AS PART OF THE MANDRILL'S COMMITMENT TO CHATTERING-CLASSES-PANDERING, SUNDAY BROADSHEET

COLOUR SUPPLEMENT TYPE JOURNO-STUFF, WE PRESENT AN OCCASIONAL DIP INTO MATTERS WORDISH

WITH A NEW SECTION - 'BOOKVIEW'. CORRESPONDENCE SHOULD BE SENT HERE FOR INITIAL INDIFFERENCE

AND SUBSEQUENT REJECTION.

HARRY POTTER EXCLUSIVE

HARRY POTTER: On the rocky road to hairy palms

JK Rowling is to continue her phenomenally successful 'Harry Potter' series with a fourth volume in September. Entitled "Harry Potter & the Locked Bathroom", the novel

will trace the Boy Wizard's first steps into adolescence. Details are sketchy, but will feature a number of Kay's catalogues that mysteriously flop open at the ladies' bras

section, and a strange grunting, slapping sound behind the Locked Bathroom door.

 

HAY ON WYE FESTIVAL 2000

BRET EASTON ELLIS: Headliner

Details reach Bookview of the line up for this year's Hay-On-Wye Literary Festival. Events include panel discussions on the state of literature featuring Vikram Seth,

Maeve Binchy and Iain Sinclair, including 'How Best We Fuck Archer?' on the Sunday afternoon, a puppet show by a balding man in a Charles Bukowski t-shirt and,

headlining the Main Stage on Saturday night, Bret Easton Ellis and Will Self writing their names in some fake snow, accompanied the Ghost of Catherine Cookson

on congos.. Tickets are, oooh, mondo pricey and available from any sleeping dosser.

 

PRATCHETT TO AUCTION HAT

TERRY PRATCHETT - Soon to be hatless

Comic fantasy author Terry Pratchett is to auction his special hat in aid of 'Heavy Metal T-shirts for the Deaf'. The hat, which has been glued to his head for thirty

years, even while having sex and brushing his teeth and having a wee and that (often simultaneously), is expected to fetch up to £47.56 for the charity that rounds up old

Saxon, Slayer and Manowar shirts and gives them to deaf people, if they want them. The decision to part with the hat, according to Pratchett, came when "(He) looked in

the mirror and caught sight of this idiot piece of felt strapped to my skull and thought 'Christ, what a tit!'"

'BUT FOR THE MILK'

Will Self (Bloomsbury, £12.99, 250pp)

Self has carved himself quite a reputation as Brit Lit's enfant terrible, shocking novels and even more shocking behaviour (eating pies, smoking crack with John Major's pipe,

shaving his pubes, that sort of thing.) But middle age, a fat bank account and that bag of brass fists he calls his face seem to have mellowed the one time Keith Moon of

English letters. "But For The Milk" is a moving tale of some ikkle kittens who have lost their mummy and need some milk. Not typical subject matter for Self, but the usual

verbal acrobatics are inplace, with one long word in nine especially made up to confuse the reader and make them feel like a duncy tit for not knowing it.

 

'NAKED LUNCH'

Written by William Burroughs, Read by Keith Harris, Orville and Cuddles the Monkey (Penguin Audio, 3hrs unabridged, £22.99)

Burroughs' classic satirical masterwork is given a fresh reading by the popular ventriliquist and his animal pals. Cuddles the Monkey is especially effective as crooked

pathologist Dr Benway, while Orville tackles the Bosch-like orgy scenes of AJ's Annual Party with unusual aplomb. The definitive reading of a definitive text.