A very public meltdown

Lisa - my supernaturally capable publicist at Serpent's Tail - has somehow managed to sneak my obscure name onto the programmes of a few top festivals this year. We're talking big time here (baby), like Bath in a couple of weeks, and at the start of June the big mamma of them all - Hay. I'm not quite sure how she managed it, and I feel like one of those illegal immigrants emerging from the Channel Tunnel, blanket over head, not quite believing they've got in. Actually I can just about work out how she did it:

Lisa the Publicist: ...Yeah, his name is Charlie Williams. He's had one book out, and another coming in--
Timothy the Festival Oraganiser: Who?
L: Charlie Wil--
T: The only Charlie Williams I know is that dead stand-up comedian. You know, the northern one who said "Ayup, flower" a lot.
L: Er... Ayup what?
T: That's right. Hey! You know what would be really cool? If we managed to get a real dead author here, speaking and everything. He could do a "live-but-dead" reading, and chair a discussion about the struggle faced by dead people in today's society - a society dominated by the cult of life.
L: Yes, that's... er...
T: Because he did write a book, you know, this dead Charlie Williams. What was it called again...?
L: Deadfolk?
T: What? No, that's a rubbish ti-- Hey! I remember now. It was called EE, I'VE HAD SOME LAUGHS. You can still get it, you know. On Amazon. Aaahh, imagine if we had the real Charlie Williams here, talking about the book, cracking jokes, and just saying "Ayup, flower" a lot. Imagine the press we'd get, having a dead guy. Or even just a ghost.

[Lisa does some googling for Charlie Williams of "Ayup, Flower" fame, picks up the phone...]

C: Hello, this is Charlie Williams, author of Deadf--
L: Hey, Charlie. It's Lisa from Serpent's Tail.
C: Hi Lisa.
L: So I was wondering, can you do a northern accent?
C: What, you mean like this: "Ayup, flower"?
L: That's great. But can you make it a bit spookier? Like, say, a northern ghost?
C: Erm... Well, how about: "Aaayyyuuuup, floooowwweeeeer"
L: Wow, that's amazing! And have you got any boot polish?

[30 seconds later...]

T: Hello, this is Timothy Sheight-Hawke, events organiser of--
L: Hi Timothy. About that idea you had...

Anyway, the Bath one is first up (March 5), and this is the one I'm looking forward to most. I'll be on some sort of panel at the Rondo Theatre, sitting alongside three great authors - James Hawes, Desmond Barry, and Niall Griffiths. I've read all of them and the thing they all share (other than being from or writing about Wales or the West Country) is VOICE. Hawes had it from the start in A WHITE MERC WITH FINS, Griffiths in the recently-read STUMP, and Barry in the bloody superb A BLOODY GOOD FRIDAY. Fuck knows how I'll bear up next to these giants of the narrative voice, but I'll enjoy being there just as a spectator, as if there were no seats left in the audience so I have to sit onstage, with my popcorn and regular Pepsi.

Hey - if you're in the West Country on that day, maybe you'd like to watch me go into a very public meltdown? Should be good.

Anyway, according to the preview these are our subjects for discussion: "drink, drugs, sex, riots, chainsaws, David Hasselhof, and the state of the nation". That just about covers it all, right?