Another trip up the A470 to Hay-on-Wye. Got stuck behind the obligatory caravan for a good ol’ while. Witnessed lots of people driving stupidly, overtaking on blind corners and the like. Nice one.
Anyway, the reason I was going to Hay this time was to see David Simon, best known as creator of The Wire, but he was there to mainly discus his books ‘Homicide’ and ‘The Corner’. I thought that was pretty obvious, what with Hay being a ‘literary festival’ and all that, but the idiots sat behind me sounded a bit annoyed about it. The books formed the basis for the TV series so it’s not as though there wasn’t really any common ground.
The whole talk was really interesting, Simon held court on topics familiar to fans of The Wire – the collapse of regional newspaper journalism, the failure of the ‘war on drugs’, political corruption etc. He made a pretty powerful point about how the war on drugs has essentially descended into a war on the poor. I would have happily sat and listened to him for hours. I love hearing people who know their stuff talking about things they’re passionate about with clarity and authority, especially when they’re as likeable and down to earth as David Simon appeared to be.
It gave me the appetite to finally start reading The Corner, which has been sat on my shelf/coffee table/next to my side of the bed in various states of not-being-read, and I really need to purchase the DVDs of Generation Kill and The Corner.
Really looking forward to seeing Treme now, which is the new show he’s working on at the moment. Apparently it’s to do with New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, so there’s plenty of scope for him to be David Simon-y about that!
Downsides: the idiots behind me kept having little chats amongst themselves, and seemed incapable of sitting calmly in a reasonable manner. They were like children. They kept shifting about and knocking the back of my chair. At one point the lady idiot went to get something from her bag and somehow managed to head-but my shoulder.
I was on the verge of Having Words but I didn’t really want to Make A Scene in front of David Simon. I’m sure he would have been on my side though.
Showing posts with label Hay Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hay Festival. Show all posts
Monday, 1 June 2009
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Heston Blumenthal @ The Hay Festival
Just returned from my first ever visit to the Hay literary festival, which is a bit shocking as it's only an hour and a half's drive away. Didn't really get lost on the way. Well, we sort of stopped following our directions and the 'Hay Festival This Way' signs vanished for a few miles but we had a rough idea where we were going so no, didn't get lost.
The site itself was a little smaller than I thought it'd be, and there's not much to do on site beyond going to the talks. It's only a short walk to the town itself though so you can have a little explore. I have no idea what quirk led to Hay-on-Wye having so many bookshops but there we go.
Anyway, we had tickets to see Heston Blumenthal being interviewed by the ginormous nose of Jay Rayner. It was interesting. Hadn't realised quite how self taught a chef he was. Prior to opening the Fat Duck he'd only had 3 weeks of experience in professional kitchens. I knew all the stuff about translating French cookbooks despite not being able to speak the language - just going word for word with a French-English dictionary, what a loon! That tenacity and obsessive streak showed in a lot of his little anecdotes actually.
I really want to go to the Fat Duck now. Especially having heard him discussing the new flammable sorbet dish he's working on (and working with a conjurer so that the waiting staff can simultaneously ignite everyone's sorbet at the click of a finger). Taster menu is about a hundred quid per-head. Cheapest GLASS of wine is around £90. Best start saving now...
There was a Q&A session at the end, during which he dropped a pretty big hint that he was working on a range of appliances for domestic kitchens - mainly the water bath technique of vacuum sealing meat and slow-poaching them in low temperature water baths so that the meat is perfectly cooked.
Other things we did were... Eat a bacon sandwich, drink a cup of tea, buy some mugs, wander into town, have some curried potato thing, have a sheep's milk ice-cream, lounge around in the sun, read Jamie Oliver's ridiculous new lifestyle magazine (good recipes in it actually), drink a pint of official Hay festival ale. And then came home.
Going again next week to see David Simon, creator of The Wire. I hope he does an impression of McNulty.
The site itself was a little smaller than I thought it'd be, and there's not much to do on site beyond going to the talks. It's only a short walk to the town itself though so you can have a little explore. I have no idea what quirk led to Hay-on-Wye having so many bookshops but there we go.
Anyway, we had tickets to see Heston Blumenthal being interviewed by the ginormous nose of Jay Rayner. It was interesting. Hadn't realised quite how self taught a chef he was. Prior to opening the Fat Duck he'd only had 3 weeks of experience in professional kitchens. I knew all the stuff about translating French cookbooks despite not being able to speak the language - just going word for word with a French-English dictionary, what a loon! That tenacity and obsessive streak showed in a lot of his little anecdotes actually.
I really want to go to the Fat Duck now. Especially having heard him discussing the new flammable sorbet dish he's working on (and working with a conjurer so that the waiting staff can simultaneously ignite everyone's sorbet at the click of a finger). Taster menu is about a hundred quid per-head. Cheapest GLASS of wine is around £90. Best start saving now...
There was a Q&A session at the end, during which he dropped a pretty big hint that he was working on a range of appliances for domestic kitchens - mainly the water bath technique of vacuum sealing meat and slow-poaching them in low temperature water baths so that the meat is perfectly cooked.
Other things we did were... Eat a bacon sandwich, drink a cup of tea, buy some mugs, wander into town, have some curried potato thing, have a sheep's milk ice-cream, lounge around in the sun, read Jamie Oliver's ridiculous new lifestyle magazine (good recipes in it actually), drink a pint of official Hay festival ale. And then came home.
Going again next week to see David Simon, creator of The Wire. I hope he does an impression of McNulty.
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