Postscript

September is the cruellest month. After almost a month of books and banter and parties and gaiety and days of adventures that are 'ever-changing, always beautiful' (in the now 3 year old words of EIBF photographer Pascal), and meeting people both new and exciting and comfortably familiar, the circus leaves town. Just like in that amazing poem that Carol Ann Duffy wrote in Harry Patch's memory, everything begins to happen in reverse. Books are packed up. The tents come down. Computers and cables and lights and microphones and chairpeople are returned to their rightful places. Goodbyes replace hellos. Cruel month!

So we shall have to focus on the lovely things three weeks in Charlotte Square brought to get us through. A roll call of honour, in no particular order: the press pod massive banter factory; the moon shining on Prince Albert and the seagull who sat on his head; lounging with a mint choc chip ice cream when the sun had his porkpie on and wearing wellies with a tweed skirt and adopting a war time spirit (the tweed helped) of keep calm and carry on when it didn't; quietly tapping one's toes over lunchtime jazz and big soup; jostling about in queues of people who just want to discuss the event they've been in, or the one they're going to; the woman who told Antony Sher, when signing a book for her son, to inscribe: 'be exactly who you want to be'; the unanimous audience reaction to Raymond Blanc's account of eating squid in Japan; Raymond Blanc in general; Carol Ann Duffy's beautiful poem, 'Inside the Yurt', for Catherine Lockerbie on her departure; people swaying and clapping in the aisles to Emmanuel Jal; the thrillingly large queue for the Scottish Poetry Library's 25th birthday event; Chris Close's work-in-progress photo exhibition 'Between the Lines'; Charlie Connelly taking a photograph of himself with a backdrop of audience to prove to his mate Steve that he did manage to make it to his event, having been in Dublin a mere hour and a half before; a well-timed bookshop brownie run and Claudia's cockaleekie soup; taking visiting friends for a quick nosy round and ending up tipsy 3 hours later in the middle of some hugely digressional conversations wondering how on earth that happened; brilliant Johnson's knowing exactly how to blag free strawberry tarts and pecan pies and one's fortuitous proximity to the press pod when this happened; Helen's glorious return and that stookie; the yurt girls' charm; audience member: 'Mr (Alistair) MacLeod, please tell us you are working on something new...' AM: 'I hope to, before death'; moths in the Spiegeltent, Gruffalos in the Yurt; overhearing this prime cutlet en passant the Spiegeltent: 'well I couldn't possibly tell you. Oh go on then. Brace yourself...'; meeting people, both old friends and new; parties; gaiety. Books.

Hurray for this cosy blanket of memories, of good times, good people and great banter to keep cruel old September's chilly blast at bay.

Me Vs Children

As Sponsorship Assistant with Team Sponsorship here at the Book Festival, my duties vary widely- one day I'm overseeing elegant Scandinavians quaffing fizz in a Georgian Board Room, the next I'm giving out free milk (courtesy of the lovely Graham's Family Dairy) to eager children.

Which brings me nicely to the topic in hand. Children.

The Book Festival loves children. We have a whole bookshop just for them. Not to mention a free Activity Corner run by some lovely ladies who know a thing or two about colouring in. We also have an amazing kids programme, run by Sara Grady.

The thing is, I am a big kid at heart, and I quite often get jealous of all the great stuff we have on offer for children. I mean, even my book of the year so far is a kid's book. Check out The Great Dog Bottom Swap by Peter Bently - no matter what age you are!

When Team Sponsorship recently played host to Scottish Power's Family Day- a day where the sponsor and guests can have some good food, good fun and see some great events- they hired some brilliant entertainment to keep the kids amused between eating and viewing, and facepainting and a genius balloon modeller were on hand. So you can imagine I was in my element. Face-paint stars? Check! Silly balloon hat? Check!

However, it seems that the children are not always on my side. For, when outside playing with some of the boys, they took it upon themselves to attack me with their balloon swords, telling me to 'Talk to the blade!' Which is all very well and good, but I was completely defenseless. A small girl took pity on me and lent me her balloon-butterfly, but it was hardly a match for those swords.

Children- 1, Me- 0.

