Momentous Occasion No. 1

So, various momentous things have been happening at Purple Towers recently (sadly, this does not include me having built a time machine, travelled backwards and made a much better, wittier and more impressionful impression on David Mitchell at the book launch. Can't have everything). But the first is of a romantic nature.

It was a night much like any other. I and my friend were haring off on the Tube to go to a book event in Wood Green. Neither of us had ever been to Wood Green before (it won't surprise you to find out that it's neither green nor wooded) and were not well served by our Google Map. First of all, we headed downhill from the tube station towards a shopping centre. After 10 minutes' speed-walking, we looked at our Google Map. 'Curses!' we shouted, 'we've gone the WRONG WAY'. We set off back up the hill at quite a lick, chuntering at our bad judgement. After a fifteen minute walk which had landed us in the middle of a council estate, we decided that even though the bookshop address was 'Unit 1', which seemed to denote an industrial estate, it wasn't very likely to be here. Various locals looked a bit, well, muggery wouldn't be too outrageous a word to use. Especially when we asked them in Idiot Posh Girl voices if they knew where the book shop was. When we got as far as the police station, we thought we might do the sensible thing, and phone up the book shop to ask them where they were located. They had no idea where we were, but merrily said we should've gone down hill from the tube station.

Down hill we went, again, cursing some more. Fucking Google Maps. I mean really, the point of a MAP, Google, is to have the names of the streets on it, so you can tell where you're ruddy well going. Not, as you seem to want to do, you room full of lazy wankpots, to put some of the names on and leave the rest as some sort of exciting, cartographic game, wherein you fill in the names as you pass them. It turned out that we'd done our U-turn at almost exactly where the book shop was. If we'd been on the right side of the street and the book shop's sign had been right by the entrance to said street, we'd have been there first time round. 'Yes, we're late', we thought, 'and a bit puffed out and sweaty, but we can probably sneak in at the back. No one will be any the wiser'. Hmm, not to be on that front either. We had to tap surrepticiously on the shop's door to be granted entry. At which point we realised that the audience for the book event consisted of three people. Two of whom worked in the shop. Ah. Still, two's company, three's a crowd, eh? We sat down and put our listening faces on. And our 'yes, I'll volunteer!' faces on too, as the author, Richard, was demonstrating how con jobs work, as that's what his very excellent book, Conman, is all about.

Luckily, we are chums of Richard's, so the whole thing wasn't too awkward. Well, it wasn't too awkward for us, I'm not sure how Richard felt about it. Especially when I managed to reveal at the end that I also knew the other audience member. I'd been telling my sister, the film producer, that she should option Richard's book, and that coming along to the event would be the ideal way to get a flavour of it. She'd phoned earlier that afternoon, saying that she was going to be inconvenienced by meetings, but would send an emissary called Jamie along in her stead. When a question from Richard elicited the information that the young man sitting next to us worked in films, I thought it likely that this was Jamie. For some reason, he seemed somewhat surprised when I revealed who I was. Perhaps he was method acting 'being an unknown punter at a book event' and didn't like having his cover blown. I don't know. Anyway, The Book Shop Boys (the more literary side project of The Pet Shop Boys) made us all exceptionally welcome, and we had an impromtu lock-in. Much wine was drunk, and fun times were had, taking the piss out of some of the shop's offerings, including a tome entitled 'Why Men Love Bitches' (From Doormat to Dreamgirl - A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship).

The book shop had to shut. 'More booze!' we cried, racing off to the nearest tube station with one of the BSBs in tow. As it was quite late, we settled on Finsbury Park, as that was Jamie's manor, and he could find us a nice hostelry. We sat down with a variety of pints, glasses of wine, and a selection of crisps (referred to as 'bar salad' by my friend, which is genius and everyone must start referring to it as that). We engaged in more banter. We were all getting along terrifically well. 'I'm so glad I came out tonight!' I thought, as Richard and I got stuck into a very un-PC conversation about the Marchioness disaster (there'd been an article about it in the Observer). We were being quite vitriolic about bankers and 'beautiful people' (I know, I know, it's not their fault they had a lot of money and were trendy - it was properly horrific. I am a bad person.) I stopped, probably to have a bit of a laugh about my own awfulness. Then, and this is the momentous bit, the BSB looked me dead in the eye from across the table and solemly declared, 'I love you'. Not, 'Ha ha, I think I love you!' or 'Oh, did you write that book on why men love bitches, because, seemingly, I love you?' No. A proper, no messing about, 'I love you'.

The table descended into shouty turmoil. 'What? Why do you love me?' I shrieked. 'What did she say? WHAT DID SHE SAY?' demanded my friend. ('What did you say?' she asked me. 'I've no idea!', I replied.) Jamie was hooting with laughter. It'd been quite an odd evening for him already and this was upping the ante quite considerably. The BSB remained mute (with adoration? Or confusion that he'd said it out loud? It was hard to tell). He wouldn't give up his secrets.

'It's a bit of a shame', I thought, 'that the first man ever to say this to me is so catatonically drunk that he's just literally fallen off his chair.'