Saturday October 10, 4pm: The Nick Clarke Debate: Anthony Seldon (author of Trust), Sue MacGregor & Martin Bell. Click HERE to book tickets.
Sunday October 11 1.30pm: Witness: Alastair Campbell interviews Bertie Aherne. Click HERE to book tickers.
Saturday October 17, 4pm: Witness: Tony Benn, Ion Trewin & Iain Dale discuss the art of the political diary. Click HERE to book tickets.
There are many other events featuring the likes of Vince Cable, Jeremy Paxman, Matthew D'Ancona and John Humphrys. Click HERE for details.
5 comments:
Now look here, Iain. That prize tw*t Anthony Seldon has a supposed full-time job as headmaster of Wellington College. You really shouldn't be encouraging his parallel career, as a media-whore, by promoting his appeaance at the Cheltenham Festival.
Every time I see or hear him squeaking away with his unswerving certainties, I thank all the gods that I'm not paying many thousands of pounds a year to subsidise his remorseless self-promotion away, in defiance of his pastoral duties.
"Our" headmaster, at a *proper* public school as opposed to a jumped-up third-rate nouveau establishment like Seldon's [1], takes his primary responsibilities rather more seriously.
[1] Which is a mere 150 years old; phooey.
Hope to make this
As coincidence would have it, I've just been to collect one of my sones from a visit to a school friend. Over a beer with the father, the austere nature of the headmaster was commented on by the boys.
"Just you count your blessings, chaps", said the father. "At least he's better than the current headmaster of my old school, Anthony Seldon. At least he's doing his job properly, and not straining to be noticed on any radio or TV programme that will have him. If I were a Wellington parent I would be getting very angry at his 'promiscuous' behaviour."
I help run a literary festival. Would you be available October 2010, Iain? (Seriously)
Why do literary festivals attract political commentators...more importantly, why are they tolerated?
I have no problem with politicians with writing to talk about, and those involved with writing and publishing (such as this blog's very fine proprietor!) but the guff-spouting likes of Aaronovitch and Campbell should not be tolerated....they're just after media exposure and column inches and some sort of intellectual ego trip.
Literary festivals should be for writers and readers, not journalist and columnist ego-junkets. Politics is only a small part of the written culture of the English language, after all.
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