HOW could the perennially superb Swindon Festival of literature possibly be improved?

Well, I have an idea, writes BARRIE HUDSON. It’s an idea so revolutionary and original that it will turn the whole world of literature festivals on its head.

I say we should include the authors of some right old rubbish at future festivals, and not just good ones.

Yes, I know it’s counter-intuitive, and I know it goes against the ethos of Swindon offering a swathe of top-class delights, but bear with me.

Including some right old rubbish would make the festival – or any literature festival, come to that – more accurately reflect the book-buying experience. As all book-lovers know, in order to find the good stuff at your high street or online retailer of choice, you have to wade through plenty of garbage.

One false move and you’re stuck with something you can’t get past about page 38 of, as you’re filled with outright despair at being ripped off. Either that or you’re scared of reading further in case your IQ plummets to that of kelp.

This makes the good books seem all the sweeter, a bit like sunshine being more delightful after three days of sleet.

I’m not suggesting the festival organisers should randomly insert rubbish and let us discover it by accident, as this would tarnish the reputation of the event. Instead, they could indicate the rubbish using a special symbol in the programmes and on the posters. We could all be quietly alerted to it by word of mouth a few months before the festival started.

It’s difficult to make a definitive list of precisely what sort of rubbish might be included, as there’s so much to choose from. It would probably be best to stick with the more common types, though.

There should be, for example, at least one dreary, thinly-disguised account of extramarital relationships among literary folk. The details don’t matter so long as there isn’t any plot, at least one character owns a villa and no sane reader would care if everybody in the book was eaten by a big crocodile. Naturally, the author of this book will have been acclaimed by all of his or her mates in the Sunday broadsheets and nominated for a load of awards.

The festival should also find room for this year’s autobiographical account – again thinly fictionalised – of some skeevy middle-aged male university lecturer having an affair with a 19-year-old female undergraduate.

Especially if the love scenes are foul enough to gag a goat.

Reaction to the book should vary depending on the reader. For skeevy middle-aged male university lecturers it should be something along the lines of: “True love can be an unlikely and bittersweet thing.”

For the rest of it us it should be something along the lines of: “You’re not any less of an old perv just because you’re middle class and know some sonnets.”

On the subject of middle class authors, no roster of rubbish would be complete without something patronising about poverty-stricken foreign people. These tend to be written by folk with names such as Montague or Minty, whose parents are so loaded that they don’t have to bother with distractions such as working for a living.

They’re therefore free to travel to the far corners of the planet, interact with assorted obscure tribes, write accounts of their “amaaaaaazing” experiences and lecture us about how it’s possible to be happy without cars, televisions and whatever. What they fail to mention is that the tribes in question would like nothing better to spend all day playing Grand Theft Auto V, taking selfies and waiting for pizza to be delivered, but they can’t because they’d starve to death.

Our final category of rubbish should consist of Fifty Shades rip-off artists. There are certainly enough to choose from.

With a bit of planning, the festival organisers could arrange for the author to sign books at the end of appearances.

Or spanners, lavatory brushes and tins of mustard powder, depending on the circumstances.