Who wouldn't want to come back?

Former child-soldier, writer and rapper Emmanuel Jal told me he'll be back. Bath has clearly made a good impression. Between sell-out readings at the Fest he was at City of Bath College doing some fine work with music students there and he enjoyed himself so much he vowed he'd return.

Meanwhile, Sun Shuyun gave a Chinese view of Tibet free of jingoism, free of the Party line, free of hippy cliches about Shangri-La. Instead we got stories of real actual people in a real actual country - hotelier, shaman, child labourers, monks and so on. Stark economic realities in an occupied country. The quotidian problems faced by a singularly religious, rural population. And I learnt a new word - fraternal polyandry (for mainly economic reasons, very popular in this particular region of Tibet). Forgive me - for my ignorance and my innocence - but it made me blush like a coy little beetroot in a silk stockings factory. A vegetable's silk stocking factory. It could happen.

Um.

Night night.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader