The Bristol Cultural Development Partnership, last seen releasing "The Bristol Story" have now officially launched the fourth annual May "Festival of Ideas". One of the associated events I previously attended was Prof Sir David King's talk on Global Warming.

They're obviously scraping the barrel for support acts this year, as they've asked me to be one of their resident bloggers. This piece is my contribution to the kick-off, and you can respond on the Festival's website.

There are also two rather more distinguished contributors: the philosopher Julian Baggini (I hadn't realised he is based in Bristol - he blogs here) and Tom Abba, a lecturer at UWE specialising in narrative theory. [I'm sure Alan Sokal will love him.]

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While we all know on an emotional level that Bristol is the greatest city in Britain, the numbers put us at a – still respectable – tenth. So I am genuinely impressed that the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership has managed to attract some of the world’s most interesting speakers to this year’s May Festival of Ideas. Admittedly most of them have books to plug, but hey: quid pro quo, am I right?

Putting aside my scepticism about whether this is really something the local council should be getting involved with when there are roads to repair, schools to improve and cycle paths to build over, I have accepted the Festival organisers’ offer to kick-off this year’s comments section. And also their offer of free tickets, to date the only product of my blogging apart from Carpal Tunnel syndrome .

The spirit of the festival is to share ideas and address pressing issues. So I’ve been looking through the schedule thinking about the ideas I might glean from each speaker.

You've already missed Nicholson Baker , who offered a startling analysis of the Second World War in support of his book “Human Smoke”; a work of non-fiction that has even the Daily Mail’s Peter Hitchens questioning deeply-held beliefs about British history.

Charles Freeman is speaking on 7th May on the subject of Heresy, in particular the transformation of Christian theology in the fourth century. The magnitude of these changes make the schism between Protestant and Catholic seem almost irrelevant by comparison.

The author of the seminal paper "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", Alan Sokal – in my opinion the highlight of the festival – will be discussing Pseudo-Science, Religion and Misinformation on 8th May. If you've ever had a conversation with a literary theorist and suspected that they're talking a load of tosh, then even if you can't make it to the lecture, nip down to Bristol Library and borrow his book

Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fair Trade Foundation is doing a double-matinee on 10th May at Castle Park. I’ve never understand how it can be ethical to give one group of producers an unfair advantage over another, more efficient producer, just because they’re politically well-connected. If it happened in business or government, we’d call it corruption or undue influence. But when it happens in agriculture, it’s called “Fair Trade”. Very peculiar, and a subject about which I’d like to know more.

It’s Sixties Night at the Arnolfini on 12th May, and what better way to celebrate the spirit of that era than to invite a bona fide member of a terrorist cell to the city. Officially, she's retired, but I'll be keeping an eye on her.

On the 20th May, I'll be at the Arnolfini looking for some insight into the world of soulless marionettes and hidden puppet masters pulling the strings. The speakers: Nick Davies and Gordon Burn. The subject: the mainstream media. Or you could catch Gerry Anderson talking about the Thunderbirds at the Watershed.

23rd May: Naomi Klein, a global brand for the rejection of global brands,will be explaining what she means by "The Shock Doctrine", which apparently is not Socialism. Who knew?

The last day of the month is one of best. On the 29th, one of the world's best science writers George Johnson will be talking about the beauty of scientific experimentation. And finally, there's John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He's a formidable critic of the UN, and I'm interested to know what, if anything, he’d put in it’s place. And if he could quickly summarise the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, that would also be helpful, as I still can’t work it out.

I’m not sure if I can get to all of these sessions, but if you see me there, let me know your ideas, or leave them in the comments section at the festival web-site.