WHO would have thought it would be possible to get ‘wasted’ at a literary festival (and as I say that, I’m holding my ‘pinky’ in the air).

But I did and it was brilliant.

A lot of literary festivals are, to use a local colloquialism, up their own backsides, but the Oxford Literary Festival somehow manages to avoid that fate – it’s friendly, open, accessible but most of all... fun.

It didn’t matter that in some cases I didn’t have a clue what the speakers were talking about – what mattered was that they were entertaining.

And although one person wasn’t (I couldn’t have been more dismissive and abrasive), everyone else went out of their way to be...

A – normal (the author Joanne Harris – Chocolat, The Lollipop Shoes – was as every bit as friendly as an M&S cashier)

B – Lord Melvyn Bragg (The South Bank Show) was Robert Redford with a British accent and decent tailor

C – Booker prize-winning author Ben Okri was just coooooooooooool in a damn cool type way (think The Fast Show, jazz and the word ‘Nice...’ and you’ll have hit him on the head)

D – and Jeremy Paxman was just a nice old bloke who could still pull 40-year-olds if he wanted.

Certainly one of the big hits of the festival was the Blackwell’s marquee beside the Sheldonian, which enabled all of us to grab a coffee and flapjack before braving the grey matter of such intellectual giants as Irving Finkel, Brian Aldiss and Mark Tully. And sometimes, in the face of brilliance, only caffeine will do.

Yesterday, I introduced a talk by old Oxonian Professor Clive Finlayson, whose latest book How Water Shaped Human Evolution played to an enthusiastic crowd (and rightly so too).

After nine days of introducing speakers on either religion or atheism, it was a relief to host a debate on something completely unconcerned with the end of days.

The big blue chip name for Saturday night’s celebration dinner was Margaret Atwood, author of such instant classics as The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid’s Tale, and despite the fact I admire her writing, her speech was – to my mind and my mind ONLY, since every one of the 300 other guests were clearly awed – dull.

Clearly I’ll never be invited back and clearly there’s something misfiring in the synapses of my brain, but I just found her pedestrian and pretentious.

Still, that is the watermark of this festival, to excite, irritate and enchant in equal measure, and since it has been going for 18 years, it’s obviously getting a lot right.

For someone whose favourite authors are Stephen King and Enid Blyton, I can honestly say the last nine days have been a ball.

I didn’t understand everyone I listened to, I didn’t like everyone I listened to, but like a beautifully-concocted cocktail of disparate flavours, I loved the way it made me feel.