For I am ROCK AND ROLL! Well, I ordered room service, which is as close to rock and roll as I get. I've never ordered room service before -- that's what naughty people. It's the eating equivalent of raiding the minibar, but I did it anyway. Twice: Bwahahaha!
I managed to talk myself into this dreadful breach of bearded etiquette by the following clear and manly logic:
So when you look at it logically, there really was no choice. *ahem*
They had 'Fire Wings' on the menus and not wanting to buck a wining streak I ordered them. And something on the side (they were out of Dancing Girls, so I had to settle for soup). Half an hour later I was faced with the toughest, nastiest wings I'd eaten since Chicago O'Hare airport. But the soup was bloody lovely! If I'd know how good it was I would have just ordered two bowls of that. Hell, I'd've got them to fill the bathtub -- fresh corn and crayfish bisque. Mmmm...
After that it was a slightly rushed taxi ride to the wasp-infested Uncle Edgars, where the people are really nice and had already killed about two million of the little stinging bastards by the time I got there. Everyone who works in the shop has been stung at least twice. They're going to have one last try with the Patented Dangerous Agent Orange Anti-Wasp Spray and then get the exterminators in.
From there it was a last-minute dash across town to Once Upon A Crime, because my Taxi driver -- the one I'd asked to wait outside Unky Edgars with the engine running in case I had to do a runner from the killer wasps -- swore blind it was going to take us 15 / 20 minutes to get there. It took 5.
If you've never been to Once Upon A Crime, it's a wonderful bookshop and Pat and Gary are really nice people. Generous to a fault. The fault in question this time being me. The crowd was select and enthusiastic and all listened politely to the bearded half-wit ramblings up the front of the room. And nobody threw anything, so I count that as a result. And one lady looked like she was about to pee herself with the old laughing. Thought whether it was 'with' or 'at' is debatable. Ah yes, Stuart MacBride: not a dry seat in the house.
And then Pat and Gary gave me a slug of John Connelly's whisky***, got me to sign some stock and took me out to a wee place for a lovely dinner and chat.
Next up Madison and the terrifying spectre of me behind the wheel of an American car, on the wrong side of the road, in a city I've never seen before, with no bloody clue where I'm going! How much fun does that sound?
* Plus he's much, much richer than I am, so not much like Keith Richards after all...
** OK, so the chances of me fainting away from hunger are a damn sight slimmer than I am after 10 days in Iowa. I've got enough excess fat on me to last the winter. In fact, at the rate I'm going, I could hibernate till 2009.
*** A bottle of 12 year old Macalan: yes, he may be Irish, but his whisky is Scottish.