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Think! It’s the Law.

13 May

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The always intriguing Think Slam posed answers and gave questions in its usual, unusual way.

A packed Arts Centre seemed thankful for the thinkful competitors whose bravery in the face of thought never ceased to amaze.

Sara-Jane Arbury introduced the 8th ‘Think Slam’ incarnation and was quick to point out that the Swindon Festival of Literature hosts the only event of its kind in the country.

A chill must have coursed the collective spines of the Think Slammers as philosopher Stephen Law was press-ganged into the role of judge supremo – his latest book is Believing Bullshit: How Not To Get Sucked Into An Intellectual Black Hole.

But bullshitters these thinkers were not, as they presented a typically varied and at times surprising window on their world. Each competitor had a three-minute time slot in which to make their argument in the most effective way possible.

John Yates, a self-identifying Remainer still stunned by BREXIT got proceedings underway with a suggestion that a byproduct of dramatic political change could be the dismantling of our political system. Continue reading →

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Let’s make a benign UKIP!

11 May

Catherine Mayer © Calyx Picture Agency

MEN! THIS IS FOR YOU!

After the local elections in May 2017, Catherine Mayer hoped to have time to reflect, space to promote her book on women’s equality (Attack of the 50FT Women) and perhaps write the next one, she told us at Swindon Festival of Literature.

But then in April,  a 50FT woman got in the way. Theresa May called a snap election.

As president of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP), a woman PM should please Catherine. And in a way it does. But not when Mrs May talks about girl’s and boy’s jobs on BBC 1’s flagship magazine programme, The One Show. This kind of thing is why Catherine accidentally began WEP.

In 2015, at London’s WOW Festival, Catherine made a ‘rambling’ speech about 9 million women staying away from that year’s general election ballot box, and the achievements of UKIP. Despite returning just one MP – small fry for the 25 per cent share of vote – UKIP were still instrumental in Britain beginning the process of leaving the EU. Despite herself a Remainer – for the equal rights brought about by the EU – she said ‘UKIP taught us important lessons. Popularity can cause seismic change.’

So, she joked, ‘Let’s be a benign UKIP.’ Continue reading →

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The woman behind the voice

9 May
Charlotte Green

Charlotte Green ©Calyx Picture Agency

There are few  people who could open a presentation by reading the football scores but such is the familiarity of Charlotte Green’s voice one immediately felt you knew the person behind the sound.

Scores of mariners around the British coast relied on her clear diction, comforting delivery  and calm style to keep them company in the wee small hours or during a force ten through Finisterre.

Such was her affinity with the forecast that her BBC colleagues called her the ‘Fisherman’s Friend’.

She has such a voice so distinctive, that people recognise her speaking even before they recognise who she is.

Charlotte mentioned one rather elderly lady who, on being introduced to her for the first time said, ‘Don’t you sound awfully like yourself?’ Continue reading →

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Ideas changed my life – Francesca Martinez

9 May
Francesca Martinez with Harry (C) Calyx Picture Agency
Francesca Martinez with Matt Holland ©Calyx Picture Agency

Looking at Francesca Martinez’s book, Swindon Festival of Literature director Matt Holland said, ‘Let’s talk about the end.’ Francesca laughed – ‘Don’t give away the end!’ Then turned to the audience, ‘It’s alright – I don’t die!’ Matt grinned – ‘I really like you.’ And she replied, ’I really like you too, but I’ve got a boyfriend.’

This is the tone for Francesca’s event. She made her name firstly in BBC school-based drama, Grange Hill, back in the 1990s, before embarking on a career as a comedian and then as a social commentator and campaigner. Her appearance at the Festival is belly-laugh funny but also profound.

But (*whispers*) there’s something I have to tell you. She’s disabled!!!

Of course, I’m not mocking her. I’m too afraid of a hilarious (for everyone else) putdown (and also, FYI, not a dick). I’m emulating her teenage self before she had a life-changing conversation with Hot Dylan – Francesca was so desperate to be normal that she would make friends then share that she was disabled, like they wouldn’t have noticed she was ‘wobbly’. Continue reading →

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We need to talk about the Donald

9 May
A bouquet of barbed words
Why did Donald Trump get elected?
‘Here is your author who turns 60 next week, don’t trust me’

The cat fancying bright orange elephant in the room didn’t take long to be exposed as Lionel Shriver drew parallels between the disappointing present and the dystopian future she imagines in her latest novel The Mandibles.

‘Since Donald Trump became president the dystopian novel has become popular for some reason’ said the American with a wicked glint in her eye.

Dystopian novels, she argues, are not about the future but about what people are afraid of in the present.

Her case is compelling, Shriver is a writer at the top of her game, peppering her talk with sardonic sideswipes and dark humour in conjuring the background to the genesis of The Mandibles.

Fake news and a Mexican border wall both feature in the novel which was written in those halcyon days before Trump had even entered the running for The White House.

