197 top tweets from #hay

The 2010 Hay Festival of Literature and Arts generated somewhere between 4,000 – 5,000 tweets. The ephemeral nature of Twitter means the stream of commentary is no longer available inside the tool used to write them. However, they’re all here, in an archive of #hay tweets. Rather irritatingly, this includes all the #Hayward, #hayama, #HayleyWilliams and other tweets cluttering up the archive. A purist can view these 1,879 #hayfestival tweets. One suggestion for next year: use the hashtag #hay11 to create a clean record.

As someone living in California, whose never been to the festival, Twitter was a wonderful way for me to eavesdrop on the event.

I’ve selected 197 of my favorite tweets. The list is, like a blog, in reverse chronological order, with the tweets from the start of the event at the end, the most recent at the top.

I didn’t include tweets which pointed to the blogs or podcasts, or contained commentary which could be found there.

These were the tweets which gave me a sense of the event, and perhaps even a feeling that I was there in spirit.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their impressions, wisdom, wit and entertaining insights.

(Lurking as @cheshirelad)

  1. @divagari Thanks for taking time to report on Hay Festival, Tweeters. Good coverage from those in attendance.
  2. @Vinny64 Taking all the books I purchased at #hay with me to Dubai. I might get stopped at customs for smuggling in expression, thought and free-will
  3. @marcmack: It’s official. http://bit.ly/9eohXt Thanks @stephenfry & @hayfestival. Still probably need to keep physics job, though.
  4. @EmiratesLitFest A Steward’s View of #Hay: Last Day: http://bit.ly/boh9ed
  5. @unfortunatalie Reliving #Hay via medium of twitter – deffo now to be an annual event on my calendar, & will go for many more days next year!
  6. @katheastman Back from #Hay and now halfway down a glass of wine. Bit weepy and sad it’s all over for another year.
  7. @nosycrow #Hay to London journeys: @stephenfry chopper, champagne, memories of adulation; @nosycrow: post-1/2-term M4, pringles, kids fighting in back
  8. @chiggi: #Hay is like a drug. My supply has been cut off, and it’s not funny. What a festival it was this year… new friends + mind expansion
  9. @Philippa_Perry No more #Hay tweets for 12 months. Quite a relief, they are only fun when you are there after that it’s like listening to a party next door
  10. @soozworld From Jonathan Ive, to Oscar Wilde and Twitter – Stephen Fry kept me spellbound for two hours! Thank you Peter also!
  11. @Making_Hay: Review: John Julius Norwich: The historian John Julius Norwich took us on a whistle-stop tour #Hay. http://bit.ly/acu2kP
  12. @HelensWitter Leaving #Hay full of inspiration, organic ice cream and cider. Crossing fingers for @SkyArts at Baftas tonight
  13. @trishdever Given the demographic at the #hayfestival am astounded & annoyed at complete lack of humble veggie burger.
  14. @bonobobookcafe Fav. Hay moment: Yann Martel describing a letter he got from Barack Obama, personally thanking him for Life of Pi.
  15. @Marjakingma Sun, great talks, books, autographs, friendly people everywhere, honeydew beer!! Must be #hay
  16. @Vinny64 Welsh artist supremo Linda Norris sketches “The Early Edition” http://yfrog.com/evlxzj
  17. @melissadenes Just seen the v beautiful, v smart, v self-deprecating Zadie Smith: “I have a small talent”. She needs to borrow a bit of Amis ego
  18. @BOOKSA, thank you for your excellent reporting from the Hay Festival. Next best thing to being there. –A reader in Montana, USA.
  19. @roadgoer John Simpson v chatty signing books, took an interest in every person. Charming
  20. @jolwen: God this is good! Both Martin Amis & Peter Florence interviewing excellent – too many gems to do justice with tweets
  21. @ClairRatcliffe: Nick Clegg fails to mention Wales at #Hay Festival – Yes Hay-on-Wye is in WALES.
  22. @nosycrow Shields quotes William Gibson “Who owns the words? We all do.” He says literature has to be mashable and borrowable esp in digital age
  23. @melissadenes Amis: writing autobiographically about sex can’t be done. Porno sex is the only non-embarrassing way
  24. @BOOKSA: Amis: The difficulty of a novel is exactly proportionate to its length.
  25. @BOOKSA Amis: To be a novelist, you need a monstrous egotism. Poets aren’t like that – they’re much weirder. Novelists must be Everyman.
