Shameless

Applause as stellar line-up announced in Houses of Parliament for this year's tenth anniversary Wimbledon BookFest

Another stellar line-up was exclusively announced for this year’s tenth anniversary Wimbledon BookFest at a glamourous event in the Houses of Parliament last night.

News that Sir Ranulph Fiennes will launch the festival in September, with Jeremy Paxman and former Wimbledon resident and poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy on the line-up, was met with gasps of delight by guests.

Strictly, I think the gasps were inspired by my audacity in nicking an MP's glass of white wine from a table when he was called away by the division bell and then raising it in the toast he proposed at the end of his speech when he returned.

In my defence I had been listening to Chloe Spicer of Object Book explaining conceptual art to author Michelle Paver, so it was probably a playful, provocative and subversive avant-garde prank summoned à la Marcel Duchamp from my subconscious rather than common or garden ASBO baiting.

Prodnose: Yes, that must be it. No doubt about it.

Woody Allen: I was in analysis. I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss.