Last Friday I headed down to the Guardian Hay Festival to meet Ian McEwan, who had just been announced the winner of this year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. I was there to introduce him to the locally-bred pig who was to be named 'Solar' after his winning book. This is a tradition of this prize for comic fiction, which also sees the winner presented with a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and a set of the Everyman Wodehouse collection.

Events were in full swing on Friday afternoon when I arrived at the festival with Chloe Craven from Bollinger. The weather, though chilly with a Welsh breeze, remained dry and, ahead of meeting the pig, Ian took part in a discussion with Peter Florence on his novel Solar, and tackling the subject of climate change. "Novels don't work if you badger people" Ian told Peter, "which is partly why I have the comic frame."

As the event wrapped up, we made our way over to the Hay garden where Ian was due to be presented with his pig by judge Jim Naughtie. However, the poor pig had other ideas... More accustomed to the quiet idyll of his farm, Solar became quite camera shy when confronted with photographers and Hay festival revellers. Instead of basking in the limelight, the pig decided he preferred to stay in his trailer. After a couple of hairy moments, Ian nobly accepted the challenge and met Solar inside his humble abode.

It may not have been the most glamorous of locations, but Ian happily leapt over the pen to meet the pig in its familiar surroundings. He was joined by Jim Naughtie, and all three found themselves crammed into the trailer, alongside a jeroboam of Bollinger, a set of Everyman Wodehouse books and, mysteriously, a yellow rose.

It's not every day you see such a sight, and it made for a very enjoyable evening all round. Solar, you'll be pleased to hear, has returned to the safety of his farmyard home where he will no doubt be the envy of the sty for having met one of the UK's leading writers. He will also, no doubt, be rather relieved at the shortness of his new name - his predecessors have been less fortunate, with some christened 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian', 'All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye' and 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen'.

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