A social whirl

In a concerted effort to scare the living bejesus out of myself I have this week been engaged in a whistle-stop tour of the country, launching myself headlong and unaccompanied into rooms full of people I have never met before.  This unprecedented social whirl began on Saturday with the second Manchester blogmeet, organised by the splendid Kate of Manchizzle.  Proceedings got underway at 3PM prompt at the Urbis, and continued, after an hour or so of coffee and pleasantries in these swish surroundings, at the Hare and Hounds; a bona-fide old man's pub, all brass fittings and threadbare carpets, hanging on for dear life on the edge of the ultra-chic Northern Quarter.  There we ordered pints of Guinness and commandeered a spacious back room, empty but for a lone, tattooed and slightly scary looking regular, who, as if in an act of solidarity with the venerable hostelry's refusal to be converted into a bijou apartment block, clung clam-like to his station even as his entire Saturday afternoon world was overrun by people from off the internet.  By the end he had become integrated into our community (or we had become integrated into his, I'm not sure which) and, I am reliably informed, was to be seen giving a guided tour of his garish and extensive collection of body art to a game but quite evidently terrified young social commentator named Andrew. 

By that time I was back home- because when you're on a whistle-stop tour of the country scaring the living bejesus out of yourself you can't afford to hang around drinking Guinness, don't you know- and anyway it was my turn to get Frankie to bed.  But it had been a great afternoon out among sprited, uplifting company, including two of my very favourite bloggers, Girl on a Train and A Free Man in Preston.  Both are just as charming as you would imagine from reading their blogs, of course- oh, and Tim the Free Man has put together a much fuller list of attendees, which is great as it saves me the embarrassment of attempting to do the same and missing someone out.  Here's to the next one, folks.   

And then on Wednesday I headed up to Newcastle on the train to attend my book launch.  Well, OK- the launch of a book that I am in, along with Ben, Paul, and sundry other Newcastle United fans of a literary persuasion.  This event- held in Shearers Sports Bar, in the bowels of St James' Park itself, was actually a whole lot more nerve-racking a proposition than the blog thing.  For a start I really didn't know anyone there at all.  And of course the event was being organised by people I really wanted to make an impression with- the up-and-coming Tyneside publishers who paid me the enormous honour of putting something I had written (a story about going to Blackburn for an FA Cup tie and narrowly avoiding getting me head kicked in)  into a real, live book.  As the 16:05 from Mancheser Piccadilly rolled into Newcastle Central Station I resolved to take it on the easy side with the drink.  After all I was back at work the next morning, and I wanted to try and make a decent impression at this do.  The best thing would be to have three quick pints- maybe four at the outside- and get on the 10:00 bus back to me mam's house in Blaydon.

Needless to say, by 11:30 I was one of the last stragglers, leaning bleary-eyed on the bar along with a couple of Geordie poets who I had decided were my new best friends, and entertaining vague- very vague- notions of stumbing out into the Gallowgate taxi rank.  At this point I became aware of a figure in my immediate vicinity, making earnest references to the Swallwell roundabout.  It was the publisher himself, offering me a lift back to Blaydon.  Figuring that this was probably the nearest I was going to get to a written offer of a book deal that particular evening, I accepted this proposal with as much alacrity as your average literary Geordie can muster after seven pints of Kronenbourg, and after a short car-ride distinguished by my flailing efforts to string some kind of half-way coherent sentence together on the subject of the workings of the Newcastle United midfield, I was eating ham sandwiches in my mam's living room by midnight.  A textbook literary evening, I'm sure you'll agree.

So- that's where I've been, you know, just in case you were all wondering, like.  Next time out we will be back to the Frankie A-Z, where we are due the fourth and final instalment.  Oh- and er- if you are interested in buying this book that me and all these Geordie poets are in (they're me new best friends, man!), it can be found in all good bookshops in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, several really quite bad ones, and also at Amazon and those kind of online places.  That will be all.  Thank you.

Comments

[looby]

Well, that's brilliant! Well done. And I bet the book launch was good as well.

I'm going to get Lancaster Central Library to buy it, so that the library-goers of Lancaster will have the pleasure of reading your prose (after I've had it first, of course). I'm very much looking forward to reading it, because I'm sure you'll expand the limits that they gave you (if they gave you any).

And it's a great relief to know that at least one other person thinks that four pints is "taking it easy" :)

[Tim]

You're a fine fellow, so you are.
I hope the book is a big hit.