Hay Festival 2005

Jayne:

While Heather likes to expand her brain in all directions (see below), I go to Hay mainly to see novelists.

I had only a weekend in which to cram in as many novelists as I comfortably could (with breaks to visit bookshops, eat, people-watch) - but what a weekend it was!

Alexander McCall Smith was enormously witty and wise, and so captivated his audience that I was able to tag onto the end of his book-signing more than an hour after his talk, and shake hands with the prolific man himself.

Heather joined me to see first-time novelists Audrey Niffenegger, Diana Evans (who went on to win the Orange Award for new writers), and Tiffany Murray, which was great fun. Heather, who usually likes to lurk at the back, found sitting near the front with me to be an enjoyable, but slightly unnerving, experience. I didn't embarrass her by asking any questions. Actually I haven't worked up the nerve yet to raise my hand. In fact, I'm usually too busy assimmilating everything I've heard, and the questions come flooding in hours later. If only I could travel back in time....

Rory Bremner rounded off the first day, to be followed the next day by Jasper Fforde and Terry Pratchett, who were all expert entertainers. Before Heather and I saw Ian McEwan (who was very laidback and affable), we went in search of the festival's accommodation organiser, who had found us a great, affordable place to stay at virtually the last minute, to present her with a small thank-you gift. We ended up meeting her just outside the Green Room, and tried our best to look nonchalant as famous folk brushed past us. The careful casualness of Hay is one of the things I love about the festival.

Heather:

The more I visit the festival, the more eclectic my interests become. Hay cultivates curiousity; before the programme arrived in the post I had no idea how drawn I might be to Iranian film, nanotechnology or endangered animals of the Gashun Gobi. I neglected fiction authors, apart from a few exceptions Jayne has already described.

Instead I listened to John Humphrys take issue with fragmented English à la text messages and soundbytes. Sounds curmudgeonly, yes, but his concern was that this volume of incorrect usage dominates what is read and heard, so that people have fewer examples of how to use language well.

After that it was a mixed bag: the search for Nefertiti (Egyptologists disagree, but I think they've found her), autism, horse whispering and the neuroscience of brainwashing. I returned home with 15 books, subjects not related to any of the above! I suppose that's my definition of a good time.

You:

If you attended this year's Hay Festival, tell us what you enjoyed. Yes, we're curious like that!