the hay festival is quite unlike any other festival i've ever been to. i always liked the idea of authors being as high profile as rock stars-for instance i always thought you should be able to buy big posters of dostoyevsky or tolstoy like you could of REM or the Chilis. i did have a good dostoyevsky penguin tshirt fow awhile but it was a really weird shape.
anyway for one week a year in a little welsh border town the book is king and the writer is received like a rock star. so it was that myself and my sister wound our way across the brecon beacons to get to the front row of the douglas coupland gig.
the festival site is just outside the secondhand bookshop filled town of hay so we killed a little time there. the site itself was a tented village with lots of middle aged/american/ families with wacky kids sitting around reading books and papers on literery themed deckchairs. actually the mix of people kind of reminded me of a christian event.
douglas coupland was his same random self. he read lists from his new book then there was an interview with an observer journalist. he was kind of pissed cause the guardian had given him his first bad review that very day. afterwards though i got to get my books signed. nothing less than the limited edition,boxed, hardback with the limited edition jpod cube figure (see i told you it was kind of like music). we actually had quite a lengthy chat- as lengthy as you can have when you are in a queue. we discussed flaming lips (from my tshirt-he likes them), podcasts and blogs (his book is about life in the time of google- i told him he would be on mine in a day or two) and ebay (he was going to sell our handshakes on it the next day).
of yes i had my picture taken next to some giant books
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