Carnival Time

I'm afraid the riotous antics of Friday evening in Birmingham meant that I didn't get back to Nottingham in time for the last day of the Lowdham Book Festival. This was a shame because I don't normally miss it; there's always something interesting to dip into, and usually many old faces to bump into and to catch up on the news with. Looking at the programme though, the only thing I'm really sorry to have missed was the launch of Clare Brown's new novel Dream Laboratory which is apparently about 'love, sex and dangerous nocturnal obsessions'. Sounds fascinating, and all the more ironic that I should have missed the launch just because of my own night of debauchery containing, I suppose, the same ingredients!

At about five o'clock in the morning I was awoken by a great commotion outside the door of my hotel room. Shouting, screaming, doors banging, music - it all sounded too good a spectacle to miss so I opened my door to take a look. The corridor was populated with seemingly dozens of half-dressed young people, all engaged in cavorting in one way or another. A drink was thrown at someone; two boys were engaged in a passionate kiss; a girl was lying on the floor, laughing; others were fighting. The door opposite mine opened and a young man looked across at me, bemused. "What's happening?" I said. "I don't know. It's outrageous," he replied, before being leapt on by an unseen occupant of his room and dragged back to bed.

Next, a beautiful young man emerged from the next room wearing what looked like backless baby-doll pyjamas. "Oh my chile," he purred, "this noise is unacceptable. I am a transsexual and I NEED my beauty sleep!" I demurred that any amount of sleep was too late to save my looks, before he too was hauled roughly back into his room by a naked black youth.

I had clearly woken up in bacchanalia. I noticed then that there was beer dripping down the outside of my door and so, as two briefly-dressed girls staggered towards me pouring vodka down their tops, I stepped back inside, closed the door, took a swig of cough medicine, and returned to bed.

When I finally got up at about 9:30 - head thumping - I peeked outside. The corridor was now bare, and silent. Had I imagined it?