Friday the 31st was the launch of the new book. Fraught with difficulty due to Commonwealth Cycling Road Race and sweating men in Lycra. Traffic chaos, no parking etc. The hotel we normally go to post launch had trebled its prices and the Waterstones' staff could not get home. So we stayed in store to have a drink and a nibble.
Two months before we had noticed that the south side of town would be annexed from the city centre. So we had a pre launch launch there on the Wednesday....
It sold out of books within 48 hours.
A lovely policeman told me the story of the time he was assaulted by an elephant we both know. He lied on the incident report form I think ....
The Waterstone's in Newton Mearns has a deal with the cafe in the mall so no catering duties for the author. Just great coffee and a nice interview from Russel, with one L, MacLean.
Then for the big night on the Thursday we had the issue of getting £100 worth of wine plus glasses, plates etc to the venue.
I don't like children. But I realise the potential they have for cheap labour so I said to my Faithful P A (FPA) if I could borrow hers for a tenner. On a buy one get one free kind of offer. (She has two, I can't tell the difference between them. One is sulky and moody , the other is noisy and mouthy. Sometimes it is the other way round. They both have long limbs that we needed to fold up on a busy train. Both have a problem with their left hand. The palm of that hand is permanently attached to an I phone. Is that a disease?)
The mood of the FPA's children
They were bribed with money and the offer of breakfast in Costa if they pulled a suitcase each from Central station to Waterstones, Sauchiehall Street, about 10 minutes dragging time.
the average child can pull these no bother if you bribe them enough
I do annoying things with children like buy them drum kits for Christmas. In Costa I loaded them with additive ridden bright pink drinks and sugary snacks just to make the FPA's life more unbearable. Then they wanted to spend their earned pennies on Loom Bands - the latest craze. The FPA was busy telling them there were no loom bands anywhere in Glasgow - all sold out while hurrying them past shop windows. While I was helpfully showing the short people the massively expensive loom band stock in the same shop windows.
I will make my point that dogs are better than kids. Mathilda the staffie has never wanted a loom band.
Then we headed home on the train to walk dogs, put children in cupboards/childcare service, take flat shoes off, put heels on to get back to Glasgow. I was writing the speech and started with the words Myra Hindley, two lesbians and a blonde in stilettos and it's easy to pull the upper limb from a corpse if you know what you are doing. The man sitting beside me got up and left to sit elsewhere.
On the way to Waterstones the second time, the FPA and I beat this woman in a race across the street.
Ok so her marathon time is about three hours better than mine but my specialist event is beating Glasgow traffic...
I am on tour now, in fact as I write this I have no real idea where I am but it is by the seaside and very pretty. So here is a photoblog of the event. Above is the mess we made. We bought enough wine if 30% of the audience had been driving. Of course due to the Games, nobody was driving so they drank everything alcoholic and were very merry. The official audience was aided in beverage consumption by a strange young man in Commonwealth Games garb who got very drunk indeed and had to be removed from the premises forcibly by the lovely James. Drunk young man was last seen heading down Sauchiehall Street singing 'Save all your kisses for me.'
Sensible photo of family
Sensible face...
They are all scared at this point, I am talking about page 218!!!!
The mess we made in the corner...
They are paying attention. I am offering to kill folk in books. Killing various council employees was very popular.... building control especially.
Showing Stuart's Dissection room picture...
And my tank picture!!!! Very proud of my tank I am but disappointed I don't get to elect folk to go in it.
I had a list ready.
I think Moira has just told me I can't put the drunk man in my tank at the morgue.
He hit me on the head with a book.
He survived but now has a bad limp.
And can legitimately be called Joyce.
Don't mess with The Ramsay.
35 folk bought books quickly and went to the pub to see our pal run in the 110 high hurdles then joined us on the bus home. The other 70 odd bought books more slowly as we kept them up to date with medal progress of Team Scotland. Much cheering.
We returned home at 11.30 at night. A 16 hour day fuelled only by black coffee and toast. I was telling my other half that there were elephants in the house and he was not to alarm them. He told me I should go and lie down in a quiet room.
So I did.
I am going to fit myself with a GPS so I know where I am.
Caro
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