  26. @edielush Martin Amis: having a grandchild is a mixed blessing. Delightful but like a telegram from the mortuary.
  27. @joy_lo_dico HSBC chairman Stephen Green says Christ approved of banking – see last paragraph http://bit.ly/9hOxwr
  28. @crimeficreader: Some good pics from #Hay http://bit.ly/axWt9E
  29. @XanBrooks: Fighting our way through the crowds of #Hay. David Remnick: ‘It’s like high-school between classes’. But where are Chad and Mary-Sue?
  30. @grannylook When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. –Erasmus
  31. @BOOKSA Remnick: Chicago’s south side is emblematic of black life in the US. Obama finds a cause, finds a church.
  32. @beckycad Fascinating listening to Antonia Fraser in conversation with Melvyn Bragg. What an incredible woman & such a romantic life she’s had #hay
  33. @toadmeister Listening to Melvyn Bragg interview Antonia Fraser at the Barclays Wealth Pavilion at #Hay. Smells like Wayne Rooney’s jockstrap in here
  34. @JohnFinnemore Think this must be the first time I’ve spent 24 hours in a town without being completely sure what country I’m in.
  35. @thomascooling Time to leave #hay. What a delight! Lovely talks, company, cottage and horse-riding.
  36. @PaulBlezard HayFlash: Beautiful misty morning presages a day of scorching hot sun, searingly brilliant events and ice creams. Hay’s where it’s at
  37. @matatatatat There would be nothing funnier than walking around #Hay festival wearing an england football shirt. Everyone would go very politely beserk
  38. @rupertbu Stewards View of #Hay: Special Duties: http://bit.ly/dcUXKa
  39. @ginbat @hayfestival Hay bluff, where sunlight spins a web on broader shoulders of velvet age and greening consciousness.
  40. @mikeappleby Overheard in q at #hay ‘it is quite impressive the way Rwanda is going at the moment’
  41. @chiggi John Sutherland sidesteps a nuts question by rambling about Plato, Aristotle and Schopenhauer. Oh and Eliot, + Goebbels.
  42. @BOOKSA Sutherland: Twain: a classic is a book everyone wants to read but no one wants to have read.
  43. @megmacleod Drinking pimms & reading the guardian alongside peter barlow off of the telly. Off to see chris evans in a mo #hayfestival
  44. @sarlitchin Queuing, Hay stylehttp://twitpic.com/1tv5zi
  45. @BOOKSA: Pollan: The healthiest food in the supermarket is the quietest: the unlabeled apple, the unpackaged fish.
  46. @nosycrow Gleitzman: The basic dynamic of a story is what character does to resolve a problem they have.
  47. @nosycrow @AndyStantonTM And moral of story for writers is write down your ideas however mad they seem
  48. @Ferders I have eaten too much cake / meat at #hay with no regard to impending bikini scenario. Best, most forgiving swimming costumes out there?
  49. @XanBrooks Roy Hattersley in #Hay to tell us why he loves England so. But joke’s on him, because we’re dragging him over the border … to Wales.
  50. @BOOKSA Here’s a did-you-know from Peter James: AC Doyle never wrote the words ‘elementary, my dear Watson’. A screen writer coined the phrase.
  51. @BOOKSA Peter James to cop: How did you meet your wife? ‘We met at a quadruple homicide.’
  52. @ostephens Enjoying good coffee, company and sunshine at #hay http://flic.kr/p/87zjty
  53. @BOOKSA Matthew Syed: if you believe success hinges on talent, you’ll walk away after failing once. If you believe it hinges on hard work, you won’t.
  54. @mommy_grrl @Making_Hay It has been a really spectacular week, weather-wise (all things considered.) I’ve only worn my wellies once!
  55. @Marllo words are spoken never broken
  56. @DanThomasUK: #Hay would be able to capitalise further on being a ‘town of book shops’ if they didn’t all close at 5:30
  57. @Skeenathon o laura marling, you are so wonderful and marvellous. I’m drunk and happy and this is the best festival ever!
  58. @sarlitchin Back at the site for a spot of Marcus Brigstocke. Sunburn successfully keeping me surrounded in a warm glow despite chillier air.
  59. @monnowman Easy to tell most ppl at #hayfestival are from big city: they walk briskly with grim determination as if rushing to catch the Tube
  60. @BOOKSA: In the middle of writing the book, Ranulph decided to climb Everest, which put him off schedule a bit.
  61. @BOOKSA: Lancaster: There cannot be many occasions when you’ve someone in the room whose forebears were at the signing of the Magna Carta.
