The organisers of this year's Isle of Wight Literary Festival Games drew

their inspiration from the notorious Hampstead Literary Games
of 1927. There was a thrilling finish to the super-heavyweight boxing

 tournament that year when the veteran novelist Sabrina Honeywell
 collected the gold by delivering a punishing uppercut to her long-time
adversary Brenda Dugong, the literary critic of the Daily Mail.

So next year he'll try Puppy Juggling

The distinguished Russian performance poet Aleksey Barkov attends

 the Isle of Wight Literary Festival Games where he makes a spirited

attempt to break his own world record but is ultimately disqualified

when it's discovered that Child Tossing is not an Olympic sport.

Famous American children's author Archie Murdoch, lost for ten days,

is found by neighbours wandering on waste ground behind his home,

dressed as Charlie Cottontail, one of his most famous creations.

This year's Isle of Wight Literary Festival will be celebrating the

2012 London Olympics with a number of exciting sporting fixtures

held exclusively for those involved in the arts. Along with the field 

and track events the organisers are hoping to include a selection of less 

familiar disciplines.  Here for example book reviewers from the Times

 Literary Supplement Formation Weightlifting Team pose for pictures.

Savaged by critics for failing to have interviewed, seen or even spoken

to Michael Jackson, the subject of her latest biography, the writer

Agatha Blunt defended her position by declaring "I didn't have to

meet him while he was living here on Earth.  The dear little man spoke

to me from the spirit world"  When asked what she thought of the music

she insisted that she hadn't heard any music since, "I wrote the entire

800 pages while in a trance."  Agatha Blunt is president-for-life of the 

British Psychics Writing and Drawing Circle.

The cast of 'Sod Off!' confronts an angry first night audience at the 

Royal Court Theatre.  The play, written by feisty feminist playwright

Lefty Morgan Murphy is a controversial attack on London's bourgeois

theatre audiences.  The actors are directed to assemble on the edge of 

stage, hurl abuse at the dress circle and spit at people in the front rows.

Murphy, best known for her 'Fart-Arse Monologues' and the recent

'Scum-Bag Scum-Bag' was indignant at the audience reaction. 

"Flaming cheek - they threw stuff back!" she complained over the
phone from her holiday home in the Algarve. "And that's not in the
 script. I mean, just who do these philistines think they're dealing
 with here?  I've won an Evening Standard Award"