IT seemed very apt that the audience attending Dr Irving Finkel’s talk on The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood came in two-by-two.

It also seemed very appropriate that Dr Finkel should look like Noah (well, at least from the neck up).

And finally it seemed like kismet that I should be asked to present his talk, since on my sixth birthday my parents presented me with my very own toy Ark, complete with obligatory zebras and elephants which, when placed in the bath, capsized violently every time.

Thankfully, I was not disappointed by either Dr Finkel or his revelations on the Babylonian cuneiform tablet, thought to date from 1850BC, that was oh-so casually brought into the British Museum by a member of the public in 2008.

Astonishingly, the tablet detailed the Babylonian story of the flood including, perhaps most significantly of all, instructions for building a boat large enough to survive the impending catastrophe.

Despite his mad, professorial look and animated delivery (think Doc Brown in Back To The Future), Finkel was as fascinating and charismatic as TV’s Professor Brian Cox but without the groupies.

Having lost my Lit Fest virginity introducing the Ark debate, I ironically became even more nervous approaching the Madhur Jaffrey and Sir Mark Tully talk at the Sheldonian Theatre yesterday evening.

The world-famous actress and authority on Indian food teamed up for one night only with the former chief of the BBC’s New Delhi bureau to present their very own, personal take on the ‘magic’ of India.

Shamelessly transparent and brutally manipulative, I bought Ms Jaffrey a bouquet of M&S flowers and Sir Mark a bunch of daffodils as a means of ingratiating myself in case I should falter when the time came.

And I’m not ashamed to say it worked.

Unfortunately the people I hadn’t had the foresight to bribe were the 750 or so audience members in attendance. And trust me, as grand and awe-inspiring as the Sheldonian is when you’re seated among them, it’s nothing short of agonising – both mentally and physically – to find yourself suddenly alone on centre stage and looking up at all those expectant faces.

Indeed, the pressure led me to resort to something I consider blasphemous – using a sweaty palm of cardboard prompters.

But fate intervened...sadistically. The ink on the carefully penned words ran (Useful Tip: wear gloves when delivering speeches), I forgot to don my reading glasses, and because I’d sunk a few vodkas, my bladder inflated to the size of Tom Tower.

Still, as Barry Manilow once sang, I Made it Through The Rain and here I am now, patting myself down with a large towel, understanding fully what it feels like to die at the hands of 750 VERY SERIOUS food enthusiasts (there was applause but I’m sure it was slow, rhythmic and methodical).