Mariella gets Carter

Fresh from a nice long weekend at Hay, courtesy of Sky Arts, there is only one issue obsessing Monkey after a diet of Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan et al: quite how charmed former US president Jimmy Carter was with Mariella Frostrup. Carter was at the festival to deliver the Guardian lecture and word from the green room - sorry, performers' yurt - was that Carter was "extremely dazzled" by the Sky Arts presenter who interviewed him for the satellite channel's successful Hay on Sky programme. Well, who wouldn't be charmed? There was less good news for Radio 4 comic Marcus Brigstocke, who turned up at the festival in a camper van in which all the facilities were solar powered. Or at least they were meant to be. The problem, as Marcus confessed to your literary-minded simian, was that there was so little sunshine over the few days he was there that he had to charge it up with daily refills of diesel. D'oh!