So in comes Maggotwump on Tuesday morning with my breakfast bowl of toenails (not bad; a little like Special K) and he’s wearing a kilt. (It’s wearing a kilt, I mean. I’m never entirely sure about Maggotwump.)
‘Today you go Embra Inter-int-imber- ah, Big Bok Festival. Sign boks.’
Reader, I kissed him. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself on a Scotrail Express. Ah, it was so good to breathe the open air, scented with Scotrail coffee and bad bananas and that funny loo with the oddly revolving door.
It’s lovely, that Edinburgh International Book Festival. Luckily Charlotte Square Gardens has the magical ability, in August, to expand to accommodate as many tents and people as you could wish for. (I never did find the Olympic-sized swimming pool but I think it’s on the third floor down.) It’s a fabulous place and full of wonderful authors – though on my day off I saw more politicians and journalists than writers, and why (may I ask) don’t monsters kidnap them instead of decent respectable children’s authors? You must go, and if you can’t go this year then clear a two-week space in next year’s calendar.
I was extra-super-well-behaved, so after my day’s trial the monsters say I can go back next week for a whole week. There was only one tiny hiccup, when someone-who-shall-be-nameless at the Society of Authors AGM referred to children’s writers as ‘BWAs’ (‘Bunny Wabbit Authors’). However, I showed him this darling little girl, and he ran, screaming.
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