Diary #413

As those of you who saw Friday’s picture column were probably already aware, Brooke Magnanti and I spent last week in Scotland, largely doing the sorts of things I like to do on such trips: talking to people and sampling the local foods and ways (including haggis, which I absolutely loved).  Then starting Friday afternoon, in 24 hours we used basically every common sort of vehicle (boat, self-driven car, airplane, bus, train and chauffeured car) to get from where we were in the West Highlands down to Hay-on-Wye in Wales for a large literary & philosophical festival at which Brooke spoke & participated in panel discussions.  It was quite rainy on Sunday, as this picture demonstrates, and I’m currently typing this using the festival’s wi-fi while waiting to see a panel on sex robots which I will try VERY hard not to disrupt.  By the time you read this, we’ll be on a train back to London; Brooke’s flying back to the US tomorrow, and I’ll be returning on Thursday.  I’ve very much enjoyed this trip, and I’ll have more thoughts about it on Thursday and more pictures on Friday; for now, it will suffice to say that I’ll be back to the UK in the not-terribly-distant future, with any luck sooner rather than later.