Frizz

I have managed to get to Jewish Book Week a couple of times. Sunday there was Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens; best friends thinking they were down the pub - it was funny and witty and intelligent. Even made me think I should read one of Amis’s books, which never seem to get beyond my ‘to read list’.

There was George Alagiah talking about English identity; he’d brought along some footage of himself as a kid with such a strong Sri Lankan accent and followed it with a clip of him reading the news, not a trace of that childhood accent left. Even a friend at university hadn’t realized he was Asian until Alagiah showed him some family photos.

I’m disappointed I didn’t get to Julia Kristeva in conversation with Eva Hoffman, maybe I’ll see if they filmed it.

And this evening it was Israeli culture - Avi Pitchon talked about being a European Jew who as an Israeli has been part of a Utopian experiment. Etgar Keret said as the child of Holocaust Survivors he has a running joke with his wife that he always managers to see swastikas wherever he travels. Then there was some Jewish Humour, which I mostly missed due to a rumbling stomach, but I came back in time to listen to Idit Eshel’s beautiful voice and laugh at Sophie Hannah’s very funny poems.

These days I actually know some people who go to Jewish Book Week which is still weird, but in between the people I do know, there are people who I can’t decide if I know, either they just remind me of people I know or they are people I don’t know in person at all I just believe I know them, because I’ve seen them on TV or read their blog or something and it’s all very confusing. I only narrowly avoided the embarrassment of saying hello to someone I definitely don’t know in ‘real’ life.