I’m was a wee bit hammered from all the beers I drank while at the book launch, so my memories might be a little clouded.

The launch was at the rather notorious midnight shift. Good mix of all sorts of boys (from the gorgeous, to the retro 80s dude, to the awesomely handlebar moustached, to the suited 50somethings). Not too many girls in attendance, strangely.

We bought expensive drinks and hung about on the mezzanine (wasn’t so crowded and had an awesome view). I was the only crazy-mad fan in my party (and the only one who had read the books! although they had all seen and enjoyed the first series).

Armistead reads deliciously well. Everyone I was with was dead keen to pick up Tales of the City after that (which is awesome). The Q&A was also totally fab – good questions, really erudite and funny answers.

An fantabulous time was had by all.

Chanel chick.
Heather and I originally saw her while waiting at the bar, a not unattractive, apparently un-crazy, slender woman in her early 40s. Sadly sporting a pair of enormous white plastic (faux) Chanel earrings. We Pointed and Stared and Giggled quitely to ourselves.

Later, while standing on the mezzanine listening to the reading, we looked down and saw Chanel chick – with Chanel ribbon in her blonde ponytail (the sort of ribbon which appeared to have been removed from packaging). Again, we Pointed and Stared and Giggled quitely to ourselves.

Then, later still, while we were queueing (2 beer’s worth of queueing) for the signing, spied her about 5 people in front of us and better glimpsed her outfit.

• First, we noticed the (very faux, luckily smoking is now banned in all indoor areas of clubs, because one stray ash and the whole thing would have melted in a bright flash of synthetic meltery) Chanel hot-pink collarless blazer (with black trim, you know the sort) and we Pointed and Stared and Giggled quitely to ourselves some more.
• Next, the Chanel logo white stockings and we Pointed and Stared and Giggled quitely to ourselves.
• Then we noticed her very high cork wedges with trailing whispy scarves (unsure if they were Chanel, but we Pointed and Stared and Giggled quitely to ourselves anyway).
• Finally, we noticed the most awsome piece of the ensemble: a bright pink (perhaps even fuschia) patterned dress, with fitted quilted bodice and pleated skirt – the patterns were flowers and ribbons with “Chanel” emblazoned on them (surely faux).

We were beyond pointing and giggling by that point and just stared.

It is times like these you become really very annoyed that your camera is sitting on your desk at home. Truly, I do not possess the writing skills to adequitely convey the full impact of chanelness of it all. I really should attempt to draw a picture, but my artsy skills would let me down.

The somewhat shocking, somewhat drunken, somewhat innapropriate comment
As mentioned, it was a 2 beer queue, so Heather (who queued with me, like the adorable pal he is) ducked out to the bathroom. Apparently the men’s at the shift has urinals separated by a big fish tank, so you can see straight through the fish to the action on the other side. He came back with tales of the rather dishy dude who had stood, weeing, opposite him. As the line progressed and we got closer to Armistead, we spied a rather dishy dude seated next to him and Heather exclaimed, “Oh my god! the guy in the loo was Armistead’s husband!”. So we gossiped excitedly for a bit.

So the queue progressed slowly and finally it was our turn. I asked him to sign my very old copy of Tales of the City for dfkan (and totally impressed me by knowing there was an accent in her name), told him we’d named Bess after a character in the last Tales book (which seemed quite chuffed about) and chatted a bit. Then he spoke to Heather (who didn’t have a book to be signed). And I chimed in with, “Heather just saw your husband in the bathroom and was very impressed.”

God, you just can’t take me anywhere.

Fortunately, everyone seemed to find this quite amusing. And I think, at that point, they would have taken Heather home with them if they could.

Then we staggered off home.

(and this will probably need editing, because I am very tired indeed and it is probably fraught with errors and ommissions).