  62. @IzzyMiller: The average adult knows about 50-60000 words… Shakespeare used a total of 20000 in his works – David Crystal
  63. @Pete2Boogie Only at #hay the duchess of Rutland telling a story of unblocking the guttering in her nightdress, wellies and umbrella
  64. @HelensWitter This time tomorrow I will be reclining in a deckchair, eating strawberries & people watching Boden Mums. Bring on #Hay
  65. @guardianhay: Overheard at Hay 2010 http://bit.ly/avYecT
  66. @JasonBradbury on the train to #Hay Festival, writing a Tokyo chase scene for my new book Dot Robot: Cyber Gold as I go.
  67. @chiggi Hannah Rothschild’s documentary about Peter Mandelson, The Real PM, has been pulled from #Hay. [Arch of the eyebrow]
  68. @hermonhermit Anyone wanting a free Guardian World Cup guide should go to #hayfestival on Saturday. The recycling bins will full of them by 09.30.
  69. @SelfMadeHero @GeekSyndicate ‘The Sign of The Four’ graphic novel will be out this Aug and those lucky people at #Hay (event 300) get a sneak peek.
  70. @SelfMadeHero Currently perched on a luggage rack with a French man dreading the hours to come. Not the best start to #Hay
  71. @mePadraigReidy: “Skeptical bloggers are among the greatest forces for good in society” @slsingh
  72. @alisonflood louis de b and friends all read l’etranger avidly as teenagers to discover what they had in common with the murderer
  73. @Pete2Boogie Sitting in the evening sunshine, sipping champagne waiting to see buona vista social club at #hay. Life is good!
  74. @chiggi Viking Harold Bluetooth was killed by Sven Forkbeard while he was taking a dump, Tom Holland tells #Hay
  75. @DanThomasUK A sea of grey hair fills the Ritzy for Mark Hudson on Titian. Feel lonelier than the Welsh Language Books shelf in the shop.
  76. @DanThomasUK #hay would get more tweets if it advertised/encouraged it. Twitter especially in mid Wales is not such an obvious thing to so just yet
  77. @zany_zigzag Need to get more water – seriously thirsty! Tip for anyone coming to #hay – it gets VERY hot inside the marquees!
  78. @adlandsuit Michael Holding at #hay. If the Guardian was a town, it would be a lot like this.
  79. @zany_zigzag @hayfestival Just been to see Daisy Hay (name = coincidence!) talking abt Shelley, Byron & co. – fascinating stuff!
  80. @andrewtghill “Research is the sap, the story is the leaves and the flowers” – Eleanor Updale, author
  81. @patrick_barkham Porritt, Attenborough, Jeremy Irons’ fears of overpopulation are ‘dangerous nonsense’ according to Fred Pearce at #Hay
  82. @thestephmerritt: I’m going to pretend I’m still in #Hay by sitting in a field and reading out loud from my book then tweeting about it while eating granola.
  83. @zany_zigzag Off to Hay later. Slightly worried about parking etc. Is ground going to be quagmire, do we think? Should I wear my sexy red wellies?
  84. @mpphillips Back from #hay. This means my tweets will no longer be full of famous people I have met (I walked past Jerry Hall!) as fewer in my house.
  85. @geraintdmorgan #hay my dad got mistaken for simon schama. Think my dad can be offended by that. He didn’t turn this mistake into free pimms though, fool.
  86. @PaulBlezard Hayflash: The sun is warm and shining bright. The birds are on the wing. Bonobo blew us all away last night. Great day ahead.
  87. @lezlaig There are two sides to every story, but six sides to every book.
  88. @hermonhermit: #hayfestival mountain wind / the stillness of a lamb / gathers the crows #haiku
  89. @anitasethi Amazing music at #hay this year…can’t wait for Laura Marling, I Speak Because I Can, to echo into the night. (i tweet because i can)
  90. @chiggi: Simon Armitage: there are more bodyguards than poets at #Hay this year
  91. @mattgreenough @speedupdating @ahiggitt – its probably more to do with Hay being full of people who had a note from mum excusing them from PE!
  92. @alisonflood: Wonderful funny & moving anecdotes from Joss Ackland at #Hay, on his wife’s grave it says ‘room for one more’…When he joins her it’ll say ‘here I am’.
  93. @Sarah_Crown Poetry is ‘not the thing said, but a way of saying it’
  94. @sumitsays #HayFestival . So twee it makes Latitude seem like a shebeen in a burnt-out squat. Think I might have to wee in a bottle for some edge
  95. @patrick_barkham: More MI5 history at #Hay. Codebreaker Alan Turing wore gas mask to MI5 interview so wouldn’t catch flu. He got the job.