The same day none other than The Gruffalo was visiting the Festival. After Julia Donaldson's event, The Gruffalo himself left the theatre, followed by a horde of small children, much like a hairy Pied Piper. Those children didn't get their sticky mitts on the Gruffalo though, he hot-footed it to the sanctuary of the Author's yurt, where Press & Marketing Assistant Julia and I found him. We politely asked Mr. Gruffalo if he would have his picture taken with us, and we got to give him the biggest hug!


Children- 0, Me- 1.

Yurting

Beyond the ‘No Public Access’ sign on site lies the Author’s Yurt, a mystical hideaway for all the authors, participants and guests who grace our lovely gardens. For those of us lucky enough to work here, the Yurt is a fascinating place to observe the great and the good of the literary world, as well as the newbies and debut authors who are appearing at the festival.

The Yurt is home to secrets, rarely belying the clandestine goings on that occur beneath the fairy lights. But I’m offering you a sneaky glimpse beyond the boardwalk, a fly on the wall opportunity to see what we see. Obviously, I have to watch what I say here – there are a crack team of Yurtlets scurrying around who keep a keen eye on any potential intruders, and they would be quick to throw me out if I divulged too much information from behind the scenes. So I will give you merely a few snippets of what we have witnessed in the Yurt over the past two weeks:

• A giant papier mache seagull’s head (named Gully by the creator, a name too friendly to convey how terrifying he actually looks).
• An inflatable snake and cat food.
• An inflatable palm tree, propped up against the reception desk.
• Fairy wings hanging on the coat rail.
• 600 Gruffalo badges, 600 Gruffalo balloons, and one real, live Gruffalo.
• Several cake thieves who shall remain unnamed – but they know who they are.
• The impressive quick-change routine at the back of the Yurt by our lovely British Sign Language interpreters.
• Increasingly early requests for us to bring out the wine (earliest request has been 11.30am. Breakfast wine and croissants – how very continental).
• A small child pushing a dog on wheels (a toy, so permitted on site).
• Will Self’s dog (a guest of the author, so technically permitted on site).
• Roy Hattersley’s dog (an author himself, so technically permitted on site).
• Numerous musical instruments, including Frank Skinner’s banjo, Mathias Malzieu’s ukulele and Richard Holloway’s marvellous singing voice.
• Icelandic snacks (Thank you Ran, Hermann and Ingunn – not so keen on the cough sweets, but we love the chocolate wafers).
• The most impressive stookie this festival has ever seen.

And that’s just the stuff that we can tell you.

There's a moose loose aboot this...festival garden.

Poor Catherine Rayner. If one of your most famous characters is an animal which rhymes, then people are going to spout poor poetry at you whenever occasion arises. Occasion did arise, rather marvellously, yesterday, when a giant MDF Ernest the Moose was lovingly illustrated with exceptional skill by Catherine, to the wonder of children and adults alike.

The Moose was yet another seemingly unsolvable puzzle cracked by our phenomenal tech team. Seriously, those boys and girls are good. Not only do they sort out all of the author's technical requests (including one memorable incident with two step ladders, a curtain rail and some sheeting), they also ensure that our toilets don't block, our heating doesn't falter, our tents don't blow away, and our radios, well, keep radio-ing. So mounting a moose to the railings surrounding Prince Albert, and then protecting it from the rain with a bolted-on parasol was nothing, nothing!

As if a Moose wasn't exciting enough, yesterday was also a day of birthdays, and therefore, naturally, of cake and fizz and rounds of applause. Lois and Jennifer looked radiant in their balloon hats (the height of sophistication, let me assure you) and everybody was particularly tickled by the presence of several old staff members, and one especially sweet Icelandic baby.

Today is a day of goodbyes: our luggage shed is overflowing. Our Yurt is full of authors promising to catch up with one another soon ('in London', usually, which fills my little Scottish heart with indignation). We are hailing fleets of taxis to transport out authors northward, southward, and often back over the sea. But it is not not not not not all over yet. For a start, the fat lady has not sung yet. And although there is no fat lady to hand, there will be karaoke at the staff party, and I imagine that will suffice. And we still have a couple of marvellous days ahead of us.

And oh, the memories: for example, Rachel Hazell's blog with its haunting picture of EIBF audience heads (see top of page): http://www.booksineverything.wordpress.com/. Not to mention the Guest Book, with its generous words of thanks. And definitely not to mention my slightly cavalier style of filing, which means that I will probably be disentangling threads of admin for the rest of my youth, and thus will be eternally encumbered by the finer points of travel and fees 2009. But until that glorious close, fill up your Sunday wisely: spare some time to come and view the Moose.

