Thursday, April 02, 2009

Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival on Sunday


If you happen to be going to the Oxford Literary Festival on Sunday, do come along to the Grand Marquee, Christ Church, where I will be speaking at an event (sponsored by the Orwell Prize) alongside Ed Vaizey and ... Peter Hitchens. You can expect some sparks to fly, bearing in mind my history with Mr Hitchens... You can book a ticket HERE.

18 comments:

Patrick said...

Was that Garden Marquee or Grand Marque?

DespairingLiberal said...

Blimey. It will be like a Festival of Cheap Points and a Celebration of Half-Baked Wisdom.

I will send round my friends, the Oxford Liberal Bootboys, to lay in with a few well chosen heckles like "you are not colour co-ordinated this evening Iain" and "Hitchens, your analysis of the collapse of Marxism lacks the insight of your brother, who can at least string a sentence together! Take that, revisionist scum!!"

no longer anonymous said...

I'm Christ Church alumni, do I get in for free?

Mark M said...

Just try not to make it like Guido/Draper's poo-flinging contest.

Shameless plug. On my blog today I've taken had a look at the good house price news and compared today's slump with the 1990s housing market. The results are surprising

http://from-the-north.blogspot.com/

jailhouselawyer said...

Isn't there some kind of a conflict of interests given that you are short listed for the Orwell Prize? It does appear as though there is some mutual backscratching going on. It does appear to be a bit like product placement in films. I would have thought that both the Orwell Prize and yourself ought to have kept some distance between you to avoid the appearance of bias.

Iain Dale said...

Oh FFS. They are the sponsors of several of the events. They asked me to speak at it way before I was even shortlisted.

Do people really need to see a conspiracy behind every thing I do?

Tim said...
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Tim said...
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crimeficreader said...
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Tim said...
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Iain Dale said...

Crimeficreader, apologies, I deleted your comment by mistake.

Here it is...


"I will be there and taking notes. I'll be the one sitting nearest the fire exit, just in case the sparks ignite... "

crimeficreader said...

You're forgiven, Iain. It must be the excitement of being in Cardiff, where I am headed for a job interview this afternoon.

I am looking foward to Sunday; I was very impressed with the events I attended at Oxford's LitFest last year. They run an efficient and effective operation.

jailhouselawyer said...

Iain: I was just asking a question. FFS, do you need to get so touchy? It gives the appearance of something to hide.

You state that you was asked to speak before you was shortlisted. Fair enough. That answer would have sufficed from your end.

However, it may call into question the organisers of the Orwell Prize. What on earth were they thinking? How might it appear to critics?

Personally, I think there is a wide gap between George Orwell and the Orwell Prize and yourself and your blog. This is why I am surprised that you were short listed. I cannot help but think perhaps that they are rather desperate and maybe there were not enough entries to make a valid choice.

Iain Dale said...

They had 83 entries from bloggers. You can see the list on their website.

DespairingLiberal said...

You are on the right lines, jailhosue, but I think they just have a false impression of Iain's importance from his TV appearances. If it's anything like the Booker, most of them don't bother reading most of the entries anyway!

Little Black Sambo said...

No longer Anonymous: "I'm Christ Church alumni."
Is your name Legion?

Unsworth said...

@ No longer Anonymous

"I'm Christ Church alumni."

Not a Classicist, quite obviously.

jailhouselawyer said...

"I'm Christ Church alumni."

So was that clown Charles Falconer!