The talk at the opening of the Bachmann Prize was repeatedly about what difficult people poets are, and since time memorial the cliché has been that poets think they are above the law.

All the more astonishing, then, that every year poets get together here who not only adhere to basic civil and medial rules, but who are also prepared to give readings at the ungodly hour of 9.00 am.

9.00 am at breakfast in my dressing gown

I'm currently in my dressing gown whilst I write this (another reason why I could never take part in the Bachmann Prize) and I'm having my breakfast. Nevertheless I managed to switch 3sat on and I was able to see and listen to Heike Geisler. My boiled egg didn't look as if it was contemplating anything, incidentally, so I knocked the top off and ate it.

Careless use of the word "daft"

No sooner had I consumed the uncontemplative egg than the juror Ursula März said: "We all know that being alone is daft..." I didn't know that until today, however, it did make me wonder about such a renowned literary critic and her use of the word "daft", and even more about her careless use of the word "we".

Reading among billions of midges

Now I am of course live on location at the ORF Theatre, where the Swiss author Pedro Lenz from Berne is about to read. We did a reading together in May this year in Schaffhausen. On the literature boat on the Rhine at night there were, in addition to the paying public, approximately ten million midges which flew straight into our mouths in their thousands as we opened them to read. They were everywhere, in the glasses from which we were drinking, on the pages of the books which we were about to read. Every time we wanted to turn a page we unintentionally killed at least 1000 of them.

Enforced arrival by train

Pedro discovered that day that he had been invited to take part in this year's Bachmann Prize and he was suitably excited. Berne is 999 km from Klagenfurt. For a distance of over 1000km the organisers would have been prepared to accept the cost of a flight. Bad luck.

And so Pedro had to come by train and wanted to take in Venice on the way, but he didn't trust the Italian trains to be on time so he travelled via Feldkirch and now he is here, which means I can keep my fingers firmley crossed for him. Mass murders of midges must stick together, and compared to Schaffhausen I'm sure his appearance here should pass without a hitch...

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