A feast for the metropolite, a banquet for the literary, a gala for the cultured Londoner.

Banish all thoughts of those rain-drenched days on English beaches, forget your forlorn August attempts to have fun in muddy fields and plunge yourself instead into this year’s Soho Literary Festival – Last year’s inaugural Soho LitFest brought a glittering combination of writers and thinkers. Many were veterans of The Oldie’s monthly Literary Lunches and all were selected from the cream of English writing – historians, novelists, journalists and politicans at the cutting edge of contemporary thought.

The 2012 Festival promises all the above and more.

THURSDAY 27TH

2pm Michael Frayn

3pm Dominic Sandbrook on the seventies

4pm Tony Parsons & Mark Ellen

5pm Artemis Cooper on Patrick Leigh Fermor

6pm Craig Brown & Friends

7pm Prue Leith and Sam Leith – Leith on Leith

8pm John Major – My Old Man

FRIDAY 28TH

2pm Michael Palin interviewed by Barnaby Rogerson

3pm Hugh Cavendish & Edward Enfield in conversation with Eric Robson

4pm Ruth Rendell and PD James, Head to Head: Queens of Crime

5pm Ferdinand Mount & John Bird

6pm Debate – The Euro: Is it all Greek to you?

7pm Colin Thubron

8pm Giles Coren

9.15pm Jeremy Vine

SATURDAY 29TH

12pm Keeping it in the Family – Shirley Hughes with Ed & Clara Vulliamy

1pm The Press & Politics – a special relationship?

2pm Richard Ingrams & The Oldie: the first twenty years

3pm Kate Summerscale and John Walsh

4pm How to spot a psychopath: Simon Baron-Cohen & Kerry Daynes

5pm Tim Lott

6pm Pam Ayres – Solo Show

7pm Bomber Command – Mira Bar-Hillel, Patrick Bishop, Tony Iveson 8pm Dear Lupin with Charlie Mortimer

SUNDAY 30TH

11.30am Classic children’s poems with performances by Timothy West, Prunella Scales… 12.30pm Asa Briggs

1.30pm Jane Ridley on Bertie

2.30pm Fay Weldon – Habits in the House

3pm Patrick & Henry Cockburn: A Father and Son’s Journey through mental illness

3.30pm Quiz: How well do you know your Classics? 4pm Soho Stories

4.30pm Clive Stafford-Smith 5pm Virginia Ironside

5.30pm Debate: What became of the Arab Spring?