Crimefest goes to the world capital of used books

The Hay-on-Wye festival doesn't start until Thursday, so we were able to beat the crowds today.

Your humble blogkeeper's haul in the secondhand-book capital of the world included The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg, Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney and The Caterpillar Cop by James McClure for the modest total of just £8.95.

Thanks for the last of those to Stanley Trollip, one half of the Michael Stanley writing team, whose praise for McClure's seminal Kramer and Zondi series reminded me that it was time to get off my keister and read him. Thanks, too, to my fellow browser Emily Bronstein, who came across the McClure on our Hay expedition and said, "Look what I found."

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Thank you, driver, for getting me here

Two of my pleasant Bristol and CrimeFest memories involve buses. First was the tour guide, trapped by the demands of his profession on the open top level of a double-decker during a rainstorm while the rest of us fled to shelter below. There, we smiled sympathetically at his fretting and muttering over the still-operating public-address system. (My favorite bit: "[Bump, bump] Oh, heavens! My coffee's gone!")

The same day, a large concrete plaza opposite my hotel hosted a fair devoted to old buses, of which there are apparently lots of devotees in Southwest England. This meeting featured buses, models of buses, books about buses and plenty of gorgeous old photographs of buses. Some of these exhibits were beautiful examples of mid-twentieth-century industrial design, and it's easy to understand the affection one might feel for them.

It's a novel experience to see images so suffused at once with nostalgia and advanced design. One half-expects to see a long, thin tobacco pipe emerge from these buses, followed by the long, thin form of Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot.

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The Hay-on-Wye literary mega-festival has just wrapped up. Once again, Rhian Davies of It's a Crime! (or a mystery...) was there, blogging for the BBC. Read her reports here. Go here for more BBC Hay fever.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009