1. Jens Lapidus is not only a brilliant thriller writer, but a very lovely bloke.

2. The Elsewhere collection is a thing of real beauty.

3. Irvine Welsh is a sweetheart.

4. The staff get nicer and more helpful every year.

5. Ewan Morrison needs to get back on the booze, he has too much energy sober.

6. David Vann appears to have a really fucked up family.

7. It’s great to see a bookshop full of people buying books.

8. They still need to get beer in the yurt.

9. Literary Death Match organiser Todd Zuniga looks like Shelley Duvall (his words not mine, and he’s right).

10. The Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference is really not my cup of tea. Lots of self-important hot air, IMHO.