My outstanding memory of the book festival took place in 2004, when I was still living in Edinburgh. I had a flat on Rose Street and one rainy evening my flatmate and I were throwing a party, which had been infiltrated by various ne'er do wells, including one fellow who leached onto me, refusing to leave my side, bumming cigarettes and wine and begging/insinuating for a roof for the night.

I didn't trust him at all, he was a suspicious looking chap, full of deception, and ended up telling him it wasn't my flat - and indeed that I myself had no place to stay that night. He didn't believe me, so I colluded with my flatmate for him to throw both me and the unwanted guest out of the party and into the wet - which involved many bemused looks from mutual friends as my flatmate and I hurled insults back and forth - and then me walking around in the rain trying to shake the leach off my back. But no, he persisted, perhaps suspicious of my tale and expecting I had a nice warm bed somewhere nearby. Which I did.

By 4am it was raining pretty hard and I could hardly see straight due to the drink and the fatigue and we ended up bumbling our way into Charlotte Square, where the book festival was fully tented and booted. I climbed over the gate, using a bench as a prop, and was swiftly followed by my irritating accomplice. We snuck under a canvas and found ourselves surrounded by hundreds of books.

I was shattered by this point and made first a seat and then a bed out of the books, lying down with my head propped up by several hard back editions of some fictional detective. My friend must have started to believe me by now and he did the same thing, although chose to sleep sitting down, John Merrick style, his back propped up by some cookery books.

I fell asleep, but an hour or so later awoke with a start at the sound of my nemesis snoring away, and I leapt off my pyre, snuck back out of the tent, jumped over the fence and hot-footed it back to my flat. The party had ended, but no-one was in my bed. I climbed in and slept. Next day my neck ached considerably.

Thus my outstanding memory of the book festival is to remember never to use a pile of hardback novels as a pillow and never throw a party without checking the guests' sleeping arrangements first.

James Yorkston will be interviewed at 4pm tomorrow in the Peppers Theatre by Ian Rankin.