  96. @PD_Smith: “I don’t think the future of writing will be menaced by new technology”: Peter Florence http://bit.ly/9ZIucL
  97. @patrick_barkham Britain definitely the worst country for attitude to maths – only here is it ok to admit you are rubbish at it, says Alex Bellos at #Hay
  98. @patrick_barkham MI5 historian Christopher Andrews’ cure for banking crisis? Move GCHQ staff to City jobs. Tells #Hay ‘It isn’t likely to happen’. Obviously
  99. @adlandsuit Waking up in Wales is fucking cool. Cheese platters 11.30am are fucking cool. My Sky Arts wellies are fucking cool. #hay is FUCKING cool.
  100. @guardiang2: “Like most high cultural events, most of the audience would rather be on stage” Grayson Perry’s take on #hay http://gu.com/p/2hcx7/tw
  101. @journojourno Just back from the G #HayFestival: never been amongst a more odious bunch of poseurs in my life.
  102. @James_Rock lots of new peeps @hayfestival this year but most seem to be @guardian employees – the #Hay tribe are not yet big on twittering it seems?
  103. @Sarah_Crown: Seems Henning Mankell was on the boat in the Palestine aid convoy that was attacked. We’re trying to find out more #gazaflotilla
  104. @Sarah_Crown News from #hay – Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor has cancelled his event tomorrow. No one v surprised…
  105. @hannahwoodstock People walking out of Tim Minchin at hay because he calls the pope a motherfucker. Hilarious and scary!
  106. @MissHClose Love seeing all the tweets about #Hay. Especially as I’m here, right in the middle of it. It is properly unbelieveable.
  107. @Red_Books Oh what a Hay day…in a good way. Fantastic and sold out Jo Brand event AND I met John Snow. Amaze.
  108. @UsborneMktg Celeb spots so far at #hayfestival: Jefferson Hack, Robert Winstone, Rob Brydon, Simon Schama, Anneka Rice, John Snow and Simon Armitage
  109. @jamieandlouise after being at #Hay today with such clever people – feeling like i really should work on intelligence – surely it’s not too late?
  110. @hannahwoodstock Simon schama is absolutely fabulous! He talks like most people would love to write
  111. @crossland I abhor camping. Uncomfortable, cold, noisy and a queue for a shower. #hayfestival made up for it though.
  112. @ecrjones At the risk of boring you…I am still ill, but am trying enjoy #hayfestival Highlights incl. Shappi Khorsandi. Peter Hitchens is vile.
  113. @adlandsuit So far, the #hay festival is a lot like T In The Park, only with fewer Scottish schemeys puking everywhere, and more Jo Brand
  114. @warmstrings Big breakfast, caffinated coffee, Morris dancing, antique searching. #hayfestival
  115. @dm0 So it seems both Miliband’s will be at #Hay this weekend. Talk about finding needless wannabe leaders in a Hay-on-Wye stack
  116. @janemartinson Last session on science made #hay almost total success for 8 yr old. “Will there be footballers nxt yr, Mum?”
  117. @mpphillips Me: who was that guy we were just talking to, the one who looks like a pop star? Friend: Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet. #hay #clueless
  118. @mpphillips Just walked out of a talk, first time ever at #hay. Five minutes of maths enough to persuade me that ice cream in the sun far preferable.
  119. @sarlitchin Just looked up from reading my paper to see Robert Winston carrying a plastic bag standing in a queue for ice cream.
  120. @Penders1 Don’t ask her about one’s private life, she can be savage!
  121. @mePadraigReidy: OMG! Mariella!
  122. @MichaelOrmerod Tweeting from a #hay deckchair. I think this is the most middle class place in the world.
  123. @Sianz i am drunk on middle-classness
  124. @hughesroland I’m in a bookshop in #hay that has a section on hitler and another on premature birth. Pretty obscure.
  125. @MjkeW Nothing booked at #Hay this morning. Time to catch up. Time to write. Time to process. Time to… oh… empty the chemical toilet.
  126. @pokomon night night from cold tent at #Hay. i have lent out warm clothing to my ill equipped fellow campers (@goatrick & @crossland)
  127. @lozhead I think today will be a book day. I’ll pretend I’m sitting on a deckchair in #hay looking clever.
  128. @Philippa_Perry All your tweets r making grayson & I homesick for #Hay. Not missing gypsy caravan though.
