During this year's Edinburgh Book Festival, Alexander McCall Smith is taking part in no less than four events for both adults and children. He is a prolific writer with millions of readers world wide who follow his various popular series of novels set in Edinburgh, Botswana and London. Presenter Jamie Jauncey introduces McCall Smith as the equivalent of "a kindly spring flowing with a torrent of books". This event is sponsored by Highland Park and it was an unexpected delight to be welcomed with a complimentary dram as we arrived at the Main Theatre tent.
Sipping a glass of Highland Park himself, Alexander McCall Smith began a lively and extremely amusing discussion, starting with all the travelling he has experienced this year. Between January and June, he has been to the United States four times, India and Australia. "I can't remember where I have been - elsewhere! .. but I am here now" he adds with an infectious laugh.
We hear how 2 million visitors attend the Calcutta Book festival ("rather more than Edinburgh, I presume"), and where he met a charming Captain of the Indian Army who is a fan of 44 Scotland Street books especially Bertie, the 6 year old child prodigy. The Captain is an expert in Scottish country dancing, a popular pastime in the Indian army, but probably not so now in the Scottish regiments. Bertie has an international fan base who are all concerned about what will happen to the boy with his pushy mother, surrounded by liars including his friends Olive and Tofu.
Not content with four series of novels, McCall Smith has started a new genre - the London equivalent of 44 Scotland Street, entitled Corduroy Mansions, published first in the Daily Telegraph and now out in hardback.
"Why are you interested in Pimlico?" asks Mr Jauncey.
"I'm not particularly" answers the author. (It transpires this was the choice of the editor, the location of the newspaper offices.)
A new series of 44 Scotland Street will begin in The Scotsman this Autumn, at the same time as Corduroy Mansions continues in the Telegraph. This certainly illustrates the extraordinary work load and commitment to writing about all these popular characters and their adventures. There's a good deal of banter between presenter and writer over the fact that nothing really happens in these novels, which are indeed such gentle, situation comedies about human goodness and weakness.
Apart from all these books and travel, we also hear hilarious anecdotes about his appearance with the Really Terrible orchestra in New York, his screenplay for a nature film about Meercats, an African cookery book and his libretto for an opera to be performed at the Madame Ramotswe opera house (a converted garage) in Botswana.
McCall Smith also reveals that the film rights have been taken for the Isabel Dalhousie books which he is excited about. " I can just see Isabel and her world on television - I would love it." And for Dalhousie fans, a new novel will be published this Autumn. How does he have the time to write all these wonderful novels? I have no idea - I am just so glad he does.