Raymond Blanc recommends...

Raymond Blanc graced the RBS Main Theatre last night with his presence and he was as lovely and entertaining and passionate about food as his television appearances would suggest. I'm a terrible cook who lives vicariously through cookery programmes (Blanc's 'The Restaurant', 'Masterchef' and its celebrity variant, anything with a good montage scene and fabulous tasting sessions...), so it was a bit of a thrill to hear him talk so engagingly on his life and journey as a chef, from nurse, cleaner, glass polisher and tray carrier, to Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons today. Getting him to tell me a quick and tasty recipe started out as a dare, but after he'd spoken I found myself propelled along to the end of the signing queue to do just that. Even though he'd been sitting there for an hour and a half, patiently answering questions and signing books, he indulged my bizarre request and said, 'we'll do a fish bouillabaisse.' My spelling bee skills failed me in the speed and nervousness of the moment. So he said, 'ok, we do a stew instead'...

Enough for 4 people:

200g cod steak with skin on

2 pinches of salt

4 twists of black pepper

40g unsalted butter (my one wise moment was to ask if the butter should be salted or not)

capers (he initially said these could be optional but changed his mind at the end and said, no, they're lovely, keep them in)

diced croutons

2 tablespoons of parsley (I seem to have written 'parsnip' but know that to be wrong - see point above about nervousness)

juice of 1 lemon

50ml of water

Season cod with salt and pepper

Panfry cod on both sides for 4 - 5 minutes till caramelised

Start to melt the butter on a medium heat (if it's too high it'll burn) and add the hot water to form an emulsion. The water should sizzle onto the butter (is this how recipes are normally written and am I making sense? RB certainly did, though my notes, less so)

Pour emulsion over the fish and add your capers, parsley and croutons and squeeze lemon over.

Tuck in.

If life doesn't give you enough time to make a four minute omelette, life isn't worth living.

In the limelight

Photographers huddle in the rain, in the sun, under brollies and awnings and every single day, every thirty minutes or so, an author creeps from the yurt - often bashfully - to have his or her photo taken. There's a nice little area set up just behind the press pod, a backdrop of carpet held up by what looks like scaffolding poles, expertly put together by our magnificent site team and made to resemble a mini outdoor studio. And it is here those bashful authors pose for the cameras. This isn't the most comfortable moment of their visit of course - writers by nature are quite unlike the luvvies of the show-biz world - courting the limelight and showing-off in front of the cameras isn't really their style. I should add that there are of course some notable exceptions to this but I shan't divulge details... So, it takes a skillful photographer to come up with beautiful and interesting shots of our authors especially as the subject is available for no more than a few minutes before being whisked off to do their event. Murdo MacLeod is one such photographer - have a look at his brilliant photo montage from this year's Book Festival. Make sure you view it with speakers as he's also included a soundtrack of event excerpts to accompany the images: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/audioslideshow/2009/aug/27/edinburghfestival

Questions and mobiles

Events usually end with a Q & A session: house lights go up, hands fly in the air (or worse, don't) and front of house people sprint about with roving microphones. Audiences have the chance to ask the burning questions they've been chewing on ever since they clapped eyes on an author's work, and sometimes these can be very surprising indeed. 'Would you two care to come for dinner and talk to my grandchildren about history? You'd be very welcome.' and: 'Your shoes are wonderful. I wonder where they're from.'

Other spontaneous material comes from the dreaded sound of a mobile phone going off; despite the chairperson threatening custard pies in the face in the event of such a crime, there's often a gentle bleat to be heard somewhere in a tent, followed by a reddening face and a deft scurry into pockets or handbags. On one occasion, an author responded to those shrill tones with, 'Oh just answer it. I'd love you to tell them you're busy, but I'm not sure how engaged you really are', while a children's author stilled a teenage fan's embarrassment by squealing, 'oh, it's your dad! Let me speak to him! Serve him right for phoning in the middle!' Brings to mind the lovely story about the Queen, doing walkabout and stopping with one lady, whose phone proceeded to go off. 'Answer it', urged the Queen. 'Might be someone important.'