Oct. 26th, 2011

shewhomust: (guitars)
That's the Durham Book Festival over for another year (not counting some outlying events, it now runs for about ten days, which makes a lot more sense than the full month it attained at its most bloated). We went to three - no, call that four - events.

Marcus Brigstocke has written a book about his thoughts about religion in the wake of the sudden death of his best friend. This could have been excellent - and then I saw Brigstocke hosting the TV Crime Daggers ceremony, and was afraid it might be terrible. It turned out to be neither: amiable, entertaining, cautious about exploring his own opinions and even more cautious about offending anyone else's. The performance took the form of a conversation with someone whose name we were given (and I promptly forgot), without any further identification - though from things he said, he must have been an academic. He prompted Brigstocke to run through stories and arguments he would probably have produced unprompted, and I wondered if the evening would have been more interesting with a more incisive interviewer - but it really wasn't that sort of event. Enjoyable but lightweight.

Then on Saturday we went to two consecutive events at the Town Hall: Valerie Laws and Linda Gillard, two writers whose work is informed and inspired by science, and Criminal Women, namely Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid and the team behind TV's Scott and Bailey. Plenty of old friends here, so no surprises. I always enjoy Valerie's readings, and there was a bonus for me in something Linda Gillard said about her reasons for writing about a blind woman in her novel Stargazing: without giving anything away, it was a purely technical reason, and I love these reminders that what the reader finds central to a book is not necessarily what was central to the author in the writing of it. The crime panel was fun. It was sponsored by Mslexia magazine, and Debbie Taylor of Mslexia was in theory chairing the discussion. But five people is maybe more than will fit comfortably onto a panel, and when Val McDermid is one of those people, the chair really doesn't have a chance. Gradually the other speakers loosened up and started joining in the conversation - the only one of the three events to achieve this.

The other pleasure of the Saturday was that events were taking place all afternoon in different parts of the Town Hall, The café / bar was open, and after each event books were on sale there and tables set up for authors to sign copies. For the first time that I remember, this created the social space that makes a festival more than a sequence of events. We hung around and enjoyed talking to friends, Ann and Val and Simon, the Festival photographer.

Sunday's event was bookstalls within the tent of the Food Fair, plus a chaotic book exchange in the cathedral cloisters - which is why I didn't immediately think of it in the same category as the others. But there were books, and more talking to friends, and we came home laden with swapped books, as well as purchases from the foodier part of the event (stewing veal!) all of which is good.

On Sunday evening we went to The Waiting Room, a vegetarian restaurant in Eaglescliffe, to hear Projet Brassens. We might not have travelled so far if we'd known earlier that Projet Brassens would be playing in Durham tonight, and we'd have been spared not only a longish drive but also a long evening (we'd been advised to turn up early, and it wasn't such a good idea). But then we wouldn't have heard support band Rudolf Rocker (this one, I think, although there's no sign here of the Brassens translations they played). They were joined by Bob Fischer who channeled Jake Thackray for a couple of songs ("I wanted to sing them as myself," he explained, "but it just came out Jake Thackray.") But the highlight of the evening for me was their Plea to be buried on the beach at Whitby (of which the internet has no trace, so have this instead).

Which isn't to say that Projet Brassens weren't good. Their interest (and it's as well I didn't know this in advance) is in creating jazz arrangements of the songs, and while they acknowledge - how could they not? - Brassens' brilliance as a lyricist, they are almost more interested in his tunes. If I had to find one word for Brassens' melodies, it would be 'earworm': they are impossibly contagious - and it was a revelation to hear Projet Brassen's free and airy renditions, so that was good, and a consolation for their choosing to perform very few of my absolute favourites.

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