FESTIVAL BOOKS PREVIEWS
ANDREW KEEN A manifesto for digital change TAM DALYELL Still raising Falklands questions 30 years on
Author and digital entrepreneur Andrew Keen has serious concerns with the internet. ‘First we lived in villages, now we live on the internet,’ he muses. ‘And there are people out here in California who believe it’s a utopia, an idyll which will enable us to realise things that we’ve lost. I’m not convinced.’ In his latest book, Digital Vertigo, Keen argues
that our reliance on social media is driving us apart. ‘It’s an attack on the way in which social media is making us more public and undermining our pri- vate lives, our secrecy, our mystery,’ he believes. Acknowledging the part played by social media in bringing about various regime changes, Keen argues the results haven’t coalesced. ‘They tend to reflect the fragmentation of the internet. People form into these political groups but nothing seems to gel.’
Since numerous high-profile Twitter scandals have highlighted the danger of our lingering digital legacies, Keen offers a manifesto for change. ‘If it’s going to be this platform for 21st century life, the internet needs to learn how to forget. Currently it doesn’t know how to do that.’ (Murray Robertson) ■ 12 Aug (with Ewan Morrison), 8.30pm, £10 (£8).
As the title of his memoir, The Importance of Being Awkward, attests, former Labour MP Tam Dalyell has never been one to toe the party line. From the beginning of his parliamentary career in 1962, up to his retiral in 2005, Dalyell was a vocal critic of British foreign policy, opposing the invasion of Iraq and branding Tony Blair a war criminal. At this solo event he will be discussing his opposition to the Falklands War. He feels that the 1982 conflict was waged by Margaret Thatcher and Argentinean President Galtieri for ‘domestic political reasons’ rather than for the good of the islands. Victory for Britain ‘trans- formed the fortunes of the Prime Minister, who in the March 1982 opinion polls was ranked lower than any previous Prime Minister.’ But while the war may have helped Thatcher, he feels that it damaged Britain’s standing ‘not only in Argentina but in the rest of Latin America’. (Stewart Smith) ■ 15 Aug, 4.30pm, £10 (£8); 23 Aug (with Paul Broda), 5pm, £10 (£8); 20 Aug (with Merlin Waterson), 3.30pm, £10 (£8). LYDIA MONKS Fighting writer’s block and indulging in starspotting
‘If I get stuck on something, I try to approach it from a different angle,’ says illustrator and author Lydia Monks. ‘It’s like hitting a dead end, doing a three-point turn and finding a different route. I think, as a writer or illustrator, you can’t be afraid to start again if something isn’t working, even if it means scrapping what you’ve spent hours on. It’s all part of the process.’
There’s plenty more of that wisdom in store for Edinburgh International Book Festival audiences, as Monks returns for two events this year: in Lost for Words (a panel talk for 10 to 16-year-olds) she’ll join Barry Cunningham (the man who discovered JK Rowling) and Philip Reeve, author of Mortal Engines and Goblins, to show that even the most talented writers can find themselves lost for words, and to explore how to get back on track.
She’ll also pop up alongside Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson for those aged 5 to 9, to talk
about their many pictorial collaborations together (a long list including What the Ladybird Heard, The Princess and the Wizard and Sharing a Shell). There’ll be stories, songs, and a chance to see Monks in illustrating action and meet some favourite characters. ‘Edinburgh is my favourite festival I think. I love spending time in the yurt and bumping into other authors and illustrators, and doing a bit of starspotting. You never know who you’ll end up having a cup of tea with.’
As a punter, she recommends a bit of spying, and is particularly looking forward to seeing this year’s Illustrator in Residence Chris Riddell ‘working his magic’. Here are two fantastic opportunities to see her bold and vibrant images and creative practice leap from the page to the stage. Borrow some kids and get involved. (Peggy Hughes) ■ 12 Aug (with Julia Donaldson), 10am, £4.50; 12 Aug (Lost for Words), 6.30pm, £4.50.
NEIL FORSYTH Bringing Dundee to the masses
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Neil Forsyth has a vendetta against con men. Among his published works are a biography of teenage scam artist Elliot Castro, an exposé on fraudulent psychics and Delete This at Your Peril, a collection of email exchanges between internet spammers and a deadpan Dundonian tormentor called Bob Servant. ‘People keep saying that to me about the con man thing,’ says Forsyth. ‘Some people have suggested I was on some sort of Watchdog-type attack on them, but I’m not; it’s just a great comic premise working off spammers because you’ve got this endless supply of willing straight men.’
Servant has since evolved beyond print with BBC Radio Scotland transmitting The Bob Servant Emails in 2012, and a BBC Four TV series is due to air later this year. Native Dundonian Brian Cox plays Bob in both. ‘He’s just brilliant and knows the character inside out,’ says Forsyth of Cox. ‘Although I’d like to think these are universal themes, he’s a real Dundee character is Bob, and I think Brian and myself have a sort of innate understanding of that character bound- ing round the pubs of Broughty Ferry. He fits Brian like a glove; like a big, Dundonian glove.’ (Niki Boyle) ■ 15 Aug, 8.30pm, £10 (£8).
32 THE LIST 9–16 Aug 2012