I'm doing it for his honour
	12:25pm Thu 13 Mar 08
	Libby Purves explains to NICK UTECHIN why she is speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival about her son's death The broadcaster, novelist and columnist Libby Purves comes to the festival with a real challenge: to speak of her own son's death. Nicholas took his life, at the age of 23, in June 2006, after some years suffering from a mental illness that his mother, inevitably, finds complicated to discuss.

	Sleaze and the truth that sticks
	12:23pm Thu 13 Mar 08
	REG LITTLE talks to journalist Martin Bell about his new book on New Labour It would be almost disappointing if Martin Bell were to arrive at the Oxford Literary Festival from a holiday break in the Cotswolds or book signing in Cheltenham. The man in the white suit quickly put any such fears to rest. "I will be flying in from Somalia," he cheerfully declared. "I'm going out with Unicef. Because they can't send celebrities there, they send me. So if I'm speaking twice at Oxford, I'd better survive."

	Words free from inhibitions
	12:20pm Thu 13 Mar 08
	HELEN PEACOCKE profiles the life of former publisher Diana Athill who is still writing at the age of 90 There is a postscript to Diana Athill's book Somewhere Towards the End which is worth reading first. It states that the small tree fern dscribed on page one, which disappointed her so much when it arrived by post as it was too small to mature in her lifetime, now has nine fronds, each 12in long.