  129. @Madhviuk Sunday was by far the most interesting @#hay Although I would not recommended 7 events in one day. Brain meltdown
  130. @so_she_writes #HayFestival adventures in Wales a success. Jeanette Winterson is unreal – the entire room was hers from the minute she walked onstage.
  131. @PaulBlezard Hayflash: Bank Holiday Monday and glorious skies, hot air balloons & swifts screeching through the site like fighter jets.
  132. @thestephmerritt Well, it’s not often you find yourself dancing with Simon Schama, AC Grayling and Hugh Cornwell from The Stranglers. God, I love #Hay!
  133. @andydickson Sounds like #fakehay I know, but hv just been at a party where both hugh fearnley-whittingstall & Pervez Musharraf were present. Yikes #hay
  134. @sineadgleeson Odd to see the laid back vibe of #hay interrupted yesterday by lots of police and compulsory bag check-in for Pervez Musharraf.
  135. @mpphillips Disconcerting sniffer dog presence in Marcus de Sautoy’s fun presentation about maths. Turns out former pres of Pakistan in tent next
  136. @JillLawless: My best celeb spot in three days at #hayfestival? Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet queuing for Alain de Botton talk.
  137. @saulpims Explaining the joy of twitterising to charity bods at #hayfestival. They want to like but are confused.
  138. @njhamer Considering Sky are a major sponsor of #hay you think they’d make a better job of recording the events. Shocking sound on Andrew Marr talk.
  139. @NatalieHanman Reading is lover’s talk – a private, subversive act
  140. @guardiang2: Bryson too scared to take citizenship test to become British
  141. @NomDeGuerre Enough with the edifying. Time to go gy ready for another party…swapping soup thermos for hip flask
  142. @NomDeGuerre So many Hay questioners just want to hear themselves out loud (maybe to drown voices in their head)
  143. @Irish_Andy Having an epic time at #hay festival. So far, Quentin Blake, Ed Byrne and I got on Sky News!
  144. @katheastman Amazing culinary delight discovered at #hayfestival earlier today – Blackcurrant & Licorice icecream. Scrumptious
  145. @darrananderson Christopher Hitchens probably thinks of himself as a modern Orwell rather than the big bag of fermented shite that he actually is #hay
  146. @neilsonandrew first trip to #hay over. highlight may have been getting palm read by a Russian novelist, as you do
  147. @rsutcliff @chiggi I’ve stopped listening to historian Niall Ferguson #Hay, I find it contaminates my enjoyment of historical fiction.
  148. @Making_Hay: There is nothing worse for writers than cranking it out and getting no response. Tina Brown
  149. @soul_of_twit Ed Miliband update #Hay. Preppy jumper on. Still hanging with the plebs having an ice cream. Still pretty handsome. #shocktometoo
  150. @squizzey In my funky festival gear while the sun shines at #hayfestival – drinking Pimms with @katheastman & joyous Joyce who has macadamia nuts!
  151. @hughesroland Feeling out of place without panama hat at #hay.
  152. @annecharnock Overheard this minute at #Hay in queue: steward tells Ed Milliband to please move over to the left.
  153. @Cafedirect_HQ Double deckchair, your best mate and a cup of cafedirect coffee. Good #hay times! (Yasmin) http://twitpic.com/1sg9cf
  154. @mpphillips Standing ovation for Tom Buergenthal, Holocaust survivor and Hague judge. So calm, serene, inspiring. This is what #hay is all about.
  155. @benbryant Scored a lift to #hay today, allelujah! Would not advise anyone to try getting there via the mythical Hereford bus
  156. @soul_of_twit Apologies to people of #Hay. That was me striding across a field in pink neon ski thermals & wellies to powder my nose at dawn #fashionfail
  157. @DanThomasUK Glad to see #hay is trending hard this year. Lots more twitter awareness and mobile connectivity
  158. @MjkeW Alain de Botton believes ipad will not kill books, but diminishing levels of concentration from social media might. So er…
  159. @neilsonandrew My lady wife has spent 10 minutes chatting to Jerry Hall about Mick ‘n Bryan not jealous just impressed
  160. @chiggi So I bummed a ciggie from Jerry Hall at #Hay. She was rather delightful.
  161. @emilybell everyone on my feed is either watching #eurovision or at #hay … there’s a mash-up possibility if ever there was one
  162. @andydickson Coren on Twitter: “full of rubbish for illiterate people”
