“Erm, There’s Just One More Thing, Ma’am …”

A quiet time for The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman (left) at the Hay Festival, folks – some fireside chats, a nice mug of Horlicks and tucked up in his Paddington Bear jim-jams by 9pm. Or not, as the case may be … Quoth Bateman:

“Hay was fantastic – I was hanging out with Columbo! Peter Falk was a guest speaker, promoting his book of memoirs, and we – my fellow crime authors were Alex Barclay and Allan Guthrie – got to hang out with him. He’s a lot older now obviously and, er, not completely aware of everything going on around him – I was introduced three times – but he just about managed to pull off his event. Alex and I, together with our PR people, managed to get very drunk and blag our way into his sold out event by creating a ‘posse’ for Peter and strolling past the door fascists by pretending to be his entourage. Shameful behaviour, of course, but great fun.”

Corks! A drunk Alex Barclay? How come the CAP crew never get invited to all the best blag-ins? Next week: The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman gets hammered with Kojak, Ironside and Streets of San Francisco-era Karl Malden!