The whisperers came to stay

October is not over yet.   There are two more weeks left.   I have been visited by a 70 something horse whispering cowboy and his third fiancee and a 30 something guide from Ecuador (voted the world's best - for 2009 at least).  None of them were ghosts but they sound that way don't they?   Echoes of my visits overseas coming back to haunt me at home, although the haunting was for the most part very pleasant.   They all thought England was wonderful which I suppose it is if you stay here for a few days only, as neither of them had to drive.   Their cultures in a way both curiously and strikingly out of place here.   The Cowboy wore a stetson and the South American talked in a whisper all the time, gently, passionately about his country.   They are all gone now and my son goes off to Thailand for two weeks as well so from having a full house for two weeks I am alone with computer and an action list of stuff that I meant to complete sometime in 2007.  I will miss him loads.   I am talking at the Richmond Book Now Festival on November 1st with three other authors.   I need to decide who is quote 'the most important author of all time, barring the Bard'.    Can I think of someone?  No.   Loved Keats as a teenager No one writes about misery like Keats.    Jane Austen I suppose because I've read all her books but feel personally aggrieved by this author as spent most of my twenties looking for Mr Darcey, in some sort of romantic stupor, and ended up with Hurriah Heep.   I suppose as I live in Richmond, it should be Virginia Woolf but I admit I'm a bit afraid of talking about that one.   Loved and still love Roald Dahl.   Dark, childish, deep and contemporary.   J G Ballard is another one who should get more recognition than he think he does.   Perhaps I should say Darwin as just back from the Galapagos.   Or perhaps it's a test. Perhaps it's like America's Next Top Model (I love that programme. It is so pretty and mindless). Perhaps I should say I am the most important author.   And then it's an excuse to talk about my books.  No.    I have two weeks left to decide and I am definitely not going to say Dickens.