A Martian arriving at the festival site would be confronted with a puzzle. The religion of the cult gathered here, huddled under canvas or tramping through the mud is clearly connected with these things called books. The makers of these objects - the writers, publishers and commentators - are feted in great assemblies, questioned about the great matters of the day and paid homage to by long lines of worshippers. But you could spend days watching the faithful and be none the wiser as to what the objects themselves are actually for. Of course they are bought and brandished, stacked and signed, but nobody is actually reading them.
I thought at first it might have been something to do with the weather. The rain turned all our thoughts to survival first and foremost. We focused on the important things - like where the next hot drink was coming from. The idea of sitting still for longer than was strictly necessary, let alone for the length of time required to concentrate on a book seemed ridiculous.
Today the sun is shining - well, almost - and the deckchairs on the lawns are full of happy people, smiling and talking. Here and there someone is reading a newspaper, or flicking through the festival programme, but nobody seems to be actually reading a book.
The festival itself seems to up to something similar. Take a quick flick through the festival programme and you might think you'd fetched up at a party conference, or a jamboree for a left-leaning think tank. The place is stuffed full of politicians, environmentalists and scientists. Just this weekend we've had Gordon Brown, George Monbiot, Richard Dawkins and Martin Rees. Where's the literature?
It hasn't gone away, of course. This year there's still Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott and Orhan Pamuk - to name but three (and Nobel laureates all). There's just a feeling that the focus of the festival has shifted. Where once it was the novelists, the poets who were the centre of gravity, now it's the politicians, the academics, the movers and shakers who are the big draws.
The appeal for a politician is obvious. Where else would you find such well-disposed, intelligent audience? Where else would you get a chance to show your human side, perhaps a little depth? All you have to do is write a book, any book - perhaps some inspirational biography [Gordon Brown], a diary [ Tony Benn ] or a history of cricket [John Major] - and you've gained membership of an extremely attractive club. Only at a literary festival would the public pay to hear a politician speak.
And nothing wrong in that, perhaps. With a crisis in political engagement and election turnout in freefall perhaps festivals will be the saviour of our democracy. I'm just worried where this is going. Where will Gordon Brown be making his next appearance? Are we faced by the prospect of seeing the prime minister in waiting grooving in the mud at Glasto?