  163. @patrick_barkham Grayson Perry a #Hay highlight. Witty critique of deadening consumerism and a great frock. Wisdom without pomposity. Audience loved it
  164. @sarahlphillips Got told off for tweeting in Grayson Perry
  165. @Skeenathon Seen at #hay blue eyebrows, lindisfarne gooseberry wine, fat lady in skirt of many handkerchiefs and many, many pairs of cords
  166. @Making_Hay I’m a great user of Twitter but I’m aware of the dangers. Social media is like pornography #alaindebotton
  167. @nosycrow de Botton the most offensive q you can ask a child is “what did you do today” because they live in moment
  168. @nosycrow de Botton Western thinking unhelpfully divorces mind and body – over-intellectual. You have to know when to stop thinking
  169. @siwhitehouse Anyone here from Tower Hamlets? I’d venture that’s the first time that questions been asked at #Hay #HeatherBrooke
  170. @Skeenathon #Hay must be the least edgy festival ever. There are Renoir prints in the portaloos.
  171. @siwhitehouse And hello to the man walking *out* of the #Hay urinal with an ice cream cone in his hand.
  172. @melinwynt Bant i’r Gelli Gandryll am y dydd fory. Off to #Hay for a day of politics, poetry and science tomorrow. Hope the sun shines!
  173. @Making_Hay: In the Friends Cafe, glass of Veuve, listening to Roddy Doyle on the PA, reading a recycled Guardian.
  174. @Sarah_Crown Roddy Doyle: ‘if someone has to piss on you, let it be Henry fonda’. Quite #hay
  175. @Sianz there are so many good looking men here. who are so good looking, they know it too much so then they become ungoodlooking
  176. @mommy_grrl #hay festival tip: careful with the beer imbibing if you have weak bladder – lines to the WC are wicked long *crosses legs*
  177. @neilbeynon will be at #Hay tomorrow, looking forward to some brain food and, hopefully, the weather clearing.
  178. @iankatz1000: Prez nasheed of maldives to sceptics: come to the Maldives and look me in the face and tell me it (climate change) is not happening
  179. @mpphillips A man with a bi-horned hat just ran past me shouting ‘I am the apocalypse!’ Expect to see him later on panel later with Chris Hitchens
  180. @susannar100 Being at #Hay makes me want to get on with writing my book. Now, if only someone would look after these 3 kids ….
  181. @Sarah_Crown Just off to squire Bill Bryson round a cafe, so to learn the history of salt&pepper, tea&coffee, forks … just another day at #Hay
  182. @nosycrow Bill Bryson “Never had people found more ways to be worried in a confined space than Victorians in their bedrooms”
  183. @benbryant So being stranded at Hereford has given me a chance to reflect on the irony that nobody going to #hay seems to use public transport
  184. @siwhitehouse That @jenny_drew has just been serenaded by a clown on an 8 foot unicycle with a frog on his head. In a tutu.
  185. @siwhitehouse We’re getting competitive today. Both on the look out for women in summer dresses and brightly coloured wellies. Today’s top #Hay points
  186. @siwhitehouse: Early points scored. Just seen a bloke with a cream linen jacket, chinos, a straw boater and a cravat.
  187. @digestedread Raining so hard can barely hear a word bill bryson is saying
  188. @MjkeW Good morning #Hay. Ah, the Niagaran roar of rain beating on the drum skin roof of the caravan. That’s more like it.
  189. @sarahlphillips Only at #hay: chalked lines instead of ropes to keep queues in order
  190. @sineadsillars Just passed Andrew Marr asking for directions to a tent at #hayfestival. In a session with Nigel Mansell now.
  191. @MjkeW Arrived in #Hay. Sun shining. Caravan pitched. Fine meal in The Granary. Excellent! Now for some Islamic calligraphy
  192. @andydickson Setting up shot in wiggly wigglers garden. group of teens has just come past and dared ea other to eat maggots
  193. @andydickson First roadsigns to #hay! Gold and green fields, blossom, bluff in distance. Hurrah
  194. @thespyglass Yes, hurrah to #Hay. If only you weren’t so gorram expensive. Have fun, you rich-ass intelligentsia. *bitterauthenticgrumble*
  195. @sineadgleeson Standing ovation in a packed tent for Christy Moore at #hay. And brilliant version of Shine on You Crazy Diamond for an encore.
  196. @thethingisgav Pics of setting up at the Hay Festival – http://bit.ly/bZEo5j
  197. @Making_Hay @hayfestival #Hay worked very well last year. Is short, distinct enough, everything a good hashtag is

