The Friday team’s fingers are crossed: if Gloucestershire’s queen of comedy, Jilly Cooper, picks up the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction at the Hay Festival on Monday (June 4), she will win a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after her steamy tale of two schools, Wicked! (Friday cover story, April 28). She could always change its name to Hargreaves after her “surprisingly humane” Ofsted inspector, or Mrs Chalford after Larks’s bossy-boots history teacher. The prize, in honour of PG Wodehouse’s famous fictional pig, the Empress, is supplemented by plenty of Bollinger’s finest. The shortlist also includes John Farrell for May Contain Nuts, a tale of school admissions frenzy. The winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award is also being announced at Hay today, while the 60 10 to 14-year-olds who took part in the judging enjoy the Hay Fever children’s festival. See www.redhousechildrensbookaward.co.uk