Frightfest

In Competition No. 2956 you were invited to provide extracts from the unappealing-sounding programme of a festival that is making a misguided attempt to stand out in an overcrowded marketplace.

Competitors might have taken inspiration from The Daily Mash’s ‘Magic Fox Vintage Smoothie Boutique Urban Forest Pop Up Chill Retreat’, a ‘hybrid of Waitrose and The Wicker Man’ and ‘a combination of all the most annoying, smug, po-faced aspects of festival culture into a smorgasbord of-heavily branded twatness’. Highlights included ‘people wearing fox masks just prancing around aimlessly’.

Adrian Fry shone in a smallish field and takes the bonus fiver. The rest earn £30.

The Tipsy Boar, Tunbridge Wells, is proud to host the Saloon Bar Philosophy Festival. Some of the finest untutored minds in Britain will be setting forth their views on anything and (literally) everything. With all lectures guaranteed to last longer than you thought possible, it’s tremendous value. From metaphysics (a retired butcher asks Is Nothing Something? with accompanying vaguely illustrative gesticulations) to Ethics (an Esher housewife explains Fairness Isn’t Always Right with reference to something recalled from a Roger Scruton column), there’s something for everyone. There’ll be the usual symposium on Love with a panel who have lost or never known it, many phenomenological studies of pints half full of beer and half empty, a keynote speech from a compliance consultant on how Machiavelli Didn’t Know the Half of It and an existentialist in the corner who will gradually cease to exemplify his philosophical position with each drink downed.
Adrian Fry

Welcome to Words R Food, where spoken word meets soybean curd and Localberry Jam is proud to sponsor the slam. Welcome to the only festival that stimulates your imagination and your taste buds alike with cutting-edge performance poetry and gourmet, locally sourced, ethical cuisine.

By day, we’ll enjoy wholesome fruit, vegetable, grain and tofu snacks that we prepare collaboratively for one another under the tutelage of meatless master chefs. By night, we’ll gather for high-energy readings, challenging yet supportive workshops, mix-and-mingle cocktail gatherings, inspirational talks on vegan living and conscious creativity, and other events designed to celebrate poetry, community and our shared values.

Between sessions, enjoy exploring the lively, historic neighbourhood around our festival venue. Display your Words R Food badge for valuable discounts at local businesses, but be advised that the festival does not officially endorse any of the street poets and food vendors operating in the vicinity.
Chris O’Carroll

This year the Dogging Literature Festival will take an exciting new direction: showcasing local talent rather than going after the all-too-familiar big names. Freshness is the keynote. Fortunately, there is a plethora of gifted writers in our community, some of whom are well established contributors to e-zines. Erik Pratt, ‘paranormal’ author whose work has been described as ‘incredible… literally out of this world’, will be reading from his spine-chilling novel in progress, Zithlon and the Tombs of Arcturus. Shudders galore there, but by contrast Doris Draper, part-time ‘lollipop lady’, mourns her own vanished beauty and the fate of the planet in exquisite lilting verse. Her moving chapbook, Bus Pass Tremors, from which she will read, will be on sale. All this and much more, under the aegis of Master of Ceremonies and comic genius George Biggins, whose fabulous blog, ‘Dogging Day By Day’, is legendary.
Basil Ransome-Davies

10.30 a.m. Progeny Portsmouth Sinfonia — introducing the next generation of the much-loved orchestra, taking on Edgar Varèse’s Intégrales. Bring any wind instrument. Pets welcome.
11.32 a.m. Swedish death metal band Armageddon offer their own luminous take on Edith Holden’s Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Curated by Nicholas Parsons.
12.48 p.m. Sir Derek Jacobi reads Daisy Ashford’s haunting The Young Visiters.
1.11 p.m. Conversation: ‘Was skiffle piffle?’ Jimmy Page in conversation with himself and Janet Street-Porter, with washboard interludes by Lower Britling School Under-14 Daddy-Os.
2.26 p.m. Debate: Rod Liddle, Nigel Farage and the Countess of Wessex discuss the ethics of assisted suicide.
3.23 p.m. Contemporary whistling by Whistler’s Mothers.
4.54 p.m. ‘Easy Does It’: a tribute by English National Opera to the late Bert Kaempfert.
6.12 p.m. ‘The Irony Board and the Vacuum’ — John Cooper Clarke and Pam Ayres join forces to read homilies to housewifery. (Retiring collection.)
Bill Greenwell

Copwash Flower Festival 6-8 August
The Duchess of Babergh will open the festival at 11 a.m. by lifting the curtain on the Auricula Theatre. The folk group Kings and Weavers will then perform a medley of songs celebrating this flower down the ages.
The well-known artist Godfrey Hall will be showing his latest paintings of dead leaves. These lovingly illustrated withered sprigs reveal the effects of environmental stress on trees and plants. (All pictures for sale.)
10 a.m. Sunday, John Berg, lay preacher, will give a sermon on the common weed lolium temulentum. The Cockle symbolises wickedness invading the good field of the Church. ‘Let thistles grow up to me instead of wheat, and thorns instead of barley’ (Job 31:40).
The grand finale on Monday afternoon: ‘Where Have all the Flowers Gone?’ a panel discussion about the Dutch and UK horticultural industry in the light of the Brexit vote.
Sarah Drury