Seeing James Blunt at the Hay Festival was most certainly the highlight of my quick visit there this year. The erudite audience didn’t know what hit them as he bowled in 15 minutes late to talk to Chris Power, telling the story of having to pick a girl up off the tarmac in Ibiza and get her on the plane….before arriving in a helicopter.
He was there to talk about his book “Loosely Based On A Made-Up Story” – a “Non Memoir,” that’s just out in paperback. It’s been doing very well apparently and he confirmed that he had to say that to avoid any court cases, but confirmed that everything in it was true. When asked by an audience member how he chose what should go in it he said “basically the ones that wouldn’t end up with me in prison.”
He’s hilarious and very sweary and I wasn’t necessarily going to write about it, but the man sitting next to me – who also asked James a question about whether “he preferred Knightsbridge or his current vocation” – clearly indicating that he was a high level army man to which James was suitably deferential. At the end of the talk, whereby I had taken notes, he asked me if he was going to see my writing in the paper any time soon…although I said no, he said, “well if you do write about him, please mention that he was a bloody good soldier.”
I’d already read extracts from his book in The Times and his stories about his time in Kosovo are absolutely horrific. “War is hideous and human beings can be horrid, I didn’t think much of the human race during that time” he said. But he said he enjoyed working as a team in the army and talked about meeting people from all walks of life – the dodgy guy from Newcastle who would normally be stealing cars could hot-wire his tank whilst he, “the posh twat” could chat himself and his men out of a dangerous situation.
He defended his rather mean comments on his family by saying “but they’re all true – I’m from Norfolk and my Grandparents are cousins. He talked about drugs, about Carrie Fisher being his best friend and what happened just after he saw her when she got on a plane and promptly died – “she had taken enough drugs to have a really good party.”
Lots of very funny conversations about his songs and of course he was very self deprecating about “You’re Beautiful” and how everybody hated it “but I’m the guy who had to sing it every day so pity me!” He said it was funny how it was played often at weddings despite it describing being high as a kite and stalking someone’s girlfriend.
Of course I queued up to buy books for my children and told him we’d all been to see him at the Albert Hall, for which he was very grateful – and I’m super excited now, because once I’ve read the book I’ll be able to write about him for the third time!
