What does, or should, constitute the canon (or cannon, as the programme had it) of literary classics? Dame Iris Murdoch and John Bayley looked like they'd wandered in from a daycare centre for the distressed, and promptly nominated, respectively, supernaturalist John Cowper Powys and comic novelist Barbara Pym. Dawkins plea for science to be promoted as literature was scarcely necessary.n A TOUCH of Dawkins magic might have lifted the Everyman Debate into something extraordinary too. But this isn't a bad serial killer novel, it's a very good one") made even Sher, no stranger to self- esteem, look faintly alarmed. "Isn't he short?" we thought, gazing at Sher at the post-gig party in a tiny tent.
After seeing him in last year's thumping great Tamburlaine the Zulu at the Barbican, it was rather a disappointment to watch him skipping daintily under the guy-ropes, glass in hand.RICHARD Dawkins and Matt Ridley get the brain-baffling boffin award for their brilliant discussion about DNA and Darwinism.The river of DNA that flows through time and through us; will a propensity to be incompetent in the use of contraceptives be the dominant characteristic of the future? Could you breed a parrot with the innate ability to say "Good Morning"? Dazzling concepts whizzed in the air above the conjuring pundits. Dunant herself has metamorphosed from a bespectacled blue-stocking into a wild gypsy-woman, with a riot of curls cascading down her back and a skittish demeanour Her shower of superlatives ("This dangerous book .. What I think is so very brave about this book ... Soon we were all pondering with authority such topics as the suspect box of chocolates, weedkiller, Mrs Armstrong's homeopathic medicines and the social make-up of 1920s Hay.n "DOESN'T Antony Sher look old?" murmured everyone when a silvery-haired Old Testament prophet took the stage with Sarah Dunant - before we realised the legendary chameleon had merely undergone a bleach job for Titus Andronicus. Did he or did he not dispatch his wife with arsenic? Their polite acrimony ("With respect, Martin ..." "But that's just what he didn't do, Robin") was given added piquancy by the presence of Margaret Armstrong, the poisoner's daughter, who spoke movingly about her lifelong sense of stigma. Margaret Drabble proved surprisingly witty on the topic of Angus Wilson, bitterly railing at the numbers of people who've contacted her since her biography came out to say "If only you'd asked me, I could tell you a tale about Angus ..." The friend who wrote: "Angus's affair with Truman only lasted a few months, so won't be of interest for your book" only just saved his life by adding: "Joking!"MOST of Hay packed into the Midland Marquee to hear rival crime writers Robin Odell and Martin Beales slug it out over the sensational case of the Hay Poisoner, Major Herbert Armstrong.
And thirdly, listening to five poets starting to write a poem, in the middle of writing a poem and nattering about the poem they've just written strikes me as on a par with watching your tights dry So instead ... Who the hell is Christopher Mills or Deryn Rees Jones? I'm sorry, if it isn't the Poet Laureate or that nice cuddly James Fenton I don't wanna know. Last week I settled myself in a bijou house-ette in the centre of Hay (well, Hay is all centre, really) and started taking in some of the events Didn't fancy the Poetry Squantum Firstly, it's a completely stupid name Secondly, no sexy poets. After all, "We're going dahn Le Caprice" doesn't exactly have punk credibility. And there's still a chance that designer punk Jimmy will pop up some day in a sex film by Zalman King.n BUT enough of this, and down to matters literary, and the Hay-on-Wye festival. I was glad to hear, when Jimmy finally packed up and headed for the door, that he had to get back to Hersham before tea time, but still, punk's favourite Cockney numbskull has evidently gone up in the world.
Still gigging, still belting it aht, although "Sham's so cold now, the audience has broken up into hippies, mods and skinheads, I don't like to look at 'em". We rapidly entered interview hell, with the tape spooling round, time passing and the unstoppable Jimmy mouthing off about films, music, fatherhood, and any stray thought that floated through his cranium. But who is this Pursey fellow, you ask? Why, the grizzled old singer of punk band Sham 69 (sample lyric: "'Ersham boys, 'Ersham boys, laced- up boots and corduroys, they call us the Cockney caaaaah-boys!"). She gave a shy smile, but didn't bother to open her mouth because Jimmy answered for her. What's Zalman like as a director, I asked her, making the best of the bizarre interruption. Mrs Pursey, who looked about 17, had just finished working with Zalman King on a film version of Delta of Venus. "She done me! I get to 39 wiv'aht having one and she done me!" he bellowed, pushing in young Jack William Pursey in a baby buggy, followed by wife and nanny. Hey Jimmy!" he yelled, and Jimmy couldn't have bounced in more quickly if he'd been listening at the door.