Despite not quite feeling 100% I was determined to go to at least one of the things I’d managed to double-book myself for on the 24th of October. I chose wisely and went for the closer, quieter event which was the No Such Thing As A Fish Book Of the Year tour at the Quay Theatre at the Lowry in Salford.
I have to say it was probably the best audience I’ve ever been part of. While waiting for the auditorium doors to open for us to take our seats pretty much everyone was sat quietly reading their copies of the new book (handed to everyone as they walked into the venue and presented their ticket). The ladies on the door even commented on how nice and quiet the audience was while waiting. Once inside everyone was jolly polite about having to pass people to get seats and the main activity was trying to come up with an amusing fact to send in to win a prize.
The format of the first part of the evening was similar to the podcast, they chose four facts from the book and talked about and added extra information etc… They said that the plan was to drop these live facts into the audiobook version when it was released. (Yes, I’ve got it pre-ordered, it comes out tomorrow – 31st October.)
Now, I opted for this event as I thought it would be a tamer than the music gig I also had a ticket for, perhaps I should have known better as I haven’t laughed so hard since…well…since I went to the NSTAAF tour last March.
Thoroughly entertained by the show the extremely polite audience then filed out to the foyer to queue for the book signing. There was no rush to the door or anything, in fact, we practically ended up in row order from the back to the front with those on the balconies seemingly slotted neatly in as we went along. And once again, looking along the queue several people had taken the opportunity to read more of the book while they waited.
My anxiety can be a bit weird, it can render me speechless at signings despite the fact I’ve actually been a guest minder at autograph shows in the past. It also occasionally causes words to come out in the wrong order, so speechless can actually be a bonus compared to making a complete tit of myself at times. However, I actually managed to say hello, mostly to Dan as we’d already corresponded via email over something previously.
Fully signed book in hand it was time to head home to read it! Of course the next day it poured with rain and I didn’t want to get the signed book damaged in case my work bag wasn’t waterproof so I ended up buying the kindle version to read on my phone while on the train, that’s when I wasn’t googling slime mould.
