The Dublin Writers Festival 2007 kicks off tomorrow with a stronger-than-usual lineup. However, it’s unfortunate that Adrienne Rich, by far the most significant participant, had to pull out of her event due to ill health. Still, there’s enough to pique the interest, with Lionel Shriver, Alistair MacLeod, Tim Robinson, and Iain Sinclair involved. There’s also a debate about God, with the omnipresent Christopher Hitchens in the atheists’ corner and John Waters, columnist and song writer manqué, presumably primed to ramble on about why he re-embraced his long-lost faith. Given Hitchens’s rep as a seasoned controversialist and Waters’s taste for völkisch prattling, Legion of Mary members might emerge from the clash ready to donate to the Richard Dawkins Foundation.

So, all good clean fun in the next week. But I have to ask: what the hell is Paul Howard (AKA Ross O'Carroll-Kelly) doing on the slate?