Early on Friday, in the clear blue skied morning, the parents of the graduates of Cambridge had risen early and dressed in their finest to parade the wakening streets. Paired and posturing they streamed toward The Senate House to witness their sons and heirs and filly legged daughters take the cap and the gown, to be processed as thousands before and released onto the world bright eyed, sharp minded and, as statistics suggested, most likely privilleged.

Thanks web ed. for vanquishing web terror. Alt.p.

I have steamed through this fairly short, easy read. Based in Oxford but with a mention or two of Cambridge it is set in the University world of Mathematics. I did drown slightly in the mathematical ramblings but once I slowed down and reread the Pythagorean references it began to add to the story rather than cause me to loose interest. The main character is likable, a big plus factor for me, he has arrived to study at Oxford and is instantly drawn into a murder investigation. There are are some moments where I thought this is definitely written to be filmed, which it was, even though it was awarded a literary prize there are typically ‘film’ moments, spontaneous sex, and slightly out of pace events. The film has John Hurt as an Oxford mathematian and Elijah Wood plays the books main character, how close it is to the book remains something I will have to discover but looking at the trailer I think those pesky little film makers have given it the Da Vinci-Code treatment.

From the train, the race paddock and one from Hay.

Not a seasonal tea party but a real life Bun, big ears, white tail and a nervous disposition. I took these photos as a challenge, focusing, as best I could, my little digital camera through the lens of my binoculars, not BBC wildlife standards, but for me a first.

Visiting the UKs premiere literary festival in Hay-on-Wye is one of the highlights of the year for me, walking the winding streets of the town and searching the countless bookshops, beer drinking, eating, chatting, drawing, camping, and celebrity spotting [Dom Joly, Marcus Brigstock, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Jimmy Carr [he almost trod on me], Dan Cruikshank [he said hello, I think he recognised me] and that actress who used to be the Pathologist on Waking the Dead]. Ideally, I suppose, the ‘events’ should be the exciting junctions in the route through the whole proceedings, and it was thrilling coming face-to-face with Marc Almond whilst dancing to him singing Tainted Love. I felt the untainted affection flow between us, I wanted him to feel loved and he wanted to be loved, a thoroughly mutually platonic abundance of affection, though my individual feelings were somewhat swamped by the outpourings from the other 60 or so fourty-somethings dancing with just, if not more enthusiasm. It was a rare chance as the audience was quite small and the venue a tent in a muddy field. We also saw Kathleen Turner, who was as formidable as I expected but so not Hollywood and all the better for it. Of all the cultural wealth available in such a public arena I found a private event that for me was more special than any memories of times past or witty banter about Shakespeare’s colloquelisms. In the woods next to our camping field, in the shade of the tall canopy of trees and sometime in the early hours of Friday morning a litter of 7 piglets was born, I chanced to walk by their pen at about 6am and peeped in to see how the heavily expectant pig was doing. She had been trailing her belly through the muddy tracks the previous day having broken out of the pen and come visiting the campsite toilets as pigs like to do. As I leaned over there she lay grunting in pleasure and breathing deeply, her belly swamped in shiny clean piglets, suckling rapidly, and there the afterbirth warm and steaming in the early morning air. This was just lovely and eclipsed the festival of words and music for who needs noise more beautiful than the grunt of a happy pig.