Journal

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Posh hotel. Cold room. Very cold room.

In Leeds. Had a really fun day -- signed stock at the bookshop at Salt's Mill -- it's a wonderful place filled with David Hockney art and cool shops and suchlike. Then on to a reading and signing in Waterstones Leeds. Then back to the dead posh restaurant and hotel, and up to my hotel room, which is freezing.

This is odd, because the hotel is too hot. The corridor outside my room is sauna temperature. But my room is freezing - the only potential heat source seems to be an ancient metal radiator on the wall, of the kind that sucks heat out of a room. I tried twisting a few things on the radiator and learned they didn't twist, and that the radiator stayed extremely cold.

I called reception, and asked if there was a way to warm the room up, and they said I should use the heater. I said I couldn't find a heater. The receptionist came upstairs and explained that, by heater, he meant the radiator on the wall. Then he twisted a few things and discovered that they didn't twist, and that the room remained colder than the rest of Leeds. He apologised. He went away. I started typing this to keep warm...

He just returned with a heater.

I'll keep signing for a minute until the ice on the metal fixtures starts to melt.

There's a really interesting article about Graphic Novels/comics growing up etc, which I hope will start a new trend in sensible reporting, over at the Daily Telegraph site. (It's a long, long link I'm afraid, so click here and hope.)

Meanwhile, we learn that publishers are not leaping all over each other to publish David Blaine's diaries from inside the glass box. Possibly this is because everyone knows the plot already. (Man sits in box. Man gets thinner. The sun rises. The sun sets. Sometimes people throw eggs.)

My room smells faintly like burning heater. I'm not sure that it's going to be safe or sensible to leave the heater on all night.

I should probably turn off the heater, put on a thick sweater and go to bed.

And yes, the beard has gone. And yes, there are some photos, and yes, I'll stick some up here when I get a moment.

(And it looks like yesterday's post didn't post when it was meant to, so, to repeat, if you're in the London area on Friday, there's a small signing at Harrods at 11:00 am.)