Covering Will Young's Buttocks With Butter

Will Young covered in butter

Well, that was a splendidly enjoyable reading in Kaffee Burger on Wednesday night. A lovely crowd, and excellent questions afterwards (except for Clare's one about bondage). One is always delighted with a crowd that contains both one's parents and Momus. (Giving the evening the air of a disturbing teenage dream.) I do like the way you can stay on in Kaffee Burger after the reading to catch the band, then the disco, and dance till dawn. (Though I wussed out, and only danced till 3.30am.)

I have just been contributing my opinion to a row on the Guardian's Books Unlimited about Will Young's fitness to judge the National Short Story Prize. I may as well cut 'n' paste my contribution in here too... Feel free to head over, and add your own thoughts...

I'm probably slightly biased in favour of the National Short Story Prize, as I won it in its second year.

But Alison, I think you are completely wrong when you say

"What's the point of having a literary prize if it isn't judged by someone with some kind of literary knowledge/qualifications?"

Wrong on two levels. The prize isn't judged by "someone", it is judged by a team of five. It's the overall balance of the team that you have to consider. I hope you agree that a team of, say, five professional semioticians would be very high in literary knowledge and qualifications. But they'd make for a lousy, unbalanced team of judges.

A short story contains a lot more than just literature. I note that the Guardian have linked, just below these comments, to an account of my 2007 win, headed "'Tipperary Star Wars' wins National Short Story Prize". Now, the team of judges in my particular year included the magnificent A.S. Byatt. I'm sure she got my references to Yeats, and to Voltaire's Candide. But I have no idea whether or not she got my story's references to, say, the Eurovision Song Contest, or knew what I was on about in lines like - "A brief chant went up from the Young Farmers in the Mosh Pit: "Who put the ball in the England net?" Older farmers, further back, added bass to the reply of "Houghton! Houghton!""

Yet I do know that the judges read and reread the stories, discussed them, and were unanimous in their final decision. And I believe a good range in age, sex, class, nationality, and experience of both life and literature can make for a richer collective decision.

This year, Margaret Drabble, for example, who was born before World War Two kicked off, needs a great deal of balancing in certain important areas. So, of course, does Will Young - but between them, there are very few references that they won't be able to explain to each other.

Last of all, but very important; a short story is not designed to be analysed by professionals. It is created to be read by human beings. If a short story, after several rereadings and much discussion with Margaret Drabble and others, still fails to make a connection with an intelligent young man who has read Ulysses, then it has on some level failed.

Will Young is OK by me as a judge (and no, I've no story entered this year, so I'm not covering his buttocks in butter with any selfish intent).

However, if you want a tip for a potential future judge from the pop world who likes his short fiction literary: I met Morrissey in a hotel in Galway when I was a teenager (long story). I happened to be holding a copy of James Joyce's Dubliners. "Dubliners!" he exclaimed. "Oh, you've read it?" I said. "Read it? I have it tattooed all over my body," he said.