Keswick day 2

The Blip is nothing to do with books. It’s taken in the loo of Lyzzick Hall where Joan and I had a nice lunch. Well, food and service and situation were perfect. But a man we’d seen at the festival came in with his wife/partner and sat on the next table. He proceeded to talk loudly at the woman, and when she finally got a word in, he berated her for ALWAYS interrupting him, and he hadn’t finished. Then he tried to engage us in conversation about the morning talk, Andrew Gimson (writer of a book about Boris Johnson - imagine) and Martin Rowlson, caricaturist for the Guardian) talking about British PMs from Walpole to May. Rowlson had brilliant, savage drawings of each one. The book was quite superficial and chatty. When asked about who he considered the best PMs Gimson chose only Tory ones - Churchill and Thatcher. Joan and I thought Gladstone and Atlee. No surprises there.


We got back to the Theatre to find that the next speaker,Jonathan Fenby, talking about China’s quest for greatness, had become ill on the train so wasn’t gowing to be able to attend. This meant we had hours till our last talk, so while Joan read the paper I took advantage of the proximity of the outdoor shops to get myself a merino wool base layer in the sale.

Our last event was Jane Robinson, reading from her bookHearts and Minds, telling the story about the march by suffragist, , bridging the gaps of class, age and status, rather than the more radical Suffragettes, in 1913.