May 2006

I am writing this from New York City, sitting on the 14th floor of the Roger Smith Hotel, which is an old-fashioned mid-town hotel, where the PEN festival has put its guests.

I was afraid that this would be another week in the bathroom for me, or back in the closet, especially when I discovered that my room fronts Lexington. I was dismayed to find that the closet was too small, even for me, and that I would have to share it with a fridge. As a precaution, I made up a bed in the bathroom, and have gone on doing just that every night, even though I am sleeping quiet well. I bung in my ear-plugs shove a pillow over my head, down a Jack Daniels, and that's the end of it.

So far so good.

And I have walked and walked and walked.

I always lose weight in this city, I think because of the walking and because I eat so little. The portions are huge, and I hate the thought of all that food being thrown away, so I tend to eat one meal a day. As I get older I get more concerned about excess - which is not the same as indulgence or luxury, I can do both of those. But excess? Why? I don't want to carry too many pounds, too much luggage, have too much stuff, or even, know too many people.

So here I am, a little but hungry, travelling hand-baggage only, and hanging my Calvin Klein's up to dry every night.

There is a Creole housekeeper on my floor and she humiliates me by insisting that we speak French. Still, that also stops me using too many words.

Today she told me, en francais, that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, but I knew that anyway. Then she invited me to church, so je lui ai donne $20 for the collection instead. I hope she spends it on a beer.

The festival has been great - truly global, because only culture and art should be both locally produced and globally consumed. The USA has become more insular under the Bush administration - not something many US citizens desire or enjoy, and that may be why every event at the festival was sold out before it opened. There is a real sense of wanting contact and difference.

Salman Rushdie, in his opening address said that while the government was doing its best to close doors, writers would go on opening them.

The Turkish novelist Ohan Pamuk called the war on Iraq America's shame, but reminded us that her writers and artists were America's pride.

This is not a time for writers to hold back or sit on the fence - it is a time to speak out, and to try and make a difference. What we can do is to offer connection, perspective, criticism where it is needed, encouragement where it is needed. Above all, we can be independent.

America is a great country in the hands of a dangerous and reactionary President. I was glad to find that the unease and the opposition really is growing - it is much more obvious than when I was here a year ago.

Meanwhile, I read in the New York Times that Britain is having its own problems over revelations of John Prescott's affair with his secretary.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO SLEEP WITH AN OBESE OAF LIKE JOHN PRESCOTT?

Don't feel you have to write in an answer that - but listen, he's not Bill Clinton.
Is there nothing women will not do for money and power, except get it for themselves?
I really despair sometimes, I really do.

Maybe times are changing though. My agent who is 46 and gorgeous, tells me she has had her first ever offer from a toyboy gigolo. He made it quite clear that he wanted money and a Green Card, and he would do whatever she wanted him to do. His English was not very good though, and one participle led to another - cook-eng, shop-eng, travel-eng, answer-eng the phone, sex-eng...

She turned him down.
Is it an equivalent though - toyboy/older women, mistress/older man? Somewhere I think it isn't but I haven't worked out enough whys yet.

Went to see Alan Bennett's The History Boys, mainly out of curiosity to see how something so English would translate to New York. I saw it in the UK, and was very impressed. Seeing it again, I had the same thought; the first half is magnificent, faultless, and again I cried at the end of Act One. Act Two is well done, but loses power, perhaps because we can only have more of the same. Nevertheless, a wonderful play, and pretty much sold out, and the American audiences love it, though I did hear one woman complaining that 'these accent plays are a little tricky'. I suppose she meant that hearing English instead of American is a problem for her.

It was nearly as good as when Fiona Shaw was doing Medea on Broadway, and at one point she cries to the heavens, 'oh Zeus... blah blah', and a woman in front of me whispered to her friend, 'Who's Zeus?'

Well, it's May-time, month of the running of the bulls. I know so many Taureans that I have to save up ahead to buy them presents. But I love my bulls, great and small, and one day when I can afford it, I will take them all out to dinner at once. Only trouble is they won't speak a word till they've finished eating.

If you are going to the Hay Festival at Hay on Wye, check out the programme - I will be on over the last Sunday and Monday in May, but it's a good idea to confirm the times ahead.

And remember that Glyndebourne Festival Opera opens this month and runs through till August with wonderful things to see, including Deborah Warner's FIDELIO.

Don't be put off by the prices - there are always standing seats on the day - sometimes even sitting seats - and it is a great day out. Take your own picnic, stay the night in Brighton or somewhere, and make a holiday of it.

May time - I love it. Blossom, colour, warmth, real spring. Find yourself a bull and have a ball.

PS - The Orange Prize list is really good this year - for once. No worthy dreary badly-written books about supposed stuff for women. This time, we have actually got literature instead of social commentary. Check it out.