street where a group of African women topless in grass skirts were walking along. My mother told me not to stare at other people.

But kids get sunburn and cancer like adults. Cover up for your own benefit.

My friend got dengue fever from a mosquito bite. Cover up for your own benefit.

Gun Crime - Problems & Solutions?

You can't compare England and America, whether you look at a geographical map or a political map you can see that it would be fairer to compare the UK and Florida, or America with the whole of Europe.

Every city has different crime rates. So does each city area. Every country or state has different rules on guns and the death penalty.

The questions affecting tourism and legislation are: Why is somebody (in Florida) allowed to roam the streets when they have just shot in a public place? Why do minors have access to a gun when they have not reached the age of responsibility, (young, special needs meaning low IQ or behavioural problem or both, and recent criminal history). Do they not have a curfew nor a minder?

Tourists should also observe a curfew, not out after midnight when taxis charge more and are hard to find, and there are few kind-hearted law-abiding pedestrians to tell you the way. Some US bars on New Year have signs saying that they will call free for a free taxi.

Book Writing Top Tips

What to write?

1 Getting Started - what to write

a) Do you want to write one book or several?

b) If one, your life story, your business or a novel or play or film screenplay? (Or poetry or songs or musical?)

c) If several, working on each an hour a day on each, or completing one in a hurry, such as over a weekend, or at a one week writers' retreat or holiday?

d) Are you well organised or do you need help?

e) If you need help, how much will you pay?

2) Your Book Plan

a) Money budget

b) Time budget

3) Quick Writing

a) Write a book in a weekend (based in USA).

b) Online write a novel in a month (write October edit November) online.

4) Resources

a) List your credentials. List plan of action.

b) List books you need.

c) List trips (eg library, bookshop).

5) Editing

a) Plot / Subject and style - Add drama. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.

b) Grammar

c) Spelling

d) Page layout

e) Picture editing

5) Sales and Marketing

a) List events (eg book fairs, holidays).

b) Check dates. Plan launch. At your birthday party? At your Christmas party? At local book fair?For Christmas? For summer holiday reading?

c) Bookshops?

d) Online? Set up your website?

e) Start a business? Publishing? Marketing? Sales?

f) Co-operative of writers? Pay a friend? Get family to help?

g) Raise money for charity and get them to sell the book?

h) Marketing - Free, cheap, discount, buy one get one free, two for the price of one?

What am I working on?

A book of quotations. (First edition Quick Quotations For Successful Speeches is on Lulu.)

A travel book combining places I've visited (50 countries) plus my wishlist.

A poetry book for children teaching them useful facts.

A novel on talking animals. (First chapter in Harrow Writers Circle anthology This Is What We Do - can be bought from website of Harrow Writers' Circle.

My next speech for the next humorous speech competition for Toastmasters International.

A musical based on the life of my late uncle The Mad Musician.