Walking home today from the quay I watched a seagull tap its crooked little beak against a mirrored shop window, completely obsessed with the seagull that tapped back. After a few moments of tapping, they would both flap around a bit, turn to one side and hit against the window like a fat man trying to beat down a door with his shoulder, and then squawk in frustration at the hard-headed copycat that wouldn’t play. Lori and I stood and watched the confused little gull for about five minutes, laughing. As we drove past after collecting the car I noticed the bird was still there, carrying on a silly little jig with its imaginary mate, and I began to think it was actually quite sad. Perhaps I should have walked over and shooed away the little guy. There was no way to make him understand that the reflection was himself. In my imagination he’s still there right now, at 9:30 at night with the sky still bright, obsessed with the ideal friend that he just can’t quite reach.

Yesterday we drove to Wales to the last day of the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival, where we listened to Vickram Seth talk about his Indian great uncle and his German Jewish great aunt and their relationship during the 1930s and 40s and then to Salman Rushdie talk about the legacy of books and the frustration of politics. We had originally only bought tickets to the Vickram Seth event, having read and enjoyed An Equal Music years ago and having heard he was an interesting guy. We sat beside a man in his 60s who had travelled from India just for the Hay Festival, particularly to see Vickram, whose family he knew intimately, and Salman Rushdie. This man had such a fascinating face: a sloped nose and an expression that seemed to be perpetually smiling. He asked about us – what we were doing, why we were here – and told us to buy tickets to the Rushdie event. Walking out of the marquee, we decided to comply.

Rushdie was interesting. To be honest, I’ve never read a whole book of his--only excerpts--and, of course, news articles. It was an issue he addressed, actually: the fact that the one thing he cares about leaving behind him – the books he has spent his life writing – are not the true legacy he will leave, since the way everyone knows him is as the most hated author in the world, a man whose life was valued at about $3 million, I believe, and who inadvertently caused the death of publishers, translators, and immense hatred before terrorism was something we all heard about on the television every day.

If there’s anything I came away from the talk with it was a conviction in the importance of keeping our minds open to others, even if what they say doesn't fit our own views of the world. For instance, he openly declared his view on all religion: that it is a close-minded attempt to view the world with some meaning; that all attempts at purity of any kind, whether religious or racial or cultural, is faulty; and that religion is at heart flawed. This is not something I can agree with; my faith is important to me. But I do think it’s important that those of us for whom religion is important listen to and try to understand, on some level, those who think quite the opposite, so that we don’t become close-minded. Because isn’t that the charge they have against us – that we are closed to every other possibility? Now I’m not saying that I’m open to other possibilities that refute the existence of God, because my faith tells me there aren’t any, but I have to at least be open to listening to others and trying to understand why they don’t like my faith. I have to convince people that I am a Christian and yet I am also someone who believes in freedom of expression, of religion, of lifestyle. That my views on the world do not have to be other people’s views on the world and that I would never try to force anyone to believe what I do, because that just isn’t the way it works. How can we combat the opinion displayed so openly lately in the media over here that evangelical Christians are out to conquer the world with some very well placed Bible beating (oh what turn of phrase…!) if we just turn around and point fists. Just as people who have this view about Christians need to realise that we are not all going to condemn you to hell for not believing the way we do, we need to realise that reading scripture about how those who do not believe are condemned to hell to someone who doesn’t believe the Bible is anything but a book is not the right way to go about things. It’s the contents of the book – love, charity – that need to be displayed, not our angry and narrow-minded voices against theirs.

Rambling again…

Anyway, we met Vickram Seth and Salman Rushdie and went to countless bookshops (there are nearly 40 available, so we had our pick).

It’s getting late. With the summer upon us (it was 84 Fahrenheit the other day) the evenings are a lot lighter, and the sky doesn’t get completely dark until about 11, so it’s hard to really believe it’s late until it hits you hard.

It’s movie night.