Books and Bees

On Sunday 10 October I was at the Cheltenham Literary Festival for a discussion of utopias based on my Faber Book of Utopias, with Julian Baggini, Professor Karen O'Brien of Warwick University, and an enthusiastic audience, full of ideas about the ideal worlds they'd like - or not like - to live in. The Friday before - 9 October - I chaired an event at the Savile Club in memory of Ian Hamilton, founder editor of the Review and The New Review, who was once a student of mine, where Dan Jacobson, Alan Jenkins and Hugo Williams read some of Ian's poems and reminisced about him.
The bees have been enjoying the late sunshine, packing loads of bright yellow pollen from ivy flowers into their hives to feed newly hatched young. A lovely sight.