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Hay Festival Diary – Day 1: 26th May
- 1:30pm
Arrive at Hay. Sinking feeling sets in immediately. A gang of literati fling opinions on Edna O’Brien’s latest over our heads and all hopes of engaging in any kind of critical discussion wither and die. Consider pulling out our copy of Chris Turner’s ‘Planet Simpson’ and offering it for critical dissection. Instead we head for the bar
- 2pm
Discovering that the range of beers consists of one organic bitter priced at £3.70 a pint, SSP nip to Spar for 8 cans of Carlsberg. Back at the festival our smugness at saving a few quid is wiped away when we realise that our pack of six Welsh Cakes is one short and we’ve been overcharged by two pence for a Philidelphia Splendip
- 4pm
A chance meeting with Edwina Currie on the way to the loo. She’s dressed like an extra from Life on Mars – long purple leather trenchcoat, Cuban heels and a tweed mushroom hat designed to hold the dreadlocks that Edwina would only rock in your worst nightmares. What a soul sister…
- 7pm
The entire site’s population heads to see Gordon Brown talk about his political heroes. We head to see Gruff Rhys talk about monkeys. The in-between song conversation with the loveable Super Furry Animal is awkward but the music’s great and we’ve finally found something at our level
- 8:30pm
Sarah Kendall’s hour-long set provides the first stand-up act of the festival and at last the tables are turned, making us the slightly snooty and in-the-know ones. Kendall limps through bits on the weather, awkward karaoke and Nicole Kidman that strike all kinds of chords with the jubilant crowd- maybe they’re secretly relieved to be lowbrow-ing it for a bit. SSP, battered from too much beer and yet another anecdote about being an Australian in London, sit in grim silence
- 10.00pm
Somewhat disillusioned, and with the onset of beer headache, SSP, like the jaded comedy aficionados we are, decide to give Scott Capurro a miss and retire to our grace-and-favour farmhouse. In our defence, we’ve already seen Capurro and we’ve been warned sheep round these parts can get aggressive late at night
