I taste some nice vodka before giving a reading and a discussion of my novel 'Incomparable World'. Some seriously passionate intellectuals are in the house throwing around all kinds of questions. I like it. I get a Russian school dinner. There was meat, fruit, tea and bread.
Further description is impossible.
3.30 pm Caught the flight to Irkutsk from Moscow's second airport - more screwy Gerry Anderson architecture. Everyone looks miserable, as if they've got one-way tickets to Chechnya. We fly Aeroflot 'Business Class' which is basically EasyJet standard travel with lots and lots of heavy food and infinite tumblersfull of vodka. I laugh out loud to the consternation of the other passengers. I give a talk at the British Council office in town to introduce an exhibition of 'contemporary British writing'.