Shriver has seen the future and it’s not a pretty sight. Continue reading →

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Mental memory writing with Terry Waite

8 May
Terry Waite © Calyx Picture Agency

Terry Waite © Calyx Picture Agency

Terry Waite was taken hostage in 1987 in Beirut, Lebanon.  He had been working as a hostage negotiator, and had been promised by the captors of two hostages – one very sick, and the other one about to die – that he would be allowed to see them.  Taking a huge risk to his own life and freedom, he went to Beirut to see the prisoners, whereupon he was captured and held – primarily in solitary confinement – for almost five years.

Amazingly, he has not suffered from any post-traumatic stress disorders, and this seems to be in large part because of the power that words and language have given him throughout and since his ordeal.  Continue reading →

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Crick-Crack – whose streets are these? OUR STREETS!

8 May
Three Acres and a Cow

Three Acres and a Cow

“The evolution of capitalism in England and resulting land grabs both here and abroad can be arguably simplified to sheep, slavery and fossil fuels… ”

I’m in a barn, there’s a ukulele playing (‘like a waterfall,’ says Linda Lee). It’s a beautiful scene: magic piled high to the ceiling on shelves, on string and mesh, on top of chairs, on top of tables – birdcages, bottles, boxes, a microwave! This is the magic of Lower Shaw Farm. The lighting is warm, and people are gathering on the enclave of chairs set around a stage – the bunting is themed – three blank squares to every cow (clever). There’s a washing line.

“Singing together is good for your health – so you will have had at least five of your folk songs a day by the end of the evening,” explains Robin, one of our three performers of Three Acres and a Cow, this part TED talk, part history lecture, part folk club sing-a-long, part poetry slam, part storytelling session.

The washing line is explained – ‘This is the washing line of history’ – that makes sense, I’m now rather excited to see how history can unfurl on a washing line. The line will show the gaps in what they learned (or didn’t learn) in history at school. Continue reading →

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You! Me! Slamming!

7 May

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The tone for the 21st Swindon Slam! was set by Swindon Arts Centre technician Ben. Hot Stuff blared out as hosts Sara-Jane Arbury and Steve Rooney danced their way onto stage. Revelling in her finger-pointing authority, the mistress of the mic stoked an already humming audience with the measures of applause: Cheering! Wooping! Stamping! Clapping! Whistling! Winking(?)! Kissing(??)! Hearting(???)!

After the rules had been explained and the judges calibrated with Steve’s ‘sacrificial poem’ concerning the joys of the work sickie, the draw for the first of four heats that comprised the first round was undertaken. The resulting draw put out three Swindonians in consecutive order: Heather Still followed by Stephen Daniels and Nick Lovell, with experienced slammer Peter Wyton rounding out what transpired to be blisteringly close first heat. Continue reading →

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Swindon LitFest crowd gets a peek into Churchill’s Cabinet room… and Lord David Owen’s mind

6 May
Lord David Owen © Calyx Picture Agency

Lord Owen, photo (c) Calyx Picture Agency

Over the past few years, the Swindon Festival of Literature has coincided with an important political event of one kind or another, and there’s always a political heavyweight on hand with whom to discuss the big issues of the day.

In 2015, we commiserated with Alan Johnson, whose Labour Party had lost the general election in the same week that his beloved Queens Park Rangers were relegated.

In 2016, Ken Livingstone provided some post-Corbyn, pre-Brexit insight, flying the (red) flag for backing Remain in the referendum. And there was a message of foreboding from Sir Vince Cable, who warned that older voters might drive an exit from the European Union, at the expense of the young.

Friday evening’s hour with Lord David Owen came the day after the Conservatives did very well in the Shire Hall elections – at the expense of Labour and especially of UKIP, who seem to have disappeared from the political agenda altogether – and just over a month before the nation heads to the polls for its second general election in as many years.

Continue reading →

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Mark Lawson: allegedly

4 May
Mark Lawson

Mark Lawson ©Calyx Picture Agency

Mark Lawson: it could all be made up and still be true.

The words above are not mine but are taken from the entry in the literature festival brochure in respect of Mark Lawson’s talk last night at Swindon Arts Centre. When I saw them there on the page two words popped into my head: ‘fake news’. I wasn’t the only one to have that train of thought clearly because in the question session someone raised that very thing.

One has to wonder if, in the new order from across the pond of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’, the phrase ‘trumped-up charges’ doesn’t take on a whole new meaning?

So, The Allegations. A semi-autobiographical contemporary novel, set in a fictitious Midlands university, that explores the scenario of having ‘historic’* allegations made against you, and how you get through it and what it does to you.

And if the description ‘semi-autobiographical’ is too strong the novel is most certainly influenced by Lawson’s own experience. He recently stepped down from his long-running hosting role of BBC Radio 4’s culture show, Front Row, amid claims of bullying. Continue reading →

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