Latitude 2010

Things we liked about Latitude 2010 the 5th Edition:

Books (ok, ok, so we always like these).
Our tent (provided by the good people at Angel Gardens).
Guy Bass (he's a funny man).
Caroline Juskus (she had the most fabaroony outfit EVER).
A little boy called Albie (he helped us build our Fortress of Ultimate Protection - until he had to go and get ice cream).
All the lovely people who met Guy Bass last year and were back for more (you're all his favourites).
Cider (with extra grass).
Tim Clare (he's a funny man too).
Vampire Weekend (Dancey, dancey.)

Things we didn't like:

Earwigs (most specifically their presence in our sleeping tent).
The loos (flushable does not = non-smelly).
The showers (for taunting us with their existence when there was a constant queue).

All-in-all the good FAR outweighed the bad. This year, my Latitude crew was comprised of: Anna Silva (editor extraordinaire), Guy Bass (zombalien unmasker), Caroline Juskus (undercover puzzler). We also had some excellent performances in supporting roles from Ruth (Guy's wife) and Dan (Caroline's husband). We had a fabulous time, and I'm fairly certain all the kids (and parents) that visited our lovely tent did too. Huge thanks to the smashing chaps at Angel Gardens - http://www.facebook.com/angelgardens for providing us with said lovely tent. They are marvellous folk who travel about the festival circuit providing creative chill out areas for the young and young-at-heart. Also to the charming tribe at Latitude for making us so welcome and giving us our own pitch this year. It truly is a fabulous festival to be a part of.

As you can see, I was VERY happy with our tent!

So what did we get up to? Well, throughout the weekend we had creative activities going on in the tent. Lots of colouring and activity sheets, design your own book cover sheets, big canvasses to draw on, and a book which lots of budding young writers contributed stories to. The highlights, of course, were the author appearances.

Caroline Juskus did three sessions, explaining how to read hieroglyphics and teaching young fans how to write their own coded messages, as featured in Minnie Piper and the Chocolate Cipher. We also made scarab beetle amulets and chomped on chocolate. Caroline has lots of puzzles on her website - http://fabaroony.co.uk/home.html

Caroline's Chocolate Cipher outfit was totally fabaroony!

Guy Bass appeared on the Sunday and drew an even larger crowd than last year. (Fears regarding the threat of Zombalien invasion at Latitude were clearly even more widespread than in 2009.) But of course Mr Bass is the man for the job, where fear is concerned, and he set about giving his Zombalien Survival Guide with renewed vigour. Check out our Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stripes-Publishing - for videos of Guy in action, not to mention loads more pictures of the whole weekend.

Guy demonstrates the Zomb-o-Tron 6000 with the help of a strong-necked volunteer.

Now that I've showered about ten times and slept for about fifty hours, I can say in all honesty that I can't wait to go back next year! Throughout the weekend I was plotting tent improvements for 2011 and I hope to open it up to more of our talented authors and illustrators. I just hope we get invited back . . .

For now, I will leave you with an image of what Anna and I spent around three hours constructing on Sunday afternoon. (We nearly didn't pull it off when our foreman left us to concentrate on the more pressing task of eating ice cream, but Guy was mighty impressed with the fruits of our labours. He couldn't believe his creation had actually been realised in real life!)

Guy and the Fortress of Ultimate Protection!

And . . . breathe . . .

Well, my poor little blog has been woefully neglected over the past month or so, but I literally haven't had time to think, never mind organise my thoughts into some kind of vaguely comprehensible narrative. It's ironic that when I have the most interesting news to report, I don't actually have any time to blog! So, where did it all go crazy?

It all kicked off at the beginning of October with the arrival of Children's Book Week. We had two authors out and about during this week, Guy Bass and Harriet Goodwin, but more about them in a little while. I was actually in the office that week ensuring all the preparations were in place for the Dirty Bertie Tour. There are so many things to think about before embarking on a tour and as much as you try to ensure that all will run smoothly, you have to rely on a lot of other people (booksellers, teachers, librarians, parents) to get things right too. It can be hard to remember that they've got plenty of stuff going on too and whilst your priority is the tour, it's not necessarily theirs. So I basically spent that week doing as much as I could to be prepared for any eventuality but, at the end of it, all I could do was get on the train to Liverpool and cross my fingers!

My big coup prior to the commencement of the tour itself was getting David Roberts a slot on the Billy Butler show on BBC Radio Merseyside. David (who is originally from Liverpool) has been listening to Billy's show since he was a nipper. He seems to remember Billy doing a birthday shout out for him when he was about eight years old. When he was living in Hong Kong in his early twenties, David's parents used to send him tapes of Billy's shows and just hearing the familiar Liverpudlian accent would transport him home. I am reliably informed (by David's dad) that Billy's accent is a proper old school Liverpudlian accent, "more Beatles, than Brookie." We had a fantastic time in Liverpool as we got to spend some time with David's extended family, who are incredibly warm and welcoming. In fact I'm always impressed by the warmth of the people of Liverpool. Even in shops and hospitality you get a totally different experience to the coldness of much you encounter in London.

