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lining.
    Will I sign it so’s she can have the name etched on? What would you do, boys and girls?
    Signing overruns, so the tail end of the queue follows me down the road to Big Mainstream Bookshop and tags on to the end of the one already there. Among the people waiting is Ruby, who describes herself as my biggest fan and may well be, and a lady with some books to be signed to her psychiatrist. I sign them, advising her to change her psychiatrist.
    Nip back to the Specialist shop to sign orders, and we spot a young lady fan surreptitiously walking out with the empty lagercan that I’d been drinking from earlier. We shall never know why and dare not ask.
    Check into very posh small hotel. There’s a letter from the manager, assuring me of his attention at all times.
    Go out with publishers to a fish and chip supper. Ah, but this is Doyles Fish Restaurant, where they serve barramundi and chips, and a barramundi is what a cod becomes if it’s been a good cod in this life.
    Back to the hotel, where there’s a letter in the room from the deputy manager, assuring me of his attention at all times. I wake up at 2:00 a.m. at the sound of an envelope being pushed under the door. It’s from the night manager, assuring me of his attention at all times. I think if you stay in this hotel for more than a fortnight you have to marry one of the staff.
    Day 7
    On to Large Mainstream Shop, Nothersuburb.
    Eighty or ninety people, I guess. One guy turned up as Death and was rewarded with a big poster. At least, I assume it was someone dressed up as Death, but who knows?
    On to New Specialist Bookshop, Yettanothasuburb. Big queue. Lady surreptitiously attempts to bribe me to put her son in a future book. Trouble is, he’s called John (or Sam, or Tony … can’t quite remember). Explain that if she changes his name to Sweevil or Chalcedony she might be in with a chance.
    Off to airport for flight to Vulcana …
    Signing-tour hotels are like a box of chocolates—you never know whether you’re going to get the nasty hard one that someone else has already sucked. Sometimes you get one lit by forty-watt lightbulbs, sometimes you get a suite where you have to phone reception in the end to find out where the bed is. I’m in luck tonight—this one’s got a bath so big you can lie down in it, completely flat.
    Day 8
    Media in the morning, then on to University for big talk in their lecture theatre, organized by the librarian, who is a fan. Make ape-like gestures behind his back while he’s doing the introduction, then give him a “Librarians Rule Ook” badge. Sign for queue afterwards, and get hit by a drive-by manuscript dumper. That is, when it’s over there’s this unexpected brown envelope on the desk, with a note asking me to read it and send my comments to the author. Sigh.
    4:00 p.m.: Small Yet Lovely Specialist Bookshop. The owner knows her stuff, so it’s always a pleasure to sign here. Long friendly queue, and there’s a bowl of black jelly beans on the signing table; it is impossible to eat only one black jelly bean. One lady had travelled more than fourteen hours on a train to get to this signing. Sent her a poster when I got home.
    Rush off to airport for flight to Bugarup. Dinner on the plane is Chicken Congealé. No worries. Well, perhaps one or two.
    Day 9
    Breakfast with a journo, who’s really a fan in disguise who has come up with a good way of not having to wait in a queue, some down-the-line interviews, and on to:
    Book signing, Bigmallsomewherea.
    They’ve really tried, but somewhere someone came up with the idea that fantasy = horror = coffins, and obtained an actual coffin, on wheels, for use as a signing table. This raises a few problems. One of them, of course, is of good taste, but more practical is the fact that coffins are made for lying in or kneeling by, not sitting at, and since this one is on casters it gently slides away as I sign until it’s at arm’s length. In the end we settle for a dull but