I am very pleased to be going to the Hay Festival again this year. As an avid reader & book collector it is one of the highlights of my year and allows me to catch up with many old friends, & hopefully make some new ones. This year I hope to catch up with Sebastian Faulks who in my opinion is one of the great fiction writers of the modern era. Seb has written many great books including the last James Bond novel ‘Devil May Care’ where he was writing as Ian Fleming. I first met Sebastian Faulks at the launch of Devil May Care in London when he was kind enough to give me a signed copy of a pre launch edition which essentially is a finalised draft in the form of a finished book and very rare. Fleming himself worked for MI6 in the early days of the service as did another famous author,still living thankfully, David Cornwell who in fact worked for both MI5 & MI6 and who writes under the pseudonym John le Carre` John/David will be at Hay so I hope to grab a few words with him if he has time because I am intreged by the plotting in his brilliant new book which I am currently reading called ‘A Delicate Truth’ and am hoping that he might do me the honour of taking part in my one of my book reviews later this year at The British Library where I will be discussing espionage and the great authors who have written about it.

Hay on Wye is a lovely little town on the Welsh borders near Hereford and well worth a visit at any time of year. I especially like it coming up to Christmas when you will see carol singers on the streets and hot toddy in the pubs. Ever since Norman & Peter Florence created the festival in 1988 its status as a place for book lovers, writers, and celebrities, has become established and it is now part of the international literary circuit, being described by former US President Bill Clinton on his visit in 2001 as “The Woodstock of The Mind”. Brilliantly put Bill.