June 9th, 2011

And here it is…photographic proof that the spirit of PG Wodehouse is very much alive and well in 21st century Britain! Many thanks to Kushla Pope who sent in this winning photo of a thoroughly stylish and unquestionably modern Bertie Wooster: her 12-year old son Charlie. Watch out Charlie, you may have a few style conscious Ascot fans after that rather splendid hat next week…!

June 8th, 2011

Congratulations to Kushla Pope, winner of our Modern Bertie competition with her choice of her twelve-year old son Charlie to be the Bertie Wooster of 2011.

Here’s what she said “My son charlie. He’s eccentric to the point of odd! He’s only 12 yet he loves to wear a full suit, a tie, a battered old top hat and, if I’d let him, a bloody monocle! What have I spawned???!?!?!”

We’d love to see a photograph.

Kushla can enjoy a Summer of great reading with the entire Bollinger sponsored Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction shortlist and a bottle of Grande Année with which to accompany it.

June 7th, 2011

The annual celebration of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction was a little different this year.  A highlight of the Hay Festival is the naming of a local Gloucestershire Old Spot pig after the winning novel.   However, this year, the pig refused to leave its idyll on Hay Bluff and could not be persuaded into its trailer, let alone to make an appearance at the Festival.

But help was at hand in the shape of artist Gary Woods’ wonderful ceramic sculpture of a pig peeking through a wooden frame.

And winning author, Gary Shteyngart, was then introduced to a much more willing beast, a New Zealand Kunekune, at a local farm just over the Welsh border. The pig, formerly known as Bluebell, is now the proud bearer of the name, Super Sad True Love Story.

May 26th, 2011

With the Hay Festival upon us, and in the spirit of literary legend P.G Wodehouse himself, we’re asking you to tell us who you consider to be the living embodiment of Bertie Wooster – and why.

The wittiest entry will receive a signed copy of every book on the Bollinger Sponsored Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction Shortlist and a bottle of Bollinger Grande Année with which to celebrate.
Entries close Friday 3rd June.  Please see here for Terms and Conditions.

May 26th, 2011

To give it its full title, The Hay Festival of Literature and Arts will be held this year between Friday 27th May – Sunday 5th June. Devised by father and son Norman and Peter Florence in 1988, Hay was once memorably described by Bill Clinton as “The Woodstock of the mind”.

Until recently the festival was held at a variety of venues around the picturesque borders town of Hay-on-Wye, including the local Primary School, but it 2005 it moved to a single location just outside town.

May 24th, 2011

New Yorker Gary Shteyngart has today, Tuesday 24 May 2011, been named winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2011 for his novel Super Sad True Love Story (Granta). One of the New Yorker’s ‘20 under 40’, Shteyngart is the first American to win this very English prize, which celebrates fiction that has captured the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse. He joins an illustrious group of previous winners including Man Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan and Howard Jacobson and comic greats Marina Lewycka and Jasper Fforde.