So I found myself in the Nellie Dean having a drink trying to explain to four drunk geordies why we were waiting for someone to give us instructions to do something that we had no idea what it was, that it wasn't about going on a pub crawl or falling in love or some kind of dating club, why we had a book why I didn't know what I was actually going to be doing, why I found this appealing... And thankfully someone arrived and gave out the instructions (how can I answer all these questions - I haven't had the instructions yet - it was clear to me but as mud to them).
I had persuaded HS to come and she had grabbed a bus travel guide to London North on the way out of the office, I had Gabriel Marquez. I had registered my book on BookCrossing so hopefully there will be many readers who will release it back into the wild and it will travel far and wide across the world (or at least thats the idea, I hope it works).
We had to congregate in Soho Square for 15 minutes of book swapping, in appropriate categorized groups (sci-fi, romance, non-fiction, fiction or harry potter - there was a rumour of porn section but I think it was a naturally occuring phenomenon where romance met non-fiction). When you swapped a book you had to sustain a smile between swappers for 3 seconds (which always felt like 3 minutes - you know those gazes you have with strangers that become too intense in a very short period of time and make you blush), if you witnessed a book swapping you had to applaud the kindness of the swappees, when you heard applause you had to applaud. Applause travelled in weird concentric circles around Soho Square with laughing and whistling and much moving about.
Onlookers were confused - HS met a chinese girl who kept saying, 'what's going on, what's going on?', and I met an American (top row fourth picture - tall with dark hair and glasses big grin) arrived today, first time in Europe couldn't quite believe what was happening but was very impressed and enjoying himself hugely, and then I met a man who had been swapped a blank notepad and then a magazine.
I swapped my original book and then made about 10 further swaps, wish I could remember all the titles but the swapping was frantic - at one point I had another registered book, and then a Brahm Stoker's Dracula which I swapped with a teenage boy who didn't want to have his girl's book any longer and finally ended up with a copy of Boiling Frog by Christopher Brookmyre (another registered book) which has a quote at the beginning "let him who is without sin cast the first stone" attributed to some sandal-wearing bleeding-heart who got what was coming to him.
HS swapped her travel companion for a book about lavender with nasty borders around the text and then swapped that for a copy of Stiff Magazine (suddenly realising she was on the edge of the porn section - like I said before where romance meets non-fiction) which she hastily swapped without looking inside (and I hadn't even realised such books were present being trapped in the fiction section, although mercifully segregated from the potty harrys).
The last pitch I heard was from a man with a copy of the bible aloft saying "I'm in the fiction section with the new testament who will swap with me?" and then it was time to leave and give two strangers a compliment - someone liked my hair and another liked my bag and I liked a boy's yellow teeshirt and someones camera (it does the job was his reply). And HS saw Ian Hislop in the street afterwards missing the whole thing by a fraction.
And I've got a new book to read that is described on BookCrossing as great holiday fluff - I shall have to go on holiday to appreciate it I think.
And I was in spitting distance of diamond geezer (as I can tell from the most unflattering picture of me in a huge crowd in his post). He could well be in one of the numerous pictures I took - I'm going to be looking through all the ones I have of people standing on benches to take pictures from that side of Soho Square. I'd also like to point out we both had a hand on Dracula so our fingerprints have now met even though we haven't. This is almost as exciting as the whole event!
No comments:
Post a Comment