Well I, at least, seem to be better, though my girlfriend was still a little fragile. And grumpy with me for not having provided as good a nursing service for her as she had for me. Yet I was operating under the assumption that, like me, she would rather be left alone to sleep it off (and she could shout or ring me if she needed anything) whilst she preferred the regular hourly check and then the nurse/butler asking if there is anything that can be done for the bed-ridden mistress. Men and women, hey, aren't they different? Maybe there's some kind of stand up routine in that notion.
In fact I felt better than all right. There is nothing like being horribly ill to make you appreciate it when you're not horribly ill. Wow it feels good not to be vomiting. You take it for granted because you haven't spent much time vomiting this week (I am guessing) but you shouldn't. Now it's over I am actually almost pleased I was ill. It has changed my life forever. I am a new man. I will never return to my old ways.
I was picked up by a cab to take me to Paddington, which was a bit superfluous as it's probably quicker and easier to get on the tube. Especially when we were immediately blocked in my narrow road by a small open backed lorry which had stopped to pick up a load of junk from a house that is being extensively renovated. The young man in the lorry gave no indication of apology or even acknowledgement and just wandered towards the house. My driver was understandably annoyed by this impoliteness. At least a brief estimate of how long this was going to take would have been nice. In a small morsel of Karma the arrogant youth was at least hit by a cloud of brick dust, as someone inside the house emptied some rubbish from the first floor down a chute into a skip.
The lorry driver came out to his vehicle and sensing the eyes penetrating into him made a small mime of a circle with his fingers to the driver, which, in an ideal world might have meant that wracked with guilt he himself had decided to go round the block, but of course was actually his abrupt suggestion of how my driver might deal with the obstacle - to reverse up the road and go the other way. Which was going to be tricky as there was now a small queue. My driver now voiced his frustration, asking what that was supposed to mean, half getting out of the car to challenge the young man who was now undoing the flaps at the back of his vehicle. Suddenly he was a little more contrite and talkative, but not apologetic. He had a job to do and he wasn't going to pull in to the space ten feet ahead of him, because that would make his life more difficult. Maybe this was fair up to a point, but it was his total lack of grace and selfishness which was irritating. My burly driver managed to control his temper and managed to persuade the person in the car behind to park up (though it turned out she was disabled and walking with a stick, so the selfish man had forced her to walk up the street to where she was going) and we went back the other way. The driver was wound up, but philosophical about it, annoyed, as perhaps we all are by the way that such lack of consideration just makes everyone's lives difficult. We wondered if the young man would have been as patient if the roles had been reversed. We thought probably not. And whilst getting out and causing an argument or a fight was one option, the driver suggested that it would be more satisfying to find out where the driver lived and then go and block him in the next morning, or find some similarly petty and time consuming revenge, to enforce a proper scale of Karma. It would be fun to set up a secret Karma invisible police force (The Karma Chameleons?) who would be set the task of punishing the unchivalrous for their actions. Not even letting them know why they have been targetted or indeed that they have been targetted. Just fucking up their lives in small ways, perhaps for the rest of their lives. It's the shame the government is introducing cutbacks because I think this would be a great idea. And if people knew that there were random punishments for anti-social actions, might they behave better? Might we save millions of man hours? Might the economy recover? Might we all just get through life a little less frustrated?
Almost certainly not.
With typical hubris I had left the house in sunshine, telling my girlfriend that I wasn't taking a coat. "At least take a jumper," she advised.
"I am away for one night. It's summer. I will be fine."
It was pissing down and cold in Devon and I got a little damp. I had arrived only about an hour before I was due on stage and a kind young man had gone to grab me dinner whilst I checked into my room. I told him to avoid anything too rich or fancy as I was yet to eat anything but soup, bread, fruit, porridge and Weetabix since Sunday. He came back with a salmon pastry tart thing, which given my suspicions about sea food's part in my fall was a bit of a leap. But looking at the menu he had had to make a difficult choice as the other option was wood fowl. And he had brought me melon as a starter instead of herring. I don't know it the menu had been themed to all the writers.
The fishy smell made me a little unsettled, but I risked this rich fancy - I had no choice really as I was slightly hungry (another good sign). This time the fish stayed where it was meant to (though of course it might wait up to 36 hours like the oysters did - if they were responsible).
The talk went OK, though it was another rather mixed crowd with, I imagine a good deal of the audience having no idea who I was. There were quite a lot of elderly ladies and I didn't know how they would respond to my tales of debauchery and wanking. As it turned out it seemed they would mainly respond with silence, but the hour passed fast enough. Then I went and sat in a room off the bookshop to sign copies, but only a few people braved the rain to come over and see me, which meant it felt a bit like an audience with the Pope or a visit to Santa, as they came in one by one, were surprised to see just me sitting behind the table and then got to speak to me generally with no one queuing behind them. I think they sold four books. Which given the time taken getting here and back I am not sure is a good enough return. But the hall had been packed and I later found out tickets were £9, so someone made some money. But not me, on this occasion. Luckily I had put my slide show together on the train down so I didn't feel like it was too much of a wasted day, but it does feel odd to be going back to the book whilst I am trying to get the Edinburgh show together and it was maybe an unnecessary distraction in the end. But the people who did come to speak to me seemed very pleased to see me and so maybe it's worth it for that alone.
There didn't seem to be anything going on afterwards, so I just headed back to my room and sat alone watching "Up" on my Pinpod. But I certainly wasn't in the mood for a drink (and as you know I don't drink any more) and maybe solitary recuperation was a better idea. I felt a bit out of place amongst the more sensible literary types anyway.