Reading from the Dirty Bertie picture book at Borders in Speke

From Liverpool, we headed to Leeds. I can't speak highly enough of the team at Leeds Libraries. It was a brilliantly well organised event and the kids were lovely. One school was so patient and well behaved (David signed autographs for every child, and there were about 200 of them!) that I was compelled to praise them to their teachers. It wasn't just that they were well behaved, they were just really nice kids. I was chatting to them while they were queueing and you could have a perfectly mature conversation with them. Lovely.

We then headed on to Preston, where once again we were terribly well looked after by the Children's Libraries team. David gave a presentation at the inaugural meeting of the Lancashire Children's Book Group. There was such a lot of passion and enthusiasm for kids' books there, I really hope the group will go from strength-to-strength.

Wednesday night we got to sleep in our own beds - bliss! But on Thursday morning it was back on the road. We had to nip over to Tiger Towers in Fulham to pick up the Bertiemobile and then whiz down the M4 to Bristol where we picked up a pair of lovely Bookseller's from Waterstone's in Cribbs Causeway and headed off to a local primary school where we participated in a fire drill, before getting down to the business of drawing Bertie. Then it was back on the M4 to SWANSEA!!!

My Bertie

I don't think David Roberts has too much to worry about . . .

Oh, it was good to be back on the right side of the Severn (I'm from Swansea, you see) and we had a lovely tea with my mum, brother and sister, who were all charmed by the lovely David Roberts. The following day we spent the morning at Swansea Central Library and the afternoon at my old school, Terrace Road Primary, awwww!

Swansea Central Library

Last, but my no means least, we headed up to Cheltenham for their tremendous literary festival. It was a full day and I had four consecutive events to juggle with David appearing twice, the lovely Caroline Juskus leading a puzzling workshop for Minnie Piper fans and Steve Smallman warming all our hearts with his lovely bear stories.

Caroline Juskus and a Pair of Puzzlers

By the end of the day I was starting to feel a bit peaky. Disaster! I still had to drive back to London and in a couple of days set out on the road once more with the irrepressible Guy Bass.

To be continued . . .

ZOMBALIENS INVADE LATITUDE AA-AAA-AAH!!!

When we heard that Alien Space Zombies from Beyond Terror had plans to infiltrate this year's Latitude festival, we couldn't merely stand idly by and allow hundreds of young (and also slightly old[er]) Latituders be turned into mindless zombie slaves! So calm(ish)-in-a-crisis author Guy Bass and I, packed up our Zomb-O-Tron 6000 and took to the road with the patented ZOMBALIEN SURVIVAL GUIDE (patent pending).

Unfortunately the Zombaliens were on to us and determined to thwart our efforts at every turn. Literally hundreds of them got in their cars and jammed up the roads, in a bid to clog up the A12 and prevent us from even entering Suffolk. Then, somehow they must have got hold of our tents and made modifications in order to make them stupendously difficult to assemble. Worst of all, they seemingly ensured that flushable toilets were totally uninvented in this particular area of Southwold for the duration of the festival. 

However, you don't mess with Stripes Publishing when there are books to be promoted, and you certainly don't mess with Guy Bass when there are lives to be saved . . . 

This is what we were up against . . . 

. . . isn't it hideous? This is also a little bit like what I looked like by the end of the festival, because there were NO SHOWERS!! AA-AAA-AAH!

Fortunately we soon managed to round up a veritable army of Latituders prepared to learn all they needed to know to combat zombification . . . 

. . . look at all the grown ups! I think they were more worried than the kids!

Guy got straight to work demonstrating the Zomb-O-Tron 6000 with the help of a strong-necked volunteer . . .

We seemed to be pretty lucky with the weather, until Sunday afternoon when the heavens opened. But no Zombalien rains on Guy Bass' parade and on he soldiered through the deluge . . .

AND to our joy and amazement, the audience stuck around too . . .  

. . . (having whipped on their macs!) They're a hardy bunch, those Latituders. I'd like to see the Zombaliens try to enslave them!

All-in-all a cracking time was had by all and I feel certain that many lives were saved. Actor Keith Allen stopped by to watch one of the sessions - we have reason to suspect he is in fact a Zombalien himself. (Surely Vindaloo is some kind of mind-control chant??!)

My other festival highlights included:

#1 Grace Jones leaving her trousers at home, but like a consummate professional, proving that the show must go on!!

#2 Dancing in the woods late into the night. Being at one with nature is many times more enjoyable than being in a horrible nightclub.

#3 Spotting the little girl we dressed up as Herbert the monster, half way through reading her copy of Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things.

My greatest festival fears included:

#1 The loos.

#2 My tent falling down on top of me in the night.

#3 Waking up to find my tent surrounded Zombaliens . . . AA-AAA-AAH!!!

Our thanks go to Latitude for having us, and Suffolk Libraries for their support. They clearly are truly concerned about safety and security!

If you are intrigued by any part of this, you NEED to read these books (it might very well save your life!!):

Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things

by Guy Bass

illustrated by Pete Williamson

9781847150684

Dinkin Dings and the Revenge of the Fishmen

by Guy Bass

illustrated by Pete Williamson

9781847150868

You might also like to visit the man himself at http://guybass.com and/or Dinkin's Diary of Dread and Desperation at http://www.bebo.com/dinkindings

GOOD LUCK!!