No Free Hayrides At Hay. By Uncle Monty.

No Free Hayrides At Hay.

Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.

Part 3 of 3.

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Except for a tiny free bag of Tyrrells hand-fried potato
chips, a free colourful pack of pansy seeds from Gifford’s
Circus, and free tourist info booklets, The Hay Festival
gave away no free samples to the thousands
of folkz there then hitting the fan.
ooo
Everywhere you turned, they seemed to want more of

your money. Nor would they even give me a free ride

back into town after losing my £1 shuttle bus ticket I'd

first purchased to get to the festival site from downtown

Hay-on-Wye. She, the shuttle bus driver, just forced me

to pay yet another quid instead of believing me and saying

"okay, just hop on the bus" and just to be nice. Thus, it

didn’t take long to figure out you could surely count on

also no free hayrides at Hay. And don’t ask either for an

exchange of venue tickets for you’ll soon be firmly told

“Sorry, No Exchanges” or certainly no cash refunds once

they’ve got hold of your hard earned money. Whatever,

that's the cost you pay for such Hay ambience, -if you

will, for going to rural Wales to take part in the

literary view and the rolled Welsh haystacks.
ooo
Eating was costly, too, due to the limited
number and choice of eating places provided at the
festival. For a little bread bun and a styrofoam cup of hot
organic soup at The Granary, -they charged five quid for

hardly a mouthful. A five year old could have gobbled it all

down and still feel mighty hungry much like I still did.

Nor was there any internet nor telephone access for

use by the festival visitors.
ooo
Other than that, and aside from the constant down pour
of rain that turned some sections of the festival site into
monsoon puddles, I had a ball of a time during my three days

there. To meet, to talk with, and to photograph some of the

world’s outstanding authors and newsworthy people of the day,

was, of course, an absolute treasure certainly for me. I guess,

that’s why you pay thru the nose at every turn at THF.
ooo
Then to have had encounters, some of which were personal,

with the former American President Jimmy Carter or the

renowned novelist and wit Gore Vidal or the world’s once

most death-threatened author Salman Rushdie or to then see

Deborah Vivien Cavendish, the last of The Mitford Sisters

all wrapped up and titled like she appeared as the Duchess

of Devonshire, or to stand close by and hear the young and

brass, mostly Jewish, British Foreign Secretary David

Miliband yakking away on behalf of his dreadful

political party of New Labour at some impromptu

press conference or informal news media briefing, or to

lastly smell the stench of America’s first openly gay

bishop of Gene Robinson, was all part, after all, of what

your good money bought and brought you at THF.
ooo
For me personally, the festival was almost like being back

in the states with so many noted Americans present from

Jimmy Carter to Gore Vidal to Carl Bernstein and to Gene

Robinson. I almost felt I’d have to start paying in Yankee

greenbacks, which today are a lot cheaper than those ex-

pensive Limey metal quidz. Of course, every where you go

in the UK thesedays is bound to find you’re slashed with

sheer ripoff prices from a little chocolate cupcake in the
Gregg window to the need of overnight bedding at a posh

country B+B. Some folkz at The Hay Festival paid over

100 quid per night, or 200 U.S. bucks, for a nearby
hotel for the simple pleasure of being a festival goer.

ooo

I was lucky myself to stay at the 16th century Green

Man Inn at Fownhope on the English side of the Welsh

border for half that price. But still steep and wasn't cheap

compared to American, Asian, and African hotel prices at

where I've stayed at places like Beijing, Cape Town,

Tirana, Los Angeles, Tehran, and Pyongyang.
ooo
Here then are a small select selection of some

of my many images that I took at The 2oo8 Hay

Festival and in and around the host village

itself of Hay-on-Way at Powys, Wales:

.

Joseph Stiglitz (above) was a guest panelist at

the sold-out venue of “The $3 Trillion War.”
I caught him as he was about to leave at

the end of the panel discussion.
.

Lots of little kidz swelled the ranks of Hay Festival
goers. Shown above is one of the wall artworks that
the kidz produced at their own volition and mindset
with the use of provided coloured felt pens
at the creative ready at The Kid's Corner.
.
Alexi Ruebens, 27, is a Russian graduate student

and plays his zilliphone as a street musician. Here he
is seen above playing to the masses at Hay-on-Wye
as they come and go from the nearby festival site. .

Big headed Neil Young is shown “interviewing”
Yogi Bear, who grunted most of the time during
his interview that was held at the festival book-
shop with television cameras at the ready.
.
BBC’s Nick Gowing with Nobel Prize Economist Linda
Bilmes at the close of the panel discussion on the
true and hidden cost of George Bush’s criminal
insanity called “The Iraq War." I just love the
look I caught on Linda's Nobel face ...

At age 66, Max was maxing -out with his vintage
accordian on the High Street of Hay-on-Wye.
He'd collected quite a few quid from what I
could see. More power to him, I say.
.

The 2oo8 Hay Festival was an ideal forum for the
clever American gay Episcopal cleric Gene Robinson
to fly his own agenda flag. Above is my last photo-
graphic image of him with a white rose in his hand
from some festival admirer. Symbolically, his rose
represents today perhaps the modern “War of the
Roses” between the gay and non-gay faithful of the
Anglican Communion. The Compass Rose- is tragi-
cally flying in all directions at the present loss of true
Anglican fellowship thanks largely to the gay bloke
shown above at THF. They should have “excomm-
unicated” or defrocked him long, long ago ... His
problem is he seems to suffers from moral and
religious amblyopia, too, so I honestly think.
So that’s that …
ooo
When I got back to the British capital, I was asked
by one of my dear lady friends Jill Ferguson if I’d
perhaps go back next year to the 2oo9 Hay Festival.
I told Jill “no.” Why? It’s much like what today’s
too unruly and too emancipated youth often say –
“Been There, Done That.” And so have I, pal.
ooo
If I should go back at sometime in the future, I’ll
be sure, however, to remember there’s no free
hayrides at Hay.
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Truly, Uncle Monty.
+St. Nicomedas, 2oo8.
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This just in from Italy’s
capital of Rome or Roma.
From: Stefano del Rosso
stefona-iome@hotmail.it
To: thebiggerissue@k.st
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"Hi Monty, a big hug
from Stefano and Zoli."
Subject: Hug ...
Date: Sun: 06.01.08. 02:48 PM
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