Edinburgh Book Festival

[Donna Moore]

Fellow Crimespacer Jools and I went through to Edinburgh today to see Ray Banks and Campbell Armstrong at an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Incidentally, we also went through to eat copious amounts of food, but that is beside the point.

The event was excellent, although members of the audience did not quite grasp the "Does anyone have a question?" concept. Instead, they decided to grasp the "Talk random shite" concept. Ray and Campbell managed to field this random shite very well.

Before the event, we had said to Ray that he should say something controversial so that he would get newspaper coverage a la Ian Rankin. We did not think he would take us up on this but, when asked on the panel "What authors do you like?" he gave a few US names and then said that he didn't read many British authors. When he eventually remembered that his best friend Al Guthrie was sitting in the front row, he blushed and blustered and grudingly gave Al's name as a not bad writer for a Brit :o) Look for tomorrow's headline in The Scotsman ' Ray Banks in British authors are shite shocker', together with the headline in the Glasgow Herald 'Edinburgh Book Festival: Al Guthrie flounces out of event in tears' and, in The Sun 'Al Guthrie in transvestite wedding dress shocker: Ray Banks says "Never the bridesmaid, always the bride"'

The event was followed by a wee drink in the wee drink tent and then Jools and I made our way soberly back through to Glasgow for wine and cheesecake.

Some pictures of the evening's festivities:

Mr Ray Banks - tallest writer in Edinburgh

Campbell Armstrong and Ray Banks

Slice 1 of homemade cheesecake with raspberries on a bed of raspberry coulis for no reason other than Jools and Donna feel sick. Must have been all those raspberries. Nothing to do with the cheesecake, cream or chocolate.

[Donna Moore]

Jools - amazing eh? I've decided to give up fruit and just eat chocolate - it will be so much healthier.

Al - so he said :o)

[Allan Guthrie]

That bastard's no friend of mine.

[Julie Morrigan]

Oooh, that was damn fine cheesecake, Ms Moore. Best ever. My compliments to the chef. (And surprising how raspberries can make a gal feel sick... who'da thought!)