Category Archives: Everyone

Hay has published its full line-up for the Festival starting in May (see Diary Dates link top right). Some of this year’s storytellers include Stormzy, Margate Atwood, Elif Shafak and, predictably, Richard Osman. As usual there are lectures, debates, book launches – fiction and non-fiction – for all ages. The selection of events is enormous. To encourage young readers Welsh Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell, Jacqueline Wilson and Julia Donaldson will be joining many more in a packed programme. Hay 2023 promises to be bigger than ever.

This year Ukraine’s biggest book festival, Lviv BookForum, comes to Wales, spotlighting great Ukrainian storytelling and the state of Ukraine today.

Art as an act of storytelling comes to the fore as actor Russell Tovey and Robert Diament, director of the Carl Freedman Gallery and Counter Editions in Margate, present Talk Art; artist Tracey Emin discusses her life and work; artisitic director of the Barbican Will Gompertz (See What You’re Missing) joins artist Jeremy Deller (Art Is Magic) to take us into the mind of artists; and curator and art historian Katy Hessel shares The Story of Art Without Men. 

So much to see and hear. Tickets on sale. Here’s the link HAY TICKETS

Series 6 of BBC2 ‘Between the Covers’ returned on Monday night last week with contributions from Angela Scanlon, DJ Spoony, Rob Rinder and Cerys Matthews. Presenter Sara Cox covers a lot of ground, not to say books, in 29 mins. Would an hour be too long? I get the impression that some of the works could do with a lot more discussion, particularly those that are part of the guests BYOB – Bring Your Own Book. On some occasions, in the past, half an hour meant the speakers had to keep it short – not a bad thing in certain cases.

Watch tonight (20 March) for Episode 2 when Sara is joined by Alan Davies, Ivo Graham, Samantha Bond and Sunetra Sarker.

In case you missed it, which is unlikely give the publicity, publishers Puffin have, according to reports, decided to rewrite potentially offensive passages found in Roald Dahl’s children’s books. Didn’t realise there were any? Well apparently there are, according to the woke brigade and, as I’ve just borrowed a set of his books to read/re-read, I’ll be sure to log them.

So it’s going to be interesting to see just what the publishers come up with – apparently this isn’t just about tinkering round the edges, the publishers so-called ‘little edits’ involve hundreds of changes and rewrites. For example: Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is described now as ‘enormous’ rather than ‘fat’. Quite why that should make it more acceptable I fail to see. Little Matilda is going to have to cope with Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling. Why not Stephen King?

So there’s been a lot of criticism over unnecessary and indeed pointless changes. Even the PM, Rishi Sunak, has stated that “we shouldn’t gobblefunk around” with Dahl’s (The BFG) words.

I was amused to read a couple of comments from readers in the Metro newspaper; One suggested that Roald Dahl’s TV series should be renamed ‘Tales of the Totally Predictable’, presumably so nobody is shocked, surprised or upset by the ending. Another proposed that a principal character in Thomas the Tank Engine be renamed ‘The Excessive Body Mass Index Controller’.

Personally I’m keen to see what happens to ‘Black Beauty’, ‘The World of Poo’ and ‘No Country for Old Men’. Let’s find plenty of stories to complain about!

So the final word should go to Dahl’s BFG: “Giants is also making rules. Their rules is not suiting the human beans. Everybody is making his own rules to suit himself.”