Hanging with the literati

If the collective pronoun for the cream of the literary world is "literati" then would the collective pronoun for the most untidy people on the planet be "litterati"?

Never mind.

On Thursday evening I went a-travelling to the fair city of Worcester to attend the glamorous literary event that was the launch party for Charlie Williams' third novel, King Of The Road, the final installment in the Mangel Trilogy that began with Deadfolk and continued with Fags And Lager that chronicles the dark misadventures of potty-mouthed doorman, Royston Blake.

This highly prestigious event took place in Ottaker's bookstore on the amusingly monikered road "The Shambles". I attempted to show up fashionably late but, having polished off my latte at Caffè Nero (which, due to the square-ish font they use on their shop fascias, always looks like "Caffè Nerd" to me) too quickly, I ended up strolling around the shopping centres for a bit. The turnout to the signing was small but select. Charlie speculated that the lack of interest from the local press may have been as a result of him taking the piss out of them a bit in Fags And Lager. Nevertheless, it was an appreciative bunch of people who sat and listened to Charlie read from his new book and answer questions. There was free wine, too, and some of those cheesy breadstick things.

After grabbing a copy of King Of The Road for Charlie to sign for me (and after completely failing to adequately explain why I feel compelled to use a pseudonym for my authorial endeavours) an even more select group of us went to the pub to drink ale and talk about music. I seem to remember trying to convince Charlie that Orbital were much, much more than your typical thumpy-thumpy techno band and that he should go and steal In Sides from his brother. I'm not entirely sure how the conversation went with those who remained after Charlie and his lovely missus left the pub, or how I got back to my hotel but I am pretty sure that I had a thoroughly good time even though I am clearly a complete lightweight with regards to the consumption of alcohol these days.