The pigs of Hay

Some delightful blogging from comic author and sometime musician Julian Gough at the Hay festival, in which he reports on his (successful) mission to steal Will Self's pig in protest at a literary prize seemingly determined before the announcement of its shortlist. The video alone makes essential viewing, as much for the dapper cut of its protagonist's suit as any porcine poaching. But should we credit Gough's impressively well-documented claims? According to the Times, festival organizers have reported that “Will Self’s pig is safe and secure in a secret location”—although the Telegraph blog contents itself with noting that "this is almost certainly the world's first literary prize pig ransom video." I have my doubts. Then again, the very prospect of trying to move a pig against its will strikes terror into me.

This is probably because Hay is the location of my own worst ever pig experience. During an extremely damp walking tour of the Brecon Beacons last year, I found myself strolling beside a farmyard, and paused to admire a couple of piglets playing in a pen. At this point, their mother—a sow of similar dimensions to an adolescent hippopotamus—lumbered into view and began to take a keen interest in my presence. I backed off along the path, in response to which the sow lowered her head, inserted it beneath a large steel five-bar gate, wrenched said gate off its hinges with a flick of her neck, and began to charge towards me. Suddenly recalling some kind of nature programme in which a farmer had boasted that pig-bites are among the most painful wounds known to man, I hurled myself over a fence into a small river, where I remained for some time.

Will Self may have had a lucky escape.