There’s a famous 1960s British musical called Stop The World: I Want To Get Off. The title probably says it all, given the gloomy news from around the world right now. Sometimes the deluge of information around the globe seems too much. Now is one of those times.
Palestine, Israel, Iran, the prospects of a wider war in the Middle East. Ukraine, Russia, Nato and again the prospects of a wider war in Europe. The recalibration of American interests round the world. Oil shocks. Donald Trump’s tariffs. The continuing prospect of economic and trade dislocation from the Strait of Hormuz to Wall Street and the City of London.
And then there is the very controversial decision of Mr Trump to send US Marines to California while public unrest about the treatment of migrants continues. Meanwhile in London, defence experts make public comments about Europe having passed from a “post-war” era into what is now a “pre-war” era as Nato’s leaders are encouraging member nations to find 5 per cent of gross domestic product for defence. Almost everywhere it seems governments are trying to find more money for more weapons.
But since “stopping the world and getting off” is not an option, I’ve been trying to cheer myself up by joining the hundreds of thousands of British people who turn up at book and music festivals this summer.
The weather in Britain has been (mostly) glorious. Glastonbury is the biggest and best-known of the music festivals and is happening soon. But there are little gems of culture everywhere. I’ve just returned from speaking at the Borders Book Festival in the south of Scotland just a few kilometres from the border with England.
For readers around the world who have never been there, I should point out that the “border” between Scotland and England exists on maps but is nothing more than a sign or two on the road – no border patrols or customs checks or bureaucracy, just the lovely British countryside in summer.
And a book festival is the perfect antidote to doom-scrolling about international crises and military confrontations. The best thing about these festivals is not the authors and writers, although we do form a kind of community. Authors are always comparing notes about publishers and the challenges of writing itself. But the best thing is the audiences.
They can range from children to the elderly. The shared interest in books and knowledge is the most cheering characteristic all these festivals have in common. Audiences often challenge authors but when they do it, it is always polite and open minded. As the old-fashioned saying goes, we may disagree, but we try very hard not to be disagreeable.
Audiences at book festivals also tend to like solving problems rather than creating them. For me, these festivals feel like an antidote to a world that looks as if it is going crazy. And there is also that strange kind of camaraderie among the authors.
Those I met most recently include a former contender to be UK prime minister, two former government ministers, an author of a children’s book about insects, various broadcasters, award-winning novelists, sporting stars and TV personalities plus several astounding British intellectuals whose expertise ranged from the history of the seas around our coasts to the story behind the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the Second World War.
The most cheering moment was a request to talk to a group of articulate young people with ambitions to become journalists and writers. Their incisive questions and their fundamental optimism were the perfect antidote to the news headlines.
It’s impossible to calculate how many book or literary festivals there are in Britain in any one year, but one informed guess suggests it could be almost 100 of varying sizes. You could visit about two a week every week. The best known include those in Edinburgh, Hay on Wye, Oxford, Bath and elsewhere. Some – including Shetland in the far north of Scotland, or Ilkley in Yorkshire or Hexham in the north of England – are not only great festivals but an excuse to visit some truly beautiful parts of the country.
It is not possible to emulate the 1960s musical and stop the world to get off. But it is possible to find an antidote to the bad news deluge that engulfs us. And if you can’t get to a festival, you can always engineer an escape from reality another way. Buy a book and escape into a new reality.
