Archive by Author

Red Hot Silly Feckers – chilli-eaters munch the world’s hottest peppers at Grillstock

11 Jun
Picture of Matt courtesy of Clifton Chilli Club

Picture of Matt courtesy of Clifton Chilli Club


What happens when you’re invited to eat 13 of the world’s hottest chilli peppers one after another, on stage, at a food festival? Matt Tangent – a DJ and producer better known for spinning hot tunes and composing fiery tracks – knows, and he’s here to tell us all about it.

Meat, Music & Mayhem – That’s the tagline for GrillStock BBQ & Music Festival and I was there on day one of Bristol’s fifth hosting of the mammoth event on Saturday, June 7 to experience my own fair share of all three – particularly the mayhem bit as I was taking part in the chilli pepper eating contest that very afternoon.

I’ve done some crazy things in my time but that has got to be near the top of the list. Continue reading →

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Of chickens and beards. Writers Workshop at Swindon Festival of Literature

20 May
Chicken going about her business at Lower Shaw Farm ©Calyx Pictures

Chicken going about her business at Lower Shaw Farm ©Calyx Pictures

Aims of a lit fest:

  1. Meet writers
  2. Hear about writing
  3. Think about what’s been written about
  4. Do your own writing
  5. Work out what to do with your own writing so others can
  6. Go back to number 1.

I’d done numbers one to three (a lot) and written (a lot) about the experience. Now it was time to come up with my own composition. Which was, as it turns out, something to do with chickens and beards. Continue reading →

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To be or not to be? Do it. Do it! Think Slam at Swindon Festival of Literature

20 May

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So I decided the night before the Think Slam that I was going to do it. Do it. Do it.

That needed to be said several times as the only time I previously entered the Think Slam, I came last. But that’s me. Utterly nail it or completely miss the point. I am not an inbetweeny kind of woman.

So on Thursday I finally had three solid ideas in my head for the three times three minute pieces, and checked on the off chance that there was a place left in the competition. There was. Okay, I now had one chronicler piece to write up that day. Check. Two for Friday. Check. And three think slam talks to hone for Friday evening. Oh gawd. I really don’t like life to be simple.

And to really make it interesting, I woke up on Friday to a nasty headache.

At 1pm, after chronicler Pete shoved some painkillers down my throat, I began to write. I spent three hours on the first talk and an hour on the next two. I work quite well under pressure, fortunately. The chronicler pieces would have to wait.

After Sandrine Berges’s interesting talk on unsung hero Mary Wollstonecraft, it was time for the Think Slam to commence. Continue reading →

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How to get a book on the best seller lists – Carole Blake at Swindon Festival of Literature

18 May
Carole Blake ©Calyx Pictures
Carole Blake ©Calyx Pictures

Do your research, says legendary literary agent, Carole Blake.

Carole’s event at Swindon Arts Centre on Thursday night wasn’t appropriate advice for all writers – poets, people happily writing for fun, journalists, non-fiction, niche – but this gem universally rings true, whether you’re writing a CV or pitching your precious first book to an agent.

And it’s easier than ever. Check out most agent’s website and they’ll give you a step-by-step guide of what they do and don’t represent, in which format to submit your work, etc. And, of course, you need a cracking book that they like and think they can sell. Continue reading →

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An overlooked hero – Wollstonecraft in Swindon Festival of Literature

18 May

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As with many notable historic women, Mary Wollstonecraft is an overlooked hero.

Sandrine Berges, a French professor flown from her home in Turkey for the Swindon Festival of Literature, has a mission to raise Wollstonecraft’s profile.

Wollstonecraft was a British writer and philosopher who wrote what is probably the first feminist tract.

“Wollstonecraft would have been shocked at how slowly things have moved for women today,” said Sandrine, arguing that Wollstonecraft’s values have still not been fully realised.

The eighteenth century writer and philosopher lived a pretty racy life for a women in that age. She did not deliberately set out to provoke society – she came from a respectable family abeit with issues – she simply wanted the freedom to live the life she wanted to lead. She had two lovers, fell pregnant, fell in love with another man and fell pregnant again. She married the father of her second child but lived apart from him so they could both maintain their independence. They shared childcare of the first child. Sadly for her and for early feminism, she died days after the birth of her second child. Continue reading →

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Porritt sends a strangely familiar stand-in – Jonathon Porritt at Swindon Festival of Literature

15 May
Jonathon Porritt...or is it Alex McKay? ©Calyx Pictures

Jonathon Porritt…or is it Alex McKay? ©Calyx Pictures

So, Jonathon Porritt couldn’t make today’s event. In his stead was Alex McKay from 2050.

Alex looked a lot like Jonathon and sounded a lot like Jonathon and we were all giggling at the shared joke.

Festival Director Matt Holland confided afterwards that Jonathon arrived at Swindon Arts Centre with minutes to spare having arrived that day from some far flung place. Festival attenders arrived at the venue and saw an anxious director fretting at the lack of an author so Matt and Jonathon decided to cook up a little performance to defuse the anxiety. Continue reading →

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Disconnect from what makes life faster – Frederic Gros at the Swindon Festival of Literature

15 May
Frederic Gros © Calyx Pictures

Frederic Gros © Calyx Pictures

At 12:15, Wednesday 14 May. I was walking in the Brunel Centre. I had bought mangoes and rice noodles from the tented market. I had walked to pay money into the bank. I thought nothing of it. I have never thought to differentiate between my types of walking in life.

My phone rang. It was Festival Director Matt Holland. “You must come and listen to Frederic Gros!” he said. ”Hear what he has to say about Rimbaud. It is wonderful!”

So, instead of walking, I ran to my car and in 20 minutes was sitting in the Arts Centre. Continue reading →

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I should of learned more at school* – Simon Heffer at Swindon Festival of Literature

14 May
Matt Holland in conversation with Simon Heffer Image ©Calyx Pictures
Matt Holland with Simon Heffer Image ©Calyx Pictures
Simon Heffer signs copies of his book Image ©Calyx Pictures

 

Simon Heffer is a grumpy old sod. He barely raises a smile during his hour on stage at the Swindon Festival of Literature.

Even when his assumption that the teaching of English in schools is going to hell in a handcart is challenged by teachers in the packed Arts Centre, he harrumphs “good” like he expects it, rather than he is pleased that grammar is back on the syllabus.

Continue reading →

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Let them work out cake – Alex Bellos at Swindon Festival of Literature

14 May
Alex Bellos ©Calyx Pictures
Alex Bellos ©Calyx Pictures
Alex Bellos ©Calyx Pictures

Too much thinking and heat reminded me of English A Level. I would prop my A4 folder between lap and desk (to look like I was taking notes) and then nod off for a while. I really could have done with those Homer Simpson’s glasses which have wide eyes printed on the front to disguise the closed eyes behind them.

But here’s the problem with chronicling. Sometimes one is in the minority of one. The rest of the audience of young and old seemed very much awake through Alex Bellos’s talk at Swindon Arts Centre yesterday about the maths covered in his book, Alex Through the Looking Glass. Continue reading →

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War correspondent recalls the achievements of the Great War women – Kate Adie at Swindon Festival of Literature

13 May

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Ask anyone to name a woman associated with the battlefield and you’ll get one of three answers – Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, or former BBC chief news correspondent Kate Adie – a veteran of Tiananmen Square, the first Gulf War, and the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Apt, then, that Kate has written a book about the women of the first world war. It’s called Fighting on the Home Front, but if the title suggests that women never made it across the Channel, let alone to the front line, then that’s far from the truth – as the author will explain later. Continue reading →

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