6 Comments so far
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I am just absurdly chuffed to have made the list at all! Whole process of simultaneous tweeting a bit bonkers, and it’s great that someone’s pulled all these things together. Thank you @cheshirelad. Hay is the most wonderful experience – intimate, informal, serendipitous… and this year it wasn’t even raining – total bonus

Thanks for compiling this great list – I missed a lot of these while I was on site. Camping and battery life do not a happy iTouch make.

Thanks for the inclusion on the list, too, on behalf of myself and @squizzey, who is a very chuffed squirrel friend of mine who came to #Hay with me.

Think your idea of #Hay11 is a great idea for next year.

WTF?? Me and @ericpicked wrote the most beautiful love poems to each other and didnt even make the top 200 ?? Have you absolutely no taste at all??? ; )

*huffs*

@Humphrycushion and @ericpicked – beautiful as your love poems must have been at the Hay Festival, I’m guessing you did not use the hashtag #hay. None of them show up in the archive. Please do share and I will publish as a special “Love @ Hay” blog summary.

Geek-out moment: 197 people have clicked on the bit.ly link for this blog posting on 197 tweets: Bit.ly clicks

Follow-up: Simon Schama interviews Michael Pollan on the future of food in the Weekend FT. “The price paid for this industrial supply of cheap meat has been a population of the obese and the chronically diabetic, waddling along, stuffed with the chicken nuggets and burgers that are the ultimate product of this relentless corn-chain. There was a time when the cornfield was the emblem of American wholesomeness. Now, as Pollan describes, it seems more like the mortuary of American nature.”



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