Sydney Writers Festival - A.A.Gill is here

AA Gill started by pondering why we would want to be talking about books at 10.00 in the morning. Well the Sydney Theatre Company's main venue was packed to hear what he had to say about books and food and travel and sex under the Chairmanship of Caroline Baum.

A word first about Caroline Baum - She is a well known journalist and broadcaster.
She has worked as founding editor of Good Reading magazine, features editor for Vogue, presenter of ABC TV’s popular bookshow, Between the Lines, and Foxtel’s Talking Books, and as an executive producer with ABC Radio National. She is a regular contributor to national newspapers and magazines and is in demand as a presenter at arts and literary festivals around the country and overseas.

Impressive credentials but she had her work cut out with AA Gill who showed, as he had done at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival last week, that he would decide which questions to answer or dodge, and that he is a master of changing the subject or avoiding direct answers.

As in Auckland he had the very large audience in absolute stitches and the thing that astonished me was that apart from one short story he never repeated anything I had heard at the show I attended in Auckland.
I guess this was because the Chair asked different questions and led him in different directions.
Early on he suggested to the Australians that they "should get their own fucking flag" which drew forth a very warm response.

Other subjects canvassed included use of the metaphor, "interviewing" places, pornographic films,his nervousness as a traveller, the Royal Family & the idea of moving them all to Australia, journalism and deadlines, best writing being motivated by anger or love, his partner Nicola (she was in the audience), Elizabeth David, his "filthy" novel, the default setting of Britain, Sydney's largest brothel and its planned extension, laughing at his own jokes, eco-tourism (he doesn't like i)t, organic food, travel, poached partridge, cruising the Danube (he likes it), the Roman Empire and a lot more too.Amongst all the humour there were again moments of seriousness and great candour.

I found that I was still smiling an hour later. He is such a clever and funny man. That's enough though, I've heard and seen him twice, I don't need to see or hear him again although I will certainly continue to read him, especially his Gourmet